“Well, that’s great.” What a ringing endorsement this was for our marriage. So far he’d told me he liked me and he didn’t hate me. When I was younger, boyfriendless and hopeless, I had dreamed of the relationship I wanted, of the man I would fall in love with. I’d pictured someone with whom I would truly share a life. He would be a writer and he would sit at his typewriter and compose brilliant poems or novels while I sat in a large, comfortable leather chair by a sun-lit window and sketched. Our life together would be rich and joyous—we would laugh, and cook dinner, and read to each other by a fire at night. Our passion would be legendary, our desire a constant, smoldering fire that would need only a single glance to flare into brilliant, burning flame. We would have no secrets, and he would accept me completely, would tell me I was beautiful, would believe I was beautiful, would find my perpetual messiness glamorously artistic, my sarcasm hilarious, and we would create our own little nation of two, and the only people to whom we would issue visas would be people who loved us as well as we loved each other.
At some point, I had stopped believing in those romantic dreams. My imaginary husband and the steady clack of his typewriter and the messiness of his hair and his imperfect hands on my face had evaporated, and I had let the dream go, float away and disappear into the sky like a child’s balloon, with as much chance of reclaiming it. Instead, I had chosen the easy path, the love that resembled the love around me—formal and real and designed to look better on the outside than it felt on the inside. I pictured my sixteen-year-old self, painting in that cool, damp basement by the inconsistent light of a dozen lamps, the way everything had looked possible and real to her, and it broke my heart that I had betrayed her for such a small, inconsequential prize. Instead of a husband who was perfect for me, I had taken a husband who looked perfect to everyone else. Instead of the love that made my heart sing and brought out the best in me, I had chosen . . . well, that was it, wasn’t it? I didn’t love him. He didn’t love me. And I didn’t want to pretend anymore.
You might think realizing you don’t love your husband would be cause for panic, a little hysterical weeping, but that wasn’t the case for me. Instead, a heavy peace descended on me, a feeling of calm so still and strong I could not mistake it for anything other than what it was: a certainty, at long last, that I knew what I wanted, that I knew what was right.
“I want a divorce,” I said to my husband.
I hadn’t known I was going to say those words before I did, and in some way I had known I would say them since the moment I had agreed to marry him. I felt no alarm at the way they sounded when spoken aloud, at their sudden, serious weight. Outside, the city continued apace; traffic hummed by, the quiet tides of Lake Michigan slapped their lazy way against the shore, people walked and worked and laughed and ate and drank and fought and loved, and nothing changed except everything.
Phillip did not look surprised, and for some reason his lack of surprise didn’t surprise me either. “Don’t be ridiculous, Madeleine. We can’t get a divorce.” I tilted my head at him curiously, wondering at his words. Not “I don’t want a divorce,” or “We shouldn’t get a divorce,” but “We can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked. “We’re adults. And I don’t want anything from you. Your money. This place. You can have it all.”
Now Phillip looked exasperated. “We can’t get a divorce,” he repeated. “Think of how it would look. Think about my family. Think about my mother. Think about your mother!”
I had struggled against that same thought for so long, but it all seemed clear to me now. It was a chance I had to take. “This isn’t about my mother, or yours. We don’t have to stay together just because of how it looks. In fact, we shouldn’t. We should be happy. And if we stay together, neither one of us will ever be happy. Not really.”
“So that’s it. You’re divorcing me.”
“I guess so.”
There was a small silence, and then his face twisted bitterly, a sneer raising his lip. “You’re never going to find someone else to marry you,” he said. “You’re fat, and you have the strangest sense of humor, and you can’t even make conversation at a party, for God’s sake.”
And there it was.
Silence hung between us for a moment, and then I spoke.
“Thank you,” I said, and Phillip stared at me. More evidence of my strangeness, he was thinking, but to me his words had been a gift. If I ever harbored any doubts about my decision, I could remember that moment, the hardness in his eyes, and I would know I had done the right thing. I would not dwell on his viciousness, but I would remember all the times it had been there, and if we stayed together, it would have kept coming out, in larger and larger ways, until my misery turned to despair, until anything good and happy inside me had been destroyed completely.
“You’re not staying here tonight. And I’m not giving you a dime.”
“All right,” I said calmly. And standing up, I walked into the bedroom, packed my suitcase for the second time in a month, and walked out the door into the night air and uncertainty.
twenty-six
MARGIE
1924
A few weeks after they had arrived back in Washington, Robert Walsh came to see my grandmother. She could barely remember his coming to her rescue in Paris, and her memories of him on the ship home were distorted by exhaustion and illness and grief. But when she was brought down to see him in the parlor, she was shocked by his appearance. He looked pale and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. His suit hung loosely on his body.