“Nice thing to say about your friends.” Karen got into bed and pulled the lightweight comforter to her chin, even though the temperature was in the seventies.
“They’re not my friends. They’re your friends and their husbands. We see them almost every weekend, and now, it appears, we need to be with them during the week, too. I’m sick of them. And I’m sick of how you act when you’re with them.”
“Oh, and how do I act?” asked Karen, leaning against the two pillows on her side of the bed.
“Like them,” said Bob. “Like a woman who has no ambition, nothing better to do in her life than play tennis, lunch at the country club, and drink too much at night.”
“Tonight I drank too much, as did you. And yes, I’ll do whatever I please. I’ve paid my dues.”
“Is that what raising children is called now, dues paying?” said Bob, pulling his shirt over his head. “Does that mean, now that you’ve paid your dues, you’re released from spending any time with them? Are you now free, Karen?”
“At least one of us has spent time with them,” spat Karen. “You were desperate to have them until they were actually born.”
“Hey, someone’s got to make the money to feed your country club appetite.”
“It was your idea to join that club,” shouted Karen. “You can’t pin everything on me!”
“Then how about this one,” yelled Bob back, pants still around his ankles. “What the hell are you doing with your life?”
“Exactly what I want to be doing!”
“And that,” said Bob, pointing his right index finger at his wife, “is not the woman I married.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Bob put his pounding head in his hands. “You used to be a good mother,” he said, his voice volume lowered to its normal level, resigned.
“Because I had a ball and chain around my ankle and never left the house? Because I shopped for our food, made our meals, cleaned the house, and spent every moment I had with the children? Is that what made me a good mother?”
“Partly, Karen, yes.” Bob lifted his head and looked at his wife. “But it was more than that. You watched over them so carefully. I knew nothing would happen to Rebecca and Robert because you cared so deeply about them.”
“And I don’t now?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I can’t believe you even have to ask that.”
“You seem to spend time with anyone but them.”
“That’s because for so many years, I couldn’t,” said Karen. “I felt like I didn’t exist without them next to me, Bob. And now I have this time to myself, and it’s unbelievably good.”
“Your freedom,” said Bob, flatly.
“I know it’s a big joke to you, Bob. But that’s only because you’ve never been denied it.”
“Karen, you were always free to do what you wanted to do. There’s day care. There are babysitters. There’s your mother. You chose to stay home because you felt too guilty to leave them.”
“Don’t you dare disqualify that as a valid emotion.”
“Fine,” said Bob. “So you finally have this freedom, Karen. What the hell are you going to do with it other than fool around with foolish women? When I talk about your not being the motivated woman I married, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“And what about the man I married?” asked Karen. “What about the considerate gentleman who put my needs and wants above his? He disappeared at the wedding reception.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s as fair as you’re being with me. Life changes us, and don’t for one minute think you’re exempt.”
Bob removed his pants and stood. He walked to the bed and grabbed his pillow and the blanket folded at the foot. He turned away from his wife.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere else.”
Karen turned off her bedside light, ending the conversation, ending the night.
Bob left the following week for a ten-day business trip in Ohio and Indiana, so Karen was alone again with Rebecca and Robert, who were lethargic and bored, even though it was the first week of summer. The Keyworths were out of town, spending a week with Vincent’s parents on Cape Cod. Caroline and Ginny went to the club pool every day and had several times asked Karen and the kids to join them, but Rebecca each time had declared that she wasn’t in the mood for the Millers and the Lees, meaning she was still holding a grudge from the dinner party the week before. Karen suggested they ask school friends to the house, but both Rebecca and Robert declined. They barely wanted to go outside, even though there had been a string of sunny, seventy-five-degree days. Rebecca wanted to hang out in her room, and Robert wanted to play and watch TV in the basement, and Karen quickly realized she hadn’t signed them up for enough summer activities. Rebecca was going to an art day camp for two weeks in August, and Robert was scheduled to spend four weeks’ worth of July mornings at the club’s sports camp, but that was it. Maybe she could find something at the YMCA in town? While Karen rooted through their paper recycling bucket for the Y summer program guide, she wondered if she could find activities for the kids at the same time as her women’s doubles group at the club. She had already booked Jamie three afternoons a week, but maybe she could pare it down. While Jamie was a good sitter, Rebecca needed more than Jamie’s craft box, neighborhood nature walks, and preteen novels to fill her summer days. Karen found the guide and flipped through it, marking several options. She would ask Rebecca at lunch and then call the Y afterward.
While her languorous children idled away their first week of summer vacation, Karen cleaned out and reorganized her kitchen drawers, and put away the winter hats, boots, mittens, and coats she had been meaning to deal with since the end of April. She sorted the toys, CDs, books, and magazines that lay on the playroom floor, cleaned out Robert’s toy box, and reorganized his closet. She cleaned the basement, which she had to do periodically because she didn’t want to pay Shine Time another thirty dollars to do it biweekly. She washed and ironed all the curtains in the house. And when Rebecca protested about Karen’s tidying up her room, Karen instead baked four-dozen cookies, a coffeecake, and the lemon cheesecake Bob loved. By lunchtime on Friday, she needed a break. She nudged the kids away from their solitary activities with a trip to McDonald’s and Dairy Queen. When they got back to the house, there was a message on the answering machine from Sarah, who was back in town. Vincent had stayed on for the weekend at his parents’ cottage, and she wondered if Bob was traveling. Karen picked up the phone immediately, inviting them for a late afternoon playtime and dinner. Rebecca and Robert finally showed some enthusiasm.
Weeks had passed since Karen and Sarah had seen each other, which was becoming the new normal. They had run into one another at the local mall, where Karen was looking for a new tennis outfit, and Sarah had just purchased raincoats for her kids. The two women talked, briefly, before Karen broke it off, saying she had to run to Target to get underwear and socks for Rebecca and Robert before rushing home for the bus. In truth, Karen didn’t have to get socks and underwear; she just felt guilty about appearing completely focused on herself in the presence of someone who was usually focused on someone else. It had become easier for Karen to talk with Caroline, Ginny, and Stephanie because they used the words I and me as much as she did. Whenever she did get together with Sarah, Karen was fulfilled by the friendship, but she was also challenged by it, enough so that it was easy to let the weight of it drop. They were both busy, Karen with her new friends, and Sarah at the elementary school and in college classes, handy excuses. But they both knew it was more than that.
Feeling nostalgic for what they had once shared, Karen was pleased Sarah had called. And she was equally pleased that even though it was a weekend, Sarah’s request didn’t involve the husbands. Karen didn’t like Vincent, even though she had only met him once, at a benefit for the hospital almost three years ago. He was well over six feet tall, with dark hair an
d dark eyes, and long fingers with trimmed nails. When he spoke to Karen, he was condescending in his tone and in his manner, she thought, using his height to further inflate his dominant position. It was his research he talked about, rather than her friendship with his wife, whom he didn’t mention. Nonetheless, Karen had decided to push through her initial reaction and invite the Keyworths for dinner, adults only, so they could get to know one another better. And Sarah declined, saying Vincent wasn’t social. Karen accepted this explanation, even though it took her a while to understand it. Vincent was unlike most men Karen encountered, who seemed to enjoy, prolong even, their conversations with her. Vincent had been indifferent to Karen’s looks and social graces, making it easy for her to dismiss the Keyworths as couple friends. Back then, Karen wasn’t doing much entertaining anyway. She had been so busy with Robert and running the household that she rarely hosted anyone other than family. By the time Karen was ready to invite couples to her house for dinner, she and Sarah didn’t see as much of each other as they once had.
Sarah, Britney, and Jeremy arrived at four o’clock. Tired of her kids being in the house, Karen told them they had to be outside until dinner. While Rebecca and Robert initially protested, they were all soon settled in the backyard, the boys with giant bubble wands and the girls with beach chairs and drawing pads. Rebecca had taken an interest in drawing after her art teacher at school told her she had potential. And while her sketches of people were somewhat cartoon-like, her still-life drawings were recognizable and realistic. Sarah and Karen parked themselves on the porch with a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of cookies, and caught each other up on what had been going on in their respective lives.
Sarah, having volunteered in both of her kids’ classrooms throughout the year, was as happy as Britney and Jeremy that school was out for the summer. And yet she had enjoyed being in the school and experiencing firsthand what was going on in the classrooms. As soon as the teachers discovered she was a reliable and able volunteer, they entrusted her with more responsibility and more interesting work. Photocopying and recess duty were mandatory tasks assigned by most teachers, but Sarah was also often asked to teach a short lesson while the teacher caught up on prep work. Plus, they confided in her. They sought her opinion, as an outsider peeking in. She never would have known otherwise about the school’s inefficiencies, both procedural and managerial, or about the inherent strength of the teachers in spite of what came down from the top. The gossip and politics surprised Sarah at first, but then became routine, a source of derision, as happens in offices and business settings everywhere.
When Sarah asked what Karen had been doing to occupy her time, Karen talked briefly about her tennis clinics, lunches at the club, and afternoons reading or napping on the couch. She had immersed herself in this new life, invested everything in her freedom, and yet when she talked about it with Sarah, it sounded much more frivolous than noble. Sarah met Karen’s stories with a neutral expression, but Karen got defensive, like she usually did when she felt boxed in. She told Sarah, just like she habitually told Bob, that this year had been a well-deserved reward for taking care of the children. Sarah politely nodded her head in agreement, but Karen’s feelings of guilt were not mollified by this gesture. Sarah had, after all, mothered her two children through the difficult years and chosen to spend as much time during the school year as she could with them while Karen had spent the year staying away from hers.
“Bob thinks I have no purpose to my life,” Karen said, pouring more tea into their glasses.
Sarah took a cookie from the plate. “Is he right?”
Karen looked through the screen at the kids. “I don’t know. Do I need a purpose?”
Sarah took a bite of her cookie. “I don’t know. Do you?”
The tears surprised her; Karen had not cried in front of Bob for months. She had been angry enough, certainly, and frustrated enough to cry, but she had refused to do so, thinking he would use it against her. Crying, to him, was a tool women used to soften the resolute hearts of their spouses. He was sympathetic to Karen’s crying only when he had deliberately hurt her, by his words or actions. But that sympathy had become jaded by his recent conviction that what he said or did was justified. Plus, if she had cried to Bob—instead of shouted at him—about her need to be freed from the demands of her own children, she would have had to admit her guilt. And she wasn’t ready to do that, at least not with him.
Over time, the last school year especially, Karen had conditioned herself to absorb and compartmentalize her emotions, setting them free less spontaneously. She and Bob fought, but they fought less than they could have, each often choosing aloofness over anger. At one point during the year, just after Bob had received another promotion, making him busier than ever, Karen began to deeply rather than hastily question her love for him. It was over the course of a few weeks, when he was more out of town than in, that she had fantasized about being single, made a widow by a plane crash. She chastised herself for allowing these thoughts, but they had been real. Just about every word he said, the few days he was around, was about him: how he felt about something, how his career was going, how he envisioned their future. His words felt like sandpaper on tender skin, irritating, barely tolerable. Through her relationship with Ginny, Caroline, and Stephanie, Karen had been able to slowly discharge some of what she had been holding and hiding. They made it easy because they sometimes felt the same way about their husbands, especially Caroline. She bought things to help her feel better, and Karen had happily taken part. She had willingly made a break from her children and her husband and spent the last nine months convincing herself that she was entitled to her selfish behavior.
Sarah got up from her chair and hugged Karen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Karen said, blotting her tears with her shirt sleeve.
“The same thing that’s wrong with the rest of us,” said Sarah, patting Karen’s back. “Mothers are incredibly confused people.”
Karen drew back from her friend. “You’re not confused.”
“Oh yes, I am. I may look like I have it together, but there are days I’d give it all up to live with a gorgeous, young French masseuse in Paris.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I couldn’t be more serious.”
“And leave Vincent, Britney, and Jeremy behind?”
“Without a second look.”
Karen took a sip of her tea. “Now that’s impressive.”
“Yeah,” said Sarah, “in a really bad way.”
Both women laughed. Karen blew her nose.
“Seriously though,” Karen said. “Do you like the way you spend your time?”
“Well,” said Sarah, taking another cookie. “I’d better. Starting in September, I’m going to start working in the school system as a teacher’s aide.”
“In middle school or elementary?”
“I’m going to stay at Butler with Jeremy. They are pretty short staffed, and Jeremy is more amenable to having me in his school than Britney is. She wants to do the middle school thing by herself, and I understand that,” said Sarah. “It should be a pretty good job, actually. I’ll be in school when the kids are in school, and I’ll be home when they’re home.”
“You’ll be there every day?”
“Every day.”
Karen poured more tea. “What about your classes?”
“There are Saturday classes.”
Karen took a sip from her glass. “What about errands?”
“Vincent and I will split them. If he wants me to work, he’s going to have to pull his weight.”
“Vincent wants you to work?”
Sarah sipped her tea. “We could use the money, Karen.” She looked out at the children in the yard. “Vincent makes a good salary, but we need to save more money for college, and, if Vincent has his way, graduate school for the children.”
It was the first time Sarah had mentioned money. Caroline talked about it all the time, mostly in terms of not having enough. She ha
d to “watch their pennies” because Rick balked at the credit card bills. And whatever expensive clothing Caroline bought she justified by “getting it on sale.” It was as if she wanted to convince everyone around her that she did not have the abundance she routinely enjoyed. Stephanie, too, liked to pretend she was frugal and barely interested in material things. She often put down women with more money than she had, calling them the bitchy rich and making fun of their huge houses and expensive cars. And yet, she and Patrick, who planned on remaining childless for another three years, lived in a big four-bedroom house and drove SUVs. (Stephanie referred to her fully loaded Jeep as a truck.) She also downplayed their frequent travel as business trips to burdensome locations, but Karen suspected that six nights and five days in Los Angeles sounded good to anyone not going.
Karen admitted to herself that she, too, had become close friends with her credit cards. She took money out of the bank every week and often forgot to document it in the checkbook log—a habit Bob disdained, saying no one but Bill Gates could afford to ignore his finances. Karen ignored his admonishments. She spent whatever she wanted on whatever she wanted, buying things for herself and her children on a weekly basis. She no longer waited for birthdays, or Christmas, or anniversaries, or holidays, or special events of any kind. They had a lot of money in the bank, and Karen had always thought that there was nothing wrong with spending some of it, especially when Bob kept making more all the time. In the last year or so, she had bought new furniture for the living room, dining room, and playroom. She had a closet full of clothes and shoes and a jewelry box stuffed with silver, gold, and precious gems. And in the fall, she had plans to renovate the kitchen, with new cabinets, a hardwood floor, and taupe granite countertops. She had not once thought about what Sarah might or might not have, because Sarah had not mentioned it until now.
Looking back over the school year, Karen remembered that Sarah had declined a few shopping invites. In return, she had invited Karen to events that didn’t cost money and involved the children: trips to the park or lunch at each other’s houses. And Karen had put her off, telling her friend it wasn’t a good day or that the kids were busy. Why would she sit in Sarah’s drab kitchen when she could be grazing on a fresh salad at the club? Sarah had never said a word. “I’m sorry,” said Karen, faltering. “I didn’t know.”
A Changing Marriage Page 19