Дуглас Кеннеди - Five Days

‘So Dan never had the capacity to leave you, to register your diffidence towards him? To think, I can do better.’

‘I could have been a better wife.’

‘Did you ever reject him physically?’

‘No. Whenever he wanted sex I never pushed him away.’

‘Did you ever criticize him, make him feel small, insignificant?’

‘I was always trying to keep him buoyed, especially after he was fired.’

‘Did you ever, before a few weeks ago, sleep with another man during the course of your marriage?’

I shook my head.

‘Given what you’ve reported to me — his isolation, his emotional distance, his anger towards you — do you really blame yourself for having an affair?’

I lowered my head and felt my eyes go all moist.

‘I still love Richard.’

‘Because he showed you love?’

‘Because he was so right. And I lost him.’

‘“Lost him” makes it sound as though it was your fault he went back to his wife. Whereas the truth is, having agreed together to leave your respective spouses he got a case of profoundly cold feet. So why was that your fault?’

‘Because I feel it’s always my fault.’

They call it ‘the talking cure’. I don’t know if it cured anything, as every time I drove through Bath I had a stab of sadness that would then linger for hours. There would be frequent moments while having sex with Dan — it was never ‘making love’ — when I would remember Richard’s touch, his hardness, his absolute desire for me. There were times at the dinner table — especially on nights when Sally was at Brad’s and Dan and I were alone — when I would get to talking about something I’d read in that week’s New York Times Book Review, and Dan would try to show interest, and I would be reminded of the way Richard would be so engaged when it came to anything literary, and how animated the conversation always was between us.

Months passed. Winter edged into spring. I did my work. I spoke twice a week with Ben and saw him once a month — and helped him through a difficult patch when that amazing abstract painting he was working on was turned down for the big Maine Artists show that May; the reason given that he was the student artist selected last year, and they couldn’t bestow the honor on him again. Though Ben understood this logic the rejection still bothered him. There were a few weeks where we were talking daily, as his self-doubt had become more vocal again, and he wondered aloud on several occasions whether he was good enough to really make it in the ultra-competitive art world.

‘Of course you are,’ I said. ‘You know how your professors and the people at the Portland Museum of Art rate you.’

‘They still rejected the painting.’

‘It wasn’t a rejection — and you know the rationale behind their decision. It’s a fantastic piece of work. It will find a home somewhere.’

‘And you are the eternal optimist.’

‘I’m hardly that.’

‘But you seem to be in a better place than a couple of months ago. Are things improved with Dad?’

I chose my next words carefully:

‘Things are somewhat better with me.’

Because things were quietly progressing towards the big change I would institute shortly. I’d found a job — as a senior radiographic technician at the Maine Medical Center down in Portland. Besides being the most prestigious hospital in the state it had also attracted so much medical talent from Boston, New York and the other big East Coast cities, for all those ‘lifestyle’ reasons that local magazines trumpet. The radiography department was a significantly larger one than our modest operation in Damariscotta. There would clearly be far more patient traffic and professional pressures than I had been dealing with. I found the head radiologist — a woman named Dr Conrad — very curt and to the point. But during my interview it was evident that she was impressed. I had taken Dr Harrild into my confidence when it came to applying for this job (especially as a reference from him would be crucial). And Dr Conrad did say, after offering me the job, that I had received the most glowing recommendation from ‘your boss’ in Damariscotta. The job paid $66,000 a year — a $15,000 improvement on my current post. I found the apartment in Portland. Through Lucy I also found a lawyer in South Portland who told me that, as long as my husband didn’t contest things, she could get the divorce through for around $2,000. Sally got accepted at the University of Maine, Orono, where she’ll eventually major in business studies (‘because I like the idea of making money’). She was surprisingly resilient when Brad dropped her the week after their graduation.

‘I knew it was coming,’ she said when she broke the news to me. ‘And when you know someone’s going to eventually dump you, hey. can you really sit there and cry when it happens?’

But when you don’t know that someone’s going to dump you.

A week after this conversation Sally took off for a summer job as a camp counselor in the Sebago Lake region in the west of the state. Ben, meanwhile, had received some truly good news — a year-long junior year fellowship at the Kunstakademie in Berlin. They only take two dozen American undergraduates a year. His new painting apparently clinched the deal for him. He was beyond dazzled by his acceptance, and was already immersed in learning everything imaginable about Berlin. To earn money for the year ahead he took a job at the summer school in Farmington, teaching painting. Meanwhile I found the apartment in Portland — and did the deal with the landlord about redecorating it myself in exchange for a lower rent.

‘So when are you going to ask Ben if he and some friends would like to do the work?’ Lisa Schneider asked me in one of our sessions around that time.

‘When I get the courage up to tell Dan I’m moving out.’

‘And what’s stopping you, especially now that Sally’s finished school?’

‘Fear.’

‘Of what?’ she asked.

‘Of hurting him.’

‘He may be hurt—’

‘He will be hurt.’

‘Nonetheless that will be his problem, not yours. My question to you is, do you want to go?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then have the conversation. It will be difficult. It will be painful. But once it is done, it will be behind you.’

I made final plans. On the week of June 15th I quietly moved a few things into Lucy’s spare apartment, as the Portland place wouldn’t be free until August 1st. Hoping I could convince Ben and friends to start work around August 10th (when his summer school duties were over) I figured I could take up residence there by Labor Day. I had two meetings with the lawyer in South Portland — who was primed and ready to put the divorce in motion. Then, on the day I decided I would break the news to Dan, I also gave notice at the hospital, knowing full well that word of my departure from my job would be around town the next morning. Which is why I timed my resignation to take place just an hour before I came home. After fixing dinner for us, I asked Dan if we could sit out on the front porch for a while and take in the reclining light of early evening.

Once settled there I came out with it. Told him that I’d been unhappy for a very long time; that I felt there was nowhere to go in the marriage; that I didn’t think we were a good fit anymore; that, as hard as this was to do, I simply had to leave and start a life without him.

He said nothing as I explained all this. He said nothing as I told him about the job in Portland, and how I’d be moving into Lucy’s garage apartment before the place I found near Maine Medical was ready for occupancy. He said nothing when I explained that I had found a lawyer who was willing to do a no-fault divorce for us very reasonably, that I didn’t want much, that he could take the house, but I did want the savings plan we had put money into over the years (and into which I did all of the contributing for the past two years), and which was worth about $85,000. Since the only other asset of ours was the house with a market value of about $165,000, he’d be coming out ahead. And—