His Wife Leaves Him

by Stephen Dixon

  There were two other incidents similar to that, maybe three, but little to no crying. One took place just a few months after they met. Seventy-nine; February, or March. It was on the park side of Riverside Drive, right across from her apartment building. In fact, there was even another incident outside, much like this one, but he already went over it. It had snowed, was still snowing. Maybe ten inches. He watched it from her living room window and said “What do you say we go out and walk in the snow? I’ve always wanted to do that with the woman I loved and kiss her with snow on our noses.” “That’s sweet,” she said. “I don’t know about the snowy nose part, but I’d love to,” and they started to get dressed for the outside. “Boots, too,” he said, “so your feet don’t freeze. I’ll just put on two pairs of socks, if you loan me one of yours.” They didn’t walk far, maybe a block and back. Then at the wall separating the Drive from the park, she turned to look at the snow coming down over the river. He made a snowball and threw it at a tree. “Missed,” he said. “What?” and he said “The tree. Snowball.” She still hadn’t turned around. She was wearing a cap, gloves, her coat buttoned up to her neck. He had a cap on but had left his gloves in his apartment and his hands were getting cold. Time to go in, he thought. But first a little fun. He made a much smaller snowball, one not so compact as the one he threw at the tree, and lobbed it underhand at her. He’d aimed at her backside but it hit her just above her coat collar and got down her neck. “What are you doing?” she said, brushing herself off. “That’s cold and I can’t get it out. And I wasn’t prepared for it and could have slipped. I could break a leg here.” “I didn’t think I was doing anything bad, and hitting you so far up wasn’t where I was aiming. So, sorry once again,” and she said “What other time were you sorry for something with me?” and he said “Then this is the first. Here, let me help you,” because she had taken her gloves off and was trying to dig out the snow from in back, and he put his hand down her coat and got out what snow he could find. “Enough, already,” she said. “Your hand’s as cold as the snow. Thank you, but I’ll get out what’s left when we get home.” “Now, instead of that snowball, if I had grabbed you—that would have been something else,” and he pretended to cackle and put his arms around her and bent her back as if he were going to drop her into the snow. “What’s with you?” she said. “Let me up. You could slip, and my coat’s new,” and he lifted her back up and let go of her. She picked up a glove that had fallen and said “We better go inside.” “You’re angry,” and she said “Yes. I don’t like being bullied or scared or treated roughly or falling on my back. I didn’t think you were being funny, no matter what you might have thought,” and she stepped carefully over the snow—he put his hand out to help and she said “Don’t give me your hand; I don’t want it”—and waited for some cars to pass before she crossed the street to her building. In the elevator going up, he said “I’m sorry again, and this time it is again,” and she said “You should be. You acted like an immature kid.” “I know,” he said, “and also like a dope. But that’s not the first time I heard that in my life. Am I forgiven?” “I’ll think about it.” “Can I get the kiss I didn’t outside?” and she said “If you want. But do it before the door opens.”

  He’s not sure where the second one was. Either a railway station in London or one in Paris. Waterloo? Gare de Lyon? He’s just pulling names out of the air. Says to himself: Let me think. The name of the station he might never come up with. It was the end of May, 1985. Gwen was five months pregnant with Maureen. She and Rosalind and he had been to several countries the past month—Germany (really only Munich), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria—and were either heading to London, after a week in Paris, or to the QE2, after four days in London. He remembers wanting to buy a book at the railway station. Faulkner’s Collected Stories, Penguin edition. So it almost had to be the London railway station, where they were waiting to board a boat train to the QE2. He thought it might have been at the French railway station because he complained to her there how she was always running late and they could have missed the hydrofoil to Dover, which they had unrefundable tickets for, if they’d missed the train to it. They did get there late, but the train wasn’t there yet and they were told the hydrofoil would wait for it or another one would honor their tickets. “Saved by a tardy train,” he said, “but I’ll take anything,” and they each had a sandwich and Gwen and he shared a beer and they checked out the magazines at a newsstand and souvenirs at a gift shop and bought Rosalind a Mickey Mouse doll and got on the train. No anger or crying and in their passenger car Gwen rested her head against his shoulder and slept all the way to the dock. The argument at the London railway station was much worse. They were running late again because of her. “I’m heavy and slow and lack my old energy, what can I say?” she said. He ran to the train station from the cab, carrying Rosalind in one arm and with the other their larger bag. “Come on, come on, hurry; we’ll miss it,” he said to Gwen. She was walking as fast as she could behind him and pulling a bag on wheels. He was afraid they’d miss the boat train and the QE2 would sail without them. It turned out she got the train departure time wrong and they had more than two hours to kill. “I can’t believe you sometimes,” he said. “What am I going to do the next two hours? You know I hate waiting for anything very long, and we’ve already stuffed ourselves at lunch.” “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m happy just to sit here. I’m tired and I can use the rest. Walk around, have another cup of tea,” and he said “I don’t want to walk around. Where would I go?” “Then buy a Herald Tribune and sit beside me and read me the news. Or take Rosalind outside and get her some sweet tea. But whatever you do, don’t start with me again. I’ve had my fill of your blaming me.” “Don’t blame Mommy,” Rosalind said. “Be nice,” and he said “Okay, I won’t. I’ll blame you. Only kidding, my little putchky. How’s Mickey today? Better?” and she waved the doll in the air and said “All better,” and he patted Mickey on the head and said “Good.” And to Gwen: “If only you’d gotten the train schedule straight. I ran so hard from the cab, my shirt’s soaked.” “Look,” she said, “you might have been the one to get our visas in New York and who’s done most of the heavy carrying, but I’ve done practically everything else to make this trip work. Hotels, reservations, itinerary, planes and trains, the QE2 standby fares, and all the confirmations and translating and who knows what else. So give me a little credit, will you?” and he said “I do. I’m just saying—” and she said “I know what you’re saying, so stop it.” “I will when I’m sure it’s registered with you, because I don’t know how many times we almost missed a train or plane.” “But we never did, did we?” and he said “But it got too close—you could even say with that hydrofoil—and it makes me nervous and I don’t want it to happen again. Prague, for instance, giving the cab driver the name of the wrong train station. And the plane out of Kraków and forgetting our passports at the hotel there for a few minutes and we had to go back.” “That was you as well as me, right?” and he said “Right. You were in charge of the passports, but I should have been covering for you. And I know I can be a bit obsessive in getting to places on time, but you could be a lot more careful.” “Oh, screw you and your anxieties and taking part of the blame only when you’re forced to. Why do you always have to act this way and then make me act as bad as you?” and he said “I wouldn’t if you got things right and prepared your departures from the hotels better.” “You want to win the argument? All right, you won. But I can’t stand this. I told you, I’m tired, I’m pregnant, but look at you. You’re always complaining about me,” and he said “No, I’m not,” but she started crying. Rosalind took her hand and said “Don’t cry, Mommy,” and he said “It’s the baby that’s making her cry,” and Gwen said “It’s not; it’s you. You can be so awful. I wish I weren’t married to you.” He remembers again the time they were driving to Maine and she was six months pregnant with Rosalind and she took the wrong turn to get onto the Mass Pike so that they he
aded toward Springfield instead of Boston and he complained and, he thinks, cursed her with something like “Damn you,” and she cursed him back with something like “Fuck you,” and brought up that she was pregnant and look at the way he’s treating her when they’re supposed to be happy with her carrying their first child, but he doesn’t think she cried. Maybe she did. He thinks she said something about how her tears were affecting her vision, or they would if she cried. Now she was crying. Not heavy sobs and, really, no sounds. A few tears, which she wiped. And that crying look. Her nose got red. It always did when she cried, even at movies, if there was enough light to see her nose, or when she heard a particularly sad piece of music. The Tchaikovsky String Sextet, he thinks it is, at a Kneisel Hall concert in a church in Blue Hill. Other chamber music at the Hall. And once while they listened to Bach’s St. John Passion on a record or CD at home. They had it on both. He said “I’m sorry. Very sorry.” Rosalind still held her hand and said to him “You shouldn’t be mean to Mommy,” and he said “I know. —I’m glad I’m married to you,” he said to Gwen. “Please don’t think what you said.” “It’s the truth,” she said. “Maybe we’re not suited for each other. This happens too often.” “When, often?” and she said “We should think seriously about it. Now leave me alone. We have plenty of time before they let us on the train, so why don’t you take the walk you don’t want to? It’d be good for Rosalind and me.” “Do what Mommy says,” Rosalind said. He got up and said “I won’t go far,” and walked around outside and got a beer at a pub and thought “Why do I say those things? Why do I do those things? Idiot. Asshole. Moron. Fool,” and went back inside the station and stopped at the bookshop there and saw the Faulkner collection, which he’d never seen in the States and he thinks he would have if it were there, and wanted to buy it but it cost too much, he thought, so he put it back on the shelf. He went back to where they were sitting and said to Gwen “I saw a book I wanted to buy—Faulkner’s Collected Stories. It had stuff in it I’d never seen before, but it was very expensive. Maybe I should buy it anyway. It’s a big book and it might only be sold in England, and we have a five-day voyage ahead of us,” and she said “Do what you want. What do I care? But don’t talk to me again till after we board the ship.” “Don’t be mean to Daddy,” Rosalind said. “Be nice,” and Gwen said “All right. Your father deserves it, but all right. And don’t worry, my darling. Everything will turn out okay.” “You’re not going to go away from Daddy?” and she said “No.” He tried to talk to her on the train. She said “Please”—Rosalind was asleep in his lap—“I don’t want to speak to you now.” “I just want to say how relieved I was at what you said to Rosalind,” and she said “Good for you.” It was her birthday that day. He’d said “Happy birthday” when they woke up in the morning and kissed her, “but I’m afraid I don’t have a present for you,” and she said “There’s no room in our bags to cram anything more in them anyway.” He ordered a bottle of champagne at dinner on the ship and she said “I don’t want any, and I’m in no mood to celebrate.” “The champagne will go to waste, then, because I’m not going to drink the whole bottle and you know it doesn’t keep. Here,” and he held the bottle over her glass and she said “Okay, a little, but no toast,” and he poured and wanted to pour her another, but she said “It’s good, but no more. The baby.” He drank the rest of the bottle with dinner and got high and said what he thought were funny things and she laughed at some of them and said “If only you were always this way; not giddy from drink, but sweet and nice.” “Well, you can’t expect everything, and she said “I found that out.” They walked around the ship and sat down on one of the decks and looked at the water and she pointed out some constellations to Rosalind and said “The amazing thing is, we’ll see the same ones in Maine. Am I right, Martin?” and he said “Beats me. You know that subject much better than I.” After they got back to the cabin and washed up for bed—they had individual bunks across from each other and Rosalind was in a large crib between them—he said “Are you feeling a teensy bit better toward me?” and she said “I’m all right. What’s the sense of carrying a grudge? We’re stuck with one another for five nights in this pint-sized room.” “You think I can climb into your bunk when we turn off the lights?”—Rosalind was already asleep—and she said “There isn’t room enough for two,” and he said “Sure there is, if that’s all that’s stopping you. We’ve cuddled in narrower spaces. And I won’t stay there all night. Just for a little while, to hug you from behind and whisper loving things to your neck.” “Don’t tell me; I know what you want. You have a hard-on and you want relief.” “No, no, it’s not that. And I don’t, or didn’t, till you brought it up. It’s that I feel so horrible how I acted to you today, and on your birthday, no less, which makes it even worse. We’re on this great ship together with our sleeping cutie. We should be having a great time. And I promise never to be such a bastard to you again,” and she said “I’ve heard that before. Okay, I guess you can try.” “My getting in your bunk with you?” and she said “Yes, but let’s get it over with now. It’s been a long strenuous day for me and I feel emotionally and physically drained.”