Into the Night

“Then one day he comes to you about it. He comes to you, you don’t go to him.

“One day he comes to you. One night, rather. You’re lying there awake, with the lights out. You’re always lying awake with the lights out. He lies there, and he thinks. You lie there, and you think. But the two chains of thought don’t mesh anymore like they used to.

“He says quietly, ‘Dell, are you awake?’

“You say just as quietly, ‘I’m awake, Vick.’

“‘I want to talk to you.’

“Your heart starts going like the sweep hand of a watch. This is it. At last. Finally. Here it is.

“‘The thing is,’ he says, ‘I don’t know where to start.’ What do you say to that? You don’t say anything at all. You just lie there and let him work it out for himself. Half hoping he’ll forget the whole thing.

“But he doesn’t.

“He says, ‘Dell, we’ve had some good times. Haven’t we?’

“You don’t answer. It’s not the sort of question that requires an answer.

“‘But something’s changed,’ he goes on. ‘I don’t know how to explain it. I’m not saying it’s your fault. It’s not your fault. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s my fault. But I don’t know that anybody’s ever at fault when this kind of thing happens. I don’t think people have much choice. I think things happen and people can only go along with them.’

“Get to the point, you want to shout. Put a lid on your dime-store philosophy and get to the point. But instead you just lie there and wait for him to go on.

“‘Dell, I can’t live here anymore.’

“‘Why not?’

“‘Because we used to have something,’ he says, ‘and now it’s gone.’

“‘Not for me it isn’t,’ you say, hating yourself for saying it, for needing to say it. ‘For me it’s still the same.’

“‘Dell, I’m going to move out.’

“‘When?’

“‘Now, if you want.’

“‘That’s crazy,’ you say. ‘It’s the middle of the night. You don’t want to leave now.’

“‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind—’

“‘Of course I don’t mind.’

“‘First thing in the morning, then.’

“So he takes off his clothes and comes to bed. And he lies on his side of the bed and you lie on your side, and you wish you could just fall asleep but of course you can’t. And you wish you could stay on your own side of the bed but you can’t do that either.

“So you curl up beside him. He can’t sleep either, and you know what to do, how to touch him, and you get the response you want. He’s unwilling at first. As if he’s cheating her by being with you. But you know what you’re doing and he can’t help himself.

“And while it’s going on, all you can think is that it’s the last time, the last time.

“Afterward, he falls asleep. You try to sleep, and you can’t, and after a while you give up trying. You get up and walk around the room, and then you come back and sit on the edge of the bed while your mind just spins like a top.”

“He woke up. I still sat there, looking out the window, in the other room. He got out of bed and went into the bathroom and ran the water for his shower. I thought, This is probably the last time I’ll ever hear him take a shower. And hit his chest, like he does. And snort, like he does, to clear the water out of his nostrils.

“I thought, What a funny thing to think, at a time like this. Or is it? Maybe it’s the right thing to think at a time like this.

“He got dressed, and he came to the bedroom door a minute and looked in at me, before he was quite through, while he was measuring off the two sides of his necktie.

“‘I won’t come back tonight,’ he said. ‘I won’t come back anymore. I’ll send for my things instead, some time during the day.’ And then he added, as though he were asking my permission, ‘Okay?’

“‘Okay,’ I said. I still sat there.

“He said, ‘You act more dead than alive.’

“I said dully, ‘You would too.’

“He finished finally, and came out, set to go.

“I said, ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this, Vick?’

“‘Come on now,’ he said reproachfully.

“It was the funniest parting I ever heard of.

“He said, ‘What about money? You better tell me now.’

“‘That isn’t what I want,’ I said. ‘I can always get that. That’s the easiest thing to get there is.’

“He went out and closed the door after him.

“I still sat there.

“He came out of the building doorway down below on the street, and turned around and looked up at the window. He saw me looking down at him.

“He lifted his hat, tipped it way up high in parting salute to me. Then he stepped into a taxi the doorman had whistled up for him. The taxi drove off and my marriage was over.

“I never knew before what an insult it could be, how much it could hurt, how needling it could feel, to have your own husband exaggeratedly tip his hat to you like that.

“There was a bottle of goof pills in the medicine cabinet. I took them down. Then I brought a glass of water over. I sat down and kept switching from one to the other, until both were gone. The water tasted strange, but that was because I wasn’t used to drinking water straight.