“Amor, you need to go. Now!”
The words were spoken neither harshly nor loudly.
It was the first time he had said them to me but it wouldn’t be the last.
The next occasion, perhaps a year later, he meant I needed to leave the country.
But this day, he only needed to ask once.
I didn’t look at him and I didn’t ask why.
Walking purposefully in the litter strewn street of the centre of San Pedro Sula, eyes averted, I left my husband to deal with whatever threat he had perceived. My back to him, I navigated the change in texture beneath my feet avoiding the black sludge running in the lowest crevices of the street as I entered a make shift store.
“Buenas” from the shop attendant. I nodded to her greeting, busying myself picking up items as though they held appeal. Positioning myself to face the direction I had come from, I felt the delicate lace of women’s lingerie hanging on metal racks as I peered through them to the hint of street visible outside.
We had come to the city centre to buy a wardrobe for our apartment. I was hoping to find honeyed wood the colour of cinnamon, like my husband’s chest. What we settled on was more like mahogany, darker and beautiful in its own way.
Having paid for our purchase, we were waiting for the storeman to secure the wardrobe with twine through the windows to the roof of our taxi. My husband’s eyes scanning constantly, I could feel the tension emanating from him the longer we were waiting. My husband is a patient man, the tension was born of the knowledge of what could be.
“Amor, you need to go. Now!” So he had said, and so I had gone.
Looking through the t-shirts and lingerie to the street where my husband stood, I waited unseen until the wardrobe was secured. My husband stood by the taxi and I emerged once more from the folds of fabric and safety to walk towards him.
He saw me and nodded, gesturing with his lips in that Honduran way where he meant me to go. We each got into the taxi and I waited for him to start the car before my hands found their natural home at the base of his neck where the curls found their own way.
My husband is a calm man, beautifully so. Curiously so even, given the violence he has grown up experiencing and witnessing. He breathes out and reaches for my knee, kneading it with one hand, the other guiding the wheel. I swivel in the seat to face him as he drives.
“Amor, you don’t know what it means to me that you didn’t question me and just responded when I asked you to go” he tells me with wonder in his eyes.
“I trust you Amor. You know your country and I trust you”. His eyes rest on mine as we both nod with more than our heads. “So what happened darling?” I ask.
“You didn’t see those two men coming around the corner?” I shake my head. “It was the second time they passed us since we were standing in the street."
Before we were married, when he asked my father for permission to marry me, Denis promised my Dad he would protect me with his body and his life. I expect no less of him, just as I expect no less of myself for him. And— more than anything, I hope it will never come to that.
“I was worried they were targeting you and we were too long in the street. When they came around again I didn’t want you standing there”.
“Gracias Amor”. We smile into each other and let the tension dissipate, he rubbing my knee, me massaging his neck we drive home together lovingly, thankfully, together.
Like on our wedding day when the drunk man who had driven into our car tried to assault my husband, I learned to pray with my eyes open and give thanks with my heart opened still wider.