The phone continued to ring all night, and finally she unplugged it, and turned off her cell phone. It was gratifying to know he cared that much. He just didn't want to look bad. Or maybe the weekends had been comfortable after all, and he didn't want to lose her. She no longer cared. Cheating was one thing she wasn't going to put up with. She had put up with far too much already. But this was finally, and irreversibly, the last straw.
She tried to tell herself in the morning that she felt better. In truth, she knew she didn't. But she felt certain she would eventually. He had finally given her no choice whatsoever. She dressed for work, and got to her office on time. Her mother called her ten minutes after nine and sounded worried.
“Are you all right?”
“I'm fine, Mom.” The woman had goddam radar.
“I tried to call you last night. The phone company said your phone was out of order.”
“I was working on a brief, so I unplugged it. Honestly, I'm fine.”
“Good. I was just checking. I have a dentist appointment. I'll call you later.”
After she hung up, Sarah called Phil's apartment, knowing he would have left for work by then, and left a message. She asked him to messenger her keys back. “Don't drop them off, don't bring them. Don't mail them. Messenger them. Thank you.” It was all she said. He called her six times that day at her office. She didn't take the calls, and then finally, on the seventh call, she did. She told herself she didn't need to hide from him. She had done nothing wrong. He had.
All she said was hello when her secretary put the call through. He sounded panicked, which surprised her. He was such a cocky son of a bitch, she figured he'd try to bullshit his way through it, but he didn't. “Look, Sarah…I'm sorry… it's the first time in four years… these things happen…I don't know… maybe it was the last gasp of my freedom…we need to talk… maybe we should see each other a couple of times during the week… maybe you're right… I'll come over tonight and we'll talk about it.… Babe, I'm sorry… you know I love you….” She finally cut in.
“Do you?” she said coldly. “Funny way to show it. Love by proxy. I suppose she was standing in for me.”
“Come on, babe… please…I'm human…so are you… it could happen to you one day… I'd forgive you….”
“No, it couldn't happen to me, actually. Because I'm incredibly stupid. I believed the garbage you told me. I let you leave me at home for weekends and holidays with your kids. I've spent every goddamned Christmas and New Year's alone for four years, while you tell me how busy you are during the week and that you're going to the gym, when you're really fucking someone else. The difference between us, Phil, is that I'm honest, I have integrity. You don't. That's what it boils down to. It's over. I'm not going to see you again. Send me back my keys.”
“Don't be stupid, Sarah.” He started to sound testy. It didn't take him long to get there. “We have four years invested in this.”
“You should have thought of that last night before you got into bed with her, not after,” Sarah said coldly. She was shaking again, and she had feelings for him, but there was no turning back. She didn't want to. Now, finally, at long long last, she wanted out.
“Is it my goddamned fault that you barged into my apartment and walked in on me? You should have called.”
“You shouldn't have been fucking another woman, whether I ‘barged’ in or not. I'm glad I did. I should have done it a lot sooner. I could have saved myself a lot of grief and four wasted years. Good-bye, Phil.”
“You'll regret this,” he warned her. “You're thirty-eight years old, and you'll wind up alone. For chrissake, Sarah, don't be stupid.” He was almost threatening her, but she wouldn't have taken him back now if he was the last man on the planet.
“I was alone when I was with you, Phil,” Sarah said quietly. “Now I'll only be by myself. Thanks for everything,” she said, and without hearing what he had to say in answer, she hung up. He didn't call her back. He tried a few more times that night, after she plugged her phone in again, and this time she had unplugged her message machine, she didn't want to hear his voice ever again. It really was over. She shed a few tears over him that night, and tried to get the awful scene of the night before out of her head. Her keys came back to her by messenger the next morning. He sent them to the apartment. It was Saturday morning. He had included a note saying that he was there for her, anytime she wanted to call him, and he hoped she would. She threw the note away after glancing at it, and packed up the things he had left there. There weren't many, toiletries, some jeans, underwear, shirts, a pair of Nikes, flip-flops, and loafers. A leather jacket he left there for weekends. She realized as she packed his things that he had been more fantasy in her life than real. He was the embodiment of hope, and the culmination of her own neurosis, her terror of being alone, and abandoned by a man, as she had been by her father. So she put up with the crumbs he gave her, and never demanded more. She asked for it, but was willing to tolerate it when he gave her less than she deserved. And on top of it, he was cheating on her. He had done her a huge favor the night he went to bed with the young blonde. She was actually surprised to discover that she didn't feel as bad as she had feared she would after the breakup. By late that afternoon, she was at the house, hammering away on the bookcase. She thought the hammering would do her good, and it did. She didn't even hear the doorbell ring at first, and when she did finally, she was afraid that it was Phil. She peered downstairs cautiously, from a second-floor window, and saw that it was Jeff. She ran down the grand staircase to the front door to let him in.
“Hi,” he said easily. “I saw your car in the driveway and thought I'd stop in for a minute.” He noticed that she looked distracted and observed her more closely. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” she reassured him, but didn't look it. Something was off, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. He could see it in her eyes.
“Tough week at the office?”
“Yeah. More or less.” He followed her back upstairs and checked her work on the bookcase. It was surprisingly good for an amateur. She was diligent in her work. Her eyes met his then, and he smiled at her.
“What's up, Sarah? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but something's wrong.” She nodded, but didn't cry.
“I broke up with Phil two days ago. Long overdue.” She set down the hammer for a minute and brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“What happened? Big fight when he got back from Aspen?”
“Not really,” she said quietly. “I walked in on him with another woman. That was a novel experience. Something new and different.” She said it in a monotone, and considering that, Jeff thought she looked pretty good.
“Wow!” he whistled. “That must have been unpleasant.”
“It was. I looked like an idiot. She looked like a whore. And he looked like a total asshole. Maybe he's been doing that all along. I threw his keys on the floor and walked out. I sent back his stuff this morning. He's been calling like crazy.”
“You really think it's over, or do you think you'll take him back?” Marie-Louise had cheated on him years before, and he had relented when she came back and begged him to forgive her. Afterward he was sorry he had. She had done it again. But never after. That time he had put his foot down. They'd been through a lot in fourteen years.