Ellen had returned at dinnertime, and they sat with Zoe at the kitchen table eating take-out Chinese, tight-lipped and silent. At one point, Zoe asked, “What’s the matter? Don’t you guys like this?” Later she’d asked, “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” they both said, together. She’d shrugged, then asked if either one of them knew one word, just one word, of Chinese. No, they’d said. Zoe said, “Me neither. I guess. But was it, like, the very first language? Or something like that? Wasn’t it symbol writing first?” After neither Ellen nor Griffin answered, she said, “Whoa, you guys are crabby!” and left the table. She did not open her fortune cookie. None of them did.
At 8:30, Ellen helped Zoe get ready for bed, then went to bed herself. An hour later, after a halfhearted attempt to get through Business Week and Forbes, Griffin came upstairs and leaned against his bedroom doorjamb, his arms crossed, his hands in loose fists. The room was lit softly by a paper lantern of a moon, a deep yellow orb that seemed hung directly outside their window, exclusively for their benefit. Ellen, he thought, and the name seemed to him to hold everything he might possibly want to say to her. It was a request, an apology, a sweet claim. He looked at her lying on her side of the bed, looked too at the space she had left beside her. That was his side, because he was her husband. And she was his wife.
Quietly, slowly, he lay down beside her. She was turned away from him. Asleep? He listened to her breathe for a while and decided not, the rhythm was wrong. And anyway, he could feel her awareness, feel her listening to him. “Ellen,” he whispered. “Can we talk?”
She turned over, her face full of relief. “Yes.”
He looked fully at her, saw her eyes (nearsighted), her nose (once, out on a date when she was in high school, the guy asked if she’d broken it, humiliating her so much she feared letting anyone see her profile for years), her mouth (the first lipstick she ever wore was tangerine lip gloss, a sample stolen from a drugstore), her dimpled chin (something she used to pray would turn into a “normal” chin), her small ears (plagued by infections until she was ten—her mother used to get up with her in the middle of night and bring her into the kitchen for an orange to comfort her). I know you, he wanted to say. Do you know how well I know you?
He wanted to remind her that she had been in the ocean for the first time with him, that it was he she’d turned to with amazement saying, “It tastes salty!” He wanted to tell her that he provided her with excellent health and dental insurance, that it was he who had made her finally understand how airplanes stayed in the air—science was not her strong suit. They were so familiar to each other, he loved her so much, and she wanted a divorce? No. She said divorce, but she meant something else. She was confused. This…illness had come over her, the last several months. Together, they could cure her.
He wanted to suggest something: Saturday night dating. Yes. They’d hire a standing sitter, and every Saturday night, they’d go out somewhere. Chicago was a fabulous city; there was so much to do—they’d take advantage of the fact that they lived in Oak Park and could get in and out so easily. He was sorry he’d ignored her complaints about almost never going with her to see the ballet, or plays, or concerts, or even enough movies. Maybe she’d like to try opera; he’d be willing to try opera. Or if not exactly opera…No! He would be willing to try opera.
He’d make an effort to go out with other couples; Ellen was right when she said they needed to make friends. He’d send her flowers on a random Thursday, he’d pay attention and nod at all the right times when she told one of her interminable stories about—well, anyone would agree—about not much. He’d tell her how he felt about the sunrise, about the headlines, about the new neighbors down the block, about the barely discernible change in her hairstyle. He’d stop leaving the lid up—though Zoe liked it, claiming that she, too, liked to stand to urinate. Oh, he would do everything, he would do everything she wanted, maybe her demands weren’t so much after all. He’d read poetry with her, all right? Maybe he’d amaze her with his insights; he wasn’t so insensitive as she thought, he could be just as sensitive as the next guy, if he wanted to be. And she’d be so glad, in the end, so happy they’d stayed together.
He cleared his throat. “Ellen. I love you so much.”
She started to cry. He thought perhaps this was a good sign—it was her way of saying she loved him, too. He tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away, saying, “No! That’s not going to work! Please, will you please just listen to me!”
He moved away from her, and she sat up, yanked a tissue from the box beside the bed, wiped her eyes. “Look, I know this came out of the blue for you. But I’ve been thinking about it for so long, Griffin.”
For so long! For how long? The fall afternoon last year when he was raking leaves, and looked up to see her standing at the window looking out at him (and he gaily waved!)—then? The last time they made love? When they sat watching The Sopranos together and he passed her the popcorn bowl, giving her the last bite even though he wanted it? On Zoe’s seventh birthday, when he found Ellen crying in the kitchen and she said it was because their daughter was getting so old? Was she in fact mixing the batter for Zoe’s cake and thinking, Oh, God, I can’t stand my husband, I want a divorce? Unwillingly, he remembered a day shortly before their wedding when Ellen told him they shouldn’t go through with it, she didn’t really want to get married—that that’s why it had taken her ten years to agree to it. He’d put it down to nervousness. As he did her taking a stiff drink in the bride’s room before she walked down the aisle. He’d forgotten about it almost as soon as it happened. But he remembered now.
“Griffin?”
“Frank.”
“What?”
“Call me Frank.” He sat up, straightened his shirt. Damn it, he’d have to learn to iron.
“Stop playing games, Griffin.”
“Call me Frank.”
She stared at him. “Fine. I will call you Frank. Okay? I will call you Frank.” She fell silent.
Griffin waited a while, then asked impatiently, “So what did you want to say?”
He would handle whatever she said. Whatever she said, he would handle.
She took in a deep breath. “Okay. I told you this morning that I was in love with someone.”
“Yeah, the grease monkey. Congratulations on your lofty standards.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to defend him to you, Frank.” She looked away, envisioning her lover, Griffin thought. What did he look like, anyway? What did he have?
Ellen rubbed her forehead, sighing. “I don’t know what to say to you. What do you want me to say to you? I mean, I care about you. I really do. I don’t want to hurt you. I’d just like you to understand, so that we can cooperate.”
He considered this, pursing his lips, thinking. Then he asked, “How long have you been fucking him?”
Her hands dropped from fidgeting with her hair into her lap. “Oh, God. I might have known.”
“What?”
“That that is what you would choose to focus on!”
“Oh, excuse me. Perhaps I meant, What does he think of postmodern fiction? But I don’t think so. I think I meant, How long have you been fucking him?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked sadly at Griffin. “A few months or so, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You don’t know? Oh, I think you know, Ellen. A romantic like you? I think you know the exact day, hour, and minute that you began. I think you could tell me every delicious detail about how you undressed, who was on top, every single thing he did to you—and you to him, too. Go ahead, pretend I’m one of your girlfriends. Oops, I forgot. You don’t have any.” It was true. Ellen was painfully shy and had always had trouble making friends. In the three years since they’d moved to Oak Park, the only “friend” Ellen had made was Louise, the waitress whose section she always requested when she went to the Cozy Corner, a local coffee shop. When Griffin once suggested she go out somewhere with Louise, o
r invite her over to their house, Ellen had quickly said no. “Why not?” Griffin had asked, and Ellen had gotten up and walked away from him, saying over her shoulder, “I’m sure she has a lot of people to do things with.” But he had seen it: Ellen was afraid.
Now, offended at what he’d said, her voice hardened. “What is the point of this, Griffin?”
“Call me—”
“No! I’m not going to call you Frank! I have always called you Griffin and I’m not going to stop now!”
“Everything stops now, Ellen.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see.” He turned over, closed his eyes, and, unbelievably, felt himself falling asleep.
In the morning, Ellen hadn’t gotten out of bed. Griffin had gotten Zoe off to school, telling her that Mommy didn’t feel well. Then he got in his car and drove to his computer consulting firm. Same route as Friday. Same exact route. Same radio station. His life belonged to him.
Evelyn knocked gently on his door. Griffin jerked his head up, pushed around some papers on his desk. “Yes?”
She opened the door, stuck her head in, spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Griffin, I know you said no interruptions. But your wife is on the phone. She told me to tell you.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “Okay.” He wanted his face to look normal. How did he used to look when she called? He smiled at Evelyn, nodded, and she nodded back, closed the door.
He picked up the phone. “What.”
“Meet me for lunch. We have to talk.”
“Sorry, can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t. I have an important lunch meeting.” He did not.
“Griffin, I don’t want to live with you any longer. We have to do something about that.”
He looked out the window, saw the trucks going by on the nearby freeway. After they graduated from college, he and Ellen had hitchhiked across the country, a romantic tribute to the sixties. Griffin had even let his hair grow long and wore an old Army jacket. At one truck stop, a massively overweight but quite muscular driver who’d had too many beers took an instant dislike to Griffin. “What are you supposed to be?” he’d asked. “You a hippie?”
“No, no—just a captain of industry like yourself, Slim,” Griffin had said, and the driver had gotten up and moved rapidly toward them, his fists clenched. They’d run out of the place, terrified, and then, when they were far enough away, fell down laughing. That night, they’d lain out in their sleeping bags looking up at the crowded stars in the Montana sky. “It’s so…big,” Ellen had said.
Griffin smiled. “Yeah. That’s why they call it ‘Big Sky Country,’ Ellen.”
She was quiet for a while. Then she said, “Sometimes when I see things like this, like how big the sky is, I just feel sad. I don’t know why.”
Her voice had sounded so young, like a little girl’s. Griffin remembered the photo he’d once seen of her as a pigtailed seven-year-old, one braid twisted nearly comically away from her head, her bangs cut crookedly. In her eyes was a shyness, a soft vulnerability that had made him run his finger down the side of her child’s cheek, that had made his chest ache with his desire to protect her. Here was that child now, wrapped up in the body of a woman he’d decided he wanted to be with forever.
He’d pulled her close to him that starry night, kissed her face everywhere. Three times they’d made love that night. Three times—under Venus, under Orion, under the filmy gauze strip of the Milky Way—he’d lost himself inside her.
And now Ellen was standing in their kitchen holding the phone and telling him this impossible thing as though he would go along with it. Well, he wouldn’t. He would not.
“I told you before, Ellen, and I will say it one last time. I am not moving. I am not going anywhere. Period.”
“Well, fine, Griffin. Then we will as of this moment begin leading separate lives. Consider us…roommates.”
“Right.”
“And I have plans tonight. I will feed Zoe dinner early, and as soon as you come home, I will be leaving.”
“Have a good time. What are you going to wear?”
She hung up. He slammed the phone into the cradle and then picked up the picture of her that he kept on his desk. He removed it from the frame. Maybe it wouldn’t tear easily—maybe he’d need scissors.
The paper gave easily when he started ripping, but then he stopped, put the picture back in the frame, and put the frame back where it had been. Exactly.
Chapter 3
Ellen looked beautiful. She was wearing a black silk blouse with her jeans, and a lot of silver jewelry Griffin hadn’t seen before: hoop earrings, a bracelet, a ring with a large blue stone that she wore on her middle finger. She looked young. She met him at the door, saying, “You’re late. Zoe needs a bath. Her homework is done.” Then she squeezed past Griffin and went out to the car. She checked herself briefly in the rearview mirror, adjusted her bangs, and was gone. Why had they ever agreed that having just one car was the p.c. thing to do? What if he and Zoe wanted to go out? It was too cold to walk to town, and too short a distance to take a cab—Griffin would feel like a jerk asking for a ride four blocks away. He went to the window. There went Ellen, down to the end of the block, where she signaled, then turned right. Where was she going?
“You have lipstick on your teeth,” Griffin said softly.
“What?” Zoe called from the kitchen.
“Nothing—just saying goodbye to Mommy.” Griffin came into the kitchen and sat at the table. “What are you eating?”
“Ice cream. Ice cream soup, I like to make it soup.” She stirred industriously, and Griffin watched her. Abruptly, Zoe stopped stirring and looked up. “Dad?”
Here it comes, Griffin thought, and was grateful when the phone rang. “Hold on a second,” he told Zoe, and answered it.
There was a pause, and then a man’s voice said, “Ellen, please.”
Griffin turned his back to Zoe. “She’s not in.”
“Oh. Well…could you tell me when she left?”
“Why, certainly. Just now. Two minutes ago. Two and a half. Whoops, two minutes and forty seconds.”
“…Right. Okay, thanks.”
“Hold on,” Griffin said. “I’ll be glad to take a message. Now, which one are you?”
“That’s all right. No message.”
“Is this Jeffrey?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Mark, then.”
The man hung up. Griffin listened to the dial tone while he said, “Uh huh…Yes, all right. I’ll be sure to tell her…. You bet…You’re welcome!”
He hung up and sat down again, drummed rhythmically on the tabletop with his knuckles, raised his eyebrows up and down at Zoe. “So! What are we reading before bed tonight?” His voice was too loud. He stopped his drumming, asked more softly, “Same one as last night, about the White Sox? Or have you come to your senses and want to read about the Cubs?”
“Who was that on the phone?”
“Someone for Mommy.”
“What did they want?”
“Something about the PTO.”
“What about it?”
Griffin stood up, pushed his chair hard into the table. “I don’t know, Zoe! They just said to tell her they’d call back, okay?”
“Sorrrrrreeeeeee!” She looked down, stirred her ice cream halfheartedly, then pushed the bowl away. “I’m done.”
Griffin sighed. “I’m sorry, Zoe. I had kind of a bad day at work. Hey, how about we go over to Mickey’s for a gyros and fries?”
She looked at him. “I just ate, Dad.”
“Oh—right! What did you have, anyway?”
“Soup and sandwich.”
Griffin opened the refrigerator. “Uh huh. Sounds pretty good.” Yogurt, silken tofu, English muffins, a head of lettuce. What the hell was there to eat?
“Where did Mommy go?”
He stiffened. “Well, what did she tell you?”
“She said ‘out with a
friend.’”
“I guess that’s where she went, then.”
“Yeah. I guess. Well, I’m going upstairs.” She scooped up Slinky and was gone.
Griffin sat at the table and took off his tie. He had to remember some things. Don’t take it out on the kid. Bring home dinner. Was he supposed to bring home dinner? He guessed so.
Fine. He would bring home whatever he felt like. For tonight, it looked like…He checked the cupboard, pulled out a can of bean and bacon soup, put it back on the shelf. He took out the Cheerios, poured a bowlful, and ate it standing up at the sink and looking out the window into the backyard. Zoe’s tree house needed some work—the floor was sagging dangerously. In the spring, he’d put a new one in.
Griffin finished his cereal, pulled a Sam Adams out of the refrigerator, and sat at the table to drink it. That had to have been him on the phone. Had to have been. How dare he call when Zoe was home? And where did Ellen go? Why didn’t she take her phone? She always took her phone, but there it was on the counter in its charger. Forget her “divorce” crap—what if something happened to Zoe? How would he reach her? What the hell was the matter with her?
He went to the bottom of the stairs. “Zoe!”
No answer.
“ZOE!”
The sound of footsteps, and then there was Zoe at the top of the stairs. “What?”
“Did Mommy say where she was going?”
“Nope. Hey, Dad, can you play this computer game with me? It needs two.”
“In a minute.”
He went back into the kitchen and sat at the table, thinking. She didn’t say where she was going because it was to his place. To his stylish bachelor pad in Wrigleyville, complete with espresso maker, charcoal gray sheets and towels, and a Bang & Olufsen stereo system. Track lighting, maybe even a real leather sofa. Because this was a mechanic with style: This was a man who read. He’d kiss her when she came in—he’d French-kiss her when she came in, then put down his three-thousand-page novel and say, “My darling. My love.” Ellen loved that shit. They all loved that phony shit. Why did they all love that phony shit, didn’t they know it was phony? Didn’t they know it was step one in the Let’s Get Laid game? Griffin could call her those endearments; he could do that if it was important to her. He never had, because he respected her too much. He assumed that she was beyond needing such vacuous come-ons.