Stephen Dixon - His Wife Leaves Him

This was at the cottage in Maine they rented together for two to three months every summer for seven years. Nothing much; the last summer they were there before Maureen was born. It was on what they called “A Maine day”: mild, sunny, low humidity, little puffs of white clouds, blue skies, temperature around 72. If they were lucky: a light breeze coming up from the water. They loved the cottage — she started renting it three summers before she met him — and would have bought it if they had the money when it was being sold. He was in the kitchen, taking the forty or so diapers out of the washing machine and dropping them into the laundry basket on the floor. They bought this huge used washing machine the summer after Rosalind was born. They had no dryer. At the time, they couldn’t find a cheap used one and didn’t think it worth buying a new dryer for just a few months every summer, especially when the cottage could be sold out from under them, and eventually decided they could do without one. They’d hang their wash out in the sun, and if there were repeated days of rain or cloudiness, they’d drive to Blue Hill about twenty miles away and make a day out of it by shopping for groceries and having lunch in one of a number of good simple places while the diapers and other wash were being dried in the coin laundry there. He brought the basket of diapers to the porch. They had a couple of clotheslines strung out on poles he’d cemented into the ground in an open space near the cottage. But he needed clothespins for that, which took lots of time to use for so many diapers, and after a few minutes of hanging them up, his arms hurt. Instead, he now hung them and things like socks and shorts and, when the sun was very strong, towels and jeans over the porch railings. “Need any help?” Gwen said. She was lying on a chaise longue, reading; wide-brimmed straw gardener’s hat shading her face. There were a few moth holes in the brim and he could see a spot of light from one of them on her cheek. He said “No, no, you rest; I don’t want you to get up. Besides, you want to deprive me of my next to most favorite domestic chore?” “And what’s your most favorite? I remember what your favorite day of the year always is, but this one I forget,” and he said “Stacking them after they’ve dried.” “You’ll get no fight from me on that score. It’s so tedious, hanging an endless number of diapers out to dry. And maybe equally as tedious to stack them, so the job’s all yours,” and she went back to her reading. She was in a bikini top and Bermuda shorts. Prescription sunglasses; sandals off. Probably they were special shorts with an elasticized waistband, she was so pregnant. Half-filled glass of something in arm’s reach of her on the floor. By the color of it, iced coffee, with milk in it, and where the ice had melted. The four Siamese cats sleeping or resting under the chaise longue, their eyes closed. “You’re not going to burn?” and she said “Sun block. I’ve slathered myself silly with it.” “Still, you’re so fair; but it’s your body.” He started draping the diapers over the railings. The last few, when he ran out of room on the railings, he hung over the rim of the laundry basket and spread one out inside it. He used to also hang them over the porch’s staircase railings, but when they were done they often slid off. In an hour, if the sun didn’t disappear, they’d be dry. Then, on a small metal table out there, he’d very neatly stack them one on top of the other in two to three piles and bring them inside and take one pile to their bedroom upstairs where Rosalind’s crib was. At times, when he stacked them, he’d press a diaper to his cheek to feel its softness and warmth. He could see why she might not like hanging the diapers out to dry, but how could she not like stacking them? Not that she needed one with him, but it was probably just an excuse to get out of doing both because, unlike him, she liked reading more.

His favorite day of the year. Didn’t he go over that? Even if he did, maybe something will come out of it that he hadn’t thought of before. He’d begin talking about it with her and the kids days before they left New York for Kennebunkport. “Guess what? We’re getting close to my favorite day of the year. I can hardly wait.” Or “Two days till my favorite day of the year. Everybody thinking about what they want to pack? I know, it’s crazy, but I so much look forward to it.” Gwen and he would share the driving, even the times she was pregnant—“No; my stomach doesn’t get in the way”—so that part of it wasn’t difficult. Six, seven hours. If they left on a Friday, which he liked to avoid, maybe eight. He’d sleep for about an hour in the front passenger seat. “Where are we?” he’d say when he woke up. “God, we’ve made great time.” Lunch at a family restaurant they always stopped at in Connecticut right off the highway—81? 94?—about ten miles from the Mass Pike. The kids loved its homemade pies with two scoops of ice cream on top. “Can we get two flavors?” He’d start singing moment after they crossed the Pisca-something bridge into Maine and the kids would join in — Gwen never did: “It’s too silly a ditty”: “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here-e-e-e,” their voices rising on the last “here,” and then a repeat of the line without a rise at the end. It was something — not a song, really — his busload of summer campers when he was a kid used to sing when the bus pulled into camp, also for two months. Bringing into the motel room their briefcases of manuscripts and one of his two typewriters — hers and then her computer and printer were too heavy for someone to steal, though he covered them and his other typewriter with blankets — and a suitcase for them and knapsacks for the kids and stuff for the cats. And a shopping bag of cotton sheets and pillowcases for them to replace the linen already on their bed. The kids didn’t mind the hotel linen and didn’t understand why they did. “They all feel the same.” “That’s because your body isn’t supersensitive yet,” he said, and when she started crying — he forgets which one — he said “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. You’re sensitive; I know. Please, darling, don’t spoil a great day.” Running around the beach with the kids — being chased and then chasing them — three of them jumping into the water together at least once. “Br-r-r-r, it’s cold, our annual membership renewal in the Polar Bear Club.” The kids able to tolerate the cold water much better than he — even swimming in it a few minutes — all while Gwen read or napped or both in the room. “If you can swing it, I’d love to have two hours alone. Even to see what’s on cable,” since they didn’t have it at home. Showering. “You too, kids. If you want to sleep without scratching your feet all night, you have to wash the sand out of your toes.” He’d get cheese from the little cooler they brought from New York and put it on crackers and pass the plate around and then just leave it on the night table. Vodka over rocks but probably two before heading off for dinner. He always offered her a beer or glass of wine in the motel, but she’d hold off drinking till he ordered a bottle of wine at the restaurant. “A half bottle or wine by the glass won’t do? After all, it’s just the two of us drinking.” “What we don’t drink, I’ll cork and bring back to the room and we’ll finish it tomorrow night. But you know me. It’s the one evening I don’t mind getting a bit lightheaded, and we’re not driving.” Delicious food. He thinks he ordered the summer’s first New England clam chowder as a starter every year and then scallops as an entrée. Sunset from the glass-enclosed porch they always tried to sit in. He’d call the restaurant before, sometimes from New York a week ahead, but if he didn’t he’d stop by the reservation desk on his way to or back from the beach with the kids to see if he could reserve a table by the porch window around seven. Because they always ate at the Breakwater Inn: just a short walk from their motel. After dinner, the kids usually ran ahead. “Give us the key.” “It’s dark, and there are no streetlights, so watch out for cars when you cross the road.” Gwen and he either held hands when they walked back or he put his arm around her waist or shoulders. Because of the wine and food and that they were feeling so good with each other and everything had gone smoothly that day and this was the first day of their long stay in Maine, with no classes to prepare till the end of summer, and maybe something to do with the sea smells and air, he could almost say they always made love that night, but only when they were sure the kids were asleep in the next bed. When Rosalind got older — fourteen? fifteen? — which would make Maureen eleven to twelve — the girls got their own room in the motel. “Come on, kids; it’s getting late. Time to turn off the TV.” “Ten minutes?” “Okay. Sounds fair.”