Anne Tyler - The Beginner's Goodbye

In our wedding photo Dorothy did not, of course, carry her satchel, but her dress-up purse was almost equally bulky and utilitarian — a heavy brown leather rectangle with a strap that crossed her chest in the same theft-deterrent fashion. She had said, “Would you like me to wear a white gown? I could do that. I wouldn’t mind. I could ask if our receptionist would take me to this place she knows. I thought maybe something, oh, not strapless or anything but maybe with a scoop neck, white but not shiny, not lacy, just a lustrous white, you know what I mean? And I was thinking a bouquet of all white flowers. Baby’s breath and white roses and … are orange blossoms white? I do know they’re not orange, although it sounds as if they would be. I’m not talking about a veil or anything. I’m not talking about a long train or anything like that. But something elegant and classic, to mark the occasion. You think?”

“Oh, God, no. Good Lord, no,” I said.

“Oh.”

“We’re neither one of us the type for that, thank heaven,” I said.

“No, of course not,” she said.

In the photograph her blue knit was not very becoming, but in real life it had looked fine, as far as I can recall. (Photos have a way of frumping people; have you noticed?) Anyhow, I had never paid much heed to such things. At the time I was just glad that I’d landed the woman I wanted. And I believe that she was glad to have landed me — the diametrical opposite of that needy “roommate” who had demanded too much of her.

Then why was our marriage so unhappy?

Because it was unhappy. I will say that now. Or it was difficult, at least. Out of sync. Uncoordinated. It seemed we just never quite got the hang of being a couple the way other people did. We should have taken lessons or something; that’s what I tell myself.

Once, when we had an anniversary coming up — our fifth, I believe — I invited her out to dinner. “I was thinking of the Old Bay,” I told her. “The first place I ever took you to.”

“The Old Bay,” she said. “Really. Are you forgetting that we couldn’t even see to read the menus there?”

“Oh, okay,” I said, but I felt a little disappointed. For sentiment’s sake, at least, you would think she could have agreed to it. “Where, then?” I asked.

“Maybe Jean-Christophe?”

“Jean-Christophe! Good grief!”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Jean-Christophe is so pretentious. They bring you these teeny froufrou bites to eat between courses, and you have to make a big show of being surprised and thankful.”

“So don’t make a show,” she said. “Just fold your arms across your chest and glower.”

“Very funny,” I told her. “What on earth made you think of Jean-Christophe? Is this another one of your receptionist’s ideas? Jean-Christophe didn’t even exist, back when you and I were courting.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it had to have historical significance.”

“Dorothy,” I said. “Would you rather just not do this?”

“I said I would, didn’t I? But then all you can come up with is this fusty old place where your parents used to eat. And when I question it, you fly into a huff and turn down everything else I suggest.”

“I didn’t turn down ‘everything else’; I turned down Jean-Christophe. It just so happens that I dislike a restaurant where the waiters require more attention than my date does.”

“Where would you be willing to eat, then?”

“Oh, shoot,” I said, “I don’t care. Let’s just go to Jean-Christophe.”

“Well, if you don’t care, why do we bother?”

“Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand me?” I asked her. “I care that we have a good meal together, preferably without feeling like we’re acting in some kind of play. And I was thinking it might be a place with associations for the two of us. But if you’re so set on Jean-Christophe, fine; we’ll go to Jean-Christophe.”

“Jean-Christophe was just a suggestion. There are lots of other possibilities.”

“Like where?”

“Well, how about Bo Brooks?”

“Bo Brooks! A crab house? For our anniversary?”

“We did go to Bo Brooks a couple of times while we were dating. It would certainly meet the ‘associations’ criterion.”

“Yes, but—”

I stopped and looked at her.

“You really don’t get it, do you,” I said.

“What don’t I get?”

“Never mind.”

“I’m not ever going to get it if you refuse to discuss it,” she said, and now she was using her doctor voice, her super-calm, let’s-be-reasonable voice. “Why don’t you just begin at the beginning, Aaron, and tell me exactly what you envision for our anniversary dinner.”

“How about what you envision?” I said. “Can’t you be bothered coming up with any ideas of your own?”

“I already offered an idea of my own. I offered two ideas, as I recall, and you rejected both of them. So it’s back in your court now, Aaron.”

Why am I telling this story?

I forget.

And I forget where we ended up eating, too. Someplace or other; I don’t remember. What I do remember is that familiar, weary, helpless feeling, the feeling that we were confined in some kind of rodent cage, wrestling together doggedly, neither one of us ever winning.

I was rinsing vegetables for my supper, and I turned from the sink to reach for a towel, and I saw Dorothy.

“You’re here,” I said.

She was standing next to me, so close that she’d had to step back a bit to give me room when I turned. She wore one of her plain white shirts and her usual black pants, and her expression was grave and considering — her head cocked to one side and her eyebrows raised.

“I thought you might never come again,” I said.

She appeared unsurprised by this, merely nodding and continuing to study me, so that it seemed I’d been right to worry.

“Was it the cookies?” I asked. “Were you upset that I ate Peggy’s cookies?”

“You should have told me you liked cookies,” she said, and I don’t know why I’d ever doubted that she actually spoke on these visits, because her voice was absolutely real — low and somewhat flat, very level in tone.

I said, “What? I don’t like cookies!”

“I could have baked you cookies,” she said.

“What are you talking about? Why would I want you to bake cookies? How come we’re wasting this time discussing cookies , for God’s sake?”

“You’re the one who brought them up,” she said.

Had I lived through this whole scene before? I felt tired to death all of a sudden.

She said, “I used to think it was your mother’s fault. She was such a fusser; no wonder you fended people off the way you did. But then I thought, Oh, well: fault . Who’s to say why we let one person influence us more than another? Why not your father? He didn’t fuss.”

“I fended people off?” I said. “That’s not fair, Dorothy. How about how you behaved? Wearing your white coat even to go out to dinner; carrying your big satchel. ‘I’m Dr. Rosales,’ you’d say. Always so busy, so businesslike. Bake cookies? You never even made me a cup of tea when I had a cold!”

“And if I had? What would you have done?” she asked. “Swatted the cup away, I guarantee it. Oh, it used to bother me when I saw what people thought of me. Your mother and your sister, the people in your office … I’d see your secretary thinking, Poor, poor Aaron, his wife is so coldhearted. So unnurturing, so ungiving. Doesn’t value him half as much as the rest of us do . ‘Shows what you know,’ I wanted to tell her. ‘Why didn’t he marry someone else if he was so keen on nurturing? If I’d behaved any other way, do you suppose he and I would ever have gotten together?’ ”