Dufresne - Love Warps the Mind a Little

Love Warps

the Mind

a Little

JOHN DUFRESNE

W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

NEW YORK | LONDON

This book is for my sisters, Paula Sullivan and Cindy Wondolowski,

and for my brother, Mark Dufresne,

and in memory of my friends

Francis Bartlett, Ethel Berard, and Meg OBrien.

Love Warps the Mind a Little

Love Without Its Wings

THE DAY I FINISHED MY BEST STORY YETABOUT A SOCIAL WORKER WHOSE CHILD gets Lyme disease, slips into a coma, suffers brain damage, becomes a burden to his fatherafter I typed it, retyped it, and mailed it off to the Timber Wolf Review, my wife, Martha, came home from work and, just like that, asked me to leave our apartment forever. Whats with you? I said, as if I didnt know. She packed my green plaid suitcase, threw toiletries in an overnight bag, and set it all by the kitchen door.

A month earlier, Martha and I had gone on a couples retreat with some other folks from the parish out at the Trappist monastery in Spencer. The idea of the weekend was to reinvigorate your marriage, renew your vows, and rededicate your life to Jesus. I should tell you Im not a religious person, and I was more than a little skeptical about the efficacy of this therapeutic undertaking. I doubted that a gang of cloistered celibates would have much to offer us struggling spouses other than the customary Pauline counsel. But then we all got to sharing our feelings so openly, talking about our hopes and fears, and we got so honest and nonjudgmental and everything, and the truth is such a dangerous drug and all, and I was feeling splendid, feeling like the world was pure, refreshing, like some god had created it with humor and generosity, that I was regrettably moved to reveal to Martha the unpleasant truth of my infidelity I told her about Judi Dubey. But I said, Martha, Im finished with all that, I promise. That last part was a lie, it turns out.

So as I stood there in the kitchen, my back to the door, hand on my suitcase, I could see that my disclosure had been festering inside Martha all these weeks and had turned her hateful. I told her I loved her. She jabbed me in the stomach with my typewriter. You dont know what love is, she told me, which is probably true. I mean, who does? I asked if we could talk about this. I said, Forgiveness is divine, isnt it? She said, You got what you wanted. Which was also probably true, though I didnt understand it then. I took my last look around the kitchen, trying to secure the details: the cast iron skillet on the stove, the yellow dish towel folded over the handle on the oven door, the crucifix, the wall calendar from Moores Pharmacy I knew theyd all wind up in a story some day. A guy like me, who had just given up a career in order to write stories, would be the central character. A story about love and anxiety.

Martha told me to take the goddamn dog and get the hell out. Spot heard the jingle of his leash and came blasting into the kitchen from the parlor and slid right past me into the door. He started barking. I cuffed him one.

Martha shook her head, called me pathetic. Youre thirty-six years old. Youre working part-time in a fish-and-chips store, and youre breaking my heart.

Sure, the job thing again. I said, Martha, you knew I was a writer when you married me.

She laughed. You havent published a damn thing in your life.

I said, Neither did Emily Dickinson.

Spot grabbed his leash and tugged. I told Martha we should talk about this.

She pulled a book of matches from the El Morocco out of her pocket. Found them in your shirt this morning.

I dont smoke. I lied and said my friend Francis X. had asked me to hold them for him.

Your shirt smelled like that slut.

When I think about that afternoon now, I wonder if I had acted purposefully, if, in fact, I wanted to get caught, wanted to hurt Martha so badly that she would never take me back. At the time, I imagined I was acting spontaneously, if recklessly, a slave to my late-blooming libido. But infidelity, as you know, is anything but spontaneous. You cant possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. Its a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and the sex must be as bright as the future you gamble. Was I no longer in love with Martha? Had I allowed her to become a stranger? If I sound disingenuous, I dont mean to.

Well talk about this when youve calmed down, I said. In the meantime, what about my mail?

Ill forward it to you.

I gave her Judi Dubeys address, but not her name.

Feeling Around for My Shoes

JUDI SAID I COULD STAY AT HER HOUSE UNTIL I GOT BACK ON MY FEET. MY EMOtional feet, she said she meant. That didnt sound like sweetheart talk to me. We sat at her kitchen table. She lit a cigarette, exhaled, waved the match like a wand. She said Spot could sleep in the cellar tonight. Spot raised his chin from the floor. But tomorrow Id have to buy him a doghouse for the backyard. Im allergic, she said. She sneezed, in case I didnt believe her. There I was, in need of consolation and comfort, but all I was getting were more problems. Spot wont like that, I told her. Spot doesnt have to like it, she said.

To be honest, I had hoped for a warmer reception, more cordial and enthusiastic. This was the same woman who, when I was supposed to be home with my wife, but was here romancing her instead, wouldnt want me to leave, would lock her legs around my waist so I couldnt get up, tell me just ten more minutes, baby, or one more quick one, or whatever. And Id be reaching over the edge of the bed, feeling around for my shorts and my shoes, saying, Honey, come on. You know what time it is? So this evenings formality made me feel vulnerable.

I drummed my fingers on my typewriter case. I got up. I said, Maybe this is a bad idea; I should just go. But who was I kidding? Where was I going on foot with a suitcase, an overnight bag, a Royal portable, a twenty-pound bag of dog chow, and a drooling Irish setter? Id walked enough for one day. I was being petulant. Still, I lifted the suitcase. Id figure something out by the time I reached the back door. Judi could see right through me, though. She smiled. Shes a psychotherapist. Laf, she said, sit. Spot sat. He looked at Judi, looked at me. Woofed. I sat down. Judi stood and went to the sink, ran the water over her cigarette, tossed the butt into the wastebasket. She told me how my arrival, while not unwelcomed, was a big change in her life.

I could understand that.

She said she enjoyed living alone, was a creature of habit, and wasnt sure she wanted to live with anyone else right now, even someone she cared about, like me. She sat down again, with her back away from the chair.

I apologized for my irritability. I explained how it had been a trying day. I smiled. I said, What are you doing?

Judi kept her eyes closed. She said, Pulling a ball of mercury up through my spine. She held her breath. And now, she said, Im letting it drift and settle. She exhaled slowly. What were you saying? She opened her eyes.

I thanked her for letting me crash. I said, So why dont we make love. She told me to first get Spot situated down cellar while she made room in her closet for my stuff.

Can I leave the typewriter on the table? I like to work at the kitchen table.

Put it in the mud room.

J udi was very expressive in bed. She choreographed every move. She liked to make it last forever. And she liked to talk about it, check on my progress, my response to her maneuvers. Me, Id just as soon concentrate on what I was doing and feeling. Sometimes I think she made a bigger deal of it than necessary. I also think she lied about her dreams. Each was loaded with prescience and significance, with archetypes and allegorical figures. She never just dreamed about missing a history test or going bald. She was after coherence, even in sleep.