His Wife Leaves Him

by Stephen Dixon

  Not much to this one. Good times and feelings again, maybe, but he suddenly thinks of something else. Whenever he had trouble getting or keeping an erection when they made love or one that was full, he’d say “We should probably forget it for now” or “take a rain check, as you like to say,” and she’d say “Maybe I can do something,” or “Let me see what I can do” or “if I can help,” and what she did—it took no more than a minute once they got settled—always worked. That’s all there is to it? “Thanks,” he said a few times, and once: “I’d do the same for you with your erectile tissue, but you never said you needed it,” and she said “I don’t like it done as much as you, and it never seemed crucial.” He finds he’s holding his penis, jiggles it a little, nothing happens and he lets go. Does he think he’ll ever make love with another woman? With Gwen it was more than every other day, two hundred to two hundred fifty times a year for around twenty-seven years. Never even kissed another woman romantically in that time and she said same for her with a man. “I’ve had fantasies,” and she said “So have I, but what of them?” “Masturbated maybe twenty times since I’ve known you,” he said, “and most of them when we were split up that first year or I was out of town doing a reading and you were home,” and she said “I don’t think I’ve done it once since we met, not even when we were split up, and I didn’t have another man then.” But the memory he started. It was with her parents. Had to do with food. Whenever he and she and the kids drove to their New York apartment from Baltimore or came back to it after their long stay in Maine, her parents would come by that night around seven, even if it was raining hard or there was a light snow, with food from Zabar’s. Always shrimp salad, which he didn’t eat because he’d got stomach poisoning three times from shrimp, but Maureen and Gwen and her parents loved. And Nova, kippered salmon or smoked sable (they seemed to alternate), creamed pickled herring, two gefilte fish balls with a small container each of white and beet horseradish, potato knish and half of a rotisseried chicken, which he had to warm up in the oven—hated that in the summer because of the heat it generated—because her parents had bought all this that morning to avoid the store’s crowds and nobody liked the chicken or knish cold. “Chicken’s too much,” he used to say, “and we already have potato salad so don’t need the knish,” and her father would say “Freeze what we don’t eat and take it back with you to Baltimore.” Cole slaw, potato salad, bagels, a sliced Jewish rye, a whole apple strudel or chocolate babka, which he’d freeze most of—by then they were all full—and throw out the next time they came to New York. As he said, they were all glad to see one another and had a good time. Around nine, her parents would say they should go—her mother had a patient coming early tomorrow morning, her father had several tax extensions to look over tonight, the “children,” as they called them, have to get to sleep soon, “and both of you must be tired from the long drive in.” He’d call the private car service that brought them there—it was an easy number to remember because it ended with 6-6-6-6,” get nervous they wouldn’t make it downstairs in time—the dispatcher always said “Two to three minutes; the driver’s just a few blocks away”—and go with them to the car, hold an umbrella over them one at a time if it was raining or their arms at the elbow if it was snowing and kiss them both on the cheek and help them into the car. Just before he shut the door, her mother would say to him “I kiss you, my darling.” One time, after the car had left, Rosalind, who’d come downstairs with them, said “Why’d Nona say that about kissing? She did kiss you, and he said “She meant it another way. That I’m a good son-in-law.” Once, when he got back to the apartment, Gwen said “You’re very nice to my parents,” and he said “Because I love them, but that’s not the only reason why.”

  He thinks they were discussing grammar. One of them said “Not me.” Then one of them said “Which is it? ‘Not me’ or ‘Not I’?” Then she said she saw the play. “What play?” and she said “Beckett’s Not I, and another short play of his with it. Footfalls, I think, or Where There or something. “At Lincoln Center?” he said. “The Vivian Beaumont? Summer of ’77? I wanted to see it, particularly Not I, very much. More than any play for years. I wouldn’t have cared what play was playing with it. I went to the box office, even though I knew the cheapest ticket would be expensive, but they were sold out for the entire run. I didn’t have much money then, but would have paid anything for a ticket. I even twice hung around the theater lobby before the performance began to see if anyone had a spare ticket to sell, but nobody did.” “I went with my mother,” she said. “She ordered the tickets weeks before.” “I couldn’t order anything. No credit card then. Lucky. That you got to see it and to have a mother who’d buy tickets for you and who’d want to go to a Beckett play. My mother would never buy the tickets. It’s not that she’s cheap; she’s not. She’d just never think to. And if I bought tickets for her, she’d only go because she’d want me to have company or she’d think her going would please me.” “To tell you the truth, both plays were a little wearisome but well done. My mother hated the first one—you know how she is with movies, sometimes within minutes if she doesn’t like them—and left halfway through it and never came back.” “Wouldn’t have been wearisome or anything but wonderful for me, especially if that was where we first met. Was it a matinee you saw?” and she said yes. “That’s what I would have wanted to go to too and those days I went down to the theater for spare tickets were all afternoons. I never liked going alone to movies or the theater at night. But, hey, suppose we had? In the lobby during intermission, for instance. There was one, wasn’t there?” “An intermission?” she said. “Of course. Two plays, different scenery, spare as it was. For Not I, a giant screen showing a woman’s mouth moving throughout the play till near the end when it abruptly closes.” “No, it never stops moving or talking till the house lights up.” “So you’ve seen it?” she said. “I read it and it had to end the way I read it did, since he was a stickler about the play following his stage directions. But I thought they might have done something unusual with the two plays because it was Beckett and ran them intermissionless, with only a brief blackout or lowered and raised curtain.” “No curtains at the Beaumont,” she said. “Theater in the round. You remember Arcadia and Six Degrees etcetera, plays my mother bought us tickets for. She did that lots of times when we came to New York. The Beaumont was convenient to their apartment and we could drop the kids off with her, which she loved, and walk down to it and have a good time. But what were you saying?” “I’d go over to you in the lobby during intermission, as I wanted to at the party when we first met.” “It was at the elevator where we met, just after we left the party separately.” “I know,” he said. “I followed you there.” “You did?” “I’ve told you that,” he said. “I’ve kept nothing back. You were gorgeous and looked so bright. It was my last chance. But since your mother left during the first play and wasn’t waiting for you in the lobby…was she? If she was, the fantasy I’m concocting is going to have to change.” “She went home. She whispered she was going to just before she left her seat.” “So you’d be alone in the lobby during intermission and the chances of you bumping into someone you know there would be very slim. I’d notice you, be immediately attracted to you, and see you were standing alone. So would other men, so I’d have to move fast. Oh, I forgot. Did you leave your seat during intermission? If it was only to go to the ladies’ room, I’d come up with something to make us meet. Both of us leaving—not going into—our restrooms at the same time. But this fantasy has to stick to the facts.” “I don’t have the restroom problem you do, going to it every two to three hours to pee. I went to the lobby just to walk around and perhaps there’d be something interesting to see there or a cool nonalcoholic drink to drink. Lemonade. I think they had good lemonade.” “Did you get one? If you did, I’d have to include it.” “I don’t think so.” “So I’d go over to you and I know almost exactly what I would have said. ‘Hi. Enjoying the play?’ Or rather ‘Enjoy the first play?’ But
‘enjoy’ is so stuffy. ‘Did you like?’ No doubt something trite or inane to get me started. Then, ice broken I could even say ‘What did you think of it?’ Then we’d talk about the play, Beckett. You’d maybe say you found the play a bit wearisome. If you did, I’d say I liked it, which I’m sure I would have. If you didn’t say anything about the play being wearisome, I’d still say I liked it. ‘Been looking forward to seeing it for weeks. And a ticket wasn’t easy to get.’ I’d probably also say, if I didn’t think I was being too windy, how much I like his short plays, including the radio ones. All That Fall. Others. More than his longer works, plays and prose, and I like a lot of his poetry too. ‘Cascando,’ especially. That great passage ‘terrified again of not loving…of loving and not you…of being loved and not by you…’ and so on. ‘I can recite very little poetry by heart,’ I’d say, ‘but I read that one so many times, and the language is so simple, I remember it…that part, I mean, and a little more.’ Then the bells to get back to our seats would ring and I’d say ‘Like to meet for coffee after?’ And so convenient your mother went home, but I would have invited you both for coffee if she had come back to the theater to have a snack with you after the performance. That would have been a year and a half before we met. Think what we both would have been spared if we’d got together then. Me, not two but three quick bad relationships, which made me more and more disillusioned about myself when each of the women—two, actually—broke up with me, and the third—she was married, so it was ridiculous—didn’t want to have anything romantic to do with me. And you, a pointless relationship with a man you didn’t love but for some reason kept seeing whenever he flew into town and called.” “Not pointless. He was interesting, very smart, witty, fun to be with, treated me well and was a good lover. He fit my needs and limitations perfectly at the time, and I used to phone him too.” “Glad to hear it, for your sake. One thing. We probably would have married sooner and had babies sooner too.” “I don’t think so. You needed a decent-paying job first, and that didn’t come till September, 1980, or we’ll say, July 1st, since that’s when your academic year began. But if we had got married and had a baby sooner, that would have meant no Rosalind. Though I’m sure the one we had sooner, daughter or son, would have been as wonderful. And Maureen, three years later, since that’s the time spread we chose to have our children, would have been our Rosalind, but then we wouldn’t have had our Maureen.” “We could have had a third. I would have loved it.” “We almost did,” she said, “if I hadn’t miscarried. But now you’re going to say I wouldn’t have miscarried, because the third would have been our Maureen. Don’t. It’s gotten too morbid and complicated for me.” “I would have gone to Maine with you later that summer and also the whole summer of ’78, instead of your sometime-lover English architect for a week. But I’m wondering if you would have been interested in a forty-one-year-old man when you had only recently turned thirty, rather than the forty-two-and-a-half-year-old man a year and a half later when you were thirty-one and a half.” “Forty-one would have been cutting it close then, but I guess all right, and you rarely looked or acted your age except when you were working.” “What else do you think we would have done together if we had hit it off that summer of ’77?” “It’s all down in my journals. More plays, parties, poetry readings, dinners, lectures, symposiums, maybe a weekend at Mohonk Lodge, and of course lots of movies. And since I wasn’t in any kind of serious relationship at the time, I probably would have agreed to having coffee with you and later started seeing you.” “And your needs and limitations?” “I might have changed them for you,” she said. “You had many of the same positive qualities as my English friend, and in addition you were Jewish, a writer, and lived in New York.” “And I would have quietly flipped over you that first day when we had coffee after the plays, and I’m sure we would have continued it till today.” “Why not?” she said. “It’s only a year and a half more. But you know, if we didn’t begin anything then—” “If you didn’t want to have coffee with me after the plays, or anything more to do with me after we did have coffee—” “We would have had another opportunity to become more acquainted at Pati’s party a year and a half later. But this time, since we’d spoken to each other once before at the theater and maybe even had coffee together after the plays, we would have started talking inside the apartment and not at the elevator after we’d separately left the party. That would have been where I gave you my phone number, or how to get it, and not on the street in front of her building.” “And if we did start seeing each other after the plays and got serious, I wouldn’t have gone to Yaddo ’78, where I met Pati; Maine would have been my Yaddo. I would only have known her through you and come to her party as your boyfriend.” “Seventy-seven and ’78 in Maine with you,” she said. “I could have gone for that. Also as a distraction and breather from the three-hundred-page dissertation I was still working on those summers. I also would have tried to enlist you as a second reader of it, less for ideas than for looking out for possible mistakes and simplifying my language in places.” “Just as you, in a way, would have been a nice distraction from the stories I was writing then. But by the summer of ’78 they wouldn’t have been the same stories I ended up writing, because by then I’m sure I would have already been writing about you. I wouldn’t have let you see them so quickly, though. Not because you’d be in them or that I also couldn’t use help in catching mistakes. It’s just I never liked anyone reading my work before it was published but literary agents and magazine and book editors. Although I had nothing against reading out loud a line or word or two from a work in progress if I thought there was something really wrong with it. Or if there were two good ways of saying the same thing and I wanted to know which one this person thought was best. You’ve done that for me,” and she said “A number of times,” and he said “And you were always right.”

  He drove into Augusta with the kids and Gwen and got gas at the first service station along the main street. After he filled up, he said “Well, people, I’m going to use the restroom here and pay for the gas. Anyone else have to go?” and they all said they could wait. He went inside, paid, peed, and bought a New York Times—something to read with his drink later—and a bag of cornnuts for himself and a bag of roasted sunflower seeds for Gwen. Back in the van, before he started up, he said “You kids must be hungry by now. Pizza okay? It’s quick and it’s just a few stores down.” He parked in front of the pizza shop he saw from the service station, gave them money for pizza and chips or a cookie and a drink—“Even soda, if that’s what you want,” and they went inside. “Oh, I forgot; I wasn’t thinking,” he said to Gwen. “You want something besides the sunflower seeds? I doubt you’d go for the pizza here, but you do like the veggie subs at Subway. There’s one on this side of the street on the way out of town.” She said “I’m happy. Maybe you want one. You like them too,” and he said “I do, but I’ll wait till Kennebunkport till I get anything. And those things can get messy when you’re driving.” “I’ll take over,” and he said “No, you said you were tired before, so you sleep.” They held hands and looked out the windows and every so often smiled at each other till the kids came back. “No mess, please,” he said. “Napkins on the lap; all that. And drinks, when you’re not drinking them, in the cup holders and with the lids on,” and he drove to the I-95 entrance about a mile away. “There’s the Subway,” he said to Gwen. “Last chance,” and she said “Thanks, but I’ll be all right.”

  Their first trip to Maine together took the entire day. Long delays on the Cross Bronx Expressway and on the highway through Hartford and then Worcester, and getting through the New Hampshire tollbooth on 95 took another half-hour. And before they got on the road they stopped at her parents’ apartment for their Siamese cats, mother and same-litter brother of the two females Gwen owned, and the male was hiding and it took an hour to find him. They’d picked up the rental car in Yonkers the day before and loaded it with their belongings and parked it in a garage overnight near Gwen’s apart
ment. One back window was missing and the other couldn’t be opened, so they were able to get it at a reduced rate. She’d wanted to get to the cottage while it was still light out so he could see it from the outside when they got there. “Most people are bowled over by it. I’m just hoping you’ll like it,” and he said “I know I will. Everything you described. And Maine for two months? And out of the sweltering New York heat? And of course, being with you. As my dad used to say—I’ve told you, though I think he was referring to making money—‘What’s not to like?’” The front door was unlocked. “There are keys of an ancient kind,” she said, “but I’m not even sure if they still work. Whenever I asked Stan, the caretaker, for them, he stalled me, making me think he’d been given instructions by my eccentric landladies to withhold them. He’ll be here tomorrow morning around six with a container of souring crabmeat he’ll say his wife just picked. Always does, I always throw it out or bury it, and that’ll be the last we see of him, except by chance at the Brooklin general store, till the day we leave, when we’ll drop by his shack on our way out to say goodbye and tip him.” “It’s safe, though, to go to bed with the doors unlocked?” and she said “Breakins around here only occur in winter. Antique thieves, who spend the summer selling their booty at flea markets in the area. The cottage has lost two precious wind-up clocks and most of its rare books.” They brought in the cats, put out food and water for them, set up the litter box and a wicker basket piled high with old towels for them to sleep together. Then they emptied the car of the rest of their things. She took him for a quick tour of the cottage and said “So be honest. What do you think?” “It’s beautiful,” he said. “The wood, stone fireplace, whatever those little diamond-shaped window panes are called, cathedral ceiling, the what looks like Shaker and Adirondack-style of just Maine-lodge-like furniture. Even the ceramic plates and bowls, I see. Nothing tawdry. Everything elegant. And you said a great view of the bay from the upstairs bedroom window? What a treat. Thanks for inviting me,” and she said “Thanks for coming and paying half the rent,” and she kissed him. “Now, lots of work to do before dinner and, for you, a pre-dinner drink, unless you want to fall asleep smelling mouse droppings and winter nests.” She swept the entire cottage. He wanted to help her, but there was only one broom. “Next summer,” she said, “if we’re still together, we’ll make sure there are two. You can strip the newspapers from the furniture and beds and burn them in the fireplace. And I guess you can hang up and put away our clothes upstairs and make our bed with the linens and pillows we brought up. But first clean out the mothballs and mouse droppings, if there are any, from the dresser and desk drawers. And as long as you’re up there, set up your work space. Mine will be the living room desk, where I always work. The table’s a bit wobbly upstairs, but maybe you can fix it. Do I sound too bossy? I don’t like it when I act like that, but I want to get everything out of the way tonight so I can get back to my writing tomorrow morning,” and he said “That’s how I am about my work too, and I’m glad for whatever I get here.” After they finished, she showered and he prepared dinner. Opened a bottle of Chianti from the case they brought from New York, poured himself a glass, put water on for green fettuccine, made an ajo e ojo sauce for it, salad, dressing, grated fresh Parmesan into a dish, sliced bread, got out the butter, put some cookies and grapes on a plate, set the dinner table. “Ready to eat?” he yelled upstairs, where she went after her shower. “Starving,” she said. “Be right down.” She put two candles in silver candlesticks on the table and lit them. “I know you don’t like them—‘dangerous’ and ‘mawkishly romantic’ and they smell and eat up the oxygen and give off heat you don’t want—but just for tonight and when we have guests?” They sat next to each other, ate and drank. “Oh, I forgot to toast to a great summer,” he said, and she said “It goes without saying. Though tomorrow night we should make more room for us at this table. Too cozy, and my elbow keeps bumping yours. I love you but I like to eat apart.” Vivaldi’s Winter was on the Bangor public radio station. “This’d be more appropriate music for the morning,” she said. “You’ll see. You’ll have to wear your flannel shirt and, if you’re the first one downstairs, light the kindling in the cold stove to warm up the kitchen.” “Is that what that big old cast-iron thing is called?” and she said “I think so. Remember, I’m from the Bronx. Maybe I heard it wrong and it’s ‘coal.’ No, couldn’t be. Only takes wood. Probably ‘cold.’ It can get hot enough to bake bread.” They washed the dishes and put them away. She showed him how to get a fire started in the cold stove and made sure the cats were in their sleeping basket. “You going to shower?” and he said “If you want me to,” and she said “Not if you think you’re okay. The shower—well, you’ve been to the toilet, unless you just peed in the grass, so you know they’re both in the cabinet off the porch. That can be a problem when it’s raining. And never shower during an electric storm. The floor’s metal and it’s not grounded well,” and he said “Then I’ll call in an electrician to fix it and pay for it myself if the landladies don’t cough up,” and she said “They won’t, so we’ll share.” They went to bed. “Good, no mosquitoes yet,” she said. “The one drawback of a cottage by the water. In a week they’ll be keeping us awake unless we plug up the window screen holes that have materialized since last year, though they also come down the fireplace.” “There are kits to stitch up those holes or I’ll just staple new screens on, but leave it to me. As for the fireplace, let’s get a glass shield or screen that completely seals the opening. It’d be worth it, not to lose even one night’s sleep, and again, I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket. After all, we’ve got more than two months here.” “You’re full of good ideas tonight and so generous,” and he said “Are you being sarcastic? That’d be so unlike you,” and she said “Not at all. Fact is, I feel remiss I didn’t think of taking care of the fireplace that way before.” “Nah, come on. You think of things that I don’t and I think of things that you don’t and we also both add to the other’s ideas. We’re what’s called a couple.” Stan came around six in the morning with the crabmeat. “Find everything in order? I left a lawnmower and can with enough gas in it in the woodshed, in case one of you feels inclined to cut the grass. I wanted to, but got busy opening a half-dozen houses.” They went back to bed and stayed in it till seven. “Gets light here so early,” he said. “What was it, five?” This is the routine they fell into. They each made their own breakfast, read a little—he, the Times from the previous day—and worked at their desks till around one, when they stopped for lunch. She: a soup and bread and dessert or a sandwich and salad; he: a few carrots and celery stalks and a piece of cheese and more coffee. They’d eat lunch at the small wood table in the kitchen or sitting on the porch and talk about the work they’d done that day. That’s how it went for a week. Nobody she knew was up yet, so they were just by themselves and he loved it. After lunch: walks on the road, or along the shore with three of the cats. Kitya, the mother, liked to stay home. Or a drive to Naskeag Point to look for sea-polished or unusually shaped stones and to watch the lobster and other boats come in or leave. Or a drive to the library in town or the general store there for essentials they were out of. Their big shop they’d do in Ellsworth next week, and have lunch there, and one of these days, she said, they should go to Acadia National Park and have popovers and tea at the Jordan Pond House. She didn’t know it had burned down the previous winter. Before or after dinner, they drove several times to an ice-cream stand about ten miles away on Deer Isle. After they finished their cones, he hugged her from behind—it was already getting chilly—as they watched the sunset. “This is already my favorite thing to do up here,” he said. “The sky, delicious ice cream, cone’s good too, holding you, and of course gushing about it.” “I knew you’d like this particular spot. Ice cream’s local, I want you to know. Made in Ellsworth, where we’ll be going to,” and he said “I’m looking forward to it.” “A friend here calls it Asphalt Acres,” and he said “Then maybe it isn’t too great.”
Then something happened to spoil the good mood for a while. It was a couple of weeks before he got into an argument with her mother, when she was visiting, so maybe this also contributed to her breaking up with him the day they got back to New York. Just thought of that but now doesn’t see how it couldn’t have. He wanted to mow the grass around the cottage before the caretaker took the lawnmower back. “He said we could have it for a few days and it’s been way more than a week.” “He might leave it in our woodshed all summer. That’d be just like Stan,” and he said “Still, I’d like to get it done at least once. It really needs it, and it’ll give the mosquitoes less place to hide.” She said “Before you do, let me point out the places I don’t want mowed because of the flowers.” She had driven somewhere for something. He thought he’d surprise her by mowing the grass before she got home. He was finished, putting away the lawnmower, when she drove down the driveway and got out of the car. “I could smell you mowed, all the way from the road. Looks nice, but I asked you to wait till I showed you what I didn’t want mowed,” and he said “I was very careful to stay at least a few inches away from all the flowers.” She looked around. “Well, you didn’t get the peonies, thank goodness.” Walked around the woodshed; he followed. “Oh, no,” she said. “You destroyed every one of them.” “Where? What?” and she said “My foxgloves.” She pointed to an area about ten by fifteen feet, and he said “There were foxgloves there? I don’t know what they look like, but I saw no flowers. Just weeds.” “They were just coming up, were going to flower in a few weeks. Damn, that was so willful of you. You don’t listen. You do what you want. Not just willful. Pigheaded. Stupid. Stupid.” “I’m stupid?” he said. “I’m not saying you are, but I’m not. That’s what my father used to call me when he got mad at me, and I hated it,” and she said “Maybe he was right. For look what you’ve done. You cut them clear to the ground. They’ll never come up again. They took so much doing to get them started two summers ago, and when a few appeared last summer, I knew they’d taken. I planted them from seeds, did all sorts of things to make them work.” “So we’ll do it again this summer so they come up next. Or you’ll tell me how and I’ll do it alone,” and she said “I don’t want to wait two more summers to see a big patch of them. If you knew what they looked like and how hard they are to grow and to keep coming back, you’d understand.” “What I don’t understand is why you’re going so crazy hell over it. In the end, beautiful as they might be, they’re just flowers; flowers.” “I can’t believe you sometimes,” and she went to the car, got a big paper bag of something off the front seat, started crying and headed toward the house. “Are you crying over the flowers?” and she said “Shut up.” “Listen, Gwen, I’m sorry, truly sorry, which I forgot to tell you, but I truly am.” She went inside without looking back at him. So maybe this was the first time he saw her cry, or over something he said or did. She was cool to him for a few days. They ate dinner together and slept in the same bed, but she kept as far away from him on it as she could, and when he touched her shoulder once from behind, she flinched. “Don’t worry; I’m not in the mood either. It was just my way of saying goodnight.” Her mother called every night—her father would get on when her mother was through—and probably asked how things were, because he overheard Gwen say “Not that great,” and another time: “Same as before. No, it isn’t my health or work. I’ll explain when you get here.” “Funny,” he said, when she seemed to be feeling better to him, “how fast things change.” “The foxgloves?” and he said “Yes, and I’m not saying it was because of nothing,” and she said “Please don’t remind me of them or I’ll get angry and sad all over again. It won’t be easy to forget what you did.” “It’d be best for both of us if you did, but okay. And they might come up again next year without our replanting them. But we got pretty close to ending things, didn’t we?” and she said “Martin; I asked you; please.”