Warren Adler - The War of the Roses

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ he exploded. His anger was, she knew, unavoidable. She hoped he wouldn’t cry. She did not want to show him how unmoved she would be.

‘It means,’ she responded calmly, ‘that you have no control over the situation and probably no blame. It’s me,’ she paused, shrugged, and tightened the grip behind her knees. ‘I don’t believe I can stand the idea of living with you for another moment. As I said, it’s not your fault…’ He started to speak but she held up her hand. ‘And any injuries you might have inflicted on me were not done consciously.’

‘Injuries?’ His voice shook. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

*I know. I wish I was more articulate. But you see I’ve never had the training…’

‘So that’s it,’ he said, finding sarcasm. ‘You gave up your life for me.’

‘A part of it.’

‘I made you quit school. Made you a slave.’

‘In a way.’

‘And you’re – what is the cliché? – unfulfilled.’

‘That, too.’

She sensed his rising contempt, steeling herself for what she knew was coming, had to come.

‘And the kids? Don’t they have a say?’

‘The kids will be fine. I have no desire to abdicate my responsibilities in that quarter. And, no, they don’t have a say.’

‘Jesus.’ He squinted into her eyes. ‘Is this you?’

‘Yes. It’s me.’

‘Not Barbara. Not the girl I married.’

‘Not her. I’m sorry, Oliver. Really sorry. I wish I could do it so it wouldn’t hurt.’

There was a long pause as he paced the room. Stopping, he turned away and looked blankly at the tides of the leather-bound books, then circled the rent table and finally went back to the armoire and poured himself another drink. He gestured with the bottle, offering a drink. Obviously he had no idea of what was supposed to come next.

‘No. Thank you,’ she said politely.

He shrugged and gulped down another drink, suddenly jabbing a finger below his breastbone.

‘This is playing hell with my hiatus hernia.’

‘Take a Maalox.’

He sighed, grimaced, and breathed deeply, staring at her.

‘You’re a cold-blooded bitch.’

‘I’m sorry if that’s your perception.’ But the label made her uneasy. She was not cold-blooded, nor did she wish to be cruel.

‘There is no easy way to do this, Oliver. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

His lips trembled and she sensed that he was holding back more recriminations, making an effort to contain his anger.

‘I guess it’s an epidemic. All the girls of our generation with your checklist of unfulfilled dreams, lusts, and fantasies. We’ve busted our asses to make you content. Now you shit on us. We gave you too damned much…’ His voice faded. She had expected that, too. Had gone over all the potential arguments.

‘So I guess you want a divorce?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Not even a trial separation. Fini? ’

‘I told you how I feel, Oliver. Why flagellate yourself?’

He shrugged, and a nerve began to palpitate in his jaw.

‘I thought I was doing one hell of a job. I thought this was supposed to be success.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘It’s going to be a bother,’ he said. ‘Life’s a bother.’

‘Don’t be so fucking philosophical, Barbara.’

She stood up. What more was there to say? Through her own pain, she felt the bells of freedom ring in her head. Save yourself, the rhythm urged. She supposed he’d move out in the morning.

He didn’t move out in the morning. He was too disoriented. To avoid another confrontation, he got out of the house at six, before anyone had risen, and slipped into the surprisingly nippy morning. He always walked to the office.

He never took the Ferrari to work. Besides Barbara’s Ford station wagon, they didn’t own another car except, of course, for Eve’s Honda. And whom could he trust with such a work of the automaker’s craft? The Ferrari lay tucked in its cozy wrapper, in the garage, like a rare gem. As he walked to work, even on the coldest days, it gave him pleasure to know it was there, sweet-tuned and ready just in case. He took no pleasure in the knowledge today.

He hadn’t slept. He wasn’t used to the high, canopied Chippendale bed in the spare room across the hall from their bedroom. It had looked so inviting and comfortable when they bought it. It was too high and too hard. They had furnished the room strictly for guests, with a beautiful Hepplewhite secretaire of figured satinwood decorated with marquetry, a mahogany dressing table, and a japanned commode. On the floor was a round Art Deco carpet and draperies that matched its beige field. The room, he decided was too showy for comfort.

From his tossing and turning, the sheets had bunched and parted from the mattress, which added to his discomfort. Yet he refused to straighten them out, perhaps out of some masochistic desire to be punished for his marital shortcomings, whatever they were.

This phenomenon – it seemed the only way to label it – was not an uncommon experience among his acquaintances. ‘She just upped and said, "No more marriage." Like her whole persona had been transformed. Maybe it’s something chemical that happens as forty gets closer.’ He had heard it said in a hundred different ways.

‘It’s endemic,’ he decided, heading down Connecticut Avenue, almost at a jog, until, breathless, he found himself leaning against the fountain rim at Du-Pont Circle. It was there that the realization hit him. He was on the verge of starting a whole new life for which he was totally unprepared. And in lousy physical shape to boot, he thought, noting his labored breathing. Perhaps he would have been better off with a heart attack.

Sometime near dawn he had run out of explanations, having traced his life with her from the moment he had first clapped eyes on her in the parlor of the rickety Barker house in Chatham. Cribb and Molineaux. They had finally joined the two on their wedding night.

‘Let them do all our fighting for us,’ Barbara had told him then. 1

The story had worn well over the years, although in the darkness and the new circumstances, the punch line had lost its humor. Once, the auctioneer’s error had come from providence. Now, once again, it seemed merely stupid. If the pair hadn’t been broken, Oliver might have been spared this.

He had, Oliver told himself, been a good and loving husband. He had nearly offered ‘faithful’ to complete the triad but that would have discounted his two episodes with hookers during conventions in San Francisco and Las Vegas when the children were small. My God, she has everything she could possibly want, he had railed into the night, sapped finally by the exhaustion of his disorientation.

What confused him most was that he had not been warned. Not a sign. He hated to be taken by surprise.

‘You look a mess,’ one of his colleagues said to him cheerily as Oliver passed his office in the corridor. A jogger, the man was always the first to arrive. Oliver had not wanted to be observed, since he knew his demeanor told his whole story. He had seen it a number of times himself, the unshaven, abject figure in the rumpled suit and curled collar arriving before seven, another marital victim of the sisterhood’s rage.

‘Don’t say another word,’ he had admonished the innocent colleague as he lunged for his own office and plopped helplessly into the swivel chair behind his desk. In a silver frame, Barbara stared back at him, offering a Mona Lisa smile. He flung the picture into the waste-basket. He could not remember how long he sat there, blank and empty, wanting to cry.

His secretary, Miss Harlow, a jolly, middle-aged lady, came in and almost immediately saw Barbara’s picture in the wastebasket.