LAST LOOK AT LOVE

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “The Dangling Conversation.”

Chapter 11: Last Look at Love

ISABELLE: “I feel bad about hijacking your Olivia reveal the other night, here I am one minute acknowledging how hard it is for you to open up and what do I do, come in over the top when you finally with my wild Brad & Mandy story about my stalker-Ex. That’s our dynamic isn’t it, you say one thing, I counter with something else, and before ya know it, one of us is unraveling crap that’s been latently bursting to come out. I’ve never shared my stalker story, not even with mom, guess once I got going it all just spilled out like a tipped over bucket of water on a slightly sloping floor.

“It’s your turn tonight, if you’re up for it, I mean we’ve got to cover the Olivia story at some point. There’s a huge twenty-year gap in your life that needs to be colored in so I can properly place Nadia in the portrait. You’re always talking like she’s the only woman you truly ever loved but my theory is she’s not what matters in the life of Kyle, not after spending most your life with someone not her.”

KYLE: “I assure you, Nadia’s the quintessential thread stitching together the tapestry of my life. Yes, there are others I loved deeply, but she’s the only one with the power and presence to endure what you call the life of Kyle. There’s no escaping or diminishing Olivia’s importance and impact on my life and I cherish our time together even if things don’t end well. I can’t forget her, it’s not possible; nor does my love for her dissipate. It is possible ya know, to love more than one person and just because someone you love moves out of your life, it doesn’t mean they take the love you shared with them. You are right though; I rarely talk about her, not even to my kids and this story is as much theirs as mine. People say you should talk about tragedies, but I don’t know how useful that really is; talking doesn’t change a damn thing and certainly can’t prevent it happening again, so what’s the point. At the same time, I see your point and I am a “finish what I start” kind of guy, so there’s that.”

“Starting a difficult story, or in our case finishing one mid-stream, is no small matter; kind of like pushing a heavy piece of furniture, you push and push to get it going, but even giving it all you’ve got it still won’t budge. The odd thing though, is with just a little extra effort it starts moving, and once it does, once you initiate that first incremental motion, it glides along much easier; mathematically it’s about the difference between the coefficients of static and dynamic friction, but we don’t need to get into that.

“There’s an incident from when my daughter’s two that sets the table; one day she accidentally spills a jar of pennies Olivia’s been collecting and they roll all over the living room floor, we’re talking scattered piles of pennies everywhere. Olivia’s upset, perhaps more than warranted but that’s been part of her deal lately. My daughter, overwhelmed by her mom’s anger, starts crying and the emotions from one feed the other until they’re bouncing back and forth like a Chinese ping pong ball ratcheting up in intensity; that’s pretty much all you need to know about that dynamic.

“Imagine a frightened little girl stoically standing in the center of the room; her head’s down and she’s staring at the scattered pennies as Olivia screams at her to pick them up. The louder and more angry Olivia gets, the more my daughter’s frozen in statute stasis, crying and not knowing what to do. I’m watching from another room, first in shock over how fast this small forgivable incident has become a conflict between waring nations and second, trying to figure out a way to defuse the escalating tension before things go nuclear. While marveling at the seriousness of this mother-daughter silliness, I begin to understand the core reason behind my daughter’s refusal to do as Olivia demands; it’s not that she’s locked in an epic power struggle, she doesn’t know how to start. She sees a floor full of pennies scattered about and the task of picking them up is overwhelming; her little two-year-old brain just can’t fathom a path forward.

“I calmly walk over and kneel in front of her gently prying the empty jar from her fingers while wiping away tears. Tenderly I explain, “It’s going to be okay honey. Let me show you how to pick all these pennies up, you see, when something that needs doing seems so hard you don’t know what to do, the only real solution is to start; don’t think of the entire problem all at once, focus on the first step. Let me show you.” With that I pick up a penny and drop it in the jar, “You see, honey, it’s not hard to pick up one penny, is it?” She wipes new tears away and slightly nods while keeping her head down and not moving, so I continue, “After you finish the first penny, you move on to the second.” I reach out and grab another penny putting it in the jar. “If you just keep doing this, one penny at a time without thinking about all the other ones, soon the jar is full, and all the pennies have been picked up. Do you think you can do that?”

“I hand her back the jar but she still just stands there looking lost like an abandoned shopping cart on a busy downtown plaza, which pushes Olivia’s patience causing her to resume yelling and screaming, causing me to address the opposing side of the conflict. “Olivia please!” I shout, “Give the girl a chance!” If I accomplish nothing else, I at least redirect Olivia’s anger onto me. So now, Olivia and I are ratcheting up our emotions and things between us are on the verge of going nuclear when suddenly, the crisp clear sound of a penny dropping into a glass jar stifles our conflict. Olivia and I stand in ceasefire silence for the five minutes it takes my daughter to pick up all the pennies, neither of us willing to gloat about victory or admit defeat. I’m very proud of the way my daughter works through her intractable problem, Olivia though, storms off muttering something about how I need to teach my daughter discipline.

“You ask me to finish my Olivia story and no doubt after hearing the penny problem you’ve leaped ahead to obvious outcomes. I can assure you though, life’s not so linear. If I had to sum up getting older into anything, it’d be that the more we go along, the harder and more complex things become. Sometimes it seems life is an empty jar in a room of scattered memories; I didn’t mean to spill them, but once I do, all I can do is stare at a floor as I wipe away tears, overwhelmed at the impossible task of properly putting them back in a way that doesn’t break my heart. That probably doesn’t make sense; guess what I’m saying is, don’t jump ahead to obvious outcomes because the story matters. In the end, the train may pull into the same station but the path it takes and what it means when it arrives, is the story.

“How does one go about explaining the end of love, how can anyone? It’s like asking how an overwhelmed two-year-old standing in the middle of a room crying over spilt pennies becomes an amazingly independent, strong-willed woman; the only real answer is incrementally, one small step at a time. The end of love is no different, people say they fall in love, but no one ever says they fell out of love; at least not while honestly understanding and accepting the journey they’ve been on. That’s because real love doesn’t end, it withers, and there’s a difference.”

ISABELLE: “I feel the need to say something but am devoid of words. Do you need a hug? That’s what dad does when I’m overwhelmed, he gives me a hug and says everything’s gonna be okay. He never bothers to detail how things will be okay but the confident way he speaks suggests it doesn’t really matter. The comforting part is he’s never been wrong; things always find their way of working out. “You just keep being you Isabelle,” that’s what he says, “and all your problems will seek their solution.”

KYLE: “Does he tell you sometimes the solution ends tragically? They do ya know, I guess dads aren’t supposed to say that, but it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s also not true that when love ends, you’re no longer in love, sometimes how things end though causes you to be even more hapless. That’s how it is with Olivia, the closer we come to the end, the more in love I am. I can’t control how I feel any more than I can stand in a raging river hoping to alter the water’s flow, and there’s no logical or emotional argument you can make to persuade yourself otherwise. Mark that down as a fluid drop of wisdom.

“In retrospect, I should have seen what’s coming from the whole incident with the pennies but don’t; guess I don’t want to. That’s how it works; being in a moment is no different than reliving memories, we cherry pick what we want and ignore the rest. Of course, Olivia’s angry response is over the top and there’s certainly no rational reason to go off on a two-year-old who’s made a simple mistake; my crime is dismissing the incident as a one-off when in reality it’s anything but. In that moment I miss, or choose not to see, I fail to connect how the penny incident is tied to earlier events as well as to the ones that follow. Maybe I get used to how things gradually become over time and don’t see the impending disaster. It’s kind of like cooking frogs; if you toss a frog into boiling water, it’ll feel the intensity of the heat and hop right back out. But when you put a frog in warm water, they’re content; then if you slowly heat the water the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late. It’s why telling my story is so difficult, to a casual observer everything going on is so blatantly obvious but to players caught up in the drama, the inclined rise toward disaster goes unnoticed.

“As you get older life takes on increasingly subtle complexities; we’re all just swimming around in a warm pot of water choosing to ignore how hot things are getting. Olivia, going from calm to nuclear over spilt pennies, is a precursor to something beyond just having a bad day as is the way she stops doing art or wanting to go out. Sadness isn’t the same as depression; one’s an emotion while the other’s an illness. I should do more to help with her sadness, but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about her illness. I take her to a doctor, I beg and plead with her to take her medications but at the end of the day, it comes down to what she’s willing to do to heal herself.

“She withdraws incrementally, not just with me, but the kids and friends. It isn’t that I’m blind so much as powerless. I see now I’m in denial, convinced she’ll turn things around if I only give her space. What I’m unprepared for is what I’ll call the destructive stage. I see now that the penny incident is the beginning but have no way of seeing the extent to which it foreshadows everything that follows. She starts keeping weird hours, staying up until three or four in the morning and then sleeping past noon. I don’t know what she’s doing in those lonely hours; guess I’m guilty of not giving it much thought. In my defense, keep in mind that while she’s slowly slipping into isolation, I’m picking up the slack, the kids still need feeding, the house still needs cleaning, there’s groceries to buy, soccer schedules, and after school activities that must be managed, bills to be paid, and my job at State can’t be ignored.

“I’m not proud of this but there are times I’m angry, I mean how fair is it that all this burden and responsibly falls on me. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership not something devolving into a princess lounging around doing nothing all damn day while I teeter on the edge of exhaustion. I always manage to push past my anger, and like I said, it isn’t my finest hour; nonetheless it is what it is, or was what it was, and there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it now.

“I’m also not proud of how I engaged. First, I do everything possible to help her help herself. Then I step back and try my best to support her in every way possible so she can work through whatever it is she needs to work through; you know, like taking over more and more household chores. Then, without real awareness and likely due to exhaustion, I take another step back and just stop trying. I mean I keep on with my responsibilities but stop engaging with her. I suppose it’s how I channel the anger I think I have under control. I just reach a point where I’m thinking, “fine, if you want to mope around feeling sorry for yourself all damn day, then have at it.”

“I know it’s wrong and if God ever grants me a redo, things will be different. In my defense, I’m no farther from the end of my rope than she is from hers and like I said, it’s not my finest hour. As bad as things are though, they only get worse. That’s the thing about life, no matter how far you fall into your personal abyss, there’s always space for further descent, which is exactly what we do. When I say I stop trying, it doesn’t mean I give up; I still manage to persuade her occasionally to go to the kid’s events and do what I can to meet her needs and sprinkle some moments of joy in her life. What I mean is I give up expecting things will get better, but what I don’t fully appreciate is the extent to which they can still get worse.

“I don’t think about what she might be doing outside on the patio long after everyone’s gone to bed, I assume she’s doing what she does during the day; play video games and read trashy novels on her tablet. Little do I realize she’s slowly constructing a fantasy life. I’m not sure how it starts or whether it’s intentional, but her video games are nothing more than an outlet for escape. I’ve never played, but my son says some of these games never end, you simply complete one quest then move on to the next. He says they’re often multiplayer and that after a while you form bonds with the people on the same quest as you; people you never physically meet but share endless hours with. I think the way it works is that you do your fantasy adventure for a while then have down time where you chat with each other online.

“I see the appeal; you step outside your crap-filled life by pretending to be someone having a different life; a life free from the baggage and constraints of real reality. I even see how bonds are formed and virtual friendships are made; what I don’t get is the next step, at least not when you’re in a committed relationship. I don’t know if her promiscuity is intentional or just happens based on her need to elude reality. I don’t know if her love for me and our life ends, or if the illness causes her to feel things she feels I’m no longer able to provide. Of course, I’m angry when I find out; angry and hurt, but I can’t find a way to take that next step. Through all of this, I never learn how to stop loving her and become something of an expert in the rare, overlooked art of rationalization.

“I do of course confront her; you can’t allow something like this to go unchallenged. She doesn’t care I find out as much as she doesn’t care to stop, and that hurts more than any pain I’ve ever experienced. Seems to me even if you’re not well and going through dark times, if you love someone it should hurt you to hurt them; and it doesn’t, not one iota. At one point, she even somehow makes it my fault; I don’t know if it’s really what she feels or just a feeble attempt to shield herself from guilt and responsibility; either way, she lashes out. Mostly it’s verbal but there towards the end it even gets physical a time or two; never in front of the kids so I’m at least grateful for that. Mental illness is a strange beast, you love someone who doesn’t love you; maybe they do in the healthy part of their brain, but not in the part currently in control. No matter how many affairs she has or how many times she lashes out, I still can’t find it in myself to be angry back; hurt yes, but not so much for what she’s doing as for what her illness is causing her to do.”

ISABELLE: “We’ve established my Ex has issues. I don’t know if narcissism qualifies as a personality disorder or mental illness, not sure there’s even a difference. What I know is after living with him and his, “condition,” far longer than I should, I’m not like you, I never seek or feel forgiveness toward him. I can’t, he’s an expert at turning any form of weakness to his advantage, and because he has no empathy when it comes to how his actions hurt others, I must always be on guard. I am of course sad our marriage ends, but not sad toward him, I guess in that sense he taught me how to avoid empathy. I really can’t even say I’m sad my marriage ends because that implies feelings toward him. Probably better to say I have regrets if that makes any sense. There’s the life I thought I’d live, and it’s sad to realize it’s unobtainable, not sad, I mean regrettable. I choose not to be sad, at least not about this.

“He starts out sweet and tender but over time his skill at hiding who he is, can’t be hidden. It’s like discovering your partner’s a spy and leading a double life. He messes around, a lot, but not because he’s unhappy with me or our marriage; he just needs to feed his ego by seducing other women, to believe in his demented mind every woman out there desires him. I like to think he suffers from a social disorder, then I don’t have to forgive him or invent ways to excuse what he does because in my mind, forgiving and excusing makes it okay. Every day I thank myself for having the courage to get out, and the strength to not look back. Your situation with Olivia is different. It seems like she’s a genuinely good person who gets sick and then does the crazy ass crap you talk about. It matters you know, the back story feeding the end, it matters as much how it’s written as how it’s told, and how the heroes and villains coalesce.”

KYLE: “Some stories never get fully written while others run out of landscape and collide with the vastness of finality. I should have seen her infidelities as the final arbitrator for how things end, her silent plea for help. I don’t though, I can’t, I’m too caught up in how it impacts me to see what it’s doing to her. Even now I’m still not past “why”, somehow, I always circle back to the fact it doesn’t much matter. On some level I can’t handle “why” because then I have to assess my role in what happens next and even now, after so much time has passed and so little impact remains, I don’t trust myself enough to start that necessary cross examination.

“We argue the night things end; don’t know what the hell I’m trying to accomplish but I stay up late needing to find out just what it is she does until three in the morning. I come out to our patio where she’s sitting alone in the dark, her phone illuminates her face in hallow beams of tranquil beauty the same way a full moon gently breathes life into a peaceful mountain meadow. She doesn’t notice me right away, so I’m allowed to watch the light playfully dance patterns of angelic perfection on her face. I should have told her how beautiful she is but instead, I grab her phone and storm off in anger, ready to auger in on what she’s doing. Just before stepping through the patio door and back inside, she freezes me with her whisper, “I’m leaving Kyle, I don’t love you and can’t keep living this lie.”

“I continue to my office too angry to respond, too used to her empty threats to consider their validity. I plop down at my desk in the dark like a pirate with treasured booty and start scrolling through her messages. It doesn’t take long to discover the ones between her and some loser in the next town over. As I read her texts describing how she loves him and can’t wait to be with him, I start to tremble so uncontrollably it’s not possible to read the rest. To say I’m devastated is akin to calling an erupting volcano a quaint campfire. I sit at my desk engulfed in an odd emptiness; completely at a loss about what to do. I can’t really describe how one feels after something like that, shock perhaps; my brain just shuts down, no thoughts, no emotions, not any conscious awareness of any kind. That’s the mind’s way of protecting the heart, just prevent ugliness from entering; acknowledging its existence requires accepting its reality and the mind knows the heart’s incapable of such calamities.

“Minutes, maybe moments later, I slowly make my condemned prisoner’s walk toward the patio. I don’t know what I intend to say, only that we need to talk. I’m in less shock than before but still suppressing emotions; my only real thought is this overwhelming need to talk. Forgiveness is not at the forefront, but neither is anger; I just want to find some way to connect, to spark some glimmer of us from before and confirm there’s still a small piece of me left inside her soul. It’s raining, that’s the first impression to awaken my mind as I step out onto the patio, it isn’t so much the sound of drops beating against the parquet bricks as the smell of mist washing the darkness. I still feel the way cold drops touch my skin. From the background of distant city lights, I watch the mist hang heavy in the air like fog over mountains in the morning, stoic and unmoving, or is it uncaring, I can’t really say.

“In the flash of an instant I relive precious memories from the good years; tender ones that can never again be touched. Slowly I walk up beside her; she’s sitting in her chair exactly as before, her dark silhouette shadowed by the mist of night filled air. I stand in silence, maybe moments, maybe minutes, I don’t know, just as I don’t know if I’m waiting for something to say or waiting for her to say something. Nothing gets said though, after all that’s happened, how can we have nothing to say?

“I’m just about to retreat inside when a wisp of wind blows across the patio knocking an empty prescription bottle to the ground, I watch the bottle bounce about the cold hard bricks recognizing it’s what she calls her crazy pills. Just as quickly as seeing the messages to her loser from the next town over, throws my mind into shutdown, seeing that empty bottle bouncing off the bricks snaps my mind into overdrive. Instantly a thousand thoughts seem suddenly clear and comprehensible. I know what’s happening, I know what it means. Frantically I look for pennies, there must be pennies, you can’t just spill a jar like that on the floor and not have something to pick up! I want more than anything to be overwhelmed by the thought of having to refill that bottle, one pill at a time.

“In the next instant I push past pretend and kneel in front of Olivia taking her cold hand in mine. “It’s going to be okay, honey,” I whisper over my tears. “I’ll help you; you just need help.” I brush back the hair from her angelic face and stare into her lifeless eyes seeing the truth I can no longer deny. Gone is the sadness she struggles so hard to escape, she’s free from the regrets that hound her without mercy. In the shadowed whispers of goodbye, I see sorrow’s last look at love.

“I love her deeply and thank God for the time he gave us, she was every dream I dare to dream, all I need for the cherished joy most mortals spend a lifetime hoping to find. Her final words still fill me with angst, if we could have just gotten past them, things might have ended differently. “If only,” the saddest words ever invoked; words spanning the infinity of space that are only eclipsed by the emptiness of their echoes.

“I stand stoically in the courtyard numb to the paramedics doing what they do knowing full well nothing can be done. I look at my world that should have been, to each window where our kids lay sleeping; where the life that once was, at least for the moment, still exists. I look at her phone clutched in my hand as hard uneven rain soaks inside destroying any trace of what’s being lost. I walk beside her one last time as the stretcher’s loaded into the ambulance that drives away with cold indifference on the same lonely street that for so many years brought me home to her. In that final good-bye I realize for the first time the devastatingly way the last look at love defines the utter emptiness of the deepest darkest void.”