To Have and to Hate

by R.S. Grey

  “Are you sad I pulled you away from Olivier?” he asks, bending down to try to catch my eyes.

  I screw up my features in confusion.

  “What?”

  The question is totally preposterous.

  “It just seems like you were happy enough with him, and now that you’re home with me, you’re upset. I said you could stay at the gallery.”

  “Yes, you gave me that option, and it was very polite of you.” I say polite like it’s derogatory.

  The left side of his mouth twitches, like he’s fighting back a smile. “Are you angry at me for being polite?”

  “I guess so,” I say, again trying to pivot around him.

  His hands reach out to lock on my waist, keeping me in place between him and my bed. He has ahold of me through my dress, bunching the fabric as his thumbs brush across my hip bones.

  “I thought you had an early morning,” I say, my breath hitching slightly. I’m annoyed that I don’t sound as mad as I feel. “Shouldn’t you be in bed right now?”

  “I would be if only you’d cooperate,” he says, squeezing my hips.

  My eyes narrow. “I’m not in a cooperating mood.”

  “I can see that.”

  He loses the battle with his smile then. His deep-set dimples taunt me.

  “So you’re upset about how I acted back there at the gallery? Should I tell you that’s absurd, or would that only piss you off more?”

  My hands reach up toward his chest so I can push him away, but instead I fist the fabric of his shirt, using it to tug him toward me.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “What? What do you want me to tell you? The truth is I’m just so frustrated and I can’t tell you why. So leave.”

  “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “Because everything is a jumbled mess inside my head.”

  One of his hands leaves my waist so he can brush my hair off my face. His hand slides back over my scalp so that my head naturally tips toward him. When he has a grasp on the nape of my neck, he stares down at me, his eyes flitting back and forth between mine.

  “What are we arguing about here, Elizabeth? Do you think I liked finding you in that room all alone with Olivier? Do you think I didn’t see red when he flirted with you right in front of me? Just because I didn’t act jealous, doesn’t mean I didn’t feel it.”

  My heart clutches his confession like it’s some grand romantic gesture of love, pounding in my chest as I stare up at him. I adore you, I want to say. I find you so utterly captivating. Infuriating. Handsome. The epitome of everything I want in a husband.

  My lips part and those words are on the tip of my tongue, but they never leave it. They’re never voiced. Fear is quite a toxin. Once it poisons the blood, it lays claim to every action. Fear keeps me from telling Walt the truth. Fear has me pushing him out of my room, telling him good night, and shutting the door to keep him out.

  Fear is a defense mechanism I can’t seem to part with. It’s a relic of my early childhood. As the second oldest in a family with nine children, I’ve never felt particularly needed or valued. My mom gave birth to my brother only eleven months after I was born. With Charlotte as the oldest daughter and Jacob as the firstborn son, I fell into a deep chasm between them. From there, it only got worse, sibling after sibling joining the ranks. Nanny after nanny was added to the repertoire of people coming in and out of my life. I felt alone in my full house the same way someone feels alone in a crowded room. It was so easy to be overlooked and forgotten because I didn’t carry any superlatives that caught my parents’ attention. I was never the loudest or the meanest or the nicest or the smartest. I didn’t go out of my way to seek affection, and in return, they gave me space.

  My tendency to distance myself from the world around me meant that even in school, I was never the person with the most friends. It’s relatively easy to be a ghost. In fact, it’s much harder to shirk off that tendency once it becomes second nature.

  But I thought that might all change when my mom called me out of the blue, pleading for my help and asking me to marry Walt. The small child inside of me, the one so desperate for her mom’s love, leapt at the chance to be vital. Here, I thought, this is the way she and I will finally connect. Our bond will strengthen now. Unfortunately, that childlike hope was dashed when she and my sister came to town to shop. At dinner that night, I realized I was no more important to my mom than I’d ever been even with my new last name. To her, I was a means to an end.

  Something else happened that night though. Unexpectedly, Walt was by my side, comforting me. When I cried and told him about my family, he stayed and listened, and my heart stupidly decided there was still the possibility that maybe he, out of everyone on this earth, understood that I needed someone to want me unconditionally, to love me without cause.

  On one hand, I didn’t even realize how much I’d become attached to him because it happened so gradually. And on the other hand, I’m not surprised in the least to find myself in this position: in love with a man with whom I’ve been playing house. Of course I’ve looked to him as my savior because he’s been one in so many ways.

  It’s the culmination of all these underlying issues, love mingling with hope mingling with despair, that made it significantly more difficult to hear him speak about our divorce to Matthew in the library so flippantly. The casual way in which he discussed dealing with me—as if I was another item on his checklist—left me feeling like that small child again, completely alone.

  The illusion of this marriage is well and truly over.

  Twenty-Seven

  The fact is, I was supposed to be at Walt’s apartment temporarily. I was supposed to be here for a few days, and then I got distracted by A Banquet Still Life. In reality, this isn’t my home. Walt didn’t invite me to live with him permanently. I can’t stay here, pretending this is all normal. I can’t stay here, tricking myself into believing I’m actually Walt’s wife. God, I wanted that. I wanted to be vital to him in an irreplaceable way, and that desire blurred the lines for me.

  Obviously, it’s time for me to move out.

  Though I’m tempted to, I don’t leave Walt’s apartment that night. I don’t work up the courage until the next day when I wake up to find the apartment empty and a note left for me in the kitchen. Walt had to run to the office and he won’t be back until after lunch, so I start to gather my things. I think it was smart to give myself the night to sleep on my decision, and in the light of the new day, I still know it’s best that I move out before he has to ask me to leave. The mere thought of having to endure a conversation in which he politely presents the idea of me getting my own apartment is enough to make my stomach clench with unease. I imagine how it would go, the excuses he’d use:

  I think you’d be more comfortable.

  I want what’s best for you.

  You’ll have more room for your art.

  He could dress it up a million different ways, but the fact is, he wants me out of his place—hence the mention of that lump sum—and the last thing I want to do is overstay my welcome.

  Fortunately, I still have some money in my savings. Walt never cashed the checks I wrote to cover rent and the cost of the damaged rug, which means I still have enough to cover a hotel for a little while until I figure out my next move.

  It doesn’t take me long to pack up my belongings. I leave the fancy dress from the fundraiser and any other items I purchased that were only necessary for this new life with Walt. My old clothes fit into my old suitcase just fine. Unfortunately, it’s my art that will be the most difficult to transport. I can pack up my supplies into cardboard boxes easily enough, but my canvases for Nadiya pose a unique problem.

  I call her and tell her the situation. I don’t go into the gritty details about why I’m moving my art out of Walt’s apartment, just that I am. She’s the one to come up with the idea to move them to Stein Gallery’s New York headquarters. In fact, she has a crew of three guys at th
e apartment by 10:30 AM to help pack them up with gentle care so they aren’t damaged in transport.

  Terrell’s in the lobby when I go down with them to help load my pieces into the back of their van.

  “What’s all that?” he asks, looking at the flat wooden boxes protecting each of my canvases.

  “My art.” I smile.

  His eyebrows shoot up. “No shit? That’s cool. Wish I could have seen some of it before you boxed it up.”

  Later, after I’ve finished collecting the last few things from Walt’s apartment, I grab a piece of printer paper from Walt’s office and sketch Terrell from memory, adding a little note of thanks for him at the bottom of the page.

  He’s at the door when I roll my suitcases through the lobby.

  “Going on a trip?” he asks with a gentle smile.

  “Yes,” I lie, worried that if I let him in on what I’m actually doing, he might involve Walt.

  “When will you be back?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure.” I hold out the piece of paper. “This is for you, though. For helping load those boxes earlier.”

  He glances down at the sketch I hold out for him, and he grins from ear to ear. “What?! Looks just like me! How’d you do that, though?” He laughs in amazement. “That’s insane.”

  He folds it up neatly and makes a big show of tucking it into the front breast pocket of his uniform jacket. Then he pats his hand over it for safekeeping.

  “I’ll keep it here with me,” he says, holding the door open for me. “Need me to get you a cab?”

  I glance up and down the street, realizing I have absolutely no idea where I’m going. “No, that’s okay. I’ve got it from here.”

  He nods and heads back into the lobby in a rush to help another resident.

  With no tether to a specific neighborhood in the city, I decide to check into a budget hotel in Midtown East, that way I can walk to MoMA anytime I want.

  My hotel room is up on the tenth floor, quiet and filled with stale air. The bed squeaks when I sit down on the edge, and even with the curtains flung open, there’s barely any natural light since the window looks out onto a brick building next door.

  I feel aimless for a few minutes as I sit there. Anxiety has my stomach squeezed tight. I remind myself I’ve been here before, alone in New York, but it doesn’t help. I already miss Walt.

  I busy myself by focusing on the last piece I need to finish for my collection. It’s hard to create a working studio in the hotel, especially considering I had to leave my easel back at Walt’s. I drag a small side table over to the window and throw a bathroom towel over it so it won’t get stained.

  I unzip my suitcase full of art supplies and start lining up the items I need, preoccupying my brain with menial tasks in the hopes that it will stop darting back to thoughts about Walt.

  After lunch, he calls.

  I stare down at his name on my phone screen and my heart races with anticipation and dread. My fingers are covered in pastel dust. I couldn’t answer it even if I wanted to.

  I watch my phone until it stops ringing, and then the screen fades to black. No voicemail, no text message. I can almost convince myself he never called at all.

  Later, as I’m eating a salad from the supermarket down the street and flipping through bad movies on the TV, I get a call from Nadiya.

  “Hey. Good news: your art arrived to the gallery safe and sound. I opened a few of the crates to look everything over and…Elizabeth, it’s good. Better than I thought it would be, though don’t let that offend you.”

  My heart flutters in my chest, springing to life.

  “What does that mean? Do you really think you’ll show it in the Paris gallery?”

  “Absolutely. I fly out tomorrow, and once I meet with the team, I’ll let you know a concrete timeline for when I think we’d host the collection. There’s a slim chance it would be sooner rather than later. This might sound crazy but, word is, the artist we were set to show in two weeks is having an existential crisis. She wants to hold her work and renegotiate her commission rate with the gallery. Her lawyers are…” She groans, seemingly exhausted. “Right, sorry. I could drone on about this forever, but I don’t want to waste your time. Just keep your schedule flexible until I give you word otherwise.”

  “Absolutely. I can do that.”

  “Good. Have your phone on you over the next few days and I’ll be in touch. We have a ton of work to do if you’re going to show in two weeks. Also, look out for an email with the official Stein contract. Have a lawyer review it and send it back to me when you can, though don’t take forever.”

  This is all insane.

  I hang up and look down at my phone, trying to decide if I just made up that entire conversation in my head. I so desperately needed to hear a bit of good news after the last twenty-four hours that a part of me doesn’t trust it’s real. I check my call log and see Nadiya’s name, then bite back a smile when an incoming email pings my phone. It’s from her, and she’s attached the contract she just mentioned. She also attached a PDF from the gallery that includes details about how they’ll catalog and price my collection.

  I immediately grab my laptop out of my suitcase and set up shop on the hotel bed. I open Google and start searching for a lawyer who specializes in art sales and acquisitions.

  I have a dozen internet tabs open, each one leading to a different firm’s website. I’ve already been in communication with a lawyer from one of them, a young black woman who’s willing to work with my tricky timeline. She’s promised she’ll be able to review my contract tonight and get it back to me with any suggested revisions by tomorrow morning.

  I’m so focused on the email I’m penning back to her that I jump out of my skin when my phone rings.

  It’s Walt.

  Again.

  This time, I know I have to answer. I can’t continue to ignore his calls. More than that, I don’t want to ignore his calls.

  I reach for the phone and swipe my finger across the screen quickly, before I can back down. The call connects and my stomach clenches.

  “Walt?”

  I can hear him sigh through the phone like he’s relieved to have finally reached me. Then, just as quickly, he speaks in a tone filled with indignation.

  “Elizabeth. Jesus. Where are you?”

  “I’m…”

  Where? Where am I? I can’t force myself to say the word “hotel”, and that’s just as well because Walt’s already asking another question.

  “Did you move out of the apartment today?”

  I take a long breath before replying quietly. “Yes.”

  “Why? I don’t…I’m just confused. Are you in New York still? Did something happen? Are your parents okay?”

  My heart breaks “No—yes. Everything is fine. I mean, I’m assuming they’re fine. I just—”

  “What?”

  “I’m still in the city.”

  “Okay…”

  Neither one of us speaks after that. I make no rush to fill the silence, and he takes a moment to process the news. Then, he laughs sadly, and I wince.

  “I thought I had it wrong,” he continues. “I assumed there was no way you’d wait until I left for work, pack your things, and move out without so much as a goodbye.”

  I gulp, realizing it doesn’t sound so good from his perspective. He’s twisted it to see the evil, but I was helping him, helping us to make all this easier. “It seems callous when you say it like that, but you have to understand, I thought it was the best option after last night.”

  “The best option would have been the exact opposite, Elizabeth,” he chides. “A phone call to my office and I would have been home immediately. We could have talked about whatever’s going on. I know you were upset last night, and I gave you space. I assumed we’d discuss everything today.”

  There’s that fear again, rearing its ugly head. To him, it makes so much sense. Let’s talk so I can explain the situation to you and watch as I break your heart firsthand. What cou
ld possibly be the issue?

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply quietly.

  “So…what? You’re running away? Terrell said you left for a trip? Help me make sense of this.”

  “I’m not running away. I’m getting my own place in the city, continuing with the plan I had when I first arrived in New York, before I married you at the courthouse.”

  “Right. I guessed as much when I found your ring on my desk.”

  My chin trembles as I rub the heel of my palm against my chest.

  I left it there this morning, and now, I imagine him twisting it in his fingers as he studies it. It fills me with so much anguish thinking I might have inadvertently hurt him that I squeeze my eyes closed, hoping to make this all disappear. “It didn’t feel right to take it with me.”

  He puffs out a heavy sigh. “So this is…a breakup?”

  “We were going to get divorced anyway,” I point out.

  “Divorced?” He sounds almost relieved as he rushes to continue. “Is that what this is about? The conversation in the library last night? Jesus, you could have just said something—”

  “Stop saying that!” I explode. “I know you think it would have been so easy for me to just communicate and say exactly the right thing at the right moment, but I’m not some perfect robot, Walt. I can only exist the way I know how. This is extremely uncomfortable for me.”

  “Please try to explain it to me,” he pleads with desperation.

  “I don’t want to sit here and talk about our divorce. Don’t you get that? Don’t you understand that it might have really freaked me out to realize I fell in love with a man who was only ever playing at being my husband? The last few days, you and I…we—”

  “Elizabeth.”

  He says my name the same way a lover would caress my cheek, and I know if I open my mouth, tears will accompany my words, and I don’t want that to happen. The last thing I want is to seem even more childish in his eyes.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say quickly.

  “Don’t hang up!” he booms.