“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Who are you, Joy? What is happening to you?”
I poured it all out to her, wine from burst skins, flowing over the table. I told her of Bill and Renee and the miserable pain in the house.
“This is a nightmare,” she said. “Why doesn’t he just move out with her? Why don’t you just get a divorce?”
“We’re stuck, Belle. Stuck. We have no money to get a divorce. They have no money to live somewhere else. I’m waiting to sell something, anything, and then get the hell out of there. My poor boys . . .”
“Can you take them away from Bill? He’ll allow it?”
“I don’t much care what he will or won’t allow right now, Belle.”
She nodded.
“I know I sound cruel, but I’m repulsed by him. For the sake of all that is true, he’s trying to make himself into a magician now. He wrote a nonfiction book called Monster Midway about the carnival life, and now he’s trying to be part of it. It’s like living with a disgusting adolescent boy who wants to eat fire for a carny act. The hate is eating at me.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know. Sit here and drink with me?” I smiled at her. “Bill asked me, actually asked me, if I would just agree to be a threesome with Renee. A threesome!”
“Oh, that is horribly distasteful.” Belle shuddered. “And meanwhile you’ve fallen in love with England.”
“Yes, but not just the country—also the friends and the land and the Lewis brothers.”
“Let’s remember that I’ve seen you in love many times, Joy.” She paused and leaned forward as if someone were eavesdropping on us. “Are you in love with C. S.?”
“No.” I took another sip of sherry. “I’m confused. I miss them both as if I’d known them all my life, but it’s more than that . . . About Jack, I don’t know. This time it’s not just about some physical need. For goodness’ sake, the man smokes sixty cigarettes a day and then his pipe in between. He’s seventeen years older than I am. But he still has this great gusto for life—for beer and debate and walking and deep friendship. Christianity most definitely has not turned him into a dud. This isn’t some lust-fueled fantasy. It’s the connection between us. The discourse. The empathy. The similar paths. This isn’t an obsession with getting something, Belle. It’s the feeling of finally coming home. It’s confusing at best.”
Belle leaned back in her chair, patted at her lipstick with a napkin before taking a sip of her wine. “I don’t want you to make a huge mistake that will destroy your family for good.”
“Destroy my family? As if that isn’t already done?” Heat rushed into my cheeks, a fiery determination. “I know my past mistakes, Belle. Even in my marriage I see my mistakes. This isn’t all about blame. And I’m not sleeping with Jack. I just love him, and his brother also, but in different ways. We feel like a family. It’s a fact as inescapable as breathing.”
“But that’s what I mean. I’m not being cruel. You know I love you. But you fall in love passionately, and then you don’t listen to reason.”
“Does love have any reason?” Tears rose easily, and I almost longed for the days when I wept only with rage.
“No, it doesn’t. But you do. Why would anyone leave New York?”
“Belle.” I leaned forward with the urgency to make her understand. “My husband is sleeping with my cousin. He is ‘in love.’ He is ‘more married’ to her than he ever was to me, he says. For so long I’ve been required to subvert who I am to be who men want or need me to be, and in England, with those friends, that isn’t true at all.”
Belle’s eyes filled with tears. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You’ve always been right there with me. Always. Remember the night I won the Russell Loines Award? When a thousand dollars seemed like a million? It was this great triumph, and I was haughty because Robert Frost had won the same award several years earlier. I took you to the awards ceremony and got so deep into the cups I could barely speak at the microphone. You took care of me.”
“I do remember,” Belle laughed. “Of course I do.”
“And you were there to help me celebrate when I came home from the inferno and infestation of Hollywood. You remained friends with me during the days of Communism, inviting me to your parties and your house. Remember when I got in a screaming match with your pal Kazin? You’ve seen the worst of me, Belle. And I’m trying to tell you that I’m the best of me when I’m with Jack.”