I said nothing.
I said nothing because I felt he had been right. I was embarrassed beyond anything I could remember.
“Lucy, forget it,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs and eat.”
I shook my head.
So William picked up the phone and ordered room service. “Two cheeseburgers in room 302”—his room—he said, and then he said, “Two Caesar salads. And a glass of white wine. Any kind. Doesn’t matter.” He put the phone down and said, “Come back to my room, yours is so depressing you could kill yourself in here.”
So I followed him down the hall to his room, which was cheerier—his lamp was working, and he had a large window that looked out straight to the sky, where the sun was starting to go down.
“Now listen,” William said, and he sat on the bed next to me. “At least you’re not mean.”
“What do you mean?” I finally asked.
“I mean you’re not a mean person. Look how mean I am, talking about the dinner party—and it was a dinner party, Lucy, you did manage those—and everything I just said to you was mean. Including about your being self-absorbed. You’re not any more self-absorbed than any of us.”
And I burst out, “Yes I am, William! I chose to leave you and Chrissy got sick—and—”
William, who looked exhausted, held up his hand for me to stop. Then he pulled his hand down reflexively over his mustache and stood up and he said slowly, “Chose to leave me?” William turned to me and then said with some vehemence, “Chose, Lucy? How many times does a person really choose something? Tell me. Did you really choose to leave the family? No, I watched you, and you—you just went; it was like you had to. And did I choose to have those affairs? Oh, I know, I know, accountability—I went to a therapist, just in case you think I didn’t, I kept seeing that woman that Joanne and I went to, I went on my own for a while, and she talked to me about accountability. But I have thought about this, Lucy, I have thought about this a lot, and I would like to know—I really would like to—when does a person actually choose anything? You tell me.”
I thought about this.
He continued, “Once every so often—at the very most—I think someone actually chooses something. Otherwise we’re following something—we don’t even know what it is but we follow it, Lucy. So, no. I don’t think you chose to leave.”
After a moment I asked, “Are you saying you don’t believe in free will?”
William put both hands to his head for a moment. “Oh stop with the free will crap,” he said. He kept walking back and forth as he spoke, and he pushed his hand through his white hair. “That’s like—I don’t know, that’s like bringing in some huge piece of an iron frame, to speak of free will. I’m talking about choosing things. You know, I knew a guy who worked in the Obama administration, and he was there to help make choices. And he told me that very very few times did they actually have to make a choice. And I always found that so interesting. Because it’s true. We just do—we just do, Lucy.”
I didn’t say anything.
I was thinking about the year before I left William how almost every night when he was asleep I would go out and stand in our tiny back garden and I would think: What do I do? Do I leave or do I stay? It had felt like a choice to me then. But remembering this now, I realized that also during that whole year I made no motion to put myself back inside the marriage; I kept myself separate is what I mean. Even as I thought I was deciding.
A friend had said to me once, “Whenever I don’t know what to do, I watch what I am doing.” And what I was doing that year was leaving, even though I had not yet left.
Now I looked up and I said, “And you don’t choose to be mean, William.”
“I kind of don’t,” he answered.
And I said, “I know that!” Then I added, “I’m really mean in my head, you wouldn’t believe the mean thoughts I have.”
William threw his hand up and said, “Lucy, everyone is mean in their head. Jesus.”
“They are?” I asked.
He half laughed then, but it was a pleasant laugh. “Yes, Lucy, people are mean in their heads. Their private thoughts. Are frequently mean. I thought you knew that, you’re the writer. Jesus Christ, Lucy.”
“Well,” I said. “Anyway, you’re never mean for long, you always apologize.”
“I don’t always apologize,” William said.