Love Is a Canoe

by Ben Schrank

  Emily glared at Eli. “Say what you want to say and we’ll see if what we’re doing is fighting.”

  “So now it’s a test.”

  “Fucking talk, Eli! Not just Jenny? What are you talking about? How is this healing? This is bloodletting. You are so stupid!”

  “Thanks,” Eli said with a nod. “Thank you for reminding me that you feel that way about me.”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize,” Emily said.

  “That didn’t feel much like an apology. And Peter.” Eli jutted his chin at Peter. “Here’s Peter, with his book, which I read, and his okay marriage that we just heard about. He believes you can save anything. So save me. I cheat. We’ve been together over five years and I have slept with other women. It’s something I do. Women like me! I want to stop. I want to settle down with you. I think that’s what I want.”

  “You think that’s what you want.” Emily’s voice was very low. “I am going to sit very still and I will continue to hold Peter’s hand now. I hope that’s okay with you.”

  “I can hold hands,” Peter said. “But I am not at all happy with how this is going.”

  “Fine,” Eli said. “You do what you need to do. I love you but it’s like I can’t access you! You just want this ideal thing, this bullshit he keeps talking about. And it’s not real to me. It never has been. But I see how other people are and I want to please you so I say yes to you, but at the same time—”

  “You found an outlet elsewhere. Several.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I did. Jenny, she doesn’t care about this marriage stuff, this conventional stuff.”

  “And it’s because I’m controlling. I control everything. You don’t like that, do you?”

  “Yeah. I don’t.”

  “You don’t like it. You don’t even like me! Why should I forgive you for that? You don’t like me! Why should I forgive you?”

  “You don’t have to. This is impossible. I don’t even know why I’m here. I should go.”

  “So you’re leaving,” Emily said.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Peter said. “That won’t be necessary.” Peter looked fully at Eli. Eli would not stop staring at his wife. Peter could entirely imagine Eli angrily driving back to New York. Eli was setting himself up for that outcome. Peter could see it. The worst thing that could happen! The very worst.

  “Let’s slow down,” Peter said. Emily still clutched his hand and he moved it, gently. But Emily wouldn’t let him go. He said, “Can you both please find a memory of a happy time you had together? Let’s talk about that. And then if I can, I will match your memories to a chapter from my book.”

  “You called Jenny from your run, didn’t you?”

  Eli shook his head. He said, “You sought me out. You came after me. You fit me into your story. I hate that, how you explain us to ourselves. But I want this to work. I am saying I want this to work.”

  “How can you say that? You’re not even making any sense! And what you’re saying I did isn’t even bad. If you loved me, you would be happy with how I am. I don’t forgive you, not for Jenny and certainly not for any part of what you’ve said tonight. Other women? How many other women?”

  “That’s not the point.” Eli breathed in deeply. “I won’t list them.”

  “But you’ve been trying so hard this fall? Which is the truth, Eli? Has today just been too much? Is that what it is? Are you emotionally exhausted?”

  “Today would be a challenge to any man,” Peter said, quickly.

  “No,” Eli said. “You are denying what I really am. You want me to fit into something and I don’t fit. I want to. I try all the time. Today I was all crumpled up and I was trying to fit. But I don’t.”

  Emily let Peter’s hand drop. She said, “I want you to get out!”

  Eli stood up. He said, “You’re going to stay here?”

  “If he’ll have me.”

  They both stared at Peter, there at the head of the table.

  Peter said, “This isn’t what any of us intended. We can still dial back from this moment. Let’s please try.”

  “Not what we intended?” Eli asked. “Who cares? Life doesn’t work that way.”

  “Please stay,” Peter said. “And I will help you navigate toward a better place.”

  “He shouldn’t stay if he doesn’t want to,” Emily said. “He’s a liar. He’s been talking to Jenny all through this. I understand that now. He lies to me and he lies to himself.”

  “No.” Eli shook his head. Peter frowned and thought, She’s right. Eli lies to her. Because from moment to moment, he does not know what he is.

  Emily turned to Peter. She said, “I can just imagine. Everyone saw him on the phone outside the room. Running in circles and talking to another woman. Everyone at the inn saw him do it. I don’t want to go back there! This is humiliating!”

  “Most of me wants to fix this,” Eli said.

  “I’d tell you again that you’re lying,” Emily said. “But I’m beginning to realize that would mean you have some idea inside of you of what the truth is. And you don’t.”

  “How does that make me different than him?” Eli jutted his chin at Peter.

  “I didn’t say it did. Maybe I’m wrong to love him, too. To love his book. But that mistake doesn’t hurt as much. Because he’s not threatening to walk out on me. He’s not standing up and glaring at me. I married you. You’re my husband. Obviously, I don’t control you. Leave or stay. Up to you.”

  “Stay,” Peter said. “You both know there’s a way out of this.”

  “Not together there’s not,” Eli said. “She’s right. Half the time I’m fooling myself.”

  “Then go,” Emily said. “I’ll get a bus back, or something. I’ll find my way back. Please just go.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “That’s what you want, Eli. Run. You want to run.”

  “Stop telling me what I want!”

  “Just please go.” Emily stood up and went out of the dining room. Peter listened to her steps, her sudden uncertainty about where to go. Then he imagined she must have seen the bathroom under the stairs so she ran inside and locked the door. Eli didn’t move from where he stood. Peter did not get up from his chair.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Eli said. “I want you to know that I’m sorry. You did good. You created a safe space.”

  Peter didn’t say a word. Slowly, he stood up.

  “Why don’t you take five minutes to yourself,” Peter said. “I believe you two can make up. If you like, I’ll go upstairs or into the kitchen while you do it. Then she’ll come out and you two can reconnect.”

  “Can I ask why you think we can fix it?”

  “It’s like I said. I was with other women, too, during my marriage. My wife suffered because of it. It was the wrong way to be. But we got through it.”

  Eli nodded. He said, “I’m sorry. Your book is really nice. But your marriage doesn’t sound so great. Shake my hand?”

  Peter put out his hand. But Eli bent in and quickly hugged him. And Peter felt suddenly suspicious of Eli, suspicious of this meaningless masculine hug. Peter walked with him to the front hallway. Eli went quickly out of the house and down the steps. He started his car and eased it out of the driveway in one smooth, purposeful motion, like a river that’s suddenly able to breach its dam.

  Peter went back to the dining room. He stared down at the plates but didn’t touch them. He blew out the candles. He thought, The jig is up. Should’ve stuck with talking about nothing but the goddamned book.

  He went to wait for Emily in the living room. He found the bottle of scotch there and poured an ounce into a fresh glass thinking, This is just circumstance. The bottle happened to be here. I wasn’t looking for it. He sat down and waited for her. He would not go and bother her from the other side of the bathroom door since he knew from experience that that would only make a woman cry harder. Twenty minutes passed before she came out and sat down in the soft chair near his, which Lisa
had used.

  “I saw him go from the bathroom window,” she said. “The only thing I can stand to think right now is what are we going to tell them? We can lie about it to whoever you’re reporting all this to. To that awful girl, Stella. I’ll lie to her, no problem. The last thing I need is her asking me questions.”

  “That doesn’t matter. We’ll figure all that out later.”

  “Wait, I want to say something. I’m not going to suggest that even though this happened, you still have all the answers,” she said. “I understand that you don’t. But no matter what, you mean so much to me. You signify something important, you and your book. You can’t deny that.”

  Peter tried to smile at her. He thought, Can a single day go by when I’m not told what I can and can’t do? He said, “Let’s not worry about me just now, and what I am or am not.”

  He looked through the window out at the dark of his driveway and was surprised that Emily’s husband really wasn’t there. He was reminded of when he walked out on Maddie and Henry a few weeks ago at the inn. He shook his head. If a man believes he might be cornered, he will run.

  “He’s not at the inn,” Emily said. “I called there. I’m sorry. I apologize for staying so long in the bathroom. I tried to call my sister, too, but she’s working. She’s an actor and in this play she’s in she has to wear a harness because at the end of the play she floats above the stage, and it takes a while to put it on because it’s a safety issue. She should be the one listening to me now.”

  “What about your parents? Your mother?”

  “I’ll call her later. She didn’t want this. I’m not ready for how she might react.”

  “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll bring you your wine.” He went to the dining room and found her glass and the bottle, and when he returned to place it on the table next to her, he found that she was curled up in the chair.

  “You need a blanket.” He went and got the soft blanket that lived on the window seat and put it over her. She reached out with one hand and he took it and kneeled in front of her. She drank from her glass as she stared at him. When he saw she was still and not shaking, he moved away from her and kneeled in front of the fireplace. He lit the kindling under the logs that were already there and then sat down, facing the fire. There were dim lights on all over the first floor of the house.

  “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she said. “I’m a nice person! You don’t understand that because you’ve only seen me one way. But I’m not an awful controlling person. I’m, like, solid. I do not let people down.”

  “I know that you are a nice person,” he said. The fire caught. He eased himself back into his chair.

  “I wanted him to love me the same way I loved him. To be as in love with me as when we were first together. You know, to live out the promise we made to each other. Just like you say. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You know it isn’t,” Peter said. “It’s just—if I can be completely honest, then I would say that it sounds like this life you built was one that he couldn’t … He didn’t fit into it.”

  “But you’re not so different than him. How did you manage?”

  Peter looked at the floor. “I don’t suppose that I always did manage. Look, you know what you want. And he couldn’t give it to you. You’re a wonderful woman. If he runs, he runs. No one ought to have to chase a man who runs away.”

  “I can’t believe we came to you to learn about how to have true love and a happy marriage and he ran.”

  “I’m just damned sorry you got hurt,” Peter said. “Nobody wanted that. Believe me.”

  She had begun to stare at him and he wished she would stop. He knew what all that staring meant.

  She said, “Do you have a story about true love? Can you tell me one? I need that.”

  “I told you my book isn’t about true love. It’s about how to have a good marriage. They’re a bit different, don’t you think?”

  She sighed deeply and he could see the disappointment in her face, see it in her stare. She had been so happy this afternoon. And now he watched her as she listened to him say things that meant nothing.

  She said, “Tell me a story anyway, please. Something that isn’t in the book.”

  Peter looked away from her. The room had gotten warmer. He knew he ought to only fill the silence but he could not help himself. He talked about his own past. He said, “Imagine a couple in New York. It’s fall. They are falling in love. But the man believes he has obligations elsewhere. They are walking in midtown, holding hands…” He went on about a couple who come apart because the man runs. He tried to soften the story’s landing, to show that any love is worth something, to blur the sad end so this night would end in a way that was equally blurry. He did hope Emily would somehow fix her marriage. He was not sure that she could, but he hoped so all the same.

  “So they just end it?” Emily asked. “But you stayed with your wife. You were married to her forever.”

  “That’s true. I was,” Peter said. He went away from her, to the fire, and pushed the logs apart. He was angry at himself, again, for letting her push him beyond the simple message he was supposed to share. Though he couldn’t stop now. He said, “Nobody meant tonight to be like this. It was supposed to be … good-natured palliatives. Not this.”

  Emily had her head in her hands. She mumbled, “Well, there you go. What do you know?”

  “What do you know.”

  “We blew up,” Emily said. “We were so careful and then we blew up.”

  “It’s late. I’ll call you a cab. If your love is real and true he’ll come back and you’ll fix it together. I can tell you that for sure.”

  Emily went wide-eyed and searched his face. He wished she’d stop it but he didn’t want to say that aloud. He went to call a cab and he could feel her gaze following him.

  She called after him, “Peter? But isn’t that … isn’t what you just said kind of obvious? He’ll come back or he won’t?”

  Peter winched his mouth down. “Look, nobody ever said I was a genius. In fact, they mostly said the opposite. Let’s go in the front hall, where we can see the driver’s headlights.”

  Once they were standing, he reached out and hugged her. He said, “Your sweater reminds me of one my wife made. Hang on.”

  He went into the hall closet and found the big sky-blue sweater flecked with white and gray that his wife wore on cool evenings. It was folded neatly and he was glad he hadn’t donated it with everything else. He’d meant to give it to Belinda but he kept forgetting. Belinda wouldn’t mind. He would tell her the story of what happened with this foolish contest and she would understand.

  “Do you want to stay here for the night? In my daughter Belinda’s room?” He handed her the sweater. “Actually, I see it’s nothing like the one you’ve got on. But my wife made it herself. Here, take it.”

  “It’s beautiful. I can’t stay here. If I stayed here tonight, I would never want to leave.”

  Her eyes were full now and instead of the disappointed stare, she was crying.

  “You’re exhausted by all this. And so this is the one thing I can give you. The rooms at the inn can be drafty. She loved this sweater.”

  “He’s not out there, behind me. Is he?”

  “There’s just the cab, coming up the driveway.”

  Peter hugged her again. She quaked into his chest and shoulder.

  Emily, Winners’ Weekend, November 2011

  In the cab on the way back to the inn, she twisted the thick sweater around her neck. She wondered why she had refused to spend the night in Belinda’s bedroom. It would be better there than in the room she’d just shared with Eli.

  They hadn’t gotten to talk about that special summer with his grandparents, and what it was really like. Another regret. She almost told the driver to turn around. But no.

  She watched the slump-backed cabdriver fumble with his cell phone. She listened to him call his wife to say he would see her soon. And she felt the first bite of
her new state. But no. She was not really alone. Not yet. She felt that if she could find a distance, she could see herself as only the victim of an oddball prank, a misguided marketing attempt. Unfortunately, she had blindsided herself and everyone else by denying how deeply troubled her marriage was.

  The inn was quiet when she slipped inside. The young man in a too-big white shirt and floppy red tie who’d handed over her key was on the phone, murmuring to a girlfriend. He didn’t look at her. This was madness! Madness crept along with her on her walk up to the empty bedroom at the top of the second flight of stairs.

  Once inside the room, she took off her coat but kept the big sweater wrapped around her neck. She sat in one of the big chairs by the window and waited. She hadn’t checked the parking lot to see if their car was there. Eli might be … what? Sleeping in it? She looked out there. No car. She got up and found her cell phone. Eli had been calling her. She held the phone and didn’t move, curled back up in the big chair and closed her eyes and fell asleep. A phone rang and she looked around, confused by the foreign ring of the room phone. She answered.

  “I’m sorry,” Eli said. “This is all my fault. I love you and I will always regret how I treated you. I’m so sorry. It’s entirely my fault. Although I recognize that this is part of my journey, I know there were missteps along the way. Those missteps hurt other people. They hurt you. Even with just hours apart, I can see that. But I want you to know I tried so hard.”

  “Your journey?” she asked. She thought he sounded as if he were working from a script that someone else had written for him. She silently admitted that there had been something the matter with his language for days now. She had not allowed herself to grow suspicious.

  “Okay,” she said. “That is all really great to know. Thanks.” She hung up. Jenny Alexandretti is one hell of a bad writer, she thought.

  Someone else would have left him long ago. Emotionally unavailable. Cheated on her. Didn’t love her back. An incredibly attractive and charming man. Legs thick as old tree trunks. But after the first moments of love, moments that she now understood belonged more to her than to them, he had never picked her up and carried her anywhere. Never biked her anywhere. Now he had run away. How dare he be sorry.