As in:
By year nineteen, Jill and Eric’s marriage had completely transformed itself from the lofty aspirations of a romantic ideal to something resembling a once-successful television series that had clearly jumped the shark. In retrospect, one mistake they both recognized was the decision to continue having children even after admitting, to each other, that they’d had affairs–Jill with her station manager, and Eric with his receptionist at the shop. It wasn’t that the reconciliation hadn’t been successful (for a while anyway) but more that their near-simultaneous dalliances had become an indelible reminder of mutually diminished expectations.
Because life is still what happens to you when you think you’re trying to work things out, discernible camps had arisen within the family. The emotional erosion of the parental nucleus had unleashed other forces.
For the past three years, as they’d grown and flourished, their four offspring had essentially taken over the household. Iris, the oldest, made the shopping lists, prepared the best position papers in the deliberations over major purchases, and was the first to notice that Billy, the youngest, needed glasses, and that Midge, the second youngest, needed Ritalin. (Aaron, a year younger than Iris, thought their stories could be told in shorter sentences, but he was frequently out-voted on this and other issues, outcomes he seemed to bear without much resentment in large part because his girlfriend, Eloise, was just about the cutest teenage girl ever created. It also helped explain why Iris and Eloise were tight as ticks.)
As for Jill and Eric, they drifted toward their own spaces and interests. The master bedroom was now merely a place where they kept clothing. Jill preferred to sleep in the guest bedroom in the basement; Eric in the den upstairs, snoring away with SportsCenter playing on the big screen until 4 a.m., or so, when he would get up to pee and take a peek at what was on Cinemax. Jill took comfort in the company of her book group. Eric had his golfing buddies and as much time as he needed after work to stir and swallow the number of drinks necessary to put things in perspective.
They discussed divorce annually, mostly at Jill’s insistence. It wasn’t their style to fight, so there were other triggers, such as when a solicitor would call and ask: ”Are you Mrs. Clydebark?”
She’d never wanted to be “Mrs. Clydebark,” and had kept her maiden name, Silverstone. She thought of herself as Ms. Silverstone, more so every passing year, so that when she heard the name “Mrs. Clydebark” it raised existential questions about just what the hell she was doing still married to Eric.
Eric, so tired of even trying to do his own thinking, had increasingly relied upon Father Kevin. Maybe it wasn’t the best way for the diocese to exert some independence from Rome, but it was decided that this was a service Father Kevin could render to Eric because Eric’s father (quite unlike Eric) still went to mass weekly and tithed to a fare-thee-well. Thus, on three occasions in the past four years, Eric had successfully pleaded with Jill to allow Father Kevin to counsel them.
These sessions were an apt testament to her patience. Even accepting that the “spark” in their relationship was almost beyond the grasp of her memory, there were still the children, Father Kevin reasoned; still the importance of the union for the benefit of others and society.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Jill would say. “I didn’t get married to become a pillar of society.”
“I lovingly understand that,” Father Kevin would reply.
She found it curiously hard to dislike Father Kevin.
“Okay,” she suddenly asked him during his last visit, “what would Jesus do?”
And Father Kevin said he didn’t know what Jesus would do. At least that seemed honest.
Three weeks later she decided to ignore Iris’s grocery list. She went to the market and bought tomatoes and green peppers and garlic and cucumbers, then chives, parsley, chervil and tarragon. And then a large baguette, with a small package of real butter.
If she was surprised when Eric came home early and found her in the kitchen she didn’t show it.
“What are you making?” he asked.
“Gazpacho.”
“I didn’t know you liked Gazpacho,” he said.
“I used not to like it,” she replied, “but I thought I’d give it another try. Mostly I just like saying the word. Gazpacho.”
In the course of this, they had not actually looked at each other’s faces.
As he searched the refrigerator for a beer she told him she’d filed for divorce before lunch.
Eric sighed. He knew what she knew, which is that the fight had gone out of him.
“Father Kevin will be disappointed,” he said, before pulling a sip of Red Stripe and tossing the cap into the garbage pail across the room.
“Tell him it’s not him. It’s me.”
