All We Ever Wanted(69)

   “Did you?” she asked, looking more than a little skeptical.

“Uh…yeah. I married him, Julie,” I said, hearing how lame my comeback sounded given everything that was happening in our lives.

She heard it, too, raising her eyebrows as I continued.

“I don’t regret our whole marriage. That would be akin to regretting Finch….I just regret…the past few years. Since Kirk sold his business. I think that’s when he changed,” I said, stopping short of mentioning money directly.

Julie nodded and said, “Yeah. Well, he definitely got worse after that. More arrogant, more entitled…What’s the saying? Money makes you more of what you already are?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Something like that.”

Julie looked thoughtful for a beat, as if trying to figure something out, then said, “You know, in the past decade, I don’t think I’ve ever been around Kirk for longer than thirty minutes in which he didn’t excuse himself to go ‘make a call.’?” She imitated his deep voice, then muttered, “Self-important prick.”

I winced at her words, knowing she was right, thinking of how he couldn’t bear to be separated from his phone. In fact, the only time I’d seen him without it for any length of time was at the Masters every year, where cellphones were absolutely forbidden—no matter how wealthy or powerful you were. It was one of the few rules he actually respected—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the elitist context.

“Like, nobody’s that important. Herman Frankel doesn’t do that, and he’s a freaking brain surgeon,” Julie continued, referring to the valedictorian of our class, with whom Julie was still friends. “He never mentions his work unless other people bring it up. And he won’t even make plans to go out if he’s on call because he doesn’t want to have to insult people by stepping away from the table.”

   She was on a roll now. Part of me was embarrassed for my husband—and myself for putting up with his behavior for so long—but I also felt oddly comforted by her rant. It was almost like therapy or validation.

“He’s such an insufferable snob,” she continued. “I mean, Nina, forget what he can afford. Because I get that—if you can pay for nice hotels and first class, fine, get your nice hotels and first class. I’d do it, too, if I could….I don’t begrudge Kirk all the perks that come with wealth and success. But he thinks of himself as a higher class of person. Like he, along with his rich, white, male friends, is truly better than the rest of us.”

“I know,” I murmured, thinking of all the offhanded disparaging remarks he’d made about average, hardworking Americans, the kinds of people you might see at a professional sporting event or an amusement park or the zoo. The public, he called them, and that was the nicer of the terms. I’d also heard him use riffraff, dregs, proles, and plebs. He usually pretended to be joking, but the sentiment was real. That was how he felt. If something was accessible or populated by “those people,” he wanted no part of it.

Even Disney World, I thought, reminding Julie how much I had wanted to take Finch when he was little, and how Kirk had refused to go until he learned about the VIP tour guides that movie stars used. How you could access everything from the backs of the rides. Circumvent all lines. Avoid the commoners. Yet he still managed to squeeze in remarks about all the “fat people with their turkey legs who were riding in scooters because they were too lazy to walk.” And the worst part was that he would sometimes make such comments within earshot of Finch. I shushed him, of course, or came right out and told him that wasn’t nice, but I still worried that some of those ideas would rub off on our son.

   Julie listened, her lips pursed, then chimed in with more. “And he only pays attention to people who have a lot of money. Otherwise he sees right through you, doesn’t give you the time of day. Do you know he has never, once, asked me about my work? And I’m an attorney. So forget Adam’s job. It’s as if fighting fires is…is…I don’t know.” She threw up her hands, at a rare loss for words.

“Is equivalent to being in jail?” I said.

“Exactly,” she said. “Although that might depend on what kind of jail. In his eyes, a white-collar criminal in a cushy federal prison probably has more status than a firefighter.”

I nodded, thinking of how Kirk still defended Bob Heller, a neighbor of ours who had been sent to prison for running an elaborate Ponzi scheme. And it wasn’t because Kirk believed in mercy, redemption, or forgiveness—that would have been admirable—but because he insisted his friend was a “good guy” who got a “raw deal” and “hadn’t ripped anyone off that much.”

“So Adam hates Kirk, too?” I said, wondering how much they’d discussed us.

Julie shrugged. “I wouldn’t say hate. Adam doesn’t care enough to hate him. And honestly, I wouldn’t either except for the fact that he’s married to my best friend. I hate him for you. And for Finch.”

And there it was. The point of no return. My realization that if I didn’t divorce Kirk for me, I had to do it for my son. Staying in the marriage any longer was giving tacit approval to everything Kirk had done. Finch needed to know that there were repercussions to his father’s entitled mindset and selfish behavior. I had to make him see that there was another way to be.