Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

“Do what?”

“Live like we’ve been living. I’m second best to your obsession.”

“What obsession?”

She paused, then said, “Yourself. You’re obsessed with yourself. I can’t keep doing this. I’ll call you in a couple of days. Good-bye.”

“Hannah—”

“Good-bye.” She hung up.

Injured and furious, I threw the phone on the floor and kicked it clear across the kitchen. I grabbed the next closest thing—a kitchen chair—and swung it against the wall. One of the legs splintered off, and I chucked the rest of it down the hallway. Then I collapsed on the floor, sobbing like a child, the bandage having come undone and trailing from my hand like a party streamer. When I stood ten minutes later, there was blood all over my shirt and pants and a widening puddle of it on the tile floor.

Then something on the kitchen table caught my eye. It was a hardcover book, one Hannah had been lugging around with her for the past several weeks, titled Foreign Words: The Art and Heart of Language .

I didn’t need to examine the author photo on the back of the dust jacket to know it was written by David Moore, my wife’s biggest fan.

David made steady appearances at Hannah’s gallery throughout the week, and in the past two months, Hannah had heard him speak at Georgetown University three times. They were evening lectures, and she had invited me to the first one, which I declined in order to meet certain project deadlines, but the subsequent two she hadn’t even mentioned to me until after she’d gone to them.

We’d even attended an intimate dinner party at his brownstone last month in celebration of the release of his newest book. He’d had my sculpture on prominent display in his living room, and I’d gotten drunk on expensive whiskey.

I turned the book over anyway and stared at his grinning, handsome face. The pretentious ass, he wore glasses only in his author photos and never in real life. In a fit of rage, I tore the dust jacket from the book and shredded it. When I couldn’t tear it up any more, I seized the book itself and relieved it of its pages.

At ten o’clock, I parked outside David Moore’s brownstone. It was in a collegiate Georgetown subsection, just one block away from the house where The Exorcist had been filmed decades ago. I’d had enough time to sober up and was running on full adrenaline now as I jumped out of the car and mounted the steps to his front door. I didn’t even knock until I tried the doorknob and found that it was locked. I heard shuffling and voices on the other side of the door. A light came on in one of the upstairs windows, and I thought I saw the silhouette of a head peeking out.

“Come on!” I yelled, banging on the door.

It opened partway, David’s face appearing in the vertical, three-inch sliver. He wore a bathrobe, and his dark hair, gray at the temples, was wet from what I assumed was a recent shower. For whatever reason, this sent me into a rage.

“Tim—,” he began.

I pushed the door open and barreled into the house. “Where is she?”

“Calm down. Take a breath and—”

I slugged him across the jaw. It was a good punch, forcing him to stumble backward and lean for support on an end table. The look of shock and fear in his eyes was fuel to my fire. I was cuffing my sleeves when Hannah appeared at the end of the hallway, wearing a pair of blue sweatpants and her old Kappa Delta sorority T-shirt. The sight of her weakened me. I froze in the entranceway.

“Jesus, Tim.” David righted himself against the wall, massaging his jaw. “That’s assault.”

Something snapped inside me. I pounced on the son of a bitch, swinging my fists and pummeling him until Hannah grabbed me from behind and attempted to pull me off him. The feel of her at my back caused the fight to flee right out of me.

David curled into a fetal position against the wall, an arm over his face, one pointy elbow facing me.

“Fucking coward,” I spat.

Hannah’s fingernails dug into my forearms. When I whirled around to her, she shoved me against the wall. Her hair had fallen in her face, her eyes livid. “Get out.”

“Hannah, I—”

“Get out of here.”

“You’re coming home with me.”

David scrambled up the wall, straightening his bathrobe as he rose.

I caught a glimpse of his genitals through the part in the robe, which caused me to lash out at him again. I swung at his eyes and cheekbones—anything my fists could reach—until a sudden strike against my left leg sent me crumpling to the floor. An instant later, white-hot pain raced up my thigh.

Hannah stood over me with a golf club poised like a baseball bat, ready to take a second swing. Reflexively I covered my face.

“Jesus Christ,” David groaned. “He’s out of his goddamn mind.”

My eyes locked with David’s. “I’m going to kill you,” I growled.

“You’re not,” Hannah said. She was shaking, her arms like pipe cleaners jutting from her sleeves. I had no doubt she would bring the golf club down on my skull if it came to that. “You’re going to get up and get out of here. I told you on the phone that I need a couple of days to get my head together. You’ve got no right coming here.”

“I’m calling the police,” David said. He staggered to the kitchen and grabbed a portable phone.

“Hannah,” I said.

“I don’t want to hear it. Get up. Goddamn you. Get the hell up.”

“Please …”

“This is assault,” the son of a bitch said from the kitchen. “This is breaking and entering and assault.”

“Come in here, you fucking weasel, and I’ll show you assault,” I said, standing. David did not respond, and I looked at Hannah. It killed me to see my wife standing in front of me, a golf club over her shoulder. What killed me even more was she was dressed for bed … in this fucker’s house . “Come home with me. Please. We’ll talk things out. I love you. You know that, don’t you? I love you.”

Tears streamed down her face. “Get the fuck out.”

“Sweet—”

“I can’t do this right now. You’re attacking me when I’m weakest. That’s unfair.”

“Your leaving me is unfair!” I shouted. “I come home to an empty goddamn house —that’s what’s unfair! Goddamn it. Come home with me!”

“I can’t do this. Please, Tim. If you love me, you’ll leave.”

David walked in, wielding the portable phone like a handgun.

I wasn’t going to win this—the realization fell on me like a piano down a flight of stairs. My face burned; my pride burned. Breathing heavy, I straightened my shirt and shot a glare at David.

He took a step backward into the kitchen, holding up the telephone

to prove he was serious about calling the cops.

“Fuck you, dude,” I said. I turned to Hannah and my soul softened. “One last time. Please come home with me.”

“No,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I can’t.”

“All right.” I went to the door, paused with my hand on the knob, then pulled it open and stomped onto the concrete porch. I left the door open behind me, but the second I stepped out, Hannah slammed it. A moment later, I heard the lock click into place.

My head was filled with butterflies. My vision was as clear as it had ever been—I felt I could see for miles without restriction—and my veins were pumping full of lighter fluid.

I climbed into the driver’s seat of my car and sat for what could have been an hour, watching traffic slide up and down the block and tourists dip in and out of bars. Parked in front of me was an old 1928 Mercedes motorcar convertible, with running floorboards and a spare tire on the trunk. It had a vanity license plate— 4N WORDS.