The Good Enough Husband (27 page)

Ben didn’t drink spirits for a reason. He needed to keep his head clear, in case of emergency. He’d also suffered through one hangover too many after his divorce. Hangovers at sixteen were an inconvenience. Hangovers at forty were deadly. “Bourbon, neat.” To hell with it. He’d be Abbe’s problem tomorrow.

Abbe and Isaiah had a little room between their kitchen and li
ving room that held all the junk that belonged nowhere. An abandoned foosball table stood collecting dust in one corner. Ben brushed a stack of bills aside and sat in an old office chair. Abbe camped out on a beanbag. Where in the hell had she gotten that?

“You need to forgive him.”

Ben shook his head and took a big sip of his drink. “Why is everyone saying that? You all sound like experts in pop psychology. I expected more from a real psychologist. What’s with all this forgiveness?”

“Oh, fuck. I
am
going to sound like an episode of Dr. Phil. Look, forgiving him will make you feel better. You should forgive Samara too.”

“Maybe I should forgive Osama Bin Laden too, right?”

“Ben. What I mean, I think, is that you have to make peace with what our dad did. It was purely
his
fault, not Marty’s, not ours. For the other things, I think you need to forgive yourself.”

“Forgive myself? I’ve never ever done anything wrong.”

“Well, Mr. Holier Than Thou, you’ve been beating yourself up for Samara for years. I know you wonder why you weren’t enough for her. You got the big house, the big practice, all of that overpriced shit and she left you anyway. I know you’re really beating yourself up about Hannah, too. If you’ll excuse my butting in, I don’t think it’s the same mistake.”

Ben finished the first bourbon, and helped himself to another. He added an ice cube this second time around. “Tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“I’m not sure why you married Samara. But you picked a trophy wife. You’re a great guy, but I think you’ve always felt inadequate. Maybe because of what Daddy did.” Abbe shrugged. “I think she filled the gaps you thought you had. She wanted more. She always needed more attention, more money or more stuff to fill whatever her hole is.”

“I think she’s got it now.”

“Daddy’s the hard one, you know.”

“Mom said she regrets not having Marty in our lives.”

“It’s probably mean to say this, but that’s her shit. I’m fine not having grown up with Marty.” He let her kissing up to their dad slide for the moment.

“Mom showed me some pictures this morning. The kid looked really sad.”

“Then maybe his parents should have thought of that before they got into bed together.”

“You don’t sound like you’ve forgiven dad.”

“I have, Ben.” Abbe closed her eyes. “Do you remember me going into therapy when I was in school?” He did. She’d said at the time it was a requirement before she could get her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. “I hashed all of this out then. I couldn’t let the rest of my life be defined by choices I had no part of. He did a shitty thing. A really shitty thing, to Mom, to Minnie, to Marty, and to us, too. But I love our father. And I have forgiven him. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a big ol’ asshat for twenty years. Not to sound like Oprah and Dr. Phil all rolled up into one, but I’ve put aside the resentment. It’s done. There’s no going back. My childhood was fine. My life is fine. And I’m really grateful to them for that. I’ve watched the news. All this could be a whole lot worse. I have a messy house, crazy kids, and not enough sleep, but these are first world problems. They paid for my education. I’m not scratching out a living from the dirt. I think you need to get over yourself and choose to be happy.” Abbe grimaced at the trite saying. “Sorry.”

Ben finished his second bourbon. “I’m canceling your satellite TV and magazine subscriptions.”

“Damn, I sound all full of pop culture aphorisms, don’t I?” Ben nodded. “It’s going to be a bitch going back to work. The clients aren’t going to take me seriously.”

***

When he was safely back in his hideaway, his home, the phone rang once. He snatched it up without thinking.

“Ben, it’s Hannah. Please don’t hang up. It’s Christmas today. I’m in Copenhagen with my mom. I promise I’ll never lie to you again.” He hung up. She didn’t even know that he’d never cel
ebrated Christmas.

***

“Jesus, Dad, what are you doing here?” Ben shouldn’t have been surprised when his dad pulled up to his garage the Saturday after Christmas. His mother and sister had probably harassed and harangued Walter into making the long drive.

“That’s a fine welcome,” his dad said grumpily, snapping off the radio and stepping out onto the gravel.

“Where’s Mom? Did you drive up here all by yourself?”

“I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, Ben.”

Ben gestured vaguely. “I’m taking care of your house. You could have called if you needed to check up on it.”

“That’s not why I’m here. I drove all this way because you’ve avoided talking to me.”

“What do you mean? I’m talking to you right now.”

“You never once asked me for advice about Hannah.”

Ben could feel his jaw working. Tension shot straight from his shoulders up the back of his skull. He could tell he was going to have one hell of a headache in a few hours. He needed to head that off. Without a word to his father, he dropped the garden tools on the floor of the garage. Toeing off his boots, he struggling with the sticky door, upping his frustration. He shoved it open with his flat hand, ignoring the sound of splintering wood. Finally in the house, he went straight for the kitchen sink. One glass of water and two ibuprofen later, he glanced back. Walter had followed him, closing both the garage door and kitchen door with more gentleness than Ben had been able to muster.

He needed to sit down. He picked the couch. Wrong move. The memory of Hannah, wrapped only in a throw, smacked him in the gut. She was the only woman who’d ever been in this house. The only woman he’d ever made love to here. Ben got up and stalked outside to the deck. There was sureness, a consistency out here.
The ocean was always moving. The waves always came in and rushed back out. High tide and low were as predictable as the phases of the moon.

His dad walked out, leaning over the deck railing.

“You’ve got a great view here. This one eighty deck is something else.”

“You have the same view.”

“Not quite.” Walter turned his back against the railing and stared directly at Ben—blue gray eyes meeting blue gray. “I was really surprised when you moved out here.”

“You guys did.”

“We were looking for somewhere to retire. And after six months out here, your mom and I realized, it was too slow. I’m so glad I listened to her about keeping the house in Davis. But you, Ben. You stayed. I would think it would be hard being a single man living out here like this.”

Ben grunted noncommittally.

“I liked Hannah. She has a lot of spunk. Knows how to go after what she wants.”

Ben ground his teeth. Two ibuprofen had not been a serious enough prophylactic. “I don’t want to talk about Hannah. And I don’t want to talk about Hannah with you.” He had never di
scussed women or relationships with his father. He did not want to start now.

“Do you plan to hate me forever?”

Ben was startled by the hurt and resignation in his father’s question. “I don’t hate you.”

Walter pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the table from Ben. He opened his hands in supplication. “Hate may be too strong a word. But we’ve been no more than ships passing in the night for the last twenty five years. You’ve been angry with me for so long, it’s something I live with.”

“I think I have a right—”

“You
had
the right to be angry. I messed up. You win, okay. In the big cosmic game of life, you win. But we need to get past this.
You
need to get past this.”

“Why does everyone—”

Walter slammed the side of one hand against the palm of the other. “Because you’re not being fair to yourself.”

Ben’s throat constricted. He hated himself for still feeling this way. “Why did you do it?”

Walter was silent so long, Ben didn’t think he was going to answer. “Because I loved her.”

“Did you want to leave Mom and marry her?”

“Yes.” His father’s honesty all these years later, startled him. It hurt that his father had loved someone who was not his mother.

“Why didn’t you?” Maybe if he’d left, it wouldn’t have been like rubbing salt in an open wound, year after year.

“Because I loved you and Abbe more than I loved Minnie.”

“But you loved Minnie more than Mom? If it weren’t for us, you would have left Mom.”

“It’s not that simple—”

“You drove all the way here. If you didn’t want to answer this question, you should have stayed home.”

“In a different world, I would probably have divorced Elaine and married Minnie.”

“Why don’t you do it now? Do you still love her?”

“I owe it to your mom to honor our marriage vows.”

Damn, his mom was the consolation prize. “Are you joking?”

“No, Benjamin Aaron Cooper. No, I’m not joking. What kind of man would I be to hold on to your mother during her best years? When she was nurturing my children and helping my career, only to abandon her when it’s all done. Where would she be then? I don’t think in good conscience I could leave an older woman all on her own.”

“Do you talk to Minnie?”

“Sometimes.”

Jesus. He hadn’t expected that. “You don’t still… You h
aven’t…”

“She lives in Nashville.”

“There are Jews in Tennessee?”

“I have never cheated on your mother again. I made a promise to her. A renewing of vows, I guess, and I’ve kept to it.”

Ben knew the rest wasn’t his business. But curiosity ate at him. It was a craving that would finally be satisfied. “How did Mom find out about Minnie and Marty?”

“Before your mom worked—got a job outside the house—I should say, she volunteered a lot. At the temple, at your preschool, with the less fortunate, whatever. Minnie babysat for you guys on occasion. Abbe was only a toddler, and I thought she was obl
ivious, but I think she might have said to Elaine that she’d seen us kissing. Little children can be unflinchingly honest. Your mom questioned me, and I lied. I didn’t know what to say. Here was a woman who’d had my two babies, and there I was fooling around with someone else who made my heart go boom. Then Minnie got pregnant. I think Elaine suspected, but she never asked.”

“When did you tell her?”

“After Marty was born, Minnie struggled. Her parents were far away, and I didn’t want her to leave and take my son. I had to support her, or she would have gone back to Tennessee. So I told your mother and begged her forgiveness. She relented on the money. At least she was generous in that way. But she refused to have him in our home. She refused to have the two of you meet him. I should have pushed on that. But I was grateful that she was staying with me. It was still the 1970s. She could have divorced me, taken you to New York, and I’d probably have never seen you again.”

Ben went into the house and brought back coffee for himself and his dad. He didn’t think he’d been unfair to his dad, Walter
had
put their family in jeopardy for selfish reasons, after all. But it was the first time he really saw his dad as another guy with human failings. By now, Ben knew that parents eventually fell off their pedestals for every child. Instead of a gentle descent, his father was knocked off. He hadn’t stopped loving him. He’d stopped believing that his father was omnipotent.

“Do you want to talk about Hannah?”

Pain radiated from his shoulders to the back of his skull as his body tensed. His teeth and jaw weren’t going to survive this year, much less this lifetime. He shrugged, trying to look casual. Trying not to look like he’d been hollowed out. “Do you still love her?”

“God, yes,” slipped out of its own volition.

“Do you love her enough to get past the beginnings of your relationship?”

“So what am I going to tell our child?”

“You’d tell him or her that you saved Hannah’s dog. That
is
how you met.”

“But what if they—?”

“It would be a long time before any child of yours asked those kinds of questions. A very long time.”

“But we found out.”

“Don’t compare my situation to yours. It’s not the same. Hannah doesn’t have any other kids. She has a husband, soon to be ex, I assume. Maybe one day your kids will know that Mommy was married before. Nothing more ever needs to be said.”

“But
I’ll
know.”

“And that’s a decision you’ll have to make. Whether
you
can live with that knowledge.”

His dad stayed for a couple of days. It was nice. It was as if all the anger had gone. For the first time in years, he was able to talk to his dad without a pain pill or a drink. They took the dog to the beach, on easy hikes his dad could manage. Three days later, his dad pulled the Camry out of Ben’s garage, and pointed it in the direction he needed to go.