Yours,
Torn
Dear Torn,
If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know I am
no fan of cheaters. But based on your description of
your husband’s behavior, it doesn’t sound like that’s
his thing. A single one-night stand gives him at least
a shot at being included in the crowded category of
humans who’ve made one terrible mistake.
But boy did he compound that mistake by not tell-
ing you for years!
It’s not easy to keep a secret. It takes a lot of en-
ergy to keep things hidden. A secret can act like a
tornado, scooping everything within its vicinity into
its vortex, and then spitting it out like so much trash.
Some people become consumed by their secrets.
Others shove them down so deep, it’s as if they’ve
turned off a piece of their brain. For those people,
it might truly feel as if the thing they want to forget
never happened. They would swear to it. They’re that
sure. My guess is that’s what happened with your
husband.
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Don’t get me wrong. As a survival strategy, it works.
But it comes at a cost. The cost in your marriage? After
that one-night stand, it’s possible your husband was
never fully present in your marriage again. It’s possible
some part of him was always otherwise occupied, busy
policing his secret to make sure it stayed tucked away.
But we need to shift the conversation. Move the
spotlight off your cheating ex—you refer to him as
your husband but let’s be clear: he’s your ex—and on
to you. Why the delayed regret? Why take ten years to
write to me?
It’s time to take a long hard look at yourself and at
what’s happening in your life right now. What is hap-
pening? Do you have a job? Do you do any meaning-
ful work? Do you have children? Friends? A hobby?
Since all you’ve mentioned is your ex-husband, I’m
concerned that he’s taking up too much space in your
thoughts.
To your question, do I think there can be a second
chance for your marriage, my answer is no. You don’t
have a marriage. Your marriage ended a decade ago.
But don’t despair. I have good news! Just because
your marriage is over doesn’t mean your life is over!
Your life is just waiting for you to be in it. I don’t know anything about you other than the one thing you’ve
shared, regret, so if these suggestions are off base, my
apologies. I hope you can accept them in the spirit in
which they are offered. Pick one, pick many, pick all:
Apply for a job, if you don’t have one. If you do, of-
fer yourself up for a challenging new project. Look in
on an elderly neighbor. Get involved in politics. Volun-
teer at a school, or an animal shelter, or a place of wor-
ship. Take up a sport. Take a class. Teach a class. Paint.
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Plant. Read. You need to put meaning back in your life.
The key is in your hands.
But you have to be in it to live it.
Ready or not, off you go!
Yours forever, or at least for now,
Roxie
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CHAPTER NINE
Marshall closed the door and stood still, listening to the noisy engine of the old ambulance as it rumbled up their
block.
“No siren,” Sylvie observed.
Marshall nodded. “No need to rush when your pas-
senger is a corpse.”
Sylvie made a noise of disgust and Marshall moved
away from her, taking long strides to the reading chair,
where he collapsed, bumping his head on the lamp as he sat.
“You all right?” Sylvie asked. “You need ice?”
“No and no.” He rubbed his head for a moment and
then let his hand drop to his lap. “I suppose that’s it.”
looked the same even though nothing was. “I suppose
you should call Beadie. I think she’d want to know he’s
gone, don’t you?”
“Pass,” Marshall said.
“You can’t pass. I can’t call her. She hates me. I have
no idea why.”
Marshall gave her a look.
“It’s not that. She hated me from day one. I used to
keep track of all the times I’d call to make plans and
she’d say they were busy. Took some time but I got the
drift. They were always busy. There were always other
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plans. Any plan was better than seeing me. Did you
know he had to sneak out of his house the day he came
here? Sneak out the back door of his own house to visit
his sister. To keep a promise we made when we were
children. I didn’t think he’d remember. He was so proud
that he did. When I opened that door and saw him, pink-
cheeked like he always got when he was a boy, big smile
on his face, little gap between his front teeth. I smiled
and he said, ‘Surprise! Here I am. Come to watch the
eclipse with my favorite sister. Like I said I would. Like we always will. No matter what.’ No matter what,” she
repeated. She noticed her husband’s expression. “I’ve told you this already.”
“Dozens or possibly hundreds of times.”
“Beadie could not bear to share him. Not with me.”
“I’d say you made up for it in the end, Sylvie, wouldn’t
you?”
“I wouldn’t say that at all. I’m talking about Albie
before. You didn’t really know my brother before. He
was so sweet. So funny. Always upbeat.”
“Hah! Good one.”
“He was. He was funny, upbeat, kind. Always, always
kind. Even after Beadie threw him out like he a piece of
rotten garbage, he never said one word against her.” She
shook her head. “I can’t call her.”
“She doesn’t need a call. She doesn’t care. She’s prob-
ably been wishing him dead for years.” He drummed his
fingers on the arms of the chair. “She wouldn’t be the
only one.”
“Marshall.” She crossed her arms and sat up straighter.
“It took its toll, Sylvie, having him here. You can
pretend it didn’t, but it did. People aren’t meant to live in a state of emergency for half their lives.”
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“More than half,” she admitted. “Honestly, to think
that after all the times he tried…” She shook her head
thinking about what she wouldn’t say. “For him to go this
way. Peaceful. In his sleep. Who would have thought?
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Makes me wonder.” She looked over at her husband.
He closed his eyes. He wasn’t interested in what she
wondered but she wondered it anyway. “What do you
think our lives would have been like if…?” She didn’t
complete the thought. “Do you think we would have
stayed in that house?”
“Not playing this game. What happened, happened.
We dealt wi
th it. The end.”
“I think we would have stayed. It was such a lovely
house. Of course you would have gotten job offers but
you wouldn’t have had to take them.”
“I never had to take them.”
She studied her husband. Nothing to do. No one to
hate. “It’s just us now, Marshall. You don’t have to go
blustering about the house trying to distract everyone.
Albie’s gone. The girls are gone. Oh no.” Her shoulders
sank. “The girls. Who’s going to tell them?”
“Pass.”
“I’m not sure Turtle can handle it. Another death.
And Albie of all people.”
“Don’t tell her.” Marshall heaved himself out of his
chair and walked to the window. “At least the neighbors
won’t be knocking on our door to complain now.”
“No one’s going to be knocking on our door at all.”
Sylvie glanced at her watch. It was later than she thought.
Time to make Albie his tray. Then she remembered,
Albie wasn’t going to need a tray. Not today. Not any
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day. A few minutes passed. She checked her watch again.
The medical transport should be bringing him back soon.
Then she remembered, Albie wasn’t coming back. Not
today. Not any day. She blotted her eyes with her sleeve.
“May his memory be a blessing.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Was this how it was going to be from now
on? Forgetting and remembering and forgetting again?
She took a deep breath and stood up. “Oh well. I’ll call
Shelley. I’ll ask her to tell Turtle.”
“That’s your worst idea yet. The last thing we need is
to have those two going on a trip down memory lane.”
“They need to know their uncle passed away.”
“You’re not making any sense. You’re the one who’s
always telling me Turtle isn’t like the rest of us. She
doesn’t want to know. She wants to not know. Now all of a sudden you think it’s a good idea for Shelley to fill her in?”
Sylvie stood up and started out of the room.
“I’m talking to you.”
“I’m going to make us tea.” She disappeared into the
kitchen. After the kettle whistled, she came back and
handed Marshall his mug. “Careful. It’s hot.”
He took a sip and burned his tongue. “Too hot.” He
handed it back.
She took it and put it down and glanced over at the
stairs that led to the room where her brother no longer
slept. She shook her head. “This is not how I imagined
our lives.”
“We did the best we could.”
She didn’t agree. But when Marshall wasn’t in the
mood to listen, he didn’t. So she said, “Oh well,” and
left it at that, for now.
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CHAPTER TEN
Gathering cartons to move. Sylvie’s habits came to Lane
like muscle memory, carrying with them the echo of her
words. Grocery stores were where her mother got her
boxes. We’re doing them a favor, taking away their garbage for no charge. As her mother saw it, there was no other ac-ceptable choice. Mecklers didn’t buy boxes. Only a fool would pay for an empty box. Liquor store cartons were out of the question. The neighbors have quite enough to gossip about as it is.
As was often the case with her mother, the more that
was said, the less Lane understood. Until the comment
about the neighbors, Lane had no idea their neighbors were gossiping, and no idea what they were gossiping about.
Now, so many years later, here she was, taking a
one-block detour on her way home from dropping off
Henry at school, to stop at the grocer’s for boxes. Like
her mother, Lane bypassed the liquor store—which was
closer—but not for fear of gossip. Rather it was with the
knowledge that if she went inside, the shopkeeper would
ask after Aaron and Lane would end up having to comfort
him after presenting the shocking news that his favorite
customer was dead.
Another of Sylvie’s packing quirks: start slowly, with
just a couple of boxes, and begin as soon as you know
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you’re going to move; no need to wait until a new place is found. “Makes it easier to leave is why,” Sylvie explained even though Lane never asked.
By the time Henry got home from school, an empty
Bounty carton was waiting for him at the foot of his
bed. The Dole carton that Lane picked up, which still
held a trace scent of pineapple, was parked in front of
the pullout. The pullout, which hadn’t been opened in
six weeks, was on the long list of items Lane was going
to donate. A pullout might be handy to have in a house
with multiple bedrooms, but she was not going to take
this one, the pullout in which her marriage had died.
“First Rule of Moving,” Lane reminded Henry after
a snack of graham crackers and milk. “Take Only What
You Love. Let’s start with your books. Pick out the ones
you love. We’ll donate the rest.”
For her mother’s seventieth birthday, Lane had con-
sidered buying her a copy of Marie Kondo’s tidying book.
Sylvie Meckler had been ahead of her time, a professional
tidier before that was a thing. In the end she didn’t buy the book because she knew her mother would have donated
it without cracking the spine. If Lane ever turned into
a person who made a list of rules to live by, one of her
rules would be Don’t Bother Buying Sylvie Meckler Gifts.
“What if it’s a book I like,” Henry said, “but I don’t
love?”
This was as close to happy as Lane got, seeing Henry
unafraid to ask her anything. He made it look so natural.
It was natural, she realized. Just not for her. She turned away from her thoughts and smiled. “That’s not a problem
at all. Like is plenty good enough.”
Her cell phone rang. Shelley. Lane felt a wave of
relief. Ever since she’d complained to her sister about
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calling too early and disturbing Henry’s sleep, Shelley
had stopped calling. That wasn’t the result Lane wanted.
What she wanted—which she’d told Shelley the last time
they spoke—was for her sister to call every day, but at a
reasonable hour.
It was a waste of words, telling Shelley what she
wanted. Her sister called on her own schedule; like the
moon, it went in phases. She’d called weekly, or every
other Tuesday, or on the first of the month. At least she
called, was how Lane thought about it.
As for Lane calling Shelley, she didn’t bother. Her
sister never answered her phone. It was basically the
equivalent of a jail phone, outgoing only. That had been
okay—Lane could get used to anything—until the night
Aaron died and Lane had to call continuously for over
an hour before her sister picked up. To avoid a repeat of
that, Shelley proposed a special signal. Next time Lane
called three times in a row, her sister would know that
someone had died.
“How are you?�
�� Shelley asked her now.
“Good.” Lane covered the phone and asked Henry
if he would mind looking through his books while she
talked to her sister. She moved to the small kitchen.
“How are you?”
“Good.” Shelley ran through the usual rotation of
topics. The dismal English weather. Quinn’s upcoming
business trip. Melinda’s latest accomplishments in orches-
tra, maths and sport.
Even when Lane was only half listening, she found
the sound of her sister’s voice calming. Maybe that was
why, at Shelley’s first pause, her defenses slipped and she shared what she hadn’t even realized was on her mind.
“I think it was my fault.”
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“It was not your fault. You have to let it go. It’s way
past time.”
“Way past what time?” Lane asked. “What do you
think I’m talking about?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” Shelley countered.
Her sister could be so confounding. But Lane didn’t
want to risk an argument. “What I’m talking about is,
maybe it was my fault Aaron drank. Maybe I drove him
to drink.”
“Stop it. He was an adult. He made his own choices.
He made his own mistakes. You have to stop blaming
yourself for everything that goes wrong in the world.”
Lane didn’t respond but she took note that her sister
hadn’t asked the obvious question: What did Lane think
she’d done to drive Aaron to drink? She and Shelley really were a perfect team. Tethered by the phone, they stayed
silent on two continents until Lane, ever a good Meckler,
changed the subject. “We’re moving to New Jersey.”
“What? That’s a terrible idea. Nothing good happened
when we lived there. Either time.”
Her sister was half-right. The first time they lived in
New Jersey, when Lane was Henry’s age, things did not
go well. But the second time was fine. It was true that
the reason they’d moved back was her father’s career had
hit bottom. And when Shelley first left for college, Lane
was lonely. But the high school wasn’t too bad. It was
big, for one thing, so the fact that no one paid attention to her was barely noticeable.
In fact New Jersey ended up being her answer when,
in college, people asked her where she was from. At least
that’s what she said once she figured out that Where are you from? was a census question and not an invitation for a disquisition on the meaning of home, which is what