She reached back inside her car and pulled out a brown grocery bag, hefted it onto her hip then tucked her long hair behind her ears as she glanced up and down the street. Rex held his breath, not wanting to be caught, and thought he was home free when her eyes barely touched his car, but then she turned toward it again and leaned her head forward, trying for a better look. So he wasn’t invisible after all.
He waved, not wanting his presence to frighten her, and she walked over to his open window and said, “Is it really you sitting there stalking Kristina or am I having a hallucination?” Her tone was not unkind, but it wasn’t friendly either. It was obvious she’d chosen a side.
“I wouldn’t call it stalking,” he told her and shrugged. “I’ve only been here for a few minutes.”
“Sitting in the dark outside your ex-wife’s house. That’s a pretty classic example, if you ask me.”
“Ginger.” He thought saying her name would help somehow. “Ginger, look. I was just taking a drive and decided to go and see the place where my daughters live half the time, all right? Take it easy.”
She nodded and turned to look at the pink house, then back at him. “All right. Sorry.” She reached into her grocery bag and pulled out an apple. “Want one? We’re going to make a pie with the girls.”
“Thanks.” He accepted the apple and bit into it. It was on the mealy side, the skin thick and flavorless. “Kristina doesn’t bake. You know that, right?”
“Polly wants to try it. I’m coming to the rescue.” She shrugged and stepped closer to his car. Her face looked exactly the same as it had when he’d seen her last, still smooth and untroubled. As far as he knew, she had never married, never had kids of her own.
“Polly should have asked me. I’m good with cookies, at least.”
They were both quiet for a minute, watching each other, then looking together toward the house with its lit windows. He was hoping, he realized, to be invited inside. Ginger had liked him once, and he was still basically the same person after all. Why couldn’t the five of them sit at the kitchen table and peel apples? He pictured the surprise on Kristina’s face when he walked inside, then the frown as she shook her head, disappointed by his pushiness.
“You should leave, Rex,” Ginger said, turning back to him. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Kristina you were here.”
“Maybe I want you to tell her.”
“No, you don’t. Trust me, you don’t.”
He could feel a yearning building inside him, a desire to be behind the pink walls of that house. It felt urgent now, a basic need rather than an inclination. His face was hot. Sweat gathered on his lower back, and he shifted in his seat. “I don’t understand why this happened,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I don’t see why we can’t just get back together. Have you met that guy, Peter? He’s such a jerk. How could she like him better than me?” He’d said too much—he could tell by the tight set of Ginger’s lips—but it had felt good. His breathing was suddenly simpler, his thoughts in a straight, obvious line.
“She doesn’t like him better than you.”
“Then why?”
“I can’t answer that. Only you two know the real answer to that one.”
“But I don’t know. That’s the whole point. That’s why I’m sitting here like an idiot stalker. I don’t understand why we’re doing this. Why we’ve done this.”
Ginger shrugged and looked down at the ground, toeing the asphalt. “It was good to see you,” she said. “I need to get this stuff inside.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, whatever. Have fun. Have a fucking wonderful time with my family.”
She didn’t say more, only turned and crossed the street, walked to the front door, and rang the bell. Rex watched the door open, and saw the pale oval of Kristina’s face, her welcoming smile. He considered calling out to her, stepping out of his car and making a run for the door, but before he could move, Ginger ducked inside and the door closed behind them, intensifying the surrounding black of the night.
JANE
When they stepped outside, the sky was a ceiling of blues and purples, the color of a bruise. Jane turned back to look at the red door, wishing she could stay behind, but here was Adam, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hunching his shoulders against the lukewarm wind, and she had to walk beside him. It was the least she could do.
“The kids seem like they’re having fun here,” Adam said.
“They are.”
“You look good too.”
“Thanks.”
“I like your hair. The stripe.” He pulled on his own hair as if to illustrate.
“I did that a month ago.”
“Oh.” He looked down and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans again. “Well, it’s nice. Different.”
“Thanks,” she said. It struck her that they could just go on like this indefinitely, talking but not really talking. She guessed that marriages had subsisted on far less. He was sober now and smelled of coffee and soap.
They ambled for a long while in silence, circling the neighborhood, passing the pocket park, then stopping at the low wall by the Black Mountains. It struck Jane that her walk this morning had been a practice for this one, that the route was almost identical but in reverse. She should have been running through her lines during that walk, because now she had no idea what to say.
At last Adam took a breath. “So I’ve decided to finish the dissertation by June and then really look for a good teaching position. It might not be in Madison, but I can’t just tend bar forever. Or maybe I could work for the city, some type of environmental position. I don’t know.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“You don’t sound impressed by my plan.”
“No, it’s good. That’s a good plan.” How could she tell him that she didn’t care about his dissertation, or his job, his long nights away from home? She no longer cared about any of it.
“So I’d like it if you would come home tomorrow, and we could just forget about this separation thing, for a while at least.”
Somehow, they’d arrived on Rex’s street, and Jane realized she should have been paying attention to their path, that she should have steered clear of this block, but then they were in front of his house, and she glanced toward it but saw nothing. If Rex were to step outside right now, it might make this conversation easier. She could use him as an easy excuse—look, I’ve met someone new and I’m not ready to come back—but Rex wasn’t the reason she wanted to leave Adam, and neither was the editor. They were both symptoms but neither was the cure. “I don’t think I can forget about the separation,” she told him.
“But why not? What have I done that’s so awful?” He stopped on the sidewalk and made her face him. It was almost dark now, but light from a nearby street lamp revealed his pained expression. He had such a nice face, with clean lines and bright, trusting eyes. Jane tried to remember the first time she’d seen him, what she’d thought of him then, but couldn’t. They’d met at a party, she knew that much, but the details of the night were hazy now, shrouded in dim, smoky air.
“You haven’t done anything awful,” she told him. I’m the one, she thought to say. I’m the one who’s done the awful things. But the details of her transgressions did not need to be revealed. They would only cause him pain.
She took his hand and pulled him along the sidewalk, willing his feet to move with hers, to set them back in motion. It was easier this way. Moving helped her to feel as if this problem could actually be solved. And maybe it could, she thought again as they began walking. Surely they could think of something to fix this.
They’d traveled back to the Black Mountains and Jane paused to gaze up at their dark, eerie forms. Lights were beginning to come on in the houses up and down the street, and Jane thought about her own home in Wisconsin. Had Adam left lights on inside to ward off burglars? It was not something he would remember to do, and Jane imagined returning to ransacked rooms and broken windows, the cold spring wind w
inding through the front room and kitchen. Maybe there would be more snow—it was not out of the question in early May—and mice and squirrels would be nesting in their cupboards, protected from the elements.
“I’ll keep sleeping in the front room,” Adam said now. “But you can’t move out. Think of Fern and Rocky. It’ll be awful for them.”
“Lots of people do it. It’s not the end of the world.” Even as she said this, she felt ashamed. She was always telling Rocky that something was not okay just because lots of people did it.
Adam sighed and trudged forward, rubbing his arms as if he were chilled, though it was still nice outside, not warm exactly, but far from cold. Jane jogged to catch up with him, then wished she’d stayed behind. What she wanted to do was turn around and climb the mountain in darkness, much the way she’d done this morning. Her rock would be waiting in the same place and she could simply sit and watch the city until she knew what to do.
“You’re being so selfish,” Adam hissed at her now. His voice had hardened, grown sharp with anger.
“I know,” she admitted, “but you’ve been selfish for years. All those days and nights you did exactly what you wanted to do, as if you didn’t even have a family. Staying out late after work, camping with your friends, taking trips to the Rockies when you really didn’t need to go, sleeping in late while I got up with the kids and did five million things before we even saw you. I thought the idea was to raise our children together, but it doesn’t feel like much of a joint effort.”
“That’s such bullshit. I got up with them so many times at night. I picked them up from school while you were at work. I fed them and dressed them and read them books. I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” He stopped his fast pace and slowed to glare at her. “This is what you’re upset about? Taking care of the kids?”
Jane stopped and crossed her arms over her chest, looking back toward the mountains, then down the street, anywhere but into Adam’s face. “No, not exactly. I don’t know. My life just seems so dull. I can’t stand it anymore.”
“Your life. Is dull.” He said it slowly, ladling the words with sarcasm.
She nodded, already regretting having told the truth—it sounded so petty, so shameful—but now that it was out she kept going. “Maybe it’s just marriage that’s dull, and it has nothing to do with you and me in particular.”
“This feels very particular to me.”
She looked at him then and saw that he was in pain. It would be so easy just to let all of this go, just to continue living her life in a state of depressed irritation. It was likely the kids would be better off with an unhappy mother who was present rather than happy and absent. That would be her own mother’s advice: Stay for the children; do everything for them. It was your choice to have them, after all.
Jane looked away and started walking again. This fight was going nowhere. Somehow she’d gotten on the wrong track. The detour she’d taken to list Adam’s faults had not helped matters. People had flaws—she had thousands of them herself—but this wasn’t about Adam’s errant ways, it was about something deeper. The word dull didn’t do the feeling justice. It had to do with restlessness, with the notion or hope that her life should be larger than it actually was. She could almost see the shape of this other life, taking up more space than she’d ever taken up before. This bigger life still included Fern and Rocky, but she wasn’t sure whether or not it contained Adam.
Of course, it was not possible to put this into words without sounding ridiculous. How would she ever explain this feeling to Adam?
She turned and saw that he’d stopped walking and sat down on someone’s lawn, so she backtracked, stepping slowly up the sidewalk until she was hovering over his stretched-out form. His eyes were closed and his hands were laced behind his head, as if he were enjoying a summer’s day rather than lying in the dark on a stranger’s lawn, the light from their porch engraving his face with shadows.
She nudged his tennis shoe with her toe, and he opened his eyes. “I’m so tired,” he told her.
Jane sat down on the grass beside him and pulled her knees to her chest. “Me too.”
They sat like that for a while, not speaking. Eleven years. She had spent eleven years with this person—more when you included courtship—and now she couldn’t think of a single way to explain why she was leaving.
A teenage boy rode down the street on a skateboard, and the sound was startling after the long stretch of quiet. If the boy noticed her and Adam, he made no sign, simply curved a pattern down the asphalt then disappeared around a corner. But his presence had broken the spell; she was able to turn and look down at her husband.
His eyes were closed again, and Jane thought he might be asleep. He had a talent for being able to sleep just about anywhere. Then she remembered the first time she’d seen him. He’d been sitting in a chair in the backyard of a friend’s house, the party churning loudly around him, sound asleep. Jane had gone over and lightly touched his cheek, for no other reason than she was a little drunk and he was so beautiful, she just wanted to place a palm against his skin. He’d woken easily, then looked up and smiled at her.
“Dull isn’t the right word,” Jane said softly. “My life feels too small. I know that sounds stupid, but that’s about the best I can do. And I’m not saying it’s your fault. That’s just how I feel, and I have this notion that I won’t feel that way so much if I leave.”
Adam opened his eyes now and sat up, but remained silent, staring out into the street.
“Ivy says I’ve had too much love in my life and that I don’t know how awful it feels not to have any, but I don’t think that’s my problem, or at least not the main one. That’s her version of the world, not mine.”
“So what is your problem?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I guess that’s what I need to figure out.”
He glanced over at her now. All traces of anger had left his face, but he looked drained again, ghostly in the shadows. “When my parents got divorced, I promised myself I would never let that happen to me, but this is my fault really. I wasn’t paying enough attention to my life. I haven’t been, I guess, for a long time.”
She thought to deny this, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but there was truth to what he said, enough for her to keep quiet, so she only offered, “Don’t talk about divorce yet. Let’s just try this first, and see what happens.” The word separation suddenly felt too clinical, too heavy and glacial to say aloud.
“I guess I’ll just get a good sleep tonight at Ivy’s and then leave first thing tomorrow,” Adam said, lying back on the grass.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Will you tell the kids I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye?”
“Of course.” She shook her head and lay back beside him. “We’ll be home tomorrow night.”
“But then you’re going to leave again.”
“In a week or so,” she said. She would have to find a small apartment and a job, but both of those tasks seemed possible. It didn’t have to be a perfect apartment or a perfect job. For a while, everything would be temporary.
Adam turned on his side and propped himself up on an elbow to look down at her. “I’m going to miss you. A lot.”
“Me too.”
He reached to brush her hair away from her face. It was as if they were back home, lying together on their bed rather than on this cooling grass. “Maybe you’ll decide to come back?”
“Maybe,” she told him. “I hope so.”
SUNDAY
JEREMY
The next morning Jeremy woke early, curled around Gretchen’s thin form. Light poured across them, warming the bed and turning the room a milky gold. They’d gone to sleep early, soon after he got home from Ivy’s house, and he felt thoroughly refreshed and content, the smooth expanse of Gretchen’s back fitted neatly to his chest. He kissed her coconut neck, willing her to wake up, and she did, stretching against him, then turning so they faced each other.
“Let’
s go back to my place and I’ll make us omelets,” he suggested.
Outside, he enjoyed the muted, powdery blue of the sky, the absence of sound as they drove his Subaru through the quiet streets. It was Sunday, before 7:00 a.m., and the entire neighborhood seemed to be fast asleep. “This sort of reminds me of the old days,” he told her, “when I used to come home from a show right before dawn, and the world seemed paused. But this is the opposite of that, I guess. This is the other side of the night. It feels different. Better.”
“I know what you mean. I used to get up really early and go bird-watching with my dad when I was little. We’d drive out to the desert before sunrise and then spend the whole morning sneaking around with binoculars. I loved it. I think I used to be a morning person, then I started working late, and I got out of whack.” She swung her loose hair over one shoulder and fiddled with the ends.
“I was never a morning person,” Jeremy said. “But I feel good today. I like this.”
“So how was the party yesterday?” she asked.
“It went really well,” he told her. “A few of the mothers want to book me for their kids’ parties. Maybe I’ll have a new niche.”
“Great,” she told him, putting her hand on his leg. “Babies are being born every day. It’s the perfect market.”
This struck them both as funny, and they laughed. It occurred to him for the very first time that he could have a child with this woman if he wanted. They had never discussed marriage or kids or anything that serious, but these were the types of things most people desired—family, love, stability—why not him and Gretchen?
He thought again about kissing Ivy by the pool. It was bizarre, but something about that kiss had released him. There was a lightness in him today that hadn’t been present in a very long time. The lack of passion he’d felt in that moment surprised him. There had been love, plenty of stored-up love spreading out through his limbs, but it had been a different kind of love than he’d anticipated. When he separated from her and leaned back, he understood that she felt it too: they were friends.
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