Stephen Dixon: 30 Pieces of a Novel

He’s had it here and has to get away. Leaves a note: I’m gone, probably for good. You must have seen it coming. I can’t tell you how sorry I am it had to end like this. But I better stop writing this note or I’ll never get out of here. Love to the three of you. I’ll try to contact you soon . Goes; packed a few things — couple of shirts, pair of pants, socks, handkerchiefs, sweatshirt and sneakers and running shorts, shaving equipment, things for his teeth and a hairbrush, underpants — and left the house with this small suitcase and a book under his arm and a coat on, rain hat in one side pocket, wool cap and gloves in the other, muffler around his neck though he doesn’t need it on this rather mild day and should have packed it, and is off — to where? Where should he go? And how does he get there and why’s he leaving? He’s leaving because he can’t stand it here anymore. There’s got to be another or better reason, or he can elaborate on that one. Because he feels stifled, trapped. What does he mean? He’s not quite sure. He thought he knew while he was saying it but now he doesn’t. Then this: for the last ten years or so it’s been nothing but work in every category for him, and he’s dead tired and dejected and has to get away from it and everything else here. She knows that. He can’t think things through or out or anything like that at home and needs to be on his own and get his head back in shape, and that’s all there is to it no matter how vague and trite all or most of that sounds. Oh, hell, he just has to go, period. He’s almost always unhappy here, period. He hates it here and has for years, period, period. No, he loves his kids but makes them miserable with his misery and complaints, so another reason why he has to go, besides the misery he causes his wife. He’ll leave the car, the house, everything, all the bank and check accounts and whatever’s in his pension fund: they’re hers. How much money has he on him? His wallet — he forgot his wallet, and goes inside. He gets it off the shelf above the stove and counts. Long as he’s here, he’ll leave the keys. What use will they be for him now? House and car keys, keys to the building offices and rooms at work, key to the antitheft bar in the car, all of them on a ring, and he puts it on a hook by the kitchen door. He has three twenties and a few ones. That won’t even get him a hotel room. Or it will, but a cheap one, or not so cheap: a small clean nice one someplace, but only for the night, and what’ll he do for food? He puts three bagels and a package of processed cheese slices and a box of crackers and several carrots and a bottle of wine and the cheaper of their two corkscrews into the suitcase. That should hold him for a day and the wine for two. He needs change for the bus to the Greyhound station downtown. And cash for the Greyhound — doesn’t want to use his credit card, as she’d get the bill — but their fares aren’t steep and depend on where he’s going. And honestly, why is he going? Plenty of reasons; it’s not as if he hasn’t thought of it before. But one main one: the one he said. He can’t stand it here anymore. And it isn’t going to change — things aren’t and his feelings to them if he stayed — so there’s a new reason to add to the main original one. He’ll miss them, his kids and wife. He’ll contact them, and maybe soon, as he said in the note. But he has to get far enough away from them where he knows he’s gone from here and living alone or he’ll crack up. He can crack up away from them too. He just might. Not voluntarily, but it can happen. Leaving them, the guilt. Living alone and starting over; he was never very good at it. Calling them, how he’ll feel when they first speak. “Daddy, why did you go?” one of the kids could say. The other: “Daddy, you were mean to us sometimes and yelled too much, but we never wanted you to run away.” “Gould, where are you and how do you feel?” his wife could say. “Come back, we’ll try to make everything better. Whatever it is, you didn’t have to take such desperate measures.” Or “Good, you’re gone, we’re doing fine without you, don’t even think of coming back.” And one of the kids: “There’s finally peace and quiet here, and we hope you have some too in your new life.” “I love you,” he could say, “love you both, love the three of you,” and whomever he says this to could say, “Yeah, you really showed it,” and hang up. The envelope addressed to his wife on the dining room table. She deserves an explanation and through her the kids. He takes the note out and writes under his signed first name, Dearest. And I know it must seem odd if not perverse, my calling you “dearest,” but I don’t want to go into it: I haven’t the time to digress. I just want to say why I left and give some instructions about our common property and then go. I had to leave because I couldn’t take it here anymore. I was going nuts from all the work I was doing and other things. I know how hard my going might turn out for the three of you. To ease things, you can have everything we own. All I’ve taken are a few clothes and personal items and a hundred dollars . He runs to the bedroom, gets forty dollars out of an old billfold in his drawer, takes his passport out also and sticks it into his back pocket, runs back to the dining room with the billfold and the rest of the money and their passports in it, and continues the note. This billfold, which I’m leaving under the envelope addressed to you, has about $200 in it. Actually, now that I think of it, I’ll need at least $200: that ought to do as a start. So it has about a hundred in it , and he takes a hundred dollars from the billfold and counts the money left. It has $120. It’s yours. As is the car, house, furniture, all the money in our accounts and my pension fund, and when I get work, if I do, I’ll start sending you more. Everything, then, is yours. I took a box of crackers, cheese, bagels, bottle of wine and the old corkscrew (one with the wooden handle), and, of course, some of my clothes and toilet articles, but I said that. But that’s all I’ll ever want from what I have here. Books (except the one I took), typewriter, etc., I’m leaving behind for good. If you want me to sign something legal along these lines — if this note and my full signature (which I’ll put at the bottom) and date aren’t sufficient — let me know first time I call. I don’t know when that’ll be. I don’t even know where I’ll be tonight. I know I’m taking a bus today from the station downtown, though so far I don’t know to where. But I have to go. I can’t explain anything more about why I feel I have to, as I’m not that sure myself. I just know I got to get away from here and my head thoroughly cleared. It’s all been too much for me. That might seem a bit overdramatic, but the work at work, work at home, work with the kids and you, and just about everything. I need some rest and peace, maybe a new life, but definitely time to think things out alone. Meaning, by a “new life,” to do something different than I’ve been doing nonstop the last 17 years. The girls are old and mature enough to take care of themselves with your help. And they’ll in turn be a great help to you. I’m just a detraction, if that’s the word. I yell too much, get excited too often, fill the house with hatred and gloom and discord and frustration and everything else like that. I’m not making much sense. Give me time to, when I call maybe I’ll make more sense. I’ll have had a little rest and peace (even just to be alone on a bus trip will help), my head will have started to be cleared, so I’m hoping that’ll be the case. I’ve left my keys on a hook by the kitchen door. If you were thinking of changing the locks, don’t, since I’m leaving without even a spare house key, though you’ll have to take my word on that. I didn’t mean to sound duplicitous with that last remark. I didn’t take a spare key, I swear. Anyone calls for me — well, work certainly will, and the rest — tell them I’m gone, I’m winded, I had to get away from everything here because I thought if I didn’t I was going to get a quick heart attack while at the same time lose my mind. And that you don’t know where I went and that I left a note —The kitchen door opens. One of the kids comes in. “Daddy, hi, we’re back. Mommy needs your help. What are you writing?” “Nothing,” and he tears up the note and sticks the pieces into his pants pocket. “Why’d you tear it up?” and he says, “Nothing, no reason. Something I was writing down to remember something else, but I just decided I’ll remember it without my having to write it down.” He shoves the envelope and billfold into another pants pocket. “What’s the suitcase for?” and he says, “The suitcase? I thought it had some of my winter clothes in it, which I’ve been looking for, but it doesn’t.” “Oh. You better go outside. She told me to get you if you were home,” and he says, “I’m coming, let me get my coat on.” “You’re wearing it,” and he says, “Right, I am. I was about to leave the house when I thought of all those reminders I thought I had to make. What I meant, though, was that I have to go to the bathroom first. Tell Mommy I’ll be right there,” and she goes outside, and he gets the food, wine, and corkscrew out of the suitcase, returns them to the places he took them from, runs to the storage closet at the back of the house with the suitcase and leaves it there — he’ll get the clothes and other stuff out of it later — puts the old billfold back in his drawer, note scraps into the wastebasket by his desk, thinks, Did he forget anything? What did he forget? Hell with it, can’t be important — the envelope! — and tears it up and drops the pieces into the basket and runs to the kitchen and goes outside. “Hi,” he says to his wife’s helper, standing by the opened trunk of her car, and then “Hi” to his wife sitting in the front passenger seat. “I’m stuck,” she says, “and I don’t want Jenna injuring her back getting me into the wheelchair — she’s already pulled a muscle there,” and he says to Jenna, “Oh, yeah? Run hot shower water on it — not even hot; warm, any kind of fast spray. For at least fifteen minutes and often as you can. That’s what an osteopath told me to do and I thought it was hokum at first but it’s worked almost every time,” and he gets the wheelchair out of the trunk, thinks, Jesus, at least the girl could have taken the damn thing out, unfolds it, puts the cushion down and hand towel over it, and rolls the chair to his wife, carefully unhooks her calves twisted together and swivels her around in the seat till she’s facing the car door—“There, that wasn’t too hard”—and she says, “You know how to do it better than anyone. But the hardest part’s plumping me into the chair. Jenna and the kids haven’t mastered that yet without the danger of my falling out or their straining themselves,” and he says, “What’s the difficulty?” and locks the brakes, gets her under the arms, and hoists her into the chair. “Thanks. You go back to what you were doing. Jenna can wheel me in.” He’s got to get away from here. Her illness, crying, depression, frustration, cuts on her legs every day when she snags them on the metal of her wheelchair or rams into something, the infections, smells, always asking him for something, just when he’s sitting down exhausted to read or nap or try to work after doing something else for her—“Gould, you’ll have to go to the pharmacy for me”; “Gould, I’m on the floor”—her troubled sleep every night keeping him up, and so on, it’s never going to end, and his anger and frustration, saying he won’t yell again and then yelling again, it’s all going to get worse and go on and on and he has to get away from it. He puts on his sweater and coat, muffler and knit cap, sticks his gloves into the coat pockets and wallet into his back pants pocket, gets his key ring off its kitchen hook, and goes outside and gets into the car and starts it up. No other clothes, bags, valises, or food or drink or anything else. His pen and a book? No, don’t go back for anything, because if he does he has a feeling he’ll never leave. Once the car warms up — another minute in this cold — just drive the hell away from here. He has some money on him: eighty, ninety. That should do for the day and tonight, and when he runs out he’ll get a few hundred more with his card at a cash machine, and that’ll be it. So he waits, thinking, Why’s he doing this? He’s already given enough reasons — he’s got to because he can’t for the life of himself stay — and then drives out of the carport, thinking, He’s doing it, he’s really going ahead with it, he’s off, goddammit, off! At the stop sign at the end of the street his driveway connects to, he thinks, Which way should he go, right or left? and then thinks, Left, to the beltway and five miles south on it take the interstate west, and from there who knows where? He’ll send a letter. To her and the kids. Or addressed to her but also for the kids. Or a fax from someplace, but their word processor at home only seems to be able to receive them half the time, and E-mail’s too cold and he’s not sure of the address or even how to send one, since he’s never used a WP. So an overnight letter explaining whatever he thinks needs to be explained and that everything they own is hers. He’ll need some money to get started — three to four hundred, tops; that’s not asking too much — which’ll be why she’ll see that amount withdrawn from their check account, but he swears that’ll be all: no need to fear he’ll overdraft. For work he’ll take a dishwashing job if he has to to get started someplace — anything, but just to be on his own. That’s what he needs to be most, now: alone. It’s become too difficult for him. Way too: frustrations and self-reproach and much worse every day, he’ll say. It’s that or shooting himself—“that” being leaving and starting anew — and he doesn’t want to get melodramatic about it; he’s not shooting himself or doing himself in in any way if things don’t work out the way he’d like. It was an expression, a term. No, he’ll write an altogether different letter. That he’s gone, which should be obvious, or maybe not so obvious that he’s gone for more than a night, as he left without taking anything but his coat and muffler: outerwear and the clothes he had on him and the car. And he loves her, loves the kids — and the car he’ll return or tell her where to have someone pick it up as soon as he gets a place to stay in a city with good public transportation, or he’ll sell it and give her all the money he gets for it, though for that she’ll have to find the car’s title in her files and send it on. But all that for later. Now he just wants to say how much he admires her: what she’s had to put up with, her illness and him. And how sorry he is, he can’t tell her how much other than to say very, deeply, disturbingly for what he’s doing now and has done to her and the kids in the past. And something about their money and property, he’ll say in this letter: that she can have all there is, other than the few hundred he’s already withdrawn from their check account to get started. And whatever he earns in the future — within reason, that is, meaning not if he’s barely making enough to live on — half will go to her and the kids. And he’ll call her when he gets settled. But not to come join him, just to find out how she and the kids are and to tell her, if she’s interested, and he could see why she wouldn’t be, that he’s safe and doing relatively okay. Anyway — car entering the beltway — what will she think when she gets in the house? He should have stopped for a minute or two, before he left, to leave a note. First she’ll be curious he’s not there, since he didn’t say he was going anywhere today, and then concerned, maybe even worried or angry, and by late tonight, after a few phone calls to places he could have gone and people who might know where he is — friends, colleagues, his office — and because she got no calls from a hospital or the police, she’ll have understood he left her and the kids and no doubt why. And the kids: how will they take it? They’ll be so sad, but maybe also angry and confused. But she might also be a little frightened once she realizes he’s not coming back. Suppose she falls and hurts herself: will the kids be able to take care of her till help comes? Or maybe she’ll be glad he’s finally gone, despite the hardships she’ll have to face. The three of them glad, once the difference of his not being there sinks in. He yells too much. He’s often so damn impatient and vituperative. He sometimes screams and curses to himself like a madman. “What am I doing here?” he’s yelled when all of them were around. “How’d I get into this? I’ve got to get the hell away. I hate this place, hate this freaking house, hate my life! I can’t stand anyone or anything anymore and it’s never going to get better and it’s driving me crazy!” How many slamming doors can they all take? The kids slamming them on him: “You’re scaring me,” “You’re upsetting my stomach,” “I can’t concentrate on my homework with your yelling.” His wife wanting to slam doors on him and sometimes succeeding. He slamming the door on them too. Lots. “I’ve got to be alone and get some quiet, goddammit!” he yelled last night, slamming his bedroom door and sitting at his desk. “The music, turn it down lower, that’s what’s half doing it!” he shouted, and when it wasn’t turned down low enough for him, though whichever kid was playing it did turn it down, he slammed open the bedroom door — that’s the only way he can put it: the door slammed against the wall when he threw it open — and went into the hallway; the music was coming from his older daughter’s room and he threw open her door where it slammed against the bookcase along the wall, and yelled — she was reading on her bed—“Didn’t you hear me? Are you deaf? Do we have to go to an ear doctor for you as well as the eye doctor and dentist and bone doctor for your feet?” and she looked at him, as if saying, What in the world are you ranting about? took off her glasses and stared petulantly at him, and said, “You know, you could have knocked first. You didn’t have to scare me by banging my door,” and he said, “Knocked? Knocked? Let me tell you, kid—” but caught himself and said, “Oh, what am I doing to you, to everyone here?” and grabbed his hair and began pulling it, and she said, “Daddy, don’t, you’ll hurt yourself,” and he said, “Everything’s wrong”—his eyes were closed and he’d stopped pulling and he heard her book fall to the floor—“everything, you name it, this is all such crap, it’s gotten too damn screwing hard,” and pulled her door closed and went into his room, shut his door so slowly he heard the latch click, and lay on the bed and turned off his night-table light to be in the dark, but the desk lamp was on and he didn’t want to get up to turn it off too. His wife came in a few minutes later and said, “Now what could have provoked that?” and he said, “Something, I forget. I don’t want to talk about it,” and looked away, and she said, “You realize how frightened the girls get? Something has to be terribly wrong for such an outburst. Just don’t say it’s nothing or not worth talking about,” and he looked at her and said, “Okay, it’s everything. I can’t stand it here; the whole damn joint’s driving me up the wall,” and she said, “Then leave, go, because I’m tired of hearing how living here is so horrid and we’re such a burden on you and driving you crazy, because you’re gradually driving us crazy too,” and he said, “Good idea then; tomorrow, maybe,” and she said, “If you mean you’re leaving, I hope so, or that you at least want to start talking about it and working it out so it doesn’t happen again,” and stayed there staring at him — for an answer, he assumed — and he looked away and then said, “Would it be possible to shut off my desk lamp, please?” and she left the room and later went to sleep in her study, didn’t come back, as she usually did — the two to three times a year things got so bad between them that she slept in another room — to get her pillows and a long-sleeved T-shirt she always sleeps in. This morning he woke up at the usual time, made sure his older daughter was up—“You don’t have to check on me; I have my watch alarm”—set the table for her and her sister, asked if she wanted him to make her toast, and she said, “I’m not hungry,” and he said, “You have to eat something,” and she said, “It’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it and that old myth about breakfast being so important has been debunked by doctors,” and he said, “Okay, if you say,” drove her to school, didn’t try to give her his customary goodbye kiss because he knew by her look and silence and coldness to him all morning that she wouldn’t let him touch her, just said when she got out of the car, “See ya, and have a great day,” and she said, “Oh, yeah, great day , thanks to you,” and he said, “It was just an expression, and one I hate,” but she didn’t answer that; drove back, his other daughter was at the table having breakfast and reading and never looked up or responded to the one thing he said—“Will that little bowl of cereal be enough for you?”—saw her to the school bus stop, best not to say anything to her in the mood she’s in, he thought, but she said while they were standing there, “Why do you always have to yell and curse so much?”—he was looking at the sky and the tops of trees so as not to look at her and maybe make her feel self-conscious — and he said, “What?” and she said, “You know. It isn’t good for you, especially the yelling, and both make it ugly for us. Awful ugly. It’s horrible, like Mommy’s said, and ruins everything that could be nice,” and he said, “You have a point, and I’m not just saying that. I’ll think about what you said, and thanks for bringing it up,” and she said, “The bus,” and he said, “You can always hear things faster than me, but are you sure?” and he listened and finally heard it and then the bus appeared and he stepped forward to kiss her, thinking, They’ve talked a little about it, so maybe she’ll let him, but she backed away when he put his arm out to draw her head to his face, and got on the bus and sat where she always did, talking to the same girl across the aisle she talks to every morning, and he thought, Don’t even try to wave to her, she’s not going to look, and when the bus was gone he thought, She’s right, he should get out of here. She didn’t say that but she hinted it. Even if she didn’t hint it, it’s what she wants. Even if she doesn’t want it and her sister and mother don’t, it’d be best if he did, for all of them, and he went back to the house, took off his sweatshirt and put on a sweater and coat and such, got the keys, started to open the door to the carport, thought of it a few seconds more, thought, Yes, he’s really got to get away from here for a long time, though he doesn’t know how long, and grabbed his gloves off the dryer and went outside and got in the car and left. Driving, he thinks of his daughter getting on the bus and immediately starting to talk animatedly with the girl across the aisle and the way his other daughter got out of the car and methodically got all her things together and walked to the school entrance, carrying her art portfolio and art supply box in one hand, other hand holding the strap of her backpack on her shoulder and her silver antique purse by its chain. Such beautiful girls, he thinks, so good, and young. Why does he persecute them the way he does? Torture them, whatever he does to them, make life miserable for them so much, for what’d they do? Well, that’s why he’s leaving, isn’t it? — because he does all that. And his wife. She hasn’t got it bad enough? Why can’t he just adjust to it all, take it more easily, not think he has to do the same number of things in the same amount of time he did them before she got sick? Why can’t he slow down a little, slow down a lot, take it as it comes, and so forth? Why does he resort so much to such extreme behavior, yelling when things get him down or he feels overtaxed, slamming doors, cursing, gibbering, mumbling insulting things to them under his breath, storming out of the house, hurling a book across the room, crumpling up the newspaper he’s reading and then in a worse fit tearing pages of it into shreds, sweeping a filled dish rack into the sink, throwing a mug to the floor, kicking a door (once punching one), tearing at his hair and once ending up with a clump? He can try, can’t he? — he’s tried and tried but he can try to try harder — to show more control and think more about why he’s doing these things and their consequences, because — who’s he fooling? — he can’t leave. It’ll be too tough for them and he’s hurt them plenty enough already and he doesn’t want to go and live alone and all the other things, and he drives a little farther — Yes, he thinks, yes? It’s just going to take longer getting back — and signals for a U-turn and drives home. His wife’s in the kitchen when he gets there, and he says, “Hello,” and smiles and puts the keys on the hook, and she says, “How nice; you’re happy. You’ve forgiven yourself and erased from your mind everything you did last night,” and he says, “Just the opposite,” and she says, “I don’t believe it. Where were you, though? I only ask because I called for you when I had trouble getting off the bed. It’s too high,” and he says, “Sorry, I was just taking a drive,” and she says, “You? You never drive to just drive. It always has to be to somewhere, even in the fall when I ask you to drive me around so I can see the leaves,” and he says, “When the girls were real small? And we couldn’t get them to nap when we desperately needed them to have one, so I’d put them in their car seat—” and she says, “Only Fanny; Josephine never had a problem napping.” “Well, today I had lots of serious things on my mind and some free time so I drove to think them out,” and she says, “And what came out of it?” and he says, “I’m not intentionally changing the subject, but did you at least sleep well?” and she smiles and says, “You do so don’t want to answer. Either because nothing did come out or you didn’t drive just to think or you’re hiding something. But you better say more than that you’re sorrier than you were the last time and realize why you did what you did last night and it won’t happen again, no matter how many times you know I’ve heard you say that, because that’s what you always say and I always eventually say okay, and it always happens again,” and he says, “I also thought of that and I swear I’ll also try to change my behavior, everything. But actually, to be absolutely honest, what I originally drove off for before I had all these thoughts — or rather, these thoughts came because of what I originally drove off for, if you can follow me — was to leave you and the kids. I left with nothing but the car, which I was going to get back to you somehow, and had intended to start out new with nothing in some new place. Then during the drive I thought about you and the kids — of course, you were all in my mind right from the beginning — but this time of the consequences to you and me about my leaving for good, and drove back. I know I can be a miserable bastard, irritable, critical, and a slew of other more contemptible and reprehensible things, and that I have a lot of changes in myself to make, though I’m not sure on everything how I will, and that last point I’m sorry but I don’t think I made too clear,” and she has her hand to her face, had it there since he first said he’d left them, and says, “Wow, what a shocker! I don’t know what to say or how to digest any of it, even where to begin. I’m not going to say you’re making up the part about leaving us to deflect from how you acted last night or to say something shocking or new, because I know what you’ll say, and that could start another argument. But you’re not, are you, making it up?” and he says, “What do you think I’m going to say?” and she says, “What a surprise, though. Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t go — you didn’t just come back for your clothes, I hope. But you’re not off the hook yet, and for the time being, welcome back,” and he says, “Great, and thanks,” and bends down to kiss her, and she says, “Not right now, if you don’t mind. Even if you do,” and wheels herself out of the room, suddenly looking angry. He has to get away from everything here: family and work. His wife’s at her physical therapy session, kids are at school, and he packs a few clothes and personal belongings and gets in the car and drives to another city. He gets a cheap hotel room for a week, buys a newspaper, and looks in the Help Wanted section. He sees a few jobs that might be for him and calls one. He’s interviewed, gets the job, and starts work the next day. When he gets his first week’s salary he rents a furnished room. He constantly thinks he has to speak to them, he can’t let them continue to worry, and two weeks after he left home, he calls. “Oh, God, I knew I’d have to face this one day,” his wife says, “though it’s good to hear your voice. You’re all right? Where are you? We thought you could be dead.” “That’s why I called. I’m living in another city and I don’t plan to come home.” The other phone’s picked up, and his older daughter says, “Where are you calling from, Daddy? We were so worried. We all thought you were dead and then thought you couldn’t be because your car wasn’t found. That’s what the police lady told us.” “You went to the police for me and they couldn’t find me? I don’t know why. I got a job. I gave my real name and Social Security number and already got a pay check. I could have been traced.” “We didn’t get the police to search for you. We only wanted to know — Mommy did — if you got into a car accident and were dead.” “Well, I’m not, sweetie. And the car I’m giving back to the family. I left home, that’s all. Not ‘that’s all,’ of course, because it’s a lot. But I couldn’t take it there anymore. It’s been too much for me. You’ve seen that and how I always react. Not ‘always,’ but too often. You know I’ve been threatening to go for a long time. And so, when things got too much for me a couple of weeks ago, I went. I know my going is a crazy act of sorts. Or not ‘of sorts,’ but simply crazy and wrong and every name in the book you want to put on it. But I don’t want to talk anymore about it than I just have. I couldn’t take it there anymore. I know I already said that, but I didn’t know it while I was saying it. There’s a perfect example — or not ‘perfect,’ but just an example — of where my mind is now. Don’t even ask how I got a new job with my mind in this condition, but I got one. I’m working. As menial a position as there ever was one—’position’ is too good a word for it, even — but it does provide me with enough for a cheap room — and so I don’t starve — and my newspaper and coffee every day, and for now that’s all I want. Or need. Or want. Or both. Everything there is yours, though. Where you live, I mean — all I have. Are you listening, Sally? I want you and the kids to have—” and she says, “I heard, but I can’t understand how you could say to her what you just did and going on with it as if it has no effect. You didn’t hear her crying?” “No, is she?” “Now she’s away from the phone, but before, she was, into it, and she’s still crying. You also saying you didn’t hear me telling you to stop and that if you have to say these things, to say them only to me when she’s off the phone?” “No, also. My hearing’s bad. I’m getting old. It’s been going for a long time, my ears.” “Leaving us is one thing — just slipping out without a word, though of course it troubled us till we knew better and it still affects us deeply. But acting cruel like that on the phone to her once you’re gone?” and he says, “I was acting cruel? Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that ‘oh, so sorry’ sardonically, by the way. Not ‘sardonic,’ but you know what I mean. For I’m really sorry. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world, either kid, you too, though I know I have in the past with my rages and cursing and outbursts and you name it, which I’m so sorry for too.” “I have to take care of her; she’s crying even worse now. Don’t call back if that’s how you’re going to act on the phone,” and she hangs up. He calls his boss and says he won’t be in today and probably never again and she doesn’t have to pay him for the days he weeked this work. “I mean, worked this week. I’m a little confused because I’ve just decided to go back to my family. I didn’t tell you I have one. I in fact thought if I did tell you you wouldn’t hire me because you’d think I’d deserted them, but I do: kids, wife, house, even a cat. Thanks for taking me on when I didn’t have the right experience for it but needed a job badly. I’m being sincere about that.” “Well, no, thank you, Bookbinder, because you’ve put me in one heck of a spot. It’s not that you have a job no one else can do. But when I hired you I expected you to come in on time every day and, if you had to quit, then to give me at least a week’s notice. Now I have to find someone fast or do what you’re supposed to be doing while I’m doing all my other work. You change your mind about quitting, don’t call me,” and she slams the phone down. He packs his things and drives back home. The locks have been changed. He rings the doorbell. His younger daughter comes to the door, looks through it and screams “Daddy!” and runs out of the room. His wife comes to the door. “Go away,” she says through it. “You’re not welcome here anymore and you gave up your right to even be on the property.” “But I’ve come back, quit my new job and room, and am determined to work it out here. Believe me, I’ve changed, or have come closer to it than I ever have. That last incident with Fanny on the phone did something to me. Please let me in. I’ll sleep on the couch or anywhere you want, just so I’m home and the kids know I’m here for them, and you too, I hope, if you need my help.” His daughters come into the kitchen. Older one whispers into his wife’s ear; she shakes her head and shuts her eyes and says no and then nods and unlocks the door. “They thought I should. I only went along with it because I didn’t want to hurt them further. You can sleep on the couch or in the basement. Either one, you’ll have to make your own bed.” “Will do, which is what I did every day anyway, making our bed, cooking all the dinners, doing most of the clean-up work and laundry and shopping and driving the kids around, not that I’m complaining or blaming you or them. In the end I liked doing things for you all; that’s what I learned while I was away and from our last phone call. Hiya, girls,” he says to his daughters. “What you did was horrible,” his older daughter says. “Not on the phone as much as leaving us without saying anything.” “Still,” his younger daughter says, “we talked it over, Fanny and me, and we’re glad to see you home and being so happy.” “Thanks, my sweethearts,” and he tries to kiss the girls but they back away and leave the room. “My reaction exactly,” his wife says, “if you make a similar move to me. Please see that the house is locked up. And don’t turn down the heat too low, as you like to do; we found less uncomfortable ways to save money,” and goes to their bedroom. He sleeps on the couch, makes the kids breakfast the next morning, drives the older one to school, walks the younger one to the bus stop and waves goodbye, says to each of them, “It’ll take time, but I assure you, everything will be good.” Calls his old boss and says, “Quite truthfully, I had a breakdown of sorts a few weeks ago, which you must have heard about when someone there probably called to ask where I was. But everything’s fine with me now and I’m eager to return to work, if you’ll have me, and you have every reason not to, and no hard feelings if that’s what you want,” and the man says, “We all felt bad when we learned of it, and the job’s still yours,” and he goes to work. He has his first tantrum a week later. Something spills when he’s making the kids breakfast, then the food he replaces it with burns, and the handle of the pan’s so hot when he grabs it to take it off the stove that he drops it to the floor, and finally his younger daughter knocks over a glass of orange juice while reaching for something else. He shouts, “Do you always have to be so careless?” and she says, “I don’t, always. It was an accident, like the French toast you burned and which I’ll clean up.” “It’s always one mishap after another here. But I got to take Fanny to school. I got to get dressed. I got to shave and be at work in an hour. I have to make the goddamn money for this house and the paper towels we use by the carload and you kids. Who else is going to do it, your mom? I can’t stay around here cleaning up everyone’s mess, and I can’t leave it there either, soaking into the table and the floor,” and his older daughter says, “Josie said she’d clean it up, and I’ll help her,” and starts mopping up the juice on the table with her napkin. “What’re you doing? You don’t use a cloth napkin for that. That just makes one more thing for me to rinse out and take time with and wash in the machine.” “What’s the difference?” she says. “There’s already juice on it, and I don’t see why you’re making it into such a big thing,” and he says, “You don’t, huh? Then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you both why,” and his younger daughter says, “Daddy, get control of yourself; you’re getting excited over nothing,” and he says, “Nothing to you, maybe, because you don’t have to do all these things. But you’re two of a pair: too clumsy to eat breakfast properly and, when you knock something over, too stupid to care,” and they both start crying. “Oh, no,” he says, “I’m so sorry,” and his wife’s yelling from her bedroom, “What’s going on there? Gould, stop!” and he tries to hold them while he says, “Please forgive me; I made a mistake,” but they push him away and run to their mother’s room. “So run , run; that’s what everyone should do with me. What’s it matter anyway?” and thinks, It’s always going to be like this. He’s kidding himself to no end if he thinks he can ever change. Things pile up on him or seem to and it gets to him, that’s all. Or it’s not that but this: They’ll do relatively nothing, he’ll think it’s a lot, he’ll start berating and insulting them, they’ll do what they should do and that’s to fight back, he’ll insult harder, they’ll start crying, and he’ll suddenly see what he’s done and apologize but by then it’ll be too late. It’s never going to be anything but that . Or it will, but only for a few days to a week. Then back to normal and worse. Something like that. It’s all one big confusion now, but he has to face it: when it comes to this home here, he’s a hopeless case. He has to get away before he does even more damage to them. What was it someone once said? Forget it, what’s the use of anything anyone says? No, years ago, when Fanny was less than a year old, not even walking yet. One of his married colleagues, over to the house for dinner, Fanny sitting on Gould’s lap, and she reached out her bare feet till they were on the table and he said, probably kissing the top of her head, “Sweetheart, no little tootsies on the table while people are eating,” and put them on his lap, and she laughed and extended them again to the table and he put them back on his lap and held them there while he ate or drank with his other hand, and she started crying and he set her down and said, “Just sit there, or crawl to your mother, but you have to learn sometime about not putting your feet on the table,” and his colleague said, “What a responsibility, and I don’t say this facetiously, and I’m only taking this minor incident as an example, to be so important to her in her formative years. The magnitude of it and the consumption of one’s time makes me feel I could never be self-neglectful enough to have a child.” And what did he answer the guy? What’s the difference? The point here is that those formative years are long gone for both girls, and he failed. Now he’s ruining their adolescent and teenage years, and if he stays with them he can be sure they’ll be screwed up as adults. No matter what, he knows they’ll be a lot better off without him than whatever good could come by his sticking around. So it’s settled, then, right? and he thinks he tried but just couldn’t swing it—“swing” isn’t the word he wanted, but he knows what he means — and calls a cab, quickly sticks a few things of his into a shopping bag, cleans up the orange juice mess with the rest of the cloth napkins, starts up the washing machine with the napkins and a couple of soiled dish towels and a few things his wife had put in the night before, listens for his family — if one of them did come out he’d say the car isn’t working and he’s taking a cab to work and will see to the car later on — and goes outside to wait for the cab. During the drive he thinks, A note. No, by late tonight they won’t even need a phone call from him or from someone at work asking why he hasn’t come in to know that he’s gone for good. This could be the saddest moment in his life if he thinks of it, he thinks, so he’s not going to think of it if he can help it, and he stares out the window and breaks down. He gets on the train and a day later gets off in a big midwest city. No reason he chose this one other than to get far away in a not-too-strange place but one he’s never been to before and where there’ll be plenty of prospects for work. He rents a room, gets a job, tells people his wife and children died in a fire and he wanted to live someplace else because of that. Uses his real name and Social Security number, but no one in the family or a representative of it tries contacting him. The work he gets — waiting on tables and looking after the bar — is a step up from the last job he had when he ran off but has nothing to do with the kind of work he did for twenty years. One of the customers becomes interested in him. Comes in almost every other night, usually sits at the bar or one of his two tables; they talk about literature, art, music, and culture in between the time he makes drinks for the waitering staff or serves his other customers. She asks him one night if he’d like to take in a late movie after work sometime this week. They meet, see each other a few times after that for coffee and walks and other things before they start sleeping together. She has a nice apartment and invites him to move in with her. She gets him an ad-writing job with a friend of hers. They get married and have two children. He never tells her the truth about his previous family. She in fact tells him that one reason — maybe the main one — she wanted to have children, even though she was almost past the age for it and never thought of herself as a mother, was to help him replace the ones he lost. “Two children on earth who’d never be here if your previous two hadn’t died so tragically,” is the way she put it. He never calls his first wife and children and only wrote them one letter, a year after he left them and before he met this new woman, saying he hopes the following will serve as a legal document. But it’s more likely that what I’m about to say is a moot point and that my wife, because of my desertion, has already been granted a divorce and legal entitlement to everything I owned. Anyway: I, Gould Bookbinder, in right and sound mind, or however legal experts word it, do hereby declare that I willingly left my family a year ago . Make that “voluntarily.” I voluntarily, in right and sound mind, or relatively so at the time, deserted my family and home a year ago. Thereby, from this day on, I relinquish everything to my wife, Sally, and my daughters, Francine and Josephine: home, car, all money and possessions I might own, everything in the joint accounts held by my wife and me, and my pension money, royalties, the works, and from this day forward I will never make claim on any of these items or anything I didn’t list here. Why did I go? That wasn’t what I intended to write about but I suppose, while I have the opportunity (since I don’t expect to write another letter like this) — and perhaps because it might also make this document more authentic and less contestable in a court of law, thus fulfilling the wish expressed here —I should. I just couldn’t stay. I know that’s not enough of a reason, but what can I say? It was all too much for me. No matter what I did or tried or hoped to do I didn’t see how it could ever cease to be, with only brief reprieves or intermittent periods of peace, too much for me, and I’m sure it was too much —I was too much — for my family too. I felt I had to start a new life some other place. More for the sake of my family I felt this. But all explanations about this are futile and useless. Please don’t try to find me. You can, I know — I’m not hiding, I’m even putting my address on the envelope — but please don’t. I love you all deeply and madly and shall for the rest of my life, perhaps even more than I love you right now. I know you can say those are only words, but again, what can I say? With almost terrifying regrets and sadness, I remain,” and signed his full name and wrote the date and had the letter notarized and put it in an envelope and addressed it and put his return address and a stamp on it. When he got to the mailbox to mail it he thought there was something wrong with the last part, it sounded so fake, and went home with the letter, blacked out “terrifying,” and wrote in the margin beside it, I blacked out the word myself because it was so fake; the word was “terrifying,” and I should have blacked out the words “madly” and “deeply” too, solely so they wouldn’t disturb you, which I sincerely hope they didn’t do , and initialed that part, had the letter renotarized, thought, That word “sincerely”; ah, mail it or he never will, and dropped it through the letter slot at the post office. About ten years later, when his wife’s away on a business trip and his two daughters are sleeping, he sits in the living room reading a novel while listening to music and drinking. Maybe because of the drinks (a second and then a third grapefruit juice and vodka) and the music (to him, a particularly sorrowful part of a Bach cantata) and because of something he reads (“Hubert’s family life broke apart, and as a result he was devastated to the point of never being whole again,” an awful line that finishes the book for him on page 14), but he begins thinking of his first wife and children and becomes sentimental and gets out the photos of them he came to this city with and hasn’t looked at for years and gets very sad and says to himself, “Oh, go on; what’s the harm by now? All you want to do is hear one of them. If it’s an answering machine or a strange voice and you ask for them and the person says the number’s no longer theirs, then that’s it till something else who-knows-when later.” He dials his old number. A recorded message says the area code’s incorrect for that number, and he gets the new area code and dials with it. Sally says hello. He stays silent. “Hello, hello?” He bursts out crying. “Gould?” “I’ve been such a bum,” and he hangs up. He gets sick after that, knows it’s related to the phone call. He doesn’t try to fight it because he doesn’t want to get well. He’s taken to the hospital, brings the photos with him, and sneaks looks at them when no one’s around. He does it to get even worse, maybe even die. He has been a bum, he tells himself, and he should pay for it. He won’t eat; pulls out his tubes when he’s able to. His second wife and two daughters visit him, and when they start crying he thinks, What’s he doing? He has to be around for them as long as he can or it’ll be like what he did to Sally and the kids. Maybe, if he gets well, he can apologize to his old family and they’ll let him come see them and something can be worked out after all these years. A visit every few months; his two oldest daughters can visit here and see their stepsisters. They’re all such great kids, he’s sure they’ll love one another. And money for Sally for whatever she needs. He tells himself to get better and gets better and when he’s out of the hospital and recuperating at home he calls his old number and she answers and he says, “After my last call to you I nearly died. Literally, I mean, and I’m not saying that for sympathy. I’m just so sorry and ashamed for what I did to you and the girls. Please tell me they’re alive and healthy. And you?” “I am, as you probably surmised, in much worse shape than when you last saw me. The girls are long out of the house and I’ve a permanent helper. Fanny’s married and has a baby and is doing well in her work and lives in a city whose name I’m not going to divulge. Josie’s in med school, but even that’s more than she’d want me to say about her to you. I told them I thought you had called and started to sob and might call back and they each said they didn’t want to hear about it and not to tell them if you call again. That you had probably remarried and have children and they’re not interested in you anymore. That you damaged them enough the second time you left us and you’re completely out of their lives. That’s their message to you, although they didn’t tell me to deliver it. I feel the same. I don’t want to think or know anything more about you. We’ve been legally divorced since a short time before you sent me your one letter. The girls disowned you long ago. If you can, don’t call again for the rest of your life, and no more letters,” and she hangs up. Why didn’t he stay? he thinks. He loved her, was attracted to her body and face; she had a great mind and was a wonderful person, and taking care of her wasn’t that bad and the condition she has gets worse slowly, so he would have had time to adjust to the changes. He now has another lovely wife and two beautiful young daughters, but he didn’t have to have them. So why didn’t he stay? What’s the point of answering? He gets sick again and wants to die. He recovers, but because of nothing he did, and takes a lot of pills after and dies. He’s got to get away from here, he thinks. He writes a note. Or he leaves and sends a letter from the place he ended up in. Or he calls that night from another city and says, “I’ve left for good.” Says it to his wife. First his older daughter answered and said hello and he said, “Hiya, my darling, how are you?” and she said, “Fine,” and he said, “And your sister?” and she said, “Fine, also, I guess. But we’ve been wondering — Mommy too — where you are and what happened to you. It’s only been one day, but we’ve been worried,” and he said, “Don’t be, and let me speak to Mommy, please?” Or sends an overnight letter to his wife: I won’t be home. I only stopped for a night in this city. I’m moving on. I probably won’t even settle in a city. I might go live in a town or village in Canada or the Northwest or even overseas, japan’s a place I always wanted to go and possibly live the rest of my life in — a remote mountain village somewhere — but that’s not to say I’m going to do that. Anyway, everything — that means everything we own or possess together or what was solely mine — is yours and then yours to give to the kids or do what you want with. What can I say other than what you’ve heard from me in sometimes hysterical foul language a few hundred times before: I just couldn’t take it or stay there anymore. But what’s that actually mean? That even if things had been going swimmingly it would have eventually seemed horrible and unlivable to me no matter how good they continued to be. I don’t think I can enjoy something for very long and in fact I think I start disbelieving and disliking it if it — well, I was going to say — ah, forget it. But know it’s nothing you did or could have prevented, or the kids —I swear. I’m just hopeless, in both ways, and probably in more ways than I know . He has some cash and settles in a small Alaskan town. Rents a shack, gets a job in a grocery store, stocking and selling and everything else. Meets a woman and she needs a place to stay. Why’s he always have to have a woman with him after a short time without? he thinks. Why can’t he this time just live out his life alone? He doesn’t contact his wife and kids after the first time. He tells the woman what he did and she says she can understand: “Hey, sometimes situations get impossible — incourageable, if that’s the right word for it — so best to get up and go and never gawk back. Your wife will do wonders without you — better than she did with, based on what you said — and same for your kids.” “You really think so? I don’t, but what can I do about it, much as I love her and worship my kids, since if I went back it might be nice for a while for me and them but then I’d resort to my old impatient and hateful and crazy ways,” and she says, “That’s sort of what I’m saying, silly. The devil only knows why I’d want to live with such a horror.” He leaves her a year later and never takes up again with anyone else. Why’d he break up with her and then give her the shack with its rent for the next year prepaid and leave everything he owned behind and get an even smaller, colder place to live? Why even go into it? He left like that because he wanted to get out fast. She was dumb and coarse and slovenly and smoked and watched TV most of the day and had nothing to say and vilified books and learning and good manners and smeared grease on her legs and face at night and spent an hour or two a day putting on ugly makeup and carped too long when she didn’t think he’d tried hard enough to please her in bed, when the truth was, though he didn’t say it — he only said, “Listen: it’s the same as it’s always been with me. I make life miserable for anybody I’m with”—he was thoroughly unattracted to her in every way and his inability to stay even semierect may also be because of his advanced age. Long after that he tries calling his old home, just to hear their voices and maybe, if they speak to him, to see how they are, but the number’s been someone else’s for a few years “and the party people used to call when I first got the phone doesn’t sound like the one you’re asking for,” the man says. He dials Information and is told they’re not in the book or listed in that city. Maybe they’re not living there anymore, he thinks, or even living, but he quickly closes and opens his eyes several times to get rid of that thought. He supposes he could call friends they once knew, if they’re still around, to find out where she went or what happened to her and the kids, but he’s sure they’ve all been told not to speak to him about that and he also feels too embarrassed to call. He begins to drink a great deal, gets sick, but works every day till he drops dead on the job. Before he died he thought it would have been nice to retire a few years before and have the time to walk and read and maybe draw things he sees. If he had stayed with his family he could have done all that: visited his daughters and their children, if they have any; looked after himself better. But he didn’t even collect Social Security. He arranged it so that office would send the checks to his wife and, if she died, then to his kids. A few days before he died he wrote a note and left it on his night table, which was just a crate. The envelope the note was in said: To the Proper Authorities After I’m Dead: Please see — or do your best, please — that this gets to my wife, Sally Bookbinder, or my surviving children, Francine and Josephine. Or to my ex-wife, Sally, since I’m sure she divorced me years ago (her maiden name was Sutherland, though she may have remarried and taken the last name of her second husband) , and he gave her address— I’m sure she’s no longer there, but maybe the note can be forwarded —and Social Security number, which he’d memorized years before he left when she said she knew his, and the names and addresses of several of their old friends. The note: Oh, my darling Sally, as ugly and hypocritical as that salutation must sound to you, how horrible I feel about all I’ve put you through and everything you must have gone through after I left and are probably still going through, though I hope not. But what’s the point of saying all this, other than to get rid of some of the crap that’s been inside me for so many years, all brought by my guilt at leaving you and Fanny and Josie. My everlasting love to you and them—“eternal” rather than “everlasting,” or whatever word best describes in the least phony-sounding way “the longest, the most unending, the never dying,” even if I know it’s worth zero now, though maybe someday it’ll mean something, no matter how little, to them. Yours, Gould . He has to get away from here, he thinks. “I was just thinking, I sometimes can’t take it here anymore and feel like I’ve got to get away,” he says. “Go, don’t let me stop you — you have one feverish itchy foot out the door as it is,” Sally says. “I can’t go. How can I? If I do I’ll be full of guilt and shame and everything else — tormented, heartsick, you name it — from then on. When I do go, though — meaning if I go — it’ll only be after the kids are out of college and I’ve paid up all the bills for it, so you and they won’t have to go broke or badger me for dough, and they’re out of the house and safely on their own.” “So, in the intervening years — we’re talking about nine or ten of them — you’re to stay here and make our lives miserable with your whining and bitching and once-a-month hysterics that you hate it here and have to go?” “I won’t whine or do anything like that. I know what it does to you all. Really, I’ve been thinking about a solution to my going till the time comes when I feel I can go. I’ll be a good father, soft-spoken, patient. Same thing as a husband — I won’t even disturb you. We can sleep in separate rooms if you want, go our separate clichés. If you wish to come see me some nights, or for me to pay you a visit, as you used to say, in your room, do so anytime you wish so long as I’m not physically sick. But even there I’d be as gentle as my sickness permits in telling you I’m in no fit condition for it, and I’ll never try initiating anything like that with you, since I’m sure ninety-five percent of the times you’d be revolted or at the very minimum put off by the idea.” “Excuse me, but what are we talking of here? Not sex.” “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I brought it up — certainly not because I was circuitously trying to get you interested in it now — so forget I said it. Maybe, only to demonstrate how thoroughly and independently our separate lives could be led while still satisfying some of the primary exigencies, I’ll call them. I guess what it comes down to is I want to try living here as though I’m living alone but while still living with the three of you in a pleasant domestic setting, if that makes any sense.” “It doesn’t,” and he says, “Let me see.” He thinks. “You’re right, it makes little sense, as I don’t see how I can pull it off without your cooperation, particularly with that one exigency every now and then. For you see, if I had to go outside for it, not that I’d know where to look or would be successful if I did, I’d feel grossly guilty if I succeeded. Worse, or maybe better, so guilty beforehand over what I’d know I’d feel after, that I probably couldn’t go through with it, or at least complete it, even if you had said to go ahead and get as much as I want, for all you care. Come on, what am I talking about? I can’t leave you alone here with the kids. I’ll stay and try even harder not to whine about my life in this house or go into any sudden tantrums. But I can’t just run off, though you might like that prospect — and anything you said about that now wouldn’t convince me either way or persuade me to do otherwise — since I know how much it’d hurt the kids: not that I left them but also you. So you’re stuck with me for the time being, although part of me has gone, it seems, if that makes any sense. Does it? Sure it could if I worked my brain hard enough to make it.” “Maybe the way you’ve mediated it is for the best for all of us, or simply better for me and the girls now than your just up and going, so okay, stay.” He stays. She continues to sleep in their bedroom; he sleeps in the basement; they all eat dinner and go to movies and concerts together. The kids are confused by this at first. He tells them it can happen in any marriage after a while but that doesn’t mean the new arrangement’s permanent. “It could get worse; it could get better. Be optimistic like me and think it’s going to return to family-normal pretty soon but without any of my previous griping and ferocity. The important thing to know is your parents still love each other deeply.” Sally overhears him saying this and says, “Stop feeding them so much baloney. We’re living this way for convenience’ sake only. It’s cheaper for your father than keeping up two homes, and of course he wants to be around you kids. And much easier for me with him here, in case I take a spill or am about to. We also feel it’s better for you to have both your folks around, as long as they remain in relative harmony, which was the main condition I made to agree to it. Your father starts fulminating again or under his breath calling me every name under the sun, the deal’s been abrogated for the last time.” “What ‘last time’?” he says. “This is the first time we made the damn deal since we got married. So how can you—” but he’s losing control, so he quickly says, “Actually, maybe you’re right: not a big thing.” Sally never suggests to him they have sex. About once a month he says to her, late at night or when the kids are off somewhere, “Excuse me, but I’ve been wanting to do you-know-what for a couple of weeks now but held back asking you. I thought you’d object to it. But it now seems imperative, where it’s even disturbing my workday and sleep, so do you think you’d mind if we made love or just had sex or you just let me have sex with you for a few minutes? I’m so far gone, I’m sure that’s all it’ll take. But the whole shebang, I’m saying, meaning penetration, though I don’t have to come in you if you don’t want me to and where I’ll even catch the crap in my hand and not mess up you or your sheet.” “I mind very much. I don’t feel like doing anything like that with you.” “Too bad. You know me and how much more harmonious and compatible it’d make me for the next few weeks. Of course, do what you wish, as we first agreed to when we fabricated this freaking, faking, frustrating arrangement.” Every six months or so she says, “Why not, it’s been a long time and you’ve been a good boy, and I feel a little like doing it too,” and after it’s over she says something like “I don’t know why I went along with it. You were too rough, my breasts will be sore for a week, and I didn’t even begin to get enjoyment out of it before you were done in a wink. And now you’ll expect a repeat performance soon, thinking I’ll be willing, but which I won’t consent to — it simply doesn’t work for me, nor is it good for our living arrangement. And you’ll say not true, and that next time, because it won’t be six months from the last time, you’ll go much slower, and probably end up getting angry because I won’t do it,” and he says, “Believe me, I promise I won’t. If this was the absolute last time, it’s not what I want but so be it,” and she says, “You’re only saying that now because you’ve been gratified,” and he says, “As I might have said the last time; ‘Hey, how can a guy win?’” They live like this the next nine years. He has changed, he thinks. He doesn’t blow up around them, or when he does he keeps it mostly under control. A couple of times he throws a dish or glass to the kitchen floor and when Sally says from her study, “What’s that all about? Back to your old habits?” he says, “Not at all. I dropped something and it broke.” “That was quite a smash for a drop. All right, I wasn’t there.” They have sex about twice a year, and a couple of those times she lets him spend the night with her in bed and once she let him do it again in the morning from behind, but said after, “I don’t know why I let you do that. I must have been only a quarter awake and you were done before I was fully up. Next time, if there’s one, get my verbal consent.” Then their younger daughter graduates college and gets a job in New York. The older has a job a few miles from them but has had her own apartment for three years. He says to his wife, “So, I guess we ought to talk about my going. I was only supposed to be around till the kids were out of the house. But you’re not any better, and I for one would hate looking for a new place and am not sure how I’ll be able to carry the extra expense, so if you want, I can stay.” “Now you should do what’s best for you,” she says. “The arrangement we made does seem to have worked out, and I’m grateful you stuck to it under the rather stiff conditions I imposed. But you may want to be on your way for your own reasons. As anyone can see, I need someone around here in case I fall and for lots of things I can’t do, much more than I did ten years ago, but please don’t let anything I say stop you,” and he stays. He has to get out of here, he thinks. He can’t live in this place a day longer. But he can’t just go. So stay, and he stays. He thinks, I don’t know what the hell I could have been thinking. I can’t live here anymore and I never should have thought I could. And then thinks, But how can I just leave her? So I’ll stay and make the most of it, or the best out of it, or whatever I’ll make from it, and he stays. He has to get away from here, he thinks, if just for a day, and writes a note. My Sweethearts: I’m taking a hotel room for the night. Don’t be worried: all I need is one night alone. That means I’ll be totally by myself. I might go to a movie and then I’ll go right back to my hotel room. Although I also might only go to a restaurant, so no movie, and read a book while I eat — I’m bringing several with me — and then back to the hotel to read till I fall asleep. Or I might do both, or all three: restaurant, movie, back to my hotel room to read and fall asleep. Maybe even a snack or drink or both in the hotel lounge before I go to my room. But I won’t be phoning you tonight. I’ll see you all tomorrow: Mommy, soon after hotel checkout time, when I get home around noon, and you kids when you return from school. What am I talking about? I’ll see Fanny when I pick her up at school to take her home. Same time, my dearie: 2:20, at the front entrance. I suppose my staying away for the night must seem like an odd thing to do. But I feel I need one complete day off with no contact or duties to do at home or in my work. Just to be free, so to speak. Or not “so to speak”: to be completely free for approximately one day. But then thinking about it as I write, it doesn’t seem that odd. In fact, maybe this is the solution to my feeling occasionally trapped at home. Is it really so bad to admit that’s how I feel from time to time? And if “trapped” is the wrong word, then just “overburdened and exhausted” sometimes? Because I’m sure you all occasionally feel the same way or something like it: school and the constant presence of your family, and other things. Anyway, see you all tomorrow. I already miss you — that’s not a line to make anyone feel better — but I’m also looking forward to my 20 or so hours alone. Your loving husband and daddy . He drives downtown and gets a hotel room, works out in the gym there, takes a swim, then a sauna and long shower. “Samson,” he says, pounding his chest. “I feel great.” Doesn’t want to be extravagant with himself — the room’s costly enough and dinner in the hotel will set him back a ways — but then thinks, Hell, this is the first time he’s done anything like this in his life, and for all he knows it’s well deserved, after all he’s done for his family and at work, and he gets a miniature bottle of vodka out of the room’s small fridge, empties it into a glass with ice, and drinks it while lying on top of the bed and reading today’s newspaper. “This is wonderful,” he says. “I’m so goddamn relaxed. Enough so to even talk out loud to myself and not worry about it, by gosh, and to say things like ‘by gosh’ too,” and gets out another vodka. He naps, has several nice dreams, goes to the restaurant downstairs, reads a book while eating and drinking wine, then goes to a play rather than a movie. The play’s dull and he leaves after the first act, goes to a different movie than the one he’d planned on seeing, and leaves it in half an hour because it’s so stupid and violent and sexually titillating: for kids, though not his. He stops at a bar on his way back to the hotel, starts talking to a woman on the next stool, she seems attracted to him, is quite pretty — beautiful, even, he thinks, and about thirty years younger than he — but meeting a woman or anything like that isn’t what he came in here for. He only wanted to feel what it was like again to have a drink at a bar alone and just sit on a bar stool and maybe order a hamburger and fries, even if he usually doesn’t eat red meat and stays away from fatty foods, and watch the TV news or some silly show while he eats, things he hasn’t done since about a month after he met his wife, except for the fries, most of them the last few years snitched off his kids’ plates at fast-food joints. Looks at his watch, says, “Excuse me, it’s getting late for me and I have to be up early. It’s been nice talking,” and she says, “One more round, how about it? We can go someplace else for it if this bar doesn’t suit you,” and he says, “No, it’s a perfectly nice place, and I’d really love to. But, you know, I’m married, so what would my wife and kids think if I told them? And if I didn’t tell them, how would I feel after?” and she says, “After what? What is it you think I’m proposing here? All I had in mind was another drink. Or even coffee or tea, if that’s your cup, because the conversation was interesting and we were getting along till you came on with all that stuff, or perhaps it’s too late for you for one of those too.” “Of course; I’m sorry. I worded it wrong. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just running off stupidly at the mouth for no good reason except, maybe — well, stupidity, which I apologize for, but I still have to go,” and pays the tab for their drinks. “Oh, thanks,” she says, faking a smile, “but maybe a couple of bills for the bartender, since he works hard at what he does and doesn’t get the proper appreciation,” and he says, “Sorry again. It’s been awhile since I sat at a bar and I forgot the protocol, though that’s no excuse,” and puts down several singles and leaves, goes back to his room and reads, and eventually drops off to sleep. He leaves in the morning, soon after he wakes up and does a few exercises and has coffee, drives home, and his wife says when he walks through the door, “Welcome back, traveler. That must have been fun, and we got along fine,” and he says, “I’m glad. And it was fun, all of it innocent, if you want to know, and all I needed. Kids get off okay?” and she says, “I had to call Meg to drive Fanny to school, but that was all right,” and he says, “Oh, darn, I forgot about that. If I had remembered I probably never would have gone,” and she says, “It was no problem. I arranged it last night and she got off in plenty of time. I’ve missed you,” and he says, “Me too with you, and I mean it,” and kisses her and steps back so she can see him and jiggles his eyebrows, and she says, “Sure, why not, but give me a few minutes, and don’t forget to take the phone off,” and goes back to their bathroom. “I can’t take it anymore; I should really get as far as I can away from here,” and she says, “And the kids?” and he says, “You’re right; what could I have been thinking? Forget I said it, and it won’t come up again, or I’ll try not to let it.” “I can’t stand it here anymore; I’ve got to get the hell away and stay there,” and she says, “Go if you have to, but it’s for sure not what I want you to do. Even if you said you were repulsed by me, I need you too much here,” and he says, “I know, and there’s certainly no repulsion, and I don’t really mean what I said; I was just spouting. But it is true that some part of me would love to set right off. To live in a shack and only have a one-speed bike, no car, a few of my books, my typewriter, and a library nearby — it could always order books for me from that state’s interlibrary loan system, I suppose. I’m saying, to be alone on my own again to do what I want when I want to, even to sleep as long as I want if I worked all night and am tired, and so forth. Or even if I didn’t work, if I just that day want to sleep and dream. But you make your decisions and you live with them. I mean, I make my decisions, or at least take certain directions that end up in a way being decisions, and you live with them. I mean, I make them and I live with them. And I should have said ‘em’ there, right? It goes better with the shack and no car and the one-speed bike and the woods — I forgot the woods before — or just something near the shore because there are always too many damn bugs and often very little wind to keep them off you in the woods. The shack, no matter where it was, would have to have electricity, I’d think, so I’d have heat and light. I wouldn’t want to rough it too much, since what I’d be interested most in is the solitude and time to do what I want, and not spend most of the days chopping wood and other activities like that just to survive. But we have a nice house, this house we have, and not a bad life. In fact, a pretty good life, everything considered. Our children are the best and I love you and think your feelings to me are mostly okay, though I have my moments when anyone would run away from me, and I know you’d love to get away too if you could, for a weekend or a month or however long you’d want to be by yourself for a change,” and she says, “True, but what can we do?” and he says, “Right; nothing. So I’m just dreaming here, and maybe not even of something I really want; it could be it only seems like I do when I get harried and overloaded with house, school, family, and my personal work.” He thinks, He’s had it for good here and has to get out, that’s all, and then laughs: what a stupid thought. Then for a weekend or week alone someplace, and he asks himself, Why? Like you said: you’ve had it up to here — your neck, the chin — so just to get away and on your own for a short period of time, and he says, “And that’ll help?” and he tells himself, How will you know unless you try? And if it does, then it’s an easy solution you can resort to whenever the same feelings about leaving or wanting to run away come up and family conditions permit it, and he says, “I don’t know, it all sounds so vague. Where would I go?” and he tells himself, Your favorite place: Paris. To walk around and visit its oodles of cathedrals, preserved writers’ homes, and museums. The Marmottan, with all the Monets. The new Van Gogh museum there, or is that only in Amsterdam? Then the new Picasso museum in the Marais — that I know I read about. And the biggie. What’s it called again? How could I forget it? Help me with this. The largest and possibly the most famous art museum in the world…. The Louvre! and he tells himself, Go to that one for several days. And more walking, but not to buy anything but a couple of souvenirs for your wife and kids, and don’t forget the great bistros, bars, and cafés. Then return home refreshed, revivified, renewed, re-re, happy to be back, even, and your family glad what the trip did for you, and he says, “I don’t like traveling alone. I become uncomfortably self-conscious, even when I’m walking in a strange city by myself. Maybe only in museums and train stations and metros, when there’s a ton of people there or the subway car’s crowded, do I feel comfortable alone. Besides, I want to talk to someone about the things I see and experience and eat. No, all I think I need is a few hours alone in my bedroom,” and he tells himself, Go to your wife, and say you were thinking just now of taking a week’s vacation to someplace like Paris, and see what she says. I bet she’ll say, What a great idea and you owe it to yourself for all the work you’ve done the last few years at home and school and it could be just the thing you need to re-re yourself for all the work you’ll have to resume the moment you return, and he says, “Listen, I think I know what’s best for me and my family, despite what she might tell me. And how do I know, if she did say that, that she wouldn’t be thinking, at the time, ‘I really need him here to help me but it seems he desperately wants to go’?” and he tells himself, She won’t think that. Or if she does, it’ll only be a little compared to what she knows is ultimately best for you and the family, and he says, “But suppose she really does need me there all the time to help or just somewhere close by?” and he tells himself, There are always the kids to pitch in, pick her up and stuff; they’re big and strong enough for that now. And if you don’t mind the expense you can have someone come in to look after her when you’re gone and the kids are at school, and he says, “Believe me, all I need is a few hours of quiet solitude in my room,” and goes to his wife and says, “I’ll be in the bedroom and I’m unplugging the phone there. If anyone calls me, say I’m resting or napping or busy with some very important work I have to get done, and that I left orders not to be awakened or disturbed to speak to anyone. Or put it any way you want — politer than that, of course — or just say I’m out. Or if you don’t want to lie — a sudden flu could be another good excuse — say that I’m—” and she says, “I get the point. You want time to yourself and don’t want to be interrupted. So go, nobody will bother you, and I’ll intercept all your calls and shush the girls if they’re making noise or talking loudly near your door, and also tell Josephine not to practice her piano and Fanny her violin till you come out,” and he says, “Thanks, I appreciate that. Though I do love their piano and violin playing, especially the duets, even when they hit bad notes, and Fanny can always practice in the basement. But I have to know I can be alone in relative quiet with my thoughts or my dreams or whatever I’m alone with in there for the next few hours, even the book I’ve been reading, while I lie on the bed, just to give my mind a break before I start trying to clear a whole bunch of things up,” and she says, “Like what?” and he says, “Things, things, I’ll tell you about it later. Though don’t worry. It has nothing to do with anything you did or even anything about you, not that you’re worrying,” and she says, “Now you’ve got me worried as to what it is and I feel almost certain that part or most of it has to do with me. But go, isolate yourself or whatever it is you want to do in there while you have the time and it’s quiet and the kids aren’t home yet.” He wants to get away from here, has to, he thinks, and then thinks, What in God’s name is he talking about? Just work out whatever it is without disturbing anybody. “Listen,” he says to his wife, “we’ve got to talk, it’s very important,” and she says, “Fine, let’s talk. You know me; I never feel we do enough of it about serious matters or the things that deeply affect us and might even be troubling us as a couple, mostly because you don’t like opening up. So give, what is it?” and he says, “Ah, nothing, it’s really not that important. If I think it is again, I’ll tell you,” and she says, “You change your mind because I was so eager to discuss it?” and he says, “No, it’s what I said. Suddenly I didn’t think—” and she says, “You’re terrible; you’re really quite terrible and a great big B.S. artist of the highest order, though you certainly fooled me,” and he says, “When?” and she said, “Oh, stop.” He’s got to get away from here, he thinks, for all the old reasons. It’s become too much, everything: the work, her illness, his ratty attitude about it sometimes and occasional rages, thrusting her empty wheelchair across the room and, when she falls out of it or the bed to the floor, lifting her up before she’s ready and practically throwing her into the wheelchair or onto the bed; he’s making everyone unhappy here, kids, her, himself, he doesn’t know how he can live with himself sometimes over the things he does, taking his older daughter to school after he’s railed at his wife the previous night for her clumsiness—“Do I have to follow you around with a damn dustpan and broom?”—and knowing she heard from her room and wanting to apologize, say, Daddy’s sorry for losing his head last night to Mommy and forcing you to hear it, but driving silently, maybe asking if she remembered to take her lunch; it’s cold — so is she wearing a long-sleeved shirt under her coat or a short? — not knowing what would be better for her, talking about it now or keeping quiet and hoping she’ll forget, though also wondering what’s going through the minds of both kids about him, if they fear he’ll blow up completely and never come back to normal and then everything will be gone; he’s even begun talking out loud to himself on walks to the market or when he’s alone in the car about how he can’t put up with it anymore and has to get away, which he does have to, that’s a fact, he doesn’t know for how long — probably just a week, a few days — before he really loses it, when the door opens and it’s his younger daughter home from school and he immediately sees by her expression that something’s wrong and he smiles and says, “Hiya, sweetheart, how’d it go today?” trying to be peppy and upbeat, and she walks into the next room without looking at him, throws her backpack down — he can tell by the plump! — and goes to her room or somewhere in back. She’s angry or disappointed about something, he’s almost sure it’s nothing that he did, though it could be, she could have been up late last night when he again yelled at his wife about how she’s always dropping things—“Forget the pan and broom I once mentioned, now I need a shovel sometimes”—and then said, “Sorry, just kidding,” but much lower, so Josephine wouldn’t have heard; she seemed fine this morning when he came home from driving Fanny to school and sat at the table with her a few minutes while she ate breakfast and then saw her off at the bus stop, seemed in a good mood, showed him the lanyard she’s yarning (“Very nice.” “Do you like the colors?” “Beautiful, and it’s so well made.” “I’m getting better at it, but I’ll never be as good as Fanny.” “Oh, now, don’t be silly; this one’s every bit as good as any she’s made.” “She taught me.” “So, to your credit, you learned very well”), smiled, let him kiss her goodbye when they heard the bus coming, and he goes to her room and says, “Anything wrong, dear?”—she’s sitting on her bed reading a book — and she says no and returns to the book and he says, “Please put it down for a second. You want to read, read, I love it when you do, but I know something’s wrong. I can tell by the way you came in and your scowl then and a little now … what’s disturbing you?” and she says, “Nothing,” and he says, “Come on, don’t tell me,” and she says, “Whatever it is, I’ll get over it,” and he says, “Friend trouble at school? Maybe a low mark on a test you don’t want to tell me about yet but know I’ll have to sign?” and she’s shaking her head. “A boy: somebody say something nasty or stupid — even on the bus?” and she says, “It’s none of those. I just want to read before I start on my homework; they gave me a lot of it,” and he says, “Something I might’ve done?” and she says, “You ask too many questions and I’m not in an answering mood. That’s all right, isn’t it?” and he says, “Why shouldn’t it be? and I don’t want to appear snoopy,” and leaves the room, quickly looks back, and she’s looking at him and quickly looks at her book and seems to read for a few seconds and then turns the page, and he says, “Like me to make you a snack? You usually have one when you come home, and I’d be happy to,” and she continues reading without looking up at him and he goes into the living room and hears her door click shut and he thinks how he loves her. How could he ever think of leaving, even for a few days, for the reasons he was thinking of? He knows he could never go, because of her and her sister and of course his wife too. “I’ve got to get the goddamn hell away from here,” he says to his wife, and she says, “As they say about something else — one’s urinary tract and I wish mine — if you got to, do, otherwise, it’ll be — oh, dreadful of dreads — painful to you. Not that I want you to go, naturally,” and he says, “Thank you, and I don’t really want to either, in addition to knowing I can’t. That was funny, what you said: another reason I should stay. Where else am I going to find such humor? I’ll try to work things out, don’t worry, and she says, What is it that’s troubling your?” and he says, “Now you’ve gone too far; you know I don’t talk about such things,” and she says, “Give it a go; I’ll provide intermittent comic relief,” and he says, “All right, I can try,” and starts and they have a long talk about it and she cries a lot—“You’re supposed to be funny; you’re not being funny,” and she laughs and he says, “Laughing isn’t funny; it’s a response to something that is or being tickled,” and she laughs — and after a while he starts crying too and she looks at him with a please-come-here-I-want-to-hug-you-and-maybe-you-need-to-be-hugged-too look and he goes over and hugs her and says, “I hate hugging like this; it’s like politics,” and she says, “Be quiet,” and at the end of it he says he feels things are going to be better from now on, “I just know it, with only some reservations, or at least for the time being, but I’m hoping for the extended run,” and she doesn’t say anything, and he says, “So what do you think to what I just said?” and she says, “You did talk about what’s bothering you, which is a start, but you have a history of being unreliable with your promises,” and he says, “Who promised? Anyway, I’ll buy that, but just watch.” He’s in the car with his older daughter and says, “I have to confess something to you. Sometimes I feel — recently, that is, or more often recently—” and she says, “What?” and he says, “Out with it, right?” and she says, “Not that, I just don’t know what you’re getting at,” and he says, “That I feel sometimes like I want to run away from home. Now doesn’t that sound foolish? Almost like a little kid talking. There in fact was a joke about it years ago — something like ‘But I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself,’” and she looks at him that she doesn’t understand, and he says, “That’s the punch line. The boy wants to run away from home and leaves but can’t go any further than the street corner of his block because his parents—” and she says, “I get it now. But you really have wanted to leave us? That’s sad,” and he says, “It has nothing to do with you kids or Mom, meaning nothing any of you did to make me feel I wanted to leave. And just for a week or a few days, you understand: that I’d go, I’m saying. But, you know, I just feel — felt — still get the feeling sometimes, I suppose, that I have to be off by myself for a while. That I’m mostly a terrible father, a lousy husband, a good provider, though—” and she says, “What’s that mean?” and he says, “A term my dad used for himself, and he was. We didn’t have a lot but we never lacked for anything, I think, except for tuition for a private university I wanted to apply to but really didn’t have the high school grades or college-board scores or any of that stuff for, so was deluding myself I’d get in. But anyway, he said, ‘Why spend good money’—that was another expression of his: ‘All money is good,’ he said; ‘what could be bad about it?’—’when there is a very decent free public college system in New York?’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m your only child and I’ll pay for half of it myself, living expenses included’—because I wanted to go out of town—’by working at jobs while I’m in school and summers,’” and she says, “But the other thing, your wanting to leave us. You didn’t finish that.” “I know. And I realize being a good provider doesn’t make up for being a lousy husband and father, which I often am, but I felt you’d all be better off with my being gone — and for more than a week, actually — than my sticking around and making life hell for you, that’s all,” and she says, “But we don’t want you to go,” and he says, “And I’m not. Though sometimes you must want me to,” and she says, “Sometimes, when you’re very angry and acting sort of scary with your yelling and temper and not finding anything right with anything we do or that there is. But most times, or the majority of them, you’re not like that,” and he says, “As I said, it’s just a thought that comes from time to time, when I’m feeling particularly miserable with myself and that I’ve been a tremendous disappointment and bastard to you all, doing the things you said and worse, but nothing I’d ever carry out. It would destroy me — or maybe do a little less than that, though who knows? — but disturb me deeply to leave you and your sister and Mom. No, disturb me to the point of destroying me, I’m sure, because it’s more than just making your own bed and lying in it, I’d think,” and she says, “What’s that mean?” and he says, “You never heard the expression?” and she says no and he explains it and she says, “Oh, yeah, but what does it mean to what you were saying before?” and he says, “What was I saying?” and she says, “Disturbing yourself to the point of destroying yourself,” and he says, “Right, it’s more than that, whatever I meant by it. But you have to know that most times I love being with you and I’d miss you kids and your mom so much and hate myself so much for leaving you that I’d probably die — that’s it; I probably really would,” and she says, “Not literally,” and he says, “Close, though,” and she says, “Then don’t go.” I got to get out of here, he tells himself, and thinks, You got to? — then go, and he thinks, I’m only just talking; I don’t mean it. It’s an idea — What would happen if I did go seemingly forever? — and I know what would. And it’s really not so bad here, when you think what I am, and he thinks, No, not so bad at all, so stay.