Part 2 (2/2)

”I don't remember this,” I said. ”I remember us.”

”No, this was when we got back. It took a lot of maturity to do this, to ensure that I'd be able to stay if the worst case scenario happened.”

”I thought the worst case scenario was if one of us died.”

”This feels like that, only worse. I mean, we have to work together. We'll be in meetings together. Where will all of this emotion go? I don't know. I just know you and I can't live with each other anymore, but this is far from a clean cut. G.o.d, can you imagine if we'd had a child? Can you?”

Maybe blood runs cold is a bit cliche, but that's exactly how I felt right then.

”I was hoping...” I couldn't finish the sentence.

She stepped closer, curled her fingers around the back of my arm, gave it a rub. Warmth. Thawing. She spoke in rich tones, said, ”I know, I know. It just wasn't meant to be. I don't know how or why, but Mother Nature wasn't on our side. You'll meet someone else. You'll have that chance. It's a good thing, Mick. I really mean it. For both of us.”

At last I focused on the words on the page. A quitclaim deed signing over full owners.h.i.+p of the house to Frances. My signature, loud as thunder, right there. I rubbed my hand over it, the faint imprint of the notary seal. ”It's not real.”

”No, it's just a copy. We filed the original.”

”I mean, no, I mean it's not real. I never signed this.”

She pointed to my signature. ”You did. It's right there. I watched you sign it.”

I brought the paper closer. It was undeniably my signature. The tiny oddities only I knew about. But it was impossible. Not one memory. How? Why would I?

I shook my head. ”I swear, I didn't sign this. Never, under any circ.u.mstances...” My fingers dug into the paper, crumpling the edges. Then I let it go, dropped it to the floor. Looking to Frances. Waiting for something, anything, to save me.

She crossed her arms. ”No, Mick, please. Here I thought you would keep your word and be an adult about this.”

”Keep my word? But I am. I have. You left. Where am I supposed to live?”

”You said you'd find a place. Maybe a loft downtown.”

”A loft? Are you joking?”

”I don't know.” She stepped back. ”Don't yell at me.”

I hadn't yelled. I hadn't signed the paper. I'd never said anything about a f.u.c.king loft or a new house. I couldn't afford anything like that. What the h.e.l.l? And Frances, acting as if she was all afraid of me? It was like I'd stepped into some alternate reality.

”Frannie, this is...I don't know what to say. Something's gone very wrong.”

Her face was stone. A placid, a.s.sured expression. Like she'd just won a staring contest. She sank to her knees and picked up the doc.u.ment. Then she rose to full height, held the deed flat against her stomach with one hand, smoothed it as best she could with the other. She handed it back to me. ”I hope you'll do the right thing. But just in case.”

Frances retrieved her bag from the couch, a big one I had bought for her in Prague. She reached inside, pulled out another packet of doc.u.ments. Stood there, her back to me, sighing loudly before turning and offering them.

I knew what they were. It was inevitable that I would take them from her. But I left her hanging, arm outstretched, an awkward moment. I looked directly into her eyes, ignored the papers.

One minute? Maybe not quite?

”Mick.”

I didn't respond.

”Mick, it hurts enough already. Please don't make it worse.”

She'd said it with real emotion, as bitter as that might be. I tucked my tongue into my cheek and took the divorce papers.

”Thank you,” she said. ”We can do this and get on with our lives. I promise, I'm not trying to hurt you. It's because I don't want to hurt you that-”

”Shut up.” Sliced the air with my hand. ”Please...leave me alone.”

She shouldered her bag, hugged it close. ”I'll give you another week here to make arrangements. But don't do anything crazy. I know you love this place, and it would be a shame to see it damaged.”

”A week?”

”I need to come home. Please.”

I don't know why I cried. One moment I was shaking with anger, and then my jaw tightened, so sore, and I let loose. I swallowed hard. ”You're killing me.”

She came to me, hugged me tightly, my arms still at my sides. I couldn't make myself lift them, wrap them around her. I couldn't. I would want her too much if I did that. No. I sniffed and sniffed again and reached down deep to hold it all together. But then she turned her head just so, and her breath warmed my neck. My hands jumped, enveloped her, under her s.h.i.+rt, the skin on her back.

I said, ”Don't go.”

Frances lifted her head, retreated. ”I have to, I'm sorry.” She headed towards the front door. ”Just call me when you're ready.”

I didn't answer. I didn't move. Listened to the door open, close, her footsteps on the steps outside. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Mick, why did you have to cry? Beg? I took a seat on the couch and studied the deed again. Was I drunk? On painkillers? Why couldn't I remember signing this?

There was no way to deny it, though.

The date. Something about that date last year.

I walked into the study on the second floor, a small room with a gorgeous view of the backyard. It was my sanctuary, where I'd written so many failed poems, but also the three handfuls that I'd published before drying up. Minimalist bookcases full of cla.s.sic finds, chapbooks and collection from friends, colleagues, and visiting writers. Near the wide windows, a small 19th century writing table served as a desk. I composed with ink and paper first-very fine quality parchment and a fountain pen, just a habit to make the whole process feel more natural, tied in to the earth rather than blips on a computer-before transferring them to my MacBook. Landscape prints from Minnesota artists. A giant framed black-and-white photo of Frances and me on our wedding day, in the woods beside the stone Episcopal church back in Ma.s.sachusetts, where Frances' parents had lived since she was sixteen.

On my workbench, cluttered with ungraded student poems from last semester, handouts to be sorted, bills to be paid, was also my Moleskin planner. But that was the current year. Another ”elitist” tendency, I guess, but I used them every year. They were simple, cla.s.sic, like my poetry, my aesthetic for so many things in life. Like my literary heroes. I kept the older ones in a filing cabinet in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Downstairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt, unfinished except for the carpet we'd laid when we hoped to transform it into a family room, but we then had to admit to ourselves that neither of us watched enough TV to justify it. We would rather spend that time listening to soft music while watching the sun rise and set outside our windows. Watch the seasons change, as they did so magically here.

Instead, the bas.e.m.e.nt had become extra storage s.p.a.ce for our papers, our books, our seasonal clothes, our discarded antiques once replaced by newer antiques, our unfinished home improvement projects-a ceiling fan, tile for the downstairs half-bath, cans of Arctic White paint for the kitchen.

Two filing cabinets, one for taxes, expenses, bills. The other for writing or research related archives. In the bottom drawer, a stack of seven Moleskins. The one I was looking for was on top. I flipped through. November. November. She'd had me signing that deed on a Monday in November.

Yes, yes, November. I ran my finger down the events, some checked, some crossed through, some postponed. But there it was-a writing conference in Colorado, where I'd been invited by a friend of mine who worked in Boulder to appear on a panel about the resurgence of interest in the poetry of Richard Brautigan, a neglected beat writer better known for his novel Trout Fis.h.i.+ng in America. As an admirer of Brautigan's poetry I'd been glad to appear, although my influences since those days of youth had taken me in a vastly different and more serious direction.

Mainly I wanted to have fun, drink with my friend, and flirt with the women graduate students, all impressed by nearly any published poet, their smart-girl gla.s.ses and pretty legs. Not to actually do anything with them, G.o.d forbid, but to help forget about the troubles I'd been having with Frances. The catharsis at the Lake led to another freeze as soon as we got home, although it gradually melted so that by deep winter, we were enjoying each others' warmth more than ever. Of course, she'd already strayed by then, and I was only enjoying the excess desire stoked up from her infidelities. Had I never realized that, I might have said that we had reconnected as intimately as any two lovers in the history of time. But no, I was getting ”sloppy seconds”.

Anyway, back in November, though, I was enjoying a weekend of somewhat adoring crowds and amorous young ladies blending s.e.xuality with intellectualism in such a rich broth that I fell asleep every evening in my hotel room satisfied after bouts of imagining three of those aspiring academics, all so very different from each other and from Frannie, doing things to me I couldn't talk to my wife about, so I thought. She seemed to prefer the familiar...at least with me.

Yes, a great weekend, one that helped relieve so many tensions with relative innocence and allowed me to return to my wife a much settled soul.

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