Goodbye To All That

by Judith Arnold

  “They could see a dubbed version,” Melissa suggested.

  “I don’t like dubbing,” Jill’s mother announced. “The actors’ lips never match the sounds coming out of their mouths.” She sighed. “We didn’t get together with you kids so you could tell us how to not do what we’re planning to do. We’ve already decided. I’m moving out. Your father is staying in the house. We’re keeping the same cell phone service for now, so you can reach me. I’ll let you know once I’ve got a regular phone.”

  “Where is this apartment?” Doug asked.

  “Ten minutes from the house. Fifteen if it’s snowing.”

  “Overlooking a highway,” Jill’s father muttered. “Like a slum.”

  “It’s nothing like a slum,” Jill’s mother protested. “It’s very nice. Clean, secure, ample parking. I’m taking a few pieces of furniture from the house, and I ordered some things at Ikea. It’s a small apartment. I don’t need much.”

  “What about the piano?” Jill asked, swallowing the tremor in her voice. Her mother was the only pianist in the family. She’d tried to teach all three children how to play. Each of them, starting at age six, had spent two years working through piano books with names like “I Can Play” and “Beginner’s Song Book” without showing the merest glimmer of talent. Jill’s mother always said they’d inherited her lack of a mere glimmer, that she was at best a mediocre player and that was why she’d majored in music history rather than performance. But she sounded good to Jill. She played not for glory but for her own sweet pleasure.

  If she moved the piano to her new apartment, that would seem final, some sort of statement.

  “I don’t have room for it in the apartment,” her mother said. “It’s going to stay in the living room for the time being.”

  For the time being. What did that mean?

  Jill’s head hurt from thinking too hard and analyzing too much. She could just picture her mother’s new residence: one of those three-story complexes scattered throughout the suburbs where divorced people lived. Usually fathers, wanting to be within reach of their children, who remained with their mothers in their houses.

  There was no need for Jill’s mother to move into a divorce village. The house was big enough that her mother and father could share it and manage to avoid each other. They could even sleep in separate bedrooms. One of them could eat in the kitchen and one in the dining room. They could divide the refrigerator right down the middle.

  Except that in her own apartment, her mother wouldn’t have to rinse beard hairs down the drain of her bathroom sink.

  It was stupid, really. Yet in some small, dark corner of Jill’s brain, she understood.

  Chapter Six

  Doug wasn’t in the mood to play golf, but he’d rescheduled his and his father’s tee time and arranged to have his mother drive Brooke and the girls home so he could take his father with him to the club after the family powwow. He would have preferred to return home with Brooke, where he could share with her all the thoughts buzzing inside his head like angry mosquitoes. Better to let them escape than have the little demons suck all the blood out of his mind and leave it itching and inflamed.

  But he and Brooke wouldn’t have been able to chat quietly over a drink—a double scotch neat would suit him perfectly right now. Private discussions were impossible when the twins were in the vicinity, bouncing around and babbling. When he and Brooke wanted to have an extended conversation, they waited until after the girls were in bed for the night.

  Should he raise the subject of his parents’ marital situation with his dad during the drive to the golf course? The old man didn’t seem eager to talk. He gazed out the windshield, watching grand suburban houses, knee-high stone walls and fiery autumn foliage blur silently past, and kept his mouth firmly shut, leaving Doug to his own ruminations.

  Instead of contemplating his parents’ foolishness, he contemplated Melissa’s.

  Lucas Brondo. Jesus. The guy resembled a model in an advertisement for a tacky cologne. The only way his tan could have looked phonier was if he’d spray-painted himself with Krylon. A guy who spent time in an ultraviolet coffin in a tanning salon was seriously afflicted with vanity issues—and might eventually find himself seriously afflicted with skin cancer, too.

  What did Lucas Brondo do? Whom did he do it with? Whom did he do it to? If he was a lawyer like Melissa, he sure didn’t look like a laced-up associate bucking for partner. He looked more like a consigliere for the mob, or maybe one of those shysters who negotiated Hollywood contracts and represented movie stars with DUI arrests. That was it: he looked like the sort of shark who would step up to a bank of microphones and assure the gathered paparazzi that his client had checked herself into a discreet rehab facility and hoped her fans would respect her privacy during this difficult time.

  Nearing the club’s parking lot, Doug glanced toward his father, wondering what he had thought of Lucas Brondo. Not much, probably. That Melissa’s new boyfriend wasn’t Jewish was enough to earn Richard Bendel’s undying disapproval. Whether or not Brondo represented starlets with substance-abuse problems or paunchy guys from New Jersey named Nicky the Nose didn’t matter. The guy was a goy. End of discussion.

  Ironically, the first thing of substance his father said, beyond such trivial comments as, “Did you bring extra balls?” and “I hope we’re not stuck playing behind a bunch of schmucks,” was, “What did you think of Melissa’s friend?”

  They were climbing out of the cart at the first hole when he raised the question. Ordinarily, Doug and his father walked the course, but they’d gotten a late start today, and they lacked the time for leisurely strolls along the gravel paths. So Doug had rented a cart.

  He would rather have talked about the far more important topic of his parents’ imminent divorce, or separation, or whatever the hell they were doing. He would have liked to ask his father why he wasn’t fighting harder to keep the marriage intact, why he didn’t seem terribly upset by the prospect of Doug’s mother moving into a shabby little apartment and working at a First-Rate franchise, of all places. As long as he and his father hadn’t been talking, Doug could waste mental energy trying to psyche out Melissa’s new boyfriend. But if they were going to talk, damn it, they ought to talk about the main event.

  Perhaps it would be better if they eased into that subject. They could start with bronze-boy Brondo and gradually maneuver themselves into the issue of the Bendels’ trip to Splitsville. A golfer couldn’t play the second hole before playing the first.

  “I don’t know,” he said, squinting through his sunglasses and then removing them. The sun sat at an angle he wasn’t used to, since they usually started their game earlier in the afternoon, before shadows started to slant across the fairway. “He struck me as kind of superficial. I hardly had a chance to talk to him, but first impression, he seemed shallow.” And much too tan.

  “I thought he was a little faygela,” Doug’s father said. “Not that I’m saying. I mean, your sister’s a wonderful girl, Ivy League education, a terrific job with a prestige law firm. She wouldn’t get involved with a guy who likes boys better than girls. But the guy seemed a little light in the pants.” Doug’s father shrugged, then pulled his one-iron from his bag. “Not that I’m saying,” he repeated, fishing a tee and a ball from the pockets of his bag. “And he isn’t Jewish.”

  “They probably aren’t serious enough to worry about religion,” Doug said.

  “Not serious? She brought him to a family affair. How many times does she bring a man with her to family affairs?”

  “I got the impression she brought him with her because he had access to a car and she didn’t want to take the bus.”

  “Hmmph.” His father teed up and stared down the fairway. “He’s meeting her family, the least he could do is shave.”

  “If he doesn’t shave, she doesn’t have to worry about washing his beard hairs down the sink,” Doug said, then winced as his father sliced his shot.

  His father pressed his l
ips together and stared in the direction his ball had vanished, his gaze hard. Doug was familiar with that look. He’d seen it dozens of times: when he’d convinced a three-year-old Melissa to rub petroleum jelly in her hair. When he’d devoured the chocolate chips his mother had bought to bake cookies for his cub scout troop’s cake sale. When he’d gotten his first speeding ticket. Whenever he let his father down.

  Doug hadn’t let his father down this time, though. If anyone was letting anyone down, Doug’s parents were doing the letting, and Doug was the one being let. So what if the old man had blown his damned swing? All he had to do was rinse his fucking whiskers down the drain and none of this would be happening.

  Doug sighed. His mother wasn’t leaving his father because of the beard hairs. She wasn’t leaving him because of foreign films or the remote control or the mattress. When asked the reason for her decision to break up her marriage, she’d said, “Nothing in particular.”

  “I don’t think Mom really cares about the sink,” Doug said, doing his best to sound conciliatory. He really hated his father’s disapproving expression. It made him feel as if he were sixteen again, or six. “She’s upset, so she’s come up with a laundry list of things to complain about.”

  “Laundry. That’s another one,” his father told him. “She’s leaving because I sometimes put my whites in the colored-laundry hamper, and vice-versa. I’m in a hurry. I don’t remember which hamper is which. She should count her blessings I don’t leave my dirty socks on the floor. Instead, she’s walking out on me because I don’t sort my dirty clothes properly.”

  Doug always left his dirty clothes on the ottoman in the dressing area of the master bedroom suite. He wasn’t even sure where Brooke kept the laundry baskets. He simply piled his laundry on the ottoman, and a short time later it reappeared, clean and folded, in his bureau. Did this make him a bad husband? Would Brooke someday divorce him because of that?

  The possibility sent a tide of anxiety crashing through him. He shook it off, teed up, shrugged to loosen his shoulders and swung, hitting his ball in a clean arc down the fairway. “So Mom’s got her gripes,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve got gripes with her, too.”

  His father remained silent, his gaze lingering on the grassy acreage in front of them.

  “What I didn’t hear today, when we were all at Jill’s house,” Doug continued as they climbed into the cart, “was either you or Mom mentioning the word love.”

  His father snorted. “Love has nothing to do with anything.”

  “How can you say that? If you and Mom loved each other, you wouldn’t be separating.”

  His father continued to stare grimly after his poorly hit ball. “Couples who don’t love each other stay together all the time. And couples who love each other get divorced because they can’t live with each other anymore. Love is irrelevant.”

  “So what’s the deal? You love each other and can’t live with each other anymore?”

  “I can live with her fine,” his father muttered. “She’s the one who’s leaving.” His father crossed to the cart, climbed into the passenger seat and glared at the path in front of him. Doug couldn’t tell whom he was pissed at. His son? His wife? His errant golf ball? The whole world in general?

  Doug had started this conversation. He’d wanted it. As the eldest child, he felt responsible in some intangible way. He ordered himself to stick with it, to keep pushing for some answers from his father.

  He took his place in the cart behind the wheel and steered down the path to where their balls awaited them.

  “All right. She’s the one who’s leaving,” he said. His father didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. “What I haven’t heard you say is that you wished she would stay. I haven’t heard you say you’d try to remember to rinse out the sink for her.”

  His father gave him a quick look, then sighed. “Right. You haven’t heard me say those things.”

  They’d reached their balls, Doug’s sitting in a fine spot with a clear shot to the green, and his father’s nestled beneath a clump of shrubs.

  “You do want her to leave?” Doug pressed his father.

  “Of course not.”

  Doug ignored his ball. He refused to accept his father’s evasions. “You want her to stay but you won’t rinse your beard hair out of the sink?”

  “I don’t want to fight with her. I don’t want to negotiate. I don’t want to drop to my knees and say, ‘Whatever you wish, sweetheart. Whatever you say. Just don’t leave me.’ I’ve got my pride, Doug. I’m not going to beg. Forty-two years we’ve lived one way. Now, all of a sudden, she decides we’re rubbing up against each other too much and she wants to live another way. Why should I have to rearrange my life for her?”

  “Because you’re her husband?” Doug suggested.

  His father marched over to the bushes and nudged his ball out from beneath a tangle of branches and rusting leaves. Doug observed his stroke, thought about reminding him to plant his right leg a little more firmly and decided now wasn’t the time for a tutorial. They played out the hole in steely silence.

  Back in the cart, Doug tried a new approach: “Won’t you be lonely if she’s gone?”

  “I’ll work more hours. I’ll spend less time at home.”

  “Are you going to date?”

  That jolted a response out of his father, who turned so sharply in his seat he nearly fell out of the cart. “Date?”

  “You’re a good-looking guy,” Doug pointed out. “A doctor. Women will line up for a chance to be with you.”

  Doug’s father twisted back in his seat and muttered something unintelligible. “Why should I date? I might wind up with some other crazy lady who’ll torture me if I don’t rinse out the sink.”

  “Couples who separate see other people,” Doug said, as if he was any kind of expert. He had some defiantly single friends, mostly from college and med school, and plenty of married friends in the social circle Brooke did such an excellent job of cultivating. Divorced friends, no. When people divorced they left the social circle. They left the neighborhood and moved to Phoenix or Tallahassee, where, he assumed, they dated.

  “I’ve been approached,” his father admitted.

  “Approached?” This time it was Doug’s turn to spin toward his father in shock. His hands followed his body and the cart veered off the path. Doug swiftly steered it back onto the gravel and refrained from gaping at his father. He just gaped in general. “Approached by a woman, you mean?”

  “Women. Plural.”

  Doug might have expected a woman here or there to come on to his father, but women? Plural?

  “I get someone’s blood pressure under control and she’s grateful. Or someone’s husband has cardiomyopathy, he’s probably not going to make it, she’s scared and looking for comfort. Or the nurses. They come, they go, they flirt. You know what it’s like, Doug. You’re a doctor.”

  “My patients have lousy vision,” he reminded his father, hoping he didn’t sound as peeved as he felt. Why were women coming on to his father and not him? He had a busy practice, and he was a hell of a lot younger than his father. Not that his father wasn’t in great shape, but come on. Doug was in his prime.

  Maybe women did come on to him, and he just didn’t notice. His antennae were retracted. He had Brooke at home; why check out other women?

  Had his father ever felt that way about his mother? Ruth Bendel was nice enough looking for a woman in her sixties, but she wasn’t Brooke. Had his father ever felt, as Doug did, that it couldn’t get any better than this?

  What if Doug was wrong? What if it could get better?

  “It’s been so long since I went on a date,” his father said. “I wouldn’t know what to do. Am I supposed to pay, or does everyone go Dutch these days?”

  “I think that’s a little un-PC,” Doug said.

  “What is? Paying for a date?”

  “The phrase ‘going Dutch.’ It’s offensive to people in Holland.”

  His father huffed. “God for
bid I should offend anyone in Holland. I don’t want to date,” he said, sounding oddly fatigued. “I’m figuring with your mother, one month at First-Rate and she’ll be ready to come home. She’s going to be bored. She’s going to panic the first time her coffee maker doesn’t work or her tires need air in them. Or when she tries to connect the DVD player to her television. Or any time she has to do one of the things I always do for her while she’s busy cleaning the sink. She’ll say, ‘Well, that was fun but now I’m going home.’”

  Doug wasn’t so sure. He could imagine his mother freaking out if an appliance stopped working—but he could also imagine her phoning him or Gordon and asking for assistance more easily than he could imagine her giving up and returning to her husband in defeat. His mother was a stubborn woman.

  And forty-two years was an awfully long time to be washing someone else’s beard hairs down the drain without a word of thanks.

  HE DIDN’T GET HOME until after seven. He and his father had played all eighteen holes, then retired to the club house for a drink. Doug had nursed a scotch while his father had knocked back two whisky sours. By the time his father had swallowed the liquor-soaked maraschino cherry from his second drink, Doug had learned that his father was panic-stricken about having to prepare his own dinner every night—“I could do take-out, but that gets expensive over time, and all those fast-food places use too much sodium, I’ll wind up with blood pressure problems”—and irritated when he thought about the one-carat-total-weight diamond stud earrings he’d given his wife for her birthday some years ago, and worried when he thought about how the separation might affect Abbie’s bat mitzvah. “That’s eight months away,” he’d lamented, sounding more maudlin the more he drank. “I hope to God we’re back together by then. Abbie shouldn’t have any sadness on her special day.”

  Brooke had left the outside lights on for Doug. Four post lamps stood in intervals along the curving driveway that led from the street to the garage. Two matching wall lanterns flanked the front door, and two more hung above the outer two garage doors. He slid his car into the middle bay and directed a prayer of thanks toward the ceiling that he had a wife waiting for him, one who cared enough about him to leave the lights on when he rolled in later than expected.