I cleared my throat. “Brad,” I said, already hating myself for what I was about to say. “This is very hard for me to accept. We have such a beautiful family life. I think it’s worth saving.” Not that I didn’t want to stab him in his sleep, mind you.
He closed his eyes for a second, then sighed. “It’s been over for years, Lillie. This is just a formality. You’ve changed, and so have I. We want different things.”
“That’s not true. I want the same thing we signed on for twenty years ago. A family. Security. Love. A partner.”
“Interesting that you’re just now noticing that we don’t have that anymore,” he said.
“Don’t have what?”
“A partnership. Not really.”
“Since when? When did all of this happen?” I asked, wiping my eyes.
“Lillie.” He clasped his hands loosely between his knees and leaned forward a little. “You haven’t supported my dreams. You don’t listen to me. You’ve been cruel. You’re as much at fault for this divorce as I am.”
“What? No, I’m not!” I screeched. “How can you say that? I took extra shifts so you could spend more time writing your book. I love hearing about your clients. And cruel? When, Brad? Name one time.”
He tilted his head. “It’s subtle. Passive-aggressive, much like your mother.”
Ooh. A low blow. “Name a time. One time.”
“Well, just last night, you called my book stupid.”
“I was in shock! You’d just told me you’d met someone, and I was stunned!”
“Are you really telling me you haven’t noticed the distance between us?”
“We say ‘I love you’ every single day. We have sex, like, two or three times a week. I cook you fantastic meals—”
“You’d make those even without me,” he said.
“—and I do your laundry—”
“You don’t iron my shirts.”
“You insist on doing that yourself. Brad, come on! We’ve been partners and raised our son and made this home beautiful and cozy. And God knows, I’m good to your parents. This is our family, Brad. Don’t shatter it.”
He sighed again. “But you don’t see me, Lillie. I haven’t felt joy with you in a long time.”
“Really? Not when we went kayaking last month and saw the loon? Not when we went to have dinner in Boston and took that walk on the Common? What about Christmas, when you said you were the happiest man in the world? That sounds like joy, goddamn it!”
“I was trying to convince myself,” he said.
“You’re lying.” He was. I knew it as well as I knew my own name.
“And there you go again. Not hearing me. Dismissing me.”
The absolute worst thing about being married to a therapist was their gaslighting skills. They could twist anything to make you think it was your problem, your reaction, your childhood that was the issue, not them. They could justify anything. Taking responsibility was not in Brad’s wheelhouse.
“I’m drained,” Brad said. “Good night.” He stood up and headed for the stairs. “And, Lillie . . .” For one second, I thought he was going to say he was sorry, a terrible joke, really, but my face . . . priceless! “This is for the best. You’ll see.”
I went into the bedroom and closed the door, and barely made it to the bed. Tears leaked out of my eyes and down my temples, wetting my hair. How was this happening to us? To us?
I cried until I was exhausted, ugly sobs wrenching out of me, utter dismay and anger and, for some reason, shame. I had lost my husband. Another woman had slid in between us, and I hadn’t even noticed.
The sound of the ocean, just over the ridge of the kettle pond chain, roared, and the leaves rustled a poor reassurance. A whip-poor-will sang, and I tried to let the sounds drown out the shrill hissing in my head.
This time, though, the magic of my home didn’t do the trick, and sleep didn’t find me.
* * *
Brad was gone the next morning when I got up. His office was in a pretty Victorian house in East Orleans （owned by his parents, of course）。 He shared the space with several other therapists, each of them in their own little suite. As son of the building’s owner, Brad had the nicest space—the library in the back, overlooking a flower garden of my own making.
Brad’s office bespoke a certain attitude that wasn’t quite matched by his financial or professional success. Stacy Benson, one of his office mates, was the renowned one, to be honest. She handled troubled and traumatized children, had appeared on CNN and was often a speaker at national conferences. Jorge was the marriage whisperer, and one of the couples he had counseled worked for Netflix, and a show was in the works, which had made Brad incredibly jealous. Jorge was young, extremely handsome and excellent at his job. It had taken weeks of patience to get through Brad’s sulk about that “blow to my professional dignity,” whatever that meant.