His Wife Leaves Him

hurt him or make him the least bit jealous, so broke off the affair. No loss; my affairee was inept and dull and I didn’t like his conversations. The second was also a dreadful stupid mistake, in a different way, but full of love and tears on my part, and lasted. My partner was sexy and exciting and intellectually energizing and metaphorically flicked his cigarette ashes on me. My first broken heart.” Was the one-too-many her mentor, he thinks, and must have thought then, and the reasons she followed him to whatever university he switched to and why he helped her get such a good deal at it? She never told him who the two men were and how long the affairs lasted because, she said, when he asked, she wanted to keep that part of her life secret from everyone but her husband. “We even, in fact, wrote it into our marriage vows: to promptly tell the other the truth about everything seemingly important to the marriage we’ve done, no matter how bad.” He next saw her on the main street of Palo Alto, which now makes him think that her mentor had switched to Stanford and that’s where she got her doctorate. So maybe she had finished all her coursework by the time he met her, and maybe in two years, not that he ever heard of it, though that doesn’t mean anything, and now only came to Stanford once a month or so to do whatever a doctoral candidate has to do for her department once she’s done with her classwork — take her orals, attend a lecture by a prominent visiting professor in her field, meet with her dissertation advisor, and so on. Otherwise, he thinks he would have been with her more, since he lived in the next town over from Palo Alto. He knows that the deal she got at whatever university she got it from was over, where she didn’t have to teach for her department for two or three years. Oh, he’ll never remember it completely, no matter how hard he tries, so give up. It was in the afternoon, a beautiful spring day: bright sky, soft breezes, the air smelling of flowering fruit trees. He was on his way to pick up his typewriter at the typewriter repair shop on the street. Saw her walking, couldn’t believe his luck, because he had thought about her a lot, and came up alongside her and said “Wow, this is a coincidence, bumping into you after just a few weeks,” if that’s how long it was — it was a short time, though, that he knows—“unless I’ve been following you. I haven’t. Nice to see you again,” and he put out his hand to shake but she didn’t take it. She looked puzzled and he said “Martin Samuels”—if they had given their names the first time, and even if they hadn’t—“from that Berkeley health food co-op? Tofu and herbal tea?” “It’s not that I didn’t recognize you and from where,” she said. “It’s what you said about following me. You make such odd remarks and bad jokes; forgive me if I’m being too frank.” “No, I like it, and you’re right, it was odd and my humor does tend to fall, from time to time, flat. Unfortunately, it seems a habit I can’t seem to break, but I’ll try. In order to change the subject and get the focus off me, can I ask how you’ve been? What are you doing on this side of the bay? You bike all the way? People do.” “No, I came here as you’d expect me to: I drove.” “So, another odd remark on my part, right? though maybe not as bad.” He doesn’t remember if she said what she was doing in Palo Alto. “But I think my explanation why I keep saying these odd and sort of inane things is, one, I’m not odd but I can be inane and dumb. And two, I’m probably — I must be — and maybe here comes another of either of those that I’m going to regret but I’ll say it anyway — nervous speaking to you. Yes, that’s something I should’ve repressed. I had the time to; I caught myself before. But I’d already started it so thought it was too late to stop.” “So, why?” and he said “Did I think it was too late to stop?” and she said “Better we drop the subject. You did explain yourself sufficiently, although I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Your nervousness is kind of charming. I can’t remember ever making a man nervous before with just my presence.” “How else, then, could you have,” he said, “if you don’t mind my asking?” “When I crossed the street against the light, but with someone who didn’t want to, and cars were coming. And when a man I didn’t know was crossing the street against or with the light and I nearly ran into him with my bike.” “So it seems only on the street,” he said. “Look, I was on my way to pick up my typewriter at the repair shop there, but would you like to step in someplace for coffee?” and she said “Sure, I’ve time.” “You don’t think — no, I won’t say it; I’ve cured myself for today.” “I’d shoot for much longer than that, because you don’t want to ruin what could be a good thing. For the time being — and please don’t try to squeeze out of me what changed my mind — we’ll avoid talking about him, okay?” “I live in Menlo Park,” he said, “—very near here. Do you live in Berkeley?” “I thought you already knew I did.” “Like to, instead of a coffee shop, have it in my small modest flat? I also have crackers and cheese and different kinds of teas.” “Flat?” she said. “How cozy. Sure, I’d go for that too. Give me the address and directions — you can just tell me and I’ll remember — and I’ll drive there.” “Think I should get my typewriter first? Don’t want to stop the momentum, but why should I go back for it when it’s right here, and I’m going to need it later?” She walked him to the typewriter store, then he gave her directions to his building, said he’d meet her out front and walked her to her car. “Volvo,” he said. “All the latest safety features. It’s the car I’d expect you to drive.” “I know I’m breaking my interdiction about talking about him, but it was a decision, buying this car, my husband and I made together after considerable research. That’s what married couples do. It’s fun.” They had tea and crackers. “I’m sorry, I’m very hungry,” she said, “so I’m going to have to eat your last cracker, unless you want to split it.” “I should’ve stopped for lunch food on the way here,” he said, “but I didn’t want to keep you waiting. I thought you’d leave.” “I wouldn’t have,” she said. “If you were delayed I’d know it was for something you thought important and that was probably related to me. What we first should have done was go for a snack someplace. That’s what I was about to do when you saw me on the street. The conversation we’re having now we could have had anywhere.” “I forgot, I’ve wine,” he said, and poured them each a glass. After he finished his, he took her glass out of her hand—“This could be considered rude of me, taking your wine away without asking you,” and she said “I’ve drunk enough and I know what you’re about to do and it’s okay.” They kissed a few times. When he started to feel her up, she said “Some other time. I don’t want to do everything in one or two days.” “So you think something’s started?” and she said “Yes, I think something’s started.” “I have no love life; do you, or not much?” and she said “I can see why you might think that about me but it isn’t true. In any case, could you please get your lips over here? Make it one that lasts my entire drive home, and then I go. Unlike you, if this isn’t an anomaly on your refrigerator’s part — I took a peek inside — ours is always stocked with good food. Maybe one day you’ll come by and I’ll make you lunch.” Then, about a year later, or maybe a few months earlier than that, she said…But he suddenly remembers something about her that he thought at the time characterized her a lot. It also relates to Gwen. They were making love and she was unusually tight down there, and he stopped — he was behind her — and said “This must be hurting you. I know it’s a bit uncomfortable for me,” and pulled out. “I don’t think you’re producing the required amount of vaginal juices, and I’m not saying it’s your fault. I probably entered you too early.” She said “Do you have any lubricant for it?” and he said “No, nothing.” “Just spit in your hand and smear it around in me,” and he said “I don’t think I could. Not only unsanitary but I think too sloppy.” “Then I will, if you want to get on with this,” and she spit in her hand and put it inside her vagina and they resumed making love, he thinks with her now on her back. “See, it works,” she said. Once with Gwen when they were making love — this was before her first stroke but after her menopause, or however you say it — she was also very tight and she said “I could use some of my K-Y jelly. Would you get it for me?” He said “You know, you can just spit in your hand and use it as a lubricant,” and she said “What a thing to suggest. My own spit? Inside my cunt?” and he said “Then I could spit in my hand and do it. It’s not dirty, and I doubt you need much.” “Even worse, somebody else’s spit. Sweetie, I know you don’t want to get out of bed — the room’s so cold and the flannel sheets are so warm — but please get it and also put some on your penis,” and he did and squeezed some more on his fingers and rubbed it around her vagina for longer than he needed to and they resumed making love. “Much better,” she said. “Thank you.” After her first stroke, when she had trouble using her hands and she started having frequent bladder infections, they always had specimen jars and a tube or two of surgical lubricant around — they still are on the bathroom shelf — in case he had to catheterize her to bring a urine sample to the lab or to empty her bladder. They always seemed to know when she had a new infection, sometimes just by the urine color or smell, and a visiting nurse had taught him the procedure. So then, about nine months after they met, or maybe it was a whole year, Sharon called and said “I know you don’t expect me today, but I don’t want to tell you what I have to tell you on the phone.” He thought she’s pregnant and she’s sure the baby’s his. She came over, they kissed at the door, and she said “You’re not going to like this, or maybe you will. Who knows. After putting up with me so long, you might be relieved.” “You’re breaking up with me,” and she said “It’s a little scary, because it’s not as if we’re an old married couple—“and he said “How often I know what you’re going to say. It wasn’t hard this time. Your face and how you prefaced it.” He knows he’s gone in to this but this is a more accurate account of what he did and she said. “Bill and I have decided to have a baby — we’ve already begun working at it. And because we don’t want there to be any uncertainty who the father is. And also for the sake of family harmony and marital fidelity, which he promised to observe if I do, and of course for the emotional and mental well-being of the child—” “‘This is the last time we can meet, except, if you wish, sometime in the distant future for the occasional coffee and good conversation we’ve always had and to catch up on what we’ve been doing and me to tell you all the cute and funny and endearing things my baby’s doing.’ No chance. If we’re breaking up, let’s do it for good; that means starting right now.” That’s about when he got really angry. “You fucking bitch,” he said, and other names. “Leading me on, dropping me off, kicking me in the ass, then a swift boot to my balls. Just get the hell out of here.” Angry at her for the first time, he thinks. He doesn’t think they ever once had a spat. He was always saying “Anything you want, fine by me.” “What bullshit this is; what stupid things you’ve got me saying.” Banging his hand against the wall, but an open hand, not his fist. That he did with Terry when she called off their engagement five years before—“I need more time, I feel I’m rushing in to this too quickly”—“No, no the whole thing’s over; don’t tell me”—and he broke two fingers. Doing all that. Tearing at his hair. Kicking over a chair. First she tried to calm him down. “My dear friend, I’m so sorry.” “Friend? Friend? Well, nothing’s wrong with that, I guess, you bitch.” “All right,” she said, “maybe that was the wrong word. But truly, if I had known you were going to act like such a crazy lout, I would have told you all this over the phone or in a letter.” “You should’ve, you should’ve,” he shouted. “For then I wouldn’t have had to see your rotten face.” She looked frightened — maybe it was the change in his face, that he now looked violent, or he’d raised his hand to her — he forgets — but she left. “Wait,” he yelled, running after her into the building’s hallway. Maybe that’s when he said “Stop the production; let me be the father. I’ll be a better one than Bill because I want it more and you’re guaranteed I’ll be faithful. Okay, I know why not. But you’ve forgotten whatever you kept here — a change of clothes, some books. And at least, if no kid, let me have one final fornication. I’ll even put on a condom if you have one,” but she had long been out of the building and was probably in her car and driving away, thinking what an asshole he turned out to be. That was the last time he saw or spoke to her. Several months later — Did any of the other third-floor tenants come out? Doesn’t think so. But if one had, he would have been so embarrassed. That night he thought he should write her an apology for all the awful things he said and for frightening her, and he thinks he wrote a few drafts of one over the next couple of days but never sent it. Several months later — oh, he doesn’t know how long; may have been a year or more — he got a letter from her. Or maybe it was a birth announcement — no, she wouldn’t have done that — but something in a regular number 11 envelope, so another reason it couldn’t have been a birth announcement: they come in their own envelopes. Her return address was the same. At the time he thought he knew what the letter would say and do to him and tore it up without opening it and dumped it in the paper bag he used for his garbage. Later, he was sorry he’d torn it up and went to look for the bag in the building’s trash cans outside — he was going to put together the pieces — but it had already been picked up. He thought of calling her — if Bill answered, he’d immediately hang up — saying he got her letter and accidentally lost it before he could read it, or maybe he’ll tell the truth—“I got anxious as to what might be in it and didn’t want to get hurt or feel guilty all over again”—and would she mind very much telling him what it said, but knew it’d be the wrong thing to do. Something like this happened with Gwen the summer after they first met. She also said she has something to tell him he won’t like. They’d just driven back from the cottage they rented in Maine for two months and were sitting in the car, double-parked, in front of his building. He thinks the car belonged to a friend of hers, who was in London doing research for his dissertation. He’d thought she’d driven him there to drop off his things — knapsack with clothes, typewriter, books, manuscripts and writing supplies — and then they’d go to her parents’ apartment a few blocks from his — the doorman would watch the car while they brought up her parents’ two cats, who’d spent the summer with them, and say hello and then go to her building and he’d help her in with her things and two cats and later they’d go out for dinner, or because they were tired from the nine-to-ten hour trip, get takeout and he’d stay the night at her place. He opened his car door and she said “Don’t get out just yet.” She told him she has a bad feeling about him and their relationship and wants to end it before he gets even more involved. “‘Want to’? Meaning you haven’t completely decided on it?” and she said “No, I’ve decided; completely.” “Oh, boy. Can you give me specific reasons why? I know we’ve had a couple of bumps this summer, but that shouldn’t be too unusual, since we never lived so close for so long, and I thought we worked them out,” and she said “I already told you…the strongest reason yet: my gut.” “So it’s not someone else — the guy whose car this