by Kim Wright
Next I drive to the apartments behind the coffee shop where I meet Kelly. I know that even a one-bedroom here will cost me twelve hundred a month because I have looked up these units several times in the Apartment Finder magazine. But this complex is in Tory’s school district, on the side of town where I feel comfortable, and when I step inside the model, I can see at once that the apartments are okay. Not great, not like home, but okay. The girl behind the table tells me March is a slow month. She might be willing to waive the security deposit if I sign a twelve-month lease. She hands me a packet of floor plans and she says I can even choose my own carpet color if that’s what’s holding me back. She doesn’t seem to notice that I don’t speak.
Garcia finally makes it home about three. I pick her up and feel her small heart galloping in her chest. The carpool mom drops Tory off just a few minutes later. When Tory finds out I have a sore throat she is very grown-up about it. She does her homework without prompting and calls the number on the refrigerator magnet to order a pizza for dinner. She doesn’t ask about Pascal and I wonder what, if anything, Phil has told her and how he explained where I’d been that morning. It may take her days to even notice he is gone. Pascal was a wild cat, prone to sudden leaps and fits of scratching, and I think Tory has always been a little afraid of him. I have never seen her pet him and it occurs to me that Pascal was one of those creatures who is so difficult to love that I—perhaps along with his sister—will be his only mourner. When the pizza man comes Tory pays him with the twenty I have left on the counter and sets the box on the table.
I lie on the couch in my underwear and watch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Elizabeth Taylor surprises me every time with how good she is, how her frustration comes straight out of the screen at you, how her desperation rises right through the glass. Unhappy women have always scared me. When I see a woman who is openly distraught I usually back away from her so fast that I knock over cups and stumble against the chair, and I think that perhaps that is why I came to this neighborhood and chose this church, why I elected to live in a place where the women hide their pain so well. But today something is different. Elizabeth does not disturb me, she reassures me. Today, for the first time in all the many times I have seen this movie, I am relieved that Maggie decides to stay with Brick. The universe requires certain sacrifices, a certain kind of math. Ten women must stay for every one who leaves, something like that, and surely the sacrifice of Elizabeth Taylor counts more than that of a normal woman. She is so beautiful that she is like some sort of angel, and if anyone is qualified to take on the suffering of all womankind, it’s very likely her.
I look up to see Phil standing in the kitchen. I don’t know how long he has been watching me, but he looks worried.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asks.
I put my hand to my throat and shake my head to show him I can’t speak. Stupid me, stupid hopeful me, stupid to the end because there is a part of me that thinks, even now, he has come home to talk about something important. Maybe he is going to tell me he’s sorry for not coming to the vet with me or ask what happened to the cat.
“You should have called me,” he says. “I had pizza for lunch.” Then he gazes at the screen, watches Elizabeth climb up the dark stairs to her husband’s bedroom, trying one more time, against all odds, to make her marriage work.
“She sure was pretty, wasn’t she?” he says. “Before she got fat.”
Marriage is full of so many small deaths that I’m not sure why one matters more than another. I open my mouth and tell him I want a divorce.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The cat died and now she wants a divorce,” says Phil. “She thinks everything’s my fault.”
Jeff frowns. “You blame him for the cat dying?”
“I wanted him to go with me to the vet. I was driving through rush hour, very upset, and he should have come with me.”
“You didn’t have to rip out of there right that moment. The cat was already dead.”
“He wasn’t dead, he was dying.”
Phil looks at Jeff. “It was a gut cut. He had to be gone before she was out of the neighborhood.”
“He was still moving until I got all the way to Alexander.”
Jeff jumps to his feet. He does this often. Like many small men, he is quick and darting, and when he first came to the church he used to scare everyone by suddenly leaping out from behind the pulpit and walking up and down the aisle during his sermon. And it startled me and Phil in therapy too, the first time Jeff bounced up and started to pace, but now we’re used to it. “Okay,” says Jeff, “we could sit here all day debating exactly when the cat died. I think the point is Elyse doesn’t feel she was supported at a time when she needed your help.”
“It was six in the morning, for God’s sake. Tory was still in bed asleep and I had three surgicals scheduled before noon. What was I supposed to do, call my patients and say, ‘I’m sorry you fasted last night to get ready for your procedure but I have to stay home today and drive around town with my wife and a dead cat?’ ”
Jeff tries not to smile.
“I’ve done all I can do,” says Phil. “I’ve changed all I can change. I’ve always been the one who tries to fix everything and I’m sick of it. I park out in the street so she can turn the garage into a studio and all she does is sit there breaking pots with a hammer. She disappears and flies to wherever she flies and my mother comes and her mother comes and we all try to pretend like this is normal and okay because everybody knows that you do whatever it takes to keep Elyse calm. It’s like we’re drowning. She pulls me down and I pull her down…”
“I understand you’re frustrated—”
“What’s wrong with her? Besides the cat, I mean. What’s really wrong with her? Most women would be happy if they had what she had.”
“It doesn’t matter how most women would react,” Jeff says. “You only have one wife.”
“Maybe she should leave. She’s always talking about leaving, so maybe fine, she needs to just pack up and go. Move into an apartment and pay for everything by herself for a change, see how much she likes that. Elyse needs to take a big bite out of a reality sandwich.”
“What does that mean?”
“He means he doesn’t think I can support myself.”
“Well, can you?”
Now Jeff looks mildly panicked. “I can see you’re both upset about the cat…”
“Tory gets out of school June first,” I say. “That would be a good time to separate.”
Jeff is blinking rapidly, looking from me to Phil. “You’re talking about a trial separation? Or a legal separation? Are you talking about divorce?”
I shrug. “We could sit here all day debating exactly when the cat died.”
“Hold on,” says Jeff. “Let’s not be dramatic. You two were doing so much better and now you’ve had a little setback. It happens all the time in counseling and there’s no need to make any big decisions…”
“It’s like we’re dying,” Phil says. “Go ahead and say it.”
“We’re dying,” I say.
“I can see that you’re both very upset,” Jeff says, “which is precisely why you shouldn’t—”
“Didn’t you hear her? She said we’re both dead.”
For a moment, for the first time in a long time, I feel a rush of sympathy for Phil. For just a moment we’re connected, even if all that connects us is our despair. How do things get to this point? All those years back, when he was coming in from work and I was handing him Tory and heading out, should I have turned and stayed? Kelly said something a few weeks ago when we were at her house making soup. She said something about how you let go of somebody and then you try to find your way back to them, how sometimes you make it and sometimes you don’t. That’s the way Kelly’s mind works. She believes that everything is in the hands of fate. It’s part of what makes her kind, it’s why it’s so easy for her to forgive, and it is probably why she will be married forever. It’s why her face is so unlined
, serene almost, and mine is scrunched up with wrinkles, my brow furrowed, my eyes darting from side to side. Always looking for a way out of the inevitable. Always looking for the exit.
It surprised me when Phil said we were pulling each other under, surprised me he was just willing to spit it out like that, but he’s right. We’ve both been drowning in this marriage, him as well as me, but now, maybe just because he is finally willing to admit it, it’s like his head has popped out of the water and suddenly I see my old friend. The man I trust, the man who always does exactly what he says he will do. The man who tries so hard to be fair that when we were young and poor and first married we bought four new tires and put two on my car and two on his. “It only seems right,” he told the Firestone dealer, “that we have an equal chance of blowing out.” Phil is blinking back tears. He is struggling, struggling like I am, but he is still there. I am not delusional. I know that this moment will not last long. Phil cares too deeply about what other people think and there’s no doubt that Jeff will come up with a plan. The books behind his head are lined up like soldiers whose sole function is to keep me in this marriage. Jeff will read about some sort of pill I should take, some couples retreat in the mountains of Colorado, some new exercise, some new study, some reason why we should hang on for another year. Jeff is momentarily befuddled, but he will rally. He has staked his whole life on the belief that any marriage can be saved, and he will not let anyone, not even his best friend and the woman he wants to climb, dissuade him from this belief. We have frightened him, I can see that, but within hours or days or weeks Jeff will have thought of a new plan and Phil will be seduced into that plan. I stare at Phil as if I am trying to memorize his face. I have to. He will be back under the water any minute.
You let go of people. Sometimes you find your way back to them and sometimes you don’t. Who had Kelly been talking about? Not Mark. Possibly Daniel. She doesn’t talk about him, but yet, in another way, he’s all we’ve ever talked about. We had been making soup, we had been comparing blow jobs, and somehow we got off on this whole thing about letting people go. Was she talking about me and Phil or about me and Gerry? It’s funny how I can see her standing there, ladling white bean soup into a row of plastic containers, but I can’t remember exactly what prompted her little speech. Most likely she was talking about me and her, how many times we have lost and found each other. Kelly believes that she and I will end up together, living somewhere out west where the sky is wide and bright. She says we’ll go there when we’re old and this part with the men is over. Over? Does she mean when all the men are dead? But when I ask her that, she only shakes her head. She doesn’t like that word.
They’ll be finished before us. She’s pretty sure of that. Men usually do, you know, they usually finish before women.
Then that’s where we’ll have the final chapter, in the West, in the one direction where neither of us has ever followed anyone. It’s our fate. She is so sure of this that she has decided how we will arrange our furniture, the pieces I will bring from my life, the pieces she will bring from hers. She plans our house on nights when she cannot sleep. She has walked through the rooms in her mind and she knows exactly how it will be. She says I can have the bedroom with the morning light.
The three of us sit in silence for a moment. Phil has finally begun to cry. Jeff’s hands are shaking as he reaches for his appointment book, thumbs through a few pages, and then puts it back down. “Nobody’s dying,” he says. “Nobody’s dead. Whoever told you two that marriage was supposed to be easy?”
The others are seated when I arrive. It’s been nice all week so a couple of days ago—before Pascal died, before I went mute—the women made plans to have our Tuesday lunch at Café Edison where we can eat out on the patio beside the fake lake. They murmur pleasantries as I sit down and apologize for being late. When the hostess hands me the menu I half expect the special of the day to be a reality sandwich.
The women are talking. I don’t know about what. But it’s good that they’re talking because I am still rattled from the counseling session, the way Phil drove out fast from the church parking lot, how he turned onto the street without looking and how I couldn’t stop myself from yelling after him to be careful. How Jeff had followed us both outside and had stood watching as Phil peeled off. I’d had trouble getting my key into the ignition. I’d had trouble remembering exactly where Café Edison was.
So it’s good that they’re talking, and even if they’re faking this normalcy I’m still grateful for it. I sit down and look around. Spring is coming early. The air is wet and warm with the smell of bulbs regenerating. The sidewalks are bordered in yellow tulips, outlining the division between the stone and the brick so that when the well-heeled housewives back up, we do not dent our SUVs. There’s a Barnes & Noble in this shopping center, and a Ben & Jerry’s, a Smith & Hawken, and a Crate & Barrel. Near the fountain a group of boys from a neighborhood soccer team are spending their spring break selling candy, trying to raise money for an international camp this summer. I bet every one of those boys has a biblical name—they’re all Joshuas and Gabriels and Adams and Nathans. SEND US TO PERU, their sign says. WE’LL HAVE A BALL. I listen to the recorded sounds of Mozart, the drone of the water in the fountains beyond, the still fainter sounds of car engines and children. Women driving slowly, slowly, slowly over the speed bumps and in the seat behind them there are shopping bags tied at the top with curly multicolored ribbon. The bags hold tunics made from a kind of hemp that’s processed to feel just like silk, overalls for the kids, gourmet cheeses and exotic fruits, the novel that was reviewed in the paper last Sunday. This is a pretty world. This is the world the immigrants die trying to get into.
“I hear you’re getting some time off,” Belinda says.
“Yeah, Phil’s taking Tory to see his mom over spring break.”
“How’d you get out of that one?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m going crazy.”
Everyone laughs.
“But they’ll be back for Easter?” Nancy says. “You haven’t forgotten the cookout and yard sale on Saturday, have you?”
“Of course not. I’ve got a million things for the sale. It’s all bagged in my bedroom closet. You can come by and get it whenever you want.”
“When’s convenient?”
“Good grief, just come anytime, you know where the key is. I think there are like ten or twelve bags.” I can’t figure out what the hell Nancy is wearing. It’s some sort of gauzy caftan thing with flowing sleeves and a white hood that makes her look like a bride. A bride in a burka.
“Well, good, because we’ve got to have a new van for the Friendship Trays. The last time I took it out—”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something about the Friendship Trays,” I say. “Why do you take casseroles to divorced men and not to divorced women?”
Nancy turns to me, her face inscrutable. “So maybe it’s not going so well right now?” So maybe it’s not going so well. I guess Jeff told her that I used the D-word and everybody ran out of therapy screaming. Or hell, for all I know Phil called her. He’s probably got her on speed dial. Either way, the story beat me across town, that’s the only explanation for why everyone’s acting, now that I think of it, so abnormally normal, why there’s been such excessively lively chatter since the moment I arrived. I’ve sat in Jeff’s office and cried a hundred times, but now Phil has cried and that’s different. The tears of women are cheap, a cheap kind of currency like yen or rupees and it takes hundreds of them, even thousands, to buy a single cup of tea. But the tears of men… they’re worth everything. A single one can cancel out the most enormous kind of debt.
Kelly looks pained. “If he still cares enough to cry…”
“Exactly,” Nancy says. “That’s exactly my point.”
“It was one tear. He cried one goddamn tear.” The women all look away as if they might be struck blind in the face of such excessive feminine cruelty, as if blood might start flowing from my breasts i
nstead of milk.
The waiter brings our salads. As he sets them down, one in front of each woman, we murmur a thank-you. All except for Nancy. For all her surface politeness, Nancy often ends up giving waiters a hard time. Something is never quite right—the wine is too warm, the fish is too cold, she requested the dressing on the side. She detects a bit of raw onion and she specifically asked the server about it before she ordered. Raw onion interferes with her sensitive palate. She claims she can taste it for hours, that a single sliver can ruin her enjoyment of dinner that night.
I watch her lift her fork and pick through this salad that she is not particularly thankful for and I think, for the thousandth time, that Nancy should work. She is smart and ambitious and she has that boundless energy and heaven knows they probably need the money. She’s the kind of woman who could make a million a year selling real estate, she has that kind of blind drive. But she also has three children and a husband who’s a minister, so instead of making money she redecorates constantly and chews out servers when they bring her the wrong salad dressing.
“Have you talked to a lawyer?” Belinda asks.
I shake my head. The question shocks me. It seems to come out of nowhere. Maybe it shocks everyone else too. It’s hard to tell when we’re all wearing sunglasses.
“Whatever you do, don’t leave the house,” Belinda says.
“I have to. Phil’s not going anywhere.”
“Nobody’s saying that it’s over,” says Nancy.
“She still needs to talk to a lawyer,” says Belinda. “If he won’t get out of the house, at least make him go to the guest room.”
“Come on, Belinda,” I say. “It’s no secret what I’m up against. Dynamite wouldn’t blow Phil out of that house, so if anybody’s going anywhere it’s gotta be me. I’m the one who is going to be like goodbye patio, goodbye lake, goodbye ducks and BMWs and tulips and little boys with biblical names and American Express gold cards and goodbye Ben & Jerry’s.”
