The Good Enough Husband (24 page)

“That’s true. But you expected me to arrange it all. Who’s the gardener? The housekeeper?” He shook his head. “I had to inte
rview everyone, hire everyone, supervise everyone. That took time away from what I wanted to do. I wanted a marriage that was a partnership. I didn’t want to be your property manager.”

Michael sat back, crossing his arms in front of his chest, a sure sign he didn’t like what he was hearing.

“What else, Hannah?”

She dropped her voice, although no one was listening. “Our sex life is awful.”

“I don’t think so. Maybe not often enough,” he tried out his ‘poor me’ smile.

“Michael, you spend more time looking at porn than looking at me.”

“You said you didn’t mind me looking at porn.”

“Michael. I’m not twenty. I know that men like to look at other women. I never worried about you being unfaithful. What I don’t appreciate is you looking at other women when we’re together.”

“But I love you Hannah, not them.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“The irony of this isn’t lost on you.”

“Michael—” her tone warned him that he was treading on da
ngerous ground.

“Can’t you believe me on this?
I
don’t want anyone but you.”

“It doesn’t pass the Dr. Phil test. He’d skewer you in a hear
tbeat.”

“Is it really the porn?”

“I don’t give a shit about the porn, for the most part, Michael. I feel like you don’t really want to be with me. Maybe you like the idea of me. Maybe I’m still exotic to you. I don’t know. But you never really want to kiss me. There’s no foreplay. You kiss me once, rub me ‘down there,’ then want a blow job. You never want plain vanilla intercourse.”

Michael looked away. Hannah excused herself. The bottomless water glass had filled her bladder. She did not want to ride the train back home with her legs crossed. Michael’s head was bowed when she returned. With effort, she scooted her newly expanded figure back to her spot on the bench.

“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to hear the truth.”

Michael looked up, laying his hands on the table in supplic
ation. “Here’s the truth, Hannah. I can’t control myself when I’m with you. You turn me on so much that I come as soon as I’m inside you. If I kiss you or touch you, it goes even faster. It really isn’t you. It’s me.”

“Really?”

Michael colored—something he rarely did.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Michael leaned back against the booth, his eyes focusing past her. “Hi, I feel like a jackrabbit when fucking my wife. Oh, and I can’t get her pregnant, either. No, not emasculated much.”

The lull between lunch and dinner was over. The restaurant was filling up again. Waiting customers were milling about in front, rubbing their hands together and stamping their feet for warmth.

Hannah had been so wrapped up in their memories and feelings, that she noticed for the first time Michael was missing an appendage.

“Where’s your Blackberry?”

“In my suitcase.”

“What if—”

“What if, what? The market crashes. Our companies spiral around the drain. The holiday shopping season collapses?”

She nodded. “All that. You’re never without e-mail.” He’d r
eminded her of the Ari character on Entourage. That phone was always in his hand.

“I did all that to support you, us. If there’s no us, none of that really matters, does it?”

“Let’s go,” she said. They backtracked to Macy’s for her bags. Michael popped into Duane Reade for a second, claiming forgotten toiletries. After that, the train ride back to Brooklyn was mercifully short. The silence stretched between them.

Hannah couldn’t figure out if knowing any of this before would have made a difference. Would she have driven north? Would she have given it another chance? Should she now? Why was this so damn complicated? She loved Ben. She thought she was carrying his baby. No, she knew she was carrying his baby. The train ground to a halt at Court Street. They both rose and she waited a beat for Michael to take the bulk of the bags. He didn’t. Maybe the atmosphere of the restaurant was getting to her. Nothing had changed. She moved quickly to get out before the doors closed. MTA subway conductors weren’t known for their patience.

She trudged along and stopped at the stairs to get a good grip on the bags before she began her ascent. Finally, Michael took the bags without a word. She looked up and saw a few stars winking faintly through the bare branches of the Brooklyn maples.

***

Art Pepper was on the turntable and cigar smoke filled the living room when she and Michael entered.

“Didn’t know if you guys wanted dinner.”

Hannah looked at her phone. “I’m going to turn in. I know it’s only past five in California, but I’m tired.”

Her father cocked his head and looked at her sideways for a long moment. “Your mom was really tired during the beginning of her pregnancy. I swear she slept about fifteen hours a day. Freja beat the cat, hands down, for most sleep a mammal could get.”

She leaned down to kiss her father’s perennially rough cheek. Even with the gray stubble, it was so much softer than it had been when she was a child. “Good night, Daddy.” She’d leave Michael to him.

Hannah took the bags and carried them all to her top floor room. Her father still used the bigger third floor bedroom as a st
udio. Michael could either get a hotel room or maybe her dad would let him sleep in the maid’s room. Either way, it wasn’t her concern anymore.

Her phone rang. The 530 area code was unfamiliar.

“Hello?” Hannah said uncertainly.

“Abbe Santos.” Ben’s sister. Hannah’s hesitation came through on a gasp. “I’m not mad at you or anything,” Abbe said. There was one person in California still speaking to her. “I hear you’re in New York.”

“Ben mentioned it?” She felt like a giddy thirteen-year-old crushing on a guy. Too bad her biggest worry wasn’t whether he’d go to the dance with her.

“He asked me where the 718 area code was.”

“Do you think—?”

“Will he come around? Hannah, I don’t have a fucking clue. He’s currently doing the Ted Kaczynski disappearing act again. It took him two years to emerge the last time. I don’t think he has the luxury of time now. But I’m not in control.”

“Is he okay?”

“Other than fucking devastated, hollowed out and raw, he seems fine.”

“What should I do?”

“I don’t freakin’ know. I was hoping you’d have some ideas. I think he really loves you. That’s why he took this so hard.”

“Didn’t he love his ex, Samara?”

“Not like you. I think that was more about his ego being bruised. She’s off to marry some billionaire—no, for real—a g
enuine Silicon Valley rich guy. That would stick it to any guy worth less than, say, a billion. You’re a whole different matter. He proposed to you in front of the whole family. He was really excited about the baby and you guys’ future. The whole fucking thing. Sort of like the silver lining on a really bad rain cloud.”

“I filed for divorce.”

“You should have done that about six months ago.”

“Abbe. I’ve done all the groveling I’m going to do. He hangs up on me. I’m in New York until the eighteenth. After that I’m going to stay with my mother.”

“Where’s that?”

“Copenhagen.”

“As in Denmark. Clogs, and tulips and shit.”

“Clogs, yes. Tulips, no. I think you’re thinking of Holland. But yes, that Denmark. My mother moved back after she divorced my dad.”

“Why did she leave your dad?”

“Infidelity, probably.”

“Karma, man.”

“If you talk to Ben, tell him I love him. I’ll try to call him from there. You never did say why you called.”

“I don’t know. I drove up there to see him in person—to make sure he wasn’t going to slit his wrists. I didn’t want your dog going all Alive on him. I called to tell you he’s messed up. To find out if you’re coming to get him. To tell you the dog seems okay. Cody’s kind of nice, actually. I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d figure out a fix. But I guess it is what it is. Don’t give up on Benji, though. Oh, and have a safe trip.”

After cutting the tags, repacking her clothes, and taking a shower, Hannah thought she heard a knock at her door. She got up to pull it open, “Daddy–”

It wasn’t her father. It was her husband. She stood, barefoot on cold wood.

“Michael–” She pushed the door toward him.

“Give me one last night.” He pushed back.

Hannah pulled open the door and moved her body away from the opening. Michael’s thin cotton jersey pajamas would be no match for the cold December night.

He rubbed his hands together after she’d closed the door. “It’s a lot warmer up here.”

“It’s the attic. Always a great place to be in the winter.”

Michael walked along the walls, most lined with books on shelves, on the radiator cover, along the back of the bed.

“I forgot that you used to read a lot.” Hannah went back to rearranging her clothes. He sat on a chair and thumbed through her collection of coffee table books featuring photographers important on the New York scene. “What changed?”

Hannah put her clothes down and leaned back on the double bed. “A lot changed. Getting married and moving to California was like growing up. Talk about putting away childish things. So, some of this had to go. I had to change. Despite how it may sound, I don’t blame you for everything. I made some bad choices. I didn’t stand up for myself. We obviously didn’t communicate,” she said, alluding to their lunch conversation.

Michael put down her books, and came to lie on the bed beside her. The large room suddenly seemed smaller and darker. During the day it was lit with skylights—but those same openings seemed to suck the light out of the room now.

He grabbed and held her hand, and they were silent a long time. She had tried so hard to make everything perfect. After she’d married him, she’d stopped being single, stopped feeling desperate. Michael was supposed to be her ticket to a life different from her parents. She’d messed everything up, and nothing could ever be the same with Michael or Ben ever again.

“I really am tired.”

He reached over and snapped off the light. “Can we talk like we used to? We used to stay up all night—talking. Do you remember that?”

She did remember, of course. They’d been friends first. But it all seemed like a lifetime ago. They talked when she lived in Brooklyn. They’d talk at his little Manhattan apartment. They talked and laughed in that Silver Lake house that she’d loved. They never talked in Orange County.

“What is it like being pregnant?”

“It’s not much different from not being pregnant. I’m a little tired, and my clothes don’t fit.” She patted her expanding wai
stline. “I imagine that part will only get worse. The tiredness should go away soon.”

“You’re still beautiful.”

“Michael, you don’t have to say that.”

“I never thought you were exotic. I don’t know why you said that, today. That hurt.”

“I know that.” She did. Michael was not racist. “Maybe it’s because of how your parents act.”

“They’re another generation, Hannah. I’m sorry that they b
ehave shitty at times, but they do mean well. I don’t think they harbor any ill will toward you. They grew up with people who only looked like them. The only black, Latino or Asian people they see are on TV or at the grocery store or whatever. I think they’re uncomfortable around you. They don’t know what to say or how to act.”

“I’m a human being.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You never stuck up for me.”

“I feel like I’ve messed this up three ways to Sunday.”

They were quiet for a long time. She went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth, and dressed in a sleep shirt. She got under the covers. Michael was already under the covers, in nothing more than his boxers.

She turned, ready to sleep. Michael had other ideas. He started stroking her hair and her arm, bare from the biceps down. It raised goose bumps on her arm. She turned to face him, arms outstretched in protest.

“Michael—”

He silenced her with the press of his lips to hers. That was all the answer that she was going to get. Hannah wanted to push him away, tell him it was all wrong, but guilt kept her hands pinned to her sides. Hannah tried not to focus on that kiss. She’d never liked the way he’d kissed her, as if it were something to get over with before getting to the good stuff. Michael threaded his hands into her hair. He placed his lips everywhere, her eyelids, nose, cheeks, chin. He licked the shell of her ear, sucking her lobe into his mouth and biting it, gently. When he pulled the duvet down, she shivered at the night air. Michael mistook that for a reaction to what he was doing.

His hand was under her shirt, rubbing her back. The hand moved, sliding between her underwear elastic, and cupped her butt in his hand. He stopped kissing her.

“I miss this, Hannah. I miss you. We can do this, us, again. I don’t care if the baby isn’t mine. I’d raise it like my own.”