Read Online Trouble by Kate Christensen - Free Book Online

cat’s.
    “Go on,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”
    “I guess,” I said, “I’ll talk to Anthony tonight, which I’m dreading, tell him I want a separation, and figure out where to go. It’s his apartment, or at least it was all those years ago when I moved in. And I’m the one who wants to leave, so I should be the one who mostly deals with the upheaval.”
    “You sound so calm about it all,” she said.
    “I’m scared and sad, but mostly it’s a relief. I realized last night that I’ve felt dead for so long.”
    “You know,” she said, “it’s strange; I never had the slightest idea you felt this way. You always said things were going well.”
    “I don’t think I could admit it even to myself. I think this has been brewing a long time, underneath, the way things do when you try to avoid them.”
    She hesitated, as if she had something to say and was trying to think of the best way to put it. “You and Anthony have been married a very long time.”
    “Fifteen years. The first five were good.”
    “My grandmother would say to you, ‘Does he beat you? Is he a drunk? Is he in prison? No? Then why are you leaving him?’ That’s what she said to my mother when she left my father.”
    “He ignores me,” I said. “I’m so bored by him, I could throw up. He won’t do anything to improve matters. He thinks this is just the way marriage is.”
    “He’s a catch,” said Indrani. “Seriously. You’re lucky to have him. He’s brilliant and good-looking, and he makes a good living and comes home every night and is a good father.”
    “All true,” I said. “But that’s not enough. I realized last night that I am withering on the vine, so to speak. Anthony is like the perfect shell of a husband. All the insides are missing.”
    “So you picked up a guy in a bar?”
    “He didn’t matter,” I said. “He was just a symptom.”
    “Anthony doesn’t know any of this yet, right?”
    “That’s right,” I said.
    She waited for me to go on.
    “It was a stupid thing, what I did last night,” I said, “but like I said, it’s a symptom, not a cause. It wasn’t the point. Anthony refuses to go to marital therapy. He refuses to address our problems. He does not see me anymore. He might not even notice I’m gone; that’s how indifferent he’s become to me.”
    “I hope he surprises you,” said Indrani.
    “He won’t surprise me,” I said.
    “Are you willing to give him the chance?”
    I laughed. “Anthony? I’ve given him nothing but chances.”
    “Oh, Josie,” she said. “This whole thing makes me sad. If you guys can’t make it, then who can?”
    “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Please. That isn’t what I need right now.”
    “Are you sure?” she said, watching me closely. “I feel like maybe you haven’t thought this through entirely. It feels a little hasty to me, a little extreme.”
    “Maybe so,” I replied. “But I’m not asking for advice, I promise.”
    “I believe,” she said, “that friends have to question each other. We have to be sounding boards for each other. We can’t just take everything the other one says and does at face value and accept it blindly. I would feel like I wasn’t being a good friend if I didn’t say these things.”
    “I agree that friends should be honest,” I said. “And I appreciate your concern. But I can’t help feeling a little judged, or something.”
    “Well,” she said, “maybe no one can be totally nonjudgmental about anything. I’m sure you think I was a fool about Vince. How could you not? You were very understanding and supportive, it’s true, and maybe I’m not as good a listener as you are; maybe I’m not as tactful. But you must have secretly thought I was an idiot for letting Vince live with me for so long, for spending all that money on him, and you were right.”
    I had a sudden clear memory of sitting with her in this living room after she’d caught him cheating and kicked him out, my