Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Marilyn
I decided to treat being alone like an experiment, a semester abroad in my own life.
The first test: a lunch reservation at a place we used to go together, a restaurant where the host always greeted us by name and saved the window seat for “the Ashfords.” Walking in alone, I felt as if the whole staff would point and whisper, Look, she’s the one whose husband cheated.
But the hostess only smiled, confirmed the reservation, and led me to the usual table. No sidelong glances, no forced sympathy. Just a menu, a glass of wine, and the faint soundtrack of other people’s lives.
I sat, ordered for myself, and tried to remember the last time I’d eaten alone in public. Not since college. Maybe not even then.
At first, every movement felt magnified, as if the entire room waited for me to slip. But gradually, I realized nobody cared. The waiter was more concerned with his tips than my marital status. The couple beside me argued about parking meters, not infidelity.
The second test: a walk along the Tiburon waterfront.
The path was always crowded with couples, families, tourists snapping photos of the city, but this time I let myself walk slowly, without the need to keep pace with anyone else’s stride.
I sat on a bench and watched a group of teenagers take turns jumping off the dock. Nobody asked where my husband was.
I started to enjoy the silence.
With each solo outing, the echo of Michael’s absence faded a little. It turned out that being alone didn’t kill me. Sometimes, it even felt like breathing fresh air after a long illness.
By the end of the thirty days, I had learned something profound:
Alone was not the same as abandoned. I was still here, still myself, and still capable of carving out a life that made sense—even if nobody else was watching.
The next experiment: saying yes to a weekend in Napa.
My friends had invited me before—wine, food, lazy mornings in borrowed houses—but I’d always declined, because weekends belonged to Michael or the kids or whatever event the Ashfords planned.
This time, I caught myself typing out an excuse, deleted it, and wrote instead, Count me in.
We drove up together, three women in a borrowed Range Rover, all of us experts at overpacking and underestimating how much wine we’d actually buy. The house was a glass box perched over a vineyard, more expensive than anyone wanted to admit, but the kind of indulgence we all needed.
We drank too much, ate too much, and told stories that were only funny if you’d known each other since college.
Nobody asked about Michael, but when I brought him up, they let me say what I needed without trying to fix anything.
Sometimes, the conversation drifted to betrayal or divorce or the general absurdity of aging, but just as often, it was about books, or food, or the idiocy of people who put ice in white wine.
The second night, we played cards and laughed so hard I had to wipe away mascara tears. Sometime after midnight, sprawled on the patio and looking up at a sky too bright with stars, I realized I hadn’t thought about Michael for hours.
It didn’t last—nothing ever did—but for that one, stretched-out moment, I felt like a different version of myself.
A version I could live with.
The drive back to Marin was all winding roads and golden hills, the landscape blurring past as I thought about the weekend. I felt a weird sense of guilt, as if enjoying myself without Michael was some new form of infidelity.
It was only after I got home, unpacked, and checked my phone for messages I knew wouldn’t be there, that I realized how marriage had trained me to think of happiness as a joint venture. You could only have fun if you were having fun together. Anything else felt like cheating.
But the weekend in Napa had proven otherwise. I could laugh, relax, even be happy, and not need to report back to him. I could build a life that was mine, and if it turned out to be better without him in it, that was a choice I got to make.
When the thirty days ended, he texted: Coffee? Whenever you’re ready.
I hesitated for a full minute, then wrote back: Tomorrow. 10 am. Mill Valley.
This time, the only reason I agreed to see him was because I wanted to.