Four Friends

“After everything you’ve seen in families—the abuse, addiction, crime, neglect—Gerri, please keep your head. We can weather this. We love each other.”

“We’re not like those families.” She sniffed. “You and I—we were always different. We always played as a team. Fuck you, you asshole, you played on another team!”

“All right, listen to me. If you decide you can’t live with it, if you can’t forgive me, we’ll deal with that—but first, you have to give it a little time, some effort. You obviously just learned of this and you’re hot as a pistol. If you feel the same way after we’ve tried to get beyond my crimes, we’ll make a plan that’s best for the family. But not the very day you find out. It’s reactionary.”

“Weren’t you reactionary? Falling into bed with her like that? Not even sure why?”

“Absolutely,” he said with a nod. “And trust me, the price was high, even without you knowing what I’d done. Give yourself a little time to think. Please.”

“You’ve done some real stupid, lame-ass, highly punishable things in our marriage,” she said. “I was with my dying mother and you were supposed to pick up the kids and bring them, but you lost track of time and left them standing around outside the school, waiting, while it was getting dark. And they were so little!” He nodded solemnly. She didn’t add that she’d fired a hospital water jug at him when they’d finally shown up and despite the fact she’d left a nice purple bruise on his head, he’d held her close while she cried. For a long time. “I was about to go into labor with Matthew and you went on a fishing trip, because the mayor asked you to go, to represent the prosecutor’s office.” She’d been so angry with him for that. She was so afraid she’d have to have the baby all on her own. But Matthew waited for his father. “You drank too much at the neighborhood block party and peed in the clothes hamper in the middle of the night.” A slight smile threatened his lips. “You don’t deserve for me to think it over.”

“I know. But I won’t leave the house without telling the kids why.”

“You’re not serious!”

“I’m completely serious. It was my mistake, I’ll fess up, take my medicine. I hope we don’t come to that, Gerri. You know the best counselors in the business. Pick one out, set us up. If that doesn’t help, at least we will have tried.”

“See, right now you’re just too goddamn calm,” she said. “Like you’ve been ready for this day for a long time and had it all planned, what you were going to say, how you were going to play it. You lawyered up—you strategized it.”

“You’re partially right,” he admitted. “I’ve had years to think about what I’d say if you found out, if you came at me. I decided a long time ago, I wasn’t going to lie or make excuses.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

She wished he’d have spent that time coming up with a good story to refute what she’d heard—she didn’t want to know what she knew. “Please don’t sleep in my bed tonight.”

He gave a resigned nod.

She rose to go to their room, but stopped before entering the house. Pulling her jacket tighter around herself, without looking at him, she asked, “Did you love her?”

“I loved you. Always.”

“But her? Did you also love her?” She turned to look at him.

He stood up and faced her, his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t using her. She was a nice woman, I was fond of her. I was attracted to her and I cared about her. You know I’d have to have some feelings, that I’m not the kind of man who fucks around. But from the first time we were together, even before we were together, I told her I had a good marriage, that I loved my wife, that I didn’t want a divorce. I feel as bad about what I did to her as what I’ve done to you.”

“So. You loved her. In your way.”

“I never weighed it, honey. I knew how much I loved you, but I wasn’t thinking with the right head. I was all steamed up and driven. I wish I’d known how to stop that, but... Gerri, I wasn’t done with my sex life. I was still interested. Responsive. I can’t undo it. I can tell you one thing—I might’ve thought that’s what I wanted at the time, but it didn’t make me happy. It made me miserable.”

She shook her head in equal parts disgust and pity, then turned and went to the bedroom. Wasn’t done? She couldn’t remember a time he’d let her know something was missing for him. The bigger ache came from knowing there hadn’t been anything missing for her! She’d thought they had the perfect marriage, the perfect family.

If he’d been beside her in their bed, she would have kicked him every time she turned over. But having him on the family room couch left her feeling so alone, she cried. In every crisis of her life, she’d turned to Phil, and now he was the crisis in her life. She wanted him to feel more pain for her, yet if he’d come to their bed and tried to hold her through her tears, she would have torn his eyes out. If he apologized one more time, she might stab him in his sleep.

The next morning, she went for her walk and she wore sunglasses. Of course Sonja and Andy could tell something was wrong. “There’s a dreadful situation at work I can’t talk about yet,” she said. “I’ll tell you when it’s okay to.”

* * *

Andy called Bryce once she had his things packed up—it had only taken a couple of days. She got his voice mail and left him a detailed message: she was filing for divorce, would be canceling credit cards, closing the joint accounts and would have copies of the statements for him, a final accounting. She knew he had a company credit card he could use, but still she asked if he needed money.

He came for his things that very night. He told her, in a very subdued, boyish way, that he’d be fine financially. She knew in that instant that he was relieved to be free of her—she cramped his style. He was not the kind of man ready to have serious ties. She didn’t bring up the house—there was already a divorce lien on its proceeds of sale from her first husband. It appeared Bryce was going to take his belongings and go away quietly, content to have the ball and chain removed from his life. There was something about the simplicity of it that hurt more than the screaming fights. He was so easily done. Finished. Why couldn’t she have made the break long ago? She knew why—it was embarrassing to be so foolish, so wrong, at her age.

When Bryce came, he was with one of his closest friends, using his truck to load the big screen, sound system and speakers, boxes of clothes and books, toiletries and miscellany. Bryce rode away behind his possessions on his motorcycle and all the while Bob, working in the kitchen, managed to stay very busy and very quiet. It was completely over in an hour and Bryce would never be back. He hadn’t even waved goodbye.

The trash was full of Sonja’s concoctions, the entire house was filled with dust from Bob’s construction in the kitchen plus the odor of burnt sage from Sonja’s cleansing voodoo. Gerri, who was Andy’s rock, was distracted by some heavy work problem and felt terrible about her lack of support, but Andy reassured her that she was getting along pretty well. She’d gone back to work the morning after the boy toys disappeared from her life.

While there was a part of her that wished for quiet and solitude in the evenings, there was another part grateful that Bob was in her kitchen, pleasantly working away as the sun set. She sat on her bed with the news on, there being no TV in the family room anymore, and took odd comfort in the humming, whistling and construction noise.

She wandered into the kitchen. “How’s it going?” she asked him.

“Good,” he said. The crowbar was being used to pry the old, chipped ceramic tiles off the floor. “Very good.”

“I’m going to have a glass of wine,” she said. “What can I give you?”

“Oh, I’m just fine with water.”

“I didn’t mean I was going to get you liquored up,” she laughed. “I realize you use power tools. But how about a cola or something?”

He looked up from his work, smiling. He wiped a rag across his sweating bald head. “That would sure be nice, thanks.”

She went for a glass in the laundry room where she kept the few dishes she needed since the kitchen cupboards had been torn out and carried away. The refrigerator was purring along in the garage now. She couldn’t actually cook anything but she could get ice and keep things cold. As she looked inside she said, “Hey, have you eaten?”

“I have,” he said. “Had something on my way over.”

“How about Beau?” she asked, and as she did so, the yellow Lab lifted his head and looked at her with those sad eyes that suggested he hadn’t been fed in days, lying eyes that made her laugh.

“Don’t believe a word he says. I always take care of Beau first,” Bob said.

She poured his cola, her white wine. She settled at the table in the nook, still undisturbed and covered with dust. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Sure. If I get confused by it, I’ll make up an answer.”

“Funny,” she said. “Why did you and your wife separate?”

“Oh, that,” he chuckled. “It’s real simple, actually. She left me. She’s gay.”

Andy actually choked on her first swallow of wine. “Gay?” she echoed.

He laughed. “Don’t ask me the chronology of that, okay? I mean, since birth, I assume, but of course, I had no idea. We weren’t exactly kids when we got married. I was over forty, she was over thirty. It was something she struggled with, spent a lot of time at church, trying to get the cure. I think she just wanted to be like everyone else—live an average life and have children. But that’s really not the way to go.”

“Holy shit, Bob,” Andy said.

“Life’s not easy if you’re gay, even in San Francisco. If your family thinks you’re just being difficult people keep trying to impress that all you have to do is concentrate and you’ll stop being gay. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Well, I’ll say,” Andy said, taking a gulp. She wanted to know everything, right now. How’d that work? What made her choose him? How was sex? And the one she couldn’t help, “You didn’t have the first idea? Going in?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That was stupid of me and wrong of her, I guess. But I understand. I think she was really trying. She had high hopes.”

“Oh, man,” she said, overwhelmed. “I gotta know— How long did it last?”

“The time we were together? A couple of years from the time we met. She’s such a sweet girl. We were good friends first, then decided to get married. I admit, when she first told me she just couldn’t pretend to be straight anymore, I was mad. But I couldn’t stay mad at her, you know? Her life was more of a struggle than mine, so I learned a little tolerance. For a long time there I’d been worried she was sick or something, but finally she just told me the truth, she’d thought she could stop being a lesbian and could be married with children, but it just wasn’t going to happen.” He lifted his head and looked upward as if remembering. “She asked me if it would be okay if she left. And I said of course. What was I going to say? No?”