to leave, look how you still care for me.
But he is still limp. What am I doing wrong? My knees hurt. I want to change position, but I’m afraid to move. I take in more of him, change my rhythm.
And now, still soft, David pulls away from me. I don’t know where to look. Even in the worst of times, this has always worked.
I sit back on my heels, looking down at the floor, hear him zip up. My humiliation is huge in me, it holds me to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I nod.
“It probably isn’t a good idea, anyway, Sam.”
“No.”
“I should go.”
“Right.”
“Are you okay?”
Nothing.
“Sam?”
“Yes. I’m … You should go.”
“Is there anything else you needed to talk about?”
“No.” Here, in my stomach, a blunt feeling of something landing. And then a slight nausea.
He stands, reaches down a hand to me.
“Just go,” I tell him.
I hear the front door close, then his car door. I go to the window, watch him drive away. I should have tried to recall a scene from one of the adult movies we’d rented, something we tried a few times when our lovemaking had sputtered, then stalled. But when I think of those movies now, I can only remember how sorry I felt for the women—their terrible, flat eyes, their bad teeth.
The movies hadn’t worked at the time, either. The last time we’d watched one, I, lying beside David in the obligatory flimsy black nightgown, aware of his erection, had nonetheless asked, “Oh, God, what would their dads think?”
David had frowned, and I had stared at the screen, thinking, well, what would they think? Some of the girls had bruises—subtle bluish marks that the makeup couldn’t quite cover. The background music was so ridiculous, and the moaning so loud and urgent it was completely unconvincing. “I think there ought to be some element of surprise in the plot,” I said. “And there needs to be some vulnerability in the characters. In the men.”
“What the hell do you think this is for, Sam?” David asked, then sighed and turned the TV off. Which I was glad about. Who could watch those things, really, and not laugh? Or weep? I always envisioned the girls coming home from those jobs, their heels click clicking back to too-warm apartment vestibules, to dented mailboxes with only bills in them, the girls’ first names indifferent initials.
He was trying to tell me something, renting those movies. Why didn’t I listen? Once again, I feel a movement in my stomach, a nausea. I go upstairs quickly and vomit in the hall bathroom. After I flush and turn on the cold water to wash my face, I hear a knocking at the door. I open it to find Travis, his eyes squinting in the light. “Are you sick?”
I reach down to hug him, kiss his cheek. “No, I’m okay, honey. Go back to bed.” I watch him start back toward his bedroom, then call, “Travis? Were you sleeping till now? Did you just wake up?”
“Yeah,” he says sleepily.
“Okay. Good night.”
What could I have been thinking? What if Travis had come downstairs? “What are you doing, Mom?” he would have asked. “Gross!” I would have pulled away quickly, fingered the button at the top of my silk blouse, blushing furiously, and David would have zipped up fast, covering his uncooperative penis that had lain in his lap like a grubworm. Actually, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to be discovered. At least then David would have been embarrassed, too.
I gently close Travis’s door and go into my bedroom, sit on the bed for a long moment. Then I remove my wedding rings and put them in my jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one.
I go down the hall and into Lydia’s room, turn on her bedside light. It’s a comforting space: a white afghan folded over a chair, a hardback book with a faded blue cover lying on the footstool, bookmark in place. A faint smell of lilac. I look around, feeling only a little guilty. There are photographs on the dresser, gold and silver frames on a white-lace runner. I pick up one of Thomas, hold it under the lamplight to see it better. He must have been a very handsome man, in his prime. His eyes are still an arresting blue, his gaze steady and direct. His ears are large and they stick