Wrongful Reconciliation

by Peter Svenson

  “Would you mind stopping at the Acme and picking up a box of bread crumbs?”

  “Don’t mind at all.”

  Bread crumbs? Tie up a man on as important a mission as mine with a request for bread crumbs? Actually, ha ha, it fits this ‘Budgie’ business—a straightforward reference to birdfood. Okay, will do.

  “I’m making a favorite dish of yours tonight—wein-erschnitzel. Is that all right with you, darling?”

  “That’s great, sweetie, but I, uh, might not be back in time.”

  “No problem, honey. I’ll keep it warm for when you return.”

  Matty’s trusting nature gives Budge a twinge of conscience. He knows he doesn’t deserve the generosity that flows out of her. He gives her a quick peck on the lips; if he kissed with more ardor, she’d get romantic on him and that might necessitate a delay. All he wants to do is slip out the door. Romance will have to wait until bedtime. He fully intends to be back, and not too late, either.

  As he backs the old Corolla out of the driveway, his lover/landlady stands in the doorway, watching to see that he gets on his way safely. She waves and blows a kiss. Sometimes he feels that she shows too much care and concern, and it suffocates him. He gives a small wave from behind the glass and lightly taps the horn. As much as he appreciates her and everything she has done for him, he is glad to get away—and not only glad, but relieved.

  I’m the most ungrateful son-of-a-bitch in the world—don’t remind me—but I need my breathing space. Too much love from a woman can drive a man insane. I guess this was one of the salient points about my wife—she didn’t love me to distraction or exhaustion the way Matty does. The case can be made at this late date that my wife didn’t love me at all. Somehow, though, the marriage worked for more than a quarter of a century. We achieved a stasis of independence rather than interdependence; she played by her rules and I played by mine. Every so often we clashed horribly, as previously noted, but we also had our good moments.

  These good moments are what Budge remembers as he drives toward Elkton. The closer he gets to the rendezvous, the more eager he is to set eyes on his wife again. To look at her clinically, to read her character and see once again what he saw in her, and to understand what went wrong. And to prove that he has gotten beyond their failed marriage, and to prove to her that he has. It will be constructive and interesting; indeed, it should greatly enhance the upcoming writing project.

  Soon to be divorced couple has a chat. Both amicable, both on best behavior, both beyond the blame game. Gaze at each other across table, the thing stilled in their hearts that once throbbed. No spark, no frisson, no lingering feelings. Just acquaintances now who happen to know each other very, very well. Without mentioning it, both reflect on the number of times they made love with each other. Estimate: several thousand. Conclusion: ancient history, water over the dam, no residual feeling at all. Cordial and productive conversation for almost an hour, then both glance at wristwatch. Agree to split bill.

  Budge’s imagined scenario entertains him, even as it whets his appetite for the pending encounter. He arrives in Elkton with no noticeable anxiety, turns into the pizza parlor’s lot, and aims for a parking space. Suddenly, a wave of self-awareness sets his pulse racing. He doesn’t want his wife to see the pitiful Corolla. Not that he is ashamed of it or anything, but its rust-perforated fenders make it a bit of a comedown compared to what he used to drive. Why should he give her the pleasure of gloating over his precarious economic status? Faithless bitch, he thinks. She who caused him so much misery!

  He parks well off to one side, next to a Dumpster. Once he’s out of the car, his paranoia subsides. He will not let her get to him—not at this late date. She requested the meeting, he set the time and place, and now they’re going through with it. It is up to him to control his emotions. As he approaches the door, he sees her red Acura.

  Shit, she’s here ahead of me! I left earlier than I had to, figuring I would get here first. Once again, she has beaten me to the punch! She’ll be seated at a booth, cool and composed—most likely drinking coffee—while I walk in a nervous wreck.

  With effort, Budge calms himself once again. He pulls open the entrance door, takes a deep breath, and scans the establishment for his former life partner. In his distraction, he collides with a waitress. Mumbling apologies, Budge is suddenly aware that he is standing right beside the booth in which his wife sits. Yes, she has witnessed everything: his futile reconnoitering, his ill-at-ease clumsiness.

  “Oh, hi!”

  “Hi.”

  She smiles her knowledgeable, slightly ironic smile, the one she used with great effect in social gatherings. She doesn’t take his hand despite his tentative reaching out, nor does she invite him to sit down. She just looks at him in a curious, not unfriendly way. Somewhat pugnaciously, Budge seats himself directly opposite her, as if residual familiarity gives him the right. Across the table, he catches a nostalgic whiff of Chanel No. 5.

  Don’t expect a love-fest. She’s here on business, just like you. Don’t look into that beautiful mug of hers—is that the facelift?—and go all smarmy. Keep your guard up. This is closure, remember, not renewal. Don’t let her feminine wiles soften your justifiably hardened heart.

  Despite the self-lecture, Budge is struck by what a fine specimen of womanhood he was married to. She is first-class material all the way, from the sexiness of her eyes and mouth to her general shapeliness and femininity. True, her feet weren’t all that great, but that was because of the fashionable pointy shoes she insisted on wearing (over the years, she developed bunions the size of bubblegum balls). Otherwise, she is a paragon of graceful aging. She dresses well, she’s trim, she’s vivacious, she has a positive outlook on life. She dumped him because he fell, over time, below the masculine ideal. Can he blame her? No, at this juncture he can’t blame anyone, not even himself.

  “So, did you have a good drive over here?” Her question is airily noncommittal, making him realize that he means nothing to her anymore.

  “Yeah, took me about forty-five minutes, not much traffic. And yours?”

  He parries effortlessly on the same level. He remembers how he used to match the mood of her utterances. It seemed then, as it seems now, the path of least resistance. The banter continues in this vein for two minutes before she gets down to the nitty gritty.

  “I decided to speak with you in person because my lawyer wants us to agree on the terms of divorce. You still haven’t hired a lawyer, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, that’s fine as long as we make it no-fault, no-contention all the way down the line.”

  “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along?” Budge asks.

  “Yes, we have, and so far so good. We’ve divided up the personal property, sold the house and paid off the first and second mortgages, and split what was left. Now we need to sign an agreement to the effect that neither of us is responsible for the other’s debts. Plus, neither of us will make any claims on any savings, investments, health and life insurance, and retirement plans that the other may have.”

  Although Budge, like most artistic people, has a limited business sense, he understands that these conditions apply mostly to her and not to him. Aside from his evergreen compulsion to write, he has no assets to speak of. To be sure, he owns copyrights of books that have gone out of print, and the contract on his new novel may amount to a few thousand dollars—if the book gets publicity—but he has very little else besides his car, his computer, his guitar, his cat, and the clothes on his back. It mildly irks him to agree to protect her when he has no need for such protection, but he isn’t going to be greedy about it, either.

  “Okay, where do I sign?”

  She explains that the papers have to be drawn up. Mainly what she is seeking now is a verbal understanding. “I want to be fair with you,” she says. “Things didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean we can’t treat each other with respect.”

  The same waitress who he practically knocke
d to the floor has come to take their orders. Budge’s soon-to-be ex-wife asks for another cup of coffee and a spinach calzone. He glances over the menu before deciding on a slice of cheese pizza and a glass of water.

  “I agree,” he says. “And let me say right now that I value your continued respect.”

  “You have it, Budgie. And it’s nice to know I have yours.”

  Her satisfaction is palpable. Having garnered a commitment from him to accede to her legal requests, she continues in an easy and friendlier tone. The old nickname again. More eye contact. The smile not so forced, the shoulders relaxed. Can she actually be enjoying this? Budge hears himself becoming more affable. Once again, he is matching her mood.

  This was the meat of our marriage. In conversational agreement, we could move mountains. The problem was, such agreement became less and less an everyday occurrence. But whenever we found that mutual harmony—boy, did we have fun! We’d laugh and congratulate each other as we recalibrated the world to our specifications. Needless to say, such intense communion often led to sex.

  To glimpse that harmony now leaves me with an empty feeling, because I know there is no pot of lovemaking at the end of this rainbow. This is a dry run, a sham, a sterile glimmer of what used to be. She has gotten what she wants, and now she’s just humoring me.

  As this hint of self-pity creeps into Budge’s thoughts, his tablemate is being as agreeable and prone to long explanations as she ever was. Now she is talking about the particulars of the upcoming court date. It won’t be for another eight or ten weeks—the judge hasn’t put it on his calendar yet. Both parties will have to show up in person. Both will have to provide a witness attesting to their non-cohabitation for a period of one year. (“Yes, can you believe it? It will probably be more than a year!”) After the court date, there will be a ten-day to two-week interval before the judge signs the actual decree. Then, voilà, they’ll each have the proof in hand and be officially divorced.

  She makes it sound so civil and friendly. The more she talks, the better Budge feels. It appears as if she holds no personal animosity toward him—or if she did, it evaporated long ago, and now his must too. Just being in her presence bolsters his outlook.

  She’s no longer mine—which is probably a good thing, considering how high maintenance she is—but what a woman! I take pride in having loved her all those years (it is almost immaterial at this point whether or not she loved me in return). She gave me plenty of compensation both in bed and out of it. During the good years of our marriage, she offered humor, empathy, and convenience. The bad years overtook the good years, but so what? I know we had something special, and she probably does too. It’s great that we can still communicate.

  Thinking so positively, Budge is emboldened to ask the first really personal question.

  “So, how’s it going? I mean your life and everything?”

  “Just fine. Staying busy, meeting some new people. And you?”

  “Fine. I’m staying busy too.”

  “I heard on the grapevine that you’re living with someone.”

  “That’s right,” he says. “Somebody I met in Rock Hall.”

  “And it’s going okay?” she asks.

  “Oh sure, just fine. We’ve got some adjusting to do, but it’s going fine.”

  Budge would like to be more specific—the writer in him would automatically demand further clarification—but he checks the urge. He might as well play the Mystery Man. His wife is not exactly forthcoming with her own details.

  “That’s great. It takes a little time, as I’ve been finding out.”

  Hearing this, Budge can’t resist prying. “You’re not finding out the hard way, I hope.”

  “No, nothing like that,” she laughs. “It’s just that people aren’t what you think they are initially. They come on like gods until you see their feet of clay.”

  Budge nods. So what else is new? he thinks.

  “You know, we had it pretty good in so many respects,” she is saying. It shocks him to hear her say it.

  The conversation grows decidedly freewheeling! Never in all those months leading up to separation and beyond did she admit anything like this. If anything, she gave me the opposite impression: that business about all the little negatives adding up like straws that eventually broke the camel’s back.

  “I always believed we had it good,” he replies, “and I still believe it.”

  Apparently, this is not what she wants to hear. “Oh, Budgie, don’t say that. We had serious problems and you know it. I couldn’t take it anymore. Really, I couldn’t.”

  “But you just said we had it good in so many respects.”

  “Well, we did, but I’m speaking broadly. And with hindsight. You and I personally had too many unresolved issues. Anyway, I hope you’re off to a better start with your new girlfriend.”

  Budge doesn’t reply. He just raises his eyebrows, as if to say, it’s none of your goddamn business, but he raises them as politely as he can.

  “Relationships!” his wife is saying. “What a pain in the butt they are!”

  Budge always liked it when she talked like a man, and today it thrills him even more because he hasn’t heard her talk this way—or any way—for such a long time.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he concurs. “They tend to leave you jaded, don’t they?”

  “Tell me about it!”

  Thoughtfully, she sips her coffee. Their food, recently arrived, is barely touched. Budge feels the old strength of their common viewpoint returning. At this late date, there is absolutely no reason for him to feel it, but here it is. It binds him to her in a bond that now seems fraught with danger.

  “Sometimes,” his wife is saying, “I get the urge to chuck it all and go live somewhere else. Far away. Start the whole game over. Better late than never.”

  More mannish talk. Isn’t this precisely what I did, crossing Chesapeake Bay to settle in Rock Hall? Obviously, she knows very little about what has happened to me since she dumped me—just grapevine data (and I wonder who from?). It isn’t much of a story, anyway. I arrived on the eastern shore with my tail between my legs, went through a period of acute loneliness, and now I’m the permanently installed guest of a woman who sees me as her sexual fountain of youth. No point in elaborating all this.

  “That bad, huh?” he comments. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I went through the same thing, more or less.”

  “Why can’t relationships change for the better, instead of always for the worse? We went downhill slowly, but, whew!, did we ever go downhill. I guess you’ll hate my guts forever because I was the one who called it quits.”

  “No, I don’t hate you.”

  Budge could extemporize for ten minutes here, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut.

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m just one of those rolling stones,” she muses aloud.

  Touched as he is by her candor, Budge feels the need to recommend restraint, or at least caution. “People, as a rule, can’t run away from problems. We find ourselves in new situations, but our baggage is never really left behind.”

  “Oh, Budgie, you’re such a philosopher! You know I’m just talking off the top of my head.”

  “But I understand exactly what you mean,” he adds. “You’re fed up. Well, so am I. At least this time we’re not fed up with each other.”

  She looks at him ruefully.

  “Look at the way we’re talking,” she says. “You’d think we were still together.”

  The observation draws silence while both of them take a bite of their food.

  “How’s the pizza?”

  “Fine. How’s the calzone?”

  “Delicious! I was more famished than I thought.”

  More silence. A disembodied query creeps into Budge’s consciousness.

  Why am I here? Why am I wounding myself with the delight of her presence? We sit here at this booth getting reacquainted, and for what reason? She’ll go her way and I’ll go mine, and it will be just one mo
re aspect of her—this pointless rendezvous—to get over.

  “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” his soon-to-be ex-wife begins brightly, as if suddenly stoked with caloric energy. “My sister in California is buying my car, and I’m going to drive out there and deliver it to her.”

  “Hey, that’s great! A real road trip!”

  “Yeah, I’m psyched.”

  “Looks like you’ll have that getaway after all.”

  Budge is genuinely happy for her, but happier still to receive a nugget of personal information told with such enthusiasm. There is no doubt about it: she is no stick-in-the-mud when it comes to travel. She was always organizing vacation trips. Between them, they shared plenty of good ones.

  “I was wondering …” she is saying.

  “Sure, I’ll be happy to check over the car,” he offers, anticipating her request for mechanical assistance. “If you’d like, right in the parking lot soon as we’re done eating.”

  One of Budge’s duties as her former husband was the care and feeding of the red Acura. Although the car was indefatigable, he still babied it. He always wanted it to be in top condition to convey his precious wife to and from work. That it never had a breakdown or even a flat tire on his watch afforded him no small sense of pride.

  “Oh, that’d be nice. But I was wondering if you might want to come along with me. Just the two of us take the trip together for old time’s sake.”

  What? Did she say what I think she said—inviting me to go on a cross-country journey, considering all that has happened between us? What is she, a glutton for punishment? Why, pray tell, is she proposing this?

  While Budge’s mind is whirring, he is too stunned to reply.

  “What’s the matter, Budgie, cat got your tongue? All I’m doing is inviting you to drive to California with me. Hey, if it’s too much to handle, I take it back. Sorry I asked.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Budge begins.

  Yes, it is precisely that. She is talking as if she wants to effect some kind of instantaneous rapprochement. Having dumped me, she is now ready to shovel me back aboard. All my sad, hurt, and healing particles. All my bits and motes and sweepings. Reverse the grinding down of the past ten months, bind the molecules back together. No advance notice, not even in her recent e-mail which I assumed was just an invitation to deal with the niceties of our pending divorce. What’s with this bitch?