Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

“I want to save what amounts to my marriage,”she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.She clears her throat.“We may not have any official documents, but this relationship means a great deal to me.Cer-tainly more than my actual marriage, which was just…crap.More than anything, I guess.And I miss my old life, I miss the way things were before all this chaos.Ifwe could go back to that, back to that nice life, I think I would be willing to forget everything that’s happened since October.”

Daniel feels he is being lured into what a man in his position must never do:looking into the heart ofthe person he is leaving.He thinks for a moment that maybe he ought to get out ofhis chair and leave.He can-not offer her hope, nor solace.IfKate is here to protect herself, or to heal her wounds, then he should not be here.He is the cause ofher pain, he is the source, that churning in her stomach, he put it there, that sense ofexclusion and exile—it comes from him.But what can he do? He can-not be for himself and for her, too.Their interests are in collision.There is no middle ground.What he wants is what is tearing Kate apart, and he cannot and will not stop wanting Iris, Iris is the most real thing.

Fox strokes his goatee, and his deep, almond-shaped eyes seem to soften, which Daniel notes, as iftrying to assess a juror’s sympathies.

”Can you say more about that?”Fox asks.

Daniel sits back in his chair, waiting for the sharp sting ofKate’s reply.He knows her well enough to imagine how irritating Fox’s insipid in-vitation must be to her.

But Kate tries to do what Fox has asked.“I’m very angry, and very hurt,”she says.“As Daniel knows.The atmosphere at home is obviously tense.Very tense.Practically unbearable.We’re all walking on eggshells.

We’re waiting to see what Daniel will do.I think even Daniel is waiting to see what he’ll do.He’s a decent man and very kind and he’s terrific with my daughter.I’m sure this whole situation is killing him.”

Fox turns briefly toward Daniel, not to elicit a response or any further clarification ofKate’s remarks but, it seems, just to see the expres-sion on his face.

“And you say you were previously married,”Fox says.

“Yes, to a man whom I wasn’t in love with.And about whom I rarely think.He has no relationship with my daughter, he lives in Hawaii on a little bit offamily money, and he is completely irresponsible.”

“Which brings us to Daniel,”says Fox.

”I’ve asked him to stop seeing this woman.”

“I see,”says Fox.“And has he stopped seeing her?”

They’re talking about me as if I weren’t actually here, thinks Daniel.

”I don’t think so,”she says.

In fact, he has seen her this morning, their parting is just three hours old, and he feels, as usual, halfmad from either having just seen her or from being about to see her.Today, he accompanied her to an immense su-permarket twenty miles south ofLeyden and followed her up and down the aisles while she shopped for her family’sThanksgiving dinner.Despite everything, Iris was excited about the holiday, which was her favorite of all the holidays—a fact that confounded Daniel, who would have ranked it close to the bottom, rivaled only by Christmas in the categories of forced jollity, depressing cuisine, and awakened feelings ofemptiness, isolation, and loneliness.Iris’s parents were coming in, as well as her sis-ter, Carol, and her brother, Andrew, with his wife and two children.

Hampton’s parents would be there, too, along with his aunt Margaret, his sisterVictoria, with her family, and his brother James, and the prospect of housing them all, the improvisation ofbeds and bedrooms, the finessing ofsmall privacies, the worries over laundry, water pressure, the orches-tration ofbathroom times, Aunt Margaret’s sudden allergies to pecans and oysters, without which a properThanksgiving dinner was unimagin-able to Iris, all these and a dozen more domestic preoccupations were ab-sorbing Iris as she filled her cart with bags ofcranberries, cartons ofbeer, gigantic bottles ofseltzer and Coke, three pounds ofbutter, bags of marshmallows, a ten-pound bag ofsugar, a twelve-pack oftoilet paper.

Listening to her as he tagged along made Daniel ache with envy ofall those people who were to be the recipient ofher care.Imagine! Pressed into this marathon ofhousewifery and to somehow keep her enthusiasm and her love offamily intact.She was an emotional genius.Ifonly he could somehow escape the frozen Butterball turkey sitting sullenly in his own refrigerator, somehow be spirited away from the embattled dinner that waits to be served at his table at home, ifonly all the laws oflogic and propriety could be suspended and he could find himself at Iris’s house for that meal, with Ruby at his side, and Hampton not only vanished but completely forgotten, gone like a puffofsmoke.

“Daniel?”Fox is saying.“This is a heavy time for you, isn’t it.”

“Yes,”says Daniel, though not quite certain to what he is agreeing.

”I hear you.”

“Yes,”says Daniel automatically.“Thank you.”

“Is there something you’d like to say to Katherine right now? Let’s imagine we are in a little circle ofsafety, and we can say whatever it was that was in our hearts and there will be no blame, no blame at all.What would you like to say in the circle ofsafety?”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s good, Daniel, but you’re looking at me.”

He turns to face Kate.“I’m sorry.”

“We’re not really in a circle ofsafety, Dr.Fox,”Kate says.“We’re more like in a circle ofhell.”

Daniel’s heart floods with fondness for Kate, a strangely nostalgic outpouring ofremembered love, as ifshe were long departed.Wouldn’t it be nice ifIris said biting and sophisticated things like that? But wit is not the source ofIris’s allure.Hers is a different sort ofgrace, unadorned and total, the grace ofthe sea, the grace ofangels, and sex.

And as for Kate:she is suffering, but how can he protect her from it, how can he even soothe her when he himself is misery’s messenger?The unmentionable truth is that he has moved on.No.Worse.He has moved up .He has entered a higher plane offeeling, a higher plane ofdevotion, and a higher plane ofpleasure.How can he make Kate understand this? He is not only leaving her, he is leaving himself, leaving everything familiar be-hind, he is slipping over the border with only the clothes on his back.

“I didn’t think we’d have to talk about a certain aspect ofthis whole thing,”Kate says, crossing her legs,“but since we’re here and…you’re here.”She gestures elegantly toward Dr.Fox.“It seems worth mention-ing.The woman Daniel was, or maybe we should say, is seeing is black.”

“How is that relevant?”Daniel says, much more insistently than intended.

“Oh please, Daniel.It’s completely relevant.You always wanted to be black, and now you’ve figured out a way to be black by proxy.”

Daniel hazards a glance at Fox, whose brief, black eyebrows have raised up practically to his hairline.“Is this true?”Fox asks.

“About the woman beingAfrican-American?Yes.But, I’m sorry, I think there’s something a little bit racist in what Kate’s saying.”

“Daniel,”says Fox,“you’re looking at me.”

“I know.”

“Do you want to say this to Kate?”

“She heard me.”

“And she won’t dignify it with a reply,”Kate says.

”She’s practically making a living out ofwriting articles about O.J.

Simpson,”Daniel says to Fox, as ifappealing to him, forging some sort ofbond, and instantly feeling the folly ofit as the therapist shifts in his seat.

“Are you still seeing her or not?”Kate says, her voice level, composed.She cocks her head as she looks at Daniel, somehow creating the impression that whatever he answers will come as a reliefto her.