Say When (2 page)

“Pardon?”

“I said, I’m not
going
anywhere. I’m not moving.”

She nodded. “I see. Well,
I
can’t. I have to be here to take care of Zoe.”

Griffin pictured his daughter, a redheaded tomboy who would grow up to be a redheaded beauty who would knock the stuffing out of any man who crossed her. “All right, you can stay, too,” he told Ellen.

“Griffin. One of us has to go.”

He picked up his mug, took a sip. “Well, let’s see, now. It isn’t going to be me. You try to figure out the rest, Ellen. And from now on, call me Frank. I don’t want you to call me Griffin. That’s what my friends call me.”

He went outside to get the paper. A world of news, not one bit of it about her. Or
them.
When he came back inside, Ellen had gone. He picked up her full mug, dumped the coffee down the drain. Then he got out the potatoes and began to peel them.

O
n Monday, Griffin got through two meetings before he let himself think of anything. Then, asking his assistant, Evelyn, to hold his calls, he closed his door and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. The thought came to him that he needed to go home, he had to go home. And then he remembered that home was not home any longer. He folded his arms on top of his blotter, lay his head down, and closed his eyes.

Ellen had gone out early on Sunday afternoon, telling Zoe she was going to A Stitch in Time, a store she knew Zoe hated. Still, she’d asked if Zoe wanted to go with her. For a moment, Griffin thought Ellen might actually be telling the truth, might really be going to the fabric store. But when Zoe declined her invitation, she’d looked straight at Griffin, her head raised high, defensively.
You see? You see how easy it’s been? How could I help it when it’s been so easy!

Zoe had eaten breakfast, complimenting her father on the perfect crispness of the hash browns, and then had gone out to build a snow fort with the neighborhood boys. Except for the ten minutes Zoe returned to gulp down a peanut butter sandwich, Griffin had had the day alone. Some of the time, he spent unashamedly going through Ellen’s drawers. He found nothing he was looking for—no letters, nothing that looked like a gift, no incriminating evidence. It was all inside her, in the ways she’d changed. Little things—or perhaps not-so-little things—that he had simply ignored.

Ellen had returned at dinnertime, and they sat with Zoe at the kitchen table eating take-out Chinese, tight-lipped and silent. At one point, Zoe asked, “What’s the matter? Don’t you guys like this?” Later she’d asked, “What’s
wrong?”
“Nothing,” they both said, together. She’d shrugged, then asked if either one of them knew one word, just one word, of Chinese. No, they’d said. Zoe said, “Me neither. I
guess.
But was it, like, the very first language? Or something like that? Wasn’t it symbol writing first?” After neither Ellen nor Griffin answered, she said, “Whoa, you guys are
crabby!”
and left the table. She did not open her fortune cookie. None of them did.

At 8:30, Ellen helped Zoe get ready for bed, then went to bed herself. An hour later, after a halfhearted attempt to get through
Business Week
and
Forbes,
Griffin came upstairs and leaned against his bedroom doorjamb, his arms crossed, his hands in loose fists. The room was lit softly by a paper lantern of a moon, a deep yellow orb that seemed hung directly outside their window, exclusively for their benefit.
Ellen,
he thought, and the name seemed to him to hold everything he might possibly want to say to her. It was a request, an apology, a sweet claim. He looked at her lying on her side of the bed, looked too at the space she had left beside her. That was his side, because he was her husband. And she was his wife.

Quietly, slowly, he lay down beside her. She was turned away from him. Asleep? He listened to her breathe for a while and decided not, the rhythm was wrong. And anyway, he could feel her awareness, feel her listening to him. “Ellen,” he whispered. “Can we talk?”

She turned over, her face full of relief.
“Yes.”

He looked fully at her, saw her eyes (nearsighted), her nose (once, out on a date when she was in high school, the guy asked if she’d broken it, humiliating her so much she feared letting anyone see her profile for years), her mouth (the first lipstick she ever wore was tangerine lip gloss, a sample stolen from a drugstore), her dimpled chin (something she used to pray would turn into a “normal” chin), her small ears (plagued by infections until she was ten—her mother used to get up with her in the middle of night and bring her into the kitchen for an orange to comfort her). I
know
you, he wanted to say. Do you know how well I know you?

He wanted to remind her that she had been in the ocean for the first time with him, that it was he she’d turned to with amazement saying, “It tastes
salty!”
He wanted to tell her that he provided her with excellent health and dental insurance, that it was he who had made her finally understand how airplanes stayed in the air—science was not her strong suit. They were so familiar to each other, he loved her so much, and she wanted a divorce? No. She
said
divorce, but she meant something else. She was confused. This…illness had come over her, the last several months. Together, they could cure her.

He wanted to suggest something: Saturday night dating. Yes. They’d hire a standing sitter, and every Saturday night, they’d go out somewhere. Chicago was a fabulous city; there was so much to do—they’d take advantage of the fact that they lived in Oak Park and could get in and out so easily. He was sorry he’d ignored her complaints about almost never going with her to see the ballet, or plays, or concerts, or even enough movies. Maybe she’d like to try opera; he’d be willing to try opera. Or if not exactly opera…No! He would be willing to try
opera.

He’d make an effort to go out with other couples; Ellen was right when she said they needed to make friends. He’d send her flowers on a random Thursday, he’d pay attention and nod at all the right times when she told one of her interminable stories about—well, anyone would agree—about not much. He’d tell her how he
felt
about the sunrise, about the headlines, about the new neighbors down the block, about the barely discernible change in her hairstyle. He’d stop leaving the lid up—though Zoe liked it, claiming that she, too, liked to stand to urinate. Oh, he would do everything, he would do everything she wanted, maybe her demands weren’t so much after all. He’d read
poetry
with her, all right? Maybe he’d amaze her with his insights; he wasn’t so insensitive as she thought, he could be just as sensitive as the next guy, if he wanted to be. And she’d be so
glad,
in the end, so happy they’d stayed together.

He cleared his throat. “Ellen. I love you so much.”

She started to cry. He thought perhaps this was a good sign—it was her way of saying she loved him, too. He tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away, saying, “No! That’s not going to work!
Please,
will you please just
listen
to me!”

He moved away from her, and she sat up, yanked a tissue from the box beside the bed, wiped her eyes. “Look, I know this came out of the blue for you. But I’ve been thinking about it for so
long,
Griffin.”

For so long! For
how
long? The fall afternoon last year when he was raking leaves, and looked up to see her standing at the window looking out at him (and he gaily
waved!)
—then? The last time they made love? When they sat watching
The Sopranos
together and he passed her the popcorn bowl, giving her the last bite even though he wanted it? On Zoe’s seventh birthday, when he found Ellen crying in the kitchen and she said it was because their daughter was getting so old? Was she in fact mixing the batter for Zoe’s cake and thinking,
Oh, God, I can’t stand my husband, I want a divorce?
Unwillingly, he remembered a day shortly before their wedding when Ellen told him they shouldn’t go through with it, she didn’t really want to get married—that that’s why it had taken her ten years to agree to it. He’d put it down to nervousness. As he did her taking a stiff drink in the bride’s room before she walked down the aisle. He’d forgotten about it almost as soon as it happened. But he remembered now.

“Griffin?”

“Frank.”

“What?”

“Call me Frank.” He sat up, straightened his shirt. Damn it, he’d have to learn to iron.

“Stop playing games, Griffin.”

“Call me
Frank.”

She stared at him. “Fine. I will call you
Frank.
Okay? I will call you Frank.” She fell silent.

Griffin waited a while, then asked impatiently, “So what did you want to say?”

He would handle whatever she said. Whatever she said, he would handle.

She took in a deep breath. “Okay. I told you this morning that I was in love with someone.”

“Yeah, the grease monkey. Congratulations on your lofty standards.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to defend him to you,
Frank.”
She looked away, envisioning her lover, Griffin thought. What did he look like, anyway? What did he have?

Ellen rubbed her forehead, sighing. “I don’t know what to say to you. What do you want me to say to you? I mean, I care about you. I really do. I don’t want to hurt you. I’d just like you to
understand,
so that we can cooperate.”

He considered this, pursing his lips, thinking. Then he asked, “How long have you been fucking him?”

Her hands dropped from fidgeting with her hair into her lap. “Oh, God. I might have known.”

“What?”

“That
that
is what you would choose to focus on!”

“Oh, excuse me. Perhaps I meant, What does he think of postmodern fiction? But I don’t think so. I think I meant, How long have you been fucking him?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked sadly at Griffin. “A few months or so, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You don’t
know?
Oh, I think you know, Ellen. A romantic like you? I think you know the exact day, hour, and minute that you began. I think you could tell me every delicious detail about how you undressed, who was on top, every single thing he did to you—and you to him, too. Go ahead, pretend I’m one of your girlfriends. Oops, I forgot. You don’t have any.” It was true. Ellen was painfully shy and had always had trouble making friends. In the three years since they’d moved to Oak Park, the only “friend” Ellen had made was Louise, the waitress whose section she always requested when she went to the Cozy Corner, a local coffee shop. When Griffin once suggested she go out somewhere with Louise, or invite her over to their house, Ellen had quickly said no. “Why not?” Griffin had asked, and Ellen had gotten up and walked away from him, saying over her shoulder, “I’m sure she has a lot of people to do things with.” But he had seen it: Ellen was afraid.

Now, offended at what he’d said, her voice hardened. “What is the point of this, Griffin?”

“Call me—”

“No! I’m not going to call you Frank! I have always called you Griffin and I’m not going to stop now!”

“Everything stops now, Ellen.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“You’ll see.” He turned over, closed his eyes, and, unbelievably, felt himself falling asleep.

In the morning, Ellen hadn’t gotten out of bed. Griffin had gotten Zoe off to school, telling her that Mommy didn’t feel well. Then he got in his car and drove to his computer consulting firm. Same route as Friday. Same exact route. Same radio station. His life belonged to him.

Evelyn knocked gently on his door. Griffin jerked his head up, pushed around some papers on his desk. “Yes?”

She opened the door, stuck her head in, spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Griffin, I know you said no interruptions. But your wife is on the phone. She told me to tell you.”

“Uh huh,” he said. “Okay.” He wanted his face to look normal. How did he used to look when she called? He smiled at Evelyn, nodded, and she nodded back, closed the door.

He picked up the phone. “What.”

“Meet me for lunch. We have to talk.”

“Sorry, can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I
can’t.
I have an important lunch meeting.” He did not.

“Griffin, I don’t want to live with you any longer. We have to do something about that.”

He looked out the window, saw the trucks going by on the nearby freeway. After they graduated from college, he and Ellen had hitchhiked across the country, a romantic tribute to the sixties. Griffin had even let his hair grow long and wore an old Army jacket. At one truck stop, a massively overweight but quite muscular driver who’d had too many beers took an instant dislike to Griffin. “What are you supposed to be?” he’d asked. “You a hippie?”

“No, no—just a captain of industry like yourself, Slim,” Griffin had said, and the driver had gotten up and moved rapidly toward them, his fists clenched. They’d run out of the place, terrified, and then, when they were far enough away, fell down laughing. That night, they’d lain out in their sleeping bags looking up at the crowded stars in the Montana sky. “It’s so…big,” Ellen had said.

Griffin smiled. “Yeah. That’s why they call it ‘Big Sky Country,’ Ellen.”

She was quiet for a while. Then she said, “Sometimes when I see things like this, like how big the sky is, I just feel sad. I don’t know why.”

Her voice had sounded so young, like a little girl’s. Griffin remembered the photo he’d once seen of her as a pigtailed seven-year-old, one braid twisted nearly comically away from her head, her bangs cut crookedly. In her eyes was a shyness, a soft vulnerability that had made him run his finger down the side of her child’s cheek, that had made his chest ache with his desire to protect her. Here was that child now, wrapped up in the body of a woman he’d decided he wanted to be with forever.