Going in Circles (8 page)

It occurs to Charlotte Goodman at this moment that perhaps she shouldn't worry so much about the audition, as she's crazy enough without having to embellish even the slightest bit.

“I thought I told you on the phone why I'm here,” I say to Dr. Hemphill.

He leans over on one elbow, pulling at the back of his curls with his hand. “I know you're struggling with decisions about your marriage,” he says. “But that has to do with a third party, someone who isn't here. I meant what specifically about yourself brought you here?”

“Well, Doctor,” I begin.

“Call me Gary,” he says.

First of all, that's not a doctor's name.
Gary
is the name of the guy at the pet store, the one who keeps trying to talk you into buying that electric litter box. I need this man in front of me to be a doctor all the time. I'd rather call him Dr. Doctor. “Dr. Doctor, MD.” I want this to feel as medical as possible. It already bothers me that he looks like anybody else.

“Well,
Doctor,
” I say firmly, letting Gary know exactly what kind of relationship we're going to have. “I guess I don't know, then.”

He nods. Maybe that was the right answer. “Why don't you start by telling me why you left your husband?”

“Because he left me first.”

“And what was that like?”

“When he left me, or I left him?”

“Your choice.”

So I tell him.

Charlotte Goodman spent her final night in her marital house packing and alone.

Matthew didn't want to be a witness to her exodus and had wisely chosen to go to a poker game with some friends. Before he left, as he stood at the door with his hand still grasping the knob, he said as a good-bye, “I'm going to stay at Pete's tonight. I don't want to see tomorrow.”

It was their last moment together, in their home as husband and wife, for at least a while and possibly forever. Charlotte found herself rubbing her wedding band inside her palm with her thumb.

He had given her this ring in front of the restaurant where they'd had their first date. It had all gone so wrong for Matthew, his proposal. The restaurant had been closed for repairs, they'd gotten rear-ended as they were parking the car, and a hungry Charlotte had become grumpy and bickering, intentionally antagonistic with every new topic Matthew started. He was trying to get her to be quiet long enough so he could drop to one knee. Finally he realized the gesture would shut her up. And it did. Until she said yes.

As Charlotte watched her husband stand in the doorway,
ready to leave for not the first time but perhaps the last, she couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't truly happening, that this was happening to other people, that she was playing a part in a movie about some other sad life.

“Wait,” she said. She went to him, putting her hands on his face, where they'd rested thousands of times before, the familiarity of his body sending an instant message through her own:

This is your husband.

She knows this man. She knows this face. This head. This hair, these warm green eyes. The scar under his chin she's noticed every time she's looked up at him. His smell, soapy and clean, like he just stepped out of a shower.

This is your husband. What are you doing? What are you risking? Why?

At this moment, memories flood Charlotte's head. She sees him at their wedding, staring at her as she walked down the aisle like she was his answer, his face overcome with elation, the happiest she ever saw him, before or since.

Somehow Charlotte can hold this image in her head while also feeling Matthew's kiss, both on her mouth and on the bridge of her nose—memory kisses, tender moments of affection surrounding her, reminding her, embracing her as if begging her to stay.

Another memory: a scribbled drawing he once made for her of a hopeful-looking little stick figure standing next to a childlike rendition of a house with an open door, six wavy lines forming a square topped by a triangle. Written underneath in a scrawl: “Will you live with me?”

These memories take boxer's swings at Charlotte's heart, her organs tiny punching bags. Why does the brain do this to us when we leave a relationship? What sense does it make for it to spend seemingly half its time reminding us of all the things we will miss? Perhaps we are worried about the ramifications of sticking
to our own decisions. When the mind stays semifocused on the possibility that things don't have to end, there's always another moment when everybody could stop all of this nonsense and pretend they were just kidding, that it was all a mistake. There's still time to sit down, swap apologies, and then make out like crazy. You just have to grab it, but you choose not to.

Or rather, more importantly, you both choose not to.

In their last moment together as husband and wife in their home, both Matthew and Charlotte stood still, most likely so as not to shake each other in frustration. As much as she wanted him to produce a time machine from his pocket that could jettison them back at least a year, he must have been wishing she'd step out of her lunatic costume and go back to being the woman he had thought he'd married.

But they couldn't do either. So they did nothing. Once something that huge is in motion, perhaps nothing can make it stop.

She kissed him, lightly, before he pulled back with a sniff, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Figure it out,” he said. And he left.

Charlotte stood alone, staring at the space where Matthew had just stood, a place where not long ago he'd carried her over the threshold. And now she was about to cross that line again, in the other direction. All she could hear in her head was,
“You can't take this back.”

Dr. Hemphill has been scribbling as I've talked. He stops at this point to ask, “And do you want to take it back?”

How can he not know I ask myself that every day? “It doesn't matter,” I say to him. “I can't.”

“Maybe because you've crossed the threshold,” he says, and I detect a slight smirk.

“You're proud of yourself for that one,” I say.

“A little.” He grins.

It was a good word for what was happening.
Threshold.
Matthew and I were both pushed to the edge, and now we're challenging each other. A line has been firmly drawn between us, and it's possible we're both stubborn enough to remain separated for the rest of our lives.

There's a box of Kleenex on the table beside me. I grab it, pulling the box close to me, hugging it in my lap like it's a pillow or a kitten. I'm not crying, but my nose has started to run from the dry air in the room. Dr. Hemphill keeps the heater on too high.

“So, what is it that's really worrying you?” he asks, his foot making a lazy bounce as if we're in the middle of a leisurely Sunday morning brunch and we're waiting for our second round of mimosas.

“Not to sound too dramatic,” I say, “but I think I broke my life and I don't know if I can do the thing that will make it right again.”

“You're saying there's only one right way?”

His question makes me snort. Of course there's one right way. One way is wrong, and then there's one way that's right. People live their lives the right way or the wrong way. He should know this; his job is supposed to be to make sure people live the right way.

Instead of saying any of this, I shrug.

Dr. Hemphill shapes his hands into a little tent and rests them under his chin. He actually does that, like he's impersonating a therapist. I bet in sign language that's the symbol for psychiatrist, that little hand tent. Is that something they're forced to do, or something they pick up in shrink school? Maybe he does this all the time, whenever he's pretending to know everything. Probably even at poker games it's his tell.
Once he busts out the Shrink Tent, then everyone knows this man is completely winging it.

His ottoman-turned-chair creaks under him as he adjusts it to sit higher. He asks, “What would happen if you were to fail at something?”

The question confuses me. “What do you mean, fail?”

“Fail. Not do it right. Get it superbly incorrect.”

“Well, I suppose I'd do it right the next time.”

“What if there was no next time?”

“There's always a next time. I would get it right eventually.”

The Shrink Tent unfolds, and this guy named Gary crosses his arms. “What if you were not just bad at something, but horrible? And what if your failure caused others to experience pain or suffering? What if you really fucked up?”

The question takes my breath away, not because he has cursed, but because instantly I know with complete conviction that for the rest of my life, whenever I have a moment to myself, when I'm at a red light, when I'm waiting for conditioner to finish working through my hair, when I'm reaching for a cardboard sleeve for my to-go coffee cup, I'm going to hear that question in my head.

What if you really fucked up?

“Are you saying I fucked up with Matthew?”

“I'm not talking about your life right now,” he says. “I'm just wondering what would happen if you . . .” He points a finger at me, pausing for effect. “. . . just you, made a huge mistake. If you fucked up. Would the world end?”

“Yes.”

He writes me a prescription for Lexapro.

I
'm staring at my old house. Our old house. But now it's not our house, or my house.

It's
his
house. And I can't get out of the car.

I know exactly how many steps it will take to reach the door, and which step will creak as I get there. The key to the front door will appear between my thumb and finger without a single glance at the ring in my hand. It will feel like I've come home again. I'm afraid I won't be able to handle it.

I once cried so hard in that house I blew a blood vessel in my eye. It happened in the middle of the night, a few days after Matthew had come back home. This is probably more information than needs to be shared, but I had woken up from the middle of a . . . sexy dream. I guess I wiggled myself awake. I was still turned on, but the only person next to me was this man who had just put me through emotional hell. I didn't want to wake him up, because having sex would make him think everything was okay, and it wasn't. I couldn't take matters into my own hand right there, as Matthew was too light a sleeper.

I tried to go back to sleep, but my body was ready to go. In the dream I'd been touching myself, which is disappointing
as far as fantasies go.
The one place where I'm allowed to fool around with anybody, and I'm choosing to play with myself? My dream brain is useless!

I was left with only one choice: covert masturbation, teenage-style.

I tiptoed to the bathroom, the tiles cold under my feet. There's a fan that whirs when you turn on the light, so I left the switch alone. I grabbed a washcloth and jammed it into my mouth. I didn't want to make a sound that he could hear.
This is how prisoners must do it
, I thought to myself.

Easing myself to the floor, panties around my ankles, my back mashed hard against the cool porcelain of the tub, I concentrated on the feeling between my legs. Still, no matter how good it felt to rub up against myself, I was fully aware of where I was: hiding in the dark, on the floor, trying to get some kind of pleasure in the middle of this mess I was in.

No wonder I couldn't stop the sadness from creeping in, soaking from my heart to my lungs, down to my belly, getting closer to where my fingers were desperately trying to get a job done.

No. He doesn't get to have this part of you. This is all yours. Don't let him take it. This is your body. Claim it.

There, in the dark, during the weirdest masturbation session of all time, I heard those words. I don't know if it was my voice or the opening statement from my narrator. And I'm thankful I didn't stop to think about whether or not I was hearing the voice of John Goodman as I had my hand between my legs. I rocked, keeping my breath steady and low, until I felt far away. My teeth ached from clenching terrycloth. My tongue was bone-dry.

Afterward, I stayed in a ball on the floor, waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal, trying to keep my breath quiet.
But when the peace settled within me, it left room for more sadness. I saw myself on the floor of my dark bathroom, saw what I'd go through to get away from my husband, and I broke open again. The washcloth fell from my mouth as I silently wept and wondered what I needed to do.

The saddest thing about hitting some kind of emotional breaking point, about having a moment when you are reduced to an animal state—rubbing yourself and crying, naked and fetal and feral—is that eventually that moment ends. Reality sets in. Now you're just a woman with her underwear tangled around her ankles, huddled on the floor of her pitch-black bathroom. In order to cope with this tragedy, you start having very normal thoughts about this rather un-normal place you've put yourself in. Like:

I wonder how long it's been since I cleaned this floor.

Even being quite kind to myself it had to have been at least a month. This meant I'd just had the dirtiest orgasm of my life. I instantly felt germs crawling all over me, around me. This is why Matthew found me at three in the morning in the bathroom, wearing only my underwear, scrubbing the floor with a bucket of bleach.

No telling what must have gone through his head when he discovered me. Regardless, it was still better than if he'd known the whole truth. After he left the bathroom, shaking his head and muttering, I wondered what I looked like. I stood up to check myself in the mirror, and that's when I saw the burst blood vessel. It looked like I had Ebola in my right eye, blood pooling from one corner toward the dark brown curve of my iris, the other side bloodshot. Half-naked, reeking of cleanser, hemorrhaging from the skull—I had turned into a zombie.
“I am sad zombie crazy wife-lady. Why won't you love me?!”