by Kelly Rimmer
CHAPTER THREE
Isabel
OF COURSE PAUL is here. It makes perfect sense. When we were married and I actually needed him somewhere? He was guaranteed to turn up late or on the wrong day or at the wrong place. But this weekend, when I just need him to be anywhere else on the planet, of course he’d show up here.
Since I stormed into the guest room, Paul has been on the phone in the living room. Irritation prickles along my skin, the sound of his voice through the wall a constant reminder that he is in my space. Just when I think maybe I can’t take it after all and I might actually have to leave, I hear the creak of footsteps on the stairs and the sound of the door to the master bedroom closing above me.
Finally, the house is silent.
For a heartbeat, I almost convince myself he’s left altogether...but then I hear him walking around up there, and now he’s talking again—almost certainly another work call.
Because Paul Winton is all work, all the fucking time.
But this is actually the first time he and I have been alone in ten months and it turns out, I’m still maddeningly aware of his proximity. Maybe it’s even worse today, because he was parading out there naked as the day he was born, and that meant I couldn’t miss all of the ways his body has changed since I left him last year. Paul is tall, and he was always lanky—he’s always looked like the middle-distance runner he is. He’s gained a lot of muscle this year, and I have to assume he’s made drastic changes to his exercise regime. Which is curious, because if there’s one thing Paul doesn’t like, it’s change.
Stop thinking about him, Isabel.
My self-talk fails miserably. He’s pacing upstairs, right above me. His voice is a steady, constant drone, and my body refuses to let me forget that he’s still here. Once upon a time, I marveled that Paul and I shared the kind of chemistry that hums in the background even when you’re in separate rooms, driven by the potential of an encounter. If sex was enough, Paul and I would still be together. Hell, if sex was enough, Paul and I might never have left our bedroom.
Sex wasn’t enough, but I’ve wasted a lot of time convincing myself that it is. Sex is powerful and potent, and it lies. It says, It doesn’t matter that this is the only way we connect. It says, It doesn’t matter that the friendship we once had is long dead. And even now, if I strain hard enough to hear it, sex is still whispering to me. It says, It doesn’t matter that we’re getting divorced on Wednesday.
I’ve berated myself for believing those lies in the past, and right now, I hate myself for how tempted I am to believe them again.
Up until Wednesday night, I was going to stay in the city this weekend, and I wasn’t going to take any time off even as the milestone of our divorce looms. I love my job and it’s been an important distraction from the clusterfuck of my personal life this year.
But at our regular weekly dinner after my Wednesday night Pilates class, Jess suggested I take some time out to give myself some space to grieve. And like she said, where better place for a weekend of reflection than here?
I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about the enticing possibility of a weekend of R & R. The next thing I knew, I was in my boss’s office at the gym, trying to figure out how to request five days off, literally at the last minute. I reminded him that I haven’t missed even an hour of my rostered time at the gym throughout the debacle of my separation this year. I also pointed out that the Pilates and barre classes I teach are just a side gig around my real role at the gym; I’m the senior exercise physiologist there and have been for almost ten years now. Over the past year I’ve put in extra hours and extra effort, working my ass off to establish a new senior’s health program. I reminded him because of that project alone, Nick’s gym has welcomed dozens of new clients.
“Isabel,” Nick eventually said, with obvious exasperation, “I can’t tell if you’re about to ask me for a favor or if you’re putting on a ballet production—you’ve been dancing around something ever since you came in here. If you need something, just ask me.”
I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it, but he did grant me the last-minute leave, and here I am. At my vacation home for a luxurious five days to mark the end of my marriage. With my almost-ex-husband right here to watch me sulk.
Dammit.
Jess and our friend Abby are not going to believe this latest development. My fingers are trembling as I formulate the group text and I’m not sure if that’s adrenaline or anger or something else altogether. At the very last second, I hesitate, curse the awkward work connection between Jess and Paul and delete her name from the text.
I want sympathy and support, but not so much that I’m willing to whine to Paul’s CEO about what Paul is choosing to do with a rare day off. Navigating the interconnected network that is our friendships and Paul’s working life has been complicated this year. I hate him, I’m angry with him and I resent him, but I also apparently hate the idea that our personal drama might somehow spill into his working life.
Guess what? Paul was already here when I arrived. And guess what else? Turns out we’re both too stubborn to leave.
The phone rings about three seconds after I hit Send.
“Marcus just texted me. He said I should make sure you’re okay because Paul sounds really upset,” Abby says, without wasting time on a greeting. She’s Marcus’s fiancée. See what I mean? Every significant person in my life, outside of my own family, seems to have some connection to Paul.
“Paul doesn’t get upset,” I mutter. “Robots don’t get upset.”
“Well, he simply has to leave. Have you called your attorney?”
“I don’t need to pay her hundreds of dollars an hour to tell me there’s no point,” I say. “The property is still in Paul’s name. He’s even paid the taxes this year. Technically, he has every right to be here.”
“That...”
“...rat-bastard?” I finish the sentence cautiously when she hesitates a little too long, but I’m never really sure how Abby feels about Paul, because I know he’s still technically her friend, too. Abby listens to me rant and she says all the right things, but I know her loyalties are divided here.
I guess her pregnancy hormones are swinging in my favor today, because Abby surprises me by growling and asking, “Should I look up the train schedules? I can be there in a few hours, and I promise you, I could mess his nose up real good. Real good, Izzy. Just think about it.”
“And how exactly are you going to explain to Marcus why you’ve been arrested for assaulting his business partner?”
“You know how pregnancy mood swings can be, and I’ve got twins on board so I’m twice as moody. I have a ready-made excuse, let’s put it to work.”
“Thanks for the offer, Abby.”
“I’m really sorry this happened.”
“The divorce, or the awful weekend I’m about to have?” I ask her wryly.
“Both.”
I sigh, then answer her honestly. “Me, too.”
We fall into a not-quite-comfortable silence, then Abby asks cautiously, “So, if you’re really going to stay, will you try to...talk to him?”
“Talk to him?” I give a confused laugh. “More talking? What on earth could there be left to say?”
“It’s just... I mean... I don’t know, Izzy.” She’s clearly gearing up to drop a truth bomb. Given how long the pause is before she speaks, I have plenty of time to brace myself. “I do get the impression that he was kind of blindsided when you left.”
I blink, bewildered. This is the last thing in the world I expected her to say.
“Are you kidding me? I gave that marriage everything I had,” I gasp. “And even after I left, Paul didn’t even try to convince me to come home. Maybe he’s never said it explicitly, but the fact that he just watched me walk away surely proves that he was unhappy, too.” I wait for Abby to comment. When she doesn’t, I add a little de
fensively, “Besides, it’s just too late to try to clear the air. There’s so much bitterness between us now after that awful mediation process. Every time we do talk, we end up shouting at each other. Especially me.” I clear my throat. “It’s embarrassing, actually.”
Abby is silent for a moment as she ponders this. “I can’t imagine you doing that. You’re so quiet. Gentle.”
“I’ve never felt anger like this before,” I admit. My throat is tight, and my eyes sting with tears I refuse to shed. “Paul is so different when we’re alone together, he always has been. In the early days he was gentler...softer. But the last few years...he’s just too arrogant and driven and cold and pigheaded. It’s like he wanted to push me away, and if that was what he was trying to do...well, it worked.”
“I’ve seen his arrogance. I’ve seen his gentleness,” Abby says quietly. “I’ve never seen this mean, angry version of you. I can’t even picture it.”
“Trust me, Abby. Even now, I just want to go scream at him some more.”
“It doesn’t even sound like you want to be there, other than to annoy Paul. Come home and we can meet up with Jess at some five-star hotel, you guys can drown your sorrows in bubbles and I’ll guzzle organic apple juice. Tomorrow morning when you’re hungover and I’m fresh as a daisy you can send me out for coffees. You can still grieve or sulk or do whatever you needed to do this weekend...you can just do it with us instead.”
“No,” I say, blinking the tears from my eyes. “Paul doesn’t want to be here with me any more than I want to be here with him. No way am I letting him win.”
When Abby speaks again, her tone is heavy with uncertainty. “And you’re sure about this?”
“I am.”
“Okay.” She sighs. “You promise me you’ll ring me if you need anything?”
She’s clearly hesitant, and I’m actually quite touched by her concern. I soften my tone as I promise, “I will. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Just...please be smart about this weekend...”
“Abby,” I laugh weakly. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“I know but...” She still hesitates, then she says in a rush, “It’s just that you’re vulnerable at the moment. You both are, despite what you may think about Paul. He’s seemed so different lately. Emotions are running high—don’t get sucked into anything you’ll regret later. It’s all over next week, so just try to be careful until then, okay?”
I close my eyes. It’s all too easy to picture Paul and I spending the entire weekend snapping at each other. Breaking for lunch. Fighting some more. Sleeping. Then snarling our farewells and going off to live separate, angry lives.
I hate that picture just enough that for a moment or two, I second-guess my decision to stay. I force myself to imagine what it would be like to walk away right now. No fireworks. Just slipping from Paul’s life all over again.
But I can’t.
Mostly because I simply cannot bear the thought of the quiet triumph on his face when he hears the door close behind me and realizes he’s won. It’s stupid and it’s petty and it’s not at all the way I thought things between us would be when I decided to leave him ten months ago, but there you have it.
I’m staying because the alternative is to go, and that’s what Paul wants me to do.
There’s a big part of me that’s deeply ashamed of how much of my behavior this year has been driven by such childish impulses.
There’s an even bigger part of me that just wants to lash out at him. First, because he promised me he’d love me until his dying breath, and within no time at all he just sat back and let our marriage shrivel up and die. Of course that hurt, but I wasn’t actually angry when I decided to leave him. On some level, walking out that door was just a desperate cry for help. I’d tried everything to get Paul to notice how much distance had grown between us, but I still thought he loved me, and I certainly still loved him. Leaving him was drastic, but I couldn’t figure out what else to do.
The fury came later—starting with the brittle conversation he and I had on the sidewalk at the front of our brownstone while I waited for my car after I told him I was leaving.
We should talk about this, Isabel. We should have a meeting.
I still can’t believe I left the man and instead of pleading with me to stay as I’d hoped he would do, he reacted as if I’d made a poor business decision. I remember staring at him in shock while that first, alien burst of anger surged inside. It’s grown exponentially at every encounter Paul and I have had since then.
In the end, this vacation house and a small cash settlement are the only things I walk away from our marriage with, other than a few early wrinkles and a newfound distrust in the male species. I needed this weekend—I needed the space to think and to do some self-reflection because I don’t like or even understand who I’ve become this year. Yes, Paul hurt me very deeply, but this vengeful ex-wife thing is really not me.
And yet somehow it is, because even now, even thinking all of this through, all I really want to do is go up there and fight with him some more. Just like that, Abby’s concern about this whole long-weekend situation suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.
“If it gets too intense, I’ll come home,” I promise her.
“Good.” She sounds supremely satisfied by this, and that makes me laugh.
“Listen to you. Your mommy instincts are kicking in already.”
I hear the echo of her chuckle over the phone. “That’s right.” She adopts a mock-stern tone. “Don’t make me come over there.”
“Talk to you soon?”
“You keep me posted, Izzy. I’m here for you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Isabel
AS I TRAVELED here today, I imagined myself sprawled on the sofa in the living room in my pajamas all weekend, ordering in takeout and watching soppy movies from a nest of used Kleenex. I figured I’d be comforted by long stints on the deck in the sunshine, reading or quietly contemplating the waters of the Long Island Sound. I hoped I’d be soothed by the rest and healed by the peace and quiet.
On Wednesday afternoon, I’d emerge from the cocoon of my grief a beautiful butterfly, ready to move on to the next phase of my life.
Okay, maybe that last bit was a little optimistic, but I really wanted to do some heavy-duty sulking this weekend. I’m sick of being brave. This year has been awful and I wanted a few days to lick my wounds before the divorce becomes final. I haven’t really let myself do that until now. Once I finally accepted that our marriage really was over, I set a stiff upper lip and I forced myself to keep looking forward.
No regrets.
No second-guessing my decision to give up on our marriage.
My mantra was an endless loop of you can’t change the past so keep moving forward.
The only problem with this approach has been an inexplicable and somewhat inescapable sense that I’ve forgotten something. It’s just like when you go on vacation and you’re traveling to your destination and the whole time you’re mentally running through the contents of your suitcase, convinced you’ve left something vital at home.
That’s exactly how I feel all the damned time, and it’s exhausting.
I fumble for the remote and try to find something to watch on the TV, but the Netflix app immediately throws an error. This was once Paul’s domain—the kind of situation I dealt with by calling, “Paul, Netflix is broken,” and kicking my feet up with a glass of wine while I waited for him to fix it. But I’m no longer the wife of a genius software developer, and I’ve adjusted. Tech stuff is never going to be my strength, but I’m almost used to sorting these challenges on my own again after ten months of living alone in my shoebox in Soho.
I navigate to the Settings page on the menu of the TV, and I’m feeling confident as I diagnose a Wi-Fi issue. The network is still there, but the TV can’t connect. I was
just here two weeks ago and it was working fine, so at first, I’m confused about why it’s broken now.
Until it occurs to me that the password has probably changed.
Likely in the last ten minutes, while a computer genius was out in the living room fuming about my surprise arrival. I should have known he’d turn our technology against me.
I try to guess the obvious options for a new password, but variations on IsabelIsABitch, GoHomeIsabel and IHateIsabel all fail. I set my phone down on the bed and take some deep, cleansing breaths while I talk myself down from what I know could very easily become a rapidly escalating war of childish pranks.
Don’t do anything hasty, Isabel. Stay calm. Don’t overreact. It’s just the internet. Who needs Netflix, anyway? You were just going to waste the afternoon watching old episodes of Will & Grace. Don’t let him goad you into a reaction this easily.
My very sensible self-talk fails miserably. I slide off the bed and walk out into the living room, planning to head for the staircase and spoiling for a fight. As soon as I leave the bedroom, though, just a hint of Paul’s lingering scent on the air has memories bubbling up rapid-fire in my mind. This isn’t just a living space right now. It’s somehow become the museum of us, filled with things that were furnishings and decor mere seconds ago, but those objects have now become installations to take me back to another point in time.
We cuddled on the couch so many times—so many nights when I’d ask him to watch a movie with me, and he’d always agree...but he’d also always bring his stupid laptop so he could work. But there was also that night when he was so tired after a particularly long week at work that he fell asleep with his head in my lap, and I stared down at him as he rested, and the love and affection I felt for him seemed boundless.
And then there’s the kitchen—how many times was I relaxing out on the deck with a book and Paul would get hungry and I’d hear him open and close the fridge, then he’d ask me what I wanted for dinner, a not-so-subtle hint for me to organize us some dinner, without a trace of irony or apology in his tone? That very same space could also play host to so many surprisingly sweet moments, like the time he sneaked out of bed early to make me waffles and he did such an astoundingly good job on the recipe that I was convinced they were takeout. He eventually admitted he’d been practicing at home when I was at work because he wanted to surprise me on our long weekend out here.