His Wife Leaves Him

by Stephen Dixon

  Whenever he brought her flowers. So why didn’t he bring them to her more? He was so cheap at times. …Their wedding in her apartment. Forty, maybe forty-five people there. The rabbi said they had to start on time—they were waiting for some guests to arrive—because he had a funeral upstate to officiate at and it took an hour to drive there, “and to a funeral you don’t want to be late.” Gwen’s piano teacher played Bach on Gwen’s piano before the ceremony began. His brother was his best man. The rabbi said “No glass to smash? What kind of Jewish wedding is this? Okay, you’re man and wife.” The ring bearer, the son of the pianist, said just before Gwen and he kissed, “Why is Marty crying?” and started giggling. His mother said “Martin, I want to talk to you in private,” and took him off to the side. She handed him an envelope. “What is this, my bar mitzvah?” he said. “Thanks, but I’m not taking anything from you,” and she said “To help defray the cost of the honeymoon.” “We’ve defrayed it already. It’s just Connecticut, an hour and half away and for three days,” and he gave her back the envelope. “Truly, Mom, it’s enough for us that you’re here.” “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am for you both. And such gorgeous food and your bride is beautiful. But crying at your own wedding?” and he said “You know it wasn’t because I was sad.” “Of course it wasn’t. It shows how sensitive you are and how much she means to you. I’m only saying I never saw or heard of any groom doing it before, and I’ve been to plenty of weddings. I can just imagine how you’ll react when your first baby comes out and you’re in the room,” and he said “Gwen say something to you?” and she said “No, what? If you say you think she’s pregnant, that’s too much excitement for me in one day, so don’t tell me till it’s officially confirmed.” They’d made half the food the past two days and got the rest from Zabar’s. The wedding cake—a huge untiered Black Forest cake—was from Grossinger’s, the same bakery that made his bar mitzvah cake, shaped like a Holy Ark, so maybe that’s why he said what he did to his mother when she handed him the envelope. Gwen chose the beverages—champagne and cognac Winston Churchill favored and wine from the French region where she worked for a week harvesting grapes. Temperature was below zero by the time the wedding ended, so he drove his mother and several other people home on the West Side. When he got back to the apartment, there was an elderly couple who needed to be driven home across town. “We had no luck calling a private car service,” Gwen said. “And you know cabs never cruise the Drive, and it’s too cold and steep a walk to go to Broadway for one.” They cleaned up the apartment for about an hour and then went to bed. Gwen said “I’m too tired to make love,” when he started to. “But if you feel you have to fulfill some wedding night rite, and think you can, go ahead, but don’t expect a lot from me.” He tried and then said after a few minutes “We’ll wait till morning or after we get to the inn. I’m obviously too much of a flop now.” They were still so tired the next morning and a bit hungover that he called the inn to say they’d be a day late, “but not to worry: we’ll pay for the entire three days.” “Since it’s your honeymoon,” the innkeeper said, “and we’d like to think you’ll return here each year to celebrate your anniversary, we’ll waive the third day,” and he said “No, we want to pay. It’d only be fair. Maybe, in exchange, you could provide our cottage with a bottle of red wine and two wineglasses, but you don’t have to and I’m now embarrassed I asked. In fact, don’t.” Later he said to Gwen “What do you think? Should I call my mother and say I married a virgin? That’s what she said my father did with his mother the day after they got married.” The cottage had a Franklin stove and firewood and a comforter they knew would be too warm to sleep under, so he asked the innkeeper for two ordinary blankets. He thought, even though in the end he told the guy not to, there’d be a bottle of wine or champagne in the room, but there wasn’t. First thing they did after they unpacked was open the early pregnancy kit they brought with them and follow the directions. Then they took a drive, had lunch in town nearby, went to a small private modern art museum, but it was only open Friday through Sunday, bought a pair of heavy woolen socks for him because his feet were cold, came back and checked the results of the test. “Oh my goodness,” he said, hugging her, “you’re pregnant. Look at it: we’re gonna have a doughnut.”

  She liked thin slices of prosciutto wrapped around a thin slice of honeydew melon. He didn’t like the combination. “Melon and ham, and all that fat? Doesn’t do it for me.” If they had prosciutto but no honeydew melon, she’d say “I can use the cantaloupe we have. It’s not nearly as good with prosciutto as honeydew, but it’s still quite good if you slice it real thin.” If they had prosciutto but no honeydew or any other melon, she’d sometimes say “Know what I’d love with this?” and he’d say “I do, and if you want I’ll go to the market and pick up one. If they don’t have honeydew, then a cantaloupe, and if they don’t have that either, which I’d be very surprised at, then a ripe melon of some kind.” If they had honeydew at home but no prosciutto and she said she’d love to have some with melon—she never said it if they just had cantaloupe or some other kind of melon—he’d say “I’ll get some at the Italian market in Belvedere Square,” and if they were in Maine, “the gourmet market in Blue hill. If they don’t have it, then I’m willing to go all the way to Rooster Brothers in Ellsworth, who always carry it and sometimes two or three versions of it.” “Since I’m the only one here who’s going to have it,” she said, “you don’t have to go just for me,” and he said “But I want to and I could use the break.” And if the kids were home: “And I’ll take the kids with me, if they want, and get them a treat there too.” “If you do get prosciutto,” she reminded him a couple of times, “make sure you first ask for the Parma kind and sliced paper thin. It’s twice as expensive as the American prosciutto—to cut the cost you can even ask for a little less than a quarter of a pound—but it’s more than worth it.”

  He bumped into the daughter of Gwen’s Ph.D. advisor on Broadway. It was near where her family owned a brownstone off Riverside Drive and about ten blocks south from where he and Gwen had their apartment. They got to talking—the usual stuff: “How’s Gwen?” “How’s the family?” “How’s your writing going?” “How’s school?”—and then she said she wanted to tell him something she never told him or Gwen but had her parents. “I once saw you and Gwen not far from here in front of the Cuban restaurant on a Hundred-ninth on this side of Broadway. That’s probably why I’m now recalling it. This took place soon after she brought you to our house for dinner and we first met you, so long before you were married and had kids. I didn’t reveal myself to you and Gwen on the street because, corny as this must sound, you only seemed to have eyes for each other, which I think is also why you didn’t notice me, and I didn’t want to spoil it by saying hello. I was young but I at least knew that. You were standing on the sidewalk, each holding one of those corrugated paper cups of what I guess you’d call Cuban ice. I’d got some of it there myself a few times. You fed Gwen a plastic spoonful of it out of your cup—you must have had different flavors—and she in turn gave you a spoonful from hers. You did this a few times, then kissed. Then you each finished your own ices and you dumped your cup and spoon into a trash can at the corner—I think you even took Gwen’s cup and spoon to dump with yours—and grabbed each other’s hand and walked up Broadway, I assume towards home. I’d never seen a couple so happy, is what I’m saying. I thought, watching you walk, when I fall in love with someone, that’s the way I want it to be.” “You know, we’ve had our bad moments too,” he said, “and once even stopped seeing each other for a while, maybe even around that time,” and she said “Of course; every couple goes through that, and sometimes more than once. But then, it was pure joy between you two, and what a wonderful thing to witness. It really seemed rare.” When he got back to the apartment he told Gwen who he’d met on the street and what she’d told him. She seemed to think about it a few seconds and then said “I don’t remember that day but I’m sure it happened. I
do remember the ices at the Cuban restaurant that they used to scoop into paper cups. We should go there and get some one of these days, or their bolitas, I think they call that fruit drink. I love them.”

  Another scene he thinks he already thought about tonight. Once? More? Twice? It was about a month after they started sleeping together. They were in bed, it was night, lights were off. Her back was to him. He moved his hand down the side of her body to her underpants, to get inside them and eventually to pull them off, and felt her two cats there, lying against her thigh. His hand jumped. The cats didn’t move. She laughed and said “I forgot to tell you. They occasionally like to sneak under the covers with me. Do you mind?” and he said “At the moment, yes. I’d rather not have them there.” “Gee,” she said, “I don’t know how to stop them, or if I want to. They’re used to my letting them stay there. It’s the cold.” “Please,” he said, “could you try? Or I could do it.” She picked up the cats one at a time and set them down on the floor. They jumped back up and crawled under the covers again. He leaned over her, pulled back the covers and pushed the cats off the bed. “Be nice,” she said. “Remember, they were here first and you’re taking their place and they might feel squeezed out.” “Do you think I did it too roughly? I’m sorry. —I’m sorry, cats,” he said. “Try to understand.” He pulled the covers back over her, waited about a minute, stroked her thighs and pulled her panties off and tried tugging her nightshirt over her head and she said “Let me keep it on. I’m also cold.”

  She’d come into the kitchen in their New York apartment, where he’d be working at the typewriter table by the window, and say “Like to take a break?” She’d come into the bedroom of the cottage in Maine they rented and say “Are you deeply involved in something that can’t be immediately interfered with or in the next few minutes?” She’d come halfway down the basement stairs of the first house they had in Baltimore, or just yell down the stairs from the top “Martin, think you can tear yourself away from your typewriter for a brief intermission?” She’d come into the narrow storage room where he worked in their Baltimore apartment for six years, or else knock on the door frame of it, and say “Care to take a short rest?” She’d come upstairs to the spare bedroom he’d turned into his study in the farmhouse in Maine they rented and say “Would you have strenuous objections to being interrupted awhile? I hope not, and it’d be a nice way to break up the day.” She’d meet him at the front door after he’d just come back from town in Maine and pretend to stifle a yawn with her hand and say “I’m a little tired. Are you, or do you need to get right to work?” She’d say to him after he’d come back from driving the kids to day camp in Maine or to school in Baltimore or after walking them to school in New York when he was on sabbatical for a year: “I know it’s early and you probably want to get to your writing, but would you like to take a pre-work break?” She’d come in to whatever room he was writing in, from behind put her hands over his eyes or arms around his chest or cheek against his cheek or chin on his shoulder and say “Don’t jump. It’s only me. Like to take a breather?” or “Recess time. Think you’d like to join me?” or “What do you say, my dearie? Kids are out of the house. Not expected back for hours. We’ve already put in a good morning’s work. Want to have some fun? I know I feel like it.” Of course he did this lots of times to her too. He thinks he never refused her, or at most said “Just let me finish what I’m doing—it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes—and then, if you’re in bed, I’ll meet you there.” While she said a number of times something like “If you’re suggesting what I think it is, don’t I wish I could. We’ll have other opportunities.”

  Here’s another one he doesn’t know why it keeps coming back. Strange thing is, the woman in it was Gwen’s best friend since college and he suddenly now can’t think of her name. He tries to come up with it again. Runs through the alphabet. Still can’t. Okay. But that evening. This woman and her husband, Vincent, and their two kids and his family had dinner in Chinatown at a restaurant Vincent recommended. Vincent and his wife had been there several times and he ordered for all of them, even the kids. “No,” Vincent said, “you have to eat what we eat—I promise you won’t regret it, and there’ll be plenty to choose from—although you don’t have to have squid.” As usual, Vincent ordered too much. After Gwen and he had thought all of them were done eating, Vincent said “I still want to get their very special scallops and mussels in garlic sauce. What we don’t devour, you’ll take home with you and have it for lunch tomorrow or for dinner in Baltimore tomorrow night, along with the rest of the doggy-bagged food I want you to have. But you can’t leave here without tasting the dish fresh out of the kitchen.” “No, no, we’re stuffed,” they said, and Vincent said “Yes, yes, there’s always room for a pinch of something more.” Gwen’s best friend said to them “Don’t argue; there’s no stopping him when it comes to good food and drink. And because he over-ordered and there’ll be plenty left over, you’re going home with it, so it’s your treat.” “Then we’ll buy the pastries, later,” Martin said, and Vincent said “Not on your life. When you’re in our part of the city, you’re our guests.” They lived on Broome Street in SoHo. They walked from Chinatown through Little Italy to get there. Vincent and his son went into an Italian bakery and came out with two large white boxes each tied with string and full of cookies and cannoli and other Italian pastries. Then they went to their loft and plates of dried and fresh fruit were put out and Vincent opened a bottle of fifty-year-old Armagnac and one of a rare Port and they ate and drank and the adults reminisced once more about how each couple had first met and how soon they knew they were in love—“With me, it was my first sight of Gwen,” and she said “I’ve heard that from him before and I don’t see how it could be possible. As for me, though I found him immediately attractive, falling in love took a while longer.” The kids made up a play for four lead roles and wrote it down and spent fifteen minutes rehearsing it in another room and then in costume performed it. The adults clapped and cheered and booed at the right moments and then finished the evening with Irish coffees, though he had his coffee straight because he was driving. And as the two families went downstairs in what used to be this former commercial building’s freight elevator, which Vincent let his son run, and then outside in front of the building where the car was parked, they kissed and hugged one another and said what a great evening it had been. “We always have good times together,” Gwen said. “I don’t think I’ve heard Martin laugh like that since the last time we were here. The doggy bags. Did we take them?” and their kids held them up. “Goodbye, goodbye,” their friends and their kids said to them, waving and blowing kisses as they drove off, and they all waved and blew kisses back. “Steer me to the West Side Highway once we get to Houston Street,” he said to Gwen. “I always get lost,” and she said “You don’t go to Houston Street. But I’ll get you there.” When they were on the highway and heading uptown to their apartment, he said “That was terrific tonight. What wonderful people, children and adults. I’m so glad you know them. And the kids get along so well together. —Did you have a good time, kids?” and one said “I did, Daddy,” and the other said “It was great. I had so much fun. We should do it again soon. Can’t we live in New York always?” “It would be nice. We could also see your grandparents more. But what can we do? We’re sort of stuck.” And to Gwen: “It’s probably dumb of me to ask, but you had a good time too, didn’t you?” and she said “It was delightful. I’m so glad we all like each other.” “I love your friends,” he said, and she said “And they love you.” “And they’d give the world for you, of course, and our darling children, which makes me happy in case anything happened to me,” and she said “Don’t think of it. You’re going to live forever, but I know what you mean.” He still can’t remember her best friend’s name. First time he thinks he forgot it. It’ll come. It’s not Natalie. It’s not Naomi. It’s not Ronnie. But it’s something close. This happens. Maybe more now than before. Don’t worry about it.
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  It was a few months after they first met. He was having two wisdom teeth extracted under gas at a specialist’s office on West 57th Street. “I just don’t want to hear the bones again, or whatever they are, crunch when the teeth are being pulled out.” She asked if he wanted her to come along with him. “Thanks, but I’ll be all right.” “You always say you’ll be all right,” and he said “Believe me, I’ll be fine, once the teeth are out.” She came anyway. He was in the recovery room when a dental assistant said “There’s someone here for you. Good thing, too, as we were worried how you’d get home.” “Why? I’m not driving. And I know who it is.” He was escorted out of the room. Gwen was sitting in the waiting room, reading a magazine. She said “Oh, my poor darling,” and was about to kiss him and he said “Don’t. That’s my bad side. Actually, both sides are bad, but that one’s beginning to hurt. It’s so nice of you to come here. Am I talking funny? I seem to sound it. And I now see I can use your help. You’re so considerate. So nice. So nice. We’ll get a cab to my building and then you can continue in it to yours.” “No, you’re coming home with me and staying the night. You’re a bit shaky and I want to make sure you’ll be okay.” As they were walking to the elevator, she holding his arm and saying “Lean on me if you need,” he said “This is real service. Did I ever tell you what Diana did when I was in the hospital after an operation on my leg?” “What she didn’t do, you mean. You were living with her in the Village then.” “East Tenth. I don’t mean to bad-mouth her, but she never came to visit me. I was there for two days. Memorial, so just a bus ride up First or Second. I didn’t have insurance then—I still don’t—and it was costing me plenty out of pocket, but they wouldn’t discharge me till I was able to walk out of the hospital—at least to the elevator on my floor—on my own. And she also didn’t come to the hospital to help me get home, and I could barely walk. I went in there with them thinking it was cancer—neurofibromatosis; one of the things my father had but didn’t die of. But after they cut me open and sent a piece of me to the pathologist, it turned out to be a Baker’s cyst, which all they needed to do was drain. To top it off, it was Diana’s former father-in-law I went to, whom she got to examine me gratis, and he diagnosed me and sent me to this surgeon. A double doctor screw-up. So what am I saying? I forgot.” “I think it was about my picking you up here. Diana. That I acted differently.” “That is what I’m saying. You’re everything I ever wanted. I’m so glad it took me this long.” “What a nice thing for you to say. I’ll remember it if we ever have an argument and you say about me what a mistake you made.”