by Cecelia Frey
George had an insight into marriage. Dissolving a long marriage was not simply dissolving a contract or a cohabitation. It was dissolving whole lives of people, all that had gone before, their past lives and, yes, their future lives. Not only had Esther taken his past but his future, all the future they might have had together, retirement, travel, grandfather to Delores’ children, an old age that they were to enjoy together. There was Veronica, of course. Now he would do these things with her. But it would not be him who was doing the things. And he could not quite believe in a future with Veronica. He could not envision their growing old together. He would in time, he was sure of it, especially with the two little ones, but the mindset for it had not yet arrived and so he was in a no man’s land, crossing from one territory to another, exiled from the old place but not feeling at home in the new.
His mind wandered to the first time he had seen Esther. She was laughing, her face open, vulnerable, her brown eyes sparkling. She was with the group in the Cave, someone had just said something to make her laugh. Ben was there and introduced him around. He knew Ben because they belonged to the same student protest movement, a movement he had become involved in because of a girl he was hoping to bed. He immediately forgot that girl and all the other girls he had ever known when Esther shone her warm eyes on him and offered her hand. The six of them in the group, the other four had already formed couples, had grown into each other in such a way as to become an entity which for a while seemed immune to harm. What went wrong? he wondered. Where had things gone off track? When had it last been right? The night of the storm before the fatal phone call; after that phone call everything changed. That night a bacteria attached itself to the blood vessels of their relationship. The neutrophils patrolling the system failed to leap and seize and gobble up the bacterium. Amanda’s death and the entrance of Veronica, the two events seemed connected, were connected, Esther being away, Veronica being put in his path. Coincidence. It happened in his work, too; two events coming together at exactly the right time and place, sometimes the results were fortuitous, sometimes catastrophic. That was the way it happened with the immune system, too. George liked the analogy. Viewed that way, the damage of the last few years could be defined simply as a massive immune system failure.
But it didn’t seem fair to have his life so defined by this end. Surely, he was more. He was the total of all he had been, all he had done. But he couldn’t remember what that was. He couldn’t feel what that was. And there was no one to ask. The man who had done those things had disappeared and he could not find him.
A slight movement of the stroller, Polly was stirring. He watched her wake up, watched her open her eyes, watched while the sky and the trees entered her consciousness. Her eyes were full of wonder, like someone coming out of the darkness viewing the world for the first time. She saw him and smiled. He leaned forward and picked her up and held her close. She snuggled her face into his neck and lay there for some time. He experienced a rush of feeling for his child.
It was all very simple. An experiment failed, you tried another method. He would simply have to become acquainted with the new George. Survival depended on it. This child depended on it. In that conclusion, some of the old George was re-established. I’m not a bad person, he thought. I only did what half the male population does. Why am I the one made to suffer?
XIII: ESTHER
THE BRIGHT SPRING SUN ANIMATED the Toronto harbour. Lake Ontario was enamelled with intense blue and silver under a cloudless lapis lazuli sky. Pleasure boats were out in full force. Toronto Island across the water was a green mirage. Although it was nearly seven in the evening, the light was still strong, a low sun filtering through the close-set high rises that lined the shore.
Esther was standing at her balcony door enjoying the view. From the tenth floor, the water and boats and green island was like a picture postcard advertising a resort. When she lowered her head, she could see people moving about, trying to cross the street below before the traffic light changed, scurrying to get home or meet up with friends or pick up groceries at either of the two large outlets nearby. Some were already engaged in evening leisure, strolling along the boardwalk, sitting at patio tables with lattes and espressos or glasses of wine. The boat rental was doing a brisk business. Esther did not mind the intrusion of human beings or even the sound of traffic into the scene. The crowds on the quay kept her company. The activity, the life, reminded her that she was part of the human race.
Behind her a small table was set with two placemats, flowers between, candles at either end, wine glasses. A fragrant garlicky ragout was bubbling on the stove, a salad of crisp greens reclined in the fridge. The one-bedroom apartment was in order, but then it was not likely to get out of order with her as the sole occupant. On the narrow balcony, artfully arranged as to colour and height, were flower pots filled with pansies, carnations, kalanchoe, recently purchased. She and Delores had made an excursion to the Garden Centre last week.
Altogether, in spite of the generic one-bedroom layout, the apartment had a homey, comfortable look. Throws and cushions on the sofa and the one armchair, art work on the walls, plants placed strategically, all gave a warm personal feel to the setting. Esther had lived here nearly two years now, she couldn’t believe how fast time went. She had refused to be a burden on Delores any longer than necessary. Delores needed to live her own life. Also, Delores insisted on rehashing her father’s total moral breakdown and ensuing ruination. Esther, who at that time was still in mourning, did not want to intensify her misery by having someone remind her of it on a daily basis.
Arriving where she was, at this place and time, after walking through the fire, as she thought of it, Esther was so pleasantly surprised at her ability to survive and get on with life that it fairly took her breath away. This ability was due in part to her deciding that all, all, was meant to happen exactly as it had, that everything was part of God’s plan. She must accept God’s plan. If her belief was worth anything at all, she had to give in to God. Maybe Veronica is part of God’s plan for George, she thought. Maybe I was too easy on him. With me, he didn’t have to reach.
After a period of seeing the cloth ripped apart, jaggedly as she thought of it, Esther again saw her life as whole, a seamless tapestry, although now with both dark and light threads. Her destiny was to end up in Toronto with Delores and to love the children. The children at the daycare. They needed her. They needed her and George did not. Perhaps it was her destiny to go where needed. She had considered Oxfam or one of the other agencies who took volunteer workers, but she came to the conclusion that she wasn’t ready. Perhaps next year or the next. She had time. Many such volunteers were much older than she, people who had retired from their careers and still had energy to offer to the world. She would wait for God to tell her what to do. She was sure He would give her a sign.
She still missed George. She admitted it. She gave herself permission to admit it. She would always miss him. She would always regret him — she had so wanted him to be successful as a human being, but she had learned not to live in that regret.
After her arrival in Toronto, the thought that she had done the wrong thing in leaving, in abandoning George, in pulling her own life down around her, and the ensuing loss of everything, her whole life including George, threatened to destroy her. As she probed the painful place inside herself, the source of those feelings, with a scalpel as it were, and opened it up, the agony was overwhelming. She doubled over with the weight of it and for some months she was like one in shock. She found herself stopped in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, standing rigid, staring, paralyzed with pain. She found herself lying on her sofa or bed staring at the ceiling paralyzed with pain. Delores would call and she could not move to answer the phone. Delores would come charging in to her apartment demanding answers. Have you gotten up today? Have you eaten? Since she couldn’t endure the disturbances or the scoldings — this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen, you’re
going to let that man kill you, you have to smarten up — she put the phone beside her on the bed and willed her arm to reach, to pick up, willed her voice to say, fine, I’m fine, I’m better today.
After that stage passed, for some time she was in a state of perpetual sadness. She felt incomplete without George, he had been her life for so long. She felt like a lost soul wandering the wilderness in search of its missing part. She decided, firmly, that she had not done the right thing. She should have taken Ben’s advice and asked George to choose. He would have chosen her, she knew that, not only because, of course, he loved her while his feeling for that young woman was merely sexual attraction but, also, because she was the most comfortable option. In fact, after talking with Ben, her intention was to follow his advice. She had it all planned. She prepared a nice dinner, she lit candles, she put on soft background music. They got through the meal. Now was the time to do it. She took a deep breath. She looked at him across the dinner table. He was polishing off dessert, a crème brûlée, her crème brûlée was famous amongst their friends, and thought, he’s a child. He eats like a child, with total focus on his pleasure and satisfaction, without giving a thought to the emotional upheaval around him, which he has caused. He has the ego of a child, thinking he can get away with anything and be forgiven. Nothing has ever been hard for him. He had an ideal childhood, his mother adored him, lavished him with food and praise; he was naturally brilliant, his studies came easily. She had come easily. Should she let him take the easy way out? Would she be doing him a favour? She must decide on a course of action then not let herself be dissuaded by herself.
She bought an airline ticket. She knew that she could not tell George until the last minute. There could be no time for discussion or dissuasion. When the hour came she ordered a taxi. As it turned out, George wasn’t at home when the taxi arrived. Thus, the note propped against the delphiniums on the table, freshly picked that morning.
The sadness eventually became sporadic rather than perpetual and she was able to convince herself that, after all, she had done everything right. She had been generous, good-hearted, toward that young woman. She had made the sacrifice. She had nothing to apologize for. George had to be made to realize the consequences of his actions. By making him face the music, she had done the right thing for him. She had done the right, the best, thing for the child. As soon as she was able, she started divorce proceedings. Since there was no contest, it went through quickly. Her message to George through her lawyer was that the child needed a father, its real father. The child needed a proper home, a regular home, and family. The young woman needed a husband.
Throughout it all, the children at the daycare helped her. They demanded her attention, her response. They would not allow lapses. Their needs, their nurturing took up every minute she was with them. She did not have time to think about George or feel sorry for herself. Every day, barring inclement weather, she watched the dear little darlings as she thought of them, shovelling in the sandbox, sliding on the slides, calling and yelping, and the ones who were dearest of all, those sitting apart, digging listlessly or simply staring at the others. These were the ones she would pick up and cuddle on her knee.
She showed up at the daycare every day whether or not she felt like it — even on her worst days when she wanted to curl herself into a fetal ball and never move again. She could not let them down. And they did not let her down. They made her laugh even when she felt like crying. In the evenings, alone in her apartment, just thinking about them made her smile.
As her self-confidence grew, she gave herself permission to be sad. She accepted the fact that life was often sad. She found more and more that she could think of painful things, she could endure the pain of thinking. Life was not perfect. She was not perfect. She had failures. Her inability to have more children, for instance. But failures are also part of God’s plan. Sometimes they happen to teach a person a lesson. And look at how God had solved that problem. He had given her the children in the daycare. He had found George a young childbearing wife. George, too, was one of her failures. During the early years of their marriage, she thought him perfect. It did not occur to her to have so much as a critical thought about him. Over time, she realized that he was not a kind, generous person, that when it came to human beings, he did not have a nurturing bone in his body. She put it down to his being a scientist, driven by cold reason. He couldn’t even talk about emotions. Hard facts were what he lived by.
She forgave him. It wasn’t his fault he was like that. It was his childhood, his mother’s indulgence, and his genetic disposition. Forgiveness allowed her to walk in an aura of light. She enfolded George into this aura with her. You’re not one when you start out together, she decided. All those wedding cards that talk about the young couple being one. What nonsense. It takes years to become one. Because she and George were one, it didn’t matter that he was with someone else. Veronica had nothing to do with her and George’s relationship. Their relationship, a changed relationship to be sure, was between the two of them and always would be. As her heart swelled with benevolence for George, she felt closer to him than ever before. Forgiveness put her in direct contact with heaven.
Forgiveness was a great thing. She felt she was born for it, as though forgiveness had been inside her all this time, waiting for the right conditions to grow and multiply, waiting for someone to lavish it on. And here was George! Maybe that was his purpose in her life, to teach her forgiveness. Maybe George was part of God’s plan for her evolvement. Thinking thus, seeing the purpose of people and events, her pain became more endurable. And as time further passed, she began to see that George in giving her the opportunity to be a better person had given her a great gift. And one morning she woke up with the thought that along with everything else, he had given her the gift of freedom. She was free. Free! When this realization first came to her, it was like an elixir. She was free to be a person without the influence of another. She could do what she liked. More importantly, she could think what she liked.
During the last two years, she had thought more about her marriage than she had in the twenty-two years of its duration. She thought how, through her marriage and submitting herself to another’s personality, another’s ego and values, she had lost herself. She thought how in losing George she had found herself, the person she had been in her childhood and youth. It took a while for her to think this through and come out the other side, to accept this correction of her life. In fact, she must learn to love this correction because it gave her the chance to find herself, to know who she was, to become strong in who she was. In order to not go stark raving mad she’d had to dig into herself and find the lost Esther.
Who am I? she asked herself. A nice person, she answered herself. Everyone from the drugstore clerk to the head of George’s department said so. But was she a good person? What was demanded of goodness? She decided that goodness was a strange thing. How sometimes we think we’re being good when all we’re being is self-righteous. In fact, if we think we’re good we’re not truly good. She had thought she was the great and good and benevolent little wife with her plan for Veronica, accepting the scarlet woman, as it were, the woman who had deceived her, betrayed her with her husband, into her bosom, into her house and family. Now, at this distance of space and time, she could see the gesture for what it was; an egotistical move to puff up her vanity. I was full of myself, my own virtue, thinking how I was such a great, good person, so generous in taking George back and providing everybody with a way out. I was blind, wilfully blind, she could think now. There’s no virtue in being blind.
She often returned in thought to the Cave. Every day she thought of Amanda and prayed for her soul in purgatory. Lately, she had given much thought to Amanda’s marriage. Reuben and Amanda had thrown themselves into their relationship in the same way they had their causes, with completeness and abandonment, without giving the matter serious thought. Running off to the Coast without considering how they would
make a living, having all those children without thinking of consequences. Esther had always been afraid for them. She’d had, still had, the uncomfortable feeling that those who were so careless with life would sooner or later crash.
Now she questioned her own marriage. An emotional distance had certainly been a part of it. At the beginning she had felt it as a lack but George seemed to feel comfortable with the space and after a time she decided that such a distance suited them. She wondered if George was involved with Veronica in the deep way of Amanda and Reuben. She didn’t know, she couldn’t know, but she thought not. George just didn’t have it in him.
Maybe she didn’t have it in her, either. This thought came as a revelation. She had always blamed George for the lack of an emotional component in their marriage. But now she had to consider her part in that lack. She tried to remember what had attracted her to George in the first place. He was fun. They had fun together, epitomized by that TR5, whizzing around town summer nights with the top down, Amanda and Reuben or Ben and Helena perched up in the back. They owned the town; they owned the world. Nothing bad could ever happen to such blessed creatures as they, privileged because of their place, their intelligence, the strength of their egos and their youth. She supposed it was a rather shallow attraction compared to what Amanda felt for Reuben. She tried to think of a time when she did feel deeply. Her sisters. The three of them had been like bears hibernating in the Cave, cuddling each other, comforting each other, keeping each other safe and warm. But when she gave the matter a more penetrating analysis, she decided that even then she had not given herself as fully as had Amanda.