Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,158
pay work? Who would pick up the kids from school? Make them dinner? I never called to find out, because the truth is—and you have to hear this, Myron—the truth is that I didn’t want to find out. That’s right: I didn’t want to.’”
Rita looks at me as if to say, See? See what a monster I am? This part is new to me too. She holds up a finger—a signal for me to wait for her to collect herself—then reads on.
“‘I had felt so alone as a child—and this is no excuse, just an explanation—that the idea of being alone with four kids and working eight hours each day at a dead-end job, well, I just couldn’t bear it. I’d seen what happened to other divorcées, the ways they were ostracized, like lepers, and I thought, No, thank you. I imagined I would have no adults to talk to, and that, perhaps even worse, I’d lose my one salvation. I’d have neither the time nor the resources to paint, and I worried that under these circumstances, taken together, I would be tempted to kill myself. I justified my staying by reasoning that if the children had a depressed mother, that would be better than a dead mother. But here’s another truth, Myron: I didn’t want to lose Richard.’”
A dark sound emerges from Rita, and then tears. She wipes her eyes with the dirty tissues.
“‘Richard—I hated him, yes, but I also loved him or, rather, the version of him when he wasn’t drinking. He was brilliant and witty, and as strange as this sounds, I knew I would miss his companionship. Besides, I would worry about the kids spending time alone with Richard, given his drinking and his temper, so I would have fought to keep them with me all the time, and with him being at work every day, often going to late dinners, he would have agreed. And the thought of him getting off easy like that made me horribly resentful.’”
Rita licks her finger to turn the page again, but the paper sticks and it takes several attempts before she extricates the single sheet from the rest.
“‘Once, when I was very courageous, I told him I was leaving. I meant it, Myron, it wasn’t an empty threat. I resolved that I was done. So I told him, and Richard just looked at me, stunned at first, I think. But then a smile formed on his face, the most evil smile I had ever seen, and he said, slowly, deliberately, in a voice that I can only describe as a growl, “If you leave, you will have nothing. The kids will have nothing. So, be my guest, Rita. Leave!” And then he started laughing, and there was venom in his laugh, and I knew right then it was a silly idea. I knew I would stay. But in order to stay, to live with the situation, I told myself all kinds of lies. I told myself it would stop. That Richard would stop drinking. And sometimes he would, at least for a while. But then I’d find his hiding places, bottles peeking out from behind his law books on the shelf in the den or rolled up in blankets on the top of the kids’ closets, and we’d be back in hell.
“‘I imagine what you’re thinking right now—that I’m making excuses. That I’m playing the victim. It’s all true. But I’ve also thought a lot about how a person can be one thing and another thing, both at the same time. I’ve thought about how much I loved my children despite what I let happen to them, and how Richard, believe it or not, loved them too. I’ve thought about how he could hurt them and hurt me and also love us and laugh with us and help the kids with their schoolwork and coach their Little League games and give them thoughtful advice when they had disagreements with their friends. I’ve thought about how Richard would say he would change, and how much he wanted to change, and how he still wouldn’t change, at least not for long, and how despite all of this, none of what he said was ever a lie.
“‘When I finally left, Richard cried. I’d never seen him cry before. He begged me to stay. But I saw my children, now teenagers or about to be, getting into drugs and harming themselves, wanting to die like me. My son almost overdosed, and a switch