Leaving Sophie Dean

by Alexandra Whitaker

  “For the love of God!”

  Sophie dashed in from the kitchen, dishcloth in hand, ready to protect Adam from his offspring’s exuberance and them from his indifference—well, no, not indifference; she didn’t mean that. “Here we go,” she said gaily, mopping whiskey off the rug. “All clean.” Matthew stood by uncertainly, holding his airplane. “Matthew, honey, Daddy does want to see your planes, but not right now. He’s had a hard day at the office, and he needs to rest. You can show them to him later, how about that? Now, run up and play in your room until dinner. Go on.”

  “Daddy never wants to play,” Matthew muttered, and taking the cue from his older brother, Hugo hung his head, too, and left dragging his feet.

  Adam sighed, contemplating his empty scotch glass, a symbol of all he had to put up with. Sophie looked from him to the children trudging resentfully up the stairs and frowned as she played back in her head something she had just said: “Daddy’s had a hard day.” Where had she dredged up a hackneyed line like that—from some obscure Leave It to Beaver rerun? She smiled apologetically at Adam. “They’re crazy about those airplanes.” When he didn’t respond, she sat next to him, looked at him with concern, and stroked his hair back from his forehead. “You do look tired. Things all right at the office?” Without opening his eyes, he reached up and stopped her hand. Surprised, she took it away, then looked at his impassive face for a moment, stood up, and went back into the kitchen, raising her voice to be heard over the clanging of pots and pans. “The plumber finally showed up today. Three hours late! I was stuck in the house waiting for him. Did a pretty sloppy job. I think it’s still leaking. Should I get him to come back, do you think? Or try somebody else?”

  Adam massaged his forehead, his eyes resolutely closed.

  “Adam? Do you think I should call the same guy back or try to get someone better?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, can’t you work it out for yourself?”

  Sophie came to the doorway and looked at him in astonishment.

  “I’m sorry,” he said crossly. “It’s just that…” He waved his hand in a broad gesture that meant a hardworking man deserved to return home to something better than toy planes and plumbers.

  “No,” Sophie said quietly. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I look forward so much to having a grown-up to talk to, and then when you get home, I have nothing more interesting to say than, ‘The plumber came.’” She laughed uncomfortably. “I don’t blame you for finding it boring. I do, too. Sometimes I almost don’t recognize myself, you know, in my… in my life now… as wife and mother. This funny thing happens to me sometimes, Adam. It’s a mocking voice inside me, like a little imp that leaps out and jeers at me when I’m just going about my business. It happened in the supermarket this morning, and again right now when I told the kids you’d had a hard day. It’s a little voice that makes fun of me for doing things that I actually want to be doing. I mean, I’m happy, really. I am happy. I don’t like waiting around all day for the plumber, of course—who would? But the sink can’t leak, so someone has to get the plumber here, and for the time being, while the boys are little and I’m not working, that person is me. That’s how we decided to do it, and I’m glad we did. I am. But you know, I find it every bit as boring as you do, believe me. Actually, more than you, because I’m the one who has to do it, so…” Up to then Sophie had been addressing her speech to various corners of the room, anxiously twisting her wedding ring, but now she turned to Adam, who was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped on his bowed head in an attitude of concentrated listening that gave her courage to continue on a firmer note. “So I think you could sympathize with me for having spent such a dull day doing something that was for the good of all of us, instead of reproaching me for it. I was bored—it’s unfair to also make me feel boring.” She smiled at him, ready to accept his apology with a careless wave of the hand, feeling more like her old self for having told him about that evil imp. Now they could laugh about it together and exorcise the demon.

  When it dawned on Adam that silence had fallen over the room, he roused himself and stood up, saying, “Feel like some music?” She stared, her confidence trickling away, then returned slowly to the kitchen while the imp taunted her triumphantly: You burbling ass! First you bore him out of his skull, then you make it worse with all that whimsical crap! Can’t you just shut up if you have nothing interesting to say?

  But why reproach herself? It certainly wasn’t her fault that having the plumber in wasn’t interesting! What was she supposed to do—check every comment for suitability for his lordship’s ears? However, it was also possible that Adam was right. It was her duty, a sacred duty to herself principally, to make her days interesting, and it could be construed as unfair to punish him with her failure to do so. Best, she thought, not to express her anger until she was sure it was justified. So instead she launched into a nervously high-​spirited account of the children’s doings, speaking disjointedly, but loudly enough to be heard from the kitchen, in a kind of parody of housewifely prattle that the imp enjoyed heartily.

  Matthew’s painting… plenty of movement… get it framed…

  Barely listening, Adam searched through their music in the vain hope of discovering something new and exciting there.

  … had the sniffles… took him to school… a touch of hay fever…

  No. Nothing new or exciting. Stepping back from the stereo, Adam stumbled over a basket of clothes that Sophie had stashed behind an armchair. “Jesus!” he said, staggering to regain his balance. Sophie raced out of the kitchen and scooped up the basket.

  “I’m sorry, darling, Milagros is off sick, and I haven’t had time to do the ironing. But I will get your shirts done, I promise.” They stood for a moment staring at each other; Adam looking offended by his close call with the laundry and Sophie, basket on hip, earnestly promising to iron. Then she threw back her head and laughed, a deep, healthy laugh that felt good. “Oh, Adam, my darling, isn’t life rich? So full of the funny and the unexpected! Here I am, haunted by the specter of Mrs. Cleaver, begging forgiveness for the ironing! And you’re standing there like the lord of the manor, looking peeved and accusing!” She leaned forward in a fresh burst of laughter and squeezed his forearm to steady herself. “Oh, honey, this is one for the annals!” After which, as far as she was concerned, the air was cleared.

  The boys thundered down the stairs, now in hot argument.

  “Daddy, Matthew broke my elephant!”

  “I did not! It broke itself!”

  “You did too! Daddy, can you fix it?”

  But Sophie was on the job. “I’ll do it, honey.” She snapped the trunk back onto his elephant, a service she performed often, and gave both boys a quick hug before pushing them gently away. “There, all fixed, off you go.” She looked tenderly at Adam. “Can I get you a fresh drink, sweetheart? Dinner will be ready in a minute.” He nodded, and, exceptionally, she poured one for herself as well and sat next to him, wisely opting this time for companionable silence. Whatever troubles he was having at work, he would tell her about them in his own time and way. The first sip of her drink, a well-watered scotch, made her shudder, although not unpleasantly, raising gooseflesh on her arm. She had fallen out of the habit of drinking, first with pregnancies, then breast-feeding, then all those months of broken nights when she was too tired for anything. Gazing into the pale golden liquid, she marveled at having a drink again, just like a grown-up.

  Then the boys were back, full of outrage. Hugo threw himself into Sophie’s lap, spilling her drink on her dress. “Matt pushed me down!” Adam cursed and held his glass up high, out of danger.

  “It’s not true, Mommy! He just fell down! And he took my—”

  Adam cut them off with a roar of, “Quiet! Quiet, both of you!” They stared at him round-eyed. “Not another word! Do you understand, Matthew? Hugo? I’ve had enough!” They crept back a bit, Hugo’s mouth trembling, Matthew pale. “I’ve had enough,” Adam repeated,
quietly this time, and to Sophie, with a hint of apology in his voice.

  She looked with regret at her empty glass. “It’s well-​engineered, isn’t it? Parents are protected from becoming alcoholics by their young children knocking the drinks out of their hands.” But he didn’t smile, so she went on in a lower voice. “Honey, it’s hard now when they’re so young, but this won’t last forever, and soon we’ll be looking back on this time wishing they were little again.” She smiled tentatively but still got no answering smile. To the boys she said, “You must be tired and hungry. Let’s have some supper.”

  But Adam got to his feet. “I’m going out. Carry on without me. I… Just carry on without me.”

  When the door closed behind him, the children turned questioning eyes on their mother. “Well!” she said brightly. “Daddy had to go out. Come on, let’s eat!”

  * * *

  Valerie had dinner alone, having dodged the son-in-law’s persistent invitations to join him. Back at the hotel, she reminded herself that it was too soon to expect to hear from Adam. Unless… There was one scenario she had been playing in her head that would account for a call this early. It went like this: Adam had felt braced by her ultimatum, grateful for that little push, and he had marched straight home to have it out with his wife. Not terribly likely, perhaps. Somberly, Valerie rode the elevator up to her room, and as she was opening the door, her phone began to ring. She pawed in her bag for it, then gasped into it, “Hello? Hello?”

  “So how’d it go, gorgeous?”

  “Oh. Agatha. Hi. Look, can I call you back? I’m expecting a call.”

  “This is a call.”

  “But I just got in. I need to— I’ll call you back, okay?”

  “No, not okay. You have call-waiting. But it’s nice to know you’re so glad to hear from me. Listen. I’m going out tonight. I have a hot date for once—what do you think of that? Valerie? Valerie. Vee, are you okay?”

  Valerie didn’t answer. Hearing the concern in her friend’s voice had made her suddenly afraid of bursting into tears.

  “Is something wrong?” Agatha insisted.

  “No. I’m fine.” She gave a shaky sigh. “Just tired. Long day. I’m not really in the mood to talk right now.”

  “I’m not hanging up this phone until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  Valerie took a deep breath and said as calmly as she could, “I did it.”

  “Congratulations! I knew you would. Now, answer me this. Do you think they would have signed if you’d been wearing… uh, let’s say… a big, hairy, hand-knitted pullover? Come on, tell the truth.”

  “No, I mean I told Adam. You know… to make up his mind.”

  “You what?”

  “You know. I told him to choose between us. Her or me.”

  “Oh, my God! I can’t believe you really did that!”

  “What do you mean? It was your idea! ‘Make him choose, give him forty-eight hours, stop wasting your life!’ Remember?”

  “You did that? You gave him forty-eight hours? To leave his wife?”

  For a moment Valerie found herself poised at a fork in her emotional pathway. In one direction lay Stark Panic, brought on by the realization (belated) that Agatha had not been serious, had just been trying to get her goat as usual, and that Valerie had fallen into her trap, wantonly jeopardizing her love affair and possibly her entire future—in other words, Valerie had just ruined her life. In the other direction lay Defiant Anger, as in, how dare that bitch try to make a fool of her? For a moment she hung undecided, staring into the faces of both possibilities: panic and anger.

  She chose anger. “What’s wrong, Agatha? Don’t you have the courage of your convictions? Are you all talk and no action, is that it? Well, I’m not!” It felt good, and it solved another problem: Ever since Valerie had decided to take this drastic step (or, more accurately, ever since Valerie had found herself taking this drastic step), her pride had suffered from the knowledge that the idea hadn’t been hers in the first place. Feisty and daring, it was the sort of thing she normally attributed to herself. There was something lowering about merely following the advice of others, and particularly of Agatha. But here was an opportunity to appropriate the idea, and quite rightly, for who did it really belong to—the person who had idly dreamed it up or the one capable of seizing it and boldly acting upon it? “I’d always meant to do something of the kind,” she said airily, “and now seemed as good a time as any.”

  “Well, obviously, it was the only thing to do under the circumstances,” Agatha countered smoothly. “I only wish I had come up with the idea sooner—in time to use it on old Howard. I was just surprised to hear you’d gotten up the courage, that’s all.”

  “Were you indeed?”

  “I mean, it’s not an easy thing to do. Bravo. At least this’ll cut your suffering short. Better to learn the truth right away and get on with your life than screw around for years, like I did.”

  “Not that there was ever the remotest chance of my doing that.” It had not escaped Valerie’s notice that Agatha wasn’t even considering the possibility that Adam might choose Valerie over his wife. Valerie would get her for that one day. “Listen, I have a big day tomorrow, and I need some sleep. So I’ll let you—” But she broke off abruptly, imagining the long, lonely night ahead and thinking that under the circumstances giving her friend the brush-off wasn’t in her best interest. So hey, she could be magnanimous. To hell with pride and scoring off Agatha for once. She dropped into an armchair with a sigh. “Oh, shit, Agatha, I’m scared.”

  It wouldn’t be fair to say that Agatha gloated, but she did derive quiet satisfaction from the fittingness of Valerie’s suffering for something that was entirely her own fault. It all came down to that salad; there would have been no need for revenge if only Valerie had eaten a decently caloric meal. Spooky, though. It just goes to show how great events can hinge on small ones: You order the wrong thing, you lose your man. Sobering.

  “You’re scared, huh?” Agatha asked, and she decided to knock it off, too. “Well, of course you are, and no wonder. Look, let’s think this through. I think you’ve done the best thing, but we’ll hash it over until you feel good about it. Or if you don’t, we’ll come up with something else you can do. Either way, we won’t stop talking tonight until you feel okay. Okay?”

  “I’m listening,” Valerie said in a small voice, feeling comforted already. Then she remembered that Agatha was going out. She didn’t suppose it mattered, but for form’s sake she thought she should ask, “But what about your hot date?”

  “You’re more important right now.”

  Valerie snuggled up in the chair and tucked her feet under her, all ready to be calmed and reassured.

  Agatha cleared her throat and assumed the tone of someone making a formal address. “Now, uh, very briefly, I would just like to begin by saying that— Check… check…​ testing… one… two… Is this microphone working?”

  “Agatha.”

  Before beginning her dissertation, Agatha glanced at the clock and saw that she should really be leaving the apartment now, on her way to her date. “Fine. Okay… ah… oh, yes. Let’s see, you two have been sleeping together for six months now, more or less. That’s a key moment in a clandestine affair. You’re probably at the pinnacle of your relationship—sexual attraction has turned into love, but familiarity has not yet bred contempt. So you had two options with Adam: to go along as you were, or to bring about a change. If you had gone along as you were, what would have happened? One: Very soon, Adam would have begun to grow comfortable with his double life, no longer tormented with guilt about the lying and betrayal involved. He would have lost that feeling of ‘I can’t possibly go on like this!’—which is so useful to us in forcing his hand. Two: He would have come to see you as someone willing to accept the role of the ‘other woman,’ and deserving nothing better. If after six months you still seem satisfied with the crumbs from the marriage feast, believe me, that’s all you’ll ever get. Three: As
his estimation of you drops, your resentment of the situation will rise accordingly. You’ll become bitchy and nagging, which will make him like you even less, which will make you even bitchier—and so you will spiral, down, down, down, down.”

  “But what if—”

  “Quiet!” Agatha wasn’t allowing interruptions, not when she was being so damned self-sacrificing. “What I conclude is that if you’d done nothing, your affair would have burned out on its own.”

  “But wait,” Valerie insisted. “What about this—I do nothing, he sees how perfect I am for him, and in his own time, without unseemly pressure from me, he makes the adult and lifesaving decision to be with me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. Don’t forget, it’s easier to stay married than to get divorced. Newton discovered that. Objects in motion stay in motion, and those at rest stay at rest, and that means that staying in a marriage is the natural thing to do. We’re talking about the Energy Well here. Listen, Valerie, he would have to pack up every one of his books. Had you thought of that? All those architecture books, every one of them, he has to put them in boxes and lug them somewhere. And his other stuff—tennis rackets, high-school yearbooks, possibly some old sporting trophies—”

  “Are we cleaning Adam’s closet now?”

  “I’m making the immensely valid point that breaking up your home and marriage is an enormous move, incredibly difficult to do, and not a thing someone is likely to undertake unless there’s a real emergency. And what’s more, we’re dealing here with a fundamentally ‘nice guy.’ No, he will not, of his own accord, just walk out on his wife and two small children, definitely not.” Agatha paused for effect before adding, “Not unless you make him.”