Recorded Books Inc. - Breakup: the end of a love story

I will never forgive you. I dont love you anymore. I will never make love to you again.

S ometimes its best to perform the surgery without anesthesia, a clean cut, in and out, not a drop of blood, carve out the cancer.

Sometimes the most cruel words hit home like a bullet.

Sometimes the most cruel words are the most merciful.

T his morning, when I empty the dishwasher, the pastel-colored Fiestaware sings in the gray light of a rainy morning. The caf au lait in the bowl tastes of France. The yellow of the enamel table, the turquoise of the Naugahyde chairs. The bleached-blond maple of the kitchen cabinets. Colors and textures that I love, that I have picked myself. The solidity of the morning ritual.

And if you died, if this were the ultimate loss, wouldnt the taste and colors of the morning be the same, wouldnt the light still pour in from the window; wouldnt the ivy-covered wall across the yard still be there, freeze-framed?

W hen you became a father to Juliet, I found in you the father that I never had and I adored you. I adored you for the tenderness with which you touched her, I adored you when you changed her diapers, cooked dinner for her, took her to the doctor, held her in your arms as the plastic surgeon sewed her severed finger back while I was home giving an interview. Did you ever resent taking care of her so much? Maybe you did. We used to say Juliet had two mothers. Sometimes I thought you were the better mother. When Juliet had a temper tantrum and screamed and rolled over on her back and kicked up her legs, you knew how to soothe her better than I did. In spite of your violent temper, you were the most tender father. When you held Juliet against your chest, it was as if I was curled into a fathers arms.

I do not feel much anger at this instant. My overwhelming feeling is sadness and mourning, as if you had suddenly died, or our love had crashed in a freak accident.

Our love, the fuel that kept us going for eighteen years go go go without ever looking back: our bodies irresistible to each other, the move from LA to Montreal, from Montreal to New York, the adventure of renovating the apartment, the birth of the girls, forceps for Juliet, who wouldnt come out fast enough. How does it feel to be a mother, asked the doctor in the Montreal hospital. I didnt know. I cried over Juliets tiny body when I realized she would die one day. That giving birth is also giving death. Lola: the contractions while we were walking outside NYU Hospital along the FDR Drive, with each set leaning on a different tree, panting against your chest, the smell of your leather jacket in my nose. Our love: the manuscripts piling near our computers, reading each others pages every day. Editing the magazine: up and down the stairs, night and day, running the printers, eating sandwiches on the fly in the old Chevette in between dropping off bundles at the bookstores. Our love: parties and readings and breastfeedings and books, and never enough money. Your fear, your constant fear about money. Sex and fights and making up and little girls bodies slipping between us in the middle of the night and smelling sugary and tart and keeping us warm. Tiny bridges connecting our flesh.

The density of that life, the particular color and taste of it, its thickness, its furious liveliness, I wouldnt know how to find words to describe it. Only that it has filled me, that Ive been overflowing with it. That it is messy and crude and raw and that it reaches deep where souls lurk, deep where old pains lie dormant.

T omorrow I know the light will shift and we might be filled with tenderness or fatigue. Yes, well have battle-fatigue, palming our bowls of caf au lait after too little sleep. And at noon, maybe, itll be peace, light and awkward, fragile, a tiny little bud of new peace with nowhere to go.

I f it wasnt for the kids, I wouldnt have been here when you came back from France. I wouldnt be here now.

A nother night. Twisting the stiletto sideways for maximum damage.

But why? What happened?

I am so passive-aggressive, you say, I dont understand how you can take it. If I were you I would have booted me out already. I admire what youre doing. Dont think that I am oblivious to that. Youre very brave.

I know, I say. Its because I love you.

I am like the welterweight in the ring taking the punishment, taking it and taking it, but standing on her feet. They say about those kinds of boxers that they have heart. I have a lot of heart.

I ts 4 or 5 A.M. , both of us lying naked on the bed, holding each other. The easy companionship of bodies that know how to make one another come and come and come. I believe in our relationship. I believe that we still have this thing. That, deep down, you still have it for me.

Maybe, you say, brutally honest, or maybe provocative, but I dont feel it.

Youre still angry at me, right?

Maybe.

Dont you love this apartment, dont you love coming down for coffee in the morning with me, dont you love what we have?

Yes, you whisper.

But you want to give up the great sex, the great apartment, living with the kids, you want to give up all that?

In answer you get up sullenly and go downstairs to make coffee, and we drink it in silence at the yellow table.

I know youre trying to provoke me to kick you out, but I wont. If you want to leave, youre going to have to make the decision by yourself. The truth is that I cant bear the idea of you leaving.