Left

by Mary Hogan

  “Yes. I did try to find you. I circled arou—”

  “No, you haven’t said you were sorry.”

  “Jesus Christ, Fay. Sorry. Happy?”

  At that moment, I was certain I’d never feel happiness again.

  How could my husband leave me?

  I SPOKE NOT another word to Paul for the rest of our trip. My heart beat black blood. Somehow, we made it back to New York. With a whistle and a thud, the landing gear lowered itself into position. We bounced and screeched when the tires hit the ground at JFK. The back thrust of the engines pressed my body against the seat. For a moment, my migraine—still my sinister companion—was pushed to the rear of my head. I imagined kneeling before our toilet bowl at home, opening my mouth, and spewing bile.

  As soon as we pulled up to the gate, I felt rage at the passengers ahead of us. Who decreed that disembarking passengers had to go row by row? If someone in the middle of the plane had no carry-on, why couldn’t she dash off while others were yanking duffel bags out of the overheads? Who gave the airlines the right to hold us prisoner?

  When, at last, it was our turn, I watched Paul clutch the seat back to pull himself up. He winced. Before he left me, I would have asked, “Are your knees still bothering you?” I would have cared. He would have said, “No,” and I would have known he was lying. We would have performed our marital dance: the unspoken way we knew how to handle each other. It took trust to learn those steps. Faith to execute the intricate twirls. I never dreamed my Paul, my man, would drop me.

  “What, you’re never going to speak to me again?” he asked.

  As I had rehearsed in my head during the ticking minutes of our long journey home, I stated, “Until you understand why it would never even occur to me to leave the corner where you left me, I have nothing to say.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “YOU’RE GOING TO END YOUR MARRIAGE OVER THIS?”

  Anita met me for a drink at Minton’s, her favorite bar near her studio in Harlem. She was prepping for a gallery show; I’d skipped yoga class in favor of a tequila Blood and Fire and scallion fries. Since Spain, I’d been unable to paint. I kept reaching for blue black.

  “No,” I said, tightly. “Paul is.”

  “You’ve got to let him out of the doghouse,” Anita said.

  I shook my head no. “Until he understands why it would never even occur to me to leave the corner where he left me, I have nothing to say.”

  It became my mantra. My line in the sand.

  ANITA AND I met in art school. From the start, everyone could see she was the best of us. Back then, she painted round women in a style similar to Kobayashi or Matisse, yet completely her own. Me, I painted houses with blank windows. My early inspiration was Egon Schiele.

  Anita Pritchard was the sort of woman whose chin preceded her body when she walked. As confident as a backless dress. The line from the nape of her neck to her tailbone was I-beam straight. Even when no one was looking. Though someone always was. Tall and Junoesque, she had one of those boyish haircuts few women can pull off. White blond, long bangs in front, short buzz in back. Earlobes on display. Anita would never dream of hiding behind hair.

  “Whoa,” she said when she first blew into my corner space in the student studio. “I must have this.” She was referring to one of my older paintings. A stylized portrait of a woman I’d seen on the subway. I liked that one, too. I flushed with pleasure.

  “We’ll trade.” She swirled away. I followed her. Of course. Like a cyclone, Anita was a spinning mass of energy that sucked everyone into her warm core.

  I remember every moment of that first encounter. Planting herself in front of me, Anita scanned my face, my body. She stood close enough for me to worry about my breath. Involuntarily, I crossed my arms high in front of my chest, as if I were standing there naked.

  “Got it.” She walked over to a bin of mounted canvases—already, she had done more work than anyone else—and flipped through. The wood frames whap, whapped against one another. I inhaled the earthy scent of oil paint, the citrus aroma of terpene. In one precise motion, Anita pulled out a portrait and held it up.

  “From my family’s trip to Cuba.”

  It was a painting of a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress. The back of her full body, as she walked uphill. Her black hair was unkempt in a provocative way. As if she’d just woken up. Her thighs still sticky from sex. Her rear end was wide and visibly rippled. Her bare elbows were cushioned in excess flesh. The painted woman glanced over her shoulder, facing the viewer. Her expression was a blend of annoyance and invitation.

  “You’ll like this one,” Anita said.

  She was wrong. I loved it. I didn’t look at that painting as much as I fell into it. Instantly, I knew I would spend hours staring at the expression on that woman’s face, studying how an artist could capture such a complex emotion so brilliantly.

  From that day on, Anita Pritchard and I have felt like sisters. Or the way we imagined sisters feel. She’s an only child; I only had brothers. Ours is an inexplicable closeness. Our cogs fit. In school and after, we shared an apartment, our fantasies of the future, our sorrows of the past. She was the maid of honor at my wedding. After all these years, I still feel lucky to be her friend. I’m so clearly out of her league.

  “Another drink?” she asked me at Minton’s.

  “You read my mind,” I replied.

  Chapter Twelve

  “HAD MY PURSE SLID UNDER THE PASSENGER SEAT? IS THAT why you didn’t know I had no money? No credit card? No way to look for you?”

  Sometimes a person has to speak to her husband whether she wants to or not. In the weeks after Paul and I returned home from Spain, I foraged for a plausible explanation.

  “Was there a language barrier when you spoke to the airport police? Is that why you said I was lost, not you?”

  Paul shrugged. Like he didn’t care. “It wasn’t nighttime, Fay. It’s not like you were a two-year-old who lost her mommy.”

  I stood there, speechless. My upper lashes hit my lower eyelids with a plink, plink sort of sound.

  “You should have put two and two together,” he said. “You should have known where I was. Where else would I be? You could have taken a cab to the airport and met me at the rental-car return. I would have paid the cabdriver then. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

  Over and over, he squirted lighter fluid on my smoldering upset.

  “Let it go, Faith. Christ.”

  Since when did he call me Faith? Since when did my law-and-order judge swear?

  I waited for feelings of love to creep back in like fog. The way they always did after a fight. Always had, before my husband of two decades became a man I didn’t recognize.

  Instead, things got worse.

  It was a Saturday. On the cusp of fall, the air was pleasantly cool. I woke up content enough. Sometimes a person has to get over things. Next to me, Paul’s stomach rose and fell. He snorted the guttural sounds of his sleep. Mmkaw. Lola sat on the rug below my side of the bed, staring at me with the stillness of a lioness waiting for a gazelle to wander over. I got up, fed her, and opened the back door to our garden. “We’ll go to the park later,” I said.

  The Spain Incident—TSI, as I’d come to call it—had softened into a remembered sting. A wasp wound from childhood. My husband had made a mistake. Whose husband hadn’t? I knew he was sorry. Not everything had to be put into words. That’s what I told myself. Sometimes a person has to move on. So I did. Upstairs to the kitchen.

  The smell of sizzling butter woke Paul up. In his robe, he clomped up the stairs to the kitchen. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “To you, Your Honor.” I poured my husband a cup of coffee and added heavy whipping cream. His morning indulgence.

  “Orange juice?” I asked.

  “Splendid.”

  Bzzzz. Lola galloped up the stairs from the garden.

  “Oh no.” I considered ignoring the door. I plopped two misshapen pancakes o
n Paul’s plate and turned back to the stove.

  Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

  Bark. Bark.

  “Lola. Stop. Now.”

  Bark. Bark. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Neither would give up anytime soon. “Paul.” I, too, barked. “Can’t you hear the buzzer?” He lifted his head and regarded me disinterestedly. When I stomped to the door, he reached for the butter.

  “Yes?” I hissed into the intercom.

  “Fay-ee.”

  As I knew it would, my heart sank. “Brenda.”

  Bark. Bark.

  “Who else would be up at this ungodly hour?”

  At the kitchen table, Paul smeared butter over his pancakes. He licked a drip off the syrup bottle.

  “How can we help you, Brenda? So early. On a Saturday.”

  “Very funny, Fay.” Bark. Bark.

  “We’re in the middle of breakfast.” Truly, I wasn’t in the mood. Not when I’d so recently retrieved my mood from the bottom of a well.

  “Is your buzzer broken?” she asked, impatience tainting her voice.

  Bark. Bark.

  “Paul!” I shouted. “Shut Lola up!”

  Without getting up, Paul tore off a piece of his pancake and threw it across the room. Lola scampered after it. I stared at him with my mouth open. Brenda yelled into the intercom, “For God’s sake, Fay, let me in. I have an appointment.”

  Appointment?

  “Let her in,” said Paul.

  My molars pressed together. Could he never tell that woman no?

  I buzzed her in. I unlocked the apartment door and left it open and tromped back to the stove thinking, I’ll be damned if I’m going to make Brenda pancakes. And Paul can get his own juice. So there.

  “Good heavens,” Brenda said, breathless at the top of the stairs. “You’d think you live in Fort Knox.”

  Paul looked at his ex and asked, “Orange juice?” Then he said to me, “Fay? Juice for both of us?” I looked at him like he was out of his mind.

  “No, thanks,” said Brenda. “I can’t stay. I just swung by with the paperwork.”

  “Paperwork?” I turned to face her.

  “The loan.”

  “What loan?”

  “Didn’t Paul tell you?”

  At that moment, Paul set down his fork, licked his fingers, wiped them on his robe, and calmly took the manila envelope out of Brenda’s hand. As I stood there with a spatula in my hand, he pulled a contract out and proceeded to sign it.

  “I had our lawyer draw it up,” Paul said in the same breezy tone he used when he asked, “How are those pancakes coming? You only made two.”

  “Paul?”

  “All set.” He handed the contract back to his ex.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s going on?”

  Tiptoeing to the door, Brenda said, “Whoa boy. Don’t want to get in the middle of this.” Quietly, she let herself out.

  “What just happened?” My mouth dangled open.

  “Bren borrowed money for something or other.”

  “A meditation studio?” I enunciated each syllable. Med-i-ta-tion-stu-di-o. It was the cockamamie plan she’d been hatching before we left for Spain. Before my husband left me on a corner and drove away.

  “Something like that.”

  My free hand flew up to my head. My eyes darted around the kitchen. “Am I being punked?”

  Paul raised his nose in the air. “Do I smell something burning?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT WAS A GENTLE INVITATION INSTEAD OF A DARE. A whoosh. Not a clang or a thunk. When your elevator door opened, I heard Benny’s mom say something with the cadence of a greeting. Benny resumed his yapping.

  “Once we move in,” I muttered to myself, “Lola will teach that Muppet some self-respect.” At least my girl barked for a reason. Protecting her turf. What, Benny thought he owned the lobby? The elevator?

  From my perch on your antique bench, I heard footsteps on your marble hallway. I saw his hand before I saw him. It slid down the brass railing of your interior steps and glimmered in a halo of reddish hairs. He wore a white shirt, tucked and belted into twill pants. Suede brogues. His shirt was rakishly open at the collar. One button, maybe two. I stared, unblinking, unable to turn away. All of a sudden, he looked up. Straight at me. Electricity surged through my body. Instantly, I absorbed the curls of his light hair—graying red? His glasses were tortoiseshell. His skin was pale and freckled. He smiled with the knowing warmth of a pediatrician. The sort of doctor who would circle around his desk to take your hand before he told you that your child had leukemia. A man who understood sorrow.

  In his age and unhurried gait, I surmised that the pediatrician was semiretired. Six months out of the year he volunteered with Doctors Without Borders? Which, of course, he called Médecins Sans Frontières because he’d mastered French late in life to better serve the Haitian kids who so desperately needed his help.

  “Hello,” I heard myself utter as he drew near. My voice, I noticed, lilted with the faintest accent. I dropped the H. ’Ello.

  “Hello,” he replied. Openly, simply. Without the hint of an agenda. As he approached your front door, I watched the pediatrician pass under your central chandelier. In its soft light, he looked angelic.

  “Morning,” he said to Juan Carlos on his way out the door. Obviously, he was a man of few words, primarily a listener. I watched him descend your front steps and turn right, uptown, away from Lola’s hydrant. Breaking my heart, he disappeared from sight.

  As if watching a movie inside my brain, I saw it all unfold.

  “Forgot my mobile,” he’d sheepishly tell J.C., returning a minute later. Having only recently come home from Africa, he’d still call a cell a “mobile,” a trunk a “boot,” a garbage can a “bin,” and sneakers “trainers.” He’d say he was pissed when he was actually drunk. And it would sound charming, not fake like Madonna or Gwyneth.

  Juan Carlos would shake his head. “Man, I lose my phone at least once a month.” It wouldn’t be true, but he’d make it sound as though it were. That’s the kind of doorman—man—he was. He put others’ needs first.

  Once inside, the pediatrician would aim for your interior steps. His breath would catch when he sensed my presence. He’d stop for a millisecond before looking up. Then he would. Look up. My cheeks would flush pink. When our gazes met, I’d notice the diamond sparkle in his eyes. The sort of grin that changes a whole face.

  “You’re still here,” he’d say. He wouldn’t say, “I’d hoped you were,” but it would be understood. As if pulled by a riptide, he’d float over to the antique bench. I’d see the slight shaving rash beneath his chin. I’d resist the urge to kiss it. To claim that fleshy spot as my own.

  “May I?” he’d ask.

  In reply, I would slide over. I, too, would be a person of few words. He’d like that. I’d watch the kaleidoscope colors from the stained glass windows shift from my right sleeve to my left. The pediatrician would sit close to me. He’d be unafraid to maintain eye contact. My heart would beat so hard it ached.

  “I’m Preston,” he’d say.

  No. Too stuffy.

  “I’m Drake.”

  Too rapper. Too English sea captain.

  “I’m Blake.”

  Yes. Blake.

  “Hello, Blake. I’m Fay.” My accent would fall away. I’d be back to myself. Only softer. Prettier. Thinner.

  When I held out my hand to shake Blake’s, he’d cradle it as if my fingers were newborn birds and his hands were their nest. His fingernails would be clipped and filed. Cuticles as snowy as an orchid’s anther cap.

  “I feel your despair.”

  He’d whisper so softly I wouldn’t be sure he said anything at all. Still, I’d feel it. Despite my best efforts, tears would rise up and spill over. The beautiful kind, not tears that produce snot. With the back of his freckled forefinger, he’d brush my tears away. First one cheek, then the other. His hand would smell like homemade soap. I’d want to grab it
and inhale it but I wouldn’t. Not yet.

  “Everything is going to be okay.”

  That, I would hear clearly. Another large teardrop would roll like maple syrup down my cheek. “Really?”

  He’d nod and smile. He’d pat my hand. Lovingly, not pejoratively. With a slight rub to it. The way a pediatrician would. He’d say nothing more. Words were superfluous. In his warm grip, in the golden light of your lobby, on your shiny antique bench in the reflection of the glass sky, I’d believe that my days of sorrow would cease. With the pediatrician’s help, I would find myself again. The Fay I once knew and had forgotten to appreciate. I would survive this. Joy would again effervesce in my soul like champagne.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MY ALHAMBRA COLLECTION WAS STUNNING, IF I MAY SAY so myself. Once I was able to see color again, I worked until I got it just right. When lamplight shone through the painted shades, it cast a sunset glow throughout the room. Exactly the way I wanted to remember Spain. My way of forgetting the bleakness of a husband who inexplicably leaves his wife standing on a corner. Yeah, I’d tried to move on. I’d also tried to squeeze into a size 8 shoe. Some things hurt even when you can live without them.

  As I suspected, the intricate Nasrid borders elevated my work. Time-consuming, but worth it. My Etsy account was on fire.

  I set the alarm for six in the morning. While Paul snored like a chain saw, I walked Lola in the cadet blue of a fresh day. We stayed out until I was sure Paul was up and dressed and on his way to court. Much longer than usual. Lola loved it. Seated like a sphinx at the base of a park bench, she glared at passing dogs, slowly licking her lips.

  Think you can take me?

  If they did, they were wrong. Off-leash, my muscular girl could outrun almost anything on two legs or four.

  When I unlocked the door of our apartment and heard the silence, I felt the balm of relief. Time alone was the only way I could stop my head from spinning.

  “. . . so Anita brings him up to her studio and he buys, like, five of her paintings. A guy she met on the subway!”