Deena Goldstone - Tell Me One Thing

Bernadette takes all this in without rancor and says nothing. She watches him smoke and pace, head down, not looking at her, lost in his version of events, wound up to a degree she’s never seen. She proceeds carefully.

“She seems quite clear and resolved to me, Richard. This isn’t a whim.”

“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?! She walks out of an eight-year relationship with no explanation. She leaves a husband who loves her more than anyone ever will. That’s sane?! That makes sense to you?!”

And before Bernadette can utter a word, Richard begins to weep. He turns his back to her, but his shoulders rock with sobs and strangled gasps of grief pour out of him.

Bernadette waits. She doesn’t try to comfort him or interfere. It seems clear he has to do this, as if he needs to show her just how devastated he is. Finally he subsides and turns around, wiping his face with the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“I have to see her. Alone. You need to tell her that. Otherwise, I swear to God, Bernadette, I’ll follow you day and night until you lead me to her.”

Gently Bernadette says, “She has some rights here.”

“NO!” explodes from Richard’s mouth. “She owes me an explanation.”

Bernadette nods. She agrees with that, if not with the way it is said. “I’ll speak with her and I’ll call you.”

“She needs to see me, you tell her that” is put forth as a final threat.

It occurs to Bernadette as she continues on to the anthropology office that Richard didn’t mention Maggie’s name. Not once.

THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER, after Lucia has put Maggie to bed and come back down to the backyard, she finds that Bernadette is the only one there. Max has made himself scarce and Lucia knows, even before Bernadette opens her mouth, that she’s seen Richard.

“How did he find me?” Lucia says as she sets foot on the grass.

Bernadette sighs; this isn’t a conversation she’s eager to have. “Come sit with me.”

And Lucia does, in the lawn chair next to Bernadette. The two women stare out over the backyard in silence, each bracing herself in her own way for the words to come. The light from the kitchen windows pools a warm yellow on the patio where they sit, but the rest of the yard is in darkness, the sky overcast again, no stars or moon this night.

Bernadette begins to speak. “He needs an explanation, Lucia. It’s killing him not knowing why.”

Lucia nods. She knows Richard well enough to know he has to understand. What she doesn’t know is how to explain it all to him so he hears her. He’s never been big on listening. He gets impatient with points of view that don’t contain his own brand of logic.

“Why has all this come as such a surprise to him? Usually when couples separate, they leave behind a long trail of arguments and trips to the therapist’s office.”

“I know, but Richard really isn’t interested in anything but his own point of view. I’d talk and he’d interrupt and tell me that none of what I was saying mattered because he loved me so much.” She shrugs. “What I had to say seemed irrelevant.”

“So you stopped talking,” Bernadette says carefully.

“Yes,” Lucia says, but Bernadette can tell that Lucia is too caught up with the appearance of Richard to catch her implication. Our children watch us.

“Well, now he says he wants to hear.”

“I don’t love him. Can I say that?” And before Bernadette can speak, Lucia answers her own question. “I can’t. I can’t say that. It’s too painful.”

“Well, you have to say something,” Bernadette says with a trace of irritation. It’s one of those moments when she wonders whatever has she done by inviting Lucia here. “Because if you don’t talk to him he’s going to show up here.”

“You didn’t tell him—?”

“Of course not, but you know Richard. All he has to do is hide out at school and follow me home.”

“And he would.”

They arrange to meet in a public place. On the bluffs above the Pacific is a narrow park with a path that runs north to south along the rim, high above Highway 1. There are benches situated along the cliff, placed straightforwardly ahead to maximize the ocean view.

Lucia gets there early and waits on one of them. She wants to be prepared. She doesn’t want Richard catching her unawares. All morning as she gave Maggie breakfast and brushed her unruly hair into shining black curls and brought her to Max at the beehives, where they had plans to check on the Queen, she kept a running monologue in her head. She told herself to be strong, to be clear. To say what she felt. She promised herself she wouldn’t let Richard do all the talking.

Richard, in his motel room at the Surfsider, rehearsed various opening sentences—“I love you more than my own life.… I can’t live without you.… Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.…”

She sees him walking toward her and she’s stunned by how he looks, as if he hasn’t slept in the two weeks they’ve been gone, or eaten, or showered. Richard, who has always been so meticulous about his appearance, could have been mistaken for a homeless man. Rather than being overcome with sympathy, Lucia’s suddenly furious by this kind of self-indulgent excess. This is exactly what she’s run away from.

Richard looks up and sees her sitting there, small, composed, always that air of elegant calm about her, and he wants nothing more than to pick her up in his arms and spirit her away. It would be so easy. She’s so much smaller than he is. She’s weightless in his arms.

Lucia doesn’t stand as he nears. She doesn’t move from the bench, but there’s no way Richard can sit down now. “Can we walk?” are the first words out of his mouth. His voice is raw, from smoking, from emotion.

She nods and they take the path north, the shallow waves of the Pacific Ocean on their left, far below them. The morning overcast is beginning to lift, the sky brightening as they walk, the sun burning through, a hazy circle now. Lucia says nothing. She’s waiting to see whom she’s dealing with here. Is he as out of control as he appears?

Finally he says, “I need to know why you did this.” Each word sounds like it’s being ripped from his throat.

“Because I’ve been unhappy for a long time.”

“How can that be?!” explodes from his mouth. It’s an accusation and an outrage. “I love you, Lucy, more than life itself.”

She waits for the outburst to dissipate into the ocean breeze, until there’s a pool of quiet. What kind of love is he talking about? To Lucia it feels like love as steamroller, a sort of love that destroys everything in its path. She says quietly but firmly, without looking at him, “That doesn’t make everything all better.”

“What do you want me to do? Anything. Just tell me.”

“I want you to listen to me.” She says it as clearly, as firmly, as she can.

“I am. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do anything you say. All I want is for you to come back. Lucy, anything. Tell me.”

They walk in silence, Lucia trying to figure out how they got from her declaration of unhappiness to his demand that she come up with tasks for him. Richard is watching her, holding on desperately to the slimmest hope that maybe, if he’s good enough and careful enough, she will come back.

“It feels like,” she begins tentatively, “that your need to love me has nothing to do with me.”

“That makes no sense.”

Again he doesn’t understand or won’t stop a minute to understand or refuses to try or …? Lucia doesn’t know anymore. All right, she tries something more concrete. “I don’t think we’re well matched.”

“How can you say that?!” It’s almost a scream.

Lucia ignores the tone and continues. “You’re certain about everything. It used to be fine for you to be certain for both of us, but it isn’t now.”