No Regrets

into the night. And when they drank, they fought. Their midmarriage arguments had long since exacerbated to ugly episodes. What had begun as grumbling and sniping at one another soon became angry words and insults. At a certain point, they began to actually exchange physical blows. They scratched, hit, bruised, and even bit one another.
    Once, Ruth claimed to San Juan County sheriff’s deputies Greg Doss and Joe Caputo, Rolf actually forced her head into the kitchen stove’s oven. What he intended to do next was a question. Turning on the gas wouldn’t work, and she was far too plump for him to push her all the wayin and roast her as the Wicked Witch threatened to do to Hansel and Gretel.
    Ruth told Caputo that she had been seeing to a roasting chicken in the oven when Rolf leaned on her shoulders and pushed her arms against the hot grill. She held her arms up quickly and showed him the “burn marks.” Caputo wasn’t sure if she was really burned, or if the oven racks were dirty, leaving grease marks on her lower arms.
    It was just drunken stuff, but disturbing nonetheless.
    Usually, the Neslunds had had so much to drink that they couldn’t even remember the details of their fights. They would waken in the morning and be shocked by their own reflections in the mirror. Ruth looked haggard, and Rolf often had dried blood on his face, deep scratches, black eyes and bruises, bite marks, bald spots where hair had been pulled out, and other wounds from their violent domestic battles.
    Sometimes, Ruth would run away from Rolf and lock herself in the little bunkhouse behind their home while Rolf slept it off. She claimed to have been terrorized, but, in truth, she gave as good as she got. Perhaps even better.
    Ruth’s plans for gracious entertaining and lovely dinner parties for their friends usually ended disastrously. The facade she tried to present is reminiscent of the character “Hyacinth” on the popular British comedy show,
Keeping Up Appearances.
Hyacinth’s “candle-light suppers,” meant to be her open door into high society, never quite succeed—and neither did Ruth Neslund’s. Both the TV character and the real woman had fine china, floral arrangements, silver, and linens—but the women themselves lacked the charm and civility to carry these social evenings off. Many of the Neslunds’ longtime friends began to find excuses to decline Ruth’s invitations.
    One couple on Lopez Island would recall an evening with the Neslunds. The food was wonderful, and everything went well until the liquor began to flow and one of their hosts took offense at some remark the other made. Soon, the guests were forgotten and the meal was over as Ruth and Rolf battled with each other. Their company watched, stunned, and then tiptoed out.
    “Ruth called me the next day,” the wife of the guest couple remembered, “and I could tell she felt so bad. She apologized over and over for the way her dinner ended. I could tell she was terribly disappointed—and humiliated, too. She asked us to give her another chance, swearing that it would never happen again.”
    At length, the guests agreed to return for another meal with the Neslunds. Again, the table setting was perfect and the food was even better. But Ruth and Rolf could not seem to get through an evening without a fight, and the after-dinner “entertainment” was a repeat of what had happened before.
    Gossip about the failed dinner parties soon spread around Lopez Island, and those who considered themselves comedians added to it. Dining at the Neslunds’ home became a joke, and both career authors and other residents who lived on the island wrote hilarious, long poems or fashioned elaborate stories about them.
    In a way, it was sad that a couple who had been together for so long should come to be a laughingstock. In between their arguments, though, the Neslunds appeared to be happy enough. There are couples who seem to enjoy fighting and making up as much as they do making love—who actually use arguments as foreplay. Maybe the Neslunds fell in that category.
    They didn’t live close enough to their neighbors thattheir shouting carried through the woods, so no one cared very much. They were peculiar, but there were lots of “peculiars” in the islands and they were all accepted by the natives. The Neslunds had the right to do what they wanted.
    Although he was in his eighth decade, Rolf Neslund had no intention of retiring. He was one of the most dependable