I dressed, making myself recall the promises we’d made to always speak of what upset us. Couldn’t I say, “I’m afraid”? Couldn’t I say, “Something feels different”? Couldn’t we talk, as we always had? We’d been so intimate, had confessed to so much, but never of our doubts or hesitations, the constricted quality of our time together.
I stepped into the living room, pausing, in awe of his sitzfleisch, his ability to concentrate, for indeed it was easy to imagine him sitting undisturbed in a burning building, easy to picture him pecking away at the keyboard, while outside the wailing fire engines pulled up, and the fireman broke down walls. I stood, searching for words, turning over these thoughts.
I can’t say how long I waited, admiring his focus, willing myself to interrupt, only that when he turned and saw me with my arms folded, his eyes widened and he rose from his chair and snapped shut his laptop. “I can leave. I’m all packed.”
Stunned, I said, “I don’t want you to leave, but you are, anyhow, and then what? It’s not like we can build anything together. So go ahead and get an early start.”
His look chilled me.
“It’s true. You’ve been so distant, so obviously unhappy. Go home. It’s what you want.” And still that cold look. “Isn’t it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“What you feel,” I said.
“That it’s hard? Is that what you want to hear? That it feels too hard. Look,” he said. “Let’s just stop this. I can call a taxi.”
“I can drive you,” I said. He turned, began stuffing papers into a folder. The apartment could not contain the two of us. “I need to get gas. Don’t call a taxi. I’m just getting gas.”
I brushed the keys off the table and hurried outside. My car was at the curb in front of the building. I slid into the driver’s seat and turned the air conditioning to its highest setting.
Don’t crash, I thought, as I pulled into the road. I’d read that car accidents skyrocketed for couples getting divorced. I gripped the steering wheel and drove carefully and kept thinking: don’t crash, because I wanted to drive into a wall. I wanted to accelerate and ram into something—a parked car, a garbage truck.
On the way to a gas station in Oakland, I passed the universities. Everywhere, students were hauling lamps and comforters, laptops slung across their shoulders; freshmen, I assumed, since weary parents trekked behind carrying open cartons piled high with rolled-up posters, pillows and shoes. So many tan, ponytailed girls in shorts and flip-flops, discreet little tattoos on their ankles.
The pumps were all busy; the other cars were packed with kids and pulsated with music. I got out of the car when it was my turn and thought about Hemingway and the broken place within him could not be fixed. When my tank was full, I pulled up to the vacuums. I popped my quarters in the slot, uncoiled the hose and vacuumed the floor mats and the crevices in the seat until the prickly urge to ram into something began to dissipate.
Okay, I thought. I’m okay.
I cut carefully into traffic on Forbes Avenue, drove slowly and sanely past the coffee shops, Mexican chains, the local diner, with its cluster of customers lined up on the sidewalk, waiting for tables. But I wasn’t okay and pulled into an empty spot beside a hydrant, put my forehead against the steering wheel, and began to cry. Baruch was back at my apartment, waiting for me to take him to the airport, and I was parked at the curb, heartsick, feeling that I lacked the stamina to go on. All my life I’d wanted to be fully and deeply loved and to prove I could love in return. Now I felt that I did not have the strength to do it.
A tall, ponytailed boy walked past, his parents trudging along behind on this major day, this turning point in their lives. I could believe that what had come between us was a misunderstanding, a series of missed cues. A first quarrel that could be resolved. I could believe that. But he would still be leaving when I got home, and there would be weeks apart, other quarrels that would leave me at the side of the road feeling as if I had turned myself inside out from crying.
Now a girl in a tank top, a teddy bear under her arm, its head nestled against her enormous breasts. I dried my face with an old napkin, and saw myself standing, searching for words, desperate for reassurance, and the look on his face when he turned, the way he gathered his papers.
Why had he been so angry? What micro-expression did he detect on my face? When he turned, what had he seen?
His wife, surprising him like this the morning she said she was leaving? Approaching him from behind, waiting with infinite patience, her arms crossed. He had turned, had seen her scornful expression, had known before she spoke that it was over between them. After all the stories he’d told, I’d never thought of him as a man who knew that loss was just around the corner. Never once had I imagined how he might feel losing me.
I put the car into gear and continued home. My parking space was still free. I pulled to the curb just as the old Chinese couple was pushing their carriage up the hill. The little boy inside sat upright from the bumpy ride, his mouth an O, as if delighted by the sidewalks buckled by the roots of old trees, by the trees themselves, or the dog stretched out like a rug while the gardener pulled weeds. He grasped the padded bar and took it all in, wide-eyed.
The outside door was unlocked. I imagined the empty apartment, how unbearable it would be if he had left, and how I’d be forced to bear it. Then I opened the door and saw him standing in the middle of the room. I meant to tell him about this fissure in me, that it would always be there, but when he stepped toward me, I saw I was not alone in feeling broken and crossed the room to slip into his arms. “You’re home,” I said, and he said, “What are we doing?” with such tenderness. “What?” he said again.
He was my home, and in his embrace, I forgot what I could not do, forgot that I was broken, forgot the distance between us. We were loving each other, that’s what we were doing. We two adults, bruised by life, frayed at the edges, a little slow to learn, but lucky, both of us, able to love each other.
His question then, his question now, all these years later, was easy to answer.
Acknowlegements
Heather Sellers read a very early version of this novel and urged me to carry on. Thank you, Heather, for your wisdom and encouragement. Thanks also to Jane McCafferty and Jane Shapiro, who read drafts of this book more than once, and to Carol Ardman and Jen Bannon, who also took on this task.
I am fortunate to be in the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Thanks to our head, Andreea Ritivoi, who supports and appreciates creative writing, and to my friends in the Creative Writing Program. Our group is small but mighty, thanks to these brilliant writers, who are also generous teachers.
My inspiration for Chaverim came from Kishorit, in the Western Galilee. Here I first saw a community where men and women with disabilities could live, work and create meaningful lives. Thanks to the founders, Yael Shilo and Shuki Levinger and to the residents of this beautiful community.
I am grateful to the staff and individuals who welcomed me at the Merakey Allegheny Valley School. Special thanks to Staff Development Executive Carol Erzen and Executive Director, Development & Communications Dorothy Gordon for giving me access to the Merakey AVS Sensory Development Program & Sensory Checklist. Visit avs.merakey.org for more information.
Monthlong residences at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan, Ireland, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Saratoga, Wyoming gave me much-needed time and solitude. I am grateful for the fellowships that made these stays possible.
Thanks to Jaynie Royal, Elizabeth Lowenstein, and Pam Van Dyk at Regal House for their diligence and care.
And to my daughters, Charlotte and Rachel Glynn, who have taught more more than I can express.
And to Jeff, of course.
Face Tells the Secret Page 34
