“Turning forty has nothing to do with this!” she half yelled at him. “What is it with you men? For the first half of our lives when we get angry, you say we have PMS. Now what are you going to say, Alan? That I’m heading for ‘The Change’?”
“I didn’t say anything like that. Could you stop that for a moment?!”
In all their years of marriage, it was guaranteed that if Alan shouted at her, Leslie would cringe. But not now. Now she turned and confronted him. “What?
?s the matter, Alan? Is my little tantrum holding up your rendezvous with Bambi?”
“Bambi? What the hell does she have to do with this?”
“Everything and nothing,” Leslie answered, then tried to calm her anger. She’d no idea that she had this much rage inside her. But it was as though it had been building and festering in her for a very long time.
“That makes no sense at all,” Alan said, and she could see that he, too, was angry.
In the last days she’d made a decision to not allow her happiness to be tied to any man. Ellie and Madison both had careers that they were very successful at, but Leslie didn’t. Those two women had themselves, so they could afford to add a man to their lives. But a man was all that Leslie had. In the week she’d spent with Hal and his family she’d realized that if she chose a life with him, that in twenty years’ time, she’d be just as she was now. She’d be so involved with his life that there would be no room for her. And, once again, that girl who had been so fearless would be lost.
“Right,” Leslie said, and this time she was calm. “Alan, I can’t live as I have been even one day longer. I’ve given all my life to you and the children, and now that they’re nearly grown, I want something for myself.”
“And you want this old place?” he asked, still looking at her as though she were crazy. “You could have just said that and not—”
“No!” she shouted. “I couldn’t have because you don’t see me.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course I see you. You’re right there.”
She advanced on him. “No you don’t. You don’t see me. You see a woman who feeds you and buys your clothes and finds your socks and arranges your parties. But you don’t see that I’m a person separate from you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You went up to Maine and you spent the weekend talking women’s lib garbage with those women, didn’t you?”
“I want a divorce,” she said, then looked at him in shock. Where had those words come from? Where had the thought come from?
Alan said nothing, just stared at her in disbelief.
When Leslie spoke again, she was calm. “I can’t take any more of this. I’m sorry that I jilted you, but I should have been forgiven years ago. I’ve certainly tried to make it up to you over the years. But I can’t take this humiliation any longer. If you want her, you can have her.”
“Have who?” Alan asked quietly, and she could see that for the first time in many years, she had his full and undivided attention.
“Bambi!” Leslie spat out the name with all the venom she felt.
“Bambi?” Alan asked. “You think I’m interested in Bambi?”
“The entire town knows about you two, so you—”
She broke off because Alan had smiled—then he began to laugh.
“Me and Bambi? Is that what you think? Is that why you’ve been so cold to me these last months? Is she the reason you move away from me every time I get near you?”
She wanted to defend herself, but she knew that she had been cold to him. Every time he’d put out his hand to touch her, she’d thought, How long ago was he touching her?
Alan sat down on the sofa and a cloud of dust encircled him. Ignoring it, he looked up at Leslie. “I thought maybe you had another man,” he said softly.
“Me?” she asked in disbelief. “I’m a middle-aged—”
“You’re as beautiful as the day I married you,” Alan said. “And I hired Bambi to make you jealous. Has it worked?”
It took Leslie several minutes to realize what he’d just said. “To make me jealous?”
“There’s always been part of you that I could never reach. You’ve always been so independent. Other wives call their husbands if a mouse runs across the floor, but not my wife. No, my Leslie can handle anything. Look at this place. It was you who rebuilt it. Do you know how I felt seeing you using a power hand saw when I don’t know a blade from a bit? All these years I’ve wanted to make you need me, but I’ve never succeeded. There isn’t anything you can’t do and do perfectly.”
If she’d thought for a thousand years, she would never had thought that these were problems that Alan had. She sat down on the couch beside him, then waited for the dust to settle. “You weren’t angry that I ran off and left you just days before our wedding?”