Beside Herself

by Elizabeth Laban

  “Thanks, Dad,” Joel said. “That’s so nice of you. But we can’t tonight.”

  It was almost like Joel wasn’t even there. Richard didn’t react to him at all but turned more toward Hannah. “What do you say? Nothing would make me happier.” His voice was nearly gone. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  “We’ll go now and let you rest,” Hannah said, getting up and hugging Richard. She stood with the credit card in her hand and waited for him to open his eyes. When he did, she handed it back to him. “Can we take a rain check? You are always so generous, Richard. But tonight won’t work for us.”

  “Suit yourself,” Richard said, taking back the card.

  “We’ll talk again soon,” she said pointedly, gently squeezing his wrist. “Okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” Richard said, his eyes closed again. “Whenever you want.”

  “And can you do a little less public speaking tomorrow?” she asked. “Just to give your voice a break?”

  “My voice will be fine by tomorrow,” Richard said. “I’m a professional, remember?”

  As soon as they were out and down the hall, Joel turned to Hannah. “Should we?”

  “Should we what?”

  “Blow everything off and go out, the two of us?”

  “Joel, are you kidding me?” Hannah said, trying to keep her voice down. “We agreed we would be as normal as possible for everyone around us, but don’t mistake that for reality. Don’t forget what is actually going on here.”

  “Have you been . . . seeing someone?” he asked, dropping to a whisper when he said the last two words.

  Hannah’s mind flashed back to Larry at the bakery. She was going to have to try much harder.

  “Maybe,” she said coldly.

  “Okay, I’ll go to my meeting, then,” Joel said, sounding defeated but not unkind. “But honestly, at this point I hope you are, because I can’t stand this. I hate all the secrets and the eggshell walking.”

  Hannah almost wanted to laugh at his use of the word secrets. So far, the secrets had been only his.

  “We have Dr. Snow later,” Joel said when Hannah didn’t say anything. “So I’ll be home in time for a quick dinner, and then we’ll go. I picked up spaghetti and meatballs from Villa di Roma, to go, so that will be easy. I’ll leave in time to heat them up. We should eat by about five forty-five.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But you know you can’t buy me with meatballs, right?”

  She said it like she meant it, but a tiny corner of her heart broke off. He was a smart one, that Joel, and she hated that so much.

  “Yes,” Joel said. “I know that.”

  They stood there, that awkward moment when for most of their lives together they would kiss or hug, but now she couldn’t stand it, so she took a step back.

  “What was going on in there?” she finally asked. “With Richard. Did you guys have a fight?”

  “What?” Joel responded. “No, not at all. He’s just tired. Couldn’t you see that?”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Hannah said. Still, it seemed like something more to her. But she was probably being silly. She decided to let it go. “He was clearly exhausted.”

  “See you at the house,” Joel said, turning and walking away. She was aware of his choice of words, See you at the house instead of the usual Meet you at home.

  “See you there.”

  Hannah waited while Joel walked through the main room, which was now almost empty, and turned left toward the exit. She took a slow step backward, eager to ask Richard to finish the conversation he had started. She glanced in, and he was fast asleep in his wheelchair. She shook her head, then followed in the path Joel had just taken.

  “Oh, hey,” Reuben said, startling her. He was standing at the door to the small conference room.

  “I thought you were off a long time ago,” Hannah said, surprised.

  “I was,” he said. “But I was worried about Richard, and I had some paperwork to finish.” He pointed through the window toward a stack of paper on the table. “Do you have time for a quick cup?”

  “Um, sure, a quick one,” she said. “Did you see Joel? He walked right by.”

  “He did?” Reuben said, pouring steaming coffee into a bright-pink mug. “I must have missed him.”

  Reuben handed the mug to Hannah, and she could see it said Hello Beautiful. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Is this on purpose?” she asked, lifting the mug slightly.

  “It most certainly is,” he said. “Your hair and everything. I just thought you could use a pick-me-up.”

  “Thanks,” she said, sitting down across from Reuben’s stack of papers. She realized she was starving, so she reached for the box Reuben had placed on the table and pulled on the string until it broke. As soon as she lifted the lid, the whole room smelled like baked goods. Her hand hovered over the lemon bar, but she chose the scone instead. “Help yourself. And please give them away. But make sure Richard gets one.”

  “Okay. That’s really nice of you,” Reuben said.

  “So has Richard still been saying ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ at night?” Hannah asked as she chewed. It was a delicious scone. Maybe she shouldn’t completely write off the bakery. “I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure. These last two weeks I’ve come in early and left early; they’re shifting things around a bit, so I’m usually gone by now, and I haven’t had the chance to check in on him like I’d done. But last I checked, which was probably about twelve days ago, he did.”

  “Is someone else checking?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure they are,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. She had to squint to read his mug, which said You can’t make everyone happy: you’re not a pizza. “I mean, there are rounds every night to make sure people are settled. But I don’t think there have been long discussions. Maybe I’ll hang around tonight, do all this paperwork, and then check in on him. I don’t have anywhere I need to be anyway.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Hannah said. “That seems like too much to ask.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” Reuben said like it had been decided.

  “What do you think today was all about?” she asked, sitting back and taking a sip of coffee.

  “Control,” Reuben said. “I think it’s Richard’s way of controlling his time or at least feeling in control. Also it struck me as a little obsessive, all that talk about ketchup and plastic. We could think about an antidepressant if you want to.”

  “I would have to talk to Joel about that,” Hannah said.

  “Do you mind if I ask . . . ,” Reuben began. “It’s just that I’ve noticed you haven’t been here together much—you and Joel, that is—and I sense something, a difference between you. Well, really the dynamic is different with the two of you and when you’re with Richard, and I just wondered: Has anything changed?”

  “That’s perceptive of you,” she said, testing how far she might be willing to go.

  “Thanks,” Reuben said. “So I’m right, something has changed?”

  Hannah looked at her Hello Beautiful mug.

  “Where did you get this one?” she asked.

  “Oh,” he said, looking suddenly shy. “It was actually something I got for my mother for some Mother’s Day a while back. When she died, it was one of the things I kept. I knew the ladies here would love it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Hannah said. “I didn’t know.” Really, she knew almost nothing about his personal life. “Is that when you started working here? Or did you already work here?”

  “I already did,” he said. “I always thought I wanted to be a guidance counselor—I thought probably at a high school. But I had an internship at one, and something was missing for me. It was around the time my mother got sick, and I saw all this bias against old people, like they were worthless and just being thrown away, and it made no sense to me, so I shifted gears and ended up here.”

  “Huh,” Hannah said, impressed.


  “The other route I considered was a marriage-and-sex therapist,” he said, deadpan.

  “Really?”

  “Well, no, not really,” he said, smiling. She found herself smiling back. “I’m not so sure I would be good at that. I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind my asking about this. I do feel a little awkward about it. It’s just that if I sense it, Richard probably senses it.”

  “A little over a month ago, I discovered that Joel had an affair,” she said, looking at the mug. “It was a total and complete shock. I mean, we had always had a solid marriage; I was happy, we loved being parents together, and we still found time to, you know, be alone, though I realize now not as much as we used to—I mean, it gets so busy! And the kids are often in our bed, but it isn’t like we don’t want to. Sorry, that’s probably too much information. My point is that I was positive we were the lucky ones. But I was wrong. Some lady who worked at a hotel Joel went to in Minnesota on business trips . . . he said he never loved her. He said it was over before I found out.”

  “Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry,” Reuben said. “So are you guys in the process of splitting? Is that what I sense?”

  “Well, I guess that’s the million-dollar question.”

  She was building up to the next part, the part about her having an affair.

  “I personally might not be the best person to give advice, but you would be blown away by the stories I hear in here. These people have perspective! So if they’ve been married for sixty years or longer, that usually comes with some detours along the way, some infidelity on one or both parts, some incredible hurdles that they survived.”

  “So are you married?” she asked. She didn’t think so; he didn’t wear a ring. But some people just didn’t wear rings.

  “Oh no, I’m not married,” he said. “I have a girlfriend. Her name is Lucy. She’s been in Nicaragua for three months doing research about disappearing languages. She’s heading to Africa now. I haven’t seen her in thirteen weeks, and there is no date set for when I might see her, but I let it happen. I just keep agreeing to it. The thing is in many ways it suits me. I’m lonely, no question, but it gives me time to work and not worry about getting anywhere by a particular time. I keep telling myself it works for both of us.”

  There was a light knock. They both looked toward the open door to see a nurse standing there, motioning for Reuben to come talk to her.

  “One sec,” Reuben said. She watched as he went out and listened, then nodded. He came back in. “Sorry, actually it’s a good thing I stayed. Millie on the second floor is having a fight with her roommate, apparently a loud fight, and she’s threatening her with the butter knife she slipped off her tray at breakfast this morning and hid in her sheets. I’m going to go see what I can do to defuse the situation. This is not the first time this has happened. She’s been warned about this.”

  Hannah was disappointed. She had decided to tell Reuben everything. He was so easy to talk to. She realized there weren’t many people she could share her thoughts with these days. She could use a friend like him.

  “Okay,” Hannah said. “We’ll talk again soon. I want to come back and see Richard in the next few days probably.”

  “Sounds good,” Reuben said. He reached for her mug, placed it on the table, and snapped a photo of it with his cell. In a few seconds Hannah got the notification of a text: a photo of the words on the mug. Hello Beautiful.

  “Now you have it, in case you need another pick-me-up,” Reuben said, gathering his stack of papers. “I’m off to hopefully save Millie from herself.”

  On her way out, she called Kim. She had been trying to stop by whenever she could, but now it had been almost a week since their last visit. When Kim was with the kids, she was normal, capable, relatively happy (fake or not) Kim, but when the kids were with Hank, she often sank back into that dark, sad version of herself. Hannah knew tonight was a Hank night.

  When Kim answered her phone, all Hannah could hear was loud music.

  “Hello?” Hannah said. “Hello?”

  “Oh, hi!” Kim said, sounding far away. “Sorry, you’re on speaker.”

  “I meant to call earlier,” Hannah said, talking louder than she had to. “I got caught up with Richard.”

  “That’s okay,” Kim said. “Listen, I don’t have much time. Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Oh, sure. Did the kids end up switching days? Are they there?”

  “The kids? No, they’re with Hank. Actually, I have a date.”

  “A date?” She might as well have said she had decided to become an astronaut.

  “Yes, a date,” Kim said, responding to the shock in Hannah’s voice. “What? Did you think I couldn’t get one? We connected on Bumble. But I have to meet him in twenty minutes—you know, you don’t want to tell someone where you live—so we’re meeting at that bar near Bainbridge? That nice cocktail bar?”

  “Oh, okay,” Hannah said, feeling strangely flustered. “On Bumble?”

  “I really have to go,” Kim said, sounding more upbeat than she had in months. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I really want to tell Dr. Snow about our plan,” Joel said as he eased into the tiny parking spot. “It seems like we should, don’t you think?”

  Hannah didn’t want to. So far she was still the good one in Dr. Snow’s eyes, the one who had not stepped out on the marriage. She just wasn’t willing to give up that role. More than that, though, what if Dr. Snow advised them against it or said she thought it was a terrible idea? Hannah had grown to be somewhat excited about the idea—at least the possibility of the idea—and she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.

  “Not tonight,” Hannah said, making no move to get out of the car. “Maybe next week.”

  “I would really like to now,” Joel said, not backing down but also keeping his voice even and kind. It was a trick he had, a way to negotiate and ask for what he needed without putting the other person on edge. It was something she’d always admired until she was clearly on the other end of it. “It’s just that I have so many feelings and thoughts about it. It’s on my mind most of the time, so I’d like to talk about it. Plus, it seems to me we’ve both been holding back a little, or at least we haven’t had that much to talk about lately, and I think that’s because we aren’t talking about this, this important thing. Come on, we should head in.”

  “You know, I don’t love the way that all sounded,” Hannah said. “That this is what you’re thinking about now. It’s like you switched the focus from you to me, like I’m the one doing the bad thing now, and I don’t think I like that.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I mean at all,” Joel said. “I did the bad thing. I will always be the one who did the bad thing. But of course I wonder what you’re doing and with whom. I don’t like that one bit. I deserve it, no question, but I don’t like it.”

  “So if I do this and you suffer, do you think we’ll be even? Because it isn’t true. I would never be doing this if you hadn’t done what you did. I don’t think we will ever be even. You’re the one who started this, you did this, and if you hadn’t, I would never in a million years be having an affair with another man. In a million years.”

  “Yes, I know, I get that,” Joel said. “Wait. You’re having an affair? Currently?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, the familiar anger building. “I just didn’t think you would ever do that to me. I would have bet on our kids’ lives that you wouldn’t do that to me.”

  A strange noise came out of Joel’s throat, and at first she thought he was going to be sick, though he hadn’t been in a few weeks—that had pretty much stopped. But she saw right away that wasn’t it. He was crying, hard, aggressive tears, and the sobs kept getting caught in his throat as he tried to pull himself together.

  “Our kids’ lives,” he repeated back to her, but it was hard to even understand him. He sounded messy, and for one brief second she felt embarr
assed for him. She looked out the window and up toward the turret, where Dr. Snow was surely waiting for them.

  She didn’t say anything while his crying quieted down. She knew she should get out of the car and they should go up there and absorb the professional wisdom they so clearly needed. But she just didn’t want to.

  “Listen, Joel, I don’t want to talk to Dr. Snow about this tonight. I’m not going to change my mind,” she said. She knew she needed to find her own therapist, that that was where she should be spending her time now, because despite her little internal dialogue at the bakery, she still found herself resisting this whole idea. She had taken wedding vows, for heaven’s sake! She had promised Joel, of course, but she had also promised everyone else in that room and any higher being who might or might not be paying attention. She had to get over that.

  “What do you want to do?” Hannah asked. “Do you want to go in even if we aren’t going to talk about it? Or do you want to call it a night?” She glanced at her watch. They’d been running late to begin with, and now they were twenty-two minutes into their fifty-minute session.

  “Can you call her?” Joel said. “I can barely talk.”

  “Can you drive?” Hannah asked somewhat harshly. She did not want to drive home.

  “Yes, I can drive,” he said. “I just need a minute.”

  Hannah pulled out her phone. As she fumbled to bring up Dr. Snow’s number, she landed on Reuben’s text—the picture that said Hello Beautiful. She took a deep breath and said the words silently to herself. Hello beautiful, hello beautiful, hello beautiful. Then she found the right number and called.

  “Are you guys sitting down there?” Dr. Snow asked instead of saying hello.

  “Yes, we’ve basically had our own session in the car,” Hannah said. “We just don’t feel up to it tonight. I’m so sorry.”

  “Can I come down? Just to say hello? You know I’m going to have to charge you for this either way.”

  “I know,” Hannah said. “I just think we’re going to pass tonight. You said these things ebb and flow with false starts and barriers that appear and disappear, right?”