Listen to the Marriage

by John Jay Osborn

  “Come on,” Sandy said to Gretchen. “You don’t want to live this way. It makes life so confusing, no one can figure out what’s up.”

  “I don’t get it,” Gretchen said slowly.

  “That was Steve’s line,” Sandy said. “You’ve managed to completely confuse him. But I don’t think you’re confused.”

  “But I am,” Gretchen said.

  “Do you actually care about Gabrielle’s feelings?” Sandy said.

  “Yes I do,” Gretchen said. “At least I think Steve needs to be aware that she has feelings and respect that.”

  Come on, Gretchen, Sandy thought.

  “Do you want Steve to fall in love with Gabrielle?” Sandy asked Gretchen.

  “That’s Steve’s business,” Gretchen said quietly.

  Oh, please, Sandy thought. She had backed the train past the switch in the track, and now she threw the switch and pushed the train forward down the new direction.

  “That’s not an answer,” Sandy said.

  “All right,” Gretchen said innocently. “No, I don’t want Steve and Gabrielle to fall in love. I want Steve to spend the rest of his days alone, lonely and miserable and unloved.”

  “But we both know that isn’t going to happen,” Sandy said gently.

  “I suppose not,” Gretchen said. “Unfortunately.”

  And it’s not going to happen to you either, Sandy thought, though you’re worried about it.

  “Are you ready to give Steve up?” Sandy said.

  “Not exactly,” Gretchen said.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Sandy said. “All of this discussion has been to make sure that he’s still here. But you couldn’t say that. Not directly. You need to learn to say what you mean. Steve? I don’t think he’s going to learn to translate anytime soon. Well, he will, hopefully, at some point. But for now, it’s up to you.”

  She saw that Gretchen’s eyes were wet. It was tough for her. Sandy understood that. Gretchen was full of pride.

  “I’m coming here every week,” Gretchen said. “I never miss a session. I think that gives me some rights.”

  Not rights again, Sandy thought, but she knew that what Gretchen meant was that she had expectations that arose out of these sessions.

  “So you come here in good faith every week,” Sandy said. “And what does that lead you to expect?”

  Now Gretchen looked hard at Steve.

  “You’re going to get the wrong idea, I know it,” Gretchen said. “It’s not like I love you or want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Tears had formed in the corners of her eyes.

  “Do you get that?” Gretchen said. “It’s only that I feel as if I have an option on you, an option that I can exercise at my discretion. An option that expires when I say it expires.”

  Steve had an investment. Gretchen had an option. They had so much to learn about how to speak about love, Sandy thought. But they were trying.

  Sandy handed Gretchen the box of tissues.

  “Can I see you alone?” Gretchen asked Sandy.

  18.

  “This conversation is just between us?” Gretchen asked.

  She paused, looking at Sandy.

  “Everything is just between us,” Sandy said. “But at some point, anything you tell me in private goes to Steve if he needs to hear it. He doesn’t need to hear everything, but I decide what he needs to know.”

  “I really don’t want Steve to know about this,” Gretchen said.

  “Then you shouldn’t tell me,” Sandy said. “Or.” She smiled at Gretchen. “Or, you could trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you,” Gretchen said.

  Sandy laughed, couldn’t help herself, appreciating Gretchen’s honesty.

  “Why don’t you trust me?” Sandy asked.

  “I don’t feel as if you are on my side,” Gretchen said.

  “No, I’m not on your side,” Sandy said.

  “There’s something here I’m not seeing,” Gretchen said. She looked around the room, as if there were something in it she was missing. Her eyes stopped on the green chair, the one that didn’t match, the one that no one sat in. Then her eyes moved on.

  Who’s sitting in the chair, Gretchen? Sandy thought. Make the leap.

  “You’re feeling something going on beneath the surface,” Sandy said. “That feeling is my point of view. You could call it a side. If you like, you could say I side with the marriage. At the very least I try to speak for the marriage. That’s what you’re feeling.”

  An idea flicked across Gretchen’s face.

  “I get it,” Gretchen said. “That’s why it feels like you’re on Steve’s side. He wants to revivify the marriage too.”

  It was nice for Sandy to work with someone who used a word like revivify. But smart as she was, Gretchen didn’t get it.

  “No, that’s not quite right,” Sandy said. “I try to speak for the marriage because neither of you is. This isn’t a marriage where someone is beating the other one up. Or where someone is gambling away everything the family owns, or someone can’t hold a job because they’re drunk or high. As a matter of fact, this is a marriage that, in material terms, has been very successful. Steve made money, you got tenure, you have two smart, terrific children. You put something together here, and it took effort. Work. You built a marriage. That’s the side I’m on, that’s who I speak for, because neither of you does. The invisible thing you built. It’s something.”

  “Look: that is so hippy-dippy, so happy-go-lucky, so you, Sandy,” Gretchen said. “Steve lied to me, he cheated on me. He did it repeatedly. He didn’t support my work. We were two independent contractors who made a strategic alliance. I just didn’t realize that was all we had.”

  “As opposed to what? True love?” Sandy asked.

  “Something like that,” Gretchen said. “I’m not embarrassed to say it. True love.”

  “Look,” Sandy said. She leaned back in her chair and turned a bit away from Gretchen. Then Sandy sort of shrugged. “I know that you have something to tell me. I sense we’re off on a bit of a tangent. My hunch is that what you want to talk about has something to do with Gabrielle. But let’s take this tangent a bit further, and wait on discussing Gabrielle. Okay?”

  Gretchen nodded.

  “I really admire the fact that you were not willing to accept a marriage where your husband was having affairs. That’s not a good marriage. It’s so careless, so unfeeling. It’s insufferable. Adultery is just a killer, it hurts so much. I know about it, actually. Sometime I’ll tell you that story.

  “You were absolutely right to throw Steve out of the house, and to separate. You wanted more than that kind of life. I applaud you for it. But there’s a reason we’re here in my office, isn’t there? And you’re not sitting in a lawyer’s office.”

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sandy said.

  “I am. I think he can change,” Gretchen said.

  He has changed, Sandy thought, and you pushed him to it. Sandy handed her the box of tissues and Gretchen pulled one out and dabbed her eyes.

  “It’s just a killer, isn’t it,” Sandy said. “I mean, the fact that he slept with someone else.”

  “It is,” Gretchen said, almost lightly. “I could never trust him again.”

  “Two completely different issues,” Sandy said. “I mean the pain he caused you and whether you can trust him.”

  Gretchen nodded slowly.

  “Yes they are, aren’t they?” Gretchen said softly, thinking.

  “So the pain is one thing,” Sandy said. “Let’s not deal with that now. Let’s talk about the trust.”

  “It’s all gone,” Gretchen said. It just flowed out of her spontaneously, a huge hurt, a purge.

  This is what she came to talk to me about, Sandy realized. Not Gabrielle. Or maybe they’re related?

  “What about the trust?” Sandy said, and watched Gretchen gather herself together. It takes so much
out of her to talk about her feelings. Sandy can feel the difficulty, see it.

  Suddenly, Sandy saw Gretchen flick into the moment, into right now, her feelings available to her without mediation.

  “I had an insane idea that Steve had Gabrielle over at his place when he had the kids,” Gretchen said after a moment. “It was a nightmare. I woke up at three in the morning, sure she was there. I was sweaty, crazy. I just can’t tell you how real this dream was.”

  Sandy wished that Steve could hear Gretchen. If he could, he would understand why Gretchen had slept with other men, using them to drive away the night.

  “I tried to get back to sleep and I couldn’t. I mean, I have so much work piled up, but all I could think about was Steve with Gabrielle in his bed and the kids just down the hall. What if they woke up? What if they went to Steve’s room?”

  Gretchen paused, crossed her arms, leaned back in the chair, looked out the window, got herself together. Sandy watched and waited, thinking Gretchen was so far ahead of the game. Sandy was sure Steve wasn’t sleeping with Gabrielle, not yet. And here was Gretchen, already dealing with it as a reality.

  “I drove over to Steve’s house at five in the morning,” Gretchen said. “I sat there in my car for three hours. I waited until Steve came out with the kids, put them in the car, and took them to school.”

  “Just Steve, I take it,” Sandy said.

  “No one with him. I watched the door after he left to see if anyone else came out,” Gretchen said. “I’m crazy, right? I’m telling you, I’m a wreck. What’s happening to me?”

  Good question. You went over to Steve’s house at five in the morning. You sat outside his house for three hours. Was it all for fear of Gabrielle and the kids in the next room?

  That was part of it, but you also wanted Steve, Sandy thought. You moved toward him like a sleepwalker, unconsciously. You approached his doorstep.

  And there you stopped. You couldn’t go in. Sandy thought of the last scene in The Searchers: John Wayne at the doorstep of the family home. The family is finally happily reunited inside. Wayne is still on the porch. And the door closes, shutting him out.

  Gretchen was scared that the door would close on her.

  “This is hard stuff,” Sandy said. Gretchen was tearing up again and Sandy handed her the tissue box.

  “I don’t want a blended family,” Gretchen said. “I hate the term blended family, like we’re a blended whiskey.”

  This was honest. Good for Gretchen. So what can you do about not having one? Sometimes there aren’t many other choices. But you still have them, Gretchen. Gretchen handed Sandy back the tissues.

  “I need more out of life. I can’t move forward. I’m stuck,” Gretchen said. “Miserable.”

  “You look really tired,” Sandy said.

  “You mean I look like shit,” Gretchen said.

  No, Gretchen was still beautiful, but different. She’d acquired a sort of patina, beauty tempered by suffering.

  “You just look tired,” Sandy said, realizing she’d had this conversation with Gretchen before, Gretchen attacking the same demons again.

  “I forget stuff, I’m unsure, tentative when I’m teaching. I’m really unhappy,” Gretchen said.

  “I’m sorry,” Sandy said.

  “Remember that drama professor from a month ago?” Gretchen said. “He still won’t leave me alone. What’s wrong with him?”

  “So tell him you don’t like him, tell him to get lost,” Sandy said.

  “What?” Gretchen said. “How could I tell him that?”

  “You sound trapped,” Sandy said. “But you’re springing the trap yourself. What is it? Good manners? You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings? This has got to stop, Gretchen. No more pleasing people. If you ever want to have a real marriage you have to stop pleasing people. Tell the drama guy to get out of your life. Immediately. Go. Gone.”

  “I don’t know,” Gretchen said softly. Sandy could see the tumblers of her brain spinning, recalculating.

  “I was in love with Steve,” Gretchen said, her mind jumping, explaining to herself why Steve was different.

  “I know you were,” Sandy said, thinking, You are in love with Steve.

  “I can’t live with Steve again,” Gretchen said.

  “But you hate blended families and you married Steve because you loved him,” Sandy said.

  Gretchen’s blue eyes narrowed.

  “Why does Steve always get what he wants?” Gretchen said angrily.

  “I’d say he’s had a hell of a time the past months. A real killer,” Sandy said. “He’s been slammed and knocked down. And somehow he’s managed to get back on his feet again and again.”

  “So what!” Gretchen said loudly. “I mean, poor Steve.”

  Sandy let Gretchen’s anger lie there between them.

  “My mother is coming out here to see me and the kids,” Gretchen said after a few moments. “She asked me if I would mind if she had lunch with Steve. It’s like women—they all want to help Steve out. He has his cleaning woman, he has his beautiful Italian cook, he has his own mother, who would do anything for him. And now he has my mother too. I mean, why? Why?”

  Sandy wanted to swing the conversation back to where they’d started, to the problem Gretchen couldn’t solve.

  “Yes, it feels unfair. But can we go back to the issue of you going over to Steve’s in the middle of the night?” Sandy said.

  Gretchen didn’t want to, Sandy read it in her movement as she pushed back in her seat.

  “You were worried about Gabrielle,” Sandy said.

  “I don’t know,” Gretchen said stubbornly. “I don’t care.”

  “Oh yes you do,” Sandy said. “Come on. We’ve been through this before. Don’t you realize that we’ve talked about this, in almost these exact words?”

  Gretchen looked off toward the corner of the room.

  “I know we talked about this before,” Gretchen said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Let me ask you something else. If Steve tells you that he wants to talk to you about Gabrielle, what are you going to do?” Sandy said.

  “I guess I’ll listen,” Gretchen said.

  “Yes, you should do that,” Sandy said.

  Gretchen looked off again.

  “Getting back together with Steve,” Gretchen said slowly. “At some point, if I don’t get back together with Steve, he will find someone else. I know it.”

  “At some point, yes, someone, or Gabrielle in particular, could be a real issue,” Sandy said. “But right now, you could just tell Steve that you really didn’t want him to see Gabrielle, and he’d do it.”

  Gretchen nodded. She was thinking.

  “Maybe,” Gretchen said. “I’m not going to do that. But I’d like to know if we are close to the point of no return.”

  Everyone had a button. Steve had one to make Bill disappear. Gretchen had one she could use on Gabrielle. And Sandy had one now. She could press it and get them back together. She could say to Gretchen, You need to get back with Steve now, or he’ll find someone else.

  “Are we close to that point of no return?” Gretchen asked. “Please. Tell me, Sandy.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sandy said.

  What if I’m wrong, Sandy thought. What if I don’t press the button and Steve goes off with Gabrielle? What if I’ve misjudged the whole situation?

  “Will you tell me if we get close to it?” Gretchen asked.

  “You tell me,” Sandy said. “You know Steve better than I do. You’ll know if you get close to that point.”

  “Will I?”

  “I promise you,” Sandy said. What are you promising? Sandy wondered. What can you really deliver?

  “Steve and I are separated,” Gretchen said. “But I want to treat him as if he was still my husband, as if we were still married.”

  As if you still trusted each other, Sandy thought. That’s what Gretchen meant.

  “Are you divorced? No. Not only can you tr
eat him as your husband, he is your husband,” Sandy said.

  “Do you want us to get back together?” Gretchen asked suddenly.

  “That’s not my call,” Sandy said.

  What a cop-out, Sandy thought, sort of ashamed of herself. Yes, Gretchen, yes, I want you to get back together, but you have to do it yourself.

  “I’m really, really angry with Steve,” Gretchen said.

  I know that, you went over to his house at five in the morning, you waited in your car for three hours. I see your anger, Sandy thought.

  “I think your anger is something you need to talk to Steve about,” Sandy said.

  “I don’t want to be intimate with you,” Gretchen said fiercely, loudly. She sat straight in her chair. “I don’t want to get back together with you.”

  “With Steve,” Sandy said.

  “Yes, I’m a wreck, I mean, I won’t get back together with Steve,” Gretchen said.

  “Except you hate blended families, and you hide in your car outside Steve’s house for hours in the middle of the night, you’ve slept with people you don’t like,” Sandy said. “And yet you don’t believe you can talk about any of this with Steve. Come on. Give me a break.”

  “I went to his house because he’s fucking someone when he’s got the kids,” Gretchen howled.

  “But he wasn’t,” Sandy said.

  “But he could have been,” Gretchen screamed.

  19.

  “But he could have been,” Gretchen screamed. And slumped back in her chair, exhausted.

  They sat in the office quietly. It felt to Sandy as if they had crossed through some barrier, emerged on the other side. This was a new session now.

  “While you were sitting in the car outside Steve’s house?” Sandy said. “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?”

  “At four in the morning, when the kids were asleep?” Gretchen said.

  “You said you went over at five and stayed in your car for three hours. So you were there at seven when the kids were waking up and Steve would probably have loved to have some help with them,” Sandy said.

  “What if Gabrielle had been there?” Gretchen said.

  “What if she was?”

  “What would I have done?”

  “You weren’t carrying a gun or a knife. You would have introduced yourself,” Sandy said. “And you would have had some answers. But Gabrielle wasn’t going to be there. So you would have rung the bell, walked in, and said to Steve, I missed the kids.”