I heard them again, voices where
there shouldn’t be any. I flicked the treadmill’s cutoff switch and grabbed a
towel to pat myself dry as I wandered over to the window. Pressed close to the
glass, I scanned the backyard, but the trespassers had moved out of sight. Then
heels clicked up the deck’s wooden steps, and the voices took shape. Yanking a
sweatshirt over my workout bra, I hurried downstairs.
He faced away, but I couldn’t miss
that red hair. He’d let it grow until it curled over his collar. A lock of it
even dangled mid-air as he slouched toward the woman smiling up at him. I stood
just inside the French doors, my arms crossed, feet braced apart, waiting to
find out why my husband had shown up unannounced on a sunny Sunday afternoon,
accompanied by a skinny woman in a belted trench coat. Was this the new
mistress? Had he already tired of Gail? I tried to imagine him dropping the
blonde, bumptious Gail for this tufted and coiffed beanpole. My successors. How
depressing.
The woman nodded toward the house.
Greg turned, and his expression hardened. I didn’t move. He jerked the door
handle and, when he found it locked, said, “Open the door. We need to talk.”
“Do it from there.”
Wide-eyed, the woman stepped away,
but Greg reached out a hand as he mumbled something too low for me to hear.
Then he stared back through the glass. “I’ve left six messages. Six. You
haven’t returned a single one. Now, either let me in, or I’ll open the door
myself.”
He had a key. Of course. Why hadn’t I
demanded it back? I remained motionless a moment longer, then reached for the
latch and drew the door open.
The woman seemed reluctant to enter.
Pausing, Greg nodded at her, said, “Ellen,” then waved a dismissing hand toward
the kitchen. “That’s Samantha. My wife.” Ellen smiled.
I didn’t. “In or out,” I said.
“You’re running up my gas bill.”
Greg stepped aside. The woman slipped
past and then stopped awkwardly in front of the Ficus tree, close enough to
run. I momentarily sympathized with my unwelcome guest—though not enough to
return the smile or to offer a chair. Just seeing Greg again scraped at the
hole in my gut. There he stood, his lips pressed into a line and his eyes
flashing. I could tell he wanted to hit me. But he wouldn’t. Not with this
Ellen woman near.
Clearing his throat, he finished the
introductions. “Meet Ellen Riggers, the realtor who’s going to list the house
for us.”
A realtor? Not the new girlfriend? My
fingernails dug into my palms. “List what house?”
“Don’t be dense. This one. Like it or
not, my name’s still on the deed, and I want to sell.”
“You can’t do that! You promised I
could stay here as long as I wanted. That was the deal.”
Ellen Riggers backed right into the
Ficus. Dangling branches circled her face, dipped over her shoulders, and
ruffled her puffed and lacquered hair. A leaf stuck to one of the odd little
tails she’d frizzed at the side. Startled, she moved away, catching Greg’s
attention. He motioned her toward the living room, suggested she relax and take
off her coat. “Would you like a glass of water? Sam usually has a pot of coffee
going, so perhaps….”
I shook my head, glad I could
announce there wasn’t any.
“Nothing, thank you, I’m fine,” Ellen
said as she scooted to the far side of the living room.
Stretching his thick lips over
perfectly aligned teeth in what he must have thought a gracious smile, Greg
nodded, then called to Ellen’s retreating back, “Why don’t you take a look
around? I’ll be right with you.”
I tried to remember when a smile
meted out to me had felt like a gift. It must have been a very long time ago,
because now his troll lips sickened me, flashed images of Gollum’s wheedling ways.
Grabbing Greg’s arm, I hissed, “I am not going to sell. Do you hear me?
And I do not want some strange woman walking around, poking at my
things.”
He pried my fingers loose. “Our
things. Remember. Our things.”
“I don’t want her here.” I heard the
hysteria mounting. I took a deep breath, but still felt as if I were choking.
“You promised. Now you barge in here like this. Please, Greg, just leave.”
“Stop yelling.”
What did he mean, yelling? Would he
like to hear what yelling sounded like? “Just go. I want you both out of here.”
He walked over to the wall phone and
lifted the receiver. “I imagine the kids are in their dorm rooms about now.
Shall I call them? Tell them their mother’s being hysterical? They already
think you’re half crazy.”
Tears threatened. “They do not.”
His index finger punched numbers for
the Baltimore area code—slowly hitting and
releasing three times before it hovered while Greg asked, “Are you going to
calm down so we can discuss this reasonably?”
I hugged myself. This couldn’t be happening.
Not even Greg could be so—but of course he could. Clutching wads of sweatshirt
with hands that shook slightly, I nodded.
He replaced the receiver, then leaned
toward me over the counter, pressing into it until the wrinkles around his
knuckles whitened. “And, Sam, if you give me a hard time about this, I’ll be
happy to take you to court. Would you like that? I could force you to sell Alice
II.”
“You can’t have my boat!”
He smirked. “Which you bought after
we married. Which we declared as personal property in both our names. Somehow,
I don’t think the judge is going to buy the ‘it’s mine’ thing.”
“This is Gail, isn’t it? Your
girlfriend pushed you to do this.” I took another deep breath and pressed my
lips together as Greg gave me a disgusted look. In my head the mantra began: He
can’t have Alice. He won’t get Alice.
Alice, my beautiful skipjack. Greg hated sailing. Alice was mine.
Passing close enough for his musky
cologne to make my nose tingle, he walked through the living room, apologizing
to Ellen for the delay and ushering her toward the study. I heard him extol the
walnut paneling, the built-in bookcases. Then his laugh joined Ellen’s, and
only the hum of their conversation reached me. I stood rooted, trying to even
out my breathing as their shoes tapped on the stairs, and waited, frustrated
that I couldn’t seem to move, that I couldn’t make myself do something.
A high-pitched cry of delight
startled me. I knew they’d entered the bathroom when Ellen’s heels clicked on
the tile floor. Ellen had seen the marble walls and the huge soaking tub. The
pain in my stomach tightened.
That last day, Greg had been standing
in that room, opening the medicine cabinet door as he packed. I squeezed my
eyes shut against a scene that played as if the tape were stuck on repeat.
#
There he was, reaching behind the
mirrored door to dump the contents into his leather bag: his triple-bladed
razor, a brand new deodorant stick, a half-used bottle of dandruff shampoo. As
if he were leaving on a business trip instead of forever. Turning, he held his
purple-ribbed toothbrush up for my inspection before dropping it in the bag. He
wanted me to see he was only taking what belonged to him.
“I don’t think I ever loved you.” His
voice was calm, but the words exploded in my ears, leaving me numb as he
slipped through the doorway into the bedroom.
“Almost forgot.” He took down the
photo of his parents from the center of the portrait wall and tucked it between
layers of folded underwear—new silk boxers, cut shorter than the old kind, in a
rainbow of colors. I remembered when he’d first bought them. I’d been afraid to
ask about the change.
“What about this picture of the
kids?” He picked up the one of the twins at age eight taking turns at the
tiller of Alice. “Do you mind?”
I snatched the frame out of his hand.
“Yes. I mind.”
“Oh. Okay. Then get it copied for me,
will you?”
I didn’t answer.
With a final glance through the
closet, he zipped his suit bag. “Guess that’s it.”
I followed him down the curved
staircase, through the airy living room with its picture windows and oriental
rugs, past the potted ferns flanking the tiled entry hall. I’d walked him to
the door so many times over the years. We paused before the entrance to the
study where Greg looked appraisingly at an idyllic landscape of cypress-crested
hills. I looked, too, and for a moment lost myself in the Tuscan vista. Greg
had promised to take me to visit the rolling Italian compagna. That
would never happen now.
He tugged at the heavy oak door.
“I’ll send my half of the mortgage and the kids’ tuition. You don’t need to
worry. I’m not walking out on my responsibilities.”
I shook my head. “Just on your
marriage.”
“We don’t have a marriage,” he said.
“This is better for all of us, not pretending any more.”
“Just get out of my sight.” I pushed
his shoulder the final inches past the door, then slammed it shut. My forehead
touched the wood panel as I sagged forward.
I wanted to scream, to pound me fists
into him until he stopped saying how strong he was being and how good this was
for the family. Tires squealed as his car fled down the drive, leaving me.
Leaving us.
#
I woke Monday morning to a shrill
alarm bleating in my ear. My arm flailed out and knocked the clock radio to the
floor, but the noise continued. I groped beside the bed. I couldn’t find it,
couldn’t stop its scream. Biting back a curse, I snatched off the covers.
And found it, under the table. I
slammed it to silence.
I did not want to be out of bed and
awake, but here I was, half naked on the hard floor. I got off my knees,
grabbed my fleece robe and pushed my arms into it, then pulled wooly socks over
my feet.
Rubbing my eyes, I yanked the
curtains back. All I saw was grey, as if early cataracts fogged my lenses. I
let the fabric drop and shuffled toward the bathroom. I had to get dressed and
go to the shop, but, first, I needed to call my lawyer. Maybe he could do
something.
The house was silent. All the noises
that used to bother me—the twins on top of each other and me, their voices
echoing, the thump-thump of music that swelled till it almost burst the
walls—all of it was gone. Their laughter, too. Stefi’s giggles. Daniel’s loud
guffaws. The exuberant voices of their friends.
Sometimes, sitting alone at night, I
imagined I could still hear them, as if the walls remembered and echoed back
the sounds I missed. Sometimes, fixing breakfast for myself, I imagined the
twins begging for waffles—please, Mom, just one more?
Spring break, they’d come home again.
They’d want their rooms and as much of their old life as I could provide. Just
because kids were in college didn’t mean they were grown. They still needed
home.
So how, I wondered, could I possibly
leave? How could Greg make me?
Half-past eight. My lawyer, the one
who’d helped me incorporate Samantha’s, always got to his office early.
It took a while to get past the receptionist, then the secretary, but I finally
connected with Charles and explained what I needed. “You don’t have a
separation agreement?” he asked. “Not good. Not good at all.” I could imagine
him tsk-tsking as he sat snugged up to his huge walnut desk.
“I know. I could kick myself. I
should have gotten everything in black and white right after he left, when
guilt still drove him.”
“At least he can’t touch your shop,”
Charles said. “We wrapped Samantha’s up nice and tight.”
“Thank God.”
“Yes, do.” Charles Banyan was a lay
reader at St. Michael’s. I smiled faintly. “Let me give you the name of a good
divorce lawyer,” he said. “Sounds like you’re going to need one.”
Divorce, I thought as I hung up the
phone. Such a harsh word. I’d purposefully left it out of my vocabulary, hoping
it might never happen. Twenty-four years made creases in a life that didn’t
just iron out when someone said, so long, good-bye, I never loved you. Amazing
that after years of words, those would be the last ones in a marriage. And now?
Now his eyes said, I hate you.
I turned on the heat lamp and
undressed with my back to the bathroom mirror. I didn’t want to see the cheek
bones exaggerated from weight loss or the dark circles under sunken eyes.
Certainly not all the other bony protrusions once softened by flesh. My poor
unloved body. I knew it well enough without looking. How long since it had felt
my husband’s touch? A year? Maybe it was longer. There was the time last spring
when Greg hadn’t been able to get it up. I’d chalked up that failure to
overwork and stress—I’d even felt compassion for him. What a fool I’d been. It
was overwork all right. He was overworked by Gail’s lithe body.
Gail, blonde and bouncy. And so very
young.
I had tried not to worry about slack
stomach muscles or a few excess pounds in the days when I’d had them. Greg’s
body had rounded with the years, too. We’d grow old together and more
comfortable. But Greg hadn’t wanted a used-up wife whose body showed the strain
of years. That’s why he hadn’t come near me. That and the fact that he had
never loved me. Not ever, he said. Not like he loved Gail.
Never, never loved me.
I clutched the fallen robe to my
belly and slumped over the sink. It was a long time before my shaking hands
found the spigot knob and longer still before the sound of splashing water
became the only noise that echoed off the tile walls.
#
I stumbled through the motions of
dressing, of brushing out my thick, faded-to-colorless hair and twisting it up
off my face. Downstairs, I brewed coffee and sliced a banana into a bowl of
bran flakes. I forced myself to eat until only a spoonful of milk remained.
Sitting back and sipping the last ounces in my cup, I noticed the sunlight
streaming through the glass doors. I loved this room, all stainless steel and
polished cherry, my tree-shaded yard out back, the wooden deck.
It’s okay, I told myself, swiping at
a tear. You’ll be fine. You’ll find some nice little house someplace, a place
the kids will like.
I rinsed my bowl and added it to the
dishwasher, then took out salad mixings for lunch. If I packed food, I wouldn’t
be tempted to eat the treats Samantha’s offered folks who came in
looking for a tall cup or who wanted new knives or blenders or a cookbook so
they could stir-fry in their new wok. I wouldn’t be tempted to slip across to
the pub, where their sandwiches stacked calories that made me lust.
At least I had Samantha’s,
which I’d built from nothing before the coffee house craze hit Annapolis. And I’d be able to keep my
beautiful skipjack. Those thoughts brought a smile to my lips. Maybe I’d find a
little house near the water. Oh, not in town. But somewhere. It could be small.
It didn’t even have to be in the greatest shape. Not if it had a dock for Alice, who was hibernating under cover
right now, but who’d skip across the waves come spring, her main and jib
filling with Chesapeake winds.
Pouring a light oil and vinegar
dressing into a jar, I pictured Alice’s twenty feet of dark blue hull with
the gorgeous mahogany bowsprit from which she flew her jib. Alice had only the briefest of cubbies for
storing things out of the way. Mostly, she was an open boat, meant for
scampering about in shallow waters, her centerboard trunk dividing the cockpit,
her lines led aft so I could handle her alone.
And that’s what I’d have to do now.
Sail alone.
I tightened the lid on the cooler and
shook my head against the voice that whispered of things lost. Friends who
stopped calling a month after Greg left. Women I knew who grabbed their
husband’s arm and hurried past—as if what had happened to me might be
contagious. Maybe they imagined I’d want their man. As if.