Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
On the day my wife of seventy-one hours died, she made me make a promise I knew I’d never keep. She said, I want you to live like you never met me. I want you to love again like it’s your first.
The opening lines to his novel. It takes me about three hours to read the entire thing. I am in awe of the simplicity of the story, the pared-down prose. I can’t stop thinking about it. And then somewhere around one in the morning, that point where insomnia is setting in, and it brings with it that melancholy you managed to fight off during the day, I go to our text thread – first, deleting the damned aubergine – and then I start typing.
Your writing is breathtaking, Frank Lewis; I am in awe of your talent.
Now that I’ve written it, I realise I loathe him way too much to pay him any form of compliment. So I delete it.
Another hour and I’m still lying there wired and blinking at the ceiling. My mind is back to buzzing with all these dilemmas. Harriet, and the way she feels so betrayed by her father. How young people see things as black and white, but marriage is a mash-up of so many shades of grey. About what happens if her life ends up being over here with Aiden, and I become the person she FaceTimes, and sees every second Christmas. About Rupert, and what our future would look like if I did choose to give him the benefit of the doubt and go home. Me knowing that he may have nobly resisted the temptation of the office hussy, and I threw myself at the first penis I came within two feet of. About doubts and how they try to speak to us, but it’s easier to pretend we don’t hear.
It’s hopeless. I’m doomed to lie awake forever. Is she really considering eloping soon? Is this rushing to start a life with Aiden because she feels so destabilised with what’s happening with me and her dad? I remember Nat saying how divorces or separations have almost as big an impact on adult children as on minors. No one wants to envision parents in separate houses, new partners, separate Christmases. No one wants to think their parents are as fallible as everyone else.
I stare at the same giant palm tree outside my window that, a few minutes before sunset, looks like the very cool cover of a 1980s rock album, but during a windstorm takes on an alarmingly bendy quality that makes you think any minute it’s going to come crashing through the glass. Right now, it’s an unmoving silhouette, hard to discern from the sky.
Then I reach for my phone again.
Frank, Moira here. I fear it ’ s going to take a village to talk them out of marriage. Harriet mentioned the possibility of them eloping.
I don’t really know if she was serious, but I press ‘send’.
Seconds later, I’m excited to see the three little moving dots.
Moira there. Well, hello…
I frown . That tone’s got aubergine emoji slapped all over it.
What does WELL, HELLO mean ?
It means hello. And yes, I heard about Europe in June.
I don’t think I can let this well hello business drop. But then I remember why I’m messaging him .
No, Europe in June was for a holiday. She also mentioned possibly eloping at March break.
Shit, he writes after a beat or two.
It’s possible they actually are in love.
I think of her begging me to support her.
Happened to Ford and Lara.
THAT WAS FICTION.
But a concept you believed in profoundly. You can’t write with that degree of emotional acuity without believing it.
I’ve often wondered what the inside of my own head looks like. Thanks for enlightening.
I roll my eyes.
You’re a very hard person to have a conversation with. But what do we do? Seriously.
We could start by repeating the other day.
No, no, no .
I thought you don’t have sex with married women?
Not talking about sex. Sorry to disappoint. I meant brainstorming. Our plan…
Ugh! Of course he did.
We’ve done a remarkable job of that so far. Maybe it’s because we really shouldn’t split them up?
I don’t even know what I’m saying or feeling any more.
Disagree. On some things we are quite in sync…
My mind bounces back to my legs strapped around his ribs, his fingers sinking into the cheeks of my bottom… Oh God. Strike it! Strike it! It’s all his fault for bringing up ‘fun’ along with all these ‘well hellos’.
But then he finishes his comment: but we are not in sync on this.
I jump up and fling open the balcony door as the air has suddenly become cloying and I don’t think I can breathe.
There really are only three options, he writes.
Explain.
Disinherit him. Have him kidnapped. Kill him.
This makes me smile.
Death might be extreme.
So it’s one of the other two then.
I yawn. I truly do suddenly feel exhausted. Mid-yawn, another message pops up.
Tired. Can’t sleep. Sitting on the beach, staring at the moon shimmering on indigo water. It ’ s so quiet out here. It ’ s why I bought it.
You bought silence?
And invisibility. Tried to, anyway.
I try to picture him sitting on a deserted beach in the moonlight, at two o’clock in the morning. That stretch of sand right off his property that seems like God only put there so certain lucky rich people would get to enjoy it. His bedroom light on inside his house. Just the very thought of that mellows me and pulls me away from this problem of our kids for a moment.
Confession? I type.
You think I’m fantastic in bed.
Read your interview in the New York Times . Saw the Darcy Delaney one too.
A pause, then: Don’t recall them.
You don’t recall the NYT and Darcy Delaney interviewed you?
No reply.
I thought the Delaney one was outstanding. When she asked if you were a romantic, and you said something about at the heart of all of us, beating away beneath every encounter we have with another human being we find attractive, is the desire for this to be a love of epic proportions… You thought we’re always subconsciously chasing that down… It was a fantastic answer.
I don’t tell him that I can’t stop thinking about it. That the concept just simply won’t leave my head.
There’s another lengthy pause and then: If you say so, Ma’am.
But the book was critically trashed. You told The Times that it made you lose all passion for writing and all belief in yourself.
You don ’ t know when to take a hint.
I’m sure you ’ d be disappointed in me if I did.
Not really! What are you wearing? I liked your pink toes in those black flipflops.
I ignore that.
What I suppose I don’t understand is, your novel was a worldwide sensation, so why did you look for your self-worth – and find it lacking – based on what some stuffy critics said? People who probably only end up reviewing books because they ’ re not smart enough to write them?
The message is read at 2.28 a.m. He seems to fall off the grid and I wonder if he’s not going to answer. Then I hear, Ping!
You just earned yourself my favourite person of my day award, Moira Fitzgerald.
I chuckle.
That ’ s definitely sarcasm!
Oddly, this time it ’ s definitely not.
I’m about to say something like, oh well, thank you, that’s really nice… But another message pops up.
Done with the trip down memory lane now. Have yourself a good night.
Hmm... I respond: You too… But when I send it, notifications have already been silenced.