Chapter 18 in R.M. Dolin’s novel “The Dangling Conversation“, June 30, 2024.
ISABELLE: “Oh yeah, not an ounce of forewarning! Maybe now you understand when I say Henry’s a shit! He comes over last night all amped up, sits me down, looks me straight in the eye like that’s supposed to matter, and then like a rabbit leaping out of a hat announces he’s leaving, even says it with excitement! Apparently, he’s been offered a promotion, and they need an answer straight away cause of some bullshit crisis, so, he says yes. Can you believe it! What kind of person does that? I’ll tell you, someone who’s not in a meaningful relationship, that’s who!
And then, just like that, he’s gone, up and skedaddled! Says we’ll talk more later. Later when? That’s what I want to know – me here, him halfway across the country, you tell me how we’re supposed to talk this out. What’s even more outlandish is how he’s able to up and move in one day, makes me think this has been planned all along. Even when I’m running from my Ex it takes more than a day to get the going gone. There’s a darker truth around this promotion coming on all sudden and out of nowhere; things aren’t adding up, especially the part of already packed and rearing to go. He’s been looking to leave for a while, that seems obvious. So, I say, go ahead, be gone!”
KYLE: “I can’t speak to the finer points of what’s going on in Henry’s head, but as a man, if I need to go for something important, it doesn’t half-a-day to be packed and down the road. Men travel light and are ready to leave necessary things behind. Strike that last part, didn’t come out like I intended and it’s only going to gas your fire. What I mean is, you describe Henry as a hard-working dedicated guy; he’ probably been struggling to be appreciated and hoping an opportunity to move up the food chain comes along. He has to be decisive to demonstrate commitment, once he gets where he’s going, he’ll have time to sort through all the this and that’s that follow.”
ISABELLE: “That’s my point, his job, his life without me, matters way more than his life with me! To hell with him, that’s what I keep telling myself – even if I don’t really mean it! And the thing is, he knows that about me and that makes him an even bigger shit! That’s the part I can’t reconcile, the part that hurts the most and just keeps gnawing away at me.
“You know what all this reminds me of, maybe not in exactly the same way, but in the same spirit of bullshit, is when you accepted your job at the State Department and up and move to DC leaving poor Maggie standing alone in your driveway. You say you took the job because things between you two were over, but were they really? Was she on board? I believed you then cause I had no reason not to, now I’m not so sure. Does a job really matter more to men than love, to their relationships, their obligations?
KYLE: “Humans are without a doubt the most adapt animals on the planet when it comes to creating angst by denying instincts or allowing others to define how they should feel. Men are predisposed for two things; to provide and protect, both of which draw from their jobs. It’s sad seeing young men standing around a street corner or basketball court in the middle of the day when they should be at work; these men have been feminized, probably raised by single moms who either knowingly or unknowingly suppressed their boy’s instincts. Darwin would surmise this is what happens when you screw around with nature. I don’t know that Henry acted any different than any other man would in the same situation; granted he could have handled things better, but that’s post-decision.
“The thing with Maggie and me, since you threw that in my face, doesn’t mesh with your accusation. I didn’t just load my truck and leave, we talked about it; about whether I should stay so we can continue working on things, or if starting over together in DC is worth a shot. We talked and then took a few days to let things sink in; State’s in no hurry, it’s the government after all, no one’s looking to do anything that generates more work. Certainly, their job offer brought things to a head, but the train was pulling into the same station either way. There’s always going to be something, every fall has a catalyst, that you can count on. In fact, mark that down as one of my more concrete stones of wisdom.
“I still hear the loneliness in Maggie’s voice as she said she didn’t think coming with me to DC would change the way things are between us; the way she feels about me. By that time, we’d talked so much, either together or in counseling, there really isn’t much room left for more words. She invites me to a counseling session during our week of deliberation. The session starts with the counselor asking to speak to each of us alone; Maggie goes first as I sit in the lobby convincing myself of all the ways a move to DC works out, all the things we’d do different this go-around. The longer I sit the more committed I become; the more excited I am to tell Maggie my plan for resurrecting our most perfect future.
“The counselor ushers me in after Maggie’s gone out another exit. Ever noticed that about marriage counselors, they have two waiting areas so couples don’t have to see each other on their way in or out. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now realize it’s a necessary convenience because a whole lot of bad and can happen in a counselor’s chamber. The first thing out of this guy’s mouth is, “Why do you think you’re here, Kyle?” I tell him it’s so Maggie and I can find a path forward. I immediately jump into talking about my waiting room epiphany, only he abruptly interrupts. “I’m gonna stop you right there, Kyle,” he looks at his notes as if not sure what comes next. “Regrettably,” he continues, “that’s not the reason you’re here.”
“He stares at me with grave compassion, this is a guy who started out to be a priest, but then for reasons never revealed, chooses a different path. He rolls his chair over to the couch where I’m sitting, takes my hand while looking me in the eye. Right away I know this isn’t going to end well so I brace for what comes next. “The reason you’re here, Kyle,” he says with the gentleness of a priest delivering last rights, “is so Maggie can say goodbye.”
“He gives me a minute to let those words sink in, continuing to hold my hand, no doubt to gage my reaction; see if I’m likely go postal. “When Maggie and I talked,” he continues, “she conveyed a belief there’s no path left for the two of you to try that can cause her feelings to change; there’s just too much history, too much tragedy. She acknowledges losing her way the most after the miscarriage and wants more than anything to put the broken pieces back together, but just knows there’s nothing that can hold those pieces even if they could be reassembled. She wants the best for you, to be happy, just as she wants to be happy. She wants you to take the job in DC, but she won’t be going with you. You need to start your new life without her.”
“He again waits for everything to sink in; to monitor my reaction. “Once you absorb all this,” he says, “you’ll see it’s for the best. Sometimes, Kyle, when something becomes permanently terminal, the best thing to do is let it die. You have to look at the end of your marriage that way, it was born the day you took your vows, but somewhere along the way it got sick and like any ill being, your marriage struggled, and fought, and tried to hold on as long as it could; now it’s time to let go. Let the suffering end so the two of you can heal and move on to the next phase of your life.”
“He’s a good counselor, sorta sucks at finding ways to hold things together, but kind and comforting when it came to euthanasia. You’re right though, I’m the one pulling down the driveway for DC, but I’m not the one who drove away; I still love her; even for a long time afterwards. Eventually though, the counselor’s words ring true, I need to move on. I’m well on my way through that transformation when I meet Nadia; like God closing one door as another opens. Bottom line is I don’t deny you your anger, but don’t roll me up in the wide net you’re casting over this Henry thing; my situation with Maggie is nothing like what you two are going through. Each of us journeys a private hell and you don’t get to paint the landscape of mine, I’m doing a pretty bang-up job on my own.
ISABELLE: “Okay fair enough. Of course you’re right, so, thank you. Sometimes talking to you is the same as sitting across the table from my dad. Mom’s no good at course correction, she’s too busy being nurturing or judgmental, those are her only two binary modes. Dad though, he’s a horse of a completely different color, someone who brings the bitter truth regardless of the situation, and he’s usually right, which begs the question about why I don’t follow his advice more often. Guess I don’t much care for what he says even when I know going in, he’s gonna be right. It’s like I don’t care if you give me bad advice if it’s what I want to hear. I know it’s destructive but in some moments being comforted matters more than being shown a solution. I can’t explain it, but if you would’ve agreed with me that Henry’s a shit, think how much different this conversation would be going. There would’ve been a right time for course correction, but not while I’m venting.
“I get your point about tying you in with Henry, that was unfair, but in my defense, that’s the way you told the story. I don’t know what you thought you were saying, but the take-away is this; things got tough, you rode a bike, she cheated, you got a job offer in DC, and you left. I don’t think I’m off script here, and just to be clear, I didn’t judge you then and I don’t judge you now, that’s why I feel bad for throwing the whole Maggie thing in your face.
“I am nonetheless puzzled by one thing, why did you initially tell the story in a way that leaves me making incorrect conclusions. We were just getting to know each other, just starting to open up about the shit in our lives. I can see that everything you said was factually correct, but there’s this weird nuance to the way you talk, like you want me leaping to conclusions that don’t bounce right, is that to keep me from knowing the real you? Are you afraid that if I see behind your curtain, I won’t like you? Or is it that because I’m a woman, you think I’ll side with all the woman who did you dirty because the sisterhood is stronger than right and wrong. I’ll admit I get that vibe from you regarding Henry. You’ve never even met him, and yet you’re always coming to his defense. Perhaps it’s that you secretly need me to not like you because there are times you find yourself not liking me, not in a romantic sense, but in the sense of a fellow traveler. That’s it isn’t it?”
KYLE: “No! Well okay maybe a little, but not all of it. The thing is, Isabelle, when a man tells a woman something, it doesn’t matter if it’s during a tender moment or in the midst of a barroom brag; it doesn’t matter if he’s romantically attracted or they’re just friends, the main throttle on his governor is consistently the same. Men are aloof in order to be heroic; it doesn’t matter the man; we’re all cut from the same cloth. Part of it is from our culture, part of it from our upbringing, and part of it goes all the back to Darwin who would say that when cavemen went out to hunt and to protect their women, they weren’t allowed to show fear, be vulnerable, or solicit pity; so, you see it’s in our DNA to reveal ourselves in the obscure manner we do.
“Men are meant to suffer, that’s how we’re built. Look at my life, Henry’s life, your dad, hell, even your Ex, we all suffer, just in different ways with a different set of circumstances. I suffer in love, Henry suffers for his work and the demands it makes, your Ex; that dude’s creating a special hell he suffers through. I told my Maggie story the way it really happened, only maybe leaving some things out because it made me look pathetic. I loved her and she didn’t love me back, maybe she did before the tragedy, who knows, but what we do know is not in the end and how sad and pathetic is it to be the one left with a broken heart? So, yeah, I didn’t reveal all the dirty details because I need to retain some modicum of dignity. And so, now you know the deeper truth, but don’t pity me, it’ll only paint me pathetic.”
ISABELLE: “Okay I won’t, but then you have to stop defending Henry at every turn. I mean I get what you’re saying about Henry and on some level even can concede you could be right, but that leaves me a long way from acceptance and even farther from forgiveness. If I’m being honest, a lot of this comes down to fear, a feeling Karma’s come back to kick me in the ass.
“What Henry’s doing to me is akin to what I did to my boyfriend in college, I wake up one day and just decide to break up. I don’t recall exactly how I tell him, but remember it being a bit cold. Yeah, I cried, he cried, we hugged, we even stayed together for a short time, but then his pride and dignity get the better of him and in the end he’s the one who walks out. I mean not really since he keeps checking in to see if I’ve softened my resolve. Once it becomes clear my intentions are set, he’s the one who delivers the fatal final blow. That became my rational for blaming him and being the victim.
“As far as my friends are concerned, he walks out on me because that’s how it appears to have ended; in reality, the iceberg below the surface is all me. I get your deal about men and their predisposition, it helps me see things I caused from my boyfriend’s perspective, I left him no choice but to walk out. Henry has a choice, as I did back then, I made my decision and never looked back and now Henry’s making his. Karma’s a freaking bitch, every time you think you’ve had enough crap dumped all over you and she’s gotta be switching into a giving mood, you get rolled up in deeper shit and realize there’s still a lot you have to atone for.
“It makes me wonder if any of us ever get to spend much time with her when she’s in a giving mood. Maybe it’s all just small potatoes in a larger scheme and I’m currently banking generosity points to redeem later when something big is about to break. That’s the thing about Karma, we feel every pebble in our shoe when the crap’s coming down, but never notice and don’t really appreciate all those walks we take through life without ever picking up a stone. I can easily say that meeting you is a blessing while at the same time, losing Henry is a toll for past misdeeds.”
KYLE: “Thanks, I think. Here’s my question, after listening to you vent the better part of the evening, I’m struggling to understand at what point, and in what way, are you able to twist what’s going on between you two into something that’s somehow my fault?
ISABELLE: “That’s not what I did. At least not what I intended to do, or how I feel, even if it is the way it came out. I guess in my anger and frustration, I get a bit misdirected, thanks for calling me out, I often need what my dad calls, “a course correction.”
“What scares me to panic, and I guess to act irrational for a minute, is after all I’ve been through, after everything you’ve endured, it seems our solid take away is loves forever doomed. We have so many versions to work with, there’s the fantasy of love, the roll up your sleeves make it work kind of love, the best friend for life variety. There’s arranged love, matter of convenience love, partnership love, staying for the kids love. There’s the I hate you; I need you, I can’t live without you love. If nothing else, we’ve at least been conditioned to call these various forms of dysfunction love. Bottom line though, does love, I mean the kind our soul yearns for that embodies everything wonderful in this world, even ever really exist, or is it, as you so brilliantly put it a while back, all just a grand illusion?”
KYLE: “Of course love exists, but that doesn’t make it possible. I don’t know if you know Tolstoy, a Russian dude, so someone with a cold take on matters. Anyway, he views love as a paradox, I probably don’t remember it exactly, but it’s something like, “Love can only be a present activity. Someone who doesn’t manifest love in the present, has not loved.” He’s at least partially right, you can’t look back at love and the future’s too shaky to base your foundation on it with any measure of precision; all we get is right now.
“The Greek Philosopher, Epictetus, countered by saying something to the effect “An honest man is never certain who or what he is if he forgets everything is perishable, therefore, it’s not possible for two people to last forever.” That’s at least how I interpret what he said, the Greeks are damn hard to understand. He’s stoic, so of course he sees the darker side of love. That being said, if my life’s a testament to anything, it’s that nothing lasts forever. That’s how it’s certainly been for me and Nadia; seems we’re destined to live our lives in spattered intervals.”
ISABELLE: “Of course I know Tolstoy, who doesn’t? The other dude I never heard of and don’t much care for what he has to say. That’s not the answer I choose to believe even if every bit of evidence confirms his assertion. On some level, that’s the lesson fate wants you to teach me. In the process of telling me about your life I’ve come to appreciate a new kind of love, one willing to embrace all the ugliness of life in exchange for brief interludes of profoundness. I mean your life’s one long Greek tragedy and yet, through it all you never stop believing, stop hoping, never stop trying. I admire that about you, that’s the beauty of your soul and everyone who ever left you, or hurt you, or ignored you, has no idea the gift God was giving them. I’m very grateful for the way your life’s intersected with mine.”
KYLE: “Last night I came to the park like I always do but leave early once I realize you’re not coming; it just isn’t what it used to be without you. Anyway, like I said, I leave after a while and go home to sit on my patio. Then, I don’t know why, probably due to an encroaching melancholy I sense has something to do with you, I start listening to Chopin. A little later, I feel a bit deeper and decide to smoke a cigar and drink a bourbon.
“Thanks for pointing out what a shit-show my life’s been. Yes, I’ve had the fortune to fall in love, had more adventures than most men dare to dream, yet always somehow manage to wind up alone. I made contributions to world through me work and got Oppenheimered for the effort. To a casual observer, my life probably does look catastrophic, but you know what, I wouldn’t trade any of it because all the struggles, all the suffering, led me here; not only to Nadia, but to you. I treasure this thing we have, call it what you want, or don’t call it anything at all like I choose to do, but it is special, and I thank you for it.
“As I’m sitting on my patio with Chopin, bourbon, and a cigar, I start pondering the question you did the night you decide to end things with Mr. Barcelona, namely, “what does it mean to be me?” I’m not asking in a life-altering way like you did, but nonetheless, I’m taking stock, an inventory if you will. There’s a darkness for sure, but God’s also graced me with many gifts. It’s almost a year since Nadia and I re-connected; such an unexpectedly amazing moment it scares me. A year ago, she’s married working on a divorce and I’m widowed working through grief. Today we’re together, in many ways, deeply and profoundly together, and yet strangely apart; a dichotomy so tenuous it’s terrifying. So much of life has been lived since we re-met and yet, nothing has changed.
“If you and I were characters in a novel, it would be called, “Is Love Possible?” The problem is one of us would have to be cast as the protagonist. Will it be me, a broken man painfully looking back at his lifelong affair with the only woman he’s ever truly loved yet due to circumstances beyond his control never seems to find a way to be with; or is it you, a young but deeply damaged woman eagerly looking ahead with grave uncertainty to a wonderful life with the enigmatic boy leaving town? Either way, the story portrays life in the brutal terms it’s really lived. Perhaps we’re both simultaneously protagonist and antagonist.
“I’m not half way through my cigar when that line of thinking becomes too intense to traverse, so, I bounce around other random this and that’s until I find myself looking online at houses for sale in France; a bold move for sure, and certainly one I have no intention to justify other than to say it grew out of some need, which has suddenly become as necessary as breathing. Before long I’m tagging different properties and forwarding them to Nadia; each place chosen for the way it provides a shared sense of sanctuary.
“One is way outside my budget, but it has a river running through it, and a guest house where I can set up an office. It’s too big for the two of us and I don’t really need a guest house to work, but I just start fantasizing about the whole living next to a river while working in my office thing and suddenly money doesn’t much matter. I contact the Realtor, but she’s reluctant to chat; probably cause I’m American and she doesn’t think I’m serious. Maybe I’m not, I mean I certainly can’t be running off to France until my troubles here are resolved and it doesn’t look like that’s likely to happen anytime soon. Would be nice though; to escape, to own a small piece of paradise, it’d make Nadia happy, she’d see me different once I started stepping up. She struggles with the whole long-distance thing, for me it’s a temporary condition in a long-term strategy, but she’s not seeing it that way, which leaves me in this tormented catch-22.
“Something was off during our last rendezvous, and it’s been tearing me up, I ask her straight up if she noticed it too or am I just letting my imagination to run rampant. She doesn’t really answer but still the same, I leave France unsettled; a little sad and a lot scared, convinced something’s out of whack between us. I’m pretty sure it’s just me being manic, probably tied more to missing her than anything divergent between us.
“I know she’s nervous about me being there, especially after everything blows up when her soon to be Ex almost finds out about us, but that’s no reason why the last time should have been any more different than the others; things seemed, I don’t know, forced. Maybe I was there too long, maybe I’m too hard to be with? There’s always a weirdness when I visit because of the way she worries about being found out, but this last time was different; something more than that.
“Like Henry last night, I sit Nadia down before leaving and tell her two things: first, that I feel the same for her now as I did the first time we tried to occupy the same small space on the Paris metro, the same as when she moved in with me in DC, the same as when we reconnected last year; if anything, my feelings increasingly grow stronger. Then I tell her I understand she’s under a lot of stress and I in no way intend to add to it with my visits; I tell her I hope I don’t, but know I do.
“If the world were run on wishes, Isabelle, I’d wish only for Nadia continuing to want me and to tolerate the weirdness of our situation until we reach a point in the not-too-distant future when there’s no more stress, no more worrying about being found out, only time to enjoy and focus on each other till the end of days. It’s strange the way fate brought you and me together; we’re on very different journeys and yet, we both find ourselves at the same juncture where all our hopes, all our dreams, depend on someone we hope loves us as much as we love them, if loves even possible.
