Listen to the Marriage

by John Jay Osborn

  “What will Chris think if you’re not there?” Steve said.

  “He’ll think that his parents are separated,” Sandy said. “But I doubt he’ll even notice. They all get such a sugar rush, all of them running around, everything a blur.”

  “I don’t want to do this alone,” Steve said quietly.

  “You wouldn’t be alone, you’ll have twenty kids and twenty parents,” Gretchen said. “Maybe Gabrielle will help you out.”

  “I’m going to ignore that,” Steve said.

  “Why?” Sandy said. “Why would you ignore it?”

  Steve looked at Sandy, and then back to Gretchen.

  “I’m not having an affair with Gabrielle,” Steve said.

  “Not yet,” Gretchen said.

  “Steve,” Sandy said. “What did you feel when Gretchen said Gabrielle will help you out?”

  “Like she was messing with me,” Steve said.

  “She was, but how did that make you feel?” Sandy said.

  “What do you expect?” Steve said angrily. “I’m trying to make a plan for the birthday party. And this is what she throws at me? I should do it with Gabrielle? I felt angry.”

  “Fair enough,” Sandy said. “And why do you think Gretchen said that Gabrielle would be glad to help you?”

  “She’s mad at me,” Steve said.

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “And why is she mad?”

  “Wait a minute,” Gretchen said. “I’m not mad. I’m just sad, melancholy. I’m sorry.”

  Sandy took them back.

  “Why won’t you celebrate Chris’s birthday with Steve?” Sandy asked.

  “Good question,” Gretchen said. “My feelings are complicated, but it’s something like this: I realize that when you get divorced, there is a lot of pretending necessary to keep things on an even keel. You pretend at birthday parties, at graduations, at school events. But I don’t want to pretend right now. I guess I don’t want to learn how to pretend yet.”

  “I don’t want to learn how to pretend either,” Steve said.

  “If I’m not at the party, then you won’t have to,” Gretchen said. “You can just be Steve, Chris’s father. You won’t have to pretend to be Gretchen’s husband.”

  “Why don’t you want to learn how to pretend?” Sandy said.

  “Who would?” Gretchen said.

  “Someone who was getting a divorce,” Sandy said. “That’s what you told us.”

  “I don’t want to get a divorce,” Gretchen said vigorously. “Who ever wants to get a divorce? I would be crazy to want a divorce. One of the reasons I’m still here is that I don’t want a divorce. But will I get divorced? I have no idea. You tell me. You have a lot of experience with couples on the brink.”

  “And I’ve been divorced,” Sandy said. “And I can tell you that you don’t want one if you can avoid it.”

  “How long ago did you get divorced?” Gretchen said. Then: “Is it okay if I ask that?”

  “You can ask anything you want,” Sandy said. “I don’t do the therapist-must-keep-her-distance thing. I got divorced twenty-five years ago.”

  “You were married young,” Gretchen said.

  Sandy smiled. Divorced young, remarried young.

  “Both times,” she said.

  Everything stopped for a moment.

  “So I asked, will I get divorced?” Gretchen said.

  “I don’t know,” Sandy said.

  “Can I say something?” Steve said. “I don’t want to get divorced.”

  Gretchen looked at him. She sort of drew herself together and thought for a moment before she said anything.

  “But you cheated on me. Then you slept with Bonny Garvey,” Gretchen said. “I’m not saying that was wrong. As Sandy says, I don’t do wrong. But it still hurts me. I know that’s crazy. I shouldn’t be hurt. I left you. What are you supposed to do? And I have certainly not been faithful to you during our separation. Nevertheless, it still hurts me. And let’s face it: you’re on the verge of having an affair with Gabrielle, if you aren’t having one already. I understand that. I know you’re lonely and your ego has been hurt.

  “But the thing is, the more time goes on, the longer we are separated, there are more and more hurts. We’ll keep piling them on, until one day we crack. Then we get divorced.”

  “Everyone gets hurt, whether they are married or divorced,” Sandy said. “The key is being able to handle it, deal with it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Gretchen said. She looked at Steve again. “I have this thing going with Bill. Not like it was before. But I like to talk to him. I like to get letters from him. Old-fashioned letters. On good paper. He writes them with a fountain pen and he has beautiful handwriting. How would you feel if we got back together and I still kept in touch with Bill? I probably wouldn’t see him that much, just at the occasional conference. Could you handle that if we lived together, Steve? I don’t want to be with him. I’m past that.”

  “At the occasional conference,” Steve said. “Would you sleep with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Gretchen said. “Probably not. But I certainly wouldn’t make any promises.”

  “Are you serious about this?” Steve said.

  Gretchen leaned forward and stared him in the eyes.

  “I’m deadly serious,” she said, sounding deadly serious.

  Sandy guessed that when Steve felt very good about himself, when he was confident in himself, then he might take Gretchen up on this offer. But when he was down, when he was tired, insecure, had doubts about himself, then he would imagine that Gretchen was sleeping with Bill, and he would throw it back at Gretchen.

  Steve now was in no condition to live with Gretchen on these terms, to be forever wondering if she was talking to Bill, writing to him, or sleeping with him. Steve wouldn’t last twenty-four hours.

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. “What if we lived together and I didn’t make any promises about how I would act if you kept in touch with Bill?”

  “Then we won’t live together,” Gretchen said. “I refuse to be beaten up emotionally.”

  Sandy realized that Gretchen was talking about the birthday party. Did Steve? If he didn’t, Sandy would let him know.

  “When have I done that?” Steve said.

  “You’re doing it right now,” Gretchen said with feeling, angry now. “About the birthday. You won’t let me alone about it. I’m a bad person because I won’t do what you think is right for the kids.”

  Sandy thought how amazing it was that you could put it all out there in front of a guy and he wouldn’t, couldn’t see it. It is right there, Steve, you have got to learn to see it. You have to.

  “Steve, what is Gretchen saying to you?” Sandy said.

  “She won’t do a birthday party,” Steve said quietly and tentatively, knowing that he didn’t really understand.

  Steve looked lost, in the middle of a forest that had no roads, asking, How had he gotten there if there were no roads?

  “Gretchen said that you were beating her up about the birthday party,” Sandy said. “From the beginning, she was saying that something was wrong about the birthday party. She was hurting about the birthday party. Why? And what does it have to do with Bill?”

  She could see Steve’s eyes, his mind, beginning to replay the session, to spin the tape back and then forward. Yes, Steve, it is that hard. But you can do it. Sandy wanted to throttle him, jump up, grab his head, and twist it.

  “Steve!”

  “Okay,” Steve said. “Are you telling me that Gretchen feels so badly about us being separated that she doesn’t want to parade it around in front of Chris’s whole class?”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Sandy said. “Ask Gretchen. It’s about Gretchen’s feelings.”

  Steve paused, thinking, an idea sliding over his face.

  “And she thinks maybe Bill was a mistake and she’s worried that I’ll always be critical of her for that?” Steve said, beginning to really understand. The opposite of what
she’s said …

  Steve looked at Gretchen. He got nothing back. She was too proud. And she wasn’t any more in touch with her feelings than Steve was with his. Not yet.

  “Ask Gretchen,” Sandy said.

  “Gretchen?”

  “It tears my heart out that we have reached this point with the kids,” Gretchen said softly. “They know what’s going on.”

  “So let’s find a solution that works for everyone,” Steve said suddenly. He was on a roll, moving from idea to idea, finally beginning to see behind the words. Sandy watched as the new idea flooded into Steve.

  “Chris loves trains,” Steve said. “He has a huge wooden train set.”

  He smiled.

  “How about this,” Steve said. “We take Chris on a train ride to Palo Alto and back. His first ride on a real train. He can take one friend from class with him. Liz comes and she can bring a friend. We have a birthday lunch in Palo Alto.”

  Gretchen nodded.

  “I like that.” She thought for a moment.

  “I can do that,” she said.

  22.

  “So how did the birthday party go?” Sandy asked.

  “It was pretty good,” Steve said. “The kids enjoyed it.”

  He looked at Gretchen. Clearly he preferred that she be the one to talk about it.

  “It was fine,” Gretchen said evenly.

  She looked over at Steve, then back at Sandy.

  “Okay, that wasn’t fair,” Gretchen said. “Steve did a great job, he brought engineers’ caps for the kids, and presents for everyone. He’d arranged for a picnic.”

  Gretchen seemed to draw into herself; she looked off into the middle distance.

  “I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it, but the weekend after that time I met Bill at the conference, I went with Steve and the kids to a friend’s house in Palo Alto. They have two kids about the same age as Chris and Liz, and they have a big pool. We had arranged this a month before. How could I get out of it?

  “Of course, the last thing I wanted to do was to spend a day with Steve and the kids, with these friends, and have to act as if I cared about Steve, or that we were still a family. I hated the whole idea of it. I felt numb in the car as we drove down. I would look over at Steve and I knew that he would never make me happy, that I would never have the connection with Steve the way I’d had this instant, overwhelming connection with Bill.

  “It was the saddest day, and also so edgy. I was just repulsed to be with Steve, to think that he was the father of my kids, that I’d ever thought I’d loved him, that I’d ever made love with him.

  “Now we were going back to Palo Alto, albeit on the train, not in the car, but still. So I thought about that other trip, when I really couldn’t abide Steve and I believed that I would be able to make a life with Bill, telling myself that getting divorced wasn’t so bad. That was eight months ago, and now on this trip, on the train, I could look at Steve, and I could appreciate the effort he’d put into this party. And I could appreciate how he keeps coming, you know what I mean? I must have told him fifty times that I didn’t want to do the birthday party with him, but he kept pushing it, pushing, and finally we reached this train compromise. And the kids had fun, and even I had fun.”

  Sandy was thinking that Gretchen had started out stonewalling the question of what the train trip party had been like. And then she’d been able to call out to her current feelings and her memories of her past feelings, and the feelings and memories had cocked their heads and had come bouncing back to her, like big shaggy dogs.

  23.

  “I just thought I’d let you know that I’m going to be out of town this weekend,” Steve said. “But if you need backup, my parents are here.”

  “Where are you going?” Gretchen asked.

  “Mendocino,” Steve said.

  “I hope you’re not going to Mendocino with Bonny,” Gretchen said. “That would tick me off.”

  “I haven’t seen Bonny in months,” Steve said. “I thought I told you that.”

  “Good,” Gretchen said.

  He was so comfortable in her office now, Sandy thought. She wanted them both to feel as if it were completely normal to talk about the most intimate things while she was in the room with them, where she was this little machine that could translate what they’d said into what they’d meant.

  “So who are you going with?” Sandy asked.

  “I’m going with Gabrielle,” Steve said. “The woman who is my cooking teacher.”

  “You know, Steve,” Gretchen said. “I actually do recall that you are being taught to cook by an Italian woman named Gabrielle. And you’ll remember my curiosity got the better of me and I looked at her website. Isn’t she about twenty?”

  “No, she’s in her thirties,” Steve said.

  “The cooking lessons must be going really well,” Gretchen said.

  “I’m available to make you dinner anytime,” Steve said.

  “But not this weekend,” Gretchen said.

  “This is the first time I’ve really done anything with her,” Steve said.

  “It’s funny how last weekend we did the birthday party and this coming weekend you’re going away with Gabrielle,” Gretchen said.

  “Why is that peculiar?” Sandy said. “You had a good time with Steve at the birthday and now he’s going away with Gabrielle for a weekend. Why is it funny? What is the connection?”

  “I’m referring to the irony of it,” Gretchen said. “I have the first good time I’ve had with Steve in years, and the next thing I know he’s going away for the weekend with his cooking teacher.”

  “Why doesn’t that make perfect sense?” Sandy said.

  “You mean that Steve spends the day with me, and then he wants to go away with another woman for the weekend? That makes sense?” Gretchen said. “One of the reasons I didn’t want to do this birthday party with Steve was because I didn’t want to send a message to the kids that we might get back together again.”

  “Really?” Sandy said. “You never mentioned that when we discussed the birthday plan. I don’t think the kids have anything to do with this. I think you’re unsure about Steve going away with Gabrielle because you’re unsure about your relationship with Steve.”

  Gretchen sat up, shook her head.

  “Yes, I’m unsure about Steve,” she said. “But I’m unsure about almost everything right now.”

  Which is progress, Sandy thought.

  “Do you want me not to go?” Steve asked.

  “Steve, knock it off,” Gretchen said.

  “So how do you feel about it?” Steve said.

  It occurred to Sandy that this was a pretty perceptive question, if a simple one, coming at this particular time.

  “I don’t know how I feel about it,” Gretchen said. “I guess I’m happy that you are able to move on with your life. I’m glad you waited until after Chris’s birthday party.”

  It was classic Gretchen; she said the exact opposite of what she felt. Move on with his life? Gretchen was happy? Gretchen, you are furious because Steve is going away with Gabrielle right after you had a good time with him at the birthday party.

  “You don’t sound happy,” Steve said.

  He got it. After eight months’ work, he realized what was going on.

  Gretchen shut her eyes.

  “No, I’m not happy,” Gretchen said. “I’m very lonely. I’m vulnerable. It’s not a pretty picture. It’s the middle of the winter, so I’m also cold.”

  “You always have trouble in the winter,” Steve said.

  “I should go skiing,” Gretchen said. “Maybe I will.”

  You were perceptive and then you blew it, Steve, Sandy thought.

  “Hold on a second, will you?” Sandy said. “Gretchen, you said you were lonely and vulnerable, and Steve, you said that Gretchen always has trouble in the winter.” You were doing so well, Steve. “Steve, Gretchen just told you she was feeling lonely and vulnerable.”

  “I heard that,�
�� Steve said.

  “Well, you’re not acting like you hear her,” Sandy said. “She says she’s lonely, vulnerable. You don’t follow up on that. And you were on a roll, Steve. Instead, you treat what Gretchen said as if it were a sign of seasonal affective disorder. And then, Gretchen, you go along with Steve and start talking about skiing. You guys totally back away from the feelings that are lying there right in front of you. It’s so scary to talk about feeling lonely and vulnerable that you retreat to the banal.”

  Sandy looked at Steve and Gretchen. They were in their mid-thirties, but at this moment they seemed much younger.

  “Let’s try this again, from the top,” Sandy said. “You go, Gretchen. Your cue is that you’re lonely and vulnerable.”

  Gretchen didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, Gretchen,” Sandy said. “Humor me.”

  “I was feeling lonely and vulnerable,” Gretchen said mechanically.

  “Why?” Steve asked.

  “Because I’m alone,” Gretchen said. “And vulnerable.”

  “I thought you were going out with some friend of Lucy’s, a writer,” Steve said.

  “Yes, I went out with him a few times, but he didn’t make me feel happy,” Gretchen said. “I burn through guys and none of them work for me.”

  “I don’t like to hear that because it makes me jealous,” Steve said.

  “There’s nothing to feel jealous about,” Gretchen said. “I’d let you know if there was. I’m a nun at the moment. I tried to make myself feel something, but I never did. I’ll be all right this weekend, though, because I have the kids.”

  “I have a question,” Sandy said. “So Steve tells you he’s going to Mendocino with Gabrielle, and immediately afterward you say that you’re feeling lonely and vulnerable.”

  “I know there is a connection,” Gretchen said.

  “And you went on Gabrielle’s website,” Sandy said. “I mean, there is a lot of stuff going on here.”

  “Doesn’t it seem a little odd that we spend so much time talking about other people we’ve been involved with,” Gretchen said. “Is who you sleep with so important?”

  “Well, it’s the nominal reason that you guys got into trouble in the first place, but I agree that it’s just a symptom, that the real troubles have to do with the lonely and vulnerable components,” Sandy said. “You went on Gabrielle’s website how many times? I know you went on it before. I remember you commenting on her eating a tomato. You went on it again, recently?”