The Potluck Club (24 page)

30

Marriage on Toast

It’s another day, Lord,
I prayed from my usual place at the kitchen table.
Another day of getting up early to talk to you, waiting for the
annoying sound of my husband coming down the hallway of our home.
Another day of hearing him say “Goldie, you got breakfast started?”
about two seconds after he turns on
Fox and Friends
. And another
day of pretending I don’t know what’s going on with him and Char
–
lene Hopefield . . . of holding on to a marriage that’s not really worth
holding on to.

Somehow, on the day I’d gotten the phone call from Lucy, the day I’d found the photograph of Jack and Charlene, the day Olivia had called wanting some stupid recipe for Lord-only-knows-what and come rushing over, my daughter had managed to talk me into staying with Jack.

“I’m leaving your father,” I’d told her as soon as we were in the living room. I will admit I was dramatic about it, but in a subdued sort of way. I was sort of like Gloria Swanson coming down that long staircase at the end of
Sunset Boulevard
. I had no idea where I was going, but this was my defining moment. Every minute since the day I’d received my first piece of jewelry from Jack (other than my wedding rings, of course) had led to this one moment in my life. “Mom, no,” she’d said, plopping her slender frame down on the sofa opposite the chair where I was sitting. “Please think about this. For me, Mom,” she pleaded. “And for Brook. Brook needs for his grandparents to be together.”

I stood and moved away from her and into my bedroom; her entreaty was too much for me to be able to hear at the time.

She was fast on my heels. “Mom,” she said, “I know this has been awful for you.” I turned to look at her, noticing that her green eyes had welled up with tears and that it looked as though she hadn’t even taken the time to brush the short curls of her red hair before coming over. I ridiculously wondered if she’d taken my grandson to preschool with her hair in such a tussle. “It’s awful for me too. My gosh, my whole life I’ve known the truth about Dad,” she confided.

“You have?” It was my turn to plop, and I did so on the bed. “I’m so sorry, Olivia. I should’ve left him a long time ago. I should’ve spared you all this pain.”

Olivia crossed the room and knelt at my feet. “No, Mom. Don’t apologize for his wrongdoings.”

“And I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. After all, he’s still your father.”

“Don’t apologize for that, either, Mom.”

I threw my hands up and let them drop back down. “Then what are you saying, Olivia? This is where I am right now. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

“Have you talked to Dad about going into some kind of therapy?”

I laughed. “Here in Summit View? Where are we going to find a counselor in Summit View?”

Olivia fell back on her haunches. “Well, maybe not here in Summit View, but what about in Denver or even Vail?”

“Do you honestly think your father would drive hours to have someone tell him to stop sleeping with half of the state? Like that would make all the difference in the world?”

“Don’t, Mom. Don’t be so crude. What about the pastor? Counseling with someone like that?”

“Olivia, your father is an active church member. I can hardly imagine him sitting across from Pastor Kevin’s office desk, talking about his adventures in adultery.”

“Don’t be so negative, Mom.”

I stood, sidestepped her, and moved back out of the room and back into the living room. “Don’t, don’t, don’t. Do you have any advice you can call proactive?” I called behind me, knowing she’d soon follow.

And she did. “I’m going to assume you’ve prayed about this.”

I spun around. “Of course I have prayed about this!”

Olivia paused, crossing her thin arms. “Mom, I know you love the Lord . . .” She paused again for good measure. “I know you do. But sometimes when you pray—and I know because I’ve heard you—you do more whining to God than getting specific with him about what you need.”

“Olivia Brook Dippel, I cannot believe what I’m hearing.”

“Just think about it, Mom. Just think about it . . . and while you’re thinking about it, think about holding on to your vows with Dad, okay?”

“What about his holding on to the vows he made with me? What is it they say? Cling only unto each other?”

Olivia looked at me with a furrowed brow. “That’s cleave, Mom.”

“Cleave?”

“Cleave . . . not cling.”

I sighed. “Well, what in the world does that mean?”

She paused, thinking. “It means . . .” she said, bringing her hands together and lacing her fingers. “It means . . . well, I guess it means to cling.”

“Well, your father has been clinging or cleaving or whatever you want to call it with someone else, and I’m sick of it.”

“I know, Mom, just . . . please, don’t do anything rash.”

I promised her that I wouldn’t, then—just as soon as she left—went back to Jack’s office to look up
cleave
in the dictionary, only to discover it had two meanings. One was as an intransitive verb—to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly. The other was as a verb—to divide by or as if by a cutting blow. There was so much irony in the difference that I had to laugh out loud.

Do I whine, Lord?
I prayed later.
Do I? Is that what I’ve been
doing all this time? If I have, I certainly haven’t meant to. I only

wanted you to hear what my heart has been crying for such a very
long time.

Well, maybe I have been whining. So let me get real specific with
you. I need a miracle here. I ask you with all the reverence I have to
bring Jack Dippel to his knees and back into our marriage the way
he ought to be. Make it so he can’t stand to look at another woman
again. Make it so he wants to look at me the way I’m sure he looks at
Charlene Hopefield.

The only thing I could do after that was wait. Of course, the news about Jan Moore made my problems seem trivial, giving me something to think about other than my life and the mess I’d made of it. It also gave Jack something he could actually discuss with me besides the stats from the Gold Diggers’ football team. How horribly sad is that?

I heard the sound of
Fox and Friends
before I’d realized Jack had made it in to the living room. “Breakfast about ready, Goldie?” he called.

I closed my Bible quickly, picking it up and carrying it over to the kitchen counter. “Shortly,” I called back. I heard a quiver in my voice, and I mentally kicked myself for it.
All right, Lord
, I offered up one last plea before I served the breakfast casserole (I’d just found the recipe in one of Lizzie Prattle’s discarded women’s mags).
It’s been days and days since I asked you for changes, and not a
thing in this world has changed. In fact, I’m not so sure that it hasn’t
gotten worse. But I’ll trust you a little longer.

I walked over to the oven and retrieved the casserole that had been warming there for the past half hour. I set it atop the stove, then methodically reached in the nearby cabinet for a plate. Jack entered the room just as I was pouring his coffee into a mug at the kitchen table. I glanced up at him momentarily, then returned my attention to pouring. “Morning,” I said as politely as I knew how.

Jack was dressed in a dark blue sweat suit and warm socks, his standard fare for chilly mornings on the football field with his team. His silver hair was still unkempt, and he looked pale. For a fleeting moment I wondered what Charlene saw in him. Then again, perhaps she’d never seen him so early in the morning. “Morning,” he returned, sitting at his place at the table.

I returned the coffeepot to the coffeemaker all the while thinking,
Well, of course she’s never seen him first thing in the morning. He’s
always come home, hasn’t he?
Not once had he not returned.

I heard Jack’s fork drop. “What is this?”

I turned from the counter. “What is what?”

He pointed to the casserole on his plate. “This. What is this?” I stepped over to the table, to the opposite side of where he was, and clutched the back of a chair. “It’s a breakfast casserole I read about in a magazine. It looks good.” I tried to keep my voice upbeat. “Did you try it?”

“No, I didn’t try it. It looks like eggs and cheese and some kind of meat product all mushed together.”

I placed my fists on my hips. “Isn’t that what a casserole is?” I asked. “A bunch of foods mushed together?”

“I like a basic breakfast, Goldie. You know that.” He looked down again, then back at me. “Well?”

“Well what?” I shifted my weight slightly.

“Well, make me something I can eat. If I’m going to work every day to support you, the least you can do is make me a breakfast I like.”

“Is that what you think? You think I’m just here to make you food so you can . . . what did you say? Support me? You don’t support me, Jack.”

Jack stood, grabbed the mug by its handle, and then banged it down on the table like a judge’s gavel. Black coffee went everywhere, pooling along the tabletop and running in fat streams off the sides and down to the floor. “Now look what you made me do,” he said. “Hurry up and clean this mess, Goldie.”

I turned and grabbed a dish towel, then slung it at him. “You clean it up,” I said, then turned on my heel and left the room.

“Now just hold up there, Goldie,” Jack ordered, following behind me, leaving the spilled coffee to clean itself. “Look around you, why don’t you, and don’t you dare talk to me like that. Have you been watching Oprah or something?”

I burst out laughing in spite of my anger. Or, perhaps, because of it.

“That’s it. You’ve been watching Oprah. She’s been telling you to stand up to your husband, is that it? Well, I’ll tell you what; when you make the kind of money that woman is making, you can throw dish towels at me all morning long if you want to.” He slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, but what am I saying? When was the last time you worked? Huh? Oh . . . let me think. You’ve never worked. Not a day in your life, at least not since you’ve married me and had me to take care of you.”

“Excuse me? What do you call taking care of this house? Washing your dirty underwear? Being there for you anytime you needed someone to be there? Raising your daughter? What are you thinking—that being your wife has been some sort of cruise around the world?”

“Hey!” Jack exclaimed. “You don’t like it . . .” He pointed toward the front door. “You know where the door is. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”

I shook my head sadly. “Oh, and I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone to take my place. Some poor, poor, pitiful soul. Someone like . . . oh, let me think,” I mimicked him. “Charlene Hopefield.”

It was a delightful moment. I watched the pallor of his face grow ashy, then deepen to something akin to purple. “Who told you about Charlene Hopefield?”

I laughed again. “Oh, Jack. You pathetic man. Do you think I’ve been stupid all these years? I’m as sharp about your runnings-around as your mother was about your father’s. And don’t tell me you don’t know about that.”

Jack pointed to me. “You keep my mother out of this.”

I snorted. “Oh, please.” I turned and headed back toward the kitchen. “Go to work, Jack. Maybe you can meet Charlene in the teachers lounge before the school bell rings, eat yourself a stale donut, and toast your infidelity with a cup of coffee.”

When I got to the kitchen I began to shake. It was only the lightest quivering at first, but as I heard Jack moving about—doing whatever it is he does to finish getting ready for the day—it grew so violent I had to stop what I was doing and wrap my arms around myself. I took deep breaths, attempting to steady the erratic pounding of my heart. I thought about praying but decided against it. I was too angry at the moment. I had nothing, really, to say to God. Nothing except
Just let me get through these next
few minutes, Lord. Just get him out of the house so I can think, why
don’t you?

Jack left the house way before 7:00, giving himself plenty of time to get to work, where I imagined he would seek out his mistress. Maybe he’d tell her about my casserole. Perhaps they’d even laugh about it. Or he might even tell her I’d been disrespectful to him . . . how he’d spent all these years “supporting” me and now I was treating him like yesterday’s trash. He’d say things like, “I told you, Charlene. My wife just doesn’t understand me . . . doesn’t appreciate me.”

“I know, I know,” she’d say, then slip her arms around him and kiss him deeply and passionately, the way he used to kiss me all those years ago by the pool in Washington, D.C., and in the early years of our marriage.

I touched my lips with the tips of my fingers. “I gotta get out of here,” I whispered to no one. “I can’t live like this anymore.”

Two hours later—with the kitchen cleaned up and the bed stripped and remade—I arrived at Olivia’s house with a large suitcase in one hand and an overnight bag in the other.

“Mom.” She stood on the other side of the glass storm door, her eyes darting from my car parked in her driveway to the luggage in my hand. “What are you doing here?”