Stephen Dixon - His Wife Leaves Him

Another scene he thinks he already thought about tonight. Once? More? Twice? It was about a month after they started sleeping together. They were in bed, it was night, lights were off. Her back was to him. He moved his hand down the side of her body to her underpants, to get inside them and eventually to pull them off, and felt her two cats there, lying against her thigh. His hand jumped. The cats didn’t move. She laughed and said “I forgot to tell you. They occasionally like to sneak under the covers with me. Do you mind?” and he said “At the moment, yes. I’d rather not have them there.” “Gee,” she said, “I don’t know how to stop them, or if I want to. They’re used to my letting them stay there. It’s the cold.” “Please,” he said, “could you try? Or I could do it.” She picked up the cats one at a time and set them down on the floor. They jumped back up and crawled under the covers again. He leaned over her, pulled back the covers and pushed the cats off the bed. “Be nice,” she said. “Remember, they were here first and you’re taking their place and they might feel squeezed out.” “Do you think I did it too roughly? I’m sorry. — I’m sorry, cats,” he said. “Try to understand.” He pulled the covers back over her, waited about a minute, stroked her thighs and pulled her panties off and tried tugging her nightshirt over her head and she said “Let me keep it on. I’m also cold.”

She’d come into the kitchen in their New York apartment, where he’d be working at the typewriter table by the window, and say “Like to take a break?” She’d come into the bedroom of the cottage in Maine they rented and say “Are you deeply involved in something that can’t be immediately interfered with or in the next few minutes?” She’d come halfway down the basement stairs of the first house they had in Baltimore, or just yell down the stairs from the top “Martin, think you can tear yourself away from your typewriter for a brief intermission?” She’d come into the narrow storage room where he worked in their Baltimore apartment for six years, or else knock on the door frame of it, and say “Care to take a short rest?” She’d come upstairs to the spare bedroom he’d turned into his study in the farmhouse in Maine they rented and say “Would you have strenuous objections to being interrupted awhile? I hope not, and it’d be a nice way to break up the day.” She’d meet him at the front door after he’d just come back from town in Maine and pretend to stifle a yawn with her hand and say “I’m a little tired. Are you, or do you need to get right to work?” She’d say to him after he’d come back from driving the kids to day camp in Maine or to school in Baltimore or after walking them to school in New York when he was on sabbatical for a year: “I know it’s early and you probably want to get to your writing, but would you like to take a pre-work break?” She’d come in to whatever room he was writing in, from behind put her hands over his eyes or arms around his chest or cheek against his cheek or chin on his shoulder and say “Don’t jump. It’s only me. Like to take a breather?” or “Recess time. Think you’d like to join me?” or “What do you say, my dearie? Kids are out of the house. Not expected back for hours. We’ve already put in a good morning’s work. Want to have some fun? I know I feel like it.” Of course he did this lots of times to her too. He thinks he never refused her, or at most said “Just let me finish what I’m doing — it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes — and then, if you’re in bed, I’ll meet you there.” While she said a number of times something like “If you’re suggesting what I think it is, don’t I wish I could. We’ll have other opportunities.”

Here’s another one he doesn’t know why it keeps coming back. Strange thing is, the woman in it was Gwen’s best friend since college and he suddenly now can’t think of her name. He tries to come up with it again. Runs through the alphabet. Still can’t. Okay. But that evening. This woman and her husband, Vincent, and their two kids and his family had dinner in Chinatown at a restaurant Vincent recommended. Vincent and his wife had been there several times and he ordered for all of them, even the kids. “No,” Vincent said, “you have to eat what we eat — I promise you won’t regret it, and there’ll be plenty to choose from — although you don’t have to have squid.” As usual, Vincent ordered too much. After Gwen and he had thought all of them were done eating, Vincent said “I still want to get their very special scallops and mussels in garlic sauce. What we don’t devour, you’ll take home with you and have it for lunch tomorrow or for dinner in Baltimore tomorrow night, along with the rest of the doggy-bagged food I want you to have. But you can’t leave here without tasting the dish fresh out of the kitchen.” “No, no, we’re stuffed,” they said, and Vincent said “Yes, yes, there’s always room for a pinch of something more.” Gwen’s best friend said to them “Don’t argue; there’s no stopping him when it comes to good food and drink. And because he over-ordered and there’ll be plenty left over, you’re going home with it, so it’s your treat.” “Then we’ll buy the pastries, later,” Martin said, and Vincent said “Not on your life. When you’re in our part of the city, you’re our guests.” They lived on Broome Street in SoHo. They walked from Chinatown through Little Italy to get there. Vincent and his son went into an Italian bakery and came out with two large white boxes each tied with string and full of cookies and cannoli and other Italian pastries. Then they went to their loft and plates of dried and fresh fruit were put out and Vincent opened a bottle of fifty-year-old Armagnac and one of a rare Port and they ate and drank and the adults reminisced once more about how each couple had first met and how soon they knew they were in love—“With me, it was my first sight of Gwen,” and she said “I’ve heard that from him before and I don’t see how it could be possible. As for me, though I found him immediately attractive, falling in love took a while longer.” The kids made up a play for four lead roles and wrote it down and spent fifteen minutes rehearsing it in another room and then in costume performed it. The adults clapped and cheered and booed at the right moments and then finished the evening with Irish coffees, though he had his coffee straight because he was driving. And as the two families went downstairs in what used to be this former commercial building’s freight elevator, which Vincent let his son run, and then outside in front of the building where the car was parked, they kissed and hugged one another and said what a great evening it had been. “We always have good times together,” Gwen said. “I don’t think I’ve heard Martin laugh like that since the last time we were here. The doggy bags. Did we take them?” and their kids held them up. “Goodbye, goodbye,” their friends and their kids said to them, waving and blowing kisses as they drove off, and they all waved and blew kisses back. “Steer me to the West Side Highway once we get to Houston Street,” he said to Gwen. “I always get lost,” and she said “You don’t go to Houston Street. But I’ll get you there.” When they were on the highway and heading uptown to their apartment, he said “That was terrific tonight. What wonderful people, children and adults. I’m so glad you know them. And the kids get along so well together. — Did you have a good time, kids?” and one said “I did, Daddy,” and the other said “It was great. I had so much fun. We should do it again soon. Can’t we live in New York always?” “It would be nice. We could also see your grandparents more. But what can we do? We’re sort of stuck.” And to Gwen: “It’s probably dumb of me to ask, but you had a good time too, didn’t you?” and she said “It was delightful. I’m so glad we all like each other.” “I love your friends,” he said, and she said “And they love you.” “And they’d give the world for you, of course, and our darling children, which makes me happy in case anything happened to me,” and she said “Don’t think of it. You’re going to live forever, but I know what you mean.” He still can’t remember her best friend’s name. First time he thinks he forgot it. It’ll come. It’s not Natalie. It’s not Naomi. It’s not Ronnie. But it’s something close. This happens. Maybe more now than before. Don’t worry about it.