Waning passion, waxing relationships

Maybe we were a little drunk by then. I know it was hard keeping things in focus. The light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from. Yet nobody made a move to get up from the table to turn on the overhead light.

“Listen,” Mel said. “Let’s finish this fucking gin. There’s about enough left here for one shooter all around. Then let’s go eat. Let’s go to the new place.”

“He’s depressed,” Terri said. “Mel, why don’t you take a pill?”

Mel shook his head. “I’ve taken everything there is.”

“We all need a pill now and then,” I said.

“Some people are born needing them,” Terri said.

She was using her finger to rub at something on the table. Then she stopped rubbing.¹

At first glance, it would appear that exactly nothing happens in this entire passage. It’s becoming slightly later in the day, Terri suggests taking medication but nothing comes of it. That’s about all. But within the context of the character relationships, this is among the most interesting and pivotal moments in the entire short story. After a night of casual drinking whilst discussing the nature of human love, these two couples’ attitudes devolve into depression and subtle antagonism towards one another. First comes the narrator’s admission that they were all a little drunk by this point, and then comes a curious sentence concerning the retreat of sunlight out the window through which it had originally appeared. Could sunlight here represent something like the passion or intimacy in Terri and Mel’s marriage, waning after only a few years together?

Next comes another tense point of interaction between the bickering couple, wherein Terri suggests Mel medicate to alleviate his suspected depression. Mel replies with the ever-more-curious response that he has “taken everything there is.” This implies that Mel’s depression is a real and pressing issue upon their lives, and that he’s tried for some time to wrestle it under control with mood-altering medications. The narrator’s reassurance that “We all need a pill now and then,” is immediately rebuked by Terri’s assertion that “Some people are born needing them.” It’s unclear here whether Terri refers to herself or to her husband, but both her comment and the narrator’s represent a mutual sentiment that poor circumstances might be avoided or relieved through artificial means like medication. Depending upon one’s interpretation, Terri might be jibing her husband by suggesting that he’s been suffering depression his entire life—or, at least, for the duration of their relationship—or that she herself has had a rough go at life and has needed pills to perk up her spirits since she ever exited the womb.

The final two lines are perhaps my favorites in this particular passage, suggesting a very physical form of tension on the part of Terri, who seems to be nervously or angrily attacking the surface of the table with her finger, the resulting heat the fruit of her friction with her husband and seeming discontentment with her life. Perhaps she’d be happier married to Ed, the suicidal pseudo-stalker whom Terri likely considers something of a true “romantic.”