The next day when Jack came home she told him she was going to get a divorce.
He sat slouched in the big chair, his feet crossed on the footstool. His arms lay outstretched along the arms of the chair, his head was bent forward and Gene could see a muscle twitching in his cheek. She sat stiffly on the couch, watching him. The anger and hate and self-revulsion that had filled her the day before were gone, and all the tears had already fallen. Now she felt a curious, empty nothingness.
“Half the money’s yours,” Jack said finally. “You better take it out and put it in your own name.”
So this is the way a marriage ends, she thought. Out of all it had been or could have been, there was left only the money in the bank and the things they owned together. That was all there was left to talk about even, a kind of residue of marriage.
“I don’t want any of it,” she said.
“Yes, you do. Anyway it’s California law, I think. Are you going to want any—alimony?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want anything.” She shook her head and clasped her hands in her lap. “I don’t want anything,” she repeated.
“You been to a lawyer yet?”
“I’m going to Las Vegas.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah.”
“I’ll leave next week. I think I’ll fly.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, and then he sat silently, sullenly, his eyes brooding at her. “Well,” he said. “I’ll check out. You may as well stay here till you get ready to go.”
“I’ll go stay with mother. That’s standard procedure, isn’t it?”
“No,” Jack said. “Stay here. I’ll move out.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’ll want to go stay with your V. I thought she was married. Isn’t she married? Her husband must be very forgiving.”
“He’s dead,” Jack said. Suddenly he grimaced and said, “Gene, I guess it wouldn’t make you feel any better if I told you…”
“Do you want me to help you pack?” she interrupted, and she got to her feet, holding her clasped hands at her belt.
“No,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll come back this afternoon and get my stuff.” His cheeks bunched, hiding his eyes, and he stood up slowly, his clenched fists pushing down on the arms of the chair. He was so big. “When do you think you’ll go to Las Vegas?” he asked.
“Next Saturday. I’ll work next week.”
“Okay,” he said, without looking at her. “I’ll see you before then.”
That afternoon she went over to tell her mother, dreading it, for her mother had never liked Jack, and she did not want to be pitied. The pity she had seen in V’s eyes had made her physically ill. She was afraid she would turn on her mother: at least she had the courage to divorce her husband, and her mother had never had; and at least Jack was a man, and not a sodden little animal, as her father had been. Riding out to Mission Hills on the streetcar, dreading the afternoon, she began to despise her mother, and she didn’t want to show it.
“You poor thing,” her mother said. “What has he done to you?” Her eyes were little and hard and she put her hand to her forehead and brushed back a strand of gray hair. She had on the gray, man’s sweater she always wore when she was cleaning the house.
Gene put her purse down on the davenport on top of her coat, and sat down beside it “We just couldn’t get along,” she said, with an effort to speak lightly. “It’s just one of those things.”
Her mother took a step toward her and looked keenly down into her eyes. “He’s hurt you, hasn’t he?” she demanded. “He drinks, doesn’t he?”
Gene almost screamed at her: what about your husband? At least I’m getting out, at least I’m not going to spend my whole life being a martyr and feeling sorry for myself like you have, at least I’m salvaging myself out of this. But she managed a smile and shook her head gently. “Oh, it’s nothing like that. We’re still friends.” The understatement of it seemed melodramatic and she hated this necessity to lie. She wanted to go back to the empty apartment where no one would intrude and make demands upon her, where she could stretch out on the bed and think. Her mother’s hands were clasped in front of her, the fingers dovetailed; her mouth was pinched and hurt, white around the edges of the lips.
“I’d think you could tell me, Eugenia. I know that man has done something to you.”
“No,” Gene said. Looking at her mother she thought: if you say I told you so…If you so much as think it…She wouldn’t take any pity.
Finally she said, “Really, there are no hard feelings at all,” and she looked around the room, chilled at the shabby, manless familiarity of the place. She stood up and said, “I have to go now, Mother.”
“But aren’t you coming back here? You’re not going to stay in that apartment by yourself!”
“Yes. I am.”
Her mother stared at her angrily. “Oh, I’ll be all right,” Gene said. “I have to get rid of the furniture and there’s a lot of cleaning to do. There’s a lot to do when you break up housekeeping.”
“Why can’t he take care of that?”
Gene shrugged tiredly and gathered up her coat and purse. “I don’t mind,” she said as she walked out into the hall. She pushed the screen door open and turned around. “Goodbye, Mother.”
Her mother came into the hall behind her. “I told you that Jack Ward was no good. You never should have married him.”
Gene’s hand clutched the edge of the door tightly, the feeling of weak and helpless anger came back and nauseated her, and she felt the floor dropping away beneath her feet. She clutched desperately at the edge of the door while the nausea pitched in her stomach. Her mother and the hallway whirled grayly.
“If you must know,” she said loudly, “it’s my fault. I’m frigid. I’m sterile. Like you are. Does that make you happy?” She almost laughed as she saw the words she had thrown strike her mother in the face, and then she turned and stumbled out into the sunlight. The sun was bright on the grass of the lawn, bright on the white stucco and red tile of the houses that lined the street. In the next yard a lawn sprinkler was rotating, sending out a round flower of shining spray. As she hurried down the walk Gene wondered if anybody anywhere had ever hated anyone as much as she hated V.