Say When

  “Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Pierce said. “This is, as I’m sure you remember from past years, just a brief conference. We’ll have a longer one in January. But this is an opportunity for us to meet, and for me to answer briefly any questions you might have about Zoe. A wonderful girl, by the way—quite the baseball fan!”

  “Yes,” Griffin said, smiling.

  Then it was quiet. Griffin looked at Ellen. She always handled things like this, she’d think of what to say next. She’d find out what they needed to know, and she’d tell Mrs. Pierce what she needed to know about their daughter. Zoe was a tomboy, yes, but she was also sensitive—very much aware of others’ feelings. She seemed to have a great interest in history—had Mrs. Pierce noticed that, yet? You had to make sure Zoe understood the math—she wasn’t one to ask questions.

  But it looked as if Ellen was not going to say anything. She sat quietly, staring at the floor. Griffin was about to say that Zoe really seemed to be enjoying school this year, when Ellen suddenly looked up and cleared her throat. “I wonder if this would be a good time for us to let you know…to tell you about some changes that are going to be occurring in Zoe’s life.”

  Griffin looked quickly over at her. She couldn’t be! It wasn’t this official yet. But then he heard Ellen go on to say, “I have told my husband that I want a divorce.”

  Griffin leaned forward, spoke quietly. “Well, we haven’t actually decided anything yet. Formally. I have no idea why my wife—”

  “Griffin…” Ellen broke in.

  “Ellen.”

  She looked back at Mrs. Pierce. “I’m sorry. I just thought you should know that we’ve decided to separate. I know these things can affect a child’s performance in school.”

  Mrs. Pierce nodded slowly. “Yes, they certainly can.”

  Had she sighed, saying this? Griffin wondered. Had he heard her sigh? He looked into her face for some sign of disapproval, but she gave nothing away.

  “So far, she seems to be handling everything all right,” Ellen said. “We haven’t mentioned the word divorce, but she does know we’ll be spending time apart.”

  “So you’ve moved out, Mr. Griffin?”

  “Not yet,” Ellen said, at the same time that Griffin said, “No.”

  “Well.” Mrs. Pierce looked at her watch. “I’m sorry to seem insensitive, but we don’t have very much time. These are very short conferences. If you would like to schedule another—”

  “That’s really the main thing I wanted to tell you,” Ellen said. Her voice caught, and she stood. “I wanted you to know so that…I just thought I should tell you.”

  Mrs. Pierce nodded. “Yes. I’ll let you know right away if I see anything of concern developing.”

  Ellen started to leave, then turned back, waited for Griffin.

  He said nothing, stayed seated. Ellen left the room.

  “So.” Mrs. Pierce closed Zoe’s folder. “Was there something else, Mr. Griffin?”

  Something else? How about what they’d ostensibly come for? How about that? Griffin looked around the classroom, at the gigantic blue-and-brown globe, at the pencil sharpener on the wall. There was the alphabet over the blackboard, cursive this year—Zoe hated the capital Q and adored the capital C. A bulletin board was covered with wild-eyed turkeys, drawn from the outlines of the children’s small hands. Zoe’s was the one in the middle—Griffin saw her earnest scrawl across the turkey’s breast. She’d given the bird long eyelashes and high-top sneakers like the ones she wore.

  “Mr. Griffin?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I was just…I wondered, what are they learning about?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well, they’ve just begun keeping nature journals; they’re looking at how trees change in the winter. They’re working on fractions. They’ve just begun a biography: Jackie Robinson.”

  “I’ll bet Zoe likes that.”

  Mrs. Pierce smiled. “It was her suggestion. She was quite persuasive.”

  “Do they have recess every day?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Zoe ever play with any of the other girls?”

  “No. But she is kind to them, and I think they like her.”

  “Okay.” He stood up. “I guess that’s about it, Mrs. Pierce, except for one thing. Couldn’t you have expressed a little outrage?”

  She stared at him, blinked.

  “Couldn’t you have registered just a little disapproval?”

  Oh, what was the matter with him? He was going crazy. Mrs. Pierce stood calmly before him. He showed her his upturned palms, a gesture half apology, half bewilderment. “I’m sorry.” His voice was so quiet, he wondered if she’d heard him.

  “That’s quite all right, Mr. Griffin.”

  “I guess I’m just pretty upset.”

  “Yes. Well, these things happen. They surely do.”

  “How do the kids…How do they come out of it?”

  Now she did sigh. “For the most part, they seem to do all right. They seem to recover—children are remarkably resilient, as I’m sure you know, and divorce has become so common. I won’t say they’re not affected by it, though. I won’t say that. The best thing is if the parents can just be civil to each other, if they can just—” She looked beyond him into the hall, smiled and nodded. “I’ll be right with you,” she called. Then, to Griffin, “I’m so sorry. My next parent is here. I think you know what I was saying. But now I really must move along.”

  Parent, Griffin thought. That being one. Perfect. He walked past the woman coming in. She was smiling, normal-looking, ringless. She was fine.

  He found Ellen in the hall, waiting for him. “I can’t believe you did that,” she said.

  “Me? Me?!”

  Griffin pushed hard at the double doors leading out of the school. They walked half a block in angry silence. Then Ellen stopped. “Griffin, maybe I shouldn’t have…But I was just trying to be responsible! You won’t listen to me when I try to tell you why this happened. You won’t help me make any plans for the future. You want to ignore everything and hope that it will all go away. But this divorce is going to happen. And it’s important for Zoe’s teacher to know. She can help her!”

  “Why don’t we help her, Ellen? For God’s sake, this is Zoe we’re talking about! You’re her mother, I’m her father. Why don’t we help her? You didn’t even ask her teacher what Zoe does in school!”

  “She actually tells me, Griffin. Every day.”

  “…She does?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know about their nature journal?”

  “Yes. They’re learning about chlorophyll.”

  “Did you know they’re reading Jackie Robinson?”

  “Yes, Zoe suggested it.”

  He was stunned. “Why don’t I know this?”

  “I think she told you about Jackie Robinson, Griffin. I think maybe you just don’t remember.”

  She was not angry anymore; her voice was soft, forgiving. He sighed, shook his head. “Oh, God, Ellen. I guess I…”

  She nodded, close to tears again. He thought she looked beautiful—no makeup, her hair in a loose braid. He liked her best like this, but she never believed him when he told her that. Times when she would get dressed up, her makeup magazine perfect, he would dutifully compliment her, but he didn’t really like her that way. He felt he couldn’t see her, that he had to change the way he spoke to her until she came home and washed. He liked it when her nose peeled in the summer. He liked when she came into the bedroom to change into her pajamas at night, pulled her spaghetti sauce–stained shirt over her head and complained about having eaten too much. Sometimes she would slap her belly and sigh as she stood in front of the mirror. Once, he put his arms around her when she was doing that, and he told her she was the sexiest woman alive. She pushed him away, but she was smiling a little. It was that night she let him hold her long enough that he felt he’d finally reached some distant place inside her. In the morning, they were back to being familiar stra
ngers.

  Now he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Do you remember our first date? I took you to see Gone With the Wind at the campus theater; you’d never seen it. And when we came out, you were so upset you sat down on the curb and threw up. I sat right beside you. All these people were going past, and I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. I rubbed your back, and I just adored you. Where are you going to find another love like that, Ellen?”

  She swallowed. “What I found is…It’s not a love like that, you’re right. It’s different. But it’s what I want.”

  “But…” He sighed, stepped back from her. “Well, then why’d you make me pot roast, Ellen? You know it’s my favorite thing. I mean, why are you telling me you want a divorce, and then making my favorite dinner?”

  “Zoe asked for it, Griffin. It had nothing to do with you.” She spoke softly, with regret. Maybe she was sorry to have to say what she was saying. But probably not. Probably she was just tired of telling him over and over again that the way she felt about him was not the way he felt about her. It was simple, really. Simple and common and awesomely painful. Surely he’d hit the bottom soon, and stop falling.

  He stepped away from her, struggled for some kind of composure. “Go on back home,” he said. “I’ll be back in a while.” She nodded, pulled up the collar of her coat, started walking. “Tell Zoe we can read double chapters tomorrow,” he called after her.

  “Okay.” She didn’t turn around. She walked straight ahead, sure of where she was going.

  * * *

  Griffin walked back to the school, out onto the playground. He sat in a swing, pushed himself gently back and forth. These swings had bucket seats—plastic, with big, round holes in them. Not as good as the wooden seats he’d had in his elementary school, the paint faded to no color at all, the chains salty from excited hands. He used to pump until he could go no higher, until the chains began to buckle in on themselves. Then he would yell Geronimo! and bail out onto the soft earth below him. He argued with his friends about the origin of the word—one of them insisted it was Japanese. Eventually, Griffin gave up on trying to persuade him otherwise. It didn’t matter; the point was the jump, not what you said while doing it.

  He blew out his breath before him, watched the little cloud dissipate into the night air. He thought of a time when he was a little boy and was in love with some tin soldiers he’d seen in a toy store. His parents told him they wouldn’t buy them; they were antiques, and outrageously expensive. But he’d loved them, and he used to stand by the glass case, aching to just touch them. He’d thought his parents were fooling, that on some grand occasion he would get that set of soldiers, but he never did. One would think he might have learned something from that experience, but apparently he had not. Here he was, sighing before the glass case again. He sat in the swing, thinking, until he grew too cold, and then he started walking. He counted ten blocks east, ten blocks south, ten blocks west, and then started for home.

  The shade in Zoe’s room was pulled, the light still on. Ellen should put her to bed. It was past her bedtime. Her mother was being careless, letting her stay up so long. Her mother was being careless and her father was out wandering around in the dark.

  Griffin got in the car and pulled nearly noiselessly out of the driveway. Anywhere was fine. Anywhere was better than going home.

  Chapter 8

  He took Lake Street and headed west. He’d see what happened. He’d let himself do anything he wanted; he’d practice being free. Maybe he’d start smoking cigars in the house. Definitely, he’d use only dishes that could go in the dishwasher—the hell with antique saucers for butter plates. He knew of a man who’d thrown out all the living room furniture after his wife left him, then put in a pool table. Nice move.

  At a stoplight, the car shimmied, then stalled out. It started right up again, but Griffin was nervous now. What the hell was that? He knew the names of things under the hood of a car but had never been too confident about mechanics in general. Was it safe to go far? Maybe he should call Ellen for a telephone diagnosis. Being a graduate of Mr. Wonderful’s class, she might be able to tell him whether the problem was minor enough to ignore. If not, she could call Points and Plugs himself. “Peter, darling,” she could say. “You know how my idiot husband knows almost nothing about cars? Well, he’s out on Lake Street having trouble. Do you think we should go and get him?”

  “Sure,” he would say. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it for him. I’ll give him a discount, too.” Then, his voice silky and intimate, he’d say, “Aw, hey. I feel kind of sorry for him, you know?”

  “I know,” Ellen would say, sighing. “Me, too.”

  “Pick you up in five minutes,” Peter would say. “And bring Zoe—I got her a toy today. ‘The Invisible Car.’ I’ll teach her everything, so she doesn’t end up like her putz father.”

  “Oh, she’ll like that,” Ellen would say, and Zoe would. She’d work with him, assembling the thing. She’d—

  Enough.

  Off to the right, just ahead of him, Griffin saw a diner. There were no cars in the parking lot, but the neon OPEN sign was on. Griffin pulled in, started to turn off the ignition, then stopped when he heard a song come on the radio. It was one of his favorites, an oldie: “I Only Have Eyes for You.” He sat still, staring out the windshield and listening. He only had eyes for Ellen. It was true, he didn’t want anyone else. Not once, since he’d met her. But why? None of his friends had ever particularly liked her. His parents took a long time warming up to her, and Griffin thought they wished their son had married someone a little different, a little more…well, could they say it, did he mind? Normal.

  The only friend that Ellen had in college was a fellow misfit, a nervous gay man named Laurence who seemed unbearably sensitive, who was overwhelmed by simple tasks like registering for classes—Ellen went with him to do it, told Griffin later about how she had made a game of it for him. Laurence had died a few years ago of AIDS—Ellen had wept, reread all his letters, and then never spoken of him again. The only person Griffin knew of who really liked Ellen was Zoe. Ellen was her mother, of course, but it was more than that. Zoe saw Ellen, because Ellen let her.

  Griffin turned off the radio, cut the engine, thought of the last time he and Ellen were in bed together, before he knew anything—the night before the morning she told him. That was when he still thought their life together was secure. When, despite its oddities, it was comfortable to him, reliable and dear. That was when the thought of his wife was an anchor and not a chest-sized thorn.

  That night, Ellen had wanted some hand lotion, but she was too tired to get out of bed and get it. So she asked Griffin, “If I guess the number you’re thinking of between one and ten, would you get me the lotion?” He’d looked at her. What? “But you can’t cheat,” she went on. “You can’t tell me I was right if I was wrong. We have to follow the honor system.”

  He’d put down his magazine. “Ellen. If you want the lotion, I’ll get you the lotion.”

  “Oh,” she’d said. “Okay. Thank you.” Then, when he’d given it to her, she’d said, “Thanks. But was four the number you were thinking of?”

  He smiled at the memory. Well, that was why, he supposed; that was why he cared for her. He liked her oddness, her clumsiness, even, most times, her outrageous and misplaced sensitivity. When they first moved in together, Ellen had a shy dog named Shawna, a collie mix who ate her dry dog food delicately, one piece at a time. Griffin had an overweight beagle called G.M. for “Garbage Mutt.” True to his name, G.M. ate anything, at any time, with no sense of delicacy, ever. Griffin once found Ellen sitting on the floor watching the dogs eat, her hands folded in her lap, her face full of sadness. He’d sat beside her, asked gently, “What happened?” He’d been thinking that her father died—he’d been in the hospital at the time. He thought she’d say, “You need to take me to the airport right away.” But what she said was, “Shawna used to eat so nicely. But now she eats just like G.M.”

>   He’d refrained from saying, “Ellen. Jesus. So what?” and instead sat down beside her, put his arm around her. A blue velvet ribbon held her hair back. She smelled subtly of a rich perfume Griffin loved, and through her blouse, he could see the outline of her lacy bra. Later. He sat with her as she solemnly watched the dogs finish eating. Ellen was right—Shawna had started eating just like G.M. And after the food was gone from the bowls, they’d started fighting over the spilled pieces that had fallen between.

  That night, after Ellen and Griffin had gone to bed, he’d asked her gently why the way the dogs ate had bothered her so much. He was postcoitally benevolent, practically glowing—he would make an effort to really understand her.

  She moved closer to him, lay her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know why it bothered me so much,” she’d said. “I don’t know! I guess it’s because I wish it had gone the other way, that G.M. would have started being neat. I mean, why do things always have to go that way?”

  “Beats me,” Griffin had said. “Maybe it’s a law of physics or something.”

  “That’s another thing! How can you have any hope in the face of such pessimism? Order always progressing to disorder!”

  “Who said that?”

  “I don’t remember. But it’s true.” She’d raised her head, looked at him. “Don’t you wish you could talk to God, sometimes, Griffin? You know, get in a shot while you’re still alive and walking around the planet having to put up with everything you had nothing to do with?”

  “Do you believe in a God you can talk to, Ellen?” he’d asked tenderly.

  “There isn’t?”

  As if he knew.

  Oh, Ellen. He’d tightened his arms around her that night, and she’d put her head back under his chin and said, “I know how weird I am. I do. I’m sorry. But you know what happens? Everything just…gets to me. Everything. Even the beautiful things, they hurt. And I don’t get it, I mean the whole thing. I don’t get it.”