Robin Black - Life Drawing

We had sex that night in the tiny bedroom down the hall from his parents. It wasn’t sweet and it wasn’t particularly loving. We were both drunk by then, both unguarded and both hungry for connection. At one point when he was deep inside me, I said, “Are you really sure you don’t want to do this with her?” And looking right at me, he said, “I never told you that.” I wanted to hate him, maybe I did; but I could also barely stand the level of excitement that I felt.

“Fuck you, Owen,” I said, for the second time that day.

That whole trip turned into a kind of strange sex holiday. We behaved in ways we hadn’t for years. We got each other off in the van, parked in vast empty lots. We walked on the beach, then stopped to make out with his hands under my coat, under my sweater. It was as though a dam of some kind had broken, or maybe we just knew that if we didn’t find the molten core of what kept us together, we would have no chance once we returned home. Or maybe he was so pent up from wanting Nora that he had endless sexual energy for me; and I was turned on by his being so turned on. Or maybe it was just the sea air. But for four days we were in a kind of haze of carnality, his usually non-parental parents transformed into strangely parental figures in front of whom we tried to behave ourselves.

“I’m so glad you and Owen are still so happy,” Lillian told me on our last night, as she and I put dinner together. “You know, when he was a boy, I wondered if he’d find someone who could warm him up. He was such a serious little man. But here you are. An old, happily married couple and clearly still having fun.”

When we got home on Monday evening, I half expected Alison to be on her porch waving a big welcome, but no one emerged from their house.

Ihadn’t really believed that the tide of physical desire would sweep us right past Nora and the issues embodied by her, but I was a little stunned at how smoothly Owen settled back into the routine of spending his days with her out in the barn. And up close to that reality, I no longer found it exciting or even remotely ennobling. I just plain hated it.

He needed her. Or thought he did. There wasn’t much difference that I could detect.

Nobody outside a marriage can understand it, everyone agrees. As if people inside a marriage can. I don’t know why I set myself against crying uncle, and ending what felt like daily cruelty, why I didn’t beg Owen to run away with me, to admit that our sanctuary had been fouled. But for just over a week I supplied myself with reasons to stay this terrible course. Briefly, I convinced myself it was indeed the greatness of my heart. That I was a larger, more generous woman than I had thought. And that theory got me through the first day.

Next, I decided that I wouldn’t give Owen the satisfaction of admitting I couldn’t handle the type of suffering that I had put him through; and so a kind of fierceness got me through another few days.

And what of him?

Was he really doing this because those months and months of having no words to put on the page had made him desperate? Desperate enough to ask this of me? Or, was he just trying to hurt me? Or, was breaking my heart the only way he could restore his own creative soul?

I doubt he knew the answer any more than I did. He was kind to me when we were together, rubbing my shoulders as he passed, offering me cups of tea, cooking dinner a few nights in a row. Almost as though I had the flu. But he didn’t ask how I was doing under this new arrangement of ours, and we never mentioned Nora.

On my own, I avoided her as much as I could, heading indoors with a quick wave if I spotted her while I was outside, making excuses to suspend our dinners for four. I’m not feeling well in the evenings these days , and Things are going so well. I haven’t been able to pull myself away from working, even after sunset .

All untrue. Physically, I felt fine. And my work had all but stopped by then.

It was a mystery to me where Alison stood in all of this. We did try a walk together again, our first in ages, but I wanted to wring her neck as she spoke of Nora’s work with Owen, alighting each time on the notion of the child needing a father figure in her life. I did not wring her neck, though, or even audibly question her view. To do so was to break my promise to Owen. So I just wondered, mystified. Had she really blinded herself so successfully to the fact that her daughter was in love with my husband and he half in love with her? Was it possible that she had? Likely that she had? I had no idea. What did I know of maternal delusions? The only person who had ever idealized me was Owen, and I could barely remember that.

“Can we talk?” Alison asked at my kitchen door, the afternoon of December twenty-first.

“Of course.”

She dropped her coat on a kitchen chair. It slid to the floor and she picked it up. “Let’s go in the living room,” I said. “There’s a fire.”

“Nora and I had a conversation yesterday.” She looked away while I settled on the orange chair. “I know you’ve been angry and I don’t know if you can understand this, but I only did what I thought … I just, I just honestly thought that … I believed everything I told you all along. I wasn’t lying to you.”

“Alison, I’m lost.” She looked distraught, and also drained somehow. Her clothes, a dark blue jumper over a black turtleneck, seemed askew, her curls, unbrushed, were a great unruly mess. And she wasn’t wearing lipstick, I realized. For the first time ever. Even when I had picked her up at the hospital, her lips had shone coral, light. Even when she had stayed at our house supposedly frightened for her life. “I don’t know what you’re telling me,” I said.

“Right. Of course.” She took a deep breath. “I haven’t encouraged her … Truly, I would never have done that. I’ve just wanted Nora to know there are men in the world who … who aren’t bad.”

I couldn’t tell where we were headed. “I know that,” I said. “You’ve been saying that for weeks.”

“I didn’t encourage her. But … Gus, I don’t have any excuses, I just so badly wanted her to stay here.”

“I don’t understand,” I said — meaning more than one thing.

“I saw what I wanted to see,” she said. “I … I should have done more. I … I wanted her here. Away from Paul.”

I didn’t speak, just tried to take it in.

“He loves you so much, Gus. I knew Owen would never cheat.”

“What do you mean you didn’t encourage her? What are you apologizing for, then?”

“She’s such a hurt person. I know she doesn’t seem it all the time. Or maybe ever, to you. But she is. She’s never had a steady platform. Not really. I just … Truly I never egged it on, I just didn’t tell her to stop. Not the way I should have. And I … I’m not blind. But I did think it was just a silly crush. And then, yesterday, she told me she had spoken to Owen. Before you and he went to the Cape. And I realized that even after she … declared herself, he still hadn’t sent her away. That he knew how she felt, and he hadn’t sent her away.”

I stood. “I have no idea what to say.” The phrase I thought you were my friend came to mind; but it didn’t need saying; and I wasn’t sure how recently it had been true.

“Gus, I was certain it would never get that far.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this. I’m not sure I can. Jesus, Alison. You were certain it would never get that far? What does that mean?”