The Story Hour (30 page)

Madeline White, a professor in the history department, entered the pool, spotted Maggie, and swam up to her. Maggie inquired about Madeline's recent hip surgery, asked how her husband, Phil, was doing, and then excused herself. Small talk in the pool was beyond her today. She was aware of Madeline's start of surprise as she turned abruptly and swam toward the far end of the pool.

Ravel's
Boléro
was playing overhead, and Maggie swam a few more laps. Feeling a tiny cramp in her calf, she decided to stop, holding on to the pool wall as she stretched out her leg. After a few minutes, Sudhir swam up to her. “Everything okay?” he said, shaking the water from his body.

She looked at him, took in the dark hair slicked down on his forehead, the slender shoulders, the flawless skin the color of tea, and thought he'd never looked more beautiful. She smiled at him. “Yes. Thanks for checking.” This was what she'd felt the other day but had been unable to say: It was this shorthand, this history, this knowing of each other, these daily acts of kindness, that she'd come to value, that she'd never again take for granted.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Sudhir spoke first. “I just wanted to tell you. I'm leaving next Saturday.”

“Leaving for where?” Sudhir usually gave her his travel schedule as soon as he knew it.

He looked away, staring at a spot beyond her shoulder. “Leaving . . . moving out. I got my own apartment.”

She felt something within her collapse so dramatically that she was glad the buoyancy of the water was holding her up. On land, she would've fallen, her legs unable to sustain her, she was sure. She felt as if her very soul, her spirit, had escaped from her, so that her body was an empty shell, the facade of a tall building, with no rooms, no hallways, on the inside. A cold, icy fear entered her. Her eyes stung with tears.

Her lips moved. She said nothing.

His eyes flickered over her face and then moved away, as if distressed by what they saw there. “I'm sorry,” he said. “There's no other way. We can decide what to do about the house later. You can stay there forever, I don't care. I'm not going to fight you over anything. You can have anything you want. I just . . . I want a quick divorce, that's all.”

Divorce? Had Sudhir really just said that word? That nasty, unimaginable, not-applicable-to-us word? But why was she so surprised? People got divorced all the time. Hell, she'd be out of business if half of her clients weren't divorced or contemplating it. But what did those people have to do with her and Sudhir? Her Sudhir. She had known him practically her whole adult life. He was her partner. Her life mate. Her deepest, closest friend. Her family. He was her family. One didn't divorce family, did one? But one didn't cheat on family, either, did one? Betray them, wound them? Well, yes, people did. One did. And they had to take you back. Family had to take you back. That was the whole point of family. The way you took Wallace back, you mean? Well, no, that's different. He was never really sorry, he never really apologized. Whereas me, I'm repentant. I'm a penitent. I will walk on hot coals to express how sorry I am. I will climb a mountain made of broken glass on bended knee in apology. I will atone. But please, God, not this. Nothing with Peter, not the sweetest, maddest moment of lovemaking, is worth this, this destruction, this cleaving. Because that's what it will be—a cleaving, one half of me gone, since Sudhir is the other half of me. The better half. God, he always was the better half. How could I have not known it?

She heard
Boléro
build up to its rousing climax and thought, I will remember this moment forever, the rest of my life. I will never again be able to listen to this piece of music without remembering this moment when my soul left my body and I was still alive. But the next second, a fury blew through her, blasting away the icy numbness of a second ago, and she thought, Fight, fight, fight, do not give up without a fight, you idiot, this is your life, your love, you are fighting for. Make him change his mind, make him see the stupidity of his actions, make him stay, just make him stay, today and the next day and the next, until some normalcy seeps back into your lives, until the scab begins to form, until healing happens. We will do couples counseling, we will make changes, we are sentient, intelligent, caring people, we love each other, we have the advantages of education and culture and wealth, we have a great support system, we can afford the best therapists money can buy, we can do this, we can make it work, we will succeed, because if we fail, with all our advantages and privileges, what hope for the millions of others who don't have half the things that we do? Say something, say something, something perfect, something wise and loving and accurate, get through to him, this is Sudhir, this is no stranger, this is your Sudhir whom you've known since he was twenty-three years old, Sudhir who courted you with his soft manner and easy smile, Sudhir whom you married at city hall in a simple ceremony attended by only your grad school friends, Sudhir who took you to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon even though both of you were flat broke, Sudhir whose first car in the U.S. you helped pick out, a secondhand Chevy, Sudhir who took you to Calcutta for the first time a month after he got his citizenship, Sudhir for whom you, born and raised in Brooklyn, moved to this lily-white college town, something you've never quite made your peace with, this is Sudhir, I tell you, look past the opaque eyes, the mouth that is already arranging itself in lines that you don't quite recognize, this is your Sudhir still, even if he's receding in front of your disbelieving eyes, claim him, fight for him, claim him before it's too late. Or is it too late?

“Honey,” she said. “Can we talk about this? I— This is not the place for this serious a conversation.”

He shook his head impatiently. “Sure. We can talk. But my mind's made up. I've already signed the lease. And the movers are coming Saturday.”

Her chin wobbled. “I don't understand. How you can. After all these years. Just like that.”

She saw something flash in his eyes before they turned cloudy again. But she knew what he was too much of a gentleman to say: He didn't understand how she could, either. After all these years. Just like that.

Sudhir was talking, and she forced herself to listen. “The apartment's not that far. It's on Garden Street. Just three miles away. I will still come and mow the lawn every week. And if you ever need anything . . .” Sudhir looked uncomfortable. “I will, you know, help in any way I can. With money or whatever else.”

Despite herself, she smiled. Of course. He had it all worked out. Down to the mowing of the lawn. He would not shirk his responsibilities. She had his parents to thank for that, she knew. The elderly Bengali couple—whom, she realized, she would never see again—had instilled in their son a lifelong sense of duty and obligation. Funny to think that, just a few months ago, she had found his sense of propriety stifling. Had wished he were more carefree, more lighthearted, like Peter. Now she knew: Peter was built out of shifting sand, transient as a child's sand castle. Sudhir was a rock.

“You're serious about this,” she whispered in a half-question.

Another swimmer brushed past them, and Sudhir leaned toward her. “There's no other way. I can't be in that house anymore. Every time I look at you, I see . . .” He blinked hard. “I'm sorry.”

They stared at each other, a shocked expression on both their faces. Then Sudhir raised his hand in a half-salute, half-wave, a gesture as familiar to Maggie as her own skin. “Achcha,” he said. “I'll go swim a few more laps. And then I'll be ready to leave whenever you are.”

She stood at the edge of the pool, watching his dark head bobbing in the water, watching the rustled water he left in his wake. After a few minutes, she floated on her back, staring up at the ceiling, wishing there were a way to drown in the pool without anyone noticing, feeling as if the water holding her up were her enemy, feeling herself lying in a watery coffin. She wondered if the part of her that had escaped out of her body upon hearing Sudhir's chilling words would remain lost to her the rest of her life.

M
AGGIE STOOD IN
front of the little cottage with the gray siding. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the waves, background music to the frenzied chorus of seagulls. A slight breeze carried the taste of salt water to her lips. It also shook the stalks of the lavender bush in the right corner of the small front yard.

“So? What do you think?” Gloria asked.

“It's beautiful. No, it's more than beautiful. It's perfect.”

“Wait'll you see the inside. It's an adorable little place.”

Slow down, Maggie said to herself as Gloria unlocked the front door. Gloria has a vested interest in this, don't forget. Then she chided herself for being suspicious. She had known Gloria since her first semester at NYU, where they had taken a statistics class together. They had remained friends through the years—Gloria had been one of the witnesses to her city hall wedding to Sudhir; years later, Maggie had flown in for a week after David, Gloria's first husband, had died from cancer at the age of thirty-four. She had also been present at the birth of Gloria's son from her second marriage and, a few years later, had helped her pack when she and her new husband, Martin, had moved out to California.

So when Gloria had heard that Maggie and Sudhir had split, her first reaction had been to laugh. In disbelief. After Maggie had convinced her that it was true, that Sudhir had indeed moved out, Gloria's second reaction was to insist that she call to straighten him out. Swallowing her pride, Maggie had given Gloria Sudhir's new phone number. Gloria was now a top-selling Realtor who sold multimillion-dollar homes in Southern California. Her powers of persuasion were legendary.

A subdued Gloria had called back a half hour later. “I'm sorry, honey,” she said. “He would hardly talk to me. I've never known Sudhir to act like this. He— His mind's made up, honey. I'm so sorry.”

“I know. He's changed.”

“You want to come out here for a few weeks, hon? You know, just to get away?”

Maggie hadn't been able to go just then. She was working like a fiend, staying late at the hospital, taking on new patients at home. For one thing, she needed the extra income now that Sudhir was gone, and for another, time was her enemy. If she didn't stay busy, the smoke of regret blew into her mind, clouding it, threatening to destroy her carefully planned days. So she stayed busy, forgetting to eat lunch or dinner, unaware of the dark circles under her eyes, ignoring the loss of weight and the startled looks she received from clients who had not seen her in a few months. She tried meditation but found that she couldn't sit still long enough, so she took up running, racing up and down the steep streets of her neighborhood every evening. If she ran long enough, her fevered mind stopped replaying the familiar loop of the fateful day when Lakshmi had walked into the bedroom and destroyed her life. At the end of each day, she collapsed on her king-size bed, acutely aware of the loss of Sudhir's body next to hers, willing him to return. A few times, unable to sleep, she had called Odell in France, waking him up in the wee hours of the morning, sobbing her regrets to him. As always, Odell listened carefully, quietly. But once they hung up, it was still only Maggie in the silent bedroom.

By October it was apparent that Sudhir was not coming back. It did not escape her notice that instead of stopping by to check on the house every Saturday, he was going longer between visits. Their conversations were brief, perfunctory. It was a new kind of loneliness, this, not as pungent a pain as she'd experienced when he first left, but more hollowed out, chronic. It made her feel old before her time. She had always struggled with melancholy at this time of year, affected by the shift in light, by the translucent leaves, whose extravagant beauty hid their imminent death. But for the past three decades, she'd had Sudhir's love to protect her against the coming chill. Now she felt stripped of that protection, vulnerable.

So when Gloria called again and invited her out for ten days to celebrate her mother's eightieth birthday, Maggie said yes immediately. Gloria and Martin had a big house in La Jolla, and she needed to be around other people. Besides, she wanted to see Gloria's mother, Felice, again. The old lady had always been good to her during those long-ago days at NYU, when she had missed her own mother so much.

And now here they stood, in front of the little cottage in Encinitas where Felice had lived until they'd moved her to assisted living six months ago. “The housekeeper has been away on vacation,” Gloria was saying as they crossed the painted front porch. “So it may be a little dusty.”

Maggie barely heard. She was looking at the scruffy hardwood floors of the sunny, airy living room, the overhead wooden beams, the lace curtains on the many windows, the beautiful woodwork around the tiled fireplace, and trying to keep her heart still. This is it, a voice in her head said over and over again. This is home. She had always disliked the large modern house in Cedarville. This house fit her like a glove. And she hadn't even seen the kitchen yet.

The next second they were in the kitchen, with wallpaper that hadn't been changed since the 1970s and a beautiful old stove that reminded Maggie of the one in the apartment in Brooklyn. Her eyes filled with tears. “This is—perfect. This house has such character, such spirit.”

Gloria beamed. “I knew it. I bet Martin last night that you'd love it. Wait'll you see the upstairs. I mean, it needs work, but . . .”

“Of course, it's nothing I can afford. And it's not like I can just up and move.”

Gloria eyed her quietly before nodding. “Let's go see the upstairs.”

There were three bedrooms, one slightly larger than the other two. All had views of the ocean. Maggie thought of her enormous master bedroom with its vaulted ceilings and attached bathroom and shuddered. How lonely she had been in that room night after night. In contrast, she felt so safe in this snug, human-scaled room, with its old but cheerful wallpaper and roughed-up floor.