It’s not as if he’s calling to chitchat. We don’t do that anymore. I no longer call him to share cute Ethan stories, like I did when we were together. Back then, I would leave messages during the day when he was teaching. I’d say, “Did you know his preschool teachers call him the Mayor of Manhattan Day because he knows all the kids and all their parents and says hi to everyone?” Or “Ethan insisted on making me breakfast today, so I had raisin bread stir fried in milk and brown sugar. Yum.”
It’s not that Ethan stopped being adorable. It’s that you cease sharing the cute little stories when you’re divorcing.
“I wanted to check in again about the meeting. The one I asked you to attend. You said you’d consider it,” he says.
I step into the hall. I’d nearly forgotten his request. “I’m going to be honest here, Aidan. I have a lot on my plate. My record label needs an album I’ve barely written, I have a few gigs coming up, and then there’s that little matter of raising our son half the time.”
“I know,” he says sympathetically. “And if you want to say no, I completely understand and respect that. I simply wanted to ask.”
“Ugh,” I moan, and his routine reminds me of how our marriage was. “Why do you have to be so f**king nice and considerate all the time?”
“Because I care about you, Jane. You’re the mom of my kid. And you’re kind of a cool person too,” he says, as if the answer is obvious. “I’ve always cared about you. I always will.”
I feel a hitch in my throat, and the tears that pricked my eyes back at the karate studio well up again. I hate that I still feel this way. I wish for just a moment that he could make it easier for me to hate him. Couldn’t he at least have had the balls to cheat on me? Couldn’t he at least have given me the satisfaction of having had a quick screw in a bathhouse? A long and sordid affair with Tom?
But he’s not that person. He’s a good guy. He’s a kind man. He’s a great dad, and yet sometimes all I want is to go Alanis Morissette on him.
Like the night I showed up at his new place a month after he left me. The early shock had worn off and anger had set in. Natalie had come over for Chinese takeout, and after I ranted—and moaned and cried—I asked her to stay and watch a sleeping Ethan because I needed to visit my ex to give him a piece of my mind.
“Where’s Tom?” I asked, after he buzzed me in.
“He’s working. We don’t live together though,” Aidan said calmly. “Where’s Ethan?”
I smacked my forehead. “I am so stupid! I left him at home all alone. Do you think he can handle that?”
Aidan didn’t take the bait. He simply said, “What can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me?” I repeated as I began strolling around his apartment. “What can you do for me? You could roll your eyes. You could say something nasty when I make a sarcastic remark. You could raise your voice. How about that?”
Aidan leaned against the counter in his kitchen. “What would be the point of all that?”
“The point? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe to demonstrate you have an emotion. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t have any emotions for me. Nope, not a single one. So you can just stand there all cool and casual and unbothered. But what about me?”
“What about you?”
“You led me on for years! You made me a fool. You made me feel so stupid.” I pushed my hands through my hair, anger like I had never felt before rising through me.
“I’m so sorry, Jane. I never wanted to hurt you. You have to know that.”
“You’re sorry? Who cares that you’re sorry? Couldn’t you have figured out, oh, say, maybe when you were twenty that you preferred men? Would that have been so much to ask?”
“I didn’t marry you thinking this would happen. I swear.”
“You kissed a guy in college, Aidan,” I said more quietly this time. “Didn’t it occur to you that you might be g*y?”
Aidan turned away then, reaching for two tumblers and filling them with water from his Brita filter in the fridge. “Have some water.”
“I don’t want any water! I want to know why you led me on. I want to know why you slept with me. I want to know why you didn’t come out before you married me.”
He took a drink from his glass. “I didn’t know then. I wasn’t sure. This hasn’t been easy for me, either.”
“Fuck you, it hasn’t been easy for you! You’re a coward, Aidan Stoker. A coward. You couldn’t even dump me without help. You had to have a friend come over. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”
He just shook his head.
“Well, I hope you never have to know.”
Then I spotted his cordless phone on the kitchen counter. I reached for it, raised my arm over my head, and threw it as hard as I could at the faraway living-room wall. It smacked the wall and landed on the hardwood floor with a satisfying clunk, spitting up its battery case and battery. Aidan walked across the room, picked up the phone, and put its parts back in. Then he returned to the kitchen and placed it safely back in its cradle.
He reached for my arm. The feel of his hand wrapping around me hurt too much, searing me with all that I’d once thought it meant—and all that it never was.
“I’m sorry, Jane. I never meant to use you. I never meant to lead you on. I loved you. I still love you. I just don’t…” He let his voice trail off. “I wish I could say something to make you feel better.”