I thought with shame of kissing Joe Thayer. Already, I believed that I had kissed him less out of attraction than pity—I’d meant the kiss as a consolation prize, a way to spare him the embarrassment of having confessed to feelings that were one-sided. Under different circumstances, I’d meant to imply, and even if the implication was a lie, it seemed a decorous one, an extreme version of being a polite and considerate person. But perhaps this was only a convenient story. Perhaps I’d kissed him for more selfish reasons—simply because I wanted to—and when the experience was not as pleasurable as I’d anticipated, I’d changed my mind.
Charlie’s breathing thickened, his mouth was next to my ear so I couldn’t see his face, and then his movements slowed, and he moaned softly. He collapsed against me, and I held him. “You want me to . . .?” he murmured (he always offered when I didn’t come during penetration, he meant with his hand), and silently, I shook my head. I felt at once as if I were protecting him from and steeling myself for the destruction he didn’t yet know that I would cause.
I WOULD GO to Riley, I had decided, and I would take Ella with me, but there was one errand I needed to run before leaving Milwaukee, and it entailed stopping by my favorite bookstore in the world, which was called Thea’s. The owner, Thea Dengler, was about my age, a heavyset woman who paired loose black pants and sweaters with gauzy scarves or chunky turquoise necklaces, and her store was located in Mequon, two floors, with such tall shelves that even though it wasn’t large, you always felt like you could browse in private. Plus, there was an excellent selection, Thea read constantly (there was rarely a book I picked up that wasn’t on her radar), and if you wanted something she didn’t have, she’d enthusiastically order it, as curious herself for it to arrive as you were. She also sold periodicals, but none of that clutter that seems mandatory in bookstores today: mugs and picture frames and greeting cards, magnets, calendars, fancy chocolates.
I’d planned to buy three books for Jessica Sutton, but as I stood in the young-adult section, stacking them in the crook of my arm, I decided five would be acceptable, and soon I was holding more than a dozen, balanced so precariously that I had to steady them with my chin. I propped them one by one, face out, on the shelves so I could more easily cull: To Kill a Mockingbird (that was definite, no question); Deenie ( Jessica was twelve—how could I not give her a Judy Blume book, and this was less controversial than some of the others); Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; A Wrinkle in Time; Anastasia Krupnik, or else Lois Lowry’s Autumn Street, which I also thought was quite wonderful; The Westing Game (I imagined she’d like this, since she liked Agatha Christie); The Outsiders; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Homecoming; and then I’d grabbed the two others from the Tillerman series, Dicey’s Song and A Solitary Blue; The Diary of Anne Frank; and last, Locked in Time (I’d read Lois Duncan’s older novels during my librarian days, but this new one looked intriguing). Besides the fact that this was nine more books than I’d intended to purchase, there was already one—Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca—that I knew I wanted to get her from the grown-up section, and I’d also considered Pride and Prejudice. I stood there trying to decide, and I eventually set back the Cynthia Voigt books; I also decided to forgo Pride and Prejudice and Autumn Street (maybe those could be saved for Christmas?). Was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry too young for Jessica? But it was so good! Then I realized I’d neglected to pull A Tree Grows in Brooklyn off the shelf, which was a must. I ended up carrying twelve books to the cash register. Eyeing them, Thea said, “That’s some ambitious summer reading for Ella.”
“No, no, they’re for a family friend who’s going into seventh grade.”
“You want them wrapped?”
I declined, and she stacked the books in a large brown paper bag with string handles. When I left the store, I sat in the parking lot peeling off the price stickers—a useless act, given that the price was also printed on the back of the books, but decorum demanded it—and then I drove to the Suttons’ house. It was Jessica who answered the door, holding Antoine. She stepped aside to let me in, and I said, “No, I’m just dropping something off. Jessica, as a former librarian, I feel compelled to introduce you to some writers other than V. C. Andrews. These are for you, but I promise you don’t have to write any book reports.” I extended the bag, holding it open to show her, and because Antoine was in her arms, I set it inside the house on the rug.
“Who is it, Jessie?” I heard Yvonne call, and Jessica called back, “It’s Ella’s mom.” To me, she said, “Those are all for me?”
“We’re so proud of how well you’re doing in school. Now, I’d love to talk about any of these books with you, but again, you’re not obligated to read them. Just if you want to, I think they might be fun.”
“That’s real nice.” Jessica appeared confused but curious. “You want to come in?”
“I’ve got to run errands.” I reached out my hand and rubbed Antoine’s calf, which was bare; he had on a yellow terry-cloth onesie. “Say hi to your mom and grandma for me.”
Walking back down the concrete steps to the car, I noticed two men sitting on the porch of the house across the street—young men, closer to Jessica’s age than mine. One wore a black mesh tank shirt and the other, who had cornrows, wore no shirt at all. They watched me, and I nodded once without saying anything as I walked toward my car, my shiny suburban white-lady Volvo. As I drove away, the automatic locks clicked on, and I felt an uncomfortable relief.
I WAITED THAT night in the den while Charlie tucked Ella in, holding on my lap a copy of The Economist that I was too preoccupied to read. When he reentered the room, he said, “Do we have any ice cream? I’ve got a sweet tooth tonight.”
“There’s some caramel left,” I said, but as he turned to go into the kitchen, I said, “Wait. Sit down.” My voice had sounded more serious than I’d meant it to, except that this was serious—possibly the most serious conversation we’d ever had. He looked expectant as he perched on an arm of the couch.
My heart pounded. When had I last felt nervous with Charlie? Not about what he’d do, how he might transgress in front of other people and I might clean up after him, but nervous about how he’d react to me. “I want us to separate,” I said.
“You what?”
Had he not heard or not understood? “A trial separation,” I said. “Not a legal one—well, not yet.”
“You want a divorce? Are you fucking kidding me?” He looked disbelieving, but this was the thing about Charlie—he also looked the tiniest, tiniest bit amused. I don’t think he was, but he had such a mischievous face and such a tendency to revert to humor, whether or not it was appropriate, that I couldn’t be sure.
“That’s not what I said. I want us to live apart. I love you, Charlie, and I hope you’ll always know that, but I can’t live like this anymore.”
There was a certain disintegration occurring in my chest, an increasing shakiness.
“I thought we were having a perfectly nice night.”
“It’s not—Tonight was fine.” I had the strange impulse to stand and go to where he sat, to comfort him. Surely this would have been unwise? “I know you used cocaine in Princeton with Dennis Goshen,” I said. “Holly told me. Or taking Shannon to a bar last week—I just—There are decisions you make that I can’t live with. I can’t be responsible for you, and if I’m your wife, I feel responsible. I’m terrified that you’re going to hurt someone, either yourself or someone else, and it’s going to destroy our lives. I know what that’s like, and it’s awful, and the worst part is that you’ll make a mistake that can be prevented. That sickens me—the thought of you drinking a bunch of whiskey and getting in your car, it literally makes me nauseated, Charlie. I don’t want to be around it, and I don’t want Ella to, either.”
“So you’re not just leaving me, you’re taking our daughter with you?”
“I thought initially—” Was he going to fight me on this? “I’m going to my mother’s tomorrow,” I said. “I thought Ella could come. It seem
s reasonable with your work schedule.”
“I’m about to have a lot more flexibility.”
I swallowed. “If I take Ella to my mother’s, it can be like a trip, a vacation. We won’t have to tell her anything yet. I don’t want to unnecessarily disrupt her life or make her feel as if things are unstable. But you and I need to spend some time apart. Isn’t that obvious to you, too?”
Charlie was silent, and then he said, “You ever hear of a warning signal?” I could sense his anger gathering force. “That’s how it works in school, right? Teacher puts your name on the board, you get a check mark by it, then you get sent out in the hall. You don’t get booted to the principal’s office the first time you goof off.”
“But Charlie—” Tears filled my eyes, and they were tears not of sadness but of frustration. I blinked them back. “That’s just it,” I said. “That’s my point. I’m not your teacher. And I have told you that I don’t like when you don’t show up after you’ve said you’ll be there, I don’t like when you drink so much, I don’t like when you insult me. If you’ve listened at all, I don’t see how this could be a surprise.”
“Sure, we fight, but you never mentioned separating.”
“I’m mentioning it now.”
“Before the other night, I hadn’t done coke in years,” Charlie said. “Goshen offered me some, I did a couple lines, and honestly, Lindy, if you weren’t so freaking uptight, you might know that’s really nothing. It wasn’t going to kill me, it wasn’t going to hurt anyone else, and I’m not planning to use it again anytime soon, all right?”
“It’s not just the cocaine. It’s everything. When Megan Thayer found those magazines, I didn’t have the sense that you cared at all.”
“So now it’s my fault if I don’t worry as much as you about what other people think?”
“It’s no secret that we have different dispositions, Charlie.” I wasn’t yelling—though it was tempting to give in to rancor, no good would come of it. “For a long time, I’ve gotten a kick out of that. You have a lot of wonderful qualities, obviously, and if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have married you in the first place. But the whole rascally, naughty Charlie persona—I can’t stand it anymore. It’s not cute. We’re forty-two years old, and I don’t want to have to beg you to wear a tie.”
“You think I don’t respect you, is that what this is?”
I shrugged.
“There’s nobody I respect more than you.” Then he said, “I love you, Lindy,” and his voice cracked.
Again, it was difficult not to stand and comfort him. I said, “I love you, too.”
“I know I’ve tested your patience, but for Christ’s sake, we’re a family. You think Ella’ll do better coming from a broken home—”
I cut him off. “A trial separation, Charlie, that’s all I want. I want to see what it’s like to not—”
“Who’ve you told about this? Have you told Jadey?”
I hesitated. “Not really.”
“You want us to go to a shrink, we can go to a shrink. I’ll get a referral.”
“I appreciate the offer, and that’s something we can consider in the future,” I said. “For now, what I want is space.”
“Where does that leave me?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ve become very unhappy.” Then I began to cry—is it embarrassing to admit that I was moved by the simple truth of my own statement? My sobs were gulpy and undignified.
A minute passed, and when I looked at him again, he was watching me with an expression so strange that at first I had difficulty identifying it. Then I realized: He was frightened.
He said, “Fine, take Ella, but you have to promise to come back. I’ll fix what’s wrong, Lindy. I know you don’t believe me right now, but I will.”
I wiped my eyes, nodding without speaking. About this, he was right—I did not believe him.
ON OUR SECOND day in Riley, Lars drove Ella and me out to Fassbinder’s, where ten or twelve years earlier, the factory founder’s house had been converted into a cheese museum. The house was situated on the opposite side of the parking lot from the factory proper, and visitors to the museum could look through large windows and watch employees tending to vats of milk or cheese curd. You also got to sample the curds, still warm, and in the gift shop, you could buy various types of cheese as well as jellies, sausages, crackers, and little white porcelain thimbles with the Fassbinder’s logo on them. I was examining a thimble when Ella nudged up against me and whispered, “This is boring.” I shot her a look.
“I’ll bet Dorothy will enjoy this with her morning toast,” Lars said, and he held up a jar of gooseberry jam.
Beside me, Ella whined, “You said we could go swimming.” I had indeed made this promise the day before, as we were driving into town, but at breakfast, when Lars proposed a visit to the cheese factory, I hadn’t had the heart to turn him down.
I’d called my mother on Tuesday, prior to my conversation with Charlie, to ask if we might come stay with them for a couple weeks, though I hadn’t told her the real reason. I’d said, “Charlie has a lot going on with the baseball team, and I think Ella is finally old enough to appreciate Riley’s charms.”
On Wednesday, we drove out around noon. I’d announced the plan to Ella only a few hours before, allowing enough time for her to pack and then for me to cajole her into repacking more realistically—two swimsuits instead of four, seven pairs of socks instead of one, no black dress. She seemed not particularly surprised by the abrupt announcement that we were leaving town, and even excited at the prospect. She said, “Will Papa Lars make me an egg with a top hat?” This was a breakfast that involved Lars placing a glass upside down on a slice of bread in order to cut out a perfect circle, toasting both the bread and the circle, preparing a fried egg, setting the toast over the fried egg with the yolky center peeking out the hole, and setting the toasted circle over the yolk—the top hat. I said, “If you ask him nicely, I bet he will.”
When we arrived, my mother had made peanut-butter fudge, which Ella and I dipped into while Lars carried our suitcases upstairs. It wasn’t until I made it to the second floor that I realized Lars had put Ella in my old room and me in my grandmother’s. My heart clutched—it was one of those moments when you feel time is a rug that’s been yanked out from under you; everything around you has changed so gradually that it is only all at once you look up and realize how different your life has become. There was my grandmother’s single bed, though the spread on it was different—this one was striped. My mother had cleared the surfaces of my grandmother’s bureau and night-stand of the cosmetics and perfume bottles, the ashtrays and cartons of tissue; she also had emptied the bureau’s drawers, I saw when I opened them. But the Nefertiti bust was still there, set at an angle, and the bookshelves still were full. I ran a finger over the spines—the books were not alphabetized by author, as mine were, or in any other order that I could discern. The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Group and Gone with the Wind, Frankenstein and Presumed Innocent and The Counte of Monte Cristo and The Golden Notebook, In Cold Blood, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Great Santini, The Maltese Falcon, Native Son—all those worlds, all the versions of myself I had been when I’d read these very copies, and all the versions of herself she had been. I pulled down The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (the title and author’s name appeared in engraved gold on an otherwise blank cover of navy leather), and I opened to a random page, page 172, and smelled it, pressing my nose against the binding, but it smelled only like old paper, like an old house, and not like my grandmother.
At Fassbinder’s, Lars said to Ella, “Did you hear the cheese squeak?”
“So what if it squeaks?” Ella said, and I said, “That’s impolite, Ella.”
Genially, over Ella’s head—she was leaning against me, pulling on my blouse—Lars said, “I sense that someone’s ready for a nap.”
“I don’t take naps anymore,” Ella said.
This was not entirel
y true, but I simply said to her, “Do you think Grandma will like the jam Papa Lars picked out?” She didn’t respond, and I flashed an apologetic smile at Lars. “We’ll meet you in the car.”
CHARLIE CALLED THAT night around eleven, when I was the only one awake. I was lying in bed reading The Old Forest by Peter Taylor, and as soon as I heard the phone—there was the extension in the room my mother and Lars shared, and the extension downstairs in the kitchen—I knew that it was Charlie, but there wasn’t much I could do. I wasn’t about to barge in on my mother and Lars, and there was no way I could get to the kitchen in time. Then my mother knocked on the door. She was wearing a beige rayon nightgown with a scalloped yoke and sleeves that ended just below her elbows, and her hair was askew. “Sweetheart, it’s Charlie—”
I stood. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’ll take it downstairs.”
In the kitchen, when I’d heard the click of the second-floor extension, I said, “Charlie, do you know what time it is?” and he said, “Just come home. Please. I’m begging you.”
“You can’t call like this,” I said.
“I’m losing my fucking mind. You know I can’t stay by myself. Want to know where I spent the night last night? At the Wauwatosa Ramada. The fucking Ramada, okay? You’ve called my bluff. I’m a lousy husband. But I need you, Lindy.”
This is, almost without fail, a powerful thing to hear a person say. I sighed. “Charlie, if I came back, I can’t see how anything would be different.”
“I’ll quit being an immature dick, that’s how. Yeah, I do know what you were talking about—I’ve been selfish lately. But things have changed for me, this baseball stuff is really gonna be good, and I’m ready to turn over a new leaf.”
“Are you going to keep drinking?” I could tell he’d been drinking in the last few hours. He wasn’t slurring, but his voice had that looseness.