An Irreconcilable Difference

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  Darren reached over and ruffled his hair. “Why don’t you kids take care of the dishes and bring the dessert and coffee into the living room?”

  It was a testament to how normal things seemed that they rose to obey him immediately and without question.

  “I could have done them later,” I said as I walked with Darren into the living room.

  “It won’t hurt them,” he said, “and you don’t need to be bothered with it.”

  He looked around the room as he entered, as if familiarizing himself again with each nook and corner. “God, I’ll miss this room.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as the kids walked in. He raised his eyebrows. “The dishes are done?” he asked, his voice skeptical.

  “There was nothing to do but put the plates in the dishwasher,” Jana said. “Mom did all the rest.” She put the coffee things on the table.

  Darren started to take his usual chair out of habit, then changed his mind and sat on the sofa next to me. Once again I worried about the message this was sending to the kids. Greg put the coffee pot and mugs on the table, casually brushing his father’s shoulder. He actually gave my arm a squeeze as he walked by.

  I saw the look of satisfaction when his gaze fell on mine and Darren’s wedding album on the bookcase just inside the door. Smiling broadly, he snagged a cookie off the tray before he sat across from us. Jana took the other chair, perching on the edge like a bird testing a fragile limb.

  I heard the dishwasher as a distant hum. The furnace kicked in, making me realize I could have lit a fire. It might have helped to offset the chill that was soon to come.

  Darren put his cup on the coffee table and leaned forward, resting his wrists on his knees. His face looked tortured to me, but I doubt if the kids saw it. “I’m glad you both came over tonight. We’ve wanted to talk to you about this for a long time, but we kept trying to find the right moment. I know your mother told you both that she and I have filed for divorce.”

  I heard Greg gasp, even as Darren added, “It was a mutual decision on our part, and one that we thought about for a long time before we made it.”

  I didn’t miss the ‘I told you so’ look Jana shot at her brother. Her hands were shaking as she gripped them together in her lap.

  “I don’t believe it,” Greg said.

  Jana’s voice rode over his. “But, why?”

  I decided to plunge in. “There’s never one single reason for the breakup of a marriage, Jana. It’s something that builds over the years until it’s the only course of action left.”

  “Do you mean you’ve known for years that you were going to split up, and you waited until now to tell us?” she asked, clearly hurt by the deception.

  Actually, that was exactly the case. Darren and I made the decision to divorce long ago. We only waited until Greg finished college and struck out on his own. We thought about telling them at Christmas, not sure when Greg would be back in the city, but when he announced that he would be back in February, we made the decision to wait until then and let the kids have one more Christmas with their family intact. We didn’t want the memory of our splitting up to color their Christmases to come. February carried no family holidays, no birthdays, no occasions of any significance. Let February be tainted with the memory. It was always pretty much the pits anyway.

  Seeing I wasn’t going to answer, Jana said, “You still haven’t said why.” She looked at me. “Greg had this crazy idea that you’re having an affair—“

  Greg’s face, white moments before, was now blood red. “Is it crazy?” he blurted out. “You didn’t see the flowers and the note.”

  “I did, “Darren said. “The flowers were from a man who works with her bosses. He took her to breakfast where she notarized some documents for him.”

  “Sure,” Greg said with a sneer. “Our secretaries always get dozens of roses when they notarize papers.”

  “Whether or not they do is insignificant,” Darren said, his voice tight. “Your mother did. End of story.”

  I could see the warring emotions on Greg’s face. “It’s true, honey,” I said. “I met Mr. Klee the day before at my office. He had some papers—“

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to your son,” Darren said.

  I felt I did, but I wasn’t going to argue with Darren. Not right now, anyway. It could only make the situation worse—if that was possible.

  “If that’s not it, then what is it?” Jana looked from me to her father.

  “The grounds are irreconcilable differences,” Darren answered for us both.

  “But what does that mean?”

  Darren gripped his hands together. His, I noticed, were rock steady—like the man. “It means that we have some things that we can’t work out between us, honey. We’ve tried. Believe me, this isn’t a decision we’ve made lightly.”

  “What kind of things.”

  “Things that are better left between your mother and me.”

  “We have a right to know,” Greg interjected.

  Darren turned to him. “No, son, you don’t.”

  “We do, daddy,” Jana said, once again using the name she had put away with puberty. Tears were close to the surface. “It affects our whole lives.”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Darren said, putting his hand on Jana’s arm, “but you really don’t. It’s our private business, and we have a right to our privacy.”

  I could see stalemate number one in the making. “What you two really need to know,” I said before any of them could speak, “is that your father and I both love you very much, and that we’ll be there for you like we’ve always been. Only—separately.”

  “Don’t you love each other anymore?” Jana asked, her lips quivering.

  “Of course they do,” Greg shot out. “You saw them.”

  “Yes, we do,” I told her, with a glance at Greg. “We love each other very much, but not in the—not in that way—not as a husband and wife do—should.” I was floundering now.

  “So this is all about sex?” Greg asked, incredulous.

  I felt Darren tense beside me. “It’s about a lot of things,” he said stiffly, “all of which add up to our decision to file for divorce.”

  “They have counselors you can go to if it’s about sex,” Jana offered in a tentative voice.

  “Jana—“

  “They do, dad,” Jana said, a glimmer of hope appearing on her miserable face. “And marriage counselors. It really helps. Ann and Steve—“

  “Jana.” The word silenced her. Darren cleared his throat. “Kids,” he said, looking from one of them to the other, “we know all about that. Counseling isn’t going to make things work for your mother and me. There’s no quick fix, no pill to take, no operation. We have made our decision and have filed for divorce. It’s a done deal. We didn’t invite you here tonight to ask your permission. We wanted you to know that we both still love you as much as we always have. Nothing will change—“

  “Nothing will change?” Greg burst out, starting over toward us. “What kind of bullshit is that? Nothing will change? Everything will change. Everything has changed.” He was towering over us now, yelling.

  Darren stood and took a step forward. Greg held his position for a moment. Then he took a reluctant step back. I saw it all in my mind. Greg taking a swing at his father. Blood being spilled. The way Jana’s face paled, I think she expected the same. We had both underestimated her father.

  “What I was saying,” he began softly, “was that nothing will change the way we feel about you. Or you, Jana,” he said, still holding Greg’s eyes with the sheer force of his will. “Everything else will change. It will have to. Your mother will make her own life, and so will I. We still have a tremendous amount of affection and respect for one another, but we won’t be husband and wife anymore. And let me say again, that this has nothing to do with any flowers or note your mother received. This has been coming for a long time, and it’s something w
e both need. The purpose of it is not to hurt you, but to stop hurting ourselves.” His voice rose slightly, “If you can’t understand that—if you can’t respect that, and would rather have us remain together and be unhappy so that you can retain your illusion—”

  I don’t know where that would have ended if the doorbell hadn’t rung. Nowhere good. Darren was a slow man to anger, but he was angry now, and Greg looked like he was ready to explode.

  If my first feeling was relief, my second was panic. What if it was more flowers, or the flower man himself? I wasn’t oblivious to the way he looked at me; my son, who was grasping desperately for any reason for the divorce, certainly wouldn’t be either.

  They were all looking at me as I stood frozen. I must have had guilt all over my face, because Greg said, “Jesus.” and started for the door.

  I came out of my stupor enough to grab his arm. “I’ll get it,” I said, and hurried out of the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  So certain was I that disaster would be standing on the other side of the door that it took me a moment for the reality in front of me to register. Greg’s oh-so-hot girlfriend. “Diane.”

  The look on her face told me she knew this wasn’t a normal family gathering I was having.

  “Uh—I’m really sorry to—well—barge in, Mrs. Graham. Greg told me he was—that I should pick him up here later. I mean, now. So I thought…” Her voice trailed off, and she stared at her feet.

  I was absurdly relieved to see her. Surely Darren and Greg wouldn’t kill each other with Diane there as a witness. “Greg. Yes. He’s here. Uh—do you want to come in?”

  “I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything.” Her gaze flew up to mine, then back to her feet. “I mean….”

  So much for privacy, I thought grimly.

  Greg walked up behind me. “Diane?”

  I saw her cheeks turn scarlet. She raised her eyes. “Hi, Greg.”

  I don’t know about Greg, but I saw a lot in that look.

  “Do you want to come in?” I repeated.

  She tore her eyes away from Greg with effort. “I really didn’t want to interrupt your—evening.”

  I realized Darren and Jana had followed Greg into the hall. Since I couldn’t budge Diane, I thought for one hysterical moment of suggesting we bring some chairs into the foyer.

  “We’re through,” Greg said, pronouncing sentence, I thought, “unless either of you had something more to say,” he said, looking at Darren, then at me.

  I saw anger on the surface of that look, a terrible anger, but beneath it, I saw tremendous pain. It’s a curse. Parents, mothers in particular, develop a fine skill in knowing what their children are feeling and thinking, gleaning a wealth of information from little clues, invisible to anyone else. It’s essential in the early years, before language steps in to aid in communication. The problem is turning it off once they grow up. I had never learned how, and Greg’s pain cut through me.

  “No,” Darren said as I shook my head.

  A muscle in Greg’s jaw twitched. “Fine.” He brushed by me, taking Diane’s hand as he passed her. “Let’s get out of here,” I heard him mutter.

  Darren’s voice cut through the night as he started after him. “Greg.”

  I put a hand on Darren’s arm. “Let him go.” I felt relieved that we’d made it through the evening without bloodshed.

  Darren hesitated for a moment as we watched Greg climb into Diane’s car. Thank God she was driving. Finally, he gave in. He put his arm around my shoulders and we headed back inside. At the front door, we stopped as a unit, realizing Jana was standing in the hall watching us. Darren’s arm fell away.

  “Come on, sweetie,” I said, putting my arm around Jana’s waist and leading her back into the living room.

  She allowed herself to be led, a measure of how upset she was. She sat down on the couch and I sat close to her. Darren took the chair where she’d been sitting.

  Jana took several deep breaths and made a number of tries before she could speak. “I don’t understand anything,” she said finally, her voice barely audible. “I can tell you love each other. I mean, I can see it with my own eyes.”

  “We never denied that we loved each other, Jana,” I reminded her.

  “But—but you’re not angry at each other. Neither of you is blaming the other for anything. It’s all so—so civilized.” Her face contorted. “It makes me sick. There’s no reason. No reason,” she repeated, more to herself, I think, than to us.

  Darren came and sat down on her other side. “There are reasons, Jana. Your mom and I can’t make a marriage of it anymore.” When she didn’t speak, he asked, “Do you think it would be better if we hated each other?”

  “No.” Then, “Not…better,” she said. “Maybe more understandable. This doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean, you’re turning your backs on everything you taught me to value. Love and marriage. Home. Family.”

  “We’re still a family,” Darren said, a little sharply, I thought.

  Jana looked at each of us. “You always seemed so perfect, so happy together, and now it’s over. It makes me wonder about my own marriage.”

  Panic clutched at my throat. I grabbed Jana’s hands. “This isn’t about your marriage, Jana. You and Bob have a wonderful marriage.”

  “Do we?” She looked at me through a haze of pain. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what to think about anything anymore. I thought you and Daddy had a wonderful marriage, too, and look what happened to you. I…don’t know.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I glanced at Darren. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Jana disengaged her hands and stood. “I’m going home now. I have a really bad headache.” She picked up her purse and started to the door.

  “Do you want me to drive you?” Darren asked.

  She shook her head without turning around.

  “Call me if you want to talk,” I said to her retreating back.

  “You can get me on my cell phone any time,” Darren called after her.

  Darren and I sat looking at each other as we listened to her car engine fade into the distance. His face reflected the strain of the last few hours—and probably of the months to come. I could see dips and creases of weariness I’d never seen before. Sorrow does that to you. I had noticed it in myself lately. We said nothing because there was nothing left to say. We did all our talking years ago. Now all we could do was to watch the results of our decisions tear our children to pieces.

  He sat with every appearance of being at ease. If I didn’t know him as well as I knew my own pulse, I wouldn’t have guessed he was a tightly wound spring. I could see it in the set of his mouth, the tightness around his eyes. “I think Greg is blaming you,” he said finally, “because of that asshole Klee.”

  I poured us each a cup of coffee. “He’s trying to find a reason,” I told him, handing him the cup. “He’ll come around—”

  “He’d better come around. He will come around, or….” His voice trailed off. There was no threat that he could back up with action.

  I shook my head. “He wants to be angry. Let him.”

  “Well, he’s blaming the wrong goddamn person.”

  “No one is to blame here, Darren. You know that.”

  “Oh, hell, Lou—”

  “I want you to let it go for now, Darren. Please. For me. Let Greg think what he wants to think. The anger he’s feeling right now is healthier than what Jana’s going through.” I bit my bottom lip. “It will kill me if this messes up her marriage.”

  “If I see the first sign of that, I’m telling her the whole truth. Don’t even think about arguing with me.”

  I didn’t. I was beyond arguing for the moment.

  He stood, rolled his neck, and then looked at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Tired, but okay.”

  “Let me know if you hear from the kids, will you?”

  “I think you might be more likely to hear from them than me. Why don�
��t you let me know?”

  “Lou…” He rubbed the back of his neck. In the old days I would have made him stay while I rubbed his shoulders. Tonight definitely wasn’t the old days, and he knew it, too. “Call if you need me.”

  I nodded again.

  He finished his tepid coffee in one gulp and, with one glance back at me, walked out the door.

  I heard the lock click as he pulled the front door closed. I curled my legs under me and grabbed a pillow, hugging it to me because there was nothing else to hug, and thought about the man who had just walked out the door.

  No matter how often and loudly I declared otherwise to the kids and even to him, Darren had ruined our lives; and yet there was no way I could blame him. That isn’t to say I hadn’t blamed him furiously when we first came to be in this sorry state. I had blamed him plenty then, and not only Darren. Life, I felt, had cheated and betrayed me. For almost a year, getting through each day had been like scaling a polished granite wall. I couldn’t quite get a handhold. The universe tipped and teetered, and I waited for it to crash completely. When it didn’t, I began to realize I had to adjust everything in my life to keep going—my perceptions about what was right and wrong, good and bad, my dreams of the future.

  That had been the hardest, letting go of the dreams that had been a part of me since Darren and I first raced together down our neighborhood street on tricycles. Darren’s parents had lived next door to mine since before I was born. I was only two years younger than Darren, and so we played together as toddlers, then as kids. Ours was an insular relationship. Oh, we let other kids join our games as the years passed, but it was always Lou and Darren, Darren and Lou. Then it wasn’t, and our lives were in ashes.

  The struggle to care enough to build new dreams had taken the heat out of my anger. Time, the struggle, and the realization that I wasn’t the only one hurting. Still, it had taken a long time to get to where I was today. “Wherever the hell that is,” I muttered aloud as I got off the couch and started turning off lights before heading up to bed.

  * * * * *

  Saturday dawned gray and drizzly. I know how it dawned because I was still awake, staring out my bedroom window as night lightened almost imperceptibly into day. No birds sang. No cars passed by. The world dripped as I lay thinking about how my children were feeling, or would feel when they woke. I had no idea where Greg would awake. At his sister’s? At Diane’s, wherever that was these days? It hit me that I didn’t know whether she was still living two blocks over at her parents’ house or if she had a place of her own. I selfishly hoped it was the latter. I didn’t know the Jarvis’ well, but I didn’t relish them being intimately involved in the debacle that was my divorce.