SIXTY-FIVE
And then the strangest thing of all happened: My husband turned into the man I had always dreamed he would become.
It started, at first, with small things: inquiries into how my day had been, what it had involved, as opposed to merely going on about whatever news in the daily papers interested him most.
I was, I must confess, puzzled at the change and said as much.
He approached the lady’s chair in which I was seated, gently took my hands.
“We have lost so much together,” he said quietly, “losing Weston. Does it not make sense I would now want to cling to you as being the only person of import left in my world?”
He looked so sad. There had been times when I had fantasized about his death. And now he looked so sad. Could I not find in me some sympathy for him?
“I have not been as good a husband to you as I might have been,” he confessed, appearing more humble than I had ever seen him. “There have even been times when I have…when I have…exploited situations for something as frivolous as my own artistic ambitions.”
I suspected he was referring to his novel, Gossip, and how he had used me in it.
But I said nothing.
“I have even,” he went on, “divided my attention between you and…and…others in ways I ought not.”
Now I was certain he was referring to his affair with Lucy.
But again I said nothing.
“No,” he said, “I have not been as good a husband to you as I might have been. But if you will help me to learn how, I should like to try to become that man now.”
But how, I thought, how is that possible? Even if I could forgive the novel, even if I could forgive him Lucy. I love Chance. I do not love John.
And yet, as I was to come to learn as the next several days piled up, such a thing was possible. John became so helpful, so solicitous, so willing to learn through my teaching how to be better, it suddenly seemed possible, if only remotely, that I could love my husband once more.
He approached me, tentatively, as I lay in bed one night, placed one hand gently on the top sheet.
“May I?” he asked.
We had not had relations since the night of Weston’s funeral. I would not have thought it was in me to consent again and yet, he had been so tender of late, in everything, I found I could not deny him.
Almost imperceptibly, I nodded, watched as though he were a stranger climbing into bed beside me.
“Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps if you were to show me what you like…”
And I did.
Oh, it was not the way it was with Chance—nothing could ever be like that!—but I showed him with words and without how to do one thing and another that pleased me. If not the greatest passion a person could feel, it was sufficient.
As I watched him sleeping afterward, that ever-changing face I had known for over a quarter of a century, I saw John was right: We were the two people in the world who had loved Weston best. Without him, we could only survive together.