By the midnineties, the insurance game was changing faster than ever, and as with most changes, Abe was resistant to it. Personal lines commissions were going down as independent agents saw direct sales cutting into their market. Technology was also becoming a factor, and not in a good way. Email, spreadsheets, computer ratings, all of it came as a personal affront to Abe, who’d made his name and established his place in the industry, as well as the community at large, owing to those human elements once imperative to the success of the insurance agent: personability, trust, familiarity.
Abe’s plan had long been to pass the torch at Bainbridge Island Insurance, as Todd Hall had passed it to Abe almost thirty years ago, but the reality was that Abe had nobody to pass it on to. With so much turnover in the office over the years, he’d never quite developed a qualified protégé. There had been Ted DeWitt way back when, but Ted had been a bean counter, not the face of an agency. Thus, when Marsh McLennan and Company made a lucrative offer to buy out Bainbridge Island Insurance, Abe accepted the terms with little hesitation.
Not that Abe was ready to retire—the prospect was terrifying. But it was a transition he’d have to make sooner or later, and Marsh Mac’s offer had all but made the decision for him.
Abe’s retirement party was a collaborative effort between the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce and Kiwanis. The festivities took place on a Friday night at the St. Barnabas social hall, where Abe had attended so many Kiwanis functions over the decades. San Carlos catered the affair. Abe had not only insured Lee and Marianne’s restaurant since day one but paid out on two separate claims, a kitchen fire their first year of operation as well as a flooding incident last fall. This was good enough for a 30 percent discount.
The hall itself was nothing remarkable: low ceiling, linoleum floors, overhead fluorescent lighting, the walls adorned with Anglican church literature, and a stack of pamphlets in the lobby emblazoned with the church’s blue, red, and gold compass symbol. A hundred and twenty people showed up to bid Abe his farewell from the workforce—recent employees, former employees, longtime customers, fellow Kiwanians, local business leaders, neighbors, and friends, including the Duncans and the Jacobsons. In fact, it was the Duncans’ eldest son, John, from the chamber who served as the master of ceremonies.
“Hat tip to Ruth Winter for helping us get this thing organized,” he said. “Technically, that’s still Mrs. Winter to me.”
This comment drew the first of what would be two dozen polite chuckles to punctuate the evening.
“Thanks to San Carlos for the food,” said John. “Great chimichangas, Lee!”
Todd Hall, eighty-two years young and under two hundred pounds for the first time since high school, carting an oxygen tank with twin plastic tubes snaking up his nostrils, led off the roast, after a little difficulty getting up the riser to the podium.
“When I first agreed to sell Bainbridge Island Insurance to Abe back in the day, I was drunk,” he said. “Abe saw to that, didn’t you, Abe?”
Everybody sniggered, even as Abe felt his face color. For, though the story was offered in jest, it was nonetheless true; Todd had imbibed several double MacNaughtons that afternoon.
“But seriously,” said Todd. “I always knew Abe would do great in the insurance racket. He had all the tools and none of the ethics.”
This prompted another smattering of laughter from the group.
“One time,” said Todd, “Abe and I went to the art museum in downtown Seattle and Abe accidentally knocked over a statue. The museum administrator ran up to us, waving his arms, and said, ‘Hey, that’s a five-hundred-year-old statue!’ And Abe said: ‘Thank God, I thought it was a new one!’ ”
Encouraged by the ensuing chortles, Todd went right back to the well of tired insurance agent jokes.
“As you all know, Abe is just a big kid at heart. The only difference between Abe and a whole life policy is that the whole life policy eventually matures.”
Though friends and associates all laughed as though in recognition, the truth was that Abe was born middle-aged, something Ruth had gleaned within five minutes of meeting him in 1953. Still, Abe was touched by their amusement, their warmth, their mere attendance at such a pitiable celebration on a Friday evening in June. Here it was, the culmination of his life’s work, four decades of ambition and toil, of planning, and plotting, and scheming, and staying one step ahead in an ever-changing landscape, of peptic ulcers and parental absenteeism, nearly a half century of blood, sweat, and tears memorialized in a church social hall, replete with old jokes and warmed-over chimichangas. And yet, Abe could not help but be honored by all the fuss.
Ted DeWitt was next up at the podium. Still at Safeco nearly thirty years after Abe had landed him a job as underwriter, Ted was a bit jowlier, a bit balder, a bit more bag-eyed than Abe remembered, for Abe had only seen Ted a handful of times since he risked his livelihood for Abe, or more precisely risked it for Kelly Mathison and her children.
“Everything I know about the insurance business, I learned from Abe Winter back in the late 1960s,” said Ted. “No wonder I’m still broke.”
This prompted a chuckle from the crowd.
“Seriously, though. The first thing Abe taught me was that needing insurance was like needing a parachute. If it wasn’t there the first time, you probably won’t be needing it again.”
Though the well of tired insurance jokes was a deep one, Ted pivoted to a more genuine note, sharing the story of how Abe had suffered through Ted’s inept performance in sales but had seen his strength as an adjuster and went out of his way to set him up with a great job at Safeco. Standing left of the stage, his plastic cup of club soda getting flatter and warmer by the minute, Abe scanned the crowd until he found Kelly Mathison, knowing she had no idea what she owed to Ted DeWitt. Kelly happened to catch his gaze and blew a friendly kiss to him. She looked great, happy, and fit in her midfifties, her second husband standing beside her in Dockers and a blue dress shirt. More than the jokes or the fond remembrances, it was gratifying for Abe knowing that at least once, he’d done the right thing.
After the roast, Abe had a moment with Ted at the makeshift drink station, where Ted poured himself a plastic cup of white wine and Abe freshened up his club soda.
“Thanks for the speech, Ted,” Abe said, clapping him on the back.
“Of course,” said Ted.
“Incidentally, she’s here, you know?” said Abe.
“Who?” said Ted.
“Kelly Mathison,” said Abe, lowering his voice.
The name didn’t seem to light any bulbs for Ted at first.
Abe lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “The woman whose husband, you know…back in ’76.”
“No kidding,” said Ted. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”
“You’re a good man,” said Abe, and he meant it.
“Ditto, buddy,” said Ted.
Five minutes later, Abe found himself face-to-face with Kelly and her husband, Kurt.
“So, what’s next?” Kelly asked.
“Hang gliding,” said Abe.
“Really?” said Kelly.
“Nah,” he said. “To be honest, I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s exciting,” she said.
“If you say so,” said Abe.
Abe wished it were exciting. But he didn’t want to learn karate at sixty-five, he didn’t want to fish, or hunt, or drive all over kingdom come in an RV. He didn’t even want to go to France, or Egypt, or South America, as much as Ruth aspired to such adventures.
Abe barely saw Ruth throughout the evening, so busy was she with her duties as devoted wife. Abe finally caught up with her as the festivities wound down, the social hall half-empty, plastic cups tipped sideways on fold-out tables, Kiwanians breaking down the riser, chamber volunteers removing the streamers.
“Congratulations, mister,” said Ruth, pinching his cheek before planting a kiss upon it. “Well done.”
Abe took his wife’s cheerfulness to heart. It humbled him that after all they’d been through, Ruth seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of seeing more of him.
Leaning down to her five and a half feet, Abe planted a kiss on her forehead.
“Now the leisure begins,” she said.
As it turned out, Abe’s retirement was not all that Ruth might have hoped for. Now that it was Abe’s turn to empty nest, without an office to escape to, she found him insufferable: often touchy, frequently irascible, nearly always edgy. And yet, for all his restlessness, he refused to go anywhere.
“Let’s go to France,” she’d say. “You know I’ve always dreamed of Paris.”
“Too expensive.”
“What about Mexico?”
“And get dysentery?” said Abe. “No thanks.”
“Okay, Brazil.”
“I’ll tell you what, you go. Take Bess Delory down to Mazatlán or something, knock yourselves out. I’ll hold up the fort.”
But Ruth never called his bluff. Why not? Nothing against Bess Delory, but Ruth was not convinced they’d make the most companionable travel mates, and it was doubtful Abe would permit Ruth to go alone. And even if he would consent to it, as much as she’d longed to explore foreign locales as a younger woman—the bustling markets of Delhi, the waters of Tolantongo, the pyramids of Giza—now, a year shy of social security, the thought of traveling solo was more than a little daunting.
Ruth should have pushed him; he probably would have given in eventually. Instead, she begrudged Abe for his lack of curiosity and adventure. For all his initiative and prescriptive bootstrapperism, now that he was lost on the far side of middle life, he was not at all interested in finding himself. Moreover, the antagonism that had marked their political differences through the Reagan and Bush eras had extended well into the nineties. By 1997, Abe’s distaste for Bill Clinton bordered on pathological. The mere sight of the man on the evening news every night invariably aroused Abe’s contempt.
“People first, my buttocks!” he’d shout at the television.
“I don’t understand you,” Ruth said from her side of the living room. “All the man’s done is double down on Reagan’s economic policy, condemn big government, and play nice with Republicans. And you don’t like him why?”
“Because he’s slick,” Abe complained. “I don’t trust him.”
“You said the same thing about Kennedy.”
“You’re damn right.”
“Frankly, I’m beginning to think it’s personal,” Ruth said. “Are you sure it’s not his good looks that offend you?”
“Ha! That peanut head, good-looking? Are you kidding? You know what I see when I look at Bill Clinton? I see Royce Holiday with a haircut.”
Their squabbling extended well beyond the arena of politics. With both of them at home so much, their opposition had never been so ubiquitous; whether it was the temperature in the house, the volume of the TV, or when to feed the dog, Ruth and Abe could agree on virtually nothing. Even dinner conversation, once a bilateral neutral zone reserved for small talk, had become an uneasy accord.
“What do you mean by ‘too bright’?”
“I don’t mean anything.”
“Well, you said it, didn’t you?”
Nothing was too trivial to put them at odds. It got to where Ruth and Abe did their best to avoid one another, no small task in the same household, especially when the upstairs sat all but vacant, as it had in the decade since Maddie moved out. When Ruth was certain she couldn’t stand it a minute longer, she took the initiative.
“I think we should talk to someone,” said Ruth in the kitchen, while Abe was eating his All-Bran.
“What does that mean?”
“Like a marriage counselor,” she said. “Someone to mediate, to help us understand each other better, to help us develop some tools.”
Ruth was 99 percent sure that Abe would wave the proposition off, if not mock the idea outright, but to her astonishment, after brief consideration, a spoonful of cereal poised halfway between his mouth and the bowl, he consented.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll talk to someone. But nothing churchy.”
Just when Ruth had written him off as totally inflexible, Abe had subverted her expectations again. But the smooth pavement of his acquiescence did not last long. Two days later, Ruth produced a pair of referrals.
“Why does it have to be a woman?” he said. “Why not a man?”
“These were the best referrals,” she explained. “And why not a woman?”
“Because she’ll just take your side.”
“This isn’t about sides, that’s the whole point!”
She had him cornered.
“Fine,” he said. “But if she starts taking sides…”
Despite Abe’s considerable reservations, their first session with Tamara Selvar was a revelation. She wore her hair medium length, and dressed sensibly in slacks and fitted blouses, and wore flats. No jewelry, no makeup. Not traditionally feminine, and yet, not a lesbian so far as Abe could tell. Selvar’s manner was the sort of straightforward and assertive that demanded accountability, and Abe liked that, even when she put him on the spot.
“Now, let me ask you a question, Abe. Where do you see your marriage in ten years?”
Abe considered momentarily. “The same, I guess. The way it’s always been.”
“Is that fair, do you think?” said Dr. Selvar.
“Well, it’s worked so far. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, but that’s marriage, right? It’s not all moonlight and roses.”
“How much moonlight would you say there is?” said Dr. Selvar.
“Well, I…”
“Ruth?”
“Not much. None, actually.”
“Abe, would you agree with that?”
“Well, I…I mean, it’s not like we’re twenty years old, you know?”
“So, you believe romance is synonymous with youthfulness?”
“Well, yeah, mostly.”
“And why is that?”
“Because young people are naïve, they’re hopeful, they don’t live in an adult world.”
The more Tamara Selvar drew Abe out with these interrogations, the more Abe was forced to reckon with his own unreasonableness.
“Abe, what would you say you love most about Ruth?”
“I…well, I mean, a lot of things.”
“Give me an example.”
“I love that I can count on her.”
“How?”
“She’s always there for me.”
“That sounds like it’s more about you. What does it say about Ruth?”
“She’s dependable.”
“Okay, but that’s still more about you than Ruth, isn’t it? Tell me something else you love about her.”
“Okay, she’s fun.”
“Fun how?”
“I don’t know, she’s game for about anything, I guess.”
“Give me an example.”
“She likes crosswords. She’s good at them. I can ask her for just about any word and she’ll get it.”
It seemed to Abe that his every explanation was more inadequate than the last. Whose idea of fun and exciting was a crossword? Only with Tamara Selvar to bear witness, week after week, did Abe begin to suspect how stubborn and incompatible he must’ve seemed to his wife.
After two months of weekly sessions, their relationship was making strides. On Friday evenings they began going to movies together at the Lynwood Theatre, where Abe was learning to hold his tongue about exorbitant ticket prices and oversalted popcorn, to suppress his sighs when the drama skewed too sentimental or strayed too far from realism. And the more he held his tongue, the less he found these things bothered him, as though giving voice to his misgivings had been the problem all along.
“It was charming, wasn’t it?” Ruth said about the French film they’d seen at the Lynwood that mild fall evening.
They were walking past Walt’s grocery on the way to the car, the last pink vestiges of sunset still visible on the western horizon, the briny scent of low tide heavy in the autumnal air. Abe had already forgotten the name of the film, but it had been slow as molasses, painfully sparse and uneventful, and he was practically cross-eyed from reading subtitles for what amounted to an impossibly long two hours. But the truth was, the movie had not been without its charms. Some of the scenery was nice. The music wasn’t too loud, as it often was in the American movies. The theater wasn’t all that crowded. And Abe especially liked the ending of the film because it meant he could finally empty his aching bladder in the lobby bathroom.
“Yeah, it was nice,” he said.
“I’m glad you thought so,” said Ruth.
More and more frequently, their conversations assumed this agreeable and uncomplicated tenor. Abe found that it was actually refreshing not to voice his opposition, particularly to things of such little consequence. He came to realize that it wasn’t always necessary to voice an opinion at all. Nobody had to be right or have the last word. Sometimes you just let a subject exist without trying to own it. You listened instead of talking, you considered instead of deflecting, you looked for common ground instead of points of contention. Sometimes playing well with others was as simple as getting out of your own way.
This tack was not limited to cinema. It could be applied to the ideological hornet’s nest of partisan politics, a battleground for Abe and Ruth through a dozen administrations. Abe no longer baited Ruth with political differences. He held his tongue about Clinton’s campaign financing, even the overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom—over five million dollars! He did not hold Ruth accountable, as he once might have, for Al Gore’s limp legalistic defense of those fundraising calls from the White House office. Likewise, Abe did not yell at the TV when the news cut to President Jiang Zemin’s red-carpet welcome, as though Ruth had been the one to welcome him personally. Sometimes it wasn’t worth it to voice an opinion, or even have one. What mattered were the things he and Ruth could agree on: crossword puzzles, sourdough toast, gifts for the great-grandkids, fresh eggs, Sunday drives to the south end of the island, and blackberry cobbler in the fall.
Even their intimate relations saw a turnabout. Though missionary remained the bedroom standard, Abe learned how to tantalize Ruth in new ways, to graze, and pet, and tempt her with his touch, gradually, as Ruth began to let her desires be known, and Abe began to listen, and defer his immediate pleasure to greater effect for everyone involved. It turned out, you could teach an old dog new tricks, so long as it was willing to learn. Maybe he still had a few surprises in him, after all.