“Exactly what situation will that save?” Her tone was leaden.
“We can recoup some of our losses, learn from our—my—mistakes. I’m utterly gutted at failing you.” His voice cracked. “This time I’ll do it right, hire more support staff so I don’t have to spend so much time away from you. It’s been a rough road, but please don’t give up just yet.”
Oona hadn’t expected him to beg, to make it this much harder. With a gentle tug, she removed her hand from his grasp. “It has been a rough road. And I did what I could to keep us on that road, but at this point, we’re driving toward each other, playing chicken. One of us needs to swerve.”
“It doesn’t have to—”
“It does have to. Our marriage doesn’t live or die with your professional success. There are other reasons it’s not working.” Her voice wavered as an internal deluge of black, slippery feelings coated her insides. Shame. Guilt. “It’s not fair to expect you to stay in love with me when I’m not the person you knew before.” But it would be gutless to deflect the real reason, even if she couldn’t tell him the full truth. “And it’s not fair to expect this different me to pick up the thread of being your wife and fall in love with you all over again. I tried, but I couldn’t do it.”
A soft hiss escaped him as he sucked air through his teeth. “God, Oona, I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through.” His face flickered between dejection and desperation. He was the boxer taking punch after punch, refusing to stay down. “What if I walk away from Clary’s and take a break from the food game entirely? We could take more time and really try—”
“There is no more time.” She had to do it. She had to deliver the final blows. “I don’t want to try anymore. I can’t keep forcing it. I’m tired of the confusion and loneliness. I’m done.”
That silenced him. What a pity the sheen of tears gave his eyes such vibrancy.
Edward moved out the following week.
Their parting was amicable, like two polite strangers who got into a car accident. Neither wanted to blame the other. They exchanged paperwork promptly, eager to repair the damage and move on. The Gowanus property was sold and they split the proceeds.
October was grim as autumn crispened the air and dried out the trees’ leaves before denuding their branches. Where she should’ve felt relief at having the house to herself again, instead a fog of loneliness drifted in. Any kind of companionship offers a degree of reassurance, even the sporadic kind, even the wrong kind. Now that she’d been stripped of that companionship, stripped of her wedding band, a doomed mantra orbited her brain: I’ll always end up alone.
How long was it supposed to take to recover from a divorce? She wasn’t there for the elation at the beginning; couldn’t she be spared the grieving at the end? Apparently not. Yes, being a restaurant widow was painful, but being a divorcée came with its own cocktail of remorse and failure. The self-blame pummeled her: she hadn’t been patient enough, she could’ve tried harder to save the marriage—she could’ve fought her treacherous desire, found a new guitar teacher as soon as she began to fall for Peter. Maybe that’s what 2003 Oona was trying to warn her about on the subway.
She continued the lessons with Peter, but dropped down to once a week. Sitting in his apartment across from that Velvet Underground poster, her confounded heart tugged in different directions, at once drawing her toward him and pulling her away.
Maybe things could be better.
Maybe your heart has been through enough for now.
Maybe …
By mid-November, Oona couldn’t take any more uncertainty.
“I divorced Edward,” she announced during one of their lesson breaks as Peter strummed his guitar.
The room went silent. “Oh.” His hand hovered over the strings. “How are you doing?”
“It happened a couple of months ago. I’m okay. We weren’t married all that long, and I knew we didn’t have a future together. Actually…” She readied herself to ask him out, hesitated. How much of a future could she have with Peter, with her next leap six weeks away? Those could be some special weeks, though. Unless this is all one-sided. I need to know for sure. “I … Would you maybe want to get coffee sometime?” Such a hammering in her chest, would she even hear his reply?
“I would, but I recently started seeing someone. Unless you meant…” Tension between his eyebrows as if he wanted to say more.
“No, I didn’t mean as friends. I was asking you out.” If she was going to flame out, she’d own it. “I thought—you gave me that key chain—I must’ve misread things. And I’m sure the age difference doesn’t help.”
“Age difference? What are you, thirty-two, thirty-three?”
“Forty, but thank you.”
“Oh. So ten years.” He blinked away his confusion and shrugged. “That’s not an issue for me. And you didn’t misread things, it’s just—you caught me at a bad time.” Loose hair fell into his eyes and he shook it off, distressed. “Otherwise…”
“Of course. Bad timing. Story of my life.” At least it wasn’t all in my head. She stood and packed her guitar in its case. “I hope you don’t mind if we end a little early today.” It’s the little things you end up missing. The way he shook his hair out of his eyes? She’d miss that.
“No problem. I’ll see you next week.”
Though of course he didn’t.
“Everything has its time,” his tattoo proclaimed.
Not everything.
A week later, one last postcard arrived from Kenzie. Japanese cherry blossom trees on one side, and on the other:
I’m ready to come home. Next month. I’m sorry I won’t get to see you this year. But look at it this way: 2005 Oona will have something to look forward to.
—Kenzie
A bitter laugh thundered through her. How perfect: a punishment for something Earlier Oona did. “Of course. Of course this is how my year is ending.” But at least she’d have something positive to include in the letter she’d write to 2005 Oona.
On New Year’s Eve, she invited her mother over. They cooked Edward’s recipe for beef Wellington, which came out a little dry but the gravy salvaged it. Madeleine brought over several bottles of champagne and a birthday cake from an Italian bakery, for after midnight.
By the second bottle, they were laughing about Oona’s childhood exploits and Madeleine’s misadventures at Pan Am, when she paraded down plane aisles in a blue uniform and white gloves like she was working a catwalk. Oona was glad she’d begin her forty-first year with her mother, whenever she returned to it. At the same time, it was a relief to be leaving 2004.
Please let me be younger next year. Please let the next leap send me into the past.
Too bad she wasn’t more specific.
PART V
Here Comes Your Man
2003: 39/22
18
A shiver on the precipice of sleep, a lurch to catch an invisible stumble, eyes open, and Oona was in her kitchen.
“Happy New Year, my darling.” Madeleine leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Are you okay?”