Dear Mr. Brody by A.M. Johnson
Donovan
I wanted to believe her tears, but all I saw behind her eyes was a washed-out version of who we once were. Hiding behind my job, her hiding behind friends, we’d found excuses. Too tired to touch, too busy to look, and all we’d had left were wasted pieces of memories—her tan skin on the day we met, and the river water in my shoes. I’d tossed my sneakers down a well because she’d made a joke about how they’d squeaked as I walked. I’d left them behind where countless wishes sank into oblivion, and I’d forgotten, under her gaze, the things about myself that had scared me.
“It isn’t what you think,” I tried as Elaine’s hands fisted in her lap. “Lanie… please. Listen, I—”
“I know what I saw,” she said, sounding resigned.
“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. Mara is a client, for Christ’s sake.”
I’d taken an author I’d been chasing since I’d started at Lowe Literary two years ago to Sal’s for lunch yesterday. Sal’s was a diner a few blocks away from my office in downtown Atlanta. It was one of my favorite places, and I used to meet my wife there all the time. If I had seen Lanie walk in I would’ve introduced her to Mara and had her join us, but instead of being rational, which wasn’t a surprise, she’d made an assumption. She’d seen a woman, leaning in, sitting beside me, her hand on my shoulder. It didn’t mean anything. Mara was an author I wanted to sign, there was nothing more to it. Instead of confronting me, Lanie blindly pulled the pin from a grenade and ripped our marriage apart.
Maybe now I could tell her the truth.
The truth I’d kept hidden all these years because once I’d met Lanie it didn’t matter anymore. I had her. I’d always had her. I’d pushed these pieces of myself aside every day, but in the end, it didn’t save us. She’d made sure of that when she’d slept with one of her yoga students last night. My anger surfaced as I stared at my wife, a spiteful barb loaded on my tongue, but I remembered Anne was a room away, sleeping, unaware her whole castle was about to crumble. My ten-year-old daughter, our daughter, was everything. My bright spot on the worst of nights.
“Elaine…” I choked on her name. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’ve made up your mind.” She sat in silence, her lashes wet. “I’d never…” My words stuck in my throat. “I’d never do that to you, to Anne. But you did…”
She raised her eyes and I saw the first flash of worry.
“I… Oh God, what have I done?” she asked, tears leaking down her cheeks.
A tired breath left my lungs, and I raked my fingers through my hair. “What you wanted to do, what you always do. Act impulsively, consequences be damned.”
Despite the mood, she huffed out a laugh. “Self-sabotage.”
Her lips trembled and I wanted to tell her she fucked up, make her remember, remember us, remember the first time we’d met that day at the river when we were young and stupid. Life was simple back then, music on the car stereo, summer breaks, rafting on Saturdays, her in a see-through yellow bikini. Melted Popsicles, and the cherry flavor of her lips as we kissed under the tree behind her parents’ house.
“Why didn’t you talk to me, Lanie?”
“I don’t know,” she said and wiped at her cheeks. “I saw her sitting next to you, her hand on you, it looked… intimate. And things between us haven’t been right for a while, Van. We don’t… talk. It made sense to me... seeing you there with her. I was upset and he was there for me. I made a mistake.”
“I’ve known you since we were sixteen years old, and you what? Decided our marriage wasn’t worth a simple conversation?” I stood from the bed and ran a hand over my face. “You fucked a random yoga student because you thought I was cheating on you?”
Her eyes fell to her lap. “I felt relief… when I was with him.”
“What?” The heaviness in my chest unbearable.
The green color of her eyes dulled as she held my stare. “You’ve always held back with me. I feel it, Van. Right here.” She rubbed her fist against her breastbone. “Something has always been between us, and I don’t know, I thought maybe you’d finally found what you were looking for. You seemed comfortable with her.”
“I thought maybe you’d finally found what you were looking for.”
Lanie had been enough for me. But knowing she could sense this gap between us all this time, guilt filled my stomach with lead. I couldn’t help the curiosity I had about men. Or the way my body reacted without my permission when I looked at a good-looking guy. Since I was a pre-teen, popping boners for no good reason, I’d wondered what it would be like to kiss a guy, and I’d thought about girls with equal curiosity. When I’d met Elaine, everything had seemed to click into place. We’d stayed together through high school, and even managed to make it through college and graduate school. We got married when we got pregnant with Anne at twenty-three and my attraction to men never went away, but it wasn’t like I didn’t notice other women too. It didn’t matter. It was human to look, and I loved Lanie. I loved what we had and never wanted more. But I’d never shared that part of myself, that question I had about my sexuality, and I’d tried not to let it get between us. I guess I hadn’t tried hard enough.
“I think I want a divorce,” she said, and a wash of surrender poured over me.
It should’ve gutted me, but I’d be naïve to think this was the first time she’d thought about separating. I sat down across from her on the mattress, her eyes tracking me like she was afraid I’d shatter. She seemed different to me now. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a messy bun. Dressed in workout clothes as always, she looked the same but didn’t. Like a painting that had faded over time, she had become a part of my history, my future unknown.
“What about Anne?” I asked. It wouldn’t have been like her to turn this into some ugly custody thing. But I had to be sure.
“She needs us both. She needs you.”
“I don’t want to hate you.” It wasn’t a total lie. I didn’t hate her. I was hurt.
One choice, and she’d changed the course of our lives. For better or for worse, I had no idea. She leaned over, placing her fragile-looking hand on my knee.
“We’ve been friends for half of our lives, we can’t hate each other,” she said, the soft smile on her lips faded. “Do you… hate me, though?”
The word yes tripped over itself inside my brain, but I shook my head. “You’re not the only one to blame, Lanie. It takes two people to have a strong marriage, I know I’ve made mistakes.”
“And there really isn’t anyone else?” she asked, and hell, I wanted to tell her then. Maybe if I said it out loud it would be real, not just a concept I’d wrestled with all my life. “For a minute I thought you were into the blonde agent you work with.”
“Claire?” A real laugh escaped from my aching chest. “Hard pass. She’s Satan in heels. Not my type.”
“Maybe Anders is more your type?” she teased, making my pulse jump, wondering if maybe she’d figured it out.
Anders Lowe owned Lowe Literary. I envied my boss sometimes. He happened to be openly bisexual and was engaged to a man. I couldn’t lie to myself and pretend I didn’t find him attractive. It was another secret I kept in a vault, buried where I couldn’t evaluate it too much. But as she looked at me, waiting for an answer, that secret stabbed me in the ribs as I tried to breathe.
“There’s never been anybody else for me, Lanie. Only you. Stop trying to be the victim, you’re the one who fucked around.”
“Van, I’m so —”
“I don’t want an apology.” I didn’t want to fight. Exhaustion weighed on my shoulders as I stood and turned down the sheets. I could feel her eyes on me as I lifted my shirt over my head and took off my watch, setting it on the side table like I did every night. Anxious, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. “I’m going to take shower.”
“Okay.”
“I think I should sleep in the guest room, until we figure shit out.”
“Okay.”
“We should tell Anne tomorrow, maybe let her school counselor know as well.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked, and she blinked a few times before fresh tears appeared on her cheeks.
“I don’t know what else to say. This is really happening. We’re getting a divorce.”
It would be easy to walk over to her, to take her into my arms and kiss her, ask her if we could do couples therapy, and hope maybe one day I’d forgive her. But the thought of a fresh start released the tight knots in my shoulders. Lanie and I hadn’t been happy for a long time. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone out together without Anne, or talked about something other than bills, and work, or argued over whose turn it was to do the dishes. We didn’t find ways to touch each other like we used to. We didn’t stay up late tangled inside one another, fucking and talking about dreams and hope and us. Her infidelity was the wakeup call, the key to something we’d shoved neatly behind a closed door. We’d changed, we’d become different people. I was thirty-three years old and had no idea who I was anymore, who she was. How was it possible to know everything about a person, and yet they were still a stranger?
“I think… I think it’s a good thing. For both of us. For Anne.”
“I think so too,” she said, a sad smile rising at the corner of her lips.
I waited for the fear, the uncertainty to overwhelm me, but the possibility of finally getting to know the person I’d locked away all these years made everything seem less tragic. For the first time in over a decade, I would be on my own.
For the first time in my life, I could be me.