“What made you think that?” Sandy asked Steve.
“I don’t know,” Steve said.
“I think you do,” Sandy said. Her voice was like the voice of your mother on a dark night when you can’t sleep. Sandy could do that trick when she had to.
“Okay,” Steve said. “I’ve had a fantasy about killing Bill.”
“But you wouldn’t do that, would you?” Sandy said.
Steve had been looking down, now he looked up at Sandy and then over at Gretchen.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t press the button you talked about and I wouldn’t kill him. There would always be another guy.”
Usually, Sandy didn’t pay much attention to the world beyond her small office. The illicit meeting in New York. Where Gretchen was going for the weekend. What Bill’s wife knew. Everything that happened outside the office? She didn’t care.
To Sandy, the important story was what happened inside her office.
It was what she had to focus on, it was the story, it was what was really happening. Of course, all the time, it was tempting to get caught up in the outside story. The affairs, the sex, the betrayals! The soap opera. But the real work was here, inside her office.
“I don’t mind taking the kids,” Steve said, sliding off the issue of someone killing the kids. Sandy let him slide.
“Can I say something?” Gretchen said, sliding off that issue too. “Steve says he doesn’t mind taking the kids. Like it’s something he chooses to do. I have a problem with that. He is supposed to want to take care of his kids. It’s not an optional choice, though that’s how he’s treating it.”
“I want to take care of the kids,” Steve said. “Okay?”
“Then do it, and don’t complain about it,” Gretchen ordered.
“Can we just back up for a moment,” Sandy said. “Gretchen, you said it was predictable that Steve would research this conference. If you knew he would do it, why didn’t you just tell him the whole story?”
“It’s none of his business,” Gretchen said. She said it sincerely, Sandy felt, she honestly didn’t see why she should confide in Steve about her love life. And it was a valid point, sort of.
“But here we are talking about it, both of you angry,” Sandy said. “What would have happened if you’d just said, Look, I’m going to New York for a conference, and then I’m going to stick around and spend some time with my friend, so can you take the kids for four days?”
“Am I supposed to tell Steve about my love life?” Gretchen said.
It would help, Sandy thought.
“I’m not sure saying what you’re doing while he’s got the kids is telling him your love life,” Sandy said. “But anyway, if you had told Steve what was going on, then he wouldn’t be stalking you.”
“I’m not stalking her,” Steve said.
“Whatever you want to call it,” Gretchen said. “What do you call it, Steve?”
He didn’t answer. So we’ll call it stalking, Sandy thought.
“I’d like to go back to my question,” Sandy said. “Steve, how would you have felt if Gretchen had told you she was going to see her friend?”
“I would have been angry,” Steve said. Then he hesitated, thinking. “Okay, I would have been hurt. But at least I would have felt like we trusted each other a little bit.”
“Look, are you telling me that I’m supposed to tell Steve every time I see someone?” Gretchen said. “I want a life of my own. We are not living together anymore.”
“You have the kids during the week, right? And if I remember correctly, this weekend you’re going away is a weekend that you would have ordinarily had the kids, right?” Sandy said. “Have you ever asked Steve to take the kids for you? Is this the first time?”
“This is the first time,” Gretchen said.
“So this is sort of a big deal, isn’t it,” Sandy said.
“A big deal because Steve has the kids for four days?” Gretchen snapped. “Yes, that is a big, big deal, I admit that. It’s the first time he’s had the kids alone for four days in his life. But I don’t want to explain my life to him. That’s another issue.”
“I think all this stuff is connected,” Sandy said.
Why are you so defended, Gretchen? Sandy wondered. Why does this touch a nerve? She had a pretty good idea what was going on. It would have been great if Steve did too. It would have made him feel better.
Sandy thought: Gretchen has doubts about the weekend she plans to spend with Bill. She feels vulnerable, unsure about it. A part of her doesn’t want to go away for the weekend. But this is stuff she’s not going to discuss with you, Steve, not yet anyway. Steve, when you asked if Bill had told his wife about Gretchen, you hit Gretchen’s vulnerability. Yes, she’s worried that Bill is just playing her …
They all sat for a few moments, letting everything subside.
“You said you wanted Steve to take the kids to his parents’ for the four days?” Sandy said finally. “Why was that, Gretchen, why his parents?”
“To give Steve some backup,” Gretchen said. “His parents have a big house, and they like the kids. Steve is in a one-bedroom apartment. At his place, it’s sort of like camping out.”
“Why do you have a one-bedroom apartment?” Sandy asked, looking at Steve.
“It’s all crazy,” Steve said. “Gretchen was moving to the city. We were selling our house. I had moved to my parents’. I came upon this apartment that was near Gretchen’s new apartment. I think there was a sign up or something. I just rented it. I wasn’t thinking. I was in a fog. I looked at it for maybe five minutes and I told the moving guys to take my stuff directly from our old house to this apartment. They were in the process of moving Gretchen’s stuff into her new apartment. You know what the movers said?”
Amazingly, Steve smiled for a moment.
“They said, Man, why are you giving her all the good stuff? You’re giving her the piano, the sofas, the chairs. I said she had a bigger apartment, she could fit them in. They said, Why does she have a bigger apartment?
“But it wasn’t as if I was really giving Gretchen anything. It was like I was on the Titanic and the ship was going down, and all the stuff on the ship was floating away.”
The mood had changed for Steve. He wasn’t as angry anymore. He had accepted it all: Gretchen’s weekend in New York, her new friend, their separation. For this small moment, he had some perspective.
“From a practical point of view, it might have been better if I’d told Steve about my plans for the weekend,” Gretchen said. “If he was going to find out about it anyway.”
“From a practical point of view, you’re going to want to know how the kids are doing while you’re away, aren’t you?” Sandy said.
That caught Gretchen up. Sandy thought that Gretchen might not have thought about the issue at all.
“Yes, I will,” Gretchen said.
“How are you planning on doing that?”
“I guess I’ll text Steve,” Gretchen said. “To see how things are going. Or he’ll text me.”
“And if there is a big problem, then what?” Sandy said.
“Then I guess he calls me,” Gretchen said.
And the same thing happens for your friend’s kids and his wife, doesn’t it, Sandy thought. Only, he’s lying to his wife. You aren’t, Gretchen. You are ahead of the game.
“Yes, I should have told Steve what was happening on that weekend,” Gretchen said. “I see it.”
She looked over at Steve.
“Is there anything you want to know about the weekend?” Gretchen asked him.
“I know enough,” Steve said.
7.
They weren’t done with the New York trip. The next session:
“I want to revisit what happens next weekend, the weekend you go away, where I said I would take the kids to my parents’ house,” Steve said.
Gretchen shot Steve a pained look.
“We had a deal on what was happening that weekend,”
she said.
“It wasn’t like anyone took a blood oath,” Sandy said. She hated deals. “Why don’t we hear what Steve has to say?”
Deals freeze things, Sandy thought. Who would want to freeze this marriage where it was? Why were they here?
“I’m not really in the mood to spend the weekend with my parents,” Steve said. “I’m thinking of taking the kids up to Mendocino and visiting with the Snyders.”
“You’re kidding me,” Gretchen said. “Come on. Fuck you, Steve.”
“Who are the Snyders?” Sandy asked.
“Very old friends,” Steve said. “I went to grammar school with Tina Snyder.”
“They are hippies,” Gretchen said.
“Tina Snyder went to Bryn Mawr, for Christ’s sake,” Steve said.
“She’s an airhead trust-fund baby,” Gretchen said.
“They have an organic farm,” Steve said. “Tina’s husband, Spencer, did graduate work in agriculture at Davis.”
Bryn Mawr? Tina Snyder? Organic farm? Spencer? Who are these people? Get ahold of yourself, Sandy, she told herself.
“This just isn’t acceptable to me,” Gretchen said. “And it really ticks me off to have to deal with it at the last minute.”
“I don’t want to upset you,” Steve said. “But now that I’m face-to-face with it, the thought of spending the whole weekend with my parents is just not a lot of fun. Would you like to spend the weekend with your parents?”
“I would, I don’t get to see my parents all that often,” Gretchen said. “Can’t you just go with the plan for this weekend and then the next weekend you can visit the Snyders on your own?”
“I don’t get what bothers you so much about this,” Sandy said to Gretchen.
“We went over this last time,” Gretchen said. “I would like the kids in a safe environment while I’m away. I don’t trust Steve to take care of them. And the kids will run wild at that farm.”
“Why can’t you trust Steve?” Sandy asked.
“He wasn’t trustworthy before. I doubt he’s suddenly changed,” Gretchen said. “I feel fine with Steve saying to his mother, Could you watch the kids for a while, I’m tired. I do trust his mother. But I don’t feel good about Steve saying that to Tina Snyder, who is a moron.”
“Why would Steve turn over the kids to a moron?” Sandy said. A moron who went to Bryn Mawr?
“Steve has a very limited attention span with the kids,” Gretchen said. “Tina Snyder has a limited attention span with everything.”
“It is true that when I was working flat-out there were times when I was so dead tired that I didn’t want to be with the kids, and there were times when I just was stupid,” Steve said. “But things have changed. I’m enjoying being with the kids. They’re great.” He looked at Gretchen. “You do know that I love them?”
“Congratulations on realizing that you love your kids,” Gretchen said. “But you should have been spending time with them all along.”
“I know that,” Steve said.
Sandy watched as Gretchen tightened up.
“Okay, I won’t go away for the weekend. I’ll fly back Friday night,” Gretchen said.
“Wait a minute, Gretchen,” Sandy said. “That isn’t a resolution. You don’t get to grab the ball and go home. It doesn’t sound to me that this farm in Mendocino is very dangerous.”
“It isn’t,” Steve said. “It’s bunny rabbits and goats. It’s organic vegetables.”
“It’s chaotic,” Gretchen said angrily.
“So what?” Steve said. “So what!” He sounded exasperated. “I mean, what’s so new with that? When we first separated, I felt like I’d been hit in the head with a sledgehammer. I was dazed. I was in a fog. That was chaotic! I almost had a car accident with the kids. Now I’m gradually coming out of that chaos. I’m beginning to see that I have some options. I can make plans.”
“Have you fried your brain, Steve?” Gretchen said.
“Where does that come from?” Sandy asked.
“We have been to that farm once in ten years. Steve hated the place. Didn’t you? Tell Sandy,” Gretchen said.
“I was an idiot,” Steve said with emotion. “I was intolerant. I was judgmental. I regret so many things. Can’t I change?”
I hope you can, Sandy thought.
Steve shook his head and looked at Gretchen, wanting forgiveness and absolution.
Fat chance, Sandy thought.
“I’m really looking forward to going back up and seeing the Snyders’ farm with fresh eyes,” Steve said with feeling.
My God. Sandy saw that Gretchen had tears at the corners of her eyes.
“What did you think about the Snyders’ farm?” Sandy asked Gretchen.
“I just told you,” Gretchen said.
“No, you didn’t,” Sandy said. “You told me what Steve thought about it.”
“Can’t you see that Steve is just doing this to hurt me for going to New York?” Gretchen said.
“Again, you’re telling me about Steve’s thoughts and motives,” Sandy said. “I’m asking about yours.”
“Are you fucking taking his side?” Gretchen growled. Low. “I mean, we had a deal here. He was taking the kids to his parents’.”
“He wants to take the kids to an organic farm,” Sandy said. “That’s what this is about. Why do you object to it? What do you think about the Snyders’ farm?”
“Nothing,” Gretchen said. “Actually I’m really angry about this whole thing. Very, very angry.”
“I see that, I hear you,” Sandy said. “But I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I,” Steve said.
There was a pause. Gretchen was looking into the middle ground.
She tried to say something, and then she needed more time to get ready. Then finally, she was.
“I loved the Snyders’ farm,” Gretchen said softly. “I wanted it, all of it. Every perfect carrot. Every fucking little bunny. Every happy moronic goat. I wanted them all.”
She flicked her sad eyes over at Steve.
“I wanted to go back there, but you never would,” Gretchen said quietly.
Everything stopped for a moment while Steve and Gretchen looked at each other, Gretchen expressing her hurt and Steve beginning to understand how badly he had hurt her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
8.
Sandy pulled into the small parking lot beside her building. She turned off the engine and just sat there. It was a luxurious feeling, just sitting in her parked car. She didn’t have to call her mother’s several doctors, or lawyers, or the assisted-care facility. She didn’t have to visit any of them either. It had been a hectic three weeks, getting Heidi into the Oaks, with her mother kicking and screaming the whole time. Now that part was over.
In her condo, three weeks ago, Heidi had forgotten to turn the water off in her bathtub and had the safety drain blocked off because she liked the bath full to the top of the tub—and so for half an hour, the water just poured down onto the bathroom floor and then poured down into the apartment below. Well, it was just water, but Sandy could see that the next time it was going to be the gas stove, and maybe her mother would blow the front off the building.
The way it was supposed to go, your mother recognized that there was a problem and together with her daughter they solved it. Not with Heidi. Sandy had to get the doctors and the lawyer on her side, and together they had to threaten her mother, and even then Heidi hired a driver to take her to the weekend house in Inverness, locking the doors and camping out there. It was one thing after another, bang, bang, Sandy putting out fire after fire.
But now it was done, and her mother was in the Oaks, which had impeccable security. Let Heidi try a run to Inverness now. There were hidden cameras in the light fixtures, the only way out was through the lobby, and there were guards on every door. Sure, it looked like a fancy hotel, but it was really a maximum-security facility for difficult troublemakers, rich old ones.
Yes, at some
point Sandy would have to deal with selling her mother’s C63 Mercedes, and the apartment. But she could take her time, do these jobs in an orderly way.
Sandy got out of her Prius, locked the doors, and saw the sleeping bag at the edge of the parking lot. Her homeless person. No doubt Heidi would have turned the hose on him, or perhaps even run him over. Or at minimum called the police.
What happened to his shopping cart? She didn’t see one. She thought about how her mother was at the Oaks, one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, and her guy was in a sleeping bag. You got off so easy, Mom. But her mom hadn’t gotten off easy, she’d fought life to a standstill. The ref had told life and her mother to go to their corners. They sat there, looking at each other, waiting for the next round, for the bell to ring.
Sandy took twenty dollars out of her wallet and walked carefully to the sleeping bag. Silently, she bent down and slipped the bill under the edge of the bag.
Sandy went up the stairs, past the plaque her mother had put on the side of the building before she gave it to Sandy. She stopped and looked at the plaque. A GIFT FROM HEIDI HYLAND TO HER LOVING DAUGHTER SANDY, WHO THANKS HER FOR HER GENEROSITY. The inscription written by her mother, who had commissioned the plaque. Well, it was a nice building. Thanks, Mom.
Sandy climbed the stairs, unlocked the door to her office suite, and went through the waiting room into her office. She sat down at the desk.
No calls, no appointments, just Steve and Gretchen in fifteen minutes and three other clients later in the day, which stretched out before her like a placid lake.
She looked around her office, coming to rest on the green chair. Neither Steve nor Gretchen had asked her about it. What it was doing there, seemingly so out of touch with the rest of the office.
Sandy looked at her watch, she still had five minutes. In her peripheral vision, she saw movement. She looked back at the green chair. Did you come in, she wondered, are you there?
9.
“Have you talked to each other since Gretchen got back from New York?” Sandy asked.
“Not really,” Steve said.
Listen to the Marriage Page 4