The Silent Wife (16 page)

“What do you mean you won't be coming home? Where will you be?”

“I'm moving out,” he says. “You really didn't know?”

“You're moving out? Where are you going?”

“You remember Natasha Kovacs.” He makes it a statement rather than a question. “It isn't that I don't love you.”

The noisy public quarrel that ensues surprises them both. For years they've kept their differences at bay. The worst of it is that the argument centres on irrelevancies. As he knew she would, Jodi fixates on his timing.

“Good of you to tell me,” she says. “I'm so happy that you didn't wait any longer. I wouldn't want to be the last to congratulate you.”

He hates it when she's sarcastic. “You're right,” he says. “I screwed up. I'm guilty. I made a mess of it.”

“Oh well, it's your loss,” she says. “I could have thrown you a party. Bought you a gold watch.”

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.”

“And why is that? Why didn't you tell me sooner?”

“Because I didn't know myself what I was going to do.”

“You knew I'd kick you out is why you didn't tell me.”

“That's not true.”

“I
would
have kicked you out.”

“Yes, but that's not what I was thinking.”

“What
were
you thinking, Todd? Just tell me that. What was going through your mind? Why would you wait until the second you're walking out the door to share the news with me?”

“I told you. I didn't know what I wanted. It's complicated. The situation is complicated.”

“You signed a lease on an apartment over a week ago. You signed a lease! How complicated is that?”

“So you did know. You knew all along.”

“I didn't believe it. I didn't think you would go through with it.”

Both of them are shouting, flinging the words across the space of years. Part of him wants to relent, tell her that it's all a big mistake, that he doesn't know what he was thinking. He understands that this is in her mind too—it's what she would like and maybe half expects—for the whole ugly mess to end up a tempest in a teapot, conclude with a show of forgiveness and later on an evening on the town, champagne cocktails, a walk along the river in moonlight. It's a pleasant vision, and he could almost go there.

Without warning she lets out a howl and charges him with fists clenched. He's twice her size and catches her wrists with little effort. She swings a knee but he has her at arm's length and holds her off. In the end she tires herself out, and he lets her go. Her hair is dishevelled, her face is contorted, and she's panting. People are staring. He looks around for Freud and spots him in some nearby shrubbery, digging a hole the way dogs do—rump in the air, tail waving, paws flying.

“Okay,” she says. “Go and get your things. You have ten minutes. I don't want to see you when I get home.”

11

HER

As the northern hemisphere hurtles away from the sun, the lengthening nights and disappearing days strike her as a punishment designed for her selectively. Harsh winds whip up rain and fog, whistle through trees, and slam into windowpanes. Leaves that were green just last week have turned the colour of piss and dung and are piling up on the pavement. For Jodi, the reckless speed of these meteorological changes stands in mocking contrast to the thudding march of time, every day a weight that she drags behind her.

Mornings, when she opens her eyes, cheek on the pillow, breath moving in gentle waves, the first thing she sees is the overstuffed chair in the corner, its wide seat and squat arms, its slipcover of silky polished cotton with a light and dark design of
vines. She traces the leafy pattern with a child's eye, her mind suspended in a pleasant meditation, till the moment comes when she faces the fact that getting out of bed to start her day is the violent and pointless thing she has to do.

Curiously, it's not so much his physical absence that causes her pain. It was often the case that he didn't come home till after she'd fallen asleep, and he was normally gone before she woke up in the morning. What bothers her most is the blow to her routine. She misses the hours spent poring over cookbooks, composing a menu, shopping for ingredients, putting a twist on his favourite foods. And then there's the weight of the chores that always fell to him—walking the dog after dinner, taking her car to be serviced. Even putting the trash in the chute feels like a sad and onerous thing that she should not be forced to do. The daily paper poses another problem. Having quit her practice of carefully refolding it and leaving it for him on the coffee table, she finds that its absence can take her by surprise. At times she stands in his wardrobe, rearranging his jackets. One day she took all the T-shirts out of his drawers, shook them out, refolded them, and put them back again.

Her shattered routine leaves her at loose ends, but worse still, much of what she used to enjoy no longer brings her any pleasure at all. Stepping outside in the morning and taking the measure of the day. Fondling the dog's velvety ears. Slipping into a four-hundred-thread-count Italian shirt and doing up the small pearly buttons. She has no taste for any of it, and now, when she waves to the doorman as she passes through the lobby, she can only imagine his pity and curiosity. Without a doubt she
is the subject of gossip and speculation throughout the building. Her neighbours, she notes, are different in their treatment of her, even if it's just their intonation when they say hello or the way their eyes linger on her face.

It's no help that Dean has been leaving tirades on her voice mail, piling
his
distress on top of
hers
. She knows that, like her, Dean has been sideswiped—dealt the kind of lateral blow that you never see coming—and maybe it eases his pain to rant and rave, but Dean's pain is not her problem. Of course, given her profession, people do this to her all the time, as if they think she's programmed to deal with their complaints.

The best hours of the day are those she spends with clients. She loves the challenge of the consulting room, the complexities her clients bring to her—the life puzzles, the guard coming down, the learning to trust, the tides of resistance. Some are more locked in than others, but by and large people who bother to seek her out are motivated to change, steeped in enough emotional pain to make the effort. Her clients bring out the best in her. She likes herself more when she's with them, especially now, with her world shaken and her optimism failing. With clients she can be patient, compassionate, receptive, and they reward her with their progress, the fitful forward movement, the cracks that open to the light. The other day Jane Doe said about her husband: “When he tells me what to do it makes me feel safe. I like the shelter of subservience.” Astonishing. An absolute first for Jane in owning her predicament, a plain acknowledgment that, concerning her marriage, she is less a victim and more a participant, a bold step on the path to self-realization. It also
provided a clue as to why Jane has stuck it out, not that Jodi finds it puzzling that she has. There are lots of reasons why a woman stays with a man, even when she's given up on changing him and can predict with certainty the shape that the rest of her life with him is going to take. Her mother had a reason. Every woman has a reason.

There was a time when she used to say about Todd: “He's a weakness of mine. I have a weakness for him.” She said this to herself and to her friends in the way of a justification. Bending yourself out of shape for a man is not a popular thing to do these days, certainly not the emancipated way of going about a relationship. Sacrificing your values on the altar of love no longer holds up as an ideology. Tolerance, beyond a point, is not widely preached, even though, inevitably, when two people rub shoulders on a daily basis, when they inhale each other's way of being as a life premise, there is going to be a sacrifice of sorts. You will not be the same person coming out of a relationship as you were going into it. Not that she understood this then, in the beginning. When she confronted him, when he apologized, when they shed tears, when they reaffirmed their love, when they did this time after time, she didn't sense the renunciation that was going on within her, because after all he was Todd, and he was precious to her. Even his sedition could be precious, his way of remaining true to himself. He wasn't cruel about it, never unkind. You could never say about Todd that he was mean-spirited or spiteful. Quite the opposite was true. If you crossed Todd he'd give you another chance, and if you crossed him a hundred times he'd give you a hundred chances. But Todd was
bound and determined to live his life, and all she could do in the end was accept this, even knowing that what she had become was a version of her mother. In spite of making different choices, in spite of living in different times, in spite of being forewarned by her education in psychology, which taught her that the buck passes from one generation to the next, the predicament she landed in was the very one she had set out to avoid.

She does better on days when there's something to look forward to: her flower-arranging class or dinner out. It's hard to be peevish in a room full of fresh-cut blooms or surrounded by well-dressed strangers in the festive social space of a restaurant. She makes an effort to pace her dinner dates, methodically rotating through her friends to avoid calling on any one of them too often. When she talks about her situation she does it with an air of detachment, sometimes laughing and toasting the power of youth. Her friends, she finds, are relieved that she's taking it so well.

It's only with Alison that her guard comes down. Jodi and Alison have been getting together often, more so than usual—for an early lunch before Alison's shift or dinner on her day off. Alison is the only one of her friends who demurs when she makes light of her situation. She's also the only friend who picks up on the fact that Jodi has been waiting for Todd to come home.

“Honey, I know you're hurting, but you can't be naive about this. The man reviewed his options and made up his mind to leave. What you need is a divorce lawyer. We have to keep a roof over your head, make sure you get your fair share of what's coming to you. After spending twenty years wiping the man's ass.”

“I don't think that Todd would want to deprive me.”

“A man in his predicament? I wouldn't count on it. Anyway, much better to play it safe.”

It's a comfort that Alison is looking out for her, but she is not receptive to Alison's advice. What's knocking around in her head is that people act on impulse, make mistakes, and regret them later. Maybe he needs to know that he's forgiven. Maybe he's waiting for a sign. And really, when you think about it, no actual harm has been done. Even the baby is not a major complication, doesn't need to be. He won't be spending a lot of time with it while it's an infant. Infants need their mothers. And when it's older—well, it might be nice having a youngster around to liven things up.

12

HIM

Refusing to look back he throws himself headlong into his new life, beginning by shopping for clothes to replace the wardrobe he left behind. Natasha tags along and he allows her to influence his purchases, with the upshot that his look becomes more stylish and up-to-date. His belt has a larger buckle; his shoes taper to a point. He learns to wear a T-shirt with a blazer and jeans. The new clothes have designer labels and they fit him better. He likes the reinvention of himself and gets into the swing of it, letting his hair grow out and cultivating a roguish stubble. All in all it makes a younger, sexier man of him. He looks like someone who is still in the game. And then there's the payoff that trumps all others: When he and Natasha are out together people no longer mistake him for her father.

Evenings are spent getting dinner, going for walks, going shopping, making love. If Natasha has schoolwork Todd takes over things like dishes and laundry. If Todd goes to the bar Natasha goes with him, although—given that she's pregnant and therefore not drinking—she usually drags him away before he can really get started. For this he takes some ribbing from the boys, Cliff in particular, who refers to Natasha as the she-boss. On weekends they pack a lunch and drive out of the city or eat pizza and watch movies or babysit for people in the building. Natasha says they need to make friends with their neighbours.

One Saturday they pass the afternoon getting matching tattoos—armbands of intertwining foliage, his and hers. The needles bring tears to his eyes—he wasn't ready for the pain—but he likes the idea of a rite of passage, an initiation of sorts, something to symbolize the start of their life together. The tattoos were Natasha's idea. Tattoos, she says, are permanent and nonnegotiable—unlike wedding bands. Not that she wants to forgo a wedding. On the contrary, she has moved the date up to mid-December, which is ideal, she says, because not only will it be Christmas break but she will barely be showing and will still fit into the dress of her dreams.

His workdays are spent in a state of heightened energy and purpose. The buyer he's been courting for the Jefferson Park apartment house has come through with a signature, so now it's just a matter of finishing the work. This includes digging out the west foundation, waterproofing the exterior wall, and replacing the concrete walk that will be damaged in the process. The whack of cash he was counting on for the new office building
will be a smaller whack than he foresaw, but right now he's riding a wave of optimism and feeling that he has Natasha to thank for all of life's blessings. He won't soon forget the ordeal of his depression. Before Natasha, life was hardly worth living. Now, his renewed spirits are rippling outward, creating promise for the future. He stands firmly by the choices he's made and the path he's taken. His advice to everybody would be: Don't allow anything or anyone to stop you from living your life.