Robin Black - Life Drawing

“God, I just wish she weren’t so young. I wish it weren’t such a fucking cliché.”

“She’s young, but she’s also not young.”

“Oh, please, Owen, spare me.”

“It isn’t her youth I’m …”

“Let me guess. It’s her wisdom. It’s her spirituality.”

“Gus, if you let me see this through, it will be all right.”

“If I let you see this through? What does that even mean?”

He was shaking his head. “It doesn’t mean sex,” he said.

“Really? Can you honestly tell me that her confession of her love left you unstirred? Was she wearing one of her semi-see-through shirts? And you’re telling me you felt no temptation?”

“No.” His answer came with a strange purity. “No. It did not leave me unstirred. And I did not feel no temptation. But I’m not going to sleep with her.”

“What is it you want, Owen? Exactly?”

“I have never regretted staying with you. Miserable as it felt. Impossible as it was.”

I already knew what he wanted.

“But you didn’t know I was having an affair,” I said. “You wouldn’t have given me your blessing for that. It was over. Long over.”

“Not that long over.”

“You wouldn’t have put up with a neighbor, for Christ’s sake. You’re asking me to sit by and watch it all unfold.”

“Nothing’s going to unfold.”

“You’re not going to fuck her, you mean. You’re not going to fuck her — you say. Or you are. You haven’t been in this situation. I have. It isn’t so easy just to decide it isn’t going to happen.”

“I am not going to fuck her. And I’m not going to tell her I wish I could. And I’ll tell her she has to not say those things to me anymore. I can shut the subject down.”

“Yet you just had to tell me, didn’t you? You couldn’t have, I don’t know, put this down to a foolish infatuation and left me out of it?” But even as I asked, I knew he had done the right thing.

“We agreed to this, Gus. This is the plan. Your plan, as I recall. This is how we protect ourselves, right? We see it through together. We accept that it’s impossible only to be drawn to one person for our whole lives. You told me that. That it isn’t possible. Not for everyone. So we take whatever steps necessary to work that fact into our marriage. And we stay together. But we allow for inconvenient feelings. We act like adults — and that one was your phrase, Gus. And I did it. I acted like an adult. I don’t know if you’ve ever understood how difficult that was for me. But this was your plan, Gus. So once she’d said that to me, I had to tell you.”

He was right. I had thought we could construct some kind of behavioral flow chart to protect ourselves. If this, then that. If that, then the next step.

“I’m afraid if she goes away, I’ll stop writing,” he said.

And there it was.

“So she’s your muse,” I said. “That self-satisfied little girl is your muse.”

“I don’t know what she is. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word ‘muse’ in my life.”

“She’s what got you back writing again, isn’t she?” Unadulterated . The word flashed through my mind. Unadulterated adoration. My love had been adulterated. By adultery. Whatever claims I might make, whatever devotion I might profess, it would always carry within its DNA the memory of my choosing another over him. Nature abhors a vacuum. I had left room for such a woman in his life.

“It’s been so fucking long, Gus. Since I could get anything but total shit on a page.”

I knew exactly how long it had been.

“You’re going to want her, Owen. Sexually, I mean. It isn’t going to be enough, just the fun of feeding her your work. The excitement of that.”

“It isn’t like that, Gus. I promise you.”

We had reached another bridge, this one at Groton. “Has she read what you’re working on?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Oh fuck,” I said. “Fuck you, Owen. That’s just mean.”

“It’s not mean. It’s not meant to be mean. It’s … it’s just what I need right now.”

“And what will you need in a month?”

He sighed. He looked out his window and then he said, “Gus.” Just that. Not even to me. Not really. But as though I were a thing or an event or a phenomenon. As though I were a problem and maybe also a solution. As though I were a fact that he alone knew and understood, a secret belonging to him.

“I can’t believe it,” I said.

“She isn’t going to hurt us. I just want to see this through.”

“You really aren’t going to fuck her?” I asked — though I wasn’t even sure that was the point.

“Truly not. Never.”

“So if I say, go ahead, spend time with Nora, let her stir your creative embers, let her play that role in your life, that’s really it?”

“That’s really it.”

“You’ll want to. You already want to.”

“I want other things more.”

“Don’t you feel just the least bit like a fool? It’s such a cliché.”

“I don’t know, Gus. Yes. Maybe. I’m writing again. That compensates for a lot of foolishness.”

“I don’t understand it, Owen. She’s religious. She believes in God. She goes to church. You’ve been scoffing at people like her for decades. We both have. Is it really just the prettiness? The young girl thing? And please don’t tell me you find her spirituality refreshing.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Gus. I couldn’t write. I began spending time with her. I could. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe I am an old fool and it’s all … pathetic. I would rather be in a car with you for an eight-hour drive. But … but she got me back to work.”

“Great. I’m the chauffeur and she’s the inspiration. Since you don’t like the word ‘muse.’ ”

“It’s not like I’m having an affair,” he said.

But it was. Or it was worse. Very possibly it was worse. I had long ago forfeited the right to say that, though. “It’s a kind of affair,” I said. “You might as well be fucking her,” I said.

“That isn’t true. And you know that isn’t true. Let’s test that theory. How about I sleep with her?”

“Jesus, you can’t even bring yourself to be crude about it. Is she that precious? How about you sleep with her?”

“The point isn’t what I call it. The point is, I’m not.”

“The point is … oh, hell. I don’t even know what it is. I’m pulling over. You drive. I’m a mess.”

On the shoulder, we each got out and then Owen got into the driver’s seat. But I stood outside the van in the cold. I couldn’t bear the thought of being back in that space with him. Cars whirred by. I looked up at the sky, light gray, relentlessly so, no break in the cover, no evident source of light.

I had no choice. I knew that. Owen knew that. He had done the right thing by telling me about her professed love — an event, I realized, that explained his sudden desire to leave home for a few days. He had done the right thing, but he had also done the hurtful thing. Here it was again. The fact that to be truthful can so often be both right and wrong.

And none of it mattered, not really. Because I had no choice but to agree.

“Whatever,” I said, as I stepped into the van. “Just don’t fuck her. And don’t tell me about how wonderful she is. Spare me that, please.”

We drove in silence for a very long time then. We crossed into Rhode Island, skirted through Providence. All in silence. We reached Fall River without our usual comments about Lizzie Borden and her axe. And when we spoke again, it was of other things, things like traffic patterns; and desolate New England towns; cranberry bogs in winter; and then his parents, of course. What dinner would be waiting for us in Wellfleet.