Sarapiqui: Page 3 of 4

Twilights rarely lingered but plunged into sultry, rainy evenings in Sarapiqui. Night rains were continual, and in the morning the forest was laced with gossamer clouds.

Streams rushed full and muddy while broad leaved bushes sat in replenished silence. Day and night are equally divided this close to the equator. Sunrise was at 5:30 a.m. and almost exactly twelve hours later, the sun set behind a bank of peach colored clouds and seemed to sink into the caldera above. There were not the usual divisions of summer and winter but instead there was rain or less rain.

I thought of all the reasons for staying here: mist clad forests and smoking, volcanic mountains, cattle tranquilly grazing only yards from the forest home of wild animals, rainbows so close it was easy to find their beginning and end (but there was never a pot of gold), and a pastoral heritage for my children. Those were my happiest memories and I wished I could have shown it all to my friends, although they never could have found us tucked into this wilderness of Costa Rica.

Nevertheless, I had a fierce longing for New England, its autumns and frozen, snow covered winters. Then, another season arrived with howling windy nights and rushing skies in the morning. Tatters of mist blew down from the cordillera and wind tore clothes from the barbed wire fences where I had hung them to dry. In the evening each day, wisps of cloud hung over the finca and a setting sun refracted a rainbow overhead. Jacob and Liam stood braced against the wind, arms extended, bodies leaning forward.“Look, Mommy, we’re flying!” I laughed with my sons at the otherworldly sensation of it all.

***

After supper on most evenings, Ari and the boys bathed in the outside shower, then went to bed in the only bed there was. After dishes and putting tomorrow’s pot of beans on the back burner of the wood stove, I showered and joined them, four people to a bed. Sometimes we tumbled to a mat on the floor or switched places without really waking. This sleeping arrangement was a metaphor of our marriage; with children between us there was no intimacy, no conversation, no discussion of our lives together.

One evening, Ari sat down for supper and said that he bought a new cow. “The boys need shoes, Ari,” I said. Jacob was enrolled in kindergarten near our own farm, so I added, “When will we return so we can be nearer to schools? I’d like Liam to go to playschool, too, though we would have to pay privately for that.”

“I’m the man, here. I decide how I spend money. I don’t care if they go to school!

You can teach them! You’re the one who went to college,” he said angrily.

“Ari, what’s going on? Why are you so angry? I thought you were happy here.”

“We keep losing cows,” he said. “We’re not making money, just barely making ends meet. I want you to get a job.”

“What? I’d have to live in San Jose, the capital, to find work and we don’t have workers’ visas!” There it was again, another of his dark moods, I thought. Another idea that was so impractical, it was nearly impossible. God, I felt so expendable.

“You can teach at the American school. The kids and I will stay here.”

“When did we decide that, Ari? I mean, if that’s your solution for income, I‘d just as soon return to New England and teach there! It seems to me you’ve been making all the decisions and you never say a word to me. As for money, how do you explain buying a six pack of beer from the cantina every night?”

“Sometimes you’re a bitch, you know! I’m going to bed.” With that, he ushered the boys outside to shower and left their dinners on the plates.

I felt frightened and trapped. He never hit me but he had pushed me around, physically and figuratively. There was no love left in our marriage if there ever had been. Our romance was about homesteading and raising our children in a pristine environment, not about Ari and I. I had married a daydream that had little basis in reality. Why had it taken me so long to see that? Any local woman could take my place as a housekeeper and she might be more grateful and efficient than I. I would not be missed if I should leave. I thought that was what he really wanted.

***