The First Time

by Joy Fielding

  Men, Jake thought, turning off the water with a sharp snap of his wrist. We really are cads.

  He stepped out of the shower, dried himself with one of Honey’s rose-colored towels, wondered whether he’d ever get used to so much pink. Was it possible Mattie would live for another twenty-five years, slowly wasting away, a prisoner of her own body? Would she want to?

  “Jason?” Honey called from the other room. He pictured her standing in the middle of the small galley kitchen amid her collection of antique pitchers and pink Depression glassware. “You almost ready?”

  “Two minutes,” he called back, using the edge of his towel to wipe the steam from the mirror over the sink, seeing his image in the glass blurred and distorted, appearing only to disappear again in the fine mist. How could he just abandon her? he thought, as Mattie’s face superimposed itself across his own. She’d shared his life for almost sixteen years. How could he leave her when she only had a year or two left?

  Or three. Or five.

  How could he leave her to waste away into nothing?

  You’ve already wasted over fifteen years of your own life.

  How could he leave her to die alone?

  We all die alone. Think of your brother. Think of Luke.

  How could he leave her helpless, to choke on her own fear?

  I’ve been slowly strangling to death all my life.

  So, what’s another year, maybe two?

  Or three. Or five.

  How could he go back when he didn’t love her, when he’d finally worked up the courage to leave her?

  You don’t have to love her. You just have to be there for her.

  What kind of man would walk out on her now? What kind of man would that make him?

  Bad boy, Jason. Bad boy, Jason. Bad boy, Jason.

  Badboyjason, badboyjason, badboyjason.

  Mattie had trapped him sixteen years ago, and she was trapping him again today. It didn’t matter that she was dying, that she had no control over the situation, that she didn’t want this any more than he did. The end result was the same. He was trapped. He was being buried alive along with her.

  “Shit, goddamn, son of a bitch, shit!” he shouted, pounding his hand against the mirror, leaving a clear impression of his fist in the dull glaze.

  “Jason, are you okay?” Honey stood in the doorway to the steam-filled room.

  She seemed very far away, Jake thought, afraid that if he looked away, she would disappear altogether. How long would she wait? he wondered. “Honey—”

  “Uh-oh. I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  Jake reached over, took her hands, walked her back into the bedroom, sat with her on the side of the bed. “We have to talk,” he said.

  THIRTEEN

  I don’t want to talk,” Mattie protested loudly, storming from the kitchen in an angry huff. “I already told you that. I thought I made myself very clear.”

  “We don’t have a choice here, Mattie,” Jake said, following her into the living room. “We can’t just ignore what’s happening.”

  “Nothing’s happening.” Mattie began circling the large room like a dog chasing its tail, extending her long arms, keeping her husband a comfortable distance away. She was wearing jeans, an old red sweater, a pair of ratty plaid slippers. He was in his lawyer’s uniform—conservative gray flannel suit, pale blue shirt, darker blue tie. Not an even match, Mattie decided, thinking she should have at least worn proper shoes. Except that she’d been having trouble with her shoes the last several days. She kept catching the toes against the floor, tripping over her feet. Slippers were easier.

  She looked toward the windows that took up most of the living room’s south wall, thinking of the recently drained pool lying outside beneath its protective winter cover, an ugly plastic thing that resembled a giant green garbage bag. Mattie always suffered from a kind of swimmer’s withdrawal in those first few weeks after the pool was closed. This year was worse than most. Maybe next year she’d have the pool enclosed. It would be expensive, she knew, but worth every penny. That way she could swim every day all year long. Jake might balk, but what the hell. Let him balk.

  Mattie was also considering reupholstering the two chairs in front of the window, replacing the gold-and-rose cotton stripes with something softer, maybe velvet, although she’d keep the beige-and-gold patterned wing chair and the floral needlepoint rug. Jake could have the baby grand piano that stood in the southwest corner of the room, unused and ignored since Kim gave up her lessons several years earlier. But she’d fight him tooth and nail for the small bronze Trova statuette that sat beside the piano, the two Diane Arbus photographs on the wall behind it, the Ken Davis painting at right angles to it, and the Rothenberg lithograph that occupied most of the opposite wall above the sofa.

  Wasn’t that why Jake was here? To divvy up the spoils?

  That was what she’d assumed when he called yesterday, said he’d be over at around two this afternoon, that there were some issues they needed to discuss. But then he’d arrived on her doorstep, her doorstep, with a sad smile on his face, the kind of smile that made her want to kick his perfect teeth in, and a hangdog expression on his face that announced the seriousness of his intentions even before he opened his mouth, and she knew this discussion wasn’t going to be about moving forward with their divorce, or deciding who got what. It was going to be a rehash of the last several weeks, more of the same subtle bullying that might work well with juries but didn’t impress her one bit, the trying-to-get-her-to-see-it-his-way gentle pleading, the attempts to force her to face a truth she refused to acknowledge or accept.

  In the last two weeks Jake had called at least once a day; he’d insisted on accompanying her to her doctor’s appointments at Northwest General and the clinic in Lake Forest; he’d run to the drugstore to fill a prescription she told him she had no intention of taking; he’d made himself constantly available to her. In short, he’d suddenly turned into something he hadn’t been during the almost sixteen years of their marriage—a husband. “Go back to the office,” Mattie told him now. “You’re a busy man.”

  “I’m finished for the day.”

  Mattie made no effort to hide her surprise. “God, I really must be sick,” she said.

  “Mattie—”

  “Just a joke, Jake. What they call gallows humor. Anyway,” she continued, before he could interrupt, “if you’re finished for the day, why don’t you spend it with your little friend? I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you home so early.”

  “I’m not going back there,” Jake said, his voice so low Mattie wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “What?” she asked, in spite of herself.

  “I can’t go back there,” he said, subtly altering his words, volunteering nothing further.

  “She kicked you out?” Mattie was incredulous. He’d walked out on her after almost sixteen years for a woman who’d thrown him out after less than three weeks?! And now he expected her to just forget all about his betrayal, to bury her anger and hurt feelings and welcome him back with open arms? My house is your house? Fat chance, buddy. That’s not the way it works.

  “It was a mutual decision,” Jake explained.

  “You decided what, exactly?”

  “That I should come home,” he said.

  “Home,” Mattie repeated. “You’re saying you expect to move back here?”

  “I’m saying I want to move back here.”

  “And why is that?” The sinking feeling in the pit of Mattie’s stomach told her she already knew the answer. He wanted to come back home, not because he loved her, not because he realized he’d made a terrible mistake, not because he wanted to be her husband, not even because his girlfriend had kicked him out, but because he believed she was dying. “This marriage doesn’t need a second opinion, Jake,” Mattie told him angrily. “It’s over, finished, dead and buried. Nothing’s changed since you left.”

  “Everything’s changed.”

  “Oh, reall
y? Do you love me?”

  “Mattie—”

  “Do you know that in over fifteen years of marriage, you never once told me you loved me? Are you trying to tell me that’s changed?”

  Jake said nothing. What could he say?

  “I’ll make this easy for you, Jake. You don’t love me.”

  “You don’t love me,” he countered.

  “So, what are we arguing about? We’re in agreement. There’s no reason for you to come back.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Jake said simply.

  “According to whom?”

  “We both know it’s the right decision.”

  “And you made this decision when, exactly?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for several days now. It finally crystallized for me this morning.”

  “I see. And your girlfriend? When did it crystallize for her?”

  Jake ran his fingers through his dark hair, sank down into the soft cushions of the sofa behind him. “Mattie, none of this is relevant.”

  “You’re not in court now, counselor. I’m the judge here, and I find it very relevant. I direct you to answer the question.”

  Jake looked away, pretended to stare at Ken Davis’s impressionistic rendering of a quiet street corner, the sun glowing pink through leafy summer trees. “We talked it over this morning. She agrees with me.”

  “Agrees with you about what?”

  “That I should be here, with you and Kim.”

  “Your girlfriend thinks you should be home with your wife and daughter. How enlightened of her. And what is she going to be doing while you’re here with your wife and child?”

  Jake shook his head, lifted his hands into the air, as if to say he didn’t know, as if to suggest it was no longer any of his concern.

  “What did you tell her, Jake? I think I have the right to know,” Mattie continued when he didn’t answer.

  “She knows the situation,” Jake said finally.

  “She thinks I’m dying.” Mattie resumed her pacing back and forth in front of her husband, like a caged tiger, angry and ready to strike. “So, what, she’s planning to wait me out, is that it? She figures she can hold on for a year or two, providing I don’t drag it out too long?”

  “She understands that I need to be here.”

  “Yes, she’s very understanding. I can see that. And what? You’ll keep seeing her on the side? Is that the plan? That way she gets to be noble and enlightened and understanding and a slut all at the same time.”

  “For God’s sake, Mattie—”

  “What’s her name, by the way?”

  Mattie saw a slight flicker in Jake’s eyes, recognized it as a sign of indecision. Should he tell her or shouldn’t he? Would it do any good? Would it advance his cause? What would she do with this information? Could she use it against him?

  “Honey,” he answered softly.

  For an instant, Mattie thought he was talking to her. She felt her body sway toward him, her heart quicken, her defenses dissolve.

  “Honey Novak.”

  “What?”

  “Her name is Honey Novak,” he repeated, as Mattie’s body swayed to a stop.

  “Honey,” she said. “Isn’t that sweet. Pardon the pun,” she added, then laughed, a short, manic burst of energy. She was such a fool. One moment of imagined tenderness and she was ready to concede, give in, give up, agree to anything. “Is that her real name?”

  “Apparently it was a childhood nickname that stuck,” Jake said.

  “How appropriate. Honey stuck because Honey’s sticky.” Once again, Mattie heard herself laugh, the sound sharper, more brittle, than the time before. “Honey’s sticky,” she said again, trying to stop the laugh from growing, metastasizing, spreading its poison. But it was as if the laugh existed quite apart from her, as if some alien life form had seized control of her body, and was using her lungs and her mouth to push forth its evil message. She couldn’t stop it. She was its captive audience. “Oh God,” she cried. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” And then she was gasping, gasping for air, gasping for breath, except that there was no air, she couldn’t breathe. An alien force was laughing and gasping and coughing and choking the life right out of her body.

  Instantly Jake was on his feet, surrounding her with his arms, holding her, until Mattie felt the awful sounds start to die in her throat, the coughing shudder to a halt, and her breathing gradually return to normal. Immediately she pulled out of her husband’s arms, took a deep breath, then another, wiped the tears away from her eyes, swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. How long before her hands stopped working? she wondered, panic building inside the pit of her stomach. How long before she was no longer able to wipe away her own tears? Mattie walked over to the piano in the far corner of the room, slammed her hand down hard against the keys. A discordant fistful of sharps and flats shot into the air, howling their protest, like a wolf in the night. “Damn it,” Mattie cried. “Goddamn it to hell.”

  For a moment nobody moved; nobody spoke. Then, “Can I get you anything?” Jake asked, his voice steady, although the color had drained from his face.

  Mattie shook her head, afraid to speak. If she spoke, she’d have to acknowledge what they both already knew: that the test results were conclusive, that she was dying, that Jake was right—everything had changed. “I’m going to Paris in April,” she said finally.

  “That’s good.” The calmness of Jake’s voice was betrayed by the bewilderment in his eyes. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  “I’ve never been to Paris.”

  “You never wanted to go. You never had the time,” Mattie reminded him.

  “I’ll make time.”

  “Because I’m dying,” Mattie said quietly, a statement, not a question.

  “Please let me help you, Mattie.”

  “How can you help me?” Mattie looked at her husband of almost sixteen years. “How can anybody help me?”

  “Let me come home,” he said.

  Mattie sat alone on her living room sofa, slumped down in the same space Jake had occupied earlier, trying to make sense of the afternoon, of the last several weeks, of the last sixteen years, hell, she might as well make that the last thirty-six years while she was at it. She pushed her hair away from her face, wiped away what appeared to be a never-ending supply of tears.

  Her eyes drifted toward the sun-dappled street of Ken Davis’s large oil painting, on the wall to the right of the piano. It was a street much like the one she grew up on, Mattie realized, although this was the first time she’d made the conscious connection. Immediately, she saw a towheaded child of eight come skipping along that sun-filled street, on her way home from Lisa’s house, eager to get home in time for lunch. Her father was taking her to the Art Institute. There was a major exhibition of impressionist paintings he wanted to show her. He’d talked of little else for weeks. Today was the big day.

  Except where was his car? His car wasn’t in the driveway, and it had been there when she went out this morning, just down the street, less than half a block away, to visit Lisa. And now her father’s car wasn’t there, although maybe he had to go out for a few minutes, to pick up something for lunch, and he’d be right back. There was no need to worry. Her father would be back in plenty of time.

  Except that, of course, he didn’t come back. He never came back. Her mother explained that her father had run off with some whore from his office, and although Mattie didn’t understand what her mother meant by “whore,” she knew it meant her father wasn’t going to be back in time to take her to the Art Institute.

  In the weeks immediately following her father’s desertion, Mattie sat by her mother’s side as her mother systematically erased any trace of Richard Gill from the house, disposing of his clothes in boxes she sent to the Salvation Army, burning whatever papers and documents he’d left behind, cutting his face out of each and every family photograph, so that after a while it was as if he’d never existed
at all. Pretty soon, Mattie noticed her mother stopped looking at her as well. “Whenever I look at you, I see your father,” her mother explained testily, shooing Mattie away, busying herself with her new puppy. And so, every day when Mattie came home from school, she raced to the photo albums to make sure she hadn’t been decapitated, that she was still there, her child’s smile assuring her that eventually everything would work out for the best.

  It didn’t. No matter how hard she tried or how desperately she prayed, nothing brought her father back or made her mother love her. Not the grades she received, not the scholarships she won. Nothing she accomplished accomplished anything.

  And what exactly had she accomplished? Mattie thought now, extricating herself from the painting on the far wall, pushing herself off the sofa, shuffling toward the kitchen in her tatty plaid slippers. She’d exchanged one loveless home for another, devoted sixteen years to a man who’d left her for a whore of his own.

  In the end, her life came down to three little words—she was dying. She chuckled, suddenly afraid. Afraid of the sound of my own laughter, Mattie realized sadly. An increasing occurrence.

  Of course, there was still an outside chance the doctors were wrong. Perhaps if she saw another specialist, agreed to undergo more tests, went off to Mexico in search of a cure, she’d find someone who could give her a different prognosis, she’d find the happy ending she’d been searching for all her life. Except that there were no happy endings. There was no cure. There was only a drug called Riluzole. And all it offered was a few extra months. Mattie shuffled across the kitchen and lifted the bottle of pills from the counter.

  “If I take them,” Mattie said out loud, returning the bottle of pills to the white tile countertop, unopened.

  How would her mother react to the news? Mattie wondered, tempted to pick up the phone right now and call her. Would her mother immediately start cutting her face out of the family photographs, or would she begin slowly with Mattie’s feet, moving on to her arms and torso later, mimicking the course of the disease, so that eventually, only Mattie’s head remained?