Page 49 of Saltwater

“I’m tired.” She took a sip of wine. “I want out. And for the record: it was an accident.”

Marcus sighed and wrapped his arm around the back of her chair and leaned in. Sarah had seen him make this move countless times—at dinner parties and work events—whenever someone’s feathers were ruffled or the tension had reached a fever pitch. Marcus-the-defuser. All broad smiles and easy laughter, the arm pulling you in closer.

Trust me. You’re overreacting.

Sarah had even written this habit into one of the characters in her play. The kind of man that men likeddespitehis position of power, not because of it.

“This will pass,” he said, raising a hand to the waiter and pointing at Sarah’s glass. “Take it from someone who has been in a relationship for nearly twenty years, marriages go through phases. This is just a phase.”

“So you’ve gone through a phase where you may have tried to kill your spouse?”

Marcus laughed. “You didn’t try to kill him. You hit his calf. Also, I thought it was an accident?”

“I thought it was a partnership.”

“All right,” Marcus said. And she could hear it then, the thing that underpinned the physical closeness, the ease, the broad smile—the moment Marcus transitioned toleverage,totransaction.That foundational Lingate impulse towardcontrol.“Enough. You want to leave.He’s angry and won’t let you go without inflicting his own damage. So what’s next?”

Sarah brushed the crumpled bits of napkin off the table and onto the ground.

“I want a divorce. It’s the right thing for both of us.”

“Sarah—”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

“Could I if I wanted to?” He sighed again and waited while his glass of wine was placed on the table; a bowl of olives came, too. Then, as soon as the waiter left, Marcus leaned in, so close that Sarah could feel his breath against her neck, and whispered, “I just want to be sure that my brother and I—that everything between us can stay as is. Despite what you’re going through. I don’t want to end up in a situation where this spills out into a source of conflict for Richard and me. We’ve had enough of those over the years.”

“Our divorce would have nothing to do with you and Richard.Nothing.”

“Sarah,” Marcus said, lifting the glass of wine to his lips. “Youknowthat isn’t true.”

Helen

Now

I didn’t discover my mother’s workuntil I was an adult. Before then, the only thing I knew about her, outside of the fact she was no longer alive, was that my father kept their wedding photo by his bed and didn’t like to talk about her. No other avenues for learning about her were offered.

Instead, my early years revolved almost entirely around my father. And why wouldn’t they? He oversaw every aspect of my life. Where I went to school (his alma mater, naturally). Which courses I took (a smattering of humanities and niche sciences). Which friends I could see (the ones that had been vetted by our security consultant). What I was allowed to say in public (nothing).

I was never a teenage rebel. I was too afraid to be. He was all I had.Theywere all I had. My life a series of family dinners, family conversations, family obligations. The outside world intent on devouring me. So despite the number of people—fellow students, parents of friends, teachers, a grocery store clerk—who told me, casually, that my father had killed my mother, it seemed far more likely thattheywere the ones who were wrong. Because I knew them so intimately, my family.

I became convinced that without them the force of the world’s speculation would wipe me out. They were right to not talk about my mother, about the past. It was a small life, but it was a safe life.Until a painting professor of mine brought me a copy of my mother’s first play.

“Have you read this one?” she asked.

“I haven’t read any of them,” I said.

Two weeks later, she came back with a box full of my mother’s published writings.

I looked between her and the box.

“Would you like me to keep it in my office for you?” she asked quietly, so the other students wouldn’t hear.

“Thank you,” I said.

I spent the rest of the semester memorizing the cadence of my mother’s dialogue. The way she shaped a scene onstage. Her sharpness. Her humor.I got to know her.And in getting to know her, I finally got to know myself outside of my family, outside of being a Lingate.

Because that’s what she had always been—my missing half, my hidden half. The half of me that reminded me it was okay to ask:Is this normal?Why can’t I?What if I did?My mother, I could tell through her work,had lived.It was there in the details of her characters’ relationships, in the unwinding of friendships and affairs and businesses. I knew she had seen those things. The texture of her freedom lifted off the page. I recognized it, this thing I didn’t have.

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