The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 4

The world goes through two seasons in six months. Should it be surprising that other things change a lot in that time, too?

Peter had downloaded this week’s Time from the net and was glancing through it. World News. People. Milestones.

Milestones.

Births, marriages, divorces, deaths.

Not all milestones were so cut-and-dried. Where were things such as the disintegration of a romance noted? What was the journal-of-record for lingering malaise, for empty hearts? Who marked the death of happiness?

Peter remembered how Saturday afternoons used to be. Lazy. Loving. Reading the paper together. Watching a little TV. Drifting at some point to the bedroom.

Milestones.

Cathy came down the stairs. Peter looked up briefly. There was hope in lifting his eyes, hope that he’d see the old Cathy, the Cathy he’d fallen in love with. His eyes fell back to the text reader. He sighed — not theatrically, not for her ears, but for himself, a heavy exhalation, trying to force the sadness from his body.

Peter had inventoried her appearance in that quick glance. She was wearing a ratty U of T sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans. No makeup. Hair quickly combed but not brushed, falling in black bunches around her shoulders. Glasses instead of contacts.

Another small sigh. She looked so much better without the thick lenses balancing on her nose, but he couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn her contacts.

They hadn’t made love for six weeks.

The national average was 2.1 times each week. Said so right here in Time.

Of course, Time was an American magazine. Maybe the average was different here in Canada.

Maybe.

This year had been their thirteenth wedding anniversary.

And they hadn’t made love in six fucking weeks. Six fuckless weeks.

He glanced up again. There she stood, on the third stair up, dressed like some goddamn tomboy.

She was forty-one now; her birthday had been last month. She still had her figure — not that Peter saw it much anymore. These sweatshirts and too-big sweaters and long skirts — these bags she’d taken to wearing — hid just about everything.

Peter stabbed the PgDn button. He tipped his head down, went back to his reading. They used to make love a lot on Saturday afternoons. But, Christ, if she was going to dress like that…

He’d read the first three paragraphs of the article in front of him, and realized that he hadn’t a clue as to what it had said, hadn’t absorbed a single word.

He glanced up once more. Cathy was still on the third step, looking down at him. She met his eyes for an instant, but then dropped her gaze, and, hand on the wooden banister, stepped down into the living room.

Focusing on the magazine, Peter said, “What would you like for dinner?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

I don’t know. The national anthem of Cathyland. Christ, he was sick of hearing that. What would you like to do tonight? What would you like for dinner? Want to take a vacation?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Fuck it.

“I’d like fish, myself,” said Peter, and again he stabbed the PgDn button.

“Whatever would make you happy,” she said.

It would make me happy if you’d talk to me, thought Peter. It would make me happy if you didn’t fucking dress down all the time.

“Maybe we should just order in,” said Peter. “Maybe a pizza, or some Chinese.”

“Whatever.”

He turned pages again, new words filling his screen.

Thirteen years of marriage.

“Maybe I’ll give Sarkar a call,” he said, testing the waters. “Go out and grab a bite with him.”

“If you like.”

Peter shut the reader off. “Dammit, it’s not just what I’d like. What would you like?”

“I don’t know.”

It had been building for weeks, he knew, festering within him, pressure increasing, an explosion imminent, his sighs never releasing enough of what was pent up, what was ready to blow. “Maybe I should go out with Sarkar and not come back.”

She stood motionless across the room from him. The staircase rose up behind her. It looked as though her lower lip was trembling a little. Her voice was small. “If that would make you happy.”

It’s falling apart, thought Peter. It’s falling apart right now.

Peter turned the magazine reader back on but immediately flicked it off again. “It’s over, isn’t it?” he said.

Thirteen years…

He should get up from the couch now, get up and leave.

Thirteen years…

“Jesus Christ,” said Peter, into the silence.

He closed his eyes.

“Peter…”

Eyes still closed.

“Peter,” said Cathy, “I slept with Hans Larsen.”

He looked at her, mouth open, heart pounding. She didn’t meet his gaze.

Cathy moved hesitantly into the center of the living room. There was quiet between them for several minutes. Peter’s stomach hurt. At last, his voice raspy, raw, as though the wind had been knocked out of him, said, “I want to know the details.”

Cathy spoke softly. She didn’t look at him. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters. Of course it matters. How long has this…” he paused “…this affair been going on?” Christ, he’d never expected to use that word in this context.

Her lower lip was trembling again. She took a step toward him, as if she meant to sit beside him on the couch, but she hesitated when she saw the expression on his face. Instead, she moved slowly to take a chair. She sat down, weary, as if the tiny walk down to the living room had been the longest of her life. She carefully placed her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “It wasn’t an affair,” she said softly.

“What the hell would you call it?” said Peter. The words were angry, but his tone wasn’t. It was drained, lifeless.

“It was … it wasn’t a relationship,” she said. “Not really. It just happened.”

“How?”

“A Friday night, after work. You didn’t come that time. Hans asked me for a lift to the subway. We went back to the company parking lot together and got my car. The lot was deserted by then, and it was pretty dark.”

Peter shook his head. “In your car?” he said. He paused for a long time, then said, softly, “You” — and the next word came slowly, unbidden, released from his lips with a little shrug as if there were no other word that would quite do — “slut.”

Her face was puffy, and her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. She moved her head back and forth slightly as though trying to deny the word, a word that no one had ever applied to her before, but then at last she also shrugged, perhaps accepting the term.

“What happened?” said Peter. “Exactly what did you do?”

“We had sex. That was all.”

“What kind of sex?”

“Normal sex. He just dropped his pants and lifted my skirt. He — he didn’t touch me anywhere.”

“But you were wet anyway?”

She bristled. “I … I’d had too much to drink.”

Peter nodded. “You never used to drink. Not before you started working with them.”

“I know. I’ll stop.”

“What else happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he kiss you?”

“Before, yes. Not after.”

Sarcastic: “Did he tell you he loves you?”

“Hans says that to everyone.”

“Did he say it to you?”

“Yes, but … but it was just words.”

“Did you say it to him?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you — did you come?”

A whisper, “No.” And then a tear did roll down her cheek. “He — he asked me if I had come. As if anyone would have, in and out like that. He asked me. I said no. And he laughed. Laughed, and pulled up his trousers.”

“When did this happen?”

“You remember that Friday I came home late and had a shower?”

“No. Wait — yes. You never have a shower in the evening. But that was months ago—”

“February,” said Cathy.

Peter nodded. Somehow, the fact that this had happened so long ago made it more bearable. “Six months ago,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and then, the words like a trio of bullets tearing into his heart, “The first time.”

All the stupid questions welled up in his brain. You mean there were others? Yes, Peter, that’s exactly what she means. “How many times?”

“Two more.”

“For a total of three.”

“Yes.”

Sarcastic again: “But ‘affair’ is the wrong word for this?”

Cathy was silent.

“Jesus Christ,” said Peter softly.

“It wasn’t an affair.”

Peter nodded. He knew what kind of person Hans was. Of course it hadn’t been an affair. Of course there was no love involved. “Just sex,” said Peter.

Cathy, wisely, said nothing.

“Christ,” said Peter again. He still had the magazine reader in his hand. He looked at it, thinking he should throw it across the room, smash it against a wall. After a moment, he simply dropped it on the couch next to him. It bounced silently against the cushion. “When was the last time?” he said.

“Three months ago,” she said, her voice small. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you. I — I didn’t think I could. I tried twice before, but I just couldn’t do it.”

Peter said nothing. There was no appropriate reaction, no way to deal with it. Nothing. An abyss.

“I — I thought about killing myself,” Cathy said after a very long pause, her voice attenuated like a predawn wind. “Not poison or slitting my wrists, though — nothing that would look like suicide.” She met his eyes briefly. “A car accident. I was going to ram into a wall. That way, you’d still love me. You’d never know what I’d done, and … and you’d remember me with love. I tried. I was all ready to do that, but, when it finally came down to it, I swerved the car.” Tears were running down her cheeks. “I’m a coward,” she said at last.

Silence. Peter tried to make sense of it all. There was no point in asking if she was going to go with Hans. Hans didn’t want a relationship, not a real relationship, not with Cathy or any woman. Hans. Fucking Hans.

“How could you get involved with Hans? Hans of all people?” asked Peter. “You know what he is.”

She looked at the ceiling. “I know,” she said softly. “I know.”

“I’ve always tried to be a good husband,” said Peter. “You know that. I’ve been supportive in every way possible. We talk about everything. There’s no communication problem, no way you can say I don’t listen to you.”

Her voice took on an edge for the first time. “Did you know I’ve been crying myself to sleep for months?”

They had a pair of bedside fans that they used as white-noise generators, drowning out the sounds of traffic from outside, as well as each other’s occasional snoring. “There’s no way I could have known that,” he said. He’d occasionally noticed her shuddering next to him as he fell to sleep. Half-conscious, he’d idly thought she’d been masturbating; he kept that thought to himself.

“I’ve got to think about this,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure what I want to do.”

She nodded.

Peter threw his head back, let out a long, ragged sigh. “Christ, I have to rewrite the entire last six months in my mind. That vacation we took in New Orleans. That was after you and Hans — And that time we borrowed Sarkar’s cottage for the weekend. That was after, too. It’s all different now. All of it. Every mental picture from that time, every happy moment — fake, tainted.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cathy, very softly.

“Sorry?” Peter’s voice was ice. “You might have been sorry if it had happened just once. But three times? Three fucking times?”

Her lips were trembling. “I am sorry.”

Peter sighed again. “I’m going to call Sarkar and see if he’s free for dinner.”

Cathy was silent.

“I don’t want you along. I want to talk to him alone. I’ve got to sort things out.”

She nodded.