The Mighty Queens of Freeville

by Amy Dickinson

  When I was first falling in love, I’d sit in the bathtub, slowly soaking, reviewing the events of the night before. What he said. What I said. His crinkly eyes. How I made him laugh. Did he say “I love you” or was it, “I’m in love with you”? God, which was it? When I was falling in love, decoding the difference between those two statements was a full-time job.

  When my marriage was ending, I’d sit in the tub quietly sobbing, hoping that I didn’t wake the baby and wondering if secondhand smoke would seep under the door and get into her baby lungs. I’d just taken up smoking again, because if I was going to get divorced, then I might as well be a smoking, blousy divorcée, a Joan Crawford divorcee.

  We lived in London at the time, or as my mother used to call it, “London, En gland.” Living in a foreign country while you are getting divorced must be worse than living in your home country while you are getting divorced. Living in London, with its alienating plumbing and bowlegged furniture, was the worst of all.

  I wanted two things when I first learned that my marriage was ending. First, I wanted it not to end. And second, I wanted for others to share a complete and interior knowledge of my heartbreak, followed by demonstrable grief. While there might be tiny streets tucked away somewhere in London where this sort of behavior is both possible and tolerated, they remain like Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter novels—attended by witches and warlocks and mysteriously hidden from view for the rest of us.

  Like most Americans who live in jumping-off overseas posts, my husband traveled a lot for work, and he was gone much of the time. I lived in London because he lived in London, but unlike him I didn’t have a job there. When I was asked what I did, which was infrequently, I said that I was a house wife. But I was less a house wife than a woman living on my own in a foreign country for no apparent reason.

  We lived in a rented flat with rented furniture until I became pregnant and freaked-out and then we bought (he bought) an apartment and furniture. And more furniture. And paintings. And rugs.

  Shopping was my husband’s favorite sport. He frequented galleries and stores the way the other husbands I knew hit golf courses. Our place quickly filled with his purchases—items bought in souks and bazaars and galleries all over the hemi sphere. Unfortunately his suitcase was more heavily used than our dining room table, which had once graced a farm house in France.

  He would return from one of his many trips and I would catch him looking at the baby and me as if he were trying to place us. Had we met? Was it Vienna or the Ural mountains? Perhaps we had crossed the English Channel aboard the same hovercraft? He never learned the rhythm of our home. He didn’t remember that our baby, Emily, took her long nap in the morning or that she liked to swing with the other babies on those little swings at the park—the ones that look like little buckets.

  The traveling and frequent absences became the most obvious reason for the death of our marriage, but I thought the real problem was that my husband didn’t know how to be in a family. He grew up in a tiny family that was silent and alien. His parents had gone through one of those ugly New York City divorces when he was little. He told me that when he was still in grade school, he and his older brother had been compelled to testify in court, each speaking for an opposing parent.

  Having grown up on a failed dairy farm in rural poverty of the ugly, muddy sort, I envied his material polish and his Walter Pidgeonesque charm, some of which came naturally, supplemented by years in boarding school, and yet I felt sorry for him on the family score. He had one brother and only one cousin. He and his brother and their parents and stepparents floated in separate orbits, sometimes intersecting briefly around the holidays. When he was a boy, he would travel by cab on Christmas morning from his mother’s house in the East 60s to his father’s apartment twenty blocks away. Ever since learning this, I imagine New York City on Christmas morning as being full of taxis occupied by depressed shuttling children adhering to court-ordered holiday visitation.

  My family is large and loud and abnormally weighted down by women. My mother and her three sisters all live in my tiny hometown, along with my two sisters, their children, and several cousins. He always said that he loved that about me—that I was part of a package overflowing with people who could populate his piddling world.

  Though divorce runs through my clan like an aggressive chromosome, I had never been exposed to family ugliness of any sort, partly because my parents’ divorce happened after my father simply and suddenly walked away from our home. I never saw my parents argue before, during, or after their split. One advantage to actual abandonment is that it cuts down on marital discord. In order to fight with my father, my mother would have had to locate him first.

  After my father left, my mother spent about a year telling her four adolescent children that everything was going to be OK, as we lost and lost and then lost some more. Even though he drove away in his pickup truck with only his clothes wadded up in a paper bag from the IGA, my father managed to take everything with him. It turned out that his life—and our little dairy farm—was leveraged to the hilt. Though my mother was able to hold on to our house, we lost everything else, first in a rush and then in a Chinese water torture trickle of receivership. Even our small herd of cows was repossessed.

  It’s an old-fashioned notion to even try to maintain one’s dignity in the face of outrage, but I watched my mother do her best. Exercising her only marketable skill, she got a job as a typist in an office. She was forty-two and had been a full-time farm wife and mother for twenty-two years. At night she would come home from work and lie down on her bed still wearing her coat, holding her purse across her stomach.

  “I just need twenty minutes,” she would say. Then she would hoist herself up, walk into the kitchen, and start cooking supper. After years of preparing large meals featuring homegrown produce and homemade breads and preserves—always followed by a baked dessert—my mother stepped down to hot dogs served on buns pulled from plastic sleeves, accompanied by potato chips.

  My father had limited interest in his children, so there was no question of custody. My mother never pursued him for any sort of financial support—and he didn’t offer it.

  She simply prevailed. Prevailing is underrated. People have the idea that unless they win, they lose. But sometimes surviving is enough. My mother knew this, and I learned it by watching her.

  Before he left, my husband was grouchy for about a week. He had always been extraordinarily nice to me, so I jumped through hoops of decreasing circumference trying to get him to be nice again. But then he picked a fight with me about Benazir Bhutto—who in the late 1980s was Pakistan’s newly elected prime minister—and I knew that we had turned a corner and wandered into the volatile Middle East of our marriage. Granted, in general I think that looking to Pakistan for common ground in a relationship is probably a sign it is ending. The State Department should be called. Diplomats should get involved. I realized that my husband was amassing troops along his border. It would only be a matter of time before a trigger-happy infantryman fired the first shot that would start the war.

  Despite my efforts, the week before he left me, my husband drifted into a slumber state. He went to bed very early and then slept until noon each day. Emily was going through a phase of waking up at 5 A.M., and I would get up with her, get breakfast, drink two pots of coffee, play with her in her room, put her down for her nap, get her up again, take her out for a walk, and then wander around, looking at our tasteful apartment until he finally emerged from our bedroom.

  On the day he said he was leaving, it was 2 p.m. and he had just come out of the shower. I got mad at him. I told him that I had lived an entire lifetime while he slept and bathed and carefully groomed himself. I said that I was worried about him because he seemed depressed. (Though honestly, he looked great. He had recently lost weight and was working out at a fancy gym on Fulham Road.)

  He sighed.

  Then he said that he was leaving. At first I thought he meant he was leaving the house. Th
en I realized he was leaving the marriage.

  After a full day and night of crying interrupted by sobbing, I called my friend Betsy—the one friend I had in London—and told her that my husband was leaving. She didn’t believe me. It is fairly awful to have to assure someone that one of the worst things you can think of happening has actually happened. People who wish you well can’t believe your bad news any easier than you can. Betsy instantly loathed my husband, who she had always liked and admired, and called him bad words because I couldn’t.

  I learned early on in my divorcing process that I could not say bad words pertaining to my husband. Yesterday I had loved him deeply. Today when I woke up I still loved him deeply until I remembered that he was leaving me. Then I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. I just wanted to stay married. Marriage was an assumption I had made about my life and I couldn’t simply undo it. Even though I had had a short career as a journalist, marriage and motherhood were the jobs I thought I would do best. Marriage and motherhood were my life’s work.

  I wanted my husband to hurry up and get over leaving me and come back so that I could forgive him for leaving. Then we could stay married and turn into one of those older and wiser couples who have been through hard times together but whose relationship had grown stronger because of it—the kind of couple they profile in Redbook magazine.

  Even though I had always pictured myself as someone who would ass kick first and ask questions later, one of the many lessons my divorce taught me was that I was more willing to forgive than I had ever thought possible—certainly if forgiveness was the path to getting what I wanted. I thought that if I forgave him for leaving me, then he wouldn’t leave me. Then we’d get back together, maybe move back to the States and buy a little place on Cape Cod because we’d survived this close call and learned our lesson.

  Instead, he moved to a hotel near his office, but he wouldn’t tell me which one. He said he would be in touch and that, of course, I could always reach him at work. He seemed afraid of me. I’m not sure what he thought I would do, because in order to follow him anywhere, I would have had to bring a baby, a stroller, diaper bag, a bottle, some snacks, and of course a couple of those little cardboard books that she liked to page through whenever we went out.

  I cried on an eighteen-hour schedule, taking breaks only to sleep and smile at the kindly Indian shop keepers in our neighborhood who were always nice to Emily and me. When I wasn’t crying, I took very long baths, soaking in tepid bubbles and ruminating on my heartache.

  When his mother called the house, asking for him, I realized that he hadn’t told anyone in his family and that most likely he wanted me to do it. I lied and took a message for him.

  Betsy came over and held Emily. “Is there someone else?” she asked.

  “Not possible,” I said.

  But she had opened the door, and then I started thinking about it.

  I got a sitter and went to his office. I said hello to the receptionist and walked back to his office. They were remodeling the interior of the building and the place was a construction zone. I stood outside his open door. He was on the phone. He looked at me in that absent way people have when they’re otherwise engaged and, still talking, walked around the desk and quietly but slowly shut the door in my face.

  I sat on a saw horse and waited. Somebody asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee.

  I did not.

  After about twenty minutes, the office door opened and I was gestured in.

  I pulled a bluff-calling maneuver that I had once seen on Columbo.

  “I know about her,” I lied. “You’ve been lying and lying to me, and now it’s time to tell the truth. You might as well.”

  He did.

  “You’re an idiot,” I said. Then I went home.

  I entertained active fantasies about her. She was much younger than the two of us and had turned our family into a cliché. I didn’t want to meet her as much as I wanted to

  Betsy came over and held Emily. “Is there someone else?” she asked.

  “Not possible,” I said.

  But she had opened the door, and then I started thinking about it.

  I got a sitter and went to his office. I said hello to the receptionist and walked back to his office. They were remodeling the interior of the building and the place was a construction zone. I stood outside his open door. He was on the phone. He looked at me in that absent way people have when they’re otherwise engaged and, still talking, walked around the desk and quietly but slowly shut the door in my face.

  I sat on a saw horse and waited. Somebody asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee.

  I did not.

  After about twenty minutes, the office door opened and I was gestured in.

  I pulled a bluff-calling maneuver that I had once seen on Columbo.

  “I know about her,” I lied. “You’ve been lying and lying to me, and now it’s time to tell the truth. You might as well.”

  He did. “You’re an idiot,” I said. Then I went home.

  I entertained active fantasies about her. She was much younger than the two of us and had turned our family into a cliché. I didn’t want to meet her as much as I wanted to hire somebody to run her over with a car while I watched from a café across the street.

  I wanted to shame her, to call her parents and report to them what their daughter had done with her life in her first year out of college. I wanted to place this call while the baby cried in the background. I rehearsed the scene obsessively in my mind, but since Emily was extremely quiet, I knew that I would probably have to pinch her to get her to cooperate and cry on cue.

  I took Emily and flew to my mother’s house in the States. I cried some more on the plane. I knew that I would have to tell my mother what had happened. My mother loved my marriage almost as much as I did. I think that she saw in it the possibility that a good marriage would affect the family’s relationship karma.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I couldn’t be more surprised. Dear, dear.” She patted me like a cat as we sat on the porch together.

  At night, I lay in bed in the back bedroom of my mother’s house next to my snoring daughter, looking out at the landscape that had once been our farm and listening to the peepers pulse and sing on the creek. I remembered that after my father left, my mother would take her coffee and sit on our front steps, smoking cigarettes, listening to the peepers and playing the Three Dog Night song “Out in the Country” over and over on our stereo.

  Fifteen years after her divorce, though, my mother had made something of her life. After her children left home, she went to college and then graduate school. She became a professor and paid off the debts my father had left behind.

  My father was on his fifth marriage and had lived, briefly, in his van.

  For the first time in my adult life, I started to think about the kind of person that I really wanted to be. If I let it, I realized that my divorce could turn me into a vengeful goddess of unremitting heartache. But I wanted to be decent. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to feel good about my own behavior, because everything else felt so bad. I wanted to do something right.

  I left my mother and went back to London.

  My cousin Roger called me. He said he had just heard about what had happened and he wanted to tell me that he was willing to fly to London in order to punch my husband in the nose. As one of the few men in my family, I appreciated this brotherly show of solidarity, and it remains one of the nicest things that anyone has ever offered to do for me. I thanked him and told him that if it ever came to that, I would punch my husband myself and tell him: “Roger sent me.”

  The shock of my news started to wear off and I settled into a state of depression punctuated by periods of high anxiety as I tried to figure out what would become of us. My husband made halfhearted attempts to come back home. He would feel bad and show up at our place with flowers from the supermarket. He’d sit in our living room and watch me cry, then go back to his hotel.

  Thinking I might have a
chance with him again, I said that perhaps we needed to spend time together. We got Betsy to watch Emily for a few days and went on that trip to Italy we’d been putting off.

  It was too late. We broke up in Rome and then again on Capri. Our breakup was becoming a globally depressing drama, with spectacular backdrops. As always, we didn’t fight. We just took turns giving up. He was grouchy and, I assumed, mooning over his girlfriend, whose address and phone number I located on a page in his address book. I tore out the page, crumpled it up, and tossed it out the window.

  EVEN THOUGH I suspected that our marriage was quite over, I didn’t trust myself to know that. I wanted a witness. I found a marriage counselor. My husband said he would meet me at the appointment, but I could tell that it was a courtesy. When I saw him in the foyer of the therapist’s office, it was clear that he hadn’t exactly been pacing with nerves, losing sleep, and chain-smoking the way I had been. He had just come from a trip and seemed—how to put it—happy.

  Like every therapist in the movies, our therapist wore a flowing muumuu dress and chunky jewelry. My husband opened by telling the woman how stale our marriage was. How trapped he felt. He used the word nag. That was when I realized that marriage counseling might not go exactly the way I wanted. I wanted to have a tender experience whereby everyone would be made to understand my point of view and where my rage and hurt would be acknowledged. I wanted my status as heartbreak victim to be confirmed. And I wanted an apology.

  In that room I saw that if I was going to air my heartache for him, then he would air my deficits and the depths of his dissatisfaction for me. I knew that I would not get my husband back, but that we would be left with the intimate knowledge of the details surrounding the disintegration of our marriage. We had a child to raise, and there was a limit to how bad I was willing to feel about myself and her father while doing it.

  I remembered a story my mother had told me. My father left her with nothing and then when she learned from the bank that he had mortgaged our farm, she found out that it was actually possible to leave someone with less than nothing. Later that day she stood on the bank of Fall Creek, which flows in gentle and wide curves through the land where we once grew crops and cows. She took off her engagement ring—a pretty little thing that my father had purchased in 1950—and cocked her hand back to throw it into the creek.