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“We’ll walk,” She declares genially, waving her driver off and threading her arm through mine as we walk down the sidewalk.
“I was very distressed to hear that you’d left David.” She says suddenly, without preamble. “I wanted to talk to you but there was no way to reach you.”
“I changed my phone.” I offer woodenly.
“Of course you did.” She nods, stopping in front of a wide awning over a pair of glass doors just off the sidewalk. A doorman pulls the doors open, and we walk into large and busy café. “Well I didn’t see you,” She continues, “but I did see David, and he was very…” She searches for a word, “wretched.”
“Yes, very wretched.” I scoff, remembering the empty feeling of waking up alone in David’s bed.
She sighs. “I don’t know how much David’s told you about his past...” She starts, as she slides gracefully into her seat.
I follow suit, sitting opposite her, “Enough to know that you neglected him.” I tell her, too involved in my own misery to care whether I’m hurting her or not.
She raises a brow, and then sighs again. A waiter approaches our table, and we make our order, coffee and scones for me, tea and a croissant for her.
“I spent a lot of time with my husband,” She says, “most of my time actually.” She chuckles self mockingly. “Henry and David never got along, even when David was just a little boy.” She shakes her head as she daintily butters her croissant, looking for all he word as if she’s not talking about years of neglect of her only child. “Henry couldn’t have children, so I guess he was a little bit jealous.” She looks at me. “I wanted to be in love and happy, so I chose my husband over David again and again.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You didn’t think David’s happiness was more important than yours?” I ask. I never knew my mother, but I always imagined that if she had lived, she would have loved me more than anything else, including herself.
She looks down at her plate. “My first marriage was great, you know. Almost perfect.” Her eyes cloud, and I imagine that she’s remembering her first husband, David’s father. “I wanted the same thing again, so I did everything that Henry wanted, trying to make him happy, so that we could be happy.” She sighs. “I was a fool.”
I agree silently.
She drops the croissant suddenly and looks at me, the mask of easy friendliness gone, and replaced by the pained expression of someone who realizes what she’s thrown away and can never get back. “A lot of things happened when David was a child, that may have led him to close himself off emotionally, but please don’t give up on him.” Her eyes are glistening softly as she speaks, “He was a very loving little boy, and I’m sure that somewhere in there, if you look hard enough, you’ll find a loving man.”
I look away from the pain in her eyes. I don’t need anybody to tell me to give David another chance. What I need, is to ignore the temptation to let him hurt me again. What I need is to forget about him, even if it destroys me.
“Think about what I said.” She says with genuine feeling.
I shake my head, blaming her, for how much she ruined David’s childhood and made him the man he is.
I get up from my chair. “I’m not hungry.” I say abruptly, placing some money on the table and picking up my bag. “I have to go.”
She doesn’t try to stop me. I hurry out of the café and out onto the busy sidewalk.
At the store, neither Jan nor Larry has arrived. I go through the motions of doing my work while inside, my mind is churning, and my thoughts confused.
Don’t leave me.
Why do I keep thinking of those words? His words. And why do they make me feel so confused? He didn’t want me to leave, the way he held on to me, even in sleep... Well I didn’t go, but he did, leaving me with nothing but the sick feeling of emptiness that’s still in my stomach.
Did he assume that he had won me over, that he’d succeeded is making me helplessly his again, and that he could do whatever he wanted since I had willingly given myself to him again?
Somewhere in there, if you look hard enough, you’ll find a loving man.
Would I? Oh, David can be loving. I’ve seen glimpses of him being loving at various times in our marriage, but is he a loving man? Is there a loving man somewhere inside the same David who used my body to subjugate me until I lost myself in his lovemaking and became pliant to his demands, the same David who threw my love back in my face and told me our marriage was only about sex?
He’s not a loving man. He is hard, ruthless and dangerous.
And yet I love him.
Don’t leave me.
I hear my phone ringing again in my bag, I ignore it. It’s been ringing all morning. If it’s David, I don’t want to talk to him. If it isn’t, I don’t want to talk to anyone else either.
Larry arrives, then Jan. For some reason, neither of them tries to make conversation with me. Maybe my feelings of confusion and dejection are clear on my face, either way I’m soon left with only my continuously ringing phone and the familiar sounds of videogames for company.
Don’t leave me.
