Hope Street: Hope StreetThe Marriage Bed

by Judith Arnold

  He lifted the phone, punched in his home number and waited. Just a drink with a friend, he repeated to himself as he waited for Ellie to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ellie—it’s me. Listen, I’m not coming straight home.” A drink with a friend. “Some people involved in the negotiations today are getting together for a drink, and…” Some people? Just two people. Why was he lying?

  He wasn’t lying. “Some” could be two. He and Moira were “some people involved in the negotiations.”

  “No problem,” Ellie said. “I didn’t fix anything for dinner. I guess I shot my load yesterday.”

  She’d fixed a delicious meal yesterday, he recalled. They’d eaten, they’d chatted, they’d enjoyed their meal—and then she’d all but slapped him and sent him away. He’d had to drive sixty miles to burn off his rage.

  A bolt of fresh anger shot through him, a reminder of everything that was wrong at home. “I don’t know when we’ll be done,” he told her. “Don’t wait up.”

  Twenty minutes later, after parking the Z4 in the Westin’s underground garage, Curt rode the elevator upstairs to the lobby and asked for directions to Bar 10. He found Moira waiting for him there, seated comfortably in a pink armchair at a small, round table, still dressed in her chic suit but looking fresh. He himself felt wilted, and as soon as he joined her he loosened his tie. A waitress appeared instantly to take their orders. Moira asked for a cosmopolitan, Curt a Scotch on the rocks. Once the waitress was gone, Moira leaned back in her chair, looking a little like a queen on her throne, and smiled. “Now,” she demanded, “tell me everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “I’ve been gone five years. Catch me up. Fill me in. Spare no details.”

  Grinning, he relaxed in his own chair and launched into a description of his life over the past few years, considerately sparing her most of the details. He told her about the projects he’d been involved with at work, about the growing size and reach of the firm and the increase in the number of partners. He filled her in on all the gossip: Yes, John Delgado still drank raw eggs for breakfast and never got salmonella. Yes, Ruth Steinberg still played matchmaker and had not a single marriage to show for her efforts. Claude Forrest retired last year and moved to an island off the coast of Maine. Lindy Brinson still dressed like a tart, but she had surpassed Gretchen the mastiff and could now claim the title of Best Divorce Attorney in Boston. Partner bonuses were obscenely high this past year. The firm was working out the economics of expanding its Washington office.

  He told her about his new car. He told her that Katie had majored in film-and-television production, and that Jessie was concentrating in political science with the possibility of becoming a lawyer like her father. And he told her about Peter, about how suddenly he became sick, how suddenly he was gone.

  Moira sighed and shook her head. “You know me, Curt. Never married, no kids. People think it’s because I’m tough, but it’s really the opposite. I’m too weak. I could never survive that kind of loss. I know I couldn’t. So I’ve avoided it by not letting myself get too attached.”

  “You never know what you can survive until you face it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought I could survive losing Peter. Frankly, I don’t know how I survived it. But here I am.”

  “How is your wife doing?” Moira asked. “Emily, was it?”

  “Ellie. And she’s not doing well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is she ill?”

  Last night, she’d claimed she was—as ill as someone with cancer or multiple sclerosis. “She’s depressed,” he explained. “She still hasn’t figured out how to get past Peter’s death.”

  “She’s his mother,” Moira pointed out. “It’s different for mothers than for fathers.”

  “That’s a sexist remark,” Curt chided.

  Moira laughed. “Well, you know me. I’m allowed to be sexist. I’ve got bigger balls than most of the men in this room.” She reached for her drink and he noticed her nails, short but polished a bright crimson, the same color as her lipstick. She might have big balls and a sexist attitude, but she exuded a distinct femininity. Her suit flattered her curves. Her shoes had pointy toes and high heels.

  Even though she’d avoided marriage and children, she clearly felt empathy for Ellie. “Your wife carried that boy inside her body. His death must be like having a chunk of her flesh cut out of her. A chunk of her soul, too.”

  “I ache for her, Moira—I do. But…” He silenced himself with a sip of Scotch. He didn’t want to sound self-pitying.

  “But what?”

  “It’s like I’ve lost her along with Peter. She’s just not there for me. I need a wife, and I haven’t got one anymore.”

  Moira’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “She left you?”

  “No. She goes to work, she comes home, she has dinner with me, she sleeps next to me. But she’s not there.” He spared Moira those details, too. Out of loyalty to Ellie, out of his desperate need to believe his marriage wasn’t really as dead as his son, he refused to spell out in what ways Ellie wasn’t there.

  “That must be hard on you.”

  Curt snorted at the understatement.

  Moira tapped one red fingernail against the surface of her glass. “Have you gone for marriage counseling?”

  He was surprised that she’d give him marital advice. He’d been trying not to let the conversation grow too intimate, but if Moira wasn’t afraid to discuss Curt’s problems, why not?

  She’d offered her shoulder. He should make use of it.

  “Ellie was in therapy for a while. Her therapist told her she had to heal at her own pace. I don’t think she can begin to fathom what her pace is doing to me. God, that makes me sound so self-centered,” he muttered, shaking his head and taking another sip of Scotch. “She’s in pain. I understand that. I want to help. But…Christ, Moira, I keep fearing she’ll drag me down into the abyss with her.”

  “You can’t let that happen,” Moira said gently. “You’ve got to help yourself before you can help her. Like on airplanes, you know how they say you should put on your own oxygen mask before you assist others?”

  “You think an oxygen mask would help?”

  “I think you need something, Curt. Maybe Ellie can’t give it to you, but your needs are important, too.”

  He eyed her speculatively. Had she guessed that his sex life was moribund, that Ellie had denied him—denied them both—that most basic human act, that simple, loving grace? Did Moira believe his need for Ellie was as important as whatever the hell it was Ellie needed?

  “You were always one of the good guys,” Moira recalled. “So faithful. So obviously in love with your wife.” She smiled nostalgically. “I don’t know if it’s still true, but when I was at the firm, half the women working there had crushes on you.”

  “What?” He laughed.

  “You didn’t have a clue, right? We all used to talk about you in the ladies’ room. We ogled you at meetings and parties. And you never even noticed. You only had eyes for your wife.”

  “You ogled me? Really?” He chuckled at the thought of tarty Lindy Brinson leering at him, or Sue Pritchard considering him as a potential husband number four, or Ruth Steinberg scheming to match him up with one of the firm’s women. “I’m flattered. If only I’d known.”

  “If you’d known, you wouldn’t have done a damn thing about it.”

  He nodded and laughed again. “You’re right.”

  She leveled her gaze at him. She was smiling, but it was an enigmatic smile, a questioning smile. “What do you want, Curt? Right now. What would it take to make you feel whole?”

  He sensed a change in atmosphere, unspoken ideas churning just beneath the surface. “My son?”

  “Besides that.”

  God. She knew. She knew what was wrong in his marriage, in his life. She knew what he needed, what it would take to make him feel whole—and unlike Ellie, she didn’t believe his needs made him a despicable person.


  “You can figure out what it would take,” he said, his voice low and broken. He ought to be ashamed of himself for thinking what he was thinking, for having a woman he respected witness his desperation.

  Moira’s gaze was sharp and direct. “I’m here,” she said, reaching across the table and covering his hand with hers. “I’ll be gone tomorrow, but I’m here now.”

  “Moira. I can’t ask—”

  “You didn’t ask.” She gave his hand a light squeeze. Her fingers were strong but soft. It had been so long since a woman had touched him with affection. Since a woman had touched him at all. “I hate seeing you like this, Curt. Let me be your friend.”

  He told himself how wrong this was.

  Then he told himself it wasn’t. He couldn’t exist in Ellie’s no-man’s-land anymore, that strange, dark place where she was neither fully alive nor as dead as Peter. He’d stayed there with her as long as he could, done everything in his power to lure her out into the light. He’d begged her to rediscover what it meant to be alive. Nothing he’d tried had worked.

  But he was alive. That wasn’t a sin. He had no reason to be ashamed. All he wanted was to live.

  And Moira—his friend—was giving him that chance.

  No more words were necessary. He tossed a twenty-dollar bill onto the table, and he and Moira left the bar.

  ELLIE WASN’T SURE WHY he had to go to California. The negotiations on that deal he was handling for the MIT professor had been all but completed in Boston a week ago. Just a few details still had to be ironed out, he’d told her. Couldn’t details be ironed out long-distance? Wasn’t that what phones and faxes and overnight-delivery services existed for?

  Curt had insisted that the ironing would go more efficiently if he flew out to California, and so he went. He’d left on Wednesday and would be back in time for dinner Sunday. Four days.

  Ellie had grown inured to the emptiness of her house during the day. But nighttime was different. She and Curt had rarely spent a night apart before Peter’s death, and never since then. True, they had huge problems looming between them, but as long as they shared a bed, Ellie was convinced that those problems would eventually work themselves out. Curt had been so patient, and she was trying, really trying, to get back to where she’d been.

  Even though they hadn’t made love since the day Peter had fallen ill, Ellie depended on Curt’s presence in bed. His warmth soothed her. His respiration lulled her. His weight balanced the mattress. With him off in California, the bed seemed as vast as the Sahara, and just as lifeless.

  “I’m a big girl,” she told herself. “I can handle his absence.”

  And to her amazement, she discovered that she could.

  She returned home from work Thursday, entered the silent house and decided to fix herself a real dinner. She pulled a pork chop from the freezer—God knew how long it had been there; it was as hard as a rock—and defrosted it in the microwave. She measured rice and water into a pot and set it on the stove to steam. While the pork chop broiled, the phone rang.

  Curt had become the official phone answerer after Peter’s death. For so long, Ellie was afraid to speak to callers; she feared she’d burst into tears if someone dared to ask how she was. So Curt had gotten into the habit of answering the phone when it rang, and all these months later, they were still in that routine.

  The sudden, shrill chime of the phone jolted her now, and it took her a moment to remember that Curt wasn’t around to answer it. She squared her shoulders, marched across the kitchen to the wall phone and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ellie, it’s me.”

  Curt’s voice sounded metallic through a crinkle of static. He was probably phoning her on his cell rather than the hotel phone. The lousy connection notwithstanding, she was glad he’d called. “Hi. How are things going?”

  “Pretty well. We’ve worked out nearly everything. Just a few more tweaks and we’ll be there.” He fell quiet for a moment, then said, “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” She realized he might take that as an automatic response. “Really, Curt. I’m good. I’m just fixing myself some dinner.”

  “Great.” Another pause. “I had a free minute and thought I should check up on you.”

  “You don’t have to check up on me,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound testy. “I’m okay.”

  “All right.” Pause. “I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to call tomorrow. It’s just…we’re on kind of an odd schedule.”

  “They’ve got your time booked up. I understand. If you can squeeze in a call, that would be nice, but if you can’t, I’ll assume you were too busy.”

  “Right.” He sighed. “I’ve got to go, Ellie. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

  “I hope the rest of the negotiations go well. I’ll talk to you if you have a free minute. If not, have a safe flight home.”

  They said goodbye and she hung up. He must have been pressed for time, calling her from wherever the negotiations were taking place. California was three hours behind Massachusetts, so he’d phoned her in the middle of his afternoon, which meant he’d probably still been at work. He’d sounded brusque and cool, the way he talked when people were nearby and could eavesdrop on his end of the conversation. She would have liked to ask him how his flight out had been, and whether he would have a chance to travel around San Francisco. She’d never been there, but she’d heard it was a spectacular city.

  He’d get to tour the area on Saturday, she acknowledged. Surely the negotiations would be done by tomorrow evening, and then he’d have a day to play. When he’d scheduled his flight, he’d told her he was giving himself that extra day so he could visit the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf.

  She reviewed their conversation in her mind and sighed. Even if he’d been at some law firm, even if business people were within earshot, he could have told her he loved her, couldn’t he? He could have told whoever was around that he was checking in with his wife. They would have understood if he’d said something affectionate and personal to her.

  Then again, things had been awfully chilly between them at home ever since that night, a little over a week ago, when she’d rebuffed him. Maybe sounding chilly and distant on the phone was his way of letting her know he was still pissed at her.

  The silence in the house gave her too much freedom to fret over whether his terseness reflected his professional mind-set or his annoyance with her. She went to the den and put a CD on the stereo—not Peter’s rowdy hip-hop music, but Bonnie Raitt. Curt had been such a big fan of Raitt’s after he’d seen her perform in Harvard Square during his first year in law school, and he’d turned Ellie into a Raitt fan, too.

  Some of the songs were bluesy, but some were upbeat and confident. Ellie poured herself a glass of wine and lingered over her meal, tasting every mouthful, inhaling the wine’s bouquet before she sipped. Once she was done and the dishes had been put away, she realized she was feeling a little less morose about Curt’s absence.

  Friday went better than Thursday. She felt stronger, somehow, more awake and aware. Instead of contemplating the hush that enveloped the house when she got home, she piled a stack of CDs onto the stereo—the Doobie Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Sly and the Family Stone, music that would make a normal person want to dance.

  Ellie was far from normal, but the music energized her. She turned up the volume so it blasted through the house. Then she climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and stepped into Peter’s room.

  “It’s time,” she said. Time to empty the bottle of Gatorade that still sat on his night table. Time to throw out the bag of Goldfish crackers on his desk—not the same bag that had been there when he died; since that day, Ellie had consumed countless bags of Goldfish while sitting at his desk and trying to channel his spirit. “It’s time,” she told herself as she crumpled that Goldfish package and tossed it into a trash bag.

  Time to strip the sheets off Peter’s bed and launder them. Time to reshelve The Great Gatsby in th
e den bookcase. The earth-science textbook, she discovered with chagrin, belonged to the high school. She should have returned it to the school a year ago.

  She found more textbooks in his backpack and made a neat stack of them to take to the high school on Monday. She emptied the rest of his backpack, including a peanut-butter sandwich so stale it could have been used as a roofing slate, and tossed the battered, stained bag into the trash. She left his clothing alone—the girls might want some of his old flannel shirts or sweaters. His other belongings—knickknacks, toys he’d never quite outgrown, his comic books, his globe, the model of the Wright brothers biplane, which he’d constructed from a kit—all that could wait, as well. She intended to keep his numerous sports trophies. He’d been so proud of them. And the baseball signed by all his teammates after he’d pitched a no-hitter in Little League. And his beloved stuffed panda—Peter Panda, Peter had dubbed him, convinced that he and his panda ought to share the name. And his CDs, and the helicopter he’d constructed with his Lego set, and the kitsch lava lamp the girls had given him for Christmas when he was thirteen. It wasn’t yet time to deal with all those things.

  But the homework papers and old math tests crumpled and stuffed into assorted drawers of his desk—those could go. The smelly gym socks on the floor of his closet—into the trash. The pencil stubs. The scraps of paper with video-game codes scribbled onto them. The ball constructed of rubber bands. The mud-caked cleats. The toothbrush still propped into the stand in the bathroom.

  All of it, into the trash.

  By the time Ellie had tied the garbage bag and lugged it to the garage, the front of her sweater was damp with tears. But she felt good. So sad she shivered from the pain, but good, as well, as if a sore had been lanced and drained.

  She slept well that night, despite the strangeness of not having Curt in bed with her, and she awakened feeling even more energized. When she peered into Peter’s bedroom, it didn’t look much changed, but it smelled of freshly washed linens instead of stale dust and muddy cleats, and a bright October sun spilled light through the window.