Home Front(19)

He couldn’t seem to measure up to Jolene. It wasn’t enough for her that he loved his children and had a successful career and did his best. She demanded more, in that silent, competent way of hers; he had to compensate somehow for all the love she hadn’t had as a child, and it was too much for him.

He was done pretending to be the man she wanted. It was time—finally—to find out who he wanted to be.

The decision freed him. He wanted to tell her all this, make her understand so he could feel better, but now was not the time. He needed to get out of here. He was reaching for his car keys when she said, “Go talk to Betsy.”

In all of this, he’d forgotten. He looked at her for the first time since he’d said I don’t love you anymore. “Me?”

She looked like one of those marble statues in the Louvre. Already she was retreating emotionally, pulling her feelings back inside where they’d be safe.

“She’s your daughter, Michael, and you hurt her. If there’s any chance of making her feel better, it lies in you. Maybe she’ll forgive you.”

He heard the emphasis she placed on the pronoun. “I haven’t asked for your forgiveness, Jo,” he said.

He saw how deeply that hurt her. “No, Michael, you haven’t. Do you want a divorce?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

He saw the way she looked at him then. When it came to love, Jolene was like a recovering alcoholic, a zealot. Love was either there, hot as fire, or it was dead, as cold as ash. She saw no middle ground, and she had no patience for uncertainty. It made him feel small, the way she looked at him, and he almost hated her for that. She was always so damned strong, even now, when he had broken her heart. Had he wanted her to fall apart and say she loved him?

He walked away from her, went up the stairs.

Outside Betsy’s closed door, he paused, then knocked.

“Go away, Mom.”

He opened the door, saying, “It’s me.”

She saw him and started to cry. “I don’t wa-want you in h-here. G-Go away.”

“Don’t cry, Lil Bit,” he said. At the childhood nickname, so long unused, she cried harder.

He went to the bed, sat down facing her. He felt unable to sit straight in her presence; his shoulders slumped forward, as if his spine had begun to go soft. “Betsy,” he said tiredly.

She sniffed, looked at him from beneath heavy lashes.

In her teary eyes, he saw the full import of what he’d done, what he’d said. His love for Jolene was only a part of their life together, the skeleton of their family; but there was more. Their children were the sinew and muscles. The heart. How could one love be extracted from the other without it all collapsing?

“I’m sorry I missed your race.”

“It was stupid anyway. I didn’t win” was what she said, but in her eyes, he saw heartbreak.

“You ran the race, that’s what matters. There will be lots of winning and losing in your life. All of it makes you who you are. I’m proud of you.”

She wiped her eyes and studied him.

He could see what she was thinking. He sighed, pushed a hand through his hair. Turning slightly, out of his depth, he glanced out the window.

“Grown-ups fight,” he said, too ashamed to look at her. Was he lying? He didn’t even know. Ten minutes ago it had been so clear to him—he had fallen out of in love with his wife. Now he saw that it had been a drop of water, that moment, falling into the ocean of their connected lives. “You and Lulu fight all the time and you still love her, right?”

“But you said—”

“Just forget it, Betsy. I didn’t mean it.”

“It was a mistake?”

He looked at her at last. “A mistake,” he repeated, hearing the word as something unfamiliar. “I’m sorry you heard our fight, and I’m sorry I missed your track meet. Forgive me?”

Betsy stared at him so long he thought maybe she was going to say no. Finally, though, she nodded solemnly.

He leaned forward and drew her into his arms. He felt her start to cry again, so he held on, let her be. When she finally quieted, he let go of her and eased off the bed, standing beside her.

She looked up at him. “You love Mom, too, right?”

He said yes—the right answer—but he could tell by the sadness in her eyes that he had waited too long, that the silence convinced her of more than his words had.

Leaving her, he went back downstairs, steeling himself to face Jolene, but she wasn’t down there, waiting. She’d picked up the room and turned off the lights.

That was Jolene, cleaning up even while life was falling apart.

*



Jolene made it up the stairs and into her bedroom without coming apart, although how she did it, she wasn’t quite sure. Somehow, her heart was still beating and her brain was still sending signals of the most rudimentary kind—breathe, lift your foot, step forward.

She closed the door quietly behind her, wondering for a split second why she didn’t slam it shut. Maybe a sound like that, a crack, would make her feel better.

Through her window, she saw a block of night and the Big Dipper, slanted on its side.

She meant to sit on her bed, but she missed, was off by inches, and so she slid down to the floor.

She sat there, her knees drawn into her chest, staring into the darkness.