Beside Herself

by Elizabeth Laban

  Hannah looked at Joel to see if he had set her up—it was something she never would have thought of before, but now she was doubting everything.

  He shook his head, and his eyes were wide. “No, no,” he said, waving her words away roughly with his right hand. “None of that. This had nothing to do with Hannah. Hannah is a wonderful wife, better than I deserve. She is kind and loving and caring. She is a great mother and a great daughter-in-law to my father. She always makes me feel special when I walk through the door. I would say our sex life is good—I mean, it’s an effort to find time to be alone, but when we do, it is great.”

  By the time he reached the last sentence, he couldn’t talk anymore. He was full-out crying, and Hannah’s first thought was that he couldn’t lose any more water; he was probably still dehydrated. Her next thought was that he could rot in hell for all she cared. She looked at the door. She was tired of standing.

  Leslie reached across the table, lifting a tissue as her hand moved over the top of the Kleenex box and handing it to Joel in one well-practiced motion. She gave him a minute to calm down, but in the silence of the room, his sobs and gurgles were almost embarrassing. Finally, he wiped his eyes hard with his hands and sat up a little straighter, indicating that he was ready to listen.

  “I see,” Leslie said like she certainly didn’t see. “Well, was there something Joel was doing or not doing to make you, Hannah, act out in any way? Was he withholding at all, or aggressive, or emotionally hard to reach? And Joel, I don’t want to brush over what you just said. I did sense some disappointment when you mentioned your sex life.”

  “What?” he said, clearly flabbergasted. “That’s not what I said. There is no disappointment.”

  “I’m leaving,” Hannah said, cutting him off.

  She expected a fight from Joel, but he was right behind her.

  “I’m still going to have to charge you for the whole hour,” Leslie said. “So you might as well hear this one bit of advice. Until you figure out the underlying problem that resulted in the symptom of infidelity, I don’t think you are going to make much progress toward your goal.”

  “Thanks,” Joel said over his shoulder as he followed Hannah through the door. When they were out on the street, they both started to laugh for the briefest few seconds, as though they had run away from a nasty teacher or camp counselor, but Hannah quickly caught herself, and the shocked expression on her face cut off Joel’s laugh at its root.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I found her on Google. I’ll do better tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going back tomorrow,” Hannah said, turning away from Joel and moving to cross the street.

  “No, not here. Not to see her,” Joel said, following Hannah. “I’m going to find another therapist. A better therapist. You know how hard it is to find someone you connect with, right?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Well, it’s hard. It’s all chemistry and meshing philosophies. It’s hard. I’m going to find someone better tomorrow, and if that one isn’t good, I’ll try again the next day and the next day and the next day.”

  “Fine!” Hannah said firmly. She just wanted Joel to stop saying and the next day and the next day.

  “Okay, good,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

  Hannah dreaded the moment when she and Joel would be alone in their bedroom with no place to hide. She had not ruled out the possibility of sleeping on the couch, for either of them, but she also knew that could be a bad idea since they would undoubtedly be found out—the kids were up and down all night, often climbing in with them at some point, and would see that one of them wasn’t sleeping in their bed. Her goal at this moment was to keep everything in their view as normal as possible.

  There was no avoiding it; they ended up in bed together. Joel curled away from her, presumably asleep. She was wide awake. If it was possible to be even more awake than wide awake, that was what she was. She counted to one hundred. She silently recounted the kids’ birth stories. She tried all her usual tricks, but she just couldn’t get sleepy. Finally, after two hours had gone by, she pulled out her phone and set the alarm for five a.m. on the lowest possible volume. She looked over at Joel, who, she thought, had not moved at all since she’d gotten under the covers. She thought about how exhausted he must be, how just last night he’d been in the hospital. She moved over toward Joel, as close as she could get, and put her phone right next to her ear. In his sleep he turned toward her, and she relaxed when his familiar scent reached her, closing her eyes. She eased even closer, wedging herself right next to him, letting her hand touch his. And in minutes she was asleep.

  When the alarm went off four hours later, it took her a minute to remember it all: the train ride, searching Joel’s phone, Tara, the rose petals, Kim, Leslie Needway. Joel didn’t react to the quiet but also blaring sound, which seemed to be sending an urgent message to do something bigger than just wake up, though she wasn’t sure what exactly. She guessed with a sigh that that was the big question. She turned it off and, in the light of day, felt like an idiot. Why had she reached for him? Why did she still feel comforted by his physical presence in such a way that it was the only thing that would let her sleep? She was going to have to work on that—find another way—because right now, in this moment, she didn’t want to ever be that close to him again. And, she wondered to herself, why was last night the first night in weeks that neither kid had joined them? Did they have a sense that there was a reason to stay away? It struck her as some sort of ironic joke. She put her phone on the bedside table and closed her eyes, knowing she would never fall back to sleep. Knowing she would soon have to start her second day on a team for which her main player, the one she most depended on, the one who always helped her when she needed it, was no longer qualified to participate. Basically, she realized, she was totally alone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “That has to be the last one. I can’t do this anymore,” Hannah said as they drove back from their fifth unsuccessful attempt at finding a therapist. “This isn’t working.”

  They were heading home on a particularly winding part of Kelly Drive after an especially disappointing session. This therapist had ended up answering numerous calls from his special-needs son while they were there, leaving Hannah feeling sorry for him and more alone than ever.

  When Hannah drove this stretch, she had to cling especially hard to the wheel. Now she could see Joel was doing the same thing. It was just beginning to get dark, and despite what they were dealing with, it all looked so beautiful with its boathouses and amazing views of the Schuylkill River. The path was full of runners and bikers, and usually Hannah would say something like maybe on Saturday they should all come and ride their bikes. But she didn’t even know if they would still be a family on Saturday.

  “I just don’t have it in me,” she added.

  Joel didn’t say anything, and she sighed heavily and looked forward. Just up ahead was the turnoff for Smith Playground, where they sometimes brought the kids, and again, the same thought process—We should, and then Oh, but not anymore. Hannah was surprised when Joel put on the left signal and took the turn. He drove up and past the road to Smith Playground and eventually stopped in front of one of the historic mansions of Fairmount Park. It was painted yellow. Hannah had always meant to take a tour of the old homes, which had cool names like Lemon Hill and Strawberry Mansion, but she had never had the chance. Maybe now, on the days when the kids were with Joel, she would have that time.

  He put the car in park and turned off the ignition.

  “Please, please, please don’t give up on me,” he said. His hands were clenched, and he looked pale. It was going to be a problem if he went down the road of being sick every time they really talked about this. “I have never made a more terrible mistake in my life. I would do anything to make it not have happened.”

  “Well, it did happen,” Hannah said. Though what exactly had happened, she still didn’t know. She hadn’t asked for the details, thinking maybe
if she didn’t have them, she could get through this, but she knew even without a therapist’s help that that was shortsighted. She would always wonder. She had imagined details would emerge during one of these sessions, but so far they hadn’t. She looked around. Off to one side she could see kids playing, and she had to squint to figure out they were throwing a Frisbee. The sky was turning a warm red. She took a deep breath.

  “I think I need to know,” she said quietly, feeling that by asking this question she was somehow allowing it to be true. She shook her head and turned slightly toward Joel. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  She braced herself, resisting the urge to cover her ears and hum loudly, and waited. Joel cleared his throat.

  “I started going to that hotel, when? In February, I think. The end of February. Remember there was that crazy snowstorm the first time I was set to go, and I almost rescheduled? But I went, and it took forever to get there, one cancelled flight after another. By the time I arrived, I didn’t feel great; I had a headache, and I don’t know, I was probably just tired, but it seemed worse because I was away from you guys.” Joel stopped and took a breath. He looked straight ahead as he talked. “I feel like I’m making one excuse after another here. I don’t mean for it to sound that way.”

  “You haven’t even said anything yet,” Hannah snapped. “Can you just get to the bad part?”

  “Well, it’s all the bad part,” Joel said. “But yes, I’ll try. When I finally got to the hotel, I checked in normally, and then this woman came out from the back office. I don’t know—for some reason she noticed me. She stopped me and asked if I needed anything. I assumed she knew I was with the hotel company and just wanted to go the extra mile. I told her it had been a tedious trip, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, about thirty minutes later there was a knock on my door. She had room service send up soup and tea.” Joel stopped here. He glanced toward Hannah, then back outside. It was dark now, and the kids who had been playing on the field near them had stopped and were all heading in different directions.

  “I had to thank her, of course, so I found her the next morning, and she joined me while I had coffee. It all seemed so, I don’t know, professional. Like nothing out of the ordinary. And that was that. Then I came back two weeks later, and as soon as I walked in, she came to help me. She remembered everything I had told her about my last trip there and—”

  “I am not going to be able to stand the play-by-play,” Hannah said through gritted teeth, interrupting him. “Can you just get to it? We have to get home.”

  “I’m trying,” Joel said quietly. “I’m sorry. So it went on like that. She had things sent to my room—first that soup, better coffee than they normally had in the rooms, a piece of cake. But then, at the end of March, maybe my fourth visit, she had champagne and strawberries sent up. I still thought it was okay, a typical thing you send to a hotel guest, like, I thought maybe she was trying to show me what the hotel could do. And here was my first big mistake: I called down to thank her, and she asked if she could come up.”

  Joel stopped talking. Hannah didn’t want to hear any more, but she knew she might never get to this point again, the brink of Joel’s betrayal, so she closed her eyes and didn’t say anything.

  “When she got there, she wasn’t wearing her usual work clothes. She had on, I don’t know, other things, revealing things, and I knew, I mean, I’m not stupid. But still, I thought I could handle it, that we were two professionals. That night, when we drank the champagne, I told her about you and the kids, and she told me about her own family. She was away from home overseeing the opening of the hotel, for months actually, with just a few trips back and forth. Her kids are older, in high school, but still, it seemed hard, and I liked talking to her about it; it made me feel less bad about being away from you, less alone. It started to feel like we were in some sort of club together. I felt closer and closer to her.”

  Again he stopped, took a breath.

  “We texted a little after that, when I was here, and we joked about our families. One day she told me a story about a hotel guest who asked to have rose petals scattered all over the room in advance of his arrival; he said he was having a romantic tryst. We joked back and forth about that and how ridiculous that seemed. When I arrived the next time, in April, she was waiting for me in the lobby. She said she had something funny to show me. I checked in, and she came to my room with me—discreetly, of course—and my room was scattered with rose petals. Still, I laughed it off, and she let me, asking if we could meet in the bar that night. She said she had had a particularly hard few weeks. So I did. And we drank and drank, and then—”

  “Okay, I get it,” Hannah said. “I don’t get it, but I can picture it. I—”

  “Just let me finish,” Joel said. “Please. So we went to my room, and we had sex. I won’t emphasize how drunk I was, because I don’t want it to sound like an excuse, but please know I was. And when I woke up the next morning, she was there, and I was sick. I don’t know what it was, a virus, maybe, or something I ate. I felt awful. She left, had soup sent up again, and that was that. That’s when I cut the trip short and came home, and I was sick that whole week. I knew I had to go back, for work, of course—I had left so many things unfinished. I also knew she would be there. I thought, I can do this. So many people have affairs of some sort. I thought you wouldn’t know—how would you ever know?”

  Hannah narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she had expected.

  “And so that’s when I had part of that text exchange you saw. I felt better enough to travel, I went back a day earlier than planned, we joked about the rose petals. And when I got there, I don’t know, I didn’t like her anymore. I thought I would, but I felt nothing, except for continuing to feel sick. She came to my room, the rose petals were there, I, we . . . there was another time. And then I told her that it just wasn’t for me. It just . . .”

  “Drive home,” Hannah said abruptly. “I need to be home.”

  Joel looked at her, surprised, nodded, and started the car. He took a breath.

  “I know how awful this sounds,” Joel said. “But I also want you to know that now you know everything. That is everything. It was the biggest mistake I have ever made. Please, let me try to figure out a way through. There must be a way through.”

  “I am starting to think the only way through is out,” she said. “There is no going back to undo it. And now this thing that I thought we had, this unbreakable love, well, it doesn’t seem so unbreakable anymore. No matter how many therapists we talk to, that will still be true.”

  “Out?” Joel repeated. The word sounded like it had had a hard time making its way from his voice box to her; it was twisted and strangled.

  “Yeah,” she said, feeling like she was gaining some momentum. She was finally doing something. “Out, like out of our bed, out of our house, out of the marriage.”

  “No,” Joel said, and now she had that feeling again that if she pushed him too hard, he was going to lose it and throw up or worse. She didn’t want to drive in the dark on the winding road.

  “Please, just get us home.”

  “Sit with me, Mommy,” Ridley said before Hannah was even fully through the door. “Be with me.”

  “Just for a few minutes,” Hannah said, letting Joel deal with seeing Monica off. Hannah felt completely exhausted. She motioned for the kids to separate and make space for her between them on the couch. She might have been imagining it, but it seemed to her that since this had happened, they had been sitting much closer together than usual, like they were each other’s only comfort. She sat down, and at the same time they snuggled in and grabbed an arm. It felt like it was choreographed. Kids Clinging to Desperate Mother: A Musical. Eventually Joel locked up for the night and got the kids to bed. Hannah made no move to help with any of it.

  “I’ll try again tomorrow,” Joel said when he came back down the stairs.

  “No, please, no,” she said. “I told you, I can’t do this anymore.”
/>   “There is going to be someone just right,” Joel said almost to himself.

  When he said the words just right, her heart sank. That was the thing they said to each other when all was well. She didn’t want it to be a part of their new reality.

  “I think you should sleep on the couch tonight,” she said. But as soon as she said it, she wished she had left it more open. She thought of the other nights this week and how she hadn’t been able to sleep until she’d moved next to Joel. What was wrong with her? She had to remind herself that he was no longer her safe place. He got drunk with Tara and slept with her, twice. Now he was the opposite of her safe place. And really, whether the part of her brain that allowed her to fall asleep believed that or not, she’d better start getting used to sleeping without him.

  She expected him to push back, to beg her to let him sleep in their room, but he didn’t say anything. He went to the kitchen and filled lunch boxes with napkins and white plastic utensils to save time in the morning. She watched from the couch, thinking, Here is when I would usually ask if we had any yogurt, or Here is when I would ask Joel if he wanted to sneak some ice cream; they had mint chocolate chip in the freezer. But they didn’t talk at all—not a single word. She waited for Joel to ask if he could sleep in their bed; of course he was going to ask. But when she went up, he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t follow her. She could barely stand it, being alone in their room, brushing her teeth, thinking this could be her life from now on. Was that nausea she was feeling? Could she possibly be having a heart attack? It sort of felt like the symptoms she always read about. Should she ask for help? She tried to breathe through it. She almost wanted it to be true so she could have something that was more important than what they were dealing with to attend to, so she could go see Joel. But the more she focused on the symptoms, the harder they were to pinpoint. She was fairly sure she was going to be okay physically.

  Ridley was the first one to come in.

  “Where’s Daddy?” she demanded.