His Wife Leaves Him

Ninth, the last, a complete symphony if there ever was one, and then some, with five movements, eighty-six minutes, an orchestra of a hundred, a chorus of a thousand, an audience of millions, and it isn’t finished yet. So sit tight. You got your wish. There’s more than twenty minutes to go. We’ve time, plenty of time, to enjoy it.” “That’s good,” she whispers. “And you know so much about music.” “Just this one. It’s all from the program notes.” “Shh,” someone says behind him. “I was whispering,” he says to the woman. “Shh, shh,” she says, finger over her lips. “But it’s all right,” he whispers; “she’s my wife. And I told you, I was just—” “Daddy…Daddy, you up?” Rosalind says through the bedroom door, or maybe she’s in the room. He keeps his eyes shut, pretends to be asleep. Doesn’t want to talk to anyone now, even them. And if it’s time to go out for dinner, he doesn’t want to. It’s not just their friends; he’s tired and not hungry. “He’s sleeping,” Rosalind says, “so let’s not wake him. I’ll leave a note we went without him because we wanted him to rest.” “Should I turn on Mom’s light?” Maureen says. “It’s so dark.” “No, I’m sure he’ll sleep till morning. He could use it. C’mon, let’s go, before it gets too late for them.” The door closes. “We should bring some food back for him,” Maureen says. “I was thinking that too. What are his favorite dishes?” No food, he thinks. Don’t waste your money. Ah, but they’ll eat it for lunch tomorrow. But what was he doing? He should have answered them. If he didn’t want to go, he should have said so. Now it’s too late. They’re probably out of the house, or about to be, and he doesn’t want to stop them — they don’t have much time — and also doesn’t want them thinking he was faking sleep. He also could have asked them to make sure his phone ringer’s off. And told them to use the credit card they share, because he wants to pay for everything while they’re here, even for their friends. The cat’s meowing from somewhere in the house. The sounds are too far away to know if he wants to be fed or let out. He hopes they fed him. A recent incident with Gwen comes back to him. For no reason that he can see: just popped in. They were lying in bed. It was around 6 a.m. He’d just put her on her back, pulled the covers over her, got in bed. There was a little daylight in the room. He usually kissed her lips or forehead after he got back in bed. He put his face over hers and saw she looked distressed. He said “What’s wrong?” and she said she’s having trouble breathing. He got scared — her internist had told him to look out for any sudden changes in her — and touched her body in various places to see if she was cold. She wasn’t — she felt normal — but he got an erection when he touched her thigh. He took her hand and squeezed it around his penis and kept it there — her bad hand, because that was the side he was lying next to — and she said “What are you doing?” and he said “You’re not interested?” and she said “I told you, I’m having trouble breathing, so I don’t want you on me.” “I don’t have to get on you,” and she said “Please, not now, nor”—he especially remembers the “nor”—“do I know when. I’m very uncomfortable.” “Of course; I’m sorry. Anything I can do for you?” and she took her hand out from under his and off his penis and said “No, it’s happened before; I just never said anything. If it’s like the last times, it’ll go away.” “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” and she said “Same for me to you.” He kissed her forehead, probably pulled the covers up over her ears, and went back to sleep. …“Martin, Martin, come here, I need to speak to you.” It’s Gwen. He gets out of bed and leaves the house. He’s wearing only a pajama top and slippers. He doesn’t own slippers or pajamas, he thinks, so they must be hers. Strange how they fit him perfectly; he’s so much bigger than she and his feet five sizes larger and much wider. It’s dark out. No moon or stars. He goes into the woods where he thinks her voice came from. Hears an owl in one of the trees. Maybe it was the owl who made sounds like Gwen calling him, and she’s still in bed. He didn’t feel around in bed for her and the room was so dark he couldn’t see. She’s lying on the ground, in a dress, shirt and jacket, but nothing on her feet. She’ll get cold, he thinks, and cut her feet up bad. “The kids,” she says. “What?” “They’re in grave danger. Help them.” “What danger? They’re fine. I just saw them, or spoke to them on the phone, at least, just about an hour ago, and they were chipper and healthy. It’s you who don’t look well, from what I can see of you. You don’t sound well, either. Your voice is so weak.” He gets on one knee and lifts her head off the ground. Drool’s running out of her mouth and he wipes it with his sleeve. “Your hair’s dirty. You usually have such beautiful, youthful hair. Are you hurt? Did you fall?” She just stares at him. Then her eyes close. “Okay, I will,” he says. “I’ll help them. First this, though.” and kisses her lips. They’re cold. But he keeps his lips on hers and after a few seconds they feel warm. Her eyes open and look around before settling on him. She’s okay, he thinks. “Can you talk?” She nods. “You scared me for a moment,” he says. “Because why did you think the kids were in danger?” “They took them from me. Everything was nice and I was protecting them and they suddenly disappeared.” “Who? When? How? Where? Oh, Jesus, this is like a play by Shakespeare, where the lead character’s a journalist, or at least a Shakespearean play, but one I can’t fathom or hear.” …He tries the kitchen door. It’s locked. He inserts his house key into the lock. The doorknob turns but the door won’t open. He rings the doorbell. Rings it several times before Gwen comes out of the study and walks to the door. “Oh, you’re walking without a cane,” he says. “I’m so glad.” “What do you want?” she says through the glass in the door. He can’t hear her and thinks maybe she’s just moving her lips to the words. He says “I want to get in.” “I told you, we’re through, finished, done with…it’s over, so get lost.” “‘Get lost’? Is that what I heard, reading your lips? I’m surprised at you. You never spoke to me so crudely before.” She goes back into her study and shuts the door. He rings the doorbell. Then pounds on the door with his fist till he puts a dent in it. He keeps pounding on the dent but can’t make it any larger. He thought if he could get a hole large enough in the door, he’d stick his hand through and find the new key on the hook by the door, where he’s sure she put it. He’d break the glass in the door to get the key, but he thinks she was barefoot or just in socks and he doesn’t want her coming out and cutting her feet. He yells “You’re wrong. Let me in. It’s not fair.” He grabs the doorknob and shakes it as hard as he can, thinking it’ll fall off and he’ll then be able to push the door open. When he does, he’s really going to have a talking with her, he thinks. Nothing abusive; he just wants to work things out with her so he can live in the house again and eventually as man and wife. He misses her, he thinks. “I miss you,” he yells. …They’re in bed. There’s a little daylight in the room, so it must be around six a.m. He feels around his night table for his watch but it’s not there. It probably fell to the floor, he thinks. He leans over the bed and feels around the floor, but can’t find the watch. Oh, what’s the difference what time it is, he thinks; it’s too early to get up, and he lies back on the bed. She’s on her side, her back to him. He must have recently turned her over to that side because he knows he put her on her other side, facing him, when he got her set for sleep. She’s so quiet, he wonders if she’s breathing. No, of course she’s breathing, he thinks, but what he means is he wonders if she’s having any trouble breathing. Just before he turned off his night table light and fell asleep, she complained about feeling a bit ill and cold. He pulls her nightshirt up and puts his ear to her back and hears her heartbeat. He counts to the beat “One-two, one-two, button your shoe, button your shoe,” which is a normal heartbeat, he thinks, so she must be feeling better. Good, that’s all that matters. He pulls her shirt up higher and strokes her shoulder. Her skin is so smooth: another sign of health. He once said to her “Your skin’s so smooth”—he forgets what part of her body he felt then; he thinks, her backside — and she said “Just like everybody’s, where you’re feeling.” “No, take my word,” he said, “yours is especially smooth, and all over, not just here.” “You’re only saying that because you want something from me, like my body.” “Not really,” he said, “although if you gave me it, I wouldn’t mind.” He wonders why he’s thinking of this incident now. Anyway, he started to make love to her and he forgets if she said to stop. He gets an erection. Now he knows why he started thinking of the incident. He massages her exposed shoulder with one hand. She doesn’t say to stop. That’s a good sign too, for making love, he thinks, if she’s awake. If she wasn’t interested in his touching her and she was awake, she’d say so to stop him before he gets too aroused. She’d say “Please take your hand away”—always “please”—“it’s keeping me from sleep.” Or she’d say “I’m not feeling well, so please don’t try and make love with me.” He’s nude; he always goes to bed nude. She always sleeps in a nightshirt and pad. He presses his penis into the crack in her pad between her buttocks; she doesn’t say anything. Either she’s asleep or it’s another good sign, he thinks. He strokes her legs and buttocks and puts his other hand down her shirt and feels her breast. She doesn’t say anything. All to the good, he thinks, all to the good. He unbuttons the pad straps in back, pulls that part away, feels for her cunt, holds it open with his fingers and puts his penis in. He can usually stay inside her for a minute, maybe two at the most, before it shrivels a little and slips out. He should have gone to the bathroom first, he thinks, got lubricant there and put it on him and jerked himself awhile and then got back in bed and, after wiping some more lubricant in her, stuck his penis in. This time he squeezes his penis at the end of the shaft to keep it hard, but by doing that he can’t move back and forth in her. Then she starts moving back and forth. She has to be awake, he thinks, or else started dreaming of having sex when he put his penis in. It feels so good, what she’s doing, he thinks. He thinks he’s going to come in her for the first time in a couple of years or more. Is she asleep? Don’t ask her. If he speaks, or even grunts, she might wake up, if she’s asleep, and get angry at him for having sex with her while she’s sleeping and tell him to stop. She continues to move back and forth, just a little each way but enough to keep him excited. He continues to squeeze his penis and feels he’s about to come. He hopes he does before she wakes up or tells him to stop or says she’s too weak or sleepy to move back and forth anymore or before his dream ends, because he suddenly thinks he’s dreaming all this. …He has to take the train to get back home. It’s late; past midnight, he thinks, and he also thinks he’s had this dream, in various ways, before. It’s always late at night; the subway station’s never recognizable; he always gets on the wrong train or finds himself waiting on the wrong platform and when the train comes he sees it’s not his. Or else he doesn’t have a subway token and the token booth has a line of about twenty people on it, or he can’t find the token in his pocket and the right train is pulling in but he won’t be able to go through the turnstile to get on it in time. But maybe the platform this time is the right one, he thinks. He asks a man standing next to him “Does the BGE stop here?” “No,” the man says, “just the opposite.” “Where does the train on this platform go, because maybe I can take it and make a connection to the BGE at some station later on?” “It goes to the outer boroughs,” the man says, “—landfills, sod farms, cemeteries, places like those. Any of them where you want to go?” “No, I want to get to the city and I need the BGE.” “For that one you have to go to the upper platform upstairs and wait for it there.” “This always happens to me,” he says. “And if I miss my train, and it’s due around now,” looking at a clock, “that’s the last one till morning. Why do I always take the last train home? Why don’t I give myself more wiggle room? Then, if I get on the wrong platform and miss my train, I can go to the right platform and catch the next one.” A train pulls in, doors open and the man gets on. The doors start closing and he holds one of them open and says to the man “You sure this isn’t the BGE? I didn’t notice any letters at the front of it when it came in, but it looks just like the BGE, and I’ve been fooled before. I once let a train leave that was the right one and the last one that night.” “Please let the door close,” the man says, and a woman sitting next to him says “Yeah, let it shut — you’re holding us up.” He lets go of the door and the train goes. Above him is a sign with an arrow on it and the words “To upper platform, BGE, SUP, EBD.” He hears a train coming in upstairs and runs in the direction the arrow points to. This can’t be the way, he thinks. When I came downstairs I came from an altogether different direction. I’m just going to get myself more lost. He sees someone with a railroadman’s cap on and goes up to him. “Sir, excuse me, I need help.” …He goes into his mother’s apartment. Place smells wonderful; she must be baking something. He hears his brother Carl talking loudly from inside the apartment but can’t make out what he’s saying, except for “Yes, get the rope; yes, get the boat; yes, get the tree.” Great, he thinks. Carl must have just got back from a trip he started out on long ago. He hasn’t seen him for years and it’s so nice to hear his voice again. He hurries into the kitchen. Carl’s on the phone there, looks up at him and nods but doesn’t smile; his face actually doesn’t seem happy to see him. Is he angry at me for some reason? he thinks. What’d I do? Why, after so many years, isn’t he glad to see me too? “I told you, didn’t