CHAPTER 54

The Last Innate Truth

John aged considerably faster than Leda did. It wasn’t so much his body, or even his hair, which hardly had any gray at all even as he waded into his late sixties (she had to start dyeing hers at thirty-five). The real aging happened in the ever-growing distance between them in their life together. John retired. He spent his mornings doing crossword puzzles and drinking coffee in the old chair by the window. Then he’d watch TV in the bedroom for a few hours. Then generally he’d take a nap. Then he’d wake and watch a little more TV. Sometimes he’d come in the dining room and work on a miniature ship model he’d started, or he’d go to the kitchen for a snack. After that he’d eat supper, watch a little more TV, and then head to bed at around nine. At first Leda didn’t realize how routine his day had become. She herself worked a few years after he retired, because she simply couldn’t bear the idea of being home all the time with so little purpose. When she finally did retire, she expected that the two of them would spend their days going on little day trips or trying the new restaurant in town, but John had no interest in any of it, really. On a rare occasion she would get him to leave the house on Saturday for brunch, but that was about it. He’d carved out a life and a routine for himself that was so vastly different from what she wanted for herself. Without her realizing it, he’d become old.

At around this time Leda and Anne rekindled their friendship. They spent dinners together and afternoons at the park. Anne’s husband, Bill, was the same as John. He too rarely wanted to do much and was happy napping and eating and aging. The women bonded over it, but it was more than that. They relied on each other now for something they’d formerly received from men or their daughters, who were now all grown and busy with their own men. It was companionship, and closeness, and the forward propulsion of life. Between them was a vitality that kept pumping. There was no other name for it, really, but love. One summer they took a vacation together and as Anne said, “What color do you like?” holding up a mug, Leda had a stressing sense and she walked up to Anne and hugged her and Anne hugged her back. Neither of them needed to explain to the other why.

But as it was, only so much time could be taken up by friendship, so Leda found herself idling in her own life. Searching for something to do. She joined a pottery class. She read a lot. One afternoon she asked John if he wanted to go to the Rodin exhibit at the MFA. He said he was too tired.

“But it’s the last day,” she said.

John said he’d take a nap and think about it, but as she watched him walk up the stairs, cookies in one hand, the other hand on the railing, she knew he wouldn’t go. She asked Anne and checked to see if Annabelle was around.

“On the boat all day with Robert,” Annabelle texted. Followed by: “.”

Leda got dressed in her best blouse and put on her darker lipstick. She threw on her new coat and went to the museum alone.

She parked in the parking garage and locked her car and stood in line to buy her single ticket.

“Would you consider a membership to the museum?” the man asked her, and she thought, Yes, I would. But she didn’t buy it because she knew she wouldn’t use it.

She made her way over to the exhibit and walked around, standing up close to this statue and that. There were couples and young families all around her. A group of schoolchildren noisily moved from one room to the next. Momentarily the room was empty, and she walked around the marble floors, listening to her echoed footsteps as she walked up to The Kiss. And as she stood beside the statue, her own reflection shimmered and warped in the glass case that protected art from humanity, she had an epiphany so brief and so painful and so exhilaratingly true: The fundamental condition of womanhood is loneliness. As quickly as she realized it, she allowed it to pass over her. It was too late to do anything about it now.

She went home, and she and John watched an old movie together. She told him about the museum, and he listened and nodded and took part in the distant way that he could, never reaching, never touching, never hearing the marble or feeling The Kiss.

This was the final innate truth of womanhood. It persisted from age twelve to her death.