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But he’d worked through the pain. Again and again in his life, he’s worked through pain. It’s what he does. And now he can work through the pain of losing Marnie, too.
He thinks of Blix and how years ago she stormed down to his basement apartment and forced him to talk to her, and then—even more daringly—made him get up out of his chair and dance with her. He did not dance, he informed her. But she made him put on a Hawaiian shirt like hers, and she turned the music up loud, and she did this funny version of the hula, totally unselfconsciously, and pulled him out of himself. She wasn’t afraid of anything.
She’d be proud of him for pushing through the pain. She’d made a huge mistake thinking Marnie and he belonged together, but that was probably because she didn’t know that Marnie wanted her own kids. Even Blix would now see that breaking things off was actually a supreme act of love.
He remembers her saying one time, “Oh, don’t be an idiot about love, Patrick! It’s the only force that matters in the whole world. People say such foolish things in the name of love, but you’ve got to let yourself live—and to live, you’ve got to let yourself love.”
Blix was a nice, eccentric wild woman who lived exactly the way she wanted to. And now that’s what he’s going to do, too. Surely she’d be proud of him for that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MARNIE
When I leave Patrick’s studio I go straight to my room, and I get in bed with all my clothes on, and I pull the cotton blanket, the down comforter, the quilt, and my twisted-up sheet over my head. I’m freezing cold, and my teeth are chattering, and also my arms and legs don’t think they can work for me anymore.
I put the pillow over my head, too.
And that’s when I let my heart break.
How can I love someone so much who is so damaged and hurting that he can’t let himself have any joy? What the fuck happened that has made him run back to all that agony? I don’t get it. We love each other.
I want to go over and yell it to him one more time. Maybe take him by the shoulders and shake him this time. But nothing would make a difference. I saw the look in his eyes while he was telling me about being sterile.
Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, Patrick fell out of love with me. It wasn’t like there was a falling out moment. It was seepage, is what it was. He seeped out of love for me, drip by drip by drip, while I was prancing around the house, entertaining my mother, getting to know the teenagers, helping Fritzie with her homework. The love all drained away, and I have to get over it. And what may be even harder is that I have to face the probable, likely fact that Blix was wrong about everything.
Eventually my mother comes to the edge of my bed. I can hear her breathing from my damp little cocoon.
“Are you all right?” she says. “What’s going on with you?”
I start to cry all over again. “Patrick.”
“What happened?”
“He’s . . . not . . .” I just hope she gets the picture and will realize that I can’t cope anymore, and that she needs to do everything for me from now on. I can’t go on; really I can’t.
“Come out from under the covers.”
This is actually a good idea, because I’ve used up all the air under there. I’m still freezing, however. My feet feel like they are in danger of falling off. But I stick my head out and breathe in some real oxygen.
“Now tell me what happened,” she says. She sits down on the bed and puts her hand on the bumps of the covers where my feet are.
I tell her that Patrick is breaking up with me, and then I tell her all the rest, too: that he’s just remembered that he’s sterile, and that means that he doesn’t want me to stay with him because I want a baby too much. And also he’s been over there making statues of Anneliese for the past few weeks, and that he’s basically still in love with his dead girlfriend, and bottom line: he doesn’t want to be with me anymore.
When I put it all out like this, it doesn’t sound very good for Patrick. He sounds like a mental case, in fact, which is just what my mother thinks.
“I don’t believe any of this. He’s lost his mind,” she says. I remember all too well now this side of her—the no-nonsense mom force-marching Natalie and me through any of our childhood traumas, using platitudes, commands, and whatever else she had at hand. It was part of her mom arsenal—an arsenal I realize now that I’ll never need to develop. I’ll never have my own child. I start to cry all over again.
“He hasn’t lost his mind. He doesn’t want to be with me, is all. It’s not going to work. It doesn’t matter what he’s saying the reason is. He’s just telling me every way he knows how that it’s over.”
She sighs. “I think the world of men has gone mad,” she says. “Is it the full moon? Or, as you would say, is Mercury in retrograde?”
“It doesn’t matter. He just doesn’t love me anymore. He needs solitude all the damn time, and I keep creating chaos all around. So it’s over. End of story.” I pull the covers back over my head. Enough oxygen for now. I can’t take the way my mother is looking at me, like I’m a project that’s defeating her.
“You should have some soup. I’m going to bring you some soup.”
“I don’t want any soup.”
“You need soup, and Patrick needs soup,” she pronounces. She gets off the bed, and there’s a cold patch of air hitting me now. “Both of you have gone completely bonkers here for no apparent reason, and soup is going to be just as good a cure as anything else. This is patently ridiculous of him. It’s just the stress talking.”
“Go tell him that. I need to be alone.”
She’s still standing next to my bed, breathing.
“Please,” I say.
“I just want to ask you one thing, and I mean this with no disrespect,” she says. “What good is all this magic stuff you’re always talking about if you can have your whole outlook shattered in one day like this? Don’t you have to have faith in it for it to work?”
If I had the strength, I would throw my pillow at her.
When Fritzie gets home from school, she comes in and sits on the edge of my bed. She’s eating an apple. The crunching at first seems unbearable, and then feels like it might represent something holy and life-affirming. Eating! Like love, however, it is something for other people, not for me.
“Are you sick?”
“Yes.”
“What have you got?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are the covers and pillow on your head?”
“Because I’m freezing.”
“Oh.”
Crunches.
“Do you have homework?” I say after a while.
“Oh! Patrick says I should tell you he’s not coming over for dinner.”
“You should leave Patrick alone.”
“I wasn’t bothering him, Marnie. I just went to see if Roy wanted a cat treat.”
“Do you have homework?” This is way more conversation than I want to be having.
“No.”
Crunches.
“Marnie, can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in bed because you’re sad?”
e’d worked through the pain. Again and again in his life, he’s worked through pain. It’s what he does. And now he can work through the pain of losing Marnie, too.
He thinks of Blix and how years ago she stormed down to his basement apartment and forced him to talk to her, and then—even more daringly—made him get up out of his chair and dance with her. He did not dance, he informed her. But she made him put on a Hawaiian shirt like hers, and she turned the music up loud, and she did this funny version of the hula, totally unselfconsciously, and pulled him out of himself. She wasn’t afraid of anything.
She’d be proud of him for pushing through the pain. She’d made a huge mistake thinking Marnie and he belonged together, but that was probably because she didn’t know that Marnie wanted her own kids. Even Blix would now see that breaking things off was actually a supreme act of love.
He remembers her saying one time, “Oh, don’t be an idiot about love, Patrick! It’s the only force that matters in the whole world. People say such foolish things in the name of love, but you’ve got to let yourself live—and to live, you’ve got to let yourself love.”
Blix was a nice, eccentric wild woman who lived exactly the way she wanted to. And now that’s what he’s going to do, too. Surely she’d be proud of him for that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MARNIE
When I leave Patrick’s studio I go straight to my room, and I get in bed with all my clothes on, and I pull the cotton blanket, the down comforter, the quilt, and my twisted-up sheet over my head. I’m freezing cold, and my teeth are chattering, and also my arms and legs don’t think they can work for me anymore.
I put the pillow over my head, too.
And that’s when I let my heart break.
How can I love someone so much who is so damaged and hurting that he can’t let himself have any joy? What the fuck happened that has made him run back to all that agony? I don’t get it. We love each other.
I want to go over and yell it to him one more time. Maybe take him by the shoulders and shake him this time. But nothing would make a difference. I saw the look in his eyes while he was telling me about being sterile.
Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, Patrick fell out of love with me. It wasn’t like there was a falling out moment. It was seepage, is what it was. He seeped out of love for me, drip by drip by drip, while I was prancing around the house, entertaining my mother, getting to know the teenagers, helping Fritzie with her homework. The love all drained away, and I have to get over it. And what may be even harder is that I have to face the probable, likely fact that Blix was wrong about everything.
Eventually my mother comes to the edge of my bed. I can hear her breathing from my damp little cocoon.
“Are you all right?” she says. “What’s going on with you?”
I start to cry all over again. “Patrick.”
“What happened?”
“He’s . . . not . . .” I just hope she gets the picture and will realize that I can’t cope anymore, and that she needs to do everything for me from now on. I can’t go on; really I can’t.
“Come out from under the covers.”
This is actually a good idea, because I’ve used up all the air under there. I’m still freezing, however. My feet feel like they are in danger of falling off. But I stick my head out and breathe in some real oxygen.
“Now tell me what happened,” she says. She sits down on the bed and puts her hand on the bumps of the covers where my feet are.
I tell her that Patrick is breaking up with me, and then I tell her all the rest, too: that he’s just remembered that he’s sterile, and that means that he doesn’t want me to stay with him because I want a baby too much. And also he’s been over there making statues of Anneliese for the past few weeks, and that he’s basically still in love with his dead girlfriend, and bottom line: he doesn’t want to be with me anymore.
When I put it all out like this, it doesn’t sound very good for Patrick. He sounds like a mental case, in fact, which is just what my mother thinks.
“I don’t believe any of this. He’s lost his mind,” she says. I remember all too well now this side of her—the no-nonsense mom force-marching Natalie and me through any of our childhood traumas, using platitudes, commands, and whatever else she had at hand. It was part of her mom arsenal—an arsenal I realize now that I’ll never need to develop. I’ll never have my own child. I start to cry all over again.
“He hasn’t lost his mind. He doesn’t want to be with me, is all. It’s not going to work. It doesn’t matter what he’s saying the reason is. He’s just telling me every way he knows how that it’s over.”
She sighs. “I think the world of men has gone mad,” she says. “Is it the full moon? Or, as you would say, is Mercury in retrograde?”
“It doesn’t matter. He just doesn’t love me anymore. He needs solitude all the damn time, and I keep creating chaos all around. So it’s over. End of story.” I pull the covers back over my head. Enough oxygen for now. I can’t take the way my mother is looking at me, like I’m a project that’s defeating her.
“You should have some soup. I’m going to bring you some soup.”
“I don’t want any soup.”
“You need soup, and Patrick needs soup,” she pronounces. She gets off the bed, and there’s a cold patch of air hitting me now. “Both of you have gone completely bonkers here for no apparent reason, and soup is going to be just as good a cure as anything else. This is patently ridiculous of him. It’s just the stress talking.”
“Go tell him that. I need to be alone.”
She’s still standing next to my bed, breathing.
“Please,” I say.
“I just want to ask you one thing, and I mean this with no disrespect,” she says. “What good is all this magic stuff you’re always talking about if you can have your whole outlook shattered in one day like this? Don’t you have to have faith in it for it to work?”
If I had the strength, I would throw my pillow at her.
When Fritzie gets home from school, she comes in and sits on the edge of my bed. She’s eating an apple. The crunching at first seems unbearable, and then feels like it might represent something holy and life-affirming. Eating! Like love, however, it is something for other people, not for me.
“Are you sick?”
“Yes.”
“What have you got?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are the covers and pillow on your head?”
“Because I’m freezing.”
“Oh.”
Crunches.
“Do you have homework?” I say after a while.
“Oh! Patrick says I should tell you he’s not coming over for dinner.”
“You should leave Patrick alone.”
“I wasn’t bothering him, Marnie. I just went to see if Roy wanted a cat treat.”
“Do you have homework?” This is way more conversation than I want to be having.
“No.”
Crunches.
“Marnie, can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in bed because you’re sad?”
