Fantasia on an Ex-Wife

I wrote the other day about wishing so hard, squinting my eyes and concentrating so intently over my unending desire to see my ex-wife hit by a runaway bus, gored by a bull, crushed cartoon-style by a falling piano (or an anvil, even better!), tripping into a lava flow, falling into a sausage-making machine, etc. And I could approach slowly, see the look of recognition on her face, and then just so slowly and deliberately bend down and drop the biggest glob of spit I could muster onto her forehead, right between her sad, pleading eyes. And watch it ooze down the bridge of her nose into one of her tearful eyes. Oh, man, yeah, that would be so fantastic.

Yeah, I despise her that much. Sure, it's been over 13 years since I've last seen her, about 12 since I had any odious contact (forced to write alimony checks) with her, but the hatred and raw loathing has never diminished. Spitting in her expiring face would be a wondrous and beautiful thing (actually, urinating directly on her head and face as she dies would be better, to be quite honest), but writing it all out got me to thinking. What would the ultimate ex-wife fantasy really be?

Strangely enough, it's not about her death. It's about the kind of pain and suffering she put me through, the self-doubt, the uncertainty, the complete and total violation of all of the trust and loyalty that I'd placed with her, the lifetime of doubt and distrust she instilled in me for everyone around me. It would be about giving her back all of the things she gave to me when she walked out. I've been thinking a lot on this, and I think I've got it:

I'm relaxing on a weekday evening, sitting in the comfy chair (the Comfy Chair!) reading the newspaper, just taking it easy after dinner. Got a fire in the fireplace, and my feet are perfect in my new slippers. The kids are watching a video in the other room, and the wife is on the computer. Life is great and absolutely perfect, in my house with my family, the best place in the entire world to be. There's a knock on the door. I hop up to answer it and swing it open to see a faint, frail woman standing there. Okay, strange already. And there's a car idling in the driveway, a silhouette behind the wheel. It's either a wrong address, or some kind of bullshit charity appeal. I bet on the former, and am in no mood for either.

She looks up at me and says, "Hey." The eyes are familiar, as is the tone, and I'm wondering where I've run across it before. As realization starts to dawn on me, and before I can act or speak, she jumps in, "It's me . . . Beth." As she says that ugly, poisoned, fateful name, it all comes to me at once, the whole ripping, wrenching thing. A blinding white mental blink of memory: pain and confusion, self-doubt, rejection, repeated infidelity, no communication at all, just an emotionless departure, and even after I figured it all out on my own, no apology whatsoever, no admission of fault or guilt or remorse, just trite and hollow "I'm sorry you're in pain . . ." bullshit, trying to float above the filth and flee from the pain she'd created and then left behind. Not even the slightest hint of culpability, a whisper of having had a hand in the destruction and the pain, nothing but a blithe and consuming self-interested departure. I suddenly remember that she left her dog with me, my first Christmas gift to her, abandoning the unconditionally loving thing just as she did everything else in her life, me arriving home after weeks away to find it having been left alone in the house for days, no food, no water, filth all through the house, no fault of the poor dog. And that dog was the best friend I'd ever had. A huge unexpected rush of grief washes over me for the dead golden retriver, now about six years gone, my closest buddy I had in the whole goddamn thing.

But now I'm on home turf. I'm standing in the doorway of my house, my comfortable place, my fortress, and she's come here, to me. Something is on, and I want to know what. And why. I've had a good 15 years to think all about this stuff now, just turning it over in my mind as I paint the garage or mow the lawn, something to mull over during a long drive, late at night as I can't quite get to sleep, with never a mention to my wife, who will never understand the depth this thing brought me to. It's been years and years of thought and analysis, wishful planning, and now it's my magical dream come true.

I'd written a massive thing at the end, after the divorce, a rambling missive of almost 30 pages, every paragraph beginning with "I hate you because..." It had gone on and on, and I'd worked on it for weeks, making it my comprehensive personal statement of everything that was going on, a way to deal with all of my emotions, and the doubt that kept on going and going. It was a great albeit painful way to work through things, get them out and put them down, gain a bit of control and perspective. I'd had my best friend proof it for me, the only other person who ever read it, and he'd asked me if I really wanted to send it. I thought long and hard about that, and off it went, with the final paragraph a pathetic, pleading "...and I'll forgive it all and take it all back if you'll just come home." Very soon, within days, I was horribly ashamed I'd written that. Back then I wasn't sure if I'd written it as a plea, or as bait for that Final Encounter that I wanted but wouldn't get. Soon enough it was no longer an issue. I wrote it, it wasn't true then, or ever, but there it was, a relic of my time on the planet, the most painful and embarrassing reminder of the doubt and indecision she'd forced me into.

Now she's looking up at me, and I'm just staring back silently. No, I'm not going to say hello. No, I'm not going to invite her in. No, I'm not going to step down onto the porch to lessen the height between us; I'm enjoying towering over her. No, I'm not going to open the storm door any wider, talking to her through the pane. I'm not going to say a word, not a single fucking syllable, not a single sound. I won't even acknowledge her presence other than to look her straight in the eye. The talking is for her to do, just as it's always been up to her to do, since May 1992 when I saw her for the last time. Twelve alimony checks followed, all made out to "Lying, Adulterous Cunt . . .," and they all got cashed, right away, too. And that was that. There was some talk from a couple of mutual friends, frothy gossip of an apparent girlfriend in post-divorce holiday photo, indirect word of lean times living up in the Northwest. Then came the call from the former mother-in-law, a woman whom I respected enormously, a very smart and cultured and elegant and noble woman, a step-mother, of course. Beth had relapsed, the cancer back and just as bad as before, all of ten months after the divorce. I listened, not talking, then quietly said thank-you for the info, thank you for taking the time to tell me. Thank you for thinking of me and making this call, I know it's hard. But Beth isn't my problem anymore. She is none of my concern. She walked out of my life, made it clear she had no interest in me and hadn't for a number of years, and I have made the painful adjustments in my emotions and thinking and life, and I've reciprocated her actions and have excised her from my life. Tell her boyfriend, the Air Force officer she dumped me for, or the Christmas Card Girlfriend to care for her, like I did for those horrible 14 months. Let him or her, both of them for all I care, step right on in and get a taste of what I went through, back up the words of love and devotion and longing that Jet Pilot expressed so surprisingly spewed out in such deep cliche' in the letters I'd found. Well, Mom-In-Law explained, that's not possible because he told her he just couldn't handle it and left her. Just dumped her? Uh-huh. Well, that's pretty cold, but that's the guy she picked, that's the guy she wanted, not me. Two of a kind, I guess. I was the one who went through it all before and was prepared for more, the one who went to counseling for suicidal thoughts in anticipation of losing his wife. But I didn't make the cut. I'm the constant and true one, the one who was thrown away. Anything to tell her now? No, nothing at all. I've got nothing to say to her, other than something that would be exceedingly brutish and vulgar. Can we tell her you're sorry she's sick? No, not even that. It's tough for me to not say I'm glad she's sick again, it really is. I grieve for you guys, and what you're going through, because you all were always good to me and I loved you all a lot. But she has chosen her way, and I'm no longer part of that. She isn't part of my life anymore, other than a bad memory of almost seven wasted years. She wanted her own life apart, and now that's what she has. I've finally begun to really live that way myself. So let her live the life she wanted--it's all hers now.

And here she is now, looking up at me. I want to smile, knowing already that some measure of victory, some kind of vindication has come, just her being here. I don't know what's going on, but it's moving in my favor. I want to grin from ear to ear in retributive glee, but won't give in to that, at least not yet. I grudgingly push the storm door open a couple inches more, slide the stop forward so it'll stay open, and lean against the jamb, still looking down at her. Not even an expression of, "Well?" It's all on her, every single bit of this. I'm not going to help in the least, not one single bit. I have to remind myself: I am owed this.

The seconds click by, and I catch the slightest frown as she looks down. Then back up at me. I'm expecting either eyes welling with tears or a scowl of total disgust and fury in what she's trying to do. She doesn't know where to start, and my reaction, my lack of reaction has thrown her off. I'm thinking, still staring down at her as neutrally as I can. I figure she expected ranting and raving, screaming, raw and unbridled anger, all of the years escaping from me all at once, unorganized and easy to manipulate, so easy to bend to her flawed perception of who I am, with no idea of who I've become. Nope, that won't get me the satisfaction I want. And it will give her what she wants, and I won't let that happen. I want her uncomfortable and off-guard, unsure, all of the emotions she gave to me. I want her indecisive and full of self-doubt, not knowing what to do or say, for as long as possible. For the rest of her fucking life.

It's at least two minutes now, me standing there and her unable to begin. I decide it's the time to force soemthing. Without a word I back up, and close the door in her face. I wait just a second, and I throw the bolt.

If this is it, it's fine with me.

And back down I sit in that oh so comfortable leather recliner. Still warm. Now, will I hate myself if she gets in the car and I never see her again? Nope, not one bit. There was a lot more I wanted, but I kept myself together and gave nothing. I held out for what I'm owed. I was true to myself, and kept the promises I'd always made with myself, to never speak, or help, never offer the slightest bit of anything positive without her giving in completely and totally first. Those have always been my terms, and it will never change.

A car door closes, and I hear it depart. Okay, that's that.

I tell the wife, and she's intrigued beyond description. It's just the juiciest thing in the world, and she wants to be witness to it all.

Two days later she's back, this time with the wife answering the door, coming to get me as I work at the computer. Same thing, same scene, just a change of clothes for each of us. So, it's important, whatever it is, if she's come back. I open the door silently. No greeting from me, or one from her either. She looks at me and begins right away. Hey, she's learned a bit.

"I'm here to make things right." I'm silent, and have to scream inside myself to keep my face impassive. She continues, "I don't have a lot of time . . ."

There are a couple of words that I need to hear right now, right this minute, in this introduction, or it will go no further. I want her to say them without me prompting, especially without me demanding. I've got to hear the words come out of her before anything else will happen, before she's allowed to proceed. If she fails, this is over. She sighs, looking down, "I'm here to say I'm sorry."

I'm surprised at the emotional release I experience as she utters the words, like a massive spring let loose, a flood from behind a dam. Is that pride I find, somewhere deep inside me actually proud of her for doing this, for saying the words? Or my pride for holding out for so long for a principle, for actually getting something I figured would never come? I'm not sure what the release is, but it's real. Maybe the freedom from the anger and the hatred, but I'm still plenty full of that. Maybe just free of wanting so desperately to hear it for so many years, finally getting the thing I thought I'd never get. My own Holy Grail, now in my hand.

So there are the words I've never expected to hear. Now what to do?

Coldly, I blurt out, low, "Then apologize."

She's quick back, curt, "I thought I just did." Now that's the Beth I used to know.

"Wrong. You said what you were here for, but you didn't make any apologies."

She thought she'd gotten through it and was done with the humiliation, but now she's right back into it, and I'm elated. I want that defeat. I want that agony and despair and pain. I want her to suffer through every single excruciating second. I want it seared into her, how it felt to stand before me and admit it all. I'm teaching, and I'm punishing, and it's the punishment that is giving me the satisfaction.

She looks up, and begins, looking me right in the eye, "I'm sorry for what I did to you." And she just stops. She thinks she's going to just grit her way through it, with minimal admissions. I'm not going to allow that.

I wait, but am not about to let her off that easy. "And what exactly was it that you did to me? What are you apologizing for?"

"You know, the way I treated you."

Time to twist the blade a bit, "How exactly was it you treated me?"

"I'm sorry for leaving you..."

"And that's it, then? Just that? You're sorry for just that?"

"I'm sorry for cheating on you . . ."

Some movement now, enough for me to give her my terms, "Okay, that's some progress, to finally give me the truth that you didn't have the honesty, integrity, decency, common courtesy, or respect for me to give fifteen years ago. But there's a lot more to be said here, and we both know it. You're the one who has to explain, not me. That's the only apology I'll listen to, and when you're done telling me all about it, then I'll decide if I'll accept."

She's exasperated already, knowing that I'm playing her, working her. The sigh she lets out is both resignation and venom. She doesn't have feelings enough for me to really want to do this, but she's being driven by something, and she just might have the will to actually do this. "What is it you want from me?"

I've been ready for this since we parted ways in front of the county clerk's window, "I want the truth."

"I just gave it to you."

"I already knew that you were a using, selfish liar and whore and an adulteress. You've told me nothing new. I want all of the rest, every single bit of it. I want to know the names and the places and the times. I want every sigle detail. I want to know why you dumped me, the real reason why. I want to know why you wouldn't give me the courtesy of the truth and an explanation then. I want to know every single fucking detail of everything that happened. That's what I want."

"That'll take forever."

"Well then you'd better get started."

"Uh, I don't think I'm ready to do this."

"Then leave."

"I don't have a lot of time and--"

"I could care less about your time." Man, that was cold and hard, but it's the absolute truth. That's her third mention of this, and she's saying it for a reason. I'm getting the distinct impression that she's relapsed again, and this time there is no coming back. I'm coming to the conclusion that she's tying up loose ends, and this is one of the last ones. "Spit it out or leave."

"I'm sick again, and this time it doesn't look good."

Well, there it was, just as I figured. "So you've come here to blame me for your cancer again, huh?"

"No."

Time to twist the knife. "Go ahead. Please tell me all about how my relationship with you in the past 15 years has caused your cancer to come back. Please tell me all about how I've managed to give you leukemia, again."

A feeble, beaten "No."

And I keep hammering, "I remember you blamed me last time, so I'm just," pause, "You know, checking."

Again, a soft, "No."

I'm chippy now, "Well, that's good! We're making some progress now, I think. I didn't give you cancer, this time. All right!" Will she say it? Will she correct the record now? It's her chance to actually croak out a defeated, "You didn't cause it in the first place . . ." and I'm waiting for it. I've set the stage, rather gracefully, actually, for her to step right in and make yet another thing right. I'm waiting, but she won't say it. Fine.

I deadpan, "So why are you here?"

"My family made me come."

And I look to the car. Who is it? It's dark, and I just can't tell. So who would make that kind of case? Not her couldn't-care-less father, a guy who raised her with a succession of checks, buying her devotion and buying her way out of problems. But he didn't pay for any of the cryo-storage for the harvested bone marrow, I remember. Or any of the expenses of that trip. My folks laid out the $10,000 for that fun, and never saw a dime from them.

Not her brothers, the born-again psychotic or the chronic cut-up/fuck-up pilot. Neither of them had the depth of convictions of personal conduct to force something like this. So maybe it was Janet, the old mother-in-law. I doubt that, because she just wasn't a very motherly/maternal type, definitely not the kind to bond with her brand-new 23-year-old stepdaughter, especially on something as heavy as this. Grandma? Nope, she'd been dead for a number of years, almost certainly.

And then there was the uncle. I remember he called me a couple of times in the opening stages of the breakup, asking me what was going on. My response was simple: I don't know, ask Beth for the answers to what she's doing. He actually called her a "stupid cunt" over the phone, berating her for walking away from me and my honesty and love and devotion and integrity. He told me, and her, how stupid she was being. He was pretty strenuous, a good advocate for me, and I thought he was mighty tough on her, actually. But she deserved it, and if she had alienated one or more of her own family, that was all the better, I figured. He was a good guy, and went to bat for me. For that I remembered him very well.

"Well," I countered, "It's so good of you to have come to this action on your own." She gave a chuckling huff without looking up.

I was tired of her shit, and was ready to be done. "I've got nothing else to say."

She wanted to fight, or make it hard, draw me out, make me out the bad guy that she'd always fooled herself that I had been: "Don't you want to yell and scream? Don't you want to let me have it?" She looked up, "Don't you want to hit me?"

"You moron," I began. "You think I'd expend that kind of energy on you? That I'd give you the satisfaction of coming apart, of losing my cool? Is that why you're here, to provoke me?" I was grinning. She looked up into my eyes again. "Your family gets you to come here, whatever, and still you're only thinking about yourself. That's straight in character for you, though." I looked right at her, "The truth be told, I've always wished you were dead." And I waited just the right amount, "And now I'm getting my wish."

Man, that was harsh, and it felt so good, literally like connecting with a punch, feeling the power and the delivery, the follow-through, feeling the skin and muscle and bone rippling with the strike. Adrenaline shot through me; I felt great.

It was a master stroke, and she was silent, head down. Crying, maybe, but I could care less if she fell to her knees and wept like a castaway cripple. I wasn't going to touch her, let alone provide any words of kindness or support. She'd not yet earned anything. I waited a minute, and asked, "So what do you have to say?"

A quiet "I don't know."

My action was immediate. "Well, I've got a life here, and I pissed away too many with you, so it's time for you to leave." I closed the door and went back to the computer. My wife spied out the window, and gave me the report of how she'd slunk back to the car and left after about ten minutes. She said I'd been too hard on the ex, but I'd have none of it. As delicately as I tried to tell her, it still came down to a simple, "This is between her and me, and you really aren't involved other than being a spectator. Please just stay out of it." To her credit, she pretty much did, and she liked the drama.

Two days later was the last visit. Again in the evening, again catching me reading the paper. I was tired of the bullshit, tired of being pulled away from my life, back in time and emotion and attention to the wasted years with her. I was ready to be cruel and short, and that's how it went.

As I cracked the storm door she produced a thick envelope. She handed it over. "Here. Here's all the things I think you want." I opened it, and there were maybe about forty or fifty typed pages in there. Glimpses of names and places I recognized. So this was her confession, all typed up and stuffed into an envelope.

"Sorry, not good enough," and I handed it back to her. She thrust her hands into her pockets, refusing to take it. She was making her stand. "I want you, YOU, to look me in the eye and tell me what you did."

"It's all there," she offered, "I even signed it."

"No," and I softened a bit to make it clear to her, "What I want is for you to look me in the eye and give me the courtesy and respect of the truth, which you've never done. This is not about the facts, most of which I know, and those I don't I don't really care about. This is about you makingthe effort to treat me like someone you'd call a husband. I never treated you poorly. I treated you with love and devotion and honesty, always, unwaveringly." This was my 15 years-rehearsed speech coming out now, easy and flowing, "I had offers and propositions and opportunities you never knew about, and I always happily said no, because I had you at home, and we had an agreement. We'd made a promise to each other, and I stood by that. You'd thrown it all away within the space of a couple of years, it not sooner.

"It was all about you, what you wanted, what you felt you should be allowed to do, and something nagging like the truth or consideration of the guy who pledged himself to you was just ignored. I stayed honest for you, but you couldn't do the same.

"And now I want you to look me in the eye and come clean. That's what this is about."

She wasn't looking up, "It's all there."

I could see the refusal, and didn't want to debate, "Fine, then don't do it. Take your letter and go." I offered it again; her hands remained stuffed in her pockets. I tried one last time, "Here." And then I let it drop to the front porch at her feet. I closed the door and threw the bolt.

My wife watched her get in the car and leave. The envelope was gone. The next day it was in our mailbox. I wanted to burn it immediately, but my wife wanted to read it. I let her have it first. The I read it. Of course I read it, what would be the moral point of not reading it? Yeah, it was packed with details, essentially what I'd asked for. Names and places, and I was surprised that she was even looser than I figured she'd been, with a good six more guys in and out of the picture (and her--ha!) than I'd accounted for. Guys who I'd called my mates, on the sports field and at work. A bit or a surprise, but not really. And it didn't matter anymore, as I hadn't seen any of those guys in years either.

But nowhere in the letter was "I'm sorry" or "I apologize for..." Nowhere was there any admission of having done anything wrong, of having made bad choices, of guilt over the way I'd been treated. Once again she was too selfish to think of anyone but herself. That was not a surprise at all. She'd had her chance--hell, she'd had three separate chances--to make things right, and every single time she'd failed. When it came down to it, it was always more about what she wanted than what anyone else wanted.

I didn't figure I'd hear from her again. She'd made her shot at this thing, and I'm sure she thought she'd done the best she thought she could do. No follow-up, nothing else. About a year later I got word from a friend of a friend of a friend that she'd died. Only one surprise there; it didn't fill me with the joy and closure I thought it would.

What I really wanted was for her to rehabilitate herself. In the end, I had to admit that there was some part of me that still cared about her, to the extent that I hoped she would be able to redeem herself, if anything for her own sense of self-respect. I held my ground and my pride, being the wronged party after all, but gave her the opportunity--three times--to make it right, and she refused. Defiant and self-centered right to the end, literally. No big surprise there.