To My Ex-Husband Page 12

  As I say, I’ll go. But not without skepticism.

  NOVEMBER 14

  Sitting in Dr. Block’s office yesterday, you said that for the first time you could see my “scars.” How astounding that in 1986, more than two years after we separated, you would have your first glimpse of the pain I was in—have been in. So much of what we’re doing now, this therapy, for instance, seems to be a delayed reaction. We should have been doing it two years ago, when you wouldn’t consider it. These feelings you have—the wistfulness about our marriage, the agony of reliving our wedding day over and over, the loss of “my family,” as you put it—make me want to scream at the top of my lungs, “Where have you been?”

  If you didn’t see any scars, it was, in part, because I hid them from you. I told you that while everyone else was reading books about relationships—yechh!—I was reading Miss Manners. She says that the smartest thing a dumped one can do is to get out of sight, or at least to hide all traces of misery. It isn’t easy, but it takes the sufferer’s mind off suffering so that he or she can start the recovery. It also makes one’s former lover worry that this supposed act of cruelty was actually a relief to the one it was intended to hurt. And that hurts.

  It was a game, and I don’t like games. But I thought it was the only way I would get through it. I wanted you to be sorry. And now that you are, I can’t say it feels good. When I see you cry, I feel the tears sliding down your face as if they were mine. I catch myself curling the back of my hand into my sleeve, and reaching up to my cheek to wipe them away.

  On the way home, I feel guilty. Look at what I’m doing to him, I think. By the time I walk into the house I’m furious and I can’t figure out why. I start slamming kitchen cabinets, and snapping at Dickens: “Finish your dinner!” And then I realize what I’m doing. I stop and ask what’s this all about? Who am I angry with?

  I’m angry with you for being miserable. Those damned tears—they make it seem like this thing was all my idea.

  And then Edward calls, trying to get a reading on what’s going on. He doesn’t want specifics, he just wants to know: Where am I today? One of my friends—I think it was June—said, when she first met Edward, that he seemed like someone who could be hurt. I passed that on to him. He said, “You tell June that I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

  And he can. It’s that confidence I find sexy. The man is no movie star. But there is simply no way I could convince him of that. He is so comfortable in his own skin, so sure of what he wants, that it’s difficult to doubt him. He’s my movie star; he’s made it so.

  Now all I have to do is figure out what I want; all I have to do is stop doubting myself.

  NOVEMBER 24

  I know this won’t be much consolation, but I do feel bad about Thanksgiving. But when you thought, Nick, that you wanted to think it over about coming to dinner, how long did you think I’d wait before making another plan? You seemed pretty sure that that would be too painful for you. I understood. Annie and Peter understood, or seem to have. The kids are long past the point when they expect us to do things together, ever. Frankly, I think it’s easier for them if we don’t.

  It just hasn’t been one of those easy, “amicable” arrangements that more civilized people have. It’s up and down. Yes, we talk on the phone, and we’ve worked out who goes where for Christmas, and all that. We can do business. But we don’t socialize. So maybe it was inappropriate of me to ask you to come for dinner in the first place. We’d been having so much more contact since seeing Dr. Block that it seemed like a natural enough thing. But, having taken your cue, I went ahead and invited Edward because his son and daughter will be with their mother and grandparents. Yes, it could be awkward. Anything—no, everything—I do is awkward. The kids think I’m playing musical boyfriends, and my mother, who says she likes Edward, insists on calling him Ethan.

  1987

  JANUARY 13

  I don’t know if I’ve given you an adequate picture of life here. The sleeping arrangements, for one thing, are not uncomplicated, especially during the holidays.

  The Saturday after Christmas, in preparation for the arrival of Peter’s girlfriend, I was performing what I understood to be an exercise in futility. I was making up the guest room.

  Washing sheets that would probably never come into contact with Sarah’s skin, I had all the unsettling, if obvious, thoughts of a woman who knows that her role as a mother is more perfunctory than real. I was to look like a mother and talk like a mother while having all the personal interest of a proprietor of a bed and breakfast.

  So, however I looked at it, I had my duties. I dusted the room, vacuumed up all the dust balls, put out clean towels, selecting those with the fewest number of strings hanging from the edges, made up a little basket of sweet-smelling soaps, and was finishing making the bed when Peter stepped into the room. “I think,” he announced with a crooked little smile, “that if your boyfriend gets to sleep in your room, then my girlfriend should get to sleep in my room.”

  I dropped the pillows into their cases, spanked them hard in the centers, and plopped them into place like naughty children. As if to say, and that is that.

  “This is Sarah’s room for the time being,” I said. “If she gets lost during the night, that’s between you and her.” The thing that’s so stunning about this is not that kids are all doing it and being completely open about doing it, but that they’re willing to have their parents involved. The very thought of having either of my parents within a six-mile radius of my sexual activity when I was their age was paralyzing.

  When I was nineteen and spent the night at my boyfriend’s house, my boyfriend’s mother made me sleep on a cot placed, in a statement of trust, between her bed and the window. Now, I may have spent the entire night plotting my escape. I may have thought I would deftly slide over the edge of the bed, squeeze sideways through the three-inch space between the two mattresses, roll under her bed and fly, barefoot and breathless, down the hall. I may have been deterred, not by reasons of propriety, but by fear, wild and insane fear that maybe she had tied an invisible string to my wrist and to hers, and that I would turn the corner into my boyfriend’s room to find that I had brought his mother with me. Or, typically insecure, maybe I was afraid that he was sound asleep and didn’t really want me there. Whatever the reason, I was free of guilt in the morning, with no awkwardnesses, no regrets.

  It’s taken roughly twenty-three years for it to occur to me that those wakeful hours served a purpose, that in their own fashion they were well spent. I don’t expect to convince Peter and Sarah of that. They’re living in a different time, a time that is not going to spare them any trouble. Parents don’t do what they used to do—regrettably. And so Peter and his friends are all going to have to grow up the hard, but possibly not the worst, way. They’re going to have to do it by themselves.

  FEBRUARY 6

  You whispered, as we were leaving Dr. Block’s office last time, that you thought I liked him. I do like him. He particularly endeared me to him when, at the start of our second session, he had clearly just been in the men’s room. He had this little telltale water spot, about the size of a quarter on the front of his pants. It was a small window to his vulnerability, a great equalizer among men, and a tender reminder of you.

  Your advocate, as I had feared he would be, hasn’t pointed a long finger at me, saying in effect, “Well, no wonder. Here’s Nick’s problem.”

  I have this feeling, though, that he thinks this marriage is over, and more than that, he thinks it should be over, and he’s trying to get you to see that. Why else would he mention, more than once, that the lifespan of the average marriage used to be about eleven years? So we would both be dead by now (or, at the very least, toothless), and rather than be consigned to a second lifetime with each other, we should do the sensible thing and get divorced.

  What’s he trying to get me to see? I don’t know. Maybe he’s daring me to think things I haven’t dared to think. Not unlike Dr. Bloom
.

  I thought it was a telling omission, by the way, that he seemed never to have heard about Esther. But both you and Dr. Block wrote her off as though she were an insignificant character in an amateur theater production, somebody who walked onto stage left, delivered a dinner tray, bowed, and exited. I adore the notion, of course, that Esther has evolved into a sort of below-stairs person, as it were. But my God. To say now that you never loved her, or that you thought you loved her, but that “love” was the heading you gave it so that you could feel justified, like a job description … I don’t know that I buy that.

  FEBRUARY 9

  We were at Cafe Nola when Nina told me that Esther was coming to town for a visit. It’s a good thing I was eating; otherwise I would have been upset. Of course, I know Nina, and I know she did it deliberately. She was going to do a review for Wednesday’s food section, and she figured that was the best way to break it to me, over shrimp remoulade and blackened redfish.

  There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be friends. I just wish they weren’t. Nina says that Esther and Don are building a house. I guess it’s safer than having a baby.

  FEBRUARY 24

  My mother has a boyfriend. She’s known him for forty-nine years, but now he’s her boyfriend. I love it. Fred Graham and his wife, Lillian, came to our wedding, though you probably don’t remember them. They were part of a group that used to get together to play canasta when I was growing up. When his wife died a little over a year ago, my mother went to the funeral and they got reacquainted. How could anyone have guessed then, as my parents, the Grahams, and the Wills sat around drinking their highballs, that one day there would be this big shake-up, and my mother would land in Fred Graham’s lap?

  The Grahams retired to Florida, to reenter our lives annually, on Christmas cards; Doug Will died, and his wife married her ex–brother-in-law and moved to Monterey.

  This development on the part of my mother gives me a whole new, and not unprovocative, perspective on certain couples as I see them orbiting around the neighborhood on Saturdays. Maybe you’re the one who’ll live with Nina and retire to Wrinklewood. Stay tuned. Life can be pretty interesting after sixty-five, if you’re around to participate. And if you’re not, maybe there’s satisfaction in the hereafter of knowing that you were one of the ones who made it all possible.

  MARCH 6

  Harvey had a date last weekend with a woman who’s a really good friend of a really good friend of someone who works with Nina. I’d met her on a couple of occasions, and I thought she was terrific. So naturally we were all waiting to hear how it went. We didn’t have to wait long. Harvey called me the next morning—from her place.

  Not an unusual story in itself, but I found it disappointing because I know Harvey and I know what it means. It means that he has unwrapped the package and, knowing what is inside, he’ll no longer be interested. Not, mind you, because there is anything wrong with the contents, but simply because he knows what they are.

  Here we go again, I thought. And piles of packages to go before we sleep.

  I have to remind myself that Harvey’s just another guy. But, as you know, I’ve always felt so close to him that I believed we were practically the same person. All through our second adolescence, in our thirties, when we were smoking transcendental substances and staying up half the night to write “Saturday Night Live” skits that only we could have thought amusing—remember “The Turnpike Psychiatrist,” who understood why you just had to pass?—having Harvey next to me was like having another me, only smarter and funnier and more disorganized. I was a watered-down version, and thus more conventional, but the essential person found in Harvey a twin. This aspect of him, though, the all-American guy part, this notch-in-the-belt stuff, is foreign to me, and I hate it.

  As for her part, I don’t know what to say. If Harvey’s just into unwrapping packages, she might as well know it and be done with it. She’s never been married, and has lived a quite exciting life on her own. Maybe she’s used to it. Maybe she takes it in stride. Maybe she’s a good sport. But it’s such a waste. Harvey said he liked her—a lot. He said they had a great time. He confessed to me later, however, that she was “a little heavy.” (Has Harvey looked at himself lately? If I had to choose between his body and his mind, I’d definitely take the mind.) So this is the story in a nutshell. Men are perfect, and women are grateful.

  Meanwhile, June, who is all heat and no heart, and has always been the exception to any rule, has decided to exercise her libido by taking up with her mechanic, none other than the charming Klaus who declared our Beetle dead some years back. I can only conclude, despite telling me when we were in the car market, that the Mazda “vas a pice ov jonk,” he had better luck with June’s. Now that’s gratitude.

  I wouldn’t say this to just anyone, but I’ve always sort of lusted after Klaus myself, having a weakness for foreign accents. What stopped me were the fingertips. How does one proceed in any amorous fashion with insoluble wads of black grease stuck to one’s fingers? But June’s just marking time until she finds an investment banker, someone wholly unlike Harvey, someone steady and predictable, with zero creativity and unlimited funds.

  APRIL 2

  Edward was waiting for me when I got home last night from our hour with Dr. Block. It wasn’t the first time that he’s been there to see the effect these sessions have, to take my temperature. I’m always a wreck. I don’t want him to see how torn I am, because I know that would be hurtful; nor do I want to appear unmoved, which would be inaccurate.

  I could tell by the way he walked over to the car that this time I would not have to find the right balance. The decision had been made for me.

  I started to walk toward the house, but he stopped me. He wasn’t coming inside. “I’m not asking you not to do this,” he said. “I think you should do it. But I can’t stand by and watch. And I can’t promise I’ll be here if you come back.” And with that, he kissed me good-bye, told me he loved me, and left.

  It was the right thing to do. Edward’s not someone who would sit on the shelf. If he were, I wouldn’t be interested in him. He’s doing what he has to do; he’s protecting himself.

  My impulse was to run after him down the street. I had an image of catching up to him and begging him to roll down his windows, of his setting his jaw and driving faster and faster, more determined to shake me off.

  I never had any illusions about Edward. He’ll be all right, much more all right than I want to think about. But he isn’t someone who pretends. This is hard for him, very hard.

  And I have to be honest. I miss him. I can’t listen to an opera. Last Sunday afternoon, public radio aired Madama Butterfly. I happened to tune in at the beginning of Act Two, when Butterfly is singing, “Un bel di,” which is about her joy on the day that Pinkerton’s ship will sail into the harbor. My hand shot out to change the station, but the damage was done. For the rest of the day I was consumed with thoughts of Edward.

  At the same time, I see you each week being more like the Nick I knew, affectionate, sensitive, and compassionate, the man who knew me, truly knew me, and cherished me. You did cherish me once. Nancy used to say that to me with such envy: Nick cherishes you. I believe you now; I believe in you. But even if you’re sincere, is that good enough? Haven’t we changed too much?

  APRIL 29

  I’m sorry to have upset you by calling you “Edward,” though I’m not going to apologize for thinking of him, nor for wishing sometimes that I’d have a crisis, a hemorrhage of the gums, just so I might have an excuse to call him, though for professional reasons I’ve already been passed on to Edward’s partner, a man who, I’m almost certain, gets his hair permed. Curettage will just never be the same.

  Nina and Stephen saw Edward at Umbria having dinner recently with a woman who, by her description, sounds like someone he knew, a doctor, before he met me. “Phyllis the Physician,” he used to call her. She’s an internist, in which connection Edward has probably developed all kinds of mysterious and
exotic malaises. Edward once told me he hated casual sex; Phyllis may have been an exception. He pointed her out to me once, some months ago, from a distance. She looked rather sultry, with full, flaccid lips. He told me that she liked whips and things, and liked to be tied up; I knew he was joking, but I couldn’t get that impression out of my mind when I saw her, reading everything I had heard into a single glimpse. She was quite pretty, so I wanted to believe that she was a masochistic sort, given to severe periods of gloom and, most important, that he had never had any real interest in her.

  Nina was no doubt hoping this piece of news would bring me to my senses. She’s disgusted with me. She shouldn’t be. She knows I’ve never had her clarity of thought, or her decisiveness. Besides which, women aren’t supposed to be doing this anymore; mourning is something our mothers did. Today, we put everything behind us, wave it away. “He’s history,” we say.

  She does like Edward; that makes it hard. And she likes him for me. To make matters worse, Edward’s really fond of Nina and Stephen. He told me that if we broke up he’d continue to see them, that he had become their friend in his own right. We actually got into an argument about it, as though it had all gone sour and all that remained was to divide up the property. Over my dead body would he take another woman to Nina and Stephen’s summer house, I said. He could see Stephen if he wanted to, though I’d prefer he didn’t, but Nina was mine. So, for that matter, was Harvey, which was the next topic. Harvey happens to be yours, too, though, which is why Harvey’s really the only person I can talk to about any of this. He carries the same sentimental baggage. He also knows you and shares my affection. I don’t have to explain.