boys that weekend. Nicky was now two and a half. His hair had stayed dark and his eyes had stayed blue, and he had the worldâs longest eyelashes. We took the children to Carl Schurz Park and talked while Dinah pushed Nicky on a swing and five-year-old RJ raced around whooping. She was talking, I remember, about wanting to get back to work. She had some book ideas; we always thought someday sheâd be on the best-seller list. Making the rounds of talk shows. Maybe having a talk show of her own. I asked if Richard had been out of town that week. Just for a night, she said. He was working on a deal in Toronto.
I asked if he supported her going back to work. She seemed surprised by the question. Whatever she did was fine with Richard. Richard was Richard.
And when Richard came home that afternoon and found us sitting together in the kitchen, drinking tea while the boys played with Legos at our feet, he looked at me as if I were a poltergeist, rattling the silver spoons in the drawer and causing the lights to flick on and off in his marriage. Dinah noticed nothing unusual. Richard made an excuse and left the apartment again, as if he didnât expect the place to be still standing when he got back.
I never told her. That left me the dislikable quandary of whether to come around as often as usual or stay away. I didnât want to stay away; there might be a time coming when Dinah would really need me. But what if she found out how long I had known, and had sat smiling and chatting while a bomb was ticking away under her chair? If it blew it was going to cover us all with scalding slime, not just Dinah.
Damned no matter what you do. Why do people think knowing secrets is fun? It was a miserable summer for me, as I guess it was for Richard too. The spark didnât get to the end of the fuse until one evening in October, when he hired a sitter and took Dinah out to dinner so they could âtalk.â People say that the betrayed spouse already knows on some level, but Dinah didnât. She thought he was going to say he wanted another child.
She was shattered. And if Richard thought she would take it quietly because they were in public, he was dead wrong about that. There are still people thirty years later whom Dinah wonât speak to because they were in the restaurant that night. On some molecular level, she blew apart, and when the pieces settled, which took years, she was never again the person sheâd been before.
You could say that if sheâd paid more attention to Richard she would have known, or it wouldnât have happened, but that doesnât make it true. I believe Richard was stunned to learn he could hurt her that much. He doesnât have an unkind bone in his body, Richard, but you can still do plenty of damage by failing to imagine other peopleâs realities.
At least he was serious about the girl, who has the old-fashioned name of Charlotte. She had worked for the decorator who was redoing his office. He married her as soon as the divorce was final, and they moved to Ardsley, where she tends her garden and raised their three daughters. Richard seems to be very content with Charlotte, and looking back itâs hard to imagine that he and Dinah ever thought they could build a life together. Itâs hard to suppose that a man as involved in playing squash and watching golf on television as he is could ever have been just as happy at Dinahâs Sundays.
Dinah kept the rent-controlled apartment and has never left it. She pays less than a thousand dollars a month for space that would go now, at market rates, for, oh, twenty times that. For decades her friends have said that if she was ever hit by a bus or a falling piano, the police would instantly arrest her landlord.
Richard felt so guilty about the divorce that he didnât make a very good advocate for himself. Dinah got full custody of the boys, child support for as long as they lived at home, full tuition for wherever
I asked if he supported her going back to work. She seemed surprised by the question. Whatever she did was fine with Richard. Richard was Richard.
And when Richard came home that afternoon and found us sitting together in the kitchen, drinking tea while the boys played with Legos at our feet, he looked at me as if I were a poltergeist, rattling the silver spoons in the drawer and causing the lights to flick on and off in his marriage. Dinah noticed nothing unusual. Richard made an excuse and left the apartment again, as if he didnât expect the place to be still standing when he got back.
I never told her. That left me the dislikable quandary of whether to come around as often as usual or stay away. I didnât want to stay away; there might be a time coming when Dinah would really need me. But what if she found out how long I had known, and had sat smiling and chatting while a bomb was ticking away under her chair? If it blew it was going to cover us all with scalding slime, not just Dinah.
Damned no matter what you do. Why do people think knowing secrets is fun? It was a miserable summer for me, as I guess it was for Richard too. The spark didnât get to the end of the fuse until one evening in October, when he hired a sitter and took Dinah out to dinner so they could âtalk.â People say that the betrayed spouse already knows on some level, but Dinah didnât. She thought he was going to say he wanted another child.
She was shattered. And if Richard thought she would take it quietly because they were in public, he was dead wrong about that. There are still people thirty years later whom Dinah wonât speak to because they were in the restaurant that night. On some molecular level, she blew apart, and when the pieces settled, which took years, she was never again the person sheâd been before.
You could say that if sheâd paid more attention to Richard she would have known, or it wouldnât have happened, but that doesnât make it true. I believe Richard was stunned to learn he could hurt her that much. He doesnât have an unkind bone in his body, Richard, but you can still do plenty of damage by failing to imagine other peopleâs realities.
At least he was serious about the girl, who has the old-fashioned name of Charlotte. She had worked for the decorator who was redoing his office. He married her as soon as the divorce was final, and they moved to Ardsley, where she tends her garden and raised their three daughters. Richard seems to be very content with Charlotte, and looking back itâs hard to imagine that he and Dinah ever thought they could build a life together. Itâs hard to suppose that a man as involved in playing squash and watching golf on television as he is could ever have been just as happy at Dinahâs Sundays.
Dinah kept the rent-controlled apartment and has never left it. She pays less than a thousand dollars a month for space that would go now, at market rates, for, oh, twenty times that. For decades her friends have said that if she was ever hit by a bus or a falling piano, the police would instantly arrest her landlord.
Richard felt so guilty about the divorce that he didnât make a very good advocate for himself. Dinah got full custody of the boys, child support for as long as they lived at home, full tuition for wherever
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