Chained or Bonded?

Cecelia was too exhausted to leave her worktable and reach for the room lights, as dusk began to gradually mask the last rays of the sun, turning the sky outside to a sheet of amber and grey. She was making up for the day’s lost time at work, catching up on emails and calls late into the evening as she was out the entire morning running errands. She couldn’t tell whether it was the sheer quantum of responsibilities she was handling or the feeling that they all amounted to nothing in the end, but she was feeling drained.

When it finally got dark enough for the light from her open laptop to not suffice, she pushed herself to walk a few crooked steps to the switch board. Her feet were cramped from the long hours of sitting. With the room flooded in warm yellow light, Cecilia stopped as she passed a life-size mirror to look at the woman gazing back at her. All of 30 years old, with a beautiful skin, raven-black long tresses bundled up in a bun and a bone structure sculpted to perfection, Cecilia was a woman of most men’s dreams. Until of course, she started speaking to them!

Cecilia believed in value systems better placed in the life of the 17^th century. Celibacy until marriage, sanctity of promises, God-not-insurance, sex only for procreation and pleasure of any sort being evil were a few of her not-so-popular beliefs. Despite some of her friends describing them unnatural, Cecilia was unwavering in her idea of values and life.

With this context, it is not too hard to believe that Cecilia remained single and a virgin until she was 25 years old. All her friends’ efforts to pair her up with eligible boys in their social groups had come to naught, with Cecilia going proudly vocal with her beliefs almost on the first date.

Stephen was an exception. He stayed beyond the first date, because he liked her courage in converting beliefs to actions, as strange as they sounded. He was intrigued. When he was just beginning to wonder how life with Cecilia could look like, she went down on one knee and proposed marriage to him!

Cecilia was not desperate to secure the first man who showed growing interest in her. She was keen to give Stephen the rest of her life to reciprocate the respect and love he showed her, despite the lack of a sexual relationship over the many evenings they spent together. Patience not being her virtue, she did not waste time telling him about her interest in taking their relationship to the next level. They were married a fortnight later, after barely two months of getting to know each other.

A private affair with about 20 people in attendance, their wedding was a personal and emotional occasion for all, not just the newly-weds. It was a gathering of immediate family and longtime friends, who knew either Cecilia or Stephen from childhood.

Even as a little girl, Cecilia had always wanted to be a working woman who could live a life of comfort funded by her earnings, while being able to share some of her good fortune with those in need. She was well into achieving this, as the leader of a team of corporate lawyers in a large global corporation.

As the sole heir to a large inheritance, Cecilia lived a life of luxury as a child. Her devoted parents gave her all the love and time, bringing her up in Catholic traditions and beliefs. Cecelia’s parents conceded that their teenage daughter was going to be an independent woman, without the trappings of conceit or dependence becoming of youth spent in prosperity. 

Stephen was a computer geek, who could dance. He was a sought-after ethical hacker, helping corporations assuage their paranoia of data theft. Stephen hailed from an artistic family with a long history in filmmaking. His father suffered terrible losses in his production business, bringing several generations-long production house to a grinding halt. After paying off debtors – driving the family to near poverty – he walked away from his wife and 12-year old son, Stephen.

It was Stephen’s day of equestrian training when his father met him at the barn to bid him goodbye. That day marked the end of all pursuits of a boy from wealth – personal trainers for riding, violin, poetry and dancing. He took to the world wide web to complete his training in most of his artistic pursuits in his growing up years. That was how his passion for computers and subsequently hacking turned to into a career.

The first few weeks of the couple was a blur of sex, learning about each other and unlearning things from their individual past. They were in Cecilia’s house as they hadn’t had the time to plan where they’d spent their married days. Stephen’s bachelor pad was no place for Cecilia, or for that matter any other woman.

Cecilia’s definition of independence was getting rephrased, while Stephen’s worldview of settling into firmer family foundations was being challenged.

She had believed that not partaking of heirloom would not just give her the confidence to create something of her own, but would also absolve her from the expectations of living the life of a society woman. Stephen had wanted to re-establish a familial base that would give him the support and leaning of people of his own – something he’d longed for since his teenage years.

In the second year of their marriage, Cecilia was almost counting those acts of her day that were not a compromise. While she loved Stephen, she feared falling out of love with the man she adored because she was breaking away from objective thinking, always fine-tuning her every move and view to accommodate Stephen’s preference. For his part, Stephen was perceptive of his wife’s efforts to keep his likes in perspective, but that was the point. It was not natural – they had to go out of their way to live the life of a couple. She was never going to be able to give him the comfort of a willing shoulder to lean on in his twilight years.

Their child and their career kept them on their feet, so days were passing by without the fire, passion and eagerness they had felt in their days of love.

Stephen was travelling to Amsterdam to receive an international award for protecting an e-retailer from data theft, when Cecilia took a few days off from work and was spending time with their 3-year old child. Neither missed the other’s presence but would religiously in their daily calls mention otherwise. Cecilia and Stephen knew they had run out of love for each other, but wouldn’t admit it for different reasons – Stephen did not want to be what his father was to him in his growing years, while Cecilia did not believe that walking out of a promise was even a possibility.

The child witnessed the acts of a father and mother as in the theatre without realizing that deep inside his parents were depleting themselves of love, joy, peace and fulfilment. Cecilia’s independence chained to her value systems, and Stephen’s sense of responsibility choking his flight to life kept them under the same roof, providing a warm hearth to their child.

Cecilia broke out of her emails when the child in the next room squealed at the doorbell ringing. Once again, she walked her crooked steps to reach the door, massaging the cramps in her feet. Stephen stood at the door beaming with award in hand, while Cecilia mouthed a litany of love-dipped congratulations and the child jumped up to his happy parents to join the party.

The same chains that were holding them hostage within were keeping the family bound together.