Jeff wanted to speak with me when he got home. It wasn't like before when wanting to speak with me was a code word for abusing me. It had been two months since the horrible night at the lake. Even though it was all in the past and the danger had receded, things hadn't really changed. I didn't know what to do because by then almost ten years with him had accumulated and I was versed and fluent in our dance together. It was natural. I feared his violence, then when he wanted me again I felt completely safe. The same, never ending loop. And I was in love with him.

Since the lake, the abuse was absent. I knew it was not gone; I always kept that part of me awake. The knowledge that he wasn't always capable of controlling his emotions and when the valve was opened it didn't close until he struck me. It hadn't been opened those last few months of our marriage because the outcomes during our last episode of violence had been so devastating. It caused he and I both to go so crazy that scared us. We did things neither of us thought we were capable of.

Another change was my new independence. We'd arranged our finances and lifestyle so that I was no longer restricted and imprisoned by him. I was the legal mother of my two step children, I had access to my own money with a large sum in trust, I started driving my own car. I also made the decision to end the servitude of the women who lived in our house, our nanny and housekeeper.

He didn't object to any of it, in fact he'd facilitated it. In the wake of all this freedom, I'd changed too. I didn't have marital expectations on him. That seemed to please him. I knew he was still sleeping with other women, but instead of anger it was how things were. A part of me knew that his controlling dominance still played itself out with the girls he slept with and then tossed away. I didn't care about that. We talked openly about our marriage having already ended; a separation was planned as soon as the children were old enough. We didn't know when that would be.

I couldn't say why we continued to have intimate relations. I didn't know why still made love to him so often. I certainly didn't have to. I had no marital obligations. Intimacy with Jeff was something I wanted. When Jeff and I were intimate it was the only time I felt his genuine love towards me, not the manipulations, casting me both as worthless or having incomprehensible value. I don't know why I continued to make love to him. And, he'd ask me every time. "Are you doing this because you love me?" All I could offer was silence. I didn't know if that was why.

He called me into the front parlor. There was something he wanted to tell me. We walked into the room, more companions or friends than anything else. Certainly whatever he had to tell me would be all right. I smiled at him and walked into the front room. Honestly,  I had a bit of anxiety. Walking into the room alone with him, the same room where so much fighting had taken place. The yellow lights of the table lamps cast a familiar hue. The sound of the scotch as he poured it into the glass reminded me of times I'd held my breath praying he wouldn't hurt me. He poured a drink for both of us and sat down next to me on the couch.

"Scotch has become a daily routine for both of us hasn't it?" I smiled at him. "Do you remember when you gave me scotch that first time back in Sellwood?"

"I do." He smiled at me, and nodded almost shaking his head. "You were so innocent back then."

I was about to object to his comment, say something to deny it, but it was the truth. "Do you miss that?"

He shook his head. "No. I've watched you change. It's been almost ten years. I like you." He looked away for a moment. "Eve. I don't know how you're going to take this." He looked worried. I could see the creases around his eyes. He frowned and let out a deep breath. He took a sip of scotch.

"It's ok, " I said, "whatever you tell me is all right."

He looked away again. His eyes were glassy when he looked back at me.

"What is it?" I reached and touched his arm. "What is it?"

"Eve. I've found someone else. I want to be with her."

I felt my stomach drop even though I hadn't expected it to when we ended things. I knew we had to stop at some point and I wanted to before things turned dark again. But, the relationship we'd developed in the past couple of months had been like no other in our time together. I felt as though we'd gotten to know each other authentically. I saw him share in the joy of our children.

I nodded but I couldn't say anything. I let out a breath and looked at him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "There's something about living this way. In so many ways I honestly love it, but it's not in my nature. I don't want to keep going with it."

"It's all right," I whispered taking his hand in mine. "Really. We had to some time." I shrugged but then I turned away from him and started to cry.

"Are you crying Eve?" He asked tenderly. I could hear the worry and sincerity in his voice. In the past, had he ever worried about hurting before the fact?

I collected myself and turned back. "I'm all right. Really. I'll just miss you." I felt myself starting to cry again. I held my breath not wanting the undulations of pain to grow any more intense.

He let out a deep breath and I thought for a moment he'd come over and take me in his arms. He'd tell me not to cry and then kiss my neck. He'd make love to me. I wanted him to.

"I'll miss you too." He said. I was composed again.

He looked down at the floor and then reached for the cigarette case on the table. "Want one?" He asked me. I smiled and nodded. He held out the box and I took one. He did too. He held the lighter up. We didn't say anything for a little while but somehow there was something humorous about it, or maybe there wasn't, maybe it was just such a deep sadness that we couldn't do anything but find humor in it. We exchanged smiles.

"We're like two old men aren't we?" I held up my scotch in a toast.

"Or just two men," he held up his.

Later we went for a walk around the gardens. I told him I wanted to move to a smaller house, closer to Chicago so the children could take a bus to school and so I could be close to the university. And, since I planned on teaching in the city, it would make more sense. "Plus," I said, "This isn't my home any more."
"No" he kept his gaze on the gardens as we passed. "Will you miss the gardens?"

"No."

"Remember how that was all you used to do? How much you loved it?"

"Yes."

"Why did you grow tired of it?"

I held his hand and stopped. He turned and looked at me. The moon was full and the deep blue and white light made the gardens visible and I could make out his expression. His eyes grew intent, stayed on me. He shrugged a little. I could see he was looking for something to say.

"It's all right," I said again, "really it is."

"I want to tell you how beautiful I think you are."

"I know what you think." I needed to stop him and keep our equilibrium. Although, it really didn't matter. He was leaving.

"It's cold. Should we go back to the house?" He asked.

We started walking and then I stopped again. It was near the pond and the footbridge. "This is my favorite part of everything here," I said.

I knew he wanted to touch me. Touch my face and pull me towards him. I could feel it; I knew him so well. I was so intimate with him. I didn't ask how he could still want to touch me now that he'd found someone else, someone that he'd likely been sleeping with for some time. I never understood how he could have two women at once. I always wondered what he was like when he was making love to someone else. If I imagined it for too long, a searing pain would tear through me. I didn't really want to know.

"When will you leave?" I asked.

"I was thinking soon. But I don't have to. What do you think?"

I shrugged."And the children? Have you thought about arrangements?"

"I think they should live with you. Of course I'll see them."

I felt my heart lift. Wasn't that ultimately what I'd wanted? Ultimately the reason I'd stayed when things were so bad. "Yes. I would love that. I loved them so much." I started to cry.

He touched my cheek and I looked up at him. I had the desire to tell him I didn't want him to go. That it would be too hard with out him. I wanted to tell him I loved him. 

"I'm sorry for crying so much," I whispered. I wiped my eyes.

"Eve, thank you for loving my children. A lot of women wouldn't. I've never told you that have I?"

"When will you go? Do you think in a week?" I asked.

"When do you want me to go?" His eyes turned deep blue and I knew his face so well.

I shrugged my shoulders and sighed. "Maybe as soon as you can. I don't want to drag it out, it would be too hard. Maybe tomorrow?" I covered my eyes with my hands and cried.

"Eve," he whispered.

I looked at him.

His eyes widened for a moment. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's not that much different than a week. It will spare me heartache. Let me get over it sooner. Can you?"

He nodded his head, "If that's what you want."

That night I in our room, when I removed my clothes, he watched me. I knew he wanted me. Since the moment he said he was leaving, a terrible conflict raged inside me. I was firm in my decision to separate from him, but a little child was crying for him to stay with me. I wanted to beg him not to go. It was tearing at me, making me physically weak. I walked over to the bed and slid in. I leaned over and kissed him. Things turned into that comforting place as we sat together. I didn't know how I had maintained the distance in every other moment. Remained kind and respectful but offering no intimacy. For two months, I wasn't his wife except when we were making love. Maybe even while we made love I wasn't, but I felt so protected and wanted. No one could understand what it was like for me to lose that love. I had no one else in the world who loved me singularly. As cruel as he could be, I knew he thought I was meant for him.

I kissed him and touched his face. "Can I ask you?"

He moved the hair from my cheek. "What is it?"

"Are you like this when you make love to other women?"

I closed my eyes for a moment and then opened them again. He was looking at me intently. "I've lied to you so much that I'm afraid you won't believe me now."

"I believe you."

"No. It's never like with you. It's..." he turned away for a moment. "With them...Something takes over and I just—It's carnal. There is no love. I don't think a man can explain it to a woman."

"What about this girl you're moving in with?"

"What about her?"

"Is it carnal with her?"

"Right now it is. I don't really expect that to change."

"Did you feel that way when we first made love?"

"You know I didn't." He paused and remained quiet for a moment. Then he said, "If you don't want to make love to me --after hearing me say that, if you don't want to--it's all right."

"I've read that men are that way with their mistresses. There is more sexual pleasure for both the man and the woman."

"Don't I give you sexual pleasure?"

"I think our case is different. I started out as your mistress."

He let out a deep breath. I moved closer to him and put my hand on his cheek. Then, I moved slowly towards him, just the way he used to with me. I held my lips close to his but didn't lean in further and kiss him. He pulled me closer and kissed me passionately.

He guided me down onto the bed. He leaned over to move on top of me.

"Wait," I said. He stopped and looked at me.

"What is it?"

I moved on top of him. He sat up against the headboard. "What are you doing?" he asked. It was something we'd never done in ten years. Every time we'd made love he moved on top of me.

"I don't know. I don't know why." I whispered and I leaned into him and kissed his neck, "I don't know why." I whispered against his skin. He placed his hands on my hips and moved me gently. I was looking into his eyes and after a time I felt a strong sensation that I hadn't felt before. I took a deep breath, and then another. The sensation returned and filled my body. Then I felt an electricity, a pleasure run through me. I felt as if I would lose air and not be able to breathe and then it ended, but my skin still felt warm and my heart was racing. I was trembling. In a moment, he took a deep breath and held me tighter. He closed his eyes and he too became lost for a moment—just as I'd seen him before. I looked at him and then kissed him.

"That's never happened to me before," I said.

He smiled, "I know."

"I want to do it again."

"Right now?"

"No. Next time." I looked down. I knew it was the last time.

"Why do you make love to me Eve? You still love me don't you? he asked.

I looked away for a moment then back at him. I nodded. "I love you." I kissed him. "You know I love you."

"I don't want us to end our marriage. Let's stay together." He put his hand on my cheek.

"What about this woman?"

"It'll work out," he moved and sat up, leaned against the headboard. "She'll be all right."

I sat next to him. I couldn't. I honestly couldn't. I didn't want to. I wanted to keep going where I was going. Our marriage was in the past and yet we'd found a little time to honestly love one another as friends and we were lovers in those hidden moments. But even with that, I didn't want to stay married to him.

"I can't. I don't want to."

"Eve..."

I waited a moment. I wanted to lighten things. I didn't want the manipulation that I knew he was capable of. I wanted it to stay as it was.

I lightened my tone and smiled at him. "I have an idea."

He watched me, caught on that I was turning change the tenor. "You do? I can't wait to hear what you're going to say."

I smiled at him. "It's a good idea. Why don't we do this. Once you and this new woman get divorced, If I'm still available, I'll marry you again." I held out my hand for him to shake it. "I honest to God promise."

"Who says I'm going to divorce this woman that I'm not even married to yet?"

"A matter of time." I smiled, "I promise, I'll keep my word."

At first, he didn't respond; he just stared at me shaking his head. Reluctantly he shook my hand. Unexpectedly he moved closer to me, "Oh my God Eve" he teased "when did you become so unkind?" I laughed and he moved towards me and tickled me when I squirmed down into the bed he moved on top of me again. Just to kiss me. Just to look in my eyes and then kiss me. After that, we spent most of the night talking; remembering mostly. It was very late and we were both smoking cigarettes and drinking gin and tonics.

"Read your poetry to me." He put his drink on the table "Read it to me."

I was silent for a moment. I had known if I'd read it any other time, I would have been vulnerable. I would have begun the deterioration of my power. Just as if I'd given anything of myself to him. But, he was leaving. There was no risk. I examined him for a moment. His face was serious.

"All right. I've had enough gin and tonics to give me the courage." I walked over to the shelf and retrieved a small leather case. I carried it over to the bed. I sat down next to him again.

"It's been there the whole time?"

I removed the poem I thought of driving home from my group. " I'm going to read you two things, all right?" I waited and he nodded. "The poem is—"I looked down. I felt so embarrassed, not so much because of what I'd written but more because of how I felt. I didn't want my feelings to lay barren. I was afraid. . I don't know why I want to read you that one. I think even because it's not so well written—"

"Eve don't be nervous."

I looked back up at him. "I'm not. I'm just telling you why its so important to me. This has been the start of a new life for me. And it came on, the desire to write. It came to me, as if it had been there all along. I'd never felt that way before. I was sitting in the cottage and these words appeared in my thoughts. The one I'm going to read came to me when I was driving home one day."

"All right." He said. "I understand."

Once I felt ready, I was still a little nervous but it felt natural too. I began reading, looking at the page and not at him.

My loneliness is threaded. Stitched, fastened tight. It's a garment.

In this profound aloneness, I am bound, proper.

Coarse cloth without patience

Imposing Into my lungs. Into my heart.

I looked up at him. I did feel vulnerable and I knew I'd grown flush. He was always the smart one. He was always the artist. I knew, even with my rapid education in poetry, he knew more about it than I did. His eyes remained fixed on me for a while after I'd read it; it seemed he was figuring something out about me. "It's very beautiful. I can't believe it. I didn't know you could—I didn't know that was a part of you."

"I didn't either. The other piece is a short—it's almost an essay—I wrote it when I was reading Simone de Beauvoir.

He laughed. "Eve. What have you been doing these last few months?"

"That's why I asked you about the other women."

"What is?"

"If you felt more desire outside of marriage."

"Did she write about infidelity?"

"Yes, she wrote about marriage and what it means for a woman. You know my friends at the university? I've joined their meetings and go every week. In the very beginning one of the women gave me Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir. We write short essays sometimes and bring them to our get togethers at a café downtown. Reading the Second Sex helped me understand our problems.

"How did you have this whole life that I didn't know about? How could you not tell me?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "I don't know. Do you want to hear what I wrote? It's about us, how it used to be. What happened in the end. But I have to warn you, I think I was trying to make it sound very philosophical and intellectual like the book. That's embarrassing to me."

"Eve don't be embarrassed because you're intelligent."

"Well, it is embarrassing."

"OK. You don't have to read it to me if you don't want to."

"It's about the end of our relationship."

"Isn't this the end?"

"I mean the lake, how we grew to hate each other. How you used to hit me."

He took a sip of his drink and nodded. "I'm sorry, Eve. I want to hear it."

"This is what I wrote. Please understand that I'm not really someone who uses words like this. I was trying to be like the book."

"Eve. Just read it."

I nodded and picked up the paper.

"You'd think that reading Simone de Boivore would make me hate Jeff. It's quite the contrary. Her words and ideas help me understand a little about what it may mean to be raised with the unquestioned belief that women are weak, lesser and the "Other."" She said He is the subject, he is the absolute –and she is the other." This myth has been alive for centuries. To untangle these beliefs, we must question the rules that define value and strength. We are still far from that. Even Jeff's rage vs. his compassionate self. This is a dialectic, maybe a conflict. He is a man that could strike me and force me to submit to him. Could it possibly have been to reinforce his standing as the Absolute and my standing as Other? Was there a conflict with himself as a rational being? Until now I had no other way of being. My mind only conceived of myself in the way that society had defined me. ---

I looked up at him. that's as far as I've gotten. I wanted to write more, but really..." I folded the paper. Almost an attempt to hide it. "It doesn't matter." I looked up at him.

He didn't say anything for a few moments. His eyes were examining me, studying me. I could see he was thinking, constructing words for his impression of me. He didn't kiss me or try to flatter me. He gave me a serious consideration, then he spoke.

"Eve," he said, "Now we're equals."

I looked down. I looked at my words. Did they make me equal to him? Was I equal because I'd gained some knowledge, that I had ideas and read philosophy? Hadn't I always been equal? Aren't all humans equal?

"We were always equal." I said, I looked at him. "Didn't you think I was your equal this whole time?"

He looked down, I recognized his behavior. It was clear he disagreed with me, but was going to let it go. It made me sad that he hadn't thought of me as an equal.

That night marked the end of our marriage Afterwards, for a very long time I cried. Even after I stopped crying every day, I missed him for even longer. Of course I did. During our marriage, I'd tried to leave so many times without an awareness that "becoming his equal" as he had said, would be the thing that set me free. A part of me realized that he didn't want his wife to be his equal.