After our marriage ended I never returned to Montauk.
* * *
But.
William and Estelle rented a house out there. Bridget went to camp in western Massachusetts; she apparently loved it, and William would come into the city just a few days a week to work in his lab. Estelle stayed out in Montauk, and they entertained a lot there on the weekends. Mostly I know this because Chrissy and Becka would go there and stay a few days, sometimes separately and sometimes together. Becka described the house as having a lot of big windows, and Chrissy said the people they entertained were “terrific bores. From the theater, I guess,” is what she said. But Chrissy is a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, and married to the man in finance. Both girls told me how much Estelle cooked, and it made me feel tired to hear that; I have never liked to cook.
* * *
The second thing that happened to William is this:
* * *
—
On a day in early July, it was a Thursday, William called and said, “Lucy? Can you come over?”
“Over where?” I asked.
“To my apartment.”
“I thought you were in Montauk,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Come over right now. Can you? Please?”
So I left my apartment—it was a very hot day, the kind of day when moving about New York is not easy, the heat was so thick—and I got into a cab and went to William’s place on Riverside Drive. The doorman said to me, “Go right up, he’s waiting for you.”
In the elevator I felt very worried; I had been worried since William called me, but the doorman made me even more worried. I got off the elevator and went down the hall to their apartment door, and I knocked, and William called out, “It’s open,” and so I walked in.
William was sitting on the floor in front of the couch; his shirt was rumpled, and even his jeans looked dirty. He had no shoes on, just socks. “Lucy,” he said. “Lucy, I can’t believe this.”
At first I thought the place had been burglarized because there was a sense of much of it missing.
But this is what had happened:
* * *
—
William had gone to a conference in San Francisco and delivered a paper. He felt at the time that the paper was slight, and he thought people in the audience knew that; he got very little feedback on it. At a reception afterward, men and women he had known for years were gracious to him, but only one man mentioned his paper, and even then William felt it was merely out of politeness. On the flight home he thought about this: that his career was essentially over.
As he stepped into the entranceway of his building—it was midafternoon on Saturday—the doorman seemed extremely serious as he looked at William. The doorman nodded and said, “Hello, Mr. Gerhardt.” William did notice that. But William only said, “Good afternoon.” He did not know the names of all the doormen though he had lived in the building for almost fifteen years; this particular doorman was one whose name William could not remember. And then, when William unlocked the door of his apartment, he saw immediately that it was different, it seemed more vast, and at first he thought （just as I had when I entered it） that it had been burglarized. On the floor—he almost stepped on it—was a handwritten note from Estelle on a regular-size piece of paper. William handed me the note from where he sat on the floor, and he said, “Keep it.” I sat down on the couch and read it. The note said （I did keep it）：
Honey, I am so sorry to do this in such a way! I am really sorry, honey.
But I’ve moved out—I’m in Montauk at the moment but I have an apartment in the Village. You can see Bridget anytime you want to. Don’t worry about any alimony for me, I’m all set. I’m really sorry, William. I am not blaming you for this （but you ARE kind of unreachable a lot）。 But you’re a good man. You just seem faraway at times. I mean a lot of times. I’m really sorry not to have let you know, I guess I am a wimp.
Love, Estelle
I sat there on the couch and said nothing for a long time, just looked around at the apartment. I could not tell what was missing, but there was a hollowness to the place, and the sunlight that came through the window made it feel even more ghastly. Finally I realized that the big maroon chair was gone. And then I saw on the mantelpiece a large vase, and William followed my gaze and said, “Yeah, my Christmas present to her, she left it here.”
“God,” I said. We said nothing for many more moments. All of a sudden I realized that the rugs were gone except for a small one in the far corner of the room; this is partly why the place looked so bleak. “Wait,” I said. “She took the rugs?”