A Week as Andrea Benstock

“Do you remember if they had fights? You could have heard loud arguments without knowing what they were about.”

“I don’t think I ever heard either of them raise their voice to the other. I suppose they were very good at keeping up a good front for me while all this was going on. Another thing, I was probably not very perceptive in that area because it never would have occurred to me to notice anything. I just so completely took it for granted that they were happy with each other.”

“How did it work out?”

“What? I was thinking of something, I didn’t hear you.”

“I just wondered how it worked out. Obviously they stayed together, but did she go into any detail?”

She nodded. “A certain amount of detail. She said her first reaction was to give him a divorce. She said it was a terrible shock to her pride, and here she was comparing herself to Linda. She said her pride was probably hurt less than Linda’s because Jeff’s affairs were conducted publicly. The whole state of Arizona knew he was fucking around. She didn’t phrase it that way.”

“No kidding.”

“Whereas my father was discreet. There was him and this woman, and then my mother knew, and presumably this woman’s husband also knew, although maybe he didn’t. Since she never mentioned that the woman had a husband I can’t know for sure that he knew what was going on. But the point is that nobody else knew.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just wonder. There must have been other people who knew. I bet that woman had at least one friend that she told, and I wonder if my father may have had someone he confided in. And in the course of a couple of years I wonder how many other people heard a little gossip on the subject. You know how quickly gossip moves in this town.”

“Faster than a speeding bullet.”

“So I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the people in their little circle knew. But the point is that my mother didn’t know they knew. She didn’t have to face anything. So in that sense it didn’t matter so much whether they knew or not.”

“You were starting to say how everything resolved itself.”

“Yes. I wish I could remember exactly what she said and how she said it. There were a million questions I wanted to ask, you know, but I felt I had to restrain myself. Evidently what happened was that they decided to postpone any definite action for the time being. They wouldn’t take steps toward a divorce right away, and he wouldn’t move out of the house.”

“He never moved out of the house?”

“No. I don’t know if he slept in the same bed with her during all this. That was one of the questions I couldn’t bring myself to ask her.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But they spent their nights under the same roof, whatever bed he slept in, and appearances were kept up. And I was kept neatly in the dark, which was one of her main arguments. Until everything was absolutely certain one way or the other she didn’t want me exposed to any trauma, and this made sense to him, too, so the appearances were kept up.”

“But he went on seeing the woman?”

“Evidently. You see, they didn’t talk about it. There was a sort of agreement to that effect, although I doubt they bothered spelling it out. He went on seeing the woman for a while and then it burned itself out. That’s her phrase, incidentally. It burned itself out. Meaning, I suppose, the passion he and the woman had for each other.”

“Do you suppose they were in love?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been wondering about that. On the one hand I want to believe that my father couldn’t have been in love with anyone but my mother, and on the other hand I don’t want to think he’d be capable of wanting to end their marriage over a serious case of the hots.”

“Knowing your father, I’d say it might be a case of the hots, and where did you get that expression, by the way?”

“It’s fairly awful, isn’t it? I think I read it somewhere. I’m sure I never said it before.”

“Well, if you never say it again that’s all right, too. No, the point is that I would guess it might be a basically sexual thing with him, but that he would have to think it was love at the time. And that way it would blow over, or burn itself out I guess you said, because he or even both of them would reach a point where they saw that it was just passion, or the passion would begin to die down a little and they would realize that real love didn’t really enter into it. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That sounds more like your dad. From what I know of him, and I think I got to know him fairly well. God knows I thought a lot of him. And I don’t think any less of him on the basis of what you’ve told me tonight, Andrea.”

“Neither do I.”

“Are you sure? You shouldn’t, and I hope it’s true.”

“It is.”

He seemed relieved to hear that, and she guessed that on at least one level his relief had nothing whatever to do with her father.