THREE
“Maggie? It’s Rose.”
Of course it was. It was early October, and though I had not heard from Adam, his mother continued to call me every two to three days, just as she had for years. I started as a lifeline to her son; somewhere along the way I became her daughter. Rose knew where to place nine different pieces of silverware at a single table setting and exactly how much to discreetly tip the service people who helped her with domestic tasks large and small. I had grown up in dingy rentals and didn’t learn it was proper to pass the salt and pepper together until I was already out of college; I still had no idea what to do with all those forks. No surprise, it had taken Rose and me several years to warm to each other. But after my own mother died when I was thirty-four, I had readily accepted Rose as the next best thing.
I wedged the phone between my chin and shoulder. “Hi, Rose. How’s life at Mountainview Manor?” I asked, referring to the inexplicably named assisted living facility on Chicago’s north side, which was ninety miles from the nearest mountain but offered a clear view of Lake Michigan.
Rose sniffed. “This place makes me want to stockpile antidepressants.”
“I thought you were only taking vitamin D?” I asked.
“I know where to find pills if I need them. Larry over in 14-B is sweet on me.”
Through the kitchen window, the leaves on the trees resembled an autumnal rainbow. I must have been gazing at them for a while, because Rose said, “Maggie? Maggie, are you still there?”
“Yes, Rose. I’m here. Sorry.”
“I asked how you were doing. And don’t gussy it up on my behalf. Tell me the truth.”
The truth was that no sleeping pill could prevent me from waking most nights around three, remembering that half of the bed Adam and I had shared was empty, and wandering around the house until five or so, when I passed out on the sofa or Zoe’s old daybed. The truth was that I sometimes wondered how long it would take for someone to realize I was missing if I were to walk into Lake Michigan with a few large rocks in my coat pockets. That when I was at work or grocery shopping or otherwise following the routines that predated Adam’s departure, I sometimes pretended nothing had changed. And each time I arrived home to an empty house, it was as though my life had just been demolished anew.
“I’m okay,” I said to Rose. “I’m getting through it.”
“All right. You know I’m not one to push.” She paused. “Have you seen Adam?”
“No.” I had driven past his law office a couple times, hoping to catch a glimpse of him and maybe even Jillian, heading out for coffee or a midday tryst. (No such luck.) I had technically seen him during a meeting with our lawyers, which had become awkward after I insisted that there was no reason for us to meet when we had not both agreed to a divorce. To Adam’s credit, he’d had the wherewithal to look sheepish, but then I’d made the mistake of asking him where Jillian was, and his face had turned red. Our lawyers had exchanged knowing looks and rushed through the rest of the meeting. “Have you?”
“In fact I have,” said Rose. “He came for a visit the other day.”
I watched a well-fed squirrel chase a smaller squirrel around the base of the oak tree in the yard. “Did he bring his girlfriend?” I hated that I was weak enough to ask this, knowing that against her better judgment Rose would tell me if he had. But I could not stop thinking about Jillian Smith and how she was probably offering up her supple body to my husband at that very moment.
Not that I actually knew what Adam’s paramour looked like. Of course, I had Googled her the same day Adam left, but my search had been as confusing as it had been comprehensive. There were half a dozen Jillian Smiths in the greater Chicago area, at least three of whom were around thirty. Two worked fairly close to Adam’s office in the West Loop and therefore could have bumped into him at his favorite coffee shop. Was he making sweet love to the curvy blond marketing professional who liked posing for duck-faced pictures with her parents’ aging Maltese—or the slim, glamorous public policy advocate who didn’t appear to have a social media presence outside of LinkedIn? Did I even want to know?
(Of course I did.)
Rose sighed. “Oh, Maggie.” I waited for her to continue, but there was an extended silence on the other end.
“Rose? Are you there?”
“What’s that? What were you saying?”
My heart gave a little lurch; Rose was having more and more of these moments lately, and while any one was innocuous enough, their sum total pointed to a future in which she would no longer be fully present. And yet I pushed on, which suggested I was the one whose neurons weren’t firing at full speed. “I was asking if Adam brought his girlfriend.”
“Now, Maggie, we both know he wouldn’t dare. You’re the mother of my grandchildren. I won’t tolerate such impropriety.”
I found myself tearing up. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“Don’t thank me. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
I wiped my eyes even as my mind wandered back to the elusive Jillian. Yes, it had to be the brunette public policy advocate who had stolen his heart. Although Adam had given up his dream job of being a public defender even before we had children and took on a sizable mortgage in a town with astronomical property taxes, I still thought of him as a Robin Hood at heart. We used to spend hours talking about politics and social justice, though eventually these topics gave way to our children’s lives and how to spend our retirement.
But Jillian Smith, Yale BA (’08), Duke MPP (’11), was surely riveted by Adam’s fresh, enlightened take on inequality—while Adam was no doubt riveted by her flat stomach and pert breasts, which hung in their original position because she had not birthed two small humans, or so I was assuming. Regardless, I did not need to see Jillian in the flesh to know Adam had no problem getting aroused with her.
The doorbell rang, pulling me out of my mental cave. “Rose? I have to run. I’ll call you in a few days,” I said, knowing full well she would beat me to it.
“You take care of yourself, Maggie. And come see me soon.”
“I will, Rose. Promise.”
Linnea, my Realtor, was standing on the porch with a clipboard in hand. Linnea and I weren’t friends, per se, but we had known each other for roughly a million years and had survived a particularly brutal stint on the PTO together. She had heard about Adam leaving from every other person in town and offered to do me a favor by charging only half her standard commission on the condition that I leave glowing reviews on a variety of social media platforms, most of which I had never heard of. “Remind me to talk to you about curb appeal,” she said by way of a greeting.
“Can’t wait,” I said as she marched through the door.
The house had to go. We had moved in twenty-four years earlier; it should have been nearly paid off. But we had remortgaged during the early aughts when Adam was setting up his own law practice, and we still had an ample monthly payment. I was employed, but on a part-time basis, balancing the books and doing the odd secretarial task for a local dentist. What I made each month was enough to cover hygienic essentials and groceries—not the ownership and upkeep of a large house. I was receiving temporary support and would get alimony after the divorce was finalized. Moreover, Adam had agreed to pay for my health care premiums through the end of the following calendar year. However, unless I wanted to fork my entire monthly check over to the mortgage company, a much smaller home was in my immediate future.
It’s not like I thought I’d die in the place; Adam and I were going to sell after Rose had lived with us for a few years and we were ready to retire, or at least slow down our (i.e., Adam’s) pace. But I wasn’t ready to rush that plan. Just because Adam was done with our life didn’t mean I was.
“The place is spacious, but it’s a bit . . . dated,” said Linnea as she strolled through the hallway into the dining room.
Our house was one of those brick and aluminum-sided cul-de-sac numbers that was last considered stylish when I was a teenager, which is to say long ago. But it reminded me of the Brady Bunch house, and as the only child of a single mom who usually worked two jobs to make ends meet, that house and its residents had been the stuff of my dreams. Though Adam and I had two children, not six, and I had usually played the role of Alice rather than Carol, our door was always open and our home was happy and full.
Adam hadn’t cared about the house itself one way or the other. He wanted it because it was in the right neighborhood and boasted his idea of a perfect yard: immense, partially shaded, and abutting a wooded park where the local kids, including ours, liked to chug beer that had been stolen from various fridges, including ours. When we first moved in, Adam somehow believed that being a partner-track lawyer would still afford him enough free time to play ball with his kids. Instead, I learned to pitch and catch while encouraging our markedly unathletic children to be good sports. By the time Adam opened his own practice and could set his own hours, Zoe and Jack had already lost interest in softball and, to a lesser degree, their father.
I followed Linnea’s gaze from the living room, with its worn beige carpet and pale peach walls, to the three-season room, which was decorated with a sagging sofa and a tiled coffee table. She was right, of course.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” said Linnea, sensing my despair. “Rip up the carpet, have a painting crew come in, maybe . . .” Her eyes landed on the tired brown La-Z-Boy we had inherited from Adam’s father. Initially I had been certain Adam leaving it behind was a sign he intended to return. (How trusting I was! How tightly I clung to the hope that my husband would recall and uphold the vows he had made before God, a priest, and more than a hundred people, most of whom his parents had invited to our wedding and I have not seen since!) “Buy a few pieces of modern furniture to fill out the place,” she finished.
“So you’re saying I have to spend money to make money . . . even though I have no money.”
Linnea nodded her head vigorously. “Exactly.”
“Terry,” I said to my boss a few days later, “do you think you might give me a raise?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, staring at an X-ray affixed to a light box. Terry, a.k.a. Terrance Krutcher, DDS, had been looking at the image for so long I suspected he was sleeping with his eyes open, so I didn’t feel bad about interrupting him.
“Really?” I said, rising from my chair. Terry had set me up at a small desk in the back of the office where he reviewed X-rays and stored molding materials for night guards and the like. That I was not given a more sanitary workstation or permission to work at home should have been the first clue I was not going to get more money out of him, but I was trying to utilize the last shred of optimism I had left. After all, since I was the bookkeeper, I knew Terry paid the cleaner the same amount he paid me.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said again.
“Thank you so much. Two more dollars an hour would make a big difference. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
Now he spun around to face me. “Oh. Oh my. I’m sorry, Maggie, I thought we were discussing something else,” he said, peering at me over his bifocals. “My budget is set in stone for now. I could give you, say, an extra half an hour of work every week if it might help.”
An extra six dollars a week would buy me two-thirds of a glass of wine at the Italian place Gita and I liked to go to. “I see. Even though I’m now managing credit card payments and helping Chrissy?” I said, referring to the receptionist, who was the sort of wickless candle that mistook herself for a hundred-watt bulb.
“I’m sorry, Maggie; it’s not personal. If money’s an issue, you could try Craigslist,” he said, turning back to the light box. He retrieved the X-ray and started for the door. “I’m told there are lots of positions for seasoned bookkeepers,” he called over his shoulder. “Not that I want you to quit, you understand, but I would be happy to serve as a reference for you if you got another part-time position, provided you weren’t going to work at a competitor and it didn’t infringe on your time here.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, but Terry was already gone.
I didn’t have to work there. In addition to my QuickBooks wizardry, I had a master’s degree in social work, a field that paid better and was infinitely more interesting than dental billing. But I had left social work in the early nineties after one of my clients, coming down from a two-day high, held a knife to my neck and demanded I give him everything I had, including the pink plastic bracelet that had been Zoe’s Mother’s Day present to me. I complied, but not before the man left a shallow cut several centimeters from my jugular. I was pregnant with Jack at the time. With Adam’s support, I quit the same day. As much as I loved my job, it wasn’t worth my life.
Initially I assumed I would find a safer social work position, or perhaps pursue a related career once Jack and Zoe were both in school full-time. But someone needed to be home for sick days and to let the repairmen in; someone had to stock the fridge and shuttle the kids from one activity to the next, and it sure wasn’t going to be Adam. Our family could have made do if I had returned to work, but Adam liked me being home, and I liked being needed by the people who mattered to me most.
The position at the dental office was mostly a way to bring in some extra money for retirement while occupying my time after Jack went to college. I was well organized and good at math, and compared to helping recovering addicts get their children out of foster care, bookkeeping was a cinch.
It was also riveting as watching cement set. But as I stared at the 3-D model of a jaw that had been discarded at the end of my desk, I realized I would rather be at the office than at the house. At least I had been able to preserve one small aspect of my preseparation life.
When I got home that evening, I wandered from one room to the next, admiring what Adam and I had built together. It may have been a little outdated, but every paint color, piece of furniture, and knickknack had been our choice—and I, for one, still loved it. When I was finished with my tour, I poured myself a teeming glass of tempranillo, drank the entire thing while standing at the kitchen counter, and served myself another because no one was there to judge me.
It had been six months since Adam left, and his absence still felt like one of the legs of the chair I was sitting on had broken off. I was just barely managing to balance, but selling the house or giving Terry the heave-ho would be like yanking out another leg, at which point I was sure to find myself on the floor.
Yes, I thought as I drained my second glass of wine, I would find a way to hold on to the house, at least for the time being. I would keep going to work and calling Rose and, when need be, crying over drinks with Gita.
Adam may have wanted something different. But the last thing I needed was another change.