Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

On the other hand, she didn’t want to stay in a bad marriage forever. It was a lot to work out. She didn’t want to end her relationship with Gabriel, far from it, but she needed to go more slowly, and she wanted to be sensitive to Andy’s needs too, which Gabriel thought was unnecessary and ridiculous. According to him, it was over, and Andy just had to be a man, move on, and get out of the way. He seemed somewhat insensitive to other people’s needs, and he told her she was being American whenever she talked to him about letting Andy down gently.

And just when she wanted Andy to be sensitive and reasonable, he wasn’t and behaved like a jerk. And when she gave up on him completely, he did something sweet and reduced her to tears and intense guilt. It was all very bittersweet. She found a wedding picture of them in her closet and sat down on the bed holding it. Even at twenty-eight, they had looked like kids. They were so innocent and loved each other so much. He thought it was great that she was a doctor, and now it annoyed him every time she went to work, was on call, or stayed late. She could do nothing right, and the less well his freelance writing was going, the angrier he seemed to her.

“Things aren’t going so great, are they?” he said in a soft voice one morning when he found her staring out the window with a sad expression. She turned to face him and there were tears in her eyes.

“No, I guess not.” She wondered if the marriage would have been salvageable if she hadn’t gone to Paris. Andy wouldn’t have been as angry, and she wouldn’t have met Gabriel. But the truth was that Andy had been growing increasingly resentful of her work for the past year or two, which didn’t seem fair to her. They lived on what she made, which didn’t bother him. But her working long hours did.

“What do you want to do about it?” he asked sadly and didn’t approach her. There was a glass wall between them with no door on it. They could see each other, but they never touched anymore, nor did their hearts.

“I don’t know yet.” She was determined not to give him the bad news until after Gabriel left. “What do you think?”

“Counseling? A break? Divorce?” Hearing him say it out loud sounded extreme to her, but so was their situation, and the truth was that she wanted out. But she didn’t want to say it yet.

“Maybe we should wait till the French emergency commission has been here. I’m going to be very busy with that for four weeks.” They were due in a week. Her heart raced each time she thought of it. In seven days, Gabriel would be there.

“I could stay at my mom’s,” he suggested and that sounded pathetic to her too. “It might give us a breather.” But they had just had a breather for four weeks when she was in Paris, and things were worse when she got home. But she’d been passionately involved with another man and she realized that skewed everything.

“Have you talked to your mom about it?” she asked, curious. He talked to her more than Stephanie talked to her parents, but he was an only child with a widowed mother, who liked to get into his business. Her parents were always careful not to get involved and to let their children work things out for themselves, since they were adults.

“She says we can work it out if we want to. It’s up to us. I hope she’s right, but to be honest, I don’t see how. Things would have to change,” he said, thinking about it, “if we want our marriage to work again.”

“Change how?” She was curious about what he thought.

“Maybe I need to get a job so I don’t feel so dependent on you. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been jealous of your work for the last year or two. You know what you want and what you’re doing, and you’re good at it. You go after your goals. I’ve been floundering. I don’t even know if I can make it as a writer, and I don’t want to work at a newspaper again. I feel lost,” he said, with tears in his eyes, and she felt sorry for him. His admission that he was jealous of her career was huge. “I need to pursue my dreams again. You’re going to be head of the department one day, and I’ll be nothing.” He sounded like a boy as he said it. But she needed him to be a man for her, not a child. Gabriel was an adult. And Andy’s boyish charm had worn thin and just seemed immature. She knew she shouldn’t, but she compared the two men constantly, and Andy was coming up short, and had for a while. It had left the door wide open for Gabriel to walk through and sweep her off her feet, just as he had. She had wanted to be faithful to Andy, but the lure of Gabriel was too great. Andy could sense that he had lost her, and he had a feeling that there was someone else, but Stephanie kept saying there wasn’t and he believed her. The constant calls and texts seemed suspicious to him.

She put on her white coat and had to leave for work then, so they didn’t pursue the conversation, but it was clear that they both knew their situation was dire. Their marriage was on life support, and the only way out seemed to be to pull the plug.

Wendy called her that weekend to ask how things were going and Stephanie was honest with her.

“Pretty bad. It’s been tense since I got home. And sad. We both know the marriage is dead.”

“Does he know about Gabriel? Did you tell him?”

“I don’t want to until Gabriel leaves. I don’t want some awful French drama. After he goes, I’ll tell Andy it’s over. I just hope Gabriel can keep a lid on it when he’s here. He’s been texting me a million times a day, Andy keeps asking me who’s calling and texting me. I asked Gabriel to slow down, and he didn’t like it. This is a mess,” she sounded stressed and Wendy didn’t envy her situation. “What about you? Did you see your guy?”

“I did,” she said with a sigh. “I spent the night with him. I wanted to see him one more time. Being away for a month gave me some perspective. I was like a doll he took out of the closet to play with once a week, and then put back and went home to his wife. I don’t think he knows who I am or cares. When he left, he said, ‘See you next Wednesday’ and I said, ‘No.’ I was done. He looked like he was in shock. I haven’t heard from him since. Nothing. No begging, no texts, no calls. Maybe he was done too,” or he just didn’t love her. It seemed plausible to her now.

Stephanie was impressed that she’d done it. She didn’t think Wendy would. “Do you miss him?”

“Less than I thought. I’m lonely, but I gave up a lot. I stopped seeing friends, or doing anything. I was always sitting around, hoping he’d show up. I need to get out and see people now. The French crew will do me good. And at least I don’t feel like I’ve sold out, waiting for a guy who doesn’t really love me and is never going to leave his wife.” It scared Stephanie to listen to her. What if Gabriel did that to her after she left Andy, gave up her job, and moved to France? She’d be trapped. But at least she knew he loved her, for now anyway. She remembered Valérie and Marie-Laure’s warnings, and even Wendy’s, that French men don’t get divorced, or not often, and according to Wendy, most Americans didn’t leave their wives for their girlfriends either. They needed both women to make their marriage work, which was not how she felt about Andy and Gabriel. Having two men in her life and her head was driving her insane. She felt pulled in ten thousand directions, or two, which was worse.

“Let me know if you come to the city, and we’ll have dinner,” Stephanie said, missing her.

“I want to have everyone to my house for a barbecue the first weekend they’re here,” Wendy said, and Stephanie liked the idea. “Will you bring your husband?”

“No, he won’t want to anyway. He’s hostile about my work and everything related to it. He can stay with the kids. And that’s too close for comfort, to have both of them there.” It sounded stressful to Wendy too.