flipped, and I said, Enough. Nothing—not poverty, not giving up my art, not the fear of being alone for the rest of my life—nothing could stop me from taking the kids and leaving. The morning of the evening I told Richard I was leaving, I withdrew money from our bank account, applied for a job, and rented a two-bedroom apartment, one room for me and my daughter, the other for the boys, and we left.
“‘But it was too late. The kids were a mess. They hated me, and, strangely, they wanted to be back with Richard. Once we left, Richard was on his best behavior, and he provided for them financially. He would show up at my daughter’s college and take her and her friends out for fancy meals. And the kids soon remembered him differently—especially the youngest, who missed playing ball with him. The youngest would beg to stay with him. And I would feel guilty for leaving. I would doubt myself. Had it been the right decision?’”
Rita stops. “Hold on,” she says to me, “I lost my place.” She turns some pages, then picks up again.
“‘Anyway, Myron,’” she reads, “‘eventually my children cut me out of their lives entirely. By the time of my second divorce, they said they had no respect for me. They kept in touch with Richard periodically, and he would send them money, but when he died, his new wife somehow got all the money, and the children were angry. Just livid! And suddenly they remembered more clearly what he had done to them, but they weren’t enraged just at him—they were still enraged at me for letting it happen. They blocked me out, and the only time I heard from them was when they were in trouble. My daughter was in an abusive relationship and needed money to leave, but she wouldn’t give me any details. Just send the money, she said, so I did. I sent her money to rent an apartment and buy food. And, of course, she didn’t leave, and far as I know, she’s still with that man. Then my son needed money for rehab but wouldn’t let me visit.’”
Rita glances at the clock. “I’m getting to the end,” she says. I nod.
“‘I lied to you about something else, Myron. I said that I couldn’t be your bridge partner because I wouldn’t be very good, but I used to be an excellent bridge player. I declined your offer because I imagined it would put me in a situation where I’d have to tell you what I’m telling you now—that we’d travel to a tournament in a city where one of my children lives and you would ask why we weren’t visiting them, and I would make something up, say they were out of town, or ill, or what have you, but that wouldn’t work every time. You would get suspicious, and sooner or later, I knew, you would put the pieces together and realize that something had gone dreadfully wrong. You would say to yourself, Aha! This woman I’m dating is not at all as she seems! ’”
Rita’s voice quivers and then breaks as she tries to get this last part out.
“‘So that’s me, Myron,’” she reads, so quietly I can barely hear her. “‘That’s the person you kissed in the parking lot at the Y.’”
As Rita looks down at the letter, I’m floored by how clearly she’s spelled out the contradictions of her history. When she first came to me, she mentioned that I made her think of her daughter, whom she missed terribly. She said that her daughter had at one point talked about wanting to become a psychologist and had volunteered to work in a treatment center but then got sidetracked by her volatile relationship.
What I didn’t tell Rita was that she, in some ways, reminded me of my mother. Not that my mother’s adult life looked anything like Rita’s—my parents have had a long, stable, and loving marriage, and my father is the kindest possible husband. It’s that both Rita and my mother came from difficult and lonely childhoods. In my mother’s case, her father died when she was just nine years old, and though her mother did her best to raise her and her sister, who was eight years older, my mother suffered. And her suffering affected the way she interacted with her own children.
So, like Rita’s children, I went through a period where I shut my mom out. And while that had long passed,