“I had a call this morning from a friend of mine who works at Continental Travel Agency downtown. She knows you and Larry are separated—and that you and I are friends. She said she thought I should tell you that Larry came in yesterday and booked a trip for two to some fancy resort hotel in St. Bart’s. They’re going to the Caribbean next week.”
Mallie was stupefied. Somehow she managed to thank Jenny for the call and said she had to think about it, that she would get back with her later.
In spite of her three month separation from Larry, Mallie felt blindsided. Never mind all her musings about the possibility of divorce, she still lived in the limbo of indecision. She had not yet met with a lawyer, and as far as she knew, neither had Larry. Even after the Faith at Work conference and all the positive feedback about new beginnings, she had not been able to fully see herself as a divorced woman. When Larry left home, he said it was “to get my life together, to try to work things out.” He had made that statement in front of her and the boys. A week later, Sammy had called Mallie from St. George’s School and told her that his dad had assured him on the phone that he would probably not get a divorce. The whole idea of Larry going to the Caribbean with another woman—no doubt that woman named Julie—felt like a final betrayal to Mallie. She wondered if Tom Matthews knew about the trip. She knew that Larry was still counseling with him on Thursdays—and recently Terry had told her that Tom had also started counseling sessions with Julie. The more Mallie thought about Larry’s jaunt to the Caribbean, the angrier she grew. Larry obviously had no intention of “working things out.” If he planned to take Julie to St. Bart’s, that would prove his real intentions. It would make their separation a sham. Maybe it was not true. Somehow she would have to see Larry herself. She had to know the truth.
Before she could make any serious plans to try to find Larry, she had to fix dinner for the boys. It was a school night and she always tried to have dinner for them promptly at six. Fortunately, she had stopped at the Krystal for burgers and french fries on her way home, so dinner was ready made.
It was an unusually hot day in late April, hot enough to close the windows and turn on the air conditioning. For several minutes, as she set the table and put the meal together, Mallie began mentally putting together a plan. First of all, she would have to change her clothes. She had on her pale pink linen suit, one of her best board meeting outfits. She would take a shower and change into a sleeveless cotton sundress, something comfortable and casual. Once the boys were settled into doing their homework, she would drive over to Larry’s apartment. Maybe he would not be at home. The more frightening thought was that he would be at home. She could not imagine exactly what she would say to him. She would have to trust that the right words would come to her.
A little after eight, Mallie turned the key in her Plymouth station wagon. She knew where Larry’s apartment was located in Laurelwood. She had dropped off and picked up the boys there several times in the past few months, but she had not been inside. Her car radio was tuned to a rock station, the one she listened to when she drove carpools. She turned it off. She drove in silence, her mind filling the void with a cacophony of conflicting, threatening possibilities. There was a chance that Larry would lie about the trip and she would have to confront him with the facts. There was also a possibility that he would readily admit he had planned it. He might even say that he was taking Julie with him. If he admitted it, that would break their impasse. How ridiculous, Mallie thought, there was no impasse. There never was any hope of “working it out.” She had to question the real reason why she was going to his apartment and not just calling him on the telephone and telling him it was over. She wanted to see his face when she told him she knew about the trip.
There were no lights on in Larry’s apartment—at least, from what she could see in the windows—but his light gray Audi was in the driveway. She banged once on the brass doorknocker. Moments later, just before she banged it again, a light flashed on the porch. The door opened and Larry stood in front of her in his pale blue Brooks Brothers cotton pajamas and bare feet.
“Mallie.” He spoke her name as if he were identifying a long lost friend in an unexpected place.
She stood speechless. She never expected to find him in pajamas. They looked at each other for several seconds.
“Do you want to come in?” He ran his fingers through his tousled hair and then added, “I’ve had a really tough week. I thought I’d go to bed early. I was reading.” He did not say: Why are you here? or Is anything wrong?—just a simple, semi-cordial invitation to come in to his apartment—and a feeble attempt at explaining his attire.
“Larry, you know why I’m here,” Mallie said, as she came through the door.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t the slightest idea.” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Want to sit down?”
“Well,” she said, standing next to the door that automatically closed behind her, “I suppose you thought I’d never find out about your little trip to St. Bart’s.”
Larry’s body tensed under his lightweight cotton pajamas. His expression did not change. He sat down in the closest living room chair and said nothing.
“I suppose you’re taking Julie with you,” Mallie said. There was no point in leaving it up to him to speak the truth.
“Maybe I am,” he said. “I need to get away for a few days.”
Mallie felt a furor beyond anything that she had previously experienced. She wanted to bellow out like her father, Goddammit Larry! How could you do this? But instead, she said, “You know what this means.”
“What?” He looked like a child, holding some loose change he had taken from his mother’s purse, denying he had taken it. He had no idea how the silver coins came to be in his hand.
“It means that this separation time is over. It’s a lie.”
Larry said nothing.
“Say something, Larry,” she said. “What were you thinking? You need to get away? How could you do this?”
“I’m sorry, Mallie,” he said, his voice low. He did not look at her. “What else can I say? I’m sorry.”
There was no denial, no explanation, no fight.
Mallie realized she hardly knew the person sitting across the room. The man she married, the handsome, always well-dressed, well-spoken, life of the party—the person everyone thought had the greatest potential in business and in life—the father of her boys, her friend and her lover—was a stranger in cotton pajamas and bare feet. He appeared to be uninterested in defending himself or his behavior, except to say, “I’m sorry.”
Despite her underlying lack of confidence in who she was or how her future might unfold without Larry, Mallie knew that the separation was over. She would call a lawyer. She would file for divorce.
Chapter Twenty-three
When the news was out that Mallie and Larry were definitely getting a divorce, Cindy Morgan called her to say, “Don’t you worry for a second, Mallie, honey, you’ll be married again within a year.” Cindy was not the only one of Mallie’s friends to assure her that the right man would appear for her in no time. Every time someone said those words, Mallie felt a seismic shift, a disconnect from her friends. She knew she was on a different path. Where that path was leading she had no idea. She couldn’t explain those thoughts to Cindy or even to herself. She just knew that her most pressing concern was not finding another husband. She needed to find herself. She needed to find a way to make her life meaningful and to figure out how to believe in herself without being “a wife.” She needed to talk to Tom Matthews.
On Tuesday afternoon, Tom agreed with Mallie that before ever thinking of another man in her life, she needed to think about making a good life by herself. His specific concern followed her explanation that there would not be enough alimony to allow her any choices beyond paying the most basic expenses for herself and the boys.
“I will obviously need a job,” Mallie said. But even as she said it, she realized that no one would hire her without any real work exp
erience—the volunteer jobs and board positions she held would not account for much. She only had three years of college. Thinking about the possibilities of a job was as remote and abstract as preparing for a possible earthquake within the New Madrid fault—Memphis was sitting on that fault—or making a plan for her old age. The idea sounded right and logical, something she should do, but she had no clue as to how it might work or what form it would take.
To make the financial matters more complicated, Mallie explained to Tom, Larry had apparently taken out a mortgage on their house. For a number of years, maybe as many as ten or twelve, Mallie’s father had been the owner of their house and Larry had paid rent to him. When the tax advantage presented itself, her father had deeded the house over to both of them. She had no recollection of ever signing the paper that Larry’s lawyer produced to prove that she must have known about the mortgage.
Other than her frustrating attempts through the years to make her allowance from Larry last a whole month, she had little knowledge of their true financial picture. She never understood what happened to all of his salary. Only once did she look at one of his bank statements and was shocked at a large overdraft notice. Larry had an explanation and assured her it had been taken care of. She never looked at another statement or asked again.
In all their years of marriage, she had known nothing about taxes or insurance and had no money in her own name. No credit card. It was obvious, even to her naïve understanding of their monetary situation, that Larry’s salary would be problematic to divide for each of them to live apart. They had difficulty enough staying within its boundaries together.
Larry’s financial offer to her included sole ownership of the house—assuming the mortgage payments, of course—and all its contents. The idea was intended to disturb the boys’ lives as little as possible. Larry would give her an amount of monthly alimony that would allow her to pay basic expenses as best she and her lawyer could calculate them. He would pay for the boys’ education—except for the St. George’s tuition for Sammy, which Larry’s parents supplied—and all of their medical expenses. There would be nothing else to share with her.
Before Tom could ask any further questions or make comments, she said, “Another possibility might be to sell the house, pay off the mortgage, buy something much smaller—live more simply—and go back to school. I’ve always wanted to go back to art school. Maybe get my master’s degree.”
Tom got a quizzical look on his face. “Really?” he said. “What a wonderful idea. I know we’ve talked about your time studying art in Italy—how much you loved it. Going to art school is a grand idea.”
Mallie remembered feeling embarrassed at Tom’s suggestion that she was an artist. She revered artists as the truly gifted people of the world. When she was growing up, she secretly believed that she might be a great artist someday—like her Aunt Valeria—but she had given the idea up and willingly chosen a family instead. When she had questioned her ability, Tom had assured her that “Once an artist, always an artist.”
As if it were only yesterday, she saw herself immersed in her daily life at the Villa Mercedes in Florence. She felt both the simplicity and complexity of her time there. Visions and sounds floated through her mind: the view of the red rooftops and the Duomo from the expansive property on the hilltop of Bellesguardo, the bustle of the city below, the roar of Vespas, the clacking of streetcars. She felt the regal presence of the ancient stone sculptures calming every busy piazza. She recalled the studio where she touched the wet paper with a wet brush and watched the color spread out, taking on a life of its own. She closed her eyes to feel the recurrent sense of magic that had taken over her life for all of those months. Except for desperately missing Larry in the beginning, Mallie’s life in Florence had been perfect. It was the only time she could ever remember that she had no thoughts of anyone but herself, her surroundings and her art.
“I guess I always wanted to believe I would go back to my own art someday,” she said. “I talked about it a little when I was at Faith at Work. Maybe the right time has come.”
Tom smiled. “I can’t think of a better time,” he said, “or anything better to do with your time.”
Mallie assured him that she would think seriously about it.
She was becoming anxious. Too much talk. The routine they had established during the months of counseling sessions was to spend about half the time talking, usually twenty minutes or so, at the beginning, enough time to run through all the issues that she often felt had been exploding inside her during the week, and then, after he managed to diffuse them—as he always did—they would spend the remainder of the hour on the couch embracing. All she wanted at the moment was for Tom to hold her. It was what she dreamed about all week.
Often, during the endless nights at home alone, unable to wait for Tuesday, she composed long letters to Tom. She wrote paragraphs—occasionally lines of poetry—devoted to her romantic thoughts about him. In one letter she told him of a blissful early morning dream that the two of them were sea otters, rolling and tumbling in the cool Pacific waters. She found it easier to pour out her feelings on paper rather than speak the words to him face to face. Occasionally she slipped the papers in a sealed envelope under his door before the chapel opened for the day.
Mallie reached over to put her face against his. He took off his glasses and pulled her toward him. She floated into his lap and drew in the smell of his skin and the softness of his mouth the way she thought some people might inhale cigarettes, pulling the stimulant down deep into her body. Nothing else mattered in those moments of intimacy. She would readily have taken off every stitch of clothing and given herself to Tom. She knew that was not going to happen. Early on he had firmly advised her of his limitations. As much as he would like to make love to her, he said, under the circumstances, he could not—would not—ever—let that happen. In spite of his pronouncement, spoken with such earnestness, she felt a new level of desire for him—and of being desired by him. The way he kissed her—the urgency, the tenderness—made her believe with all her heart that Tom wanted to make love to her, but that, as a married man, he was taking the only moral stand he could. However contrary to every thing she had criticized about Larry’s behavior, she did not allow herself to question her own moral stand.
Chapter Twenty-four
For the remainder of the week following her Tuesday afternoon in Tom Matthews’s study, Mallie relived and rethought every moment. Alone in the car, as if she were in a psychology class, she analyzed his every word and gesture. Over and over she heard him say that he could not make love to her “under the circumstances.” That statement was hard to rationalize. She could admit and understand that he was a married man—and a priest—and her counselor—but his embraces were so loving, and so romantic. And yet it all seemed so contradictory. How could she make sense of it? The connecting hinge always came back to the fact that whenever she said she loved him, he told her that he loved her, too.
What she knew for certain was that when she was in his arms, she felt that she was once again a desirable, seductive woman. She would give anything, anything on earth, to know that she would someday make love to him and be with him—really with him—all the time. Surely the circumstances could change. She knew ministers who were divorced and remarried. The men who spoke at Faith at Work, for instance. Keith Miller and Dave Stoner were both divorced, and she had recently heard that Dave was remarried. But Tom was a highly respected Episcopal priest in Memphis. He was known for his integrity, as well as his intelligence. Occasionally, when he held Bible study classes at the cathedral, many of the most important businessmen and lawyers in Memphis came to hear him. He had counseled countless couples and individuals, all of whom, she imagined, admired him. And furthermore, he would never leave a wife with multiple sclerosis—or his three children. Mallie felt guilty for even imagining that he would do such a thing. She, of all women, who had suffered for so many years with the pain of doubt over the “other women” in her husband’
s life—how could she have even thought of Tom betraying his family? He had often told her how much he loved his son and his twin girls, how he had gone to his son’s graduation from the Indiana University and been so proud of his magna cum laude degree. The boy was now in his second year of Emory Law School. The girls were seniors at Memphis State University, one in psychology and the other a math whiz. Lauren, the math whiz, would be the one, he told her, who would, if anyone could, help him to get his papers organized. Tom had written pages of his doctoral research material in longhand on yellow legal pads, then hunted-and-pecked his writing on a typewriter. He had ten years’ worth of notes stuffed into drawers of his desk.
A history buff all his adult life, Tom had been working on completing his doctoral thesis about Andrew Jackson’s place in American history. Besides his fascination with Jackson’s military record and the political issues of his presidency, Tom was moved by the untimely death of his “illegitimate” wife, Rachel.
As a result of their discussions, Mallie had spent time in the public library looking up further information about Rachel Jackson. She discovered the pitiful details of Rachel’s demise in a dress store in Nashville, trying on ball gowns for her husband’s presidential inauguration. Rachel was said to have overheard two women talking loudly in the dressing room next to her, disparaging her for marrying Andrew Jackson without obtaining a divorce from her first husband. It was apparently of no concern to them that Rachel’s first husband had abandoned her. The women called her a whore. “Imagine having that harlot in the White House!” one of them said. Poor Rachel fainted in the dressing room and never quite recovered. She died before the inauguration and, therefore, never spent a night in the White House.
Mallie became consumed with the cruel criticism of Rachel Jackson. Somehow the thought reminded her of her own life. She imagined that if her friends in Memphis knew of her love for Tom, they might accuse her of being a harlot like Rachel. After all, Tom was a married man, and she was still married to Larry. But no one knew. It was her secret.
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