To My Ex-Husband Read online

  If I were more intellectual, I thought, you wouldn’t have left me. Not that you were ever pompous or superior. On the contrary, you were generous that way, you assumed that everybody was smart, even people who were clearly not. Anyway, you never talked in those terms. But it was a feeling I had that I hadn’t been challenging enough. I hadn’t been like Esther. Harvey was always telling me how smart he thought you were. Another word he used was “abstract.”

  Well, maybe if I concentrated on it, I could be smart and abstract, too. It would be like taking up occupancy in another brain. I’d shed the aspects of me that you’d rejected—the “controlling,” “dependent,” “childish” ones—and adapt new characteristics. I’d be completely different from the person who’d lost you.

  Exotic, et cetera, cannot be grafted. In ten weeks, I went to my yoga class twice.

  APRIL 5

  “It could happen to anyone,” I said, “and does.”

  I’d stopped by to see June’s new bachelor house. She was beside herself, sitting in her lovely sunny breakfast nook with a magnifying glass and a small plastic container. She’d show me the house in a minute; first, there was something more compelling she wanted to talk to me about.

  For the last week, she’d been driven crazy by itching, an allergy, probably. To what, she couldn’t say. She had no new soaps, no new underwear, no new nightgowns or sheets. But the itch persisted and kept her up at night. She called her doctor who, after persistent questioning, asked her whether she’d seen anything in her underwear, anything at all. No, she said, but … well, there were these tiny sandy-colored dots, pin-sized.

  “Look carefully,” the doctor said. “They probably move.”

  Move? A slowly dawning truth that turns the stomach: crabs. Of all people, June. So well-bred. So well-scrubbed. She had stopped seeing Klaus, as she knew she would, but not soon enough. He was apologetic, of course. Klaus is nothing if not gentlemanly—though an exception could certainly be made for this little incident. And he always did have a great sense of humor. That afternoon, he had delivered some flowers and a card.

  June showed me the card. On the front was a large penguin wearing a formal dinner jacket and carrying a silver tray of delectables. Inside, it said, “Just because you have crabs doesn’t mean you’re an expert on seafood.”

  Frankly, I thought it was hilarious. June did, too, although she refused to say so. “Look,” she said, handing me the magnifying glass. “I’ve been picking them off. Even after using this medicated shampoo, some of them are still alive.”

  I peered into the dish. Like June, I was repelled but intensely curious. Sure enough, they were moving. Slowly and sideways, like real crabs. An undignified moment in an undignified stage of life. Somehow, we would all get through it.

  I love talking to June now. She’s so forthright, so earnest. I don’t know anyone else who can talk about sex so openly, and without a trace of embarrassment.

  I miss Harvey and June together. I miss the late nights and the talking and the big jugs of bad wine. I miss the occasions. They always rose to an occasion, playing off each other with an appreciation that never seemed false. They were a golden couple by night, two completely extraordinary people. By day they were just another couple who couldn’t get along, who were willfully at odds. It was her silence pitted against his fury, his chaos and her secretiveness, his romanticism and her pragmatism, his fat and her hyperactivity, and finally, devastatingly, his blind adoration and her revulsion.

  As time goes by, it gets harder and harder to imagine that Harvey and June were once part of the same marriage, or, for that matter, that they could have participated in the same conversations. What sends a chill up my spine is that I know it’s been said of us.

  MAY 3

  It’s awkward, having the same travel agent. So poor Shirley has a conflict of interest. You ask not to be seated next to me on the way out to Ann Arbor. I ask to be seated next to you. Whose request should be honored? Who’s the troublemaker here? Is it the estranged wife who’s only trying to be friends? Or is it the estranged husband who’s only trying to be enemies?

  My determination to be friends, to not let our divorce develop into a great continental divide, reminds me of my father during those hideous last months of my parents’ marriage. My mother, who always maintained that silence was the ultimate weapon, had a habit of sulking, of drifting into a silent-movie routine, wordlessly placing his breakfast in front of him, including, on one occasion, an entire grapefruit, a big, yellow, uncut ball. My father always suspected that she stole that from Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, but wouldn’t have dared to bring it up.

  For weeks at a time, the Woman Without Words, as my father called her, could not be reached for comment. Finally, my father had decided he’d had enough. “All right,” he said. “I’ve tried to be friends. If you don’t want to be friends, the hell with you.”

  I may get to that point, too. In the meantime I’ll just say that college graduations are just the beginning of many events in which we will appear as separate agents, rather than two people united in a journey that has brought something wonderful to fruition. Somehow, we’re going to have to make that adjustment without ruining the occasion for our children. Sit next to someone else on the plane if you want to, but at the graduation be with me. That day is for Peter.

  JUNE 10

  We don’t have sin anymore, you know. That has to be one of my all-time favorite lines, especially coming as it did from the lips of my mother. She’s going to be living in the formerly sinful state, on the west coast of Florida, with Fred. She’s sure that “tongues will wag” in the building where he lives, but she says this in the most mischievous way. She’s thrilled with herself, and I’m thrilled for her.

  I also wonder if our impending divorce has given her permission, whether until now she thought she needed to be a model for us of lifelong dedication to one partner. No matter that that partner was remarried, or even, that eventually, and in his own grand style, he died. The role of martyr wasn’t exactly a struggle for her, as we know; she had a natural proclivity. That she’s finally outgrown it has been her greatest gift to me. I’m sending her off with some new sheets and towels, just like a bride.

  JUNE 28

  Leon has forwarded a copy of your letter to me, written, I gather, under the direction of one Ms. Glass. You’ll receive our response in a day or two, but I’d like to address one portion of your conditions directly, and that is the part that draws a cause-and-effect relationship between your continued payment of utilities and the possibility, in the future, of my “cohabiting with a man.”

  It strikes me, apart from its legal haughtiness, as a rather cozy phrase. I like its juicy intent. I hope you won’t mind, then, if I pass it on to my mother, who in her renewed vigor will soon be doing same.

  Am I to assume that if I cohabit with a woman, one, say, who pays rent, that you will continue to honor your commitment with respect to gas, et cetera? Surely you would concede that this would be no different from a man who pays rent, such as a student. Thus, the emphasis should not be on gender, but on the nature of the relationship. You want to make a distinction here between one who pays and one who doesn’t, between an issue of money and one of affection, although it’s my impression that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. And I could easily see to it that they weren’t.

  JULY 8

  I wish, when you call to speak with Annie or Peter, you could bring yourself to extend to me the normal courtesies accorded the most casual acquaintances and complete strangers. “Let me speak to Peter,” without so much as a “hello” is a real slap in the face. Which is why you do it. Which makes it worse.

  Time, I keep telling myself, time. It’s the only solution to so many problems. But it’s not the answer someone like me wants to hear, someone who wants immediate and complete solutions to all things. Patience is a virtue; it isn’t, regrettably, one of mine.

  So, in time, you’ll be less angry. In time, you’ll accept
that I care about you and love you, though I don’t believe we’d be any more happily married now than we were before. I’ve been fond of reminding you these last couple of years that you were the one who was unhappy, that you were the one who left. I wasn’t willing to accept then, let alone admit, my own unhappiness. In time, I hope you can forgive me for that.

  Meanwhile, it’s evident that you can hardly contain the rage you feel against me. It makes me feel guilty, knowing that it’s borne of pain. I’ve survived, and you’re having a bad time. So I bounce along after you, like a puppy, eager to make amends so you won’t be angry. I want to protect you because you don’t seem strong enough for the truth.

  Recently, I read something in a book of quotes. One that I thought particularly relevant, though I don’t recall its author, was this:

  Real love is when you want the other person’s good;

  Romantic love is when you want the other person.

  When Esther and Don were able to work things out, I remember your asking me, didn’t I want them to be happy. I couldn’t bring myself to care about Esther’s happiness at that point. I was more interested in Don’s happiness, first because I always liked him a great deal, and second because he didn’t have an affair with you. My point, though, is that you were rather magnanimous about Esther. You loved her. You wanted her good. How can I not draw the conclusion that you want less for me? You say you love me, but only if I stay married to you. Otherwise, you’d just as soon never see me again. As I’ve said before, that has more to do with power than with love.

  AUGUST 24

  Edward moved in last weekend. I had been looking forward to living with him, but it was easy to look forward to living with Edward when all but the man himself was tucked safely away in another part of town. I had not considered his personal effects, which included his son and his daughter and their belongings, which, in turn, included some, but not all, of their friends and, in part, their friends’ belongings.

  The transition has not been smooth. But in terms of trauma, little could compare with the day itself, complicated by the fish. I did mention, didn’t I, that Edward has fish? They live in fifty gallons of water, and moving arrangements can be unnerving. I pictured a major traffic tie-up as the fish slid off the dolly and out of their garbage can to flop around on the street, gasping for their beloved air stone. Nothing so dramatic as that happened, but two clown loaches were dead on arrival, or so Edward thought. They were only playing dead, though. They do that, on occasion. Hence, the name. Cute, huh?

  It was tense getting them squared away. Edward tore around frantically with little nets and flexible tubes that looked like intravenous feeders. We had our own ICU. My concern was not that the fish would go belly up, but that the tank clashed with the couch. All that pastel paraphernalia—it’s much too bright for an environment dominated by earth tones. I could see I would have to keep my aesthetic qualms to myself; Edward was dealing with life and death.

  Both the fish and the children had to leave the home in which they were raised. Thus, the overriding atmosphere was one of resentment, relieved only by occasional moments of overt hostility, primarily on the part of Melissa, whose own telephone line had yet to be installed. Melissa is generally mute in my presence, unless speaking into a telephone. The phone is a social facilitator, the adolescent equivalent of a glass of wine. It has occurred to me, actually, that Melissa’s voice may be activated by the phone, that words begin forming as the telephone comes within a range of perhaps three or four inches of her mouth. I’ll have to watch more closely to see how this works.

  Tony’s grievance was mainly one of inconvenience. He was to leave for college in a few days, and this move meant an interim pain in the neck. It’s stunning to see Peter’s old room being converted into a gym; his old basketball hoop, still taped to the closet door, pales in comparison. Tony bench-presses. I knew this but, in a lapse of imagination, I hadn’t seen in my mind’s eye the equipment coming up the stairs, the duffle bags of sweats, the hundreds of weights—innocent-looking little disks until you bend over to pick one up and your fingertips get pinned to the floor. I guess he’s not taking them with him on the plane.

  By the end of the day, I was locked in the bathroom and crying into a gin and tonic, wondering, What have I done? It was like a bad dream in which you arrive at your front door only to find it altered to the point of being unrecognizable, a fun house, a horror of distorted images and mean laughter.

  Everywhere there were piles of things that were not part of my life, children who had not been part of my life. We had no history together. How could I make them feel comfortable in a house that had been defined by the presence and the personalities of other children? How could I comfort them? I was not even their stepmother. Annie and Peter seemed suddenly to have been replaced. I wanted them back.

  If this was difficult for me, it must have been torture for Melissa and Tony’s mother, Pamela. What could a woman possibly feel when her children prefer to live with their father and a woman who is an almost total stranger? How could she possibly survive such a choice? It’s like saying, “Mom, I can’t be with you anymore. I love you, but Dad takes better care of me.” Isn’t that what it means? If you’re a mother, you have failed at your job.

  I’ve never met Pamela. I’d love to talk to her, but if I answer the phone when she calls to speak to Melissa, she hangs up.

  Tony, meanwhile, has escaped to school on the west coast, where he spent exactly one day before buying a surf board and a wet suit.

  SEPTEMBER 7

  One of my first official acts as Edward’s housemate was to pace back and forth at Jefferson Hospital last Friday morning, waiting for some young doctor to stem the tide of Edward’s fathering potential. It should make a vas deferens in our sex life. Sorry; this experience has made me a little light-headed.

  But if I’m light-headed, that doesn’t begin to describe Edward. This is supposed to be a quick and simple procedure, “minor elective surgery.” And yet, it seemed to be taking the longest time. I was getting nervous that they’d given him the wrong operation, that somebody had messed up the paperwork and he was having a lung removed.

  My mind was alive with possibilities. It didn’t help that I had read of a study in which monkeys fed a high-cholesterol diet showed that those that had also undergone vasectomies were more likely to develop clogged arteries. Maybe the clog was actually sperm. It has to go somewhere. Besides which, fettucini and cream were staples in Edward’s family. No doubt, had Edward been a monkey, he would have suffered a heart attack years ago, and the terror of a Novocaine needle would definitely have been a contributing factor.

  I recall your being opposed to the surgery yourself because you’d read all these nightmarish things about what could go wrong. Women, of course, are used to nightmares; they’re doing things to their bodies all the time. Diaphragms, hormones, intrauterine devices, sponges, tubal ligations—always another thing to try. But we did it; we did it all. It was our job. But men? Well, what can I say? They’re not so brave. Smarter, maybe, not to endanger their health, but brave, no.

  I was thinking about what I might say at the memorial service when I spotted a man in a green surgical suit wandering around as if he were looking for someone. He spotted me, looking properly mournful.

  “Are you Emily Moore?” he asked.

  I nodded. This was it. Edward really had died. He had not awakened from the anesthesia.

  The doctor put his hand on my shoulder and bowed his head. It was written all over his face, the shame. This was the worst part about being a doctor, he was thinking. Facing the family, the loved ones. Poor Anthony and Melissa, semi-orphans. And Edward’s father, Mr. Ventura, seventy-one, widowed just a couple of years ago, and now this.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” the doctor said. “Dr. Ventura passed out.”

  I thought, Passed away, you mean.

  “He fainted just as we were giving him the Novocaine. He didn’t want me to tell you, but I knew you�
��d be concerned. We got a late start because we had to be certain that he was stable before proceeding.”

  I was incredulous. My boyfriend, a wimp. I thought of all the times Edward had injected me with Novocaine during the days of my curettage, sometimes as many as four shots at one sitting. “This will sting a bit,” he would say, dismissively. “But it’s nothing, really.” That phoney!

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” the doctor cautioned sweetly as he walked away. “It happens all the time.”

  Edward was so thoroughly humiliated that it would actually have been more cruel than amusing to be hard on him. And, as a matter of fact, he restored himself in my esteem when, only a couple of hours later, he wanted to make love. He was tentative, naturally, but only because he felt funny without the full complement of his pubic hair. It was I who decided that we really should wait at least one day. I didn’t want him to faint again, even in ecstacy.

  What I did not realize at the time was that this procedure would turn Edward into something of a local hero. For the first hour that he was at home, he sat with his icepacks between his legs and talking on the phone with his friend, Rudy Nemerov. Rudy is Edward’s Nina equivalent. They have always reminded me of Frog and Toad of Frog and Toad Together. Divorced at about the same time, they spent their early bachelorhoods giving dinner parties for all the women they knew in the neighborhood. They didn’t ever really date these women; they were just friends they rounded up for some good food. Rudy was the creative force behind all the menus; Edward went by the rules, so if something didn’t taste right he could always go to the book and see what he did wrong. It drives me crazy sometimes, and it drove Rudy crazy, too. But I figure it’s an occupational hazard. I mean, you don’t mix a little of this with a little of that in dentistry. You don’t say to your patient when it doesn’t work out, “Next time, maybe I’ll put in more of the cement.”