“Maybe both. You were never there for me when it mattered, or the kids.”
“I know, you’ve said it a million times, and I’m so tired of hearing it. There’s nothing I can do about it now. How long are you going to punish me for that?” He was serving a life sentence with her for his crimes. “Is this really how you want to live? In separate rooms, blaming me for everything that’s gone wrong in your life? What’s the point of that?” He was feeling desperate while he talked to her. It never got better, only worse.
“You were a lousy husband and father, that’s not my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” he admitted, “but I can’t rewrite history. I can only try to do better now. But you never let that happen. You’d rather beat me up for the past. I didn’t beat you, for God’s sake, or abandon anyone. I was out making a living, to give you all a good life. And you’re going to punish me forever. We don’t even talk to each other anymore.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” she said coldly.
“Then why are we still married? What are we doing here? If we live another forty years, is this what we have to look forward to?”
“What do you expect after twenty years of marriage? Hearts and flowers? That all died years ago because you were never around.” Oddly enough, he had been faithful to her, not that she cared.
“I think our marriage died when I wasn’t around,” he said in a tight voice. He’d had enough. “And maybe I do expect hearts and flowers, or a conversation or a smile when I come home. We live like strangers, Maureen. Or enemies, which is worse. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to. What are you trying to prove? How much you hate me? How bad I was, how indifferent we can be to each other? You’re never going to forgive me, are you?” She thought about it and shook her head.
“No, I’m not,” she said.
“Maureen, then I’m done,” he said in a choked voice, but he was aware of a sense of relief when he thought about it. She was never going to let him out of jail. He could see that now. He had to free himself. He had nothing better to go to, and no plan, but there had to be a better life than this. He had wanted to build what his parents had, and he and Maureen had failed abysmally.
“What are you going to tell the kids?” She didn’t argue with him about it or beg him to stay.
“I’m going to say that it’s very sad, but our marriage died somewhere along the way, and we love them, but we can’t live together anymore. They’re old enough to understand, and they’ve seen it themselves.”
“Ending it is your idea,” she said accusingly. It was another thing to blame him for.
He nodded. “It is. It’ll be healthier this way, for both of us. I don’t want to be your whipping boy anymore. We both deserve a better life than this.” He felt less sad about it than he thought he would. He felt like he was getting out of prison.
“Do you want a divorce?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” It had all just suddenly become too much. “I’ll look for an apartment and move as soon as I can.” She didn’t try to stop him, and he suspected that she was relieved too. Maybe this was what she’d wanted all along. “You can have whatever you want,” he said, and stood up and looked at her. “I loved you, Maureen, I really did, even if I wasn’t around all the time. I thought I was doing something good for all of you. And you’re still my family. I just don’t want to be punished for the rest of my life.” She nodded and stood up too.
She didn’t respond to what he’d said or tell him she loved him. She didn’t, and hadn’t in a long time. He knew it too. “When should we tell the kids?” was all she asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t plan this. It just happened while we were talking. Maybe we should have done this a long time ago.” But at least they had stayed together long enough for the kids to grow up and leave home. “I don’t think we should tell Zack till he comes home. He might be upset. Do you want to tell Jenny?”
“No, you can.” Maureen didn’t get along with her daughter either. She was hard on her, and soft on their son, which never seemed right to Mike. Jenny knew it too.
Mike looked at apartment rentals online in the guest room that night, and wrote down some numbers to call. He felt like he was in shock. Their whole marriage had unraveled in a single evening. But it was so bloodless and dead, and Maureen was so cold and without emotion or regret that it told him how far they had fallen.
He lay awake in his bed for a long time that night, trying to recall the beginning, when they loved each other, and he couldn’t even remember it anymore. Even the memory of it was gone.
He called the phone numbers he had written down from his office in the morning. He had three apartments to see that afternoon. He wanted something furnished for now. He was going to leave the apartment intact for Maureen. All he wanted was some of the art, and his clothes. But he didn’t want to disrupt their family home for the kids.
He didn’t tell anyone where he was going when he left work. He hadn’t figured out what to say to them yet, and he wanted to tell his children first.
He ran into Renee in the hall as he was leaving, and she looked at him. He looked pale and serious. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I have a headache. I think I’m coming down with a cold.” She didn’t believe him. He looked worse than that, but she just nodded, and he left. He had no one to talk to about it, and he didn’t want to tell his parents yet and upset them. A divorce would be a big deal to them and was to him too.
By six o’clock, he had a three-bedroom furnished apartment in Tribeca in a decent building. The master bedroom looked out at the river, and it had afternoon sun. The two other bedrooms were small, but he didn’t know how much time his kids would be spending with him, probably very little, but this way they could come whenever they wanted. The kitchen and bathrooms were brand-new, and the furniture was plain and inoffensive. It looked more like a fancy hotel suite than a home, but it was what he needed now. It had a small study, a dining area, and a big living room. And there was a gym with a pool in the building, which Mike thought the kids might like if they stayed with him.
The building manager explained that the owner had bought the apartment as an investment to rent, and had never lived there, which was why it seemed so impersonal. It was all he wanted now, a place to stay where no one hated him or was angry at him all the time or reminded him of past sins. It looked like a clean slate, which was all he needed. He packed that night. He took a lot of his clothes, and asked Maureen if he could take four pieces of art, paintings he had bought, and she said she didn’t care. And he took some framed photos of the children from the living room, and one of him and Maureen when they were younger. She was smiling in the photograph. He hadn’t seen her look like that in years.
He hired a van and driver in the morning, dropped everything off at the apartment, and then went to work. He was smiling when he walked in.
“How’s your cold?” Renee asked him when she saw him. “You look a lot better today.”
“I am,” he said. He felt lighter. He didn’t tell anyone at work. He wasn’t ready to. And he booked a ticket to San Francisco for the weekend, and told Jenny he was coming out. He said he had work in San Francisco, and she said she was free for dinner on Saturday and could spend time with him in the afternoon too. He dreaded telling her, fearing she’d be upset.
It went better than he expected. They took a walk on the Stanford campus on Saturday, and they sat down on a bench under a tree. The weather was warm and it was a beautiful day.
He hesitated for a minute before he told her, and then he jumped in.
“Your mom and I made a decision,” he started seriously, and she finished the sentence for him.