* * *
I let only two people in on my plan. Lucy knew. And Lisa Schneider knew.
I called Dr Schneider the day after I made my decision to go. She’d already been contacted by Dr Bancroft, so she was expecting my call. Lisa – we were on a first-name basis onwards from our first session – was in her mid-fifties. A tall gangly woman who radiated quiet intelligence and decency. Though she had her clinical side, she was nonetheless always engaged in my story and the way I so wanted to change its depressing narrative. Her office was near the college. I began to see her once a week, every Wednesday at eight a.m., adjusting my work schedule to start at ten that morning in the hospital. As Dan was already at work by the time I drove off to Brunswick he never knew that I was now talking with a therapist about an exit strategy from our marriage – and about everything else that had been unsettling me for years.
‘Why do you think you are one of the underlying reasons for your husband’s emotional detachment?’
‘Because the entire marriage started under the shadow of loss. My loss of Eric. Dan knew how broken I was by his death.’
‘So Dan took on that part of you when he got involved with you. He understood instinctually that you did not have the same love for him that you had for Eric. Yet he wanted to be involved with you. Sounds like he made a decision to engage with your ambivalence towards him – an ambivalence that, as you’ve reported, was clearly there from the start.’
In a later session, when I described my ongoing lack of passion for my husband – and how I was going through the motions – Lisa said:
‘But didn’t you try to be passionate with him for years . . . despite the fact that you never really felt the love for Dan that you did for Eric?’
‘That still makes me guilty of being with someone for two decades whom I never should have been with, and wasting his time as well.’
‘So Dan never had the capacity to leave you, to register your diffidence towards him? To think, I can do better.’
‘I could have been a better wife.’
‘Did you ever reject him physically?’
‘No. Whenever he wanted sex I never pushed him away.’
‘Did you ever criticize him, make him feel small, insignificant?’
‘I was always trying to keep him buoyed, especially after he was fired.’
‘Did you ever, before a few weeks ago, sleep with another man during the course of your marriage?’
I shook my head.
‘Given what you’ve reported to me – his isolation, his emotional distance, his anger towards you – do you really blame yourself for having an affair?’
I lowered my head and felt my eyes go all moist.
‘I still love Richard.’
‘Because he showed you love?’
‘Because he was so right. And I lost him.’
‘“Lost him” makes it sound as though it was your fault he went back to his wife. Whereas the truth is, having agreed together to leave your respective spouses he got a case of profoundly cold feet. So why was that your fault?’
‘Because I feel it’s always my fault.’
They call it ‘the talking cure’. I don’t know if it cured anything, as every time I drove through Bath I had a stab of sadness that would then linger for hours. There would be frequent moments while having sex with Dan – it was never ‘making love’ – when I would remember Richard’s touch, his hardness, his absolute desire for me. There were times at the dinner table – especially on nights when Sally was at Brad’s and Dan and I were alone – when I would get to talking about something I’d read in that week’s New York Times Book Review, and Dan would try to show interest, and I would be reminded of the way Richard would be so engaged when it came to anything literary, and how animated the conversation always was between us.
Months passed. Winter edged into spring. I did my work. I spoke twice a week with Ben and saw him once a month – and helped him through a difficult patch when that amazing abstract painting he was working on was turned down for the big Maine Artists show that May; the reason given that he was the student artist selected last year, and they couldn’t bestow the honor on him again. Though Ben understood this logic the rejection still bothered him. There were a few weeks where we were talking daily, as his self-doubt had become more vocal again, and he wondered aloud on several occasions whether he was good enough to really make it in the ultra-competitive art world.
‘Of course you are,’ I said. ‘You know how your professors and the people at the Portland Museum of Art rate you.’
‘They still rejected the painting.’
‘It wasn’t a rejection – and you know the rationale behind their decision. It’s a fantastic piece of work. It will find a home somewhere.’
‘And you are the eternal optimist.’
‘I’m hardly that.’
‘But you seem to be in a better place than a couple of months ago. Are things improved with Dad?’
I chose my next words carefully:
‘Things are somewhat better with me.’
Because things were quietly progressing towards the big change I would institute shortly. I’d found a job – as a senior radiographic technician at the Maine Medical Center down in Portland. Besides being the most prestigious hospital in the state it had also attracted so much medical talent from Boston, New York and the other big East Coast cities, for all those ‘lifestyle’ reasons that local magazines trumpet. The radiography department was a significantly larger one than our modest operation in Damariscotta. There would clearly be far more patient traffic and professional pressures than I had been dealing with. I found the head radiologist – a woman named Dr Conrad – very curt and to the point. But during my interview it was evident that she was impressed. I had taken Dr Harrild into my confidence when it came to applying for this job (especially as a reference from him would be crucial). And Dr Conrad did say, after offering me the job, that I had received the most glowing recommendation from ‘your boss’ in Damariscotta. The job paid $66,000 a year – a $15,000 improvement on my current post. I found the apartment in Portland. Through Lucy I also found a lawyer in South Portland who told me that, as long as my husband didn’t contest things, she could get the divorce through for around $2,000. Sally got accepted at the University of Maine, Orono, where she’ll eventually major in business studies (‘because I like the idea of making money’). She was surprisingly resilient when Brad dropped her the week after their graduation.
‘I knew it was coming,’ she said when she broke the news to me. ‘And when you know someone’s going to eventually dump you, hey . . . can you really sit there and cry when it happens?’
But when you don’t know that someone’s going to dump you . . .
A week after this conversation Sally took off for a summer job as a camp counselor in the Sebago Lake region in the west of the state. Ben, meanwhile, had received some truly good news – a year-long junior year fellowship at the Kunstakademie in Berlin. They only take two dozen American undergraduates a year. His new painting apparently clinched the deal for him. He was beyond dazzled by his acceptance, and was already immersed in learning everything imaginable about Berlin. To earn money for the year ahead he took a job at the summer school in Farmington, teaching painting. Meanwhile I found the apartment in Portland – and did the deal with the landlord about redecorating it myself in exchange for a lower rent.
‘So when are you going to ask Ben if he and some friends would like to do the work?’ Lisa Schneider asked me in one of our sessions around that time.
‘When I get the courage up to tell Dan I’m moving out.’
‘And what’s stopping you, especially now that Sally’s finished school?’
‘Fear.’
‘Of what?’ she asked.
‘Of hurting him.’
‘He may be hurt—’
‘He will be hurt.’
‘Nonetheless that will be his problem, not yours. My question to you is, do you want to go?�
�
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then have the conversation. It will be difficult. It will be painful. But once it is done, it will be behind you.’
I made final plans. On the week of June 15th I quietly moved a few things into Lucy’s spare apartment, as the Portland place wouldn’t be free until August 1st. Hoping I could convince Ben and friends to start work around August 10th (when his summer school duties were over) I figured I could take up residence there by Labor Day. I had two meetings with the lawyer in South Portland – who was primed and ready to put the divorce in motion. Then, on the day I decided I would break the news to Dan, I also gave notice at the hospital, knowing full well that word of my departure from my job would be around town the next morning. Which is why I timed my resignation to take place just an hour before I came home. After fixing dinner for us, I asked Dan if we could sit out on the front porch for a while and take in the reclining light of early evening.
Once settled there I came out with it. Told him that I’d been unhappy for a very long time; that I felt there was nowhere to go in the marriage; that I didn’t think we were a good fit anymore; that, as hard as this was to do, I simply had to leave and start a life without him.
He said nothing as I explained all this. He said nothing as I told him about the job in Portland, and how I’d be moving into Lucy’s garage apartment before the place I found near Maine Medical was ready for occupancy. He said nothing when I explained that I had found a lawyer who was willing to do a no-fault divorce for us very reasonably, that I didn’t want much, that he could take the house, but I did want the savings plan we had put money into over the years (and into which I did all of the contributing for the past two years), and which was worth about $85,000. Since the only other asset of ours was the house with a market value of about $165,000, he’d be coming out ahead. And—
Before I could continue he interrupted me, his face white with anger.
‘I always knew this was going to happen – because I always knew you were so ambivalent about me.’
‘I’m afraid that’s the truth.’
‘So who’s the guy?’
‘There is no “guy”.’
‘But there was a guy, right?’
‘I am not leaving you for someone else.’
‘You’re dodging my question. Because I know that if there isn’t someone now, there was someone. And I’m pretty damn certain you met him that weekend you were in Boston.’
Silence – during which I decided to drive the car straight off the cliff.
‘That’s right,’ I said, meeting Dan’s shocked gaze. ‘There was someone. It just lasted the weekend. Then it ended. Then I came home, quietly hoping that things between us could improve. They didn’t. And now I’m going.’
‘Just like that.’
‘You know we’ve been in a bad place for years.’
‘Which is why you fucked some other guy.’
‘That’s right. If this marriage hadn’t turned moribund, I would never have dreamed of—’
‘“Moribund”,’ he said, repeating the word with contempt.
‘Me and my big words again, right?’
‘You’re beneath contempt.’
‘Thank you for such clarity. It makes this much easier.’
And I stood up and walked to my car and drove away.
Earlier that morning, after Dan had gone off to work, I had packed a final suitcase and dropped it off at Lucy’s. During lunch I had returned home and cleared away my laptop, my favorite fountain pens and notebooks, and several key books, including, of course, The Synonym Finder. These items were already packed into the trunk of my car. When I got to Lucy’s house and began to unload them I had a small private moment of grief. Lucy arrived home from the supermarket a few minutes later with food for our dinner that night. Seeing the red around my eyes she asked me:
‘Was it that bad?’
‘Actually, he was more angry than hurt – which was easier to deal with.’
‘The hurt will come later.’
I drove over to Farmington the next day to see Ben, a date I’d arranged with him earlier in the week. When I got there he told me that his father had called him late last night and was crying down the line, telling him that I was leaving him.
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He told me you’d been unfaithful to him.’
Oh God. I put my head in my hands.
‘I wish he hadn’t said that.’
‘Well, I kind of knew that already, didn’t I? Or, at least, worked it out after we had that talk following your Boston trip.’
‘Your father still shouldn’t have involved you.’
‘I agree – but the guy is clearly so distressed by what’s happened he’s decided to lash out in all directions.’
‘I’m so sorry. What happened – it was just a weekend thing. And the only reason it happened is because—’
‘You don’t have to explain, Mom. I might not like what I heard, but I am certainly not going to take his side in all this. And I’m pleased that you’ve moved out . . . as long as, wherever you are, there will always be a spare bedroom for me.’
‘I promise you there will always be a room for you in whatever home I have for the rest of my life.’
Then I pitched him the idea of me hiring him and a couple of friends to do the renovations on the apartment in Portland. He was immediately enthusiastic, saying he’d talk to two fellow art students he knew who did a lot of part-time decorating.
‘You’ve come to the right place for home improvements, ma’am,’ he said, his voice arch and funny. But then:
‘I do have to tell you something, Mom. After what went down with Dad last night I took it on myself to call Sally on her cell at the camp. And I told her what had happened, and what Dad had told me.’
Oh God . . . but this time to the power of ten.
‘The way I figured it,’ Ben continued, ‘if I didn’t tell her first Dad would have. And that would have really thrown her. Thrown her badly.’
‘You did the right thing,’ I said, thinking to myself: Why is it that when people lash out in fury they do their best to entangle those closest to them in their web of harm?
I had already arranged to drive down and see Sally at Camp Sebago the next morning. I was fully expecting her to call me a scarlet woman (or worse), and slam a metaphoric door in my face. To my surprise, however, she put her arms around me when I showed up and said:
‘It’s going to take me a long time to forgive my father for saying all that shit.’
We went out to lunch. I was as direct as possible with her about how her father and I had fallen out of love. I assured her that she could always count on me for everything, and that me moving to Portland wasn’t me disappearing from her life.
‘I kind of worked that one out already, Mom. I also worked out something else – you waited all this time to leave because you didn’t want to mess up my last years of high school. And I am incredibly grateful to you for that.’
Life moved forward. My lawyer, Amanda Montgomery, counseled me not to say anything to Dan about his attempts to get Ben and Sally into his camp:
‘Your children have already seen through that tactic – what we want to do now is get a deal in place without too much drama.’
Still, she had to send some very stern letters to the lawyer representing Dan, asking him to tell his client that if he made absurd demands – like wanting the house and half of the savings account and everything that I didn’t take with me when I moved into that temporary apartment at Lucy’s – we would now demand half the house etc. Did he really want to spend thousands in legal bills, especially when I was asking for so little and there was so little to actually divide?
Dan saw sense. The two lawyers met once and hammered out an agreement. Dan asked that it not be signed for a couple of months to give us both time to think about it; which was clearly his way of hoping against hope that I would change my mind. The curious thing was, once I h
ad left the house he never phoned me – preferring to communicate by email, and only when he had something practical to discuss regarding the house or our children. According to Amanda – who gleaned this information from Dan’s lawyer – my husband still wanted me to make the first move when it came to reconciliation, even though he had to understand that, as I was the one who’d left the marriage, that was never going to happen.
‘People go truly strange in the wake of a long marriage detonating,’ Amanda said. ‘I sense that your husband simply can’t face up to what’s happening – and expects you to make it all right for him. Which, as I explained to his lawyer, was something you had repeatedly informed me was beyond the realm of possibility.’
‘I feel sorry for him.’
‘Not as sorry as he feels for himself.’
News of our impending divorce got around Damariscotta in the expected matter of nanoseconds. But the hospital still organized a goodbye drink for me; a little after-work soirée at the Newcastle Publick House in town. To my immense surprise, Sally showed up. And then, around an hour into the proceedings, in walked Ben.
‘Surprise,’ he said quietly, planting a kiss on my cheek.
Dr Harrild made a little speech, talking about how I knew more about things radiographic than he did, and how my ‘professional rigor’ was ‘matched by an immense decency’, and how the hospital would be a lesser place without me. I found myself blushing. I have never been totally at ease with praise. But when asked to speak, after thanking Dr Harrild and all my colleagues for such interesting years and such ‘ongoing colleagiality’, I then said this (having thought it through beforehand):
‘If there’s one thing I know about my work it’s that it constantly reminds me of the enigmas we all live with. The discovery that what seems to be evident is frequently cloudy; that we are all so profoundly vulnerable, yet also so profoundly resilient; that, out of nowhere, our story can change. I’m always dealing with people in extremis, in real possible danger, and grappling so often with fear. Everyone I have ever scanned or X-rayed has a story – their story. But though my equipment peers behind the outer layer we all have, if all these years at the hospital have taught me anything it is that everyone is a mystery. Most especially to themselves.’
Five Days Page 31
