Lovers Fall Back to the Earth

by Cecelia Frey

  The kitchen was dark and quiet. He stood a moment and listened. The fridge motor was the only sound, the green clock numbers on the microwave the only light. He set down his briefcase, he took off his coat and draped it across the back of a wooden chair. Esther must be home. The door had been unlocked. He went through the dining room to the living room. The drapes were closed. He saw a shadow on the edge of the sofa, a rounded shape in the gloom. He realized that it was Esther.

  He said nothing, only moved around her to his wing chair and sat down. They sat thus for several minutes. Was she waiting for him to speak? Who was supposed to speak first in a situation such as this? George knew from long experience in dealing with colleagues, superiors, students, that it was best to wait and see what the other person had in mind before revealing his own interests.

  After several minutes, George started to wonder if Esther was all right. She didn’t seem herself but, of course, that could be expected under the circumstances. Still, the way she sat there, so still, her face frozen into an awkward expression, her limbs rigid, he began to be concerned. Had she had some sort of seizure, was she paralyzed into a contorted state? But just as he wondered if he should do something, she came to life. “I expected you earlier,” she said in the voice of one who has not spoken for a long time.

  “You know how busy we are these days,” he said. “I got here as soon as I could.”

  There was another long silence, during which George kept his mind in neutral.

  “I suppose you’d better tell me about it,” she said.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What do you think I should know?”

  “I don’t think it’s terribly serious.”

  “It is your child?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “What do you propose to do about that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When are you going to know.”

  “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

  There was a pause. They looked at each other. “Do you think we can go on from here?” she asked.

  “Do you want to go on?”

  “Yes.”

  George got up out of his chair, crossed the room and put his arms around his wife’s shoulders, drawing her head to him, pressing her face into his shirt front. He sank down beside her on the sofa. She buried her face in his shoulder. He closed his hands on her arms. He hung on for his life.

  “There, there,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right. I expect you’re hungry.”

  “I need a drink more than food,” he said. “What a day I’ve had.”

  X: GEORGE AND ESTHER

  “HOW DO YOU FEEL?” Esther brought two cups in saucers, two plates, and cutlery for two to the table. She returned to the counter for cream and sugar, for cold butter, homemade cranberry preserves, frothy juice.

  While still in bed, George had heard her downstairs in the kitchen preparing his breakfast. At least, he assumed that was what she was doing. She was making a good deal of noise that made him think that breakfast would be more than the dry cereal of late years. It would be like the old days, French toast or muffins or pancakes. Did that mean that the torment of the past few years was over, that he had come through a dark place and found Esther at the end, that through the love of Esther he was to be forgiven and taken back into the fold?

  Through the love of Esther, he was to escape Veronica. Through the forgiveness of Esther he was to be done with the whole complicated muddle. After his long trial of being separated from himself, of living in two compartments of his brain, he was to be born again, whole, clean, new. He was to re-enter the ordinary cheerful world. He would miss the part of himself that had been connected to Veronica, but this was the best, the only, solution. Surely, a mature man, a learned man, can put aside the physical part of his nature and aspire toward something higher. Without that aspiration there would be no advancement of the human species.

  “Not too bad,” George said, for he sensed that it would not be prudent for him to feel too good.

  He was standing in the doorway between hall and kitchen. He watched Esther’s broad satiny back at the sink, against the window. Outside, a tall flowering plum was in leaf, casting its particular green glow into the room. How he wished that he could simply resume his life, have his cup of coffee, go to the office, deal with the mountain of paperwork awaiting him on his desk. But he knew that it would be more complicated than that, that something would be expected of him here.

  Was that why he had dressed more carefully than usual? When he put on a brown tweed jacket over a white shirt, had he felt the need to fortify himself, to feel professional and businesslike? I look ready to face an examining committee, he had thought as he looked in the mirror to knot his tie. He noted the puffy skin beneath his eyes, the eyes themselves, paler than they used to be. He had brushed his hair, he had pared his nails, he had flossed his teeth, he had splashed on aftershave. He could malinger no longer. As he descended the stairs and made his way along the hall to the kitchen, he felt a flutter in his chest and noted that it was fear. What was he afraid of? Esther was taking it well. But he was not so stupid as to think that this was anything but an interim period. During the hours and days around a catastrophe people are in a heightened emotional state that bears them up for a short while, but this condition is outside reality.

  Last evening, he and Esther had both been in a euphoric mood, as if they had come through the bombing of a city and were amazed to find themselves still alive. After confessions all around, after tears, apologies, joyous exclamations, after George’s “you don’t know how I’ve wanted to tell you, to get this off my chest,” and Esther’s “the truth shall set you free,” they had acted like courting lovers in a delirium of discovery, although the evening had not ended in consummation. After a good dinner and copious amounts of wine, exhausted by so much ecstasy, they had fallen asleep almost instantly in each others’ arms in their kingsize bed and had slept soundly, spooned like babes in the woods, as though returned to their lost innocence.

  This morning George realized that it was not going to be that easy. He realized that now would come the difficult part, getting down to daily living, testing the relationship to see if it would, after all, hold.

  “I have a bit of a heavy head,” he added, still in the doorway. “But I slept like a log.”

  “I mean how do you feel about what happened yesterday?” Esther turned to get something out of the fridge and beamed on him a sudden smile, her brown eyes kindling. She came toward him. They hugged, they kissed, a rather awkward kiss, more a brief pressing together of lips.

  “I think it’s a good thing it did happen. I’ve been out of control.”

  “But how do you feel.” Esther held him away from her. Her voice rose with intensity. He must have looked bewildered. “Do you feel angry, sad?” she coached.

  George had known the minute he woke up this morning that Esther would want to talk things out. Women always did. They seemed to find comfort, even redemption, in the process. He could resist, but he did not think that would be wise. Likely, she would ask a lot of embarrassing questions and likely he would have to lie to save her feelings but better to have the discussion and get it over with.

  In the shower, with the hot water sluicing down his body, cleansing him pink and new, he concluded how truly amazing Esther was. It was incredible that he had ever thought that she would be destroyed by the knowledge of her husband having an affair. Why, only yesterday, he had actually been afraid to tell her, afraid that it would kill her. Only yesterday he had thought that she would be angry, or coldly silent, or a blithering heap on the carpet. But none of those was Esther. Esther was made of sterner stuff than that. He had tortured himself for nothing. He should have known that Esther would be forgiving. He should have known that she would be merciful. He should have placed the whole mess in her capable
hands a long time ago. Esther was his friend. He had always told Esther his troubles, she had always understood. He was so lucky to have her. He must not lose her.

  “Relieved,” he said. “Mostly, I feel relieved. You have no idea what a strain I’ve been under.”

  “Oh, I know. Here, sit down. I’ll bring the coffee. It must have tortured you every day, that you were doing something wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Lying. Betraying people. The people you love.” Esther charged toward him, coffee pot in hand. She poured two steaming cups. She returned the pot to the stove. She turned back to the table and sat in the chair beside him.

  “Yes. You’ll never know how I’ve wanted to get out of this muddle, how I’ve wanted to get my life back in order.”

  “I’m surprised you stood it as long as you did.” She put her hand over his, which was lying on the table top beside his cup of coffee. She squeezed his hand.

  “I think I suspended thought.”

  “Oh, it must have bothered you so! You with your sense of what’s proper.”

  “I didn’t let myself think of such things.”

  Esther jumped up abruptly. He was startled. But it was just that she had remembered her muffins in the oven. She took them out and brought them to the table with a board that she placed beneath the hot pan. With a metal spatula, she lifted a muffin from its cup and placed it on a plate for him.

  He let her wait on him. She seemed bent on pacifying him, almost to the point of obsequiousness. He found it distasteful. But she seemed to want to do it and he did not have the heart to stop her.

  George looked at the steaming muffin on his plate. “You were up early,” he said.

  “I couldn’t sleep. My brain was working so furiously, it wouldn’t let me sleep.”

  George wished that he did not have to know about the workings of Esther’s brain. But he also knew that that was a vain wish. “Working?” he said. He broke his muffin in half. He dug his knife deeply into the slab of yellow butter.

  “Trying to solve the problem.”

  George watched the butter melt into the crumbly texture of the muffin.

  “For the longest time it just went around and around in my head. There didn’t seem to be a solution. I must admit that at first, yesterday, I simply wanted you to be done with your escapade and come home. But then I began to see that that wouldn’t solve the problem. I began to see that this young woman belongs to me as much as she does to you, that she’s my responsibility as well as yours. If I had been able to fill the house with children. No, don’t protest. I know I’ve been a failure in that regard. But if we’re truly a couple, we’re in this together. In a sense, we both had this affair. And, another thing, we could never be happy together knowing that we had caused someone else’s misery.” As Esther spoke, she ran the spatula around the rim of each muffin and with a flip of the blade popped each onto its side.

  George watched his wife’s mouth open and close, trying to comprehend the words coming out of it. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he interrupted through a mouthful of butter-soaked blueberry muffin. “Likely, it won’t take her long to get over it.”

  “There is her to be concerned about of course.” Esther took a deep breath. She kept her eyes on the muffins, holding the spatula over them like a sword. “But there’s also … her condition.”

  George chewed slowly. He swallowed. “There is that, yes.”

  “Something will have to be done about the child.”

  The child. George did not like to think about the child. Children did not belong in the world of lovers and mistresses. They belonged in a world of husbands and wives, of homes in the suburbs, of Saturday morning gym classes, of picnics in the park. More specifically, a child did not belong in the dark side, the quirky side, of his nature. A child belonged in the sanctioned regular life of society. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it will.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t yet seem like an actuality to you.” Esther smiled an amused superior female smile that seemed to say, “You men.” “That’s biological, I suppose,” she continued. “A woman has a child inside her, growing inside, so of course she’s aware of it. To a man, a child must always seem somewhat abstract until it actually appears.” She put another muffin onto his plate.

  George looked at the muffin. He wasn’t sure that he wanted another one. “Yes, I suppose that’s it.”

  “Whatever will that young … I can’t keep calling her ‘that young woman’ or ‘she’. What is her name?”

  “Veronica.”

  Esther flinched as though the name was further cause for wounding. She rallied. “Veronica then. What will she do with a child?”

  “I don’t know.” He could not envision Veronica with a child, a baby, a squalling baby in the night. When he let himself think about it, he did have concerns in this regard. But, on the other hand, he was sure that Veronica had gotten herself pregnant on purpose. She was the type. She certainly was not the type to get pregnant unless she meant to. She had manoeuvred herself into position. Was that his fault? She was a big girl of nearly thirty who had always lived in the real world. She must know that sometimes such manoeuvres did not work. She would be furious, of course. She always was when she didn’t get her way. “Perhaps she’ll adopt it out,” he said. “That would be the sensible thing to do.”

  Esther seemed to be holding her breath. “Somehow I don’t like to think of your child being put out for adoption to strangers.”

  George, too, felt regret at this thought. He would always feel regret for the child. He liked children, when it came down to it. He would not have minded if he and Esther had had more children. He pushed down the feeling. That was the loss he would have to take. He could not expect to get out of this scot-free. “Well, I suppose we don’t have to cross that bridge until we come to it,” he said.

  “I don’t suppose…” Esther darted a quick glance up. Her eyes were glowing. “Well, I was wondering about us adopting it.”

  “Us?” George was genuinely shocked. He reached out his hand for more butter.

  “You and me. After all, it is half yours.”

  “I don’t think she would agree to that.”

  “You never know. And maybe even if she, Veronica, doesn’t like the idea now, maybe she’ll change her mind. I mean, by the time it’s born. I mean, it does seem like the perfect solution. We can give a child a wonderful home. No one would question you and I adopting a child in our middle age. Lots of people in our situation, in our circumstances, adopt children. Oh, they’ll think it a bit wild. Some people will. A wild notion. You won’t guess what crazy thing Esther and George have done, they’ll say. But it would offer a solution. I’d love to have a child around the house.”

  George looked at his wife. Her energy of purpose struck him like a force from across the table. She positively beamed. Strength seemed to emanate from her pores. She had become Joan of Arc, armoured and mounted. Even without the child, she had a job to do. He had given her the task of saving their marriage. After years of a routine ordinary existence, finally, finally, she had been called to battle.

  “I really don’t think you should get your hopes up for the child,” he cautioned.

  “But if she doesn’t want it, well, then, I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it.”

  “We don’t know that she doesn’t want it. Maybe she’ll marry,” George attempted to steer Esther in another direction.

  “That would be the best solution. After all, I do believe a child should be with its own mother. It’s not my child. It’s her child. But I want you to know, I would be quite willing, if that’s the way things went.”

  He did not know what to say. He tried to look at her directly but, without him willing it or wishing it, his eyes slid off to the side.

  Esther became brisk. “When do you think you’ll see … Veronica?”

 
“I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “I suppose you may as well get it over with as soon as possible.”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly are you going to tell her?”

  “Simply that I won’t be coming around any more.”

  “How do you think she’ll take it?”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? It has to be done.”

  “I hate to think of her there, in her room, or some place, going about her daily round, unaware that the blade is about to fall. I hate to think of her being hurt.”

  “Somebody has to be hurt.”

  “She seems like such a courageous person. Defying the world. For you! The way she took chances, the way she left herself vulnerable to being hurt. Even in coming to the house. Facing me! The wife!”

  “Perhaps it’s best not to think about such things.”

  “How can you help thinking about such things? She’s had such an unhappy life.”

  “You know?”

  “You told me. Last night. She’s the girl who came to your office that day, when we got the phone call. She was broken up about some fellow.”

  “She’s pretty tough. She’s a survivor.” It’s true that she’s put up with a lot from me, thought George, but she did it because she wanted to. In the end, people do what they want to do. In the first place, she came here to probe me for information about Ben, then she liked the idea of having an adventure, now she wants normalcy, the respectable life of a married woman. Maybe she deserves something more from life, but my responsibility is with Esther.

  “…Financial arrangements,” Esther was saying.

  “Financial arrangements?”

  “I don’t know what’s fair. But I think we should be as generous as we can be. She’ll have to move to better accommodation. Those student rooms are no place to raise a child. And a child needs a great many things.”

  “She is capable of getting a job.” George polished off his muffin and crumpled his paper napkin onto his plate. He thought of Delores. Certainly, finances were connected to children. “She seems to be enthusiastic about her career.”