Page 98 of F*ck Marriage

He followed me there in true Woods’ style, showing up at my parents’ house in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone, and valiant in his effort. Just the sound of his voice sent me into a panic. I hid behind the living room door while my father spoke with him and inevitably sent him away. My parents were disapproving of me. They loved Woods and here he was, chasingme,their wayward daughter.

Woods, not to be deterred, drove into town and got a room at the Palace. It was my parents who convinced me to talk to him two days later, my parents who’d always loved Woods and didn’t know what he’d done. When I finally sat down with him (after swallowing my mother’s Xanax), I was stiff and milky-eyed from days of crying.

“If you want to move here, I’ll come,” he said. He was sitting across from me in my father’s favorite armchair, leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees. “I’ll sell everything and come be with you.”

I believed him. I snorted. The very last thing I wanted to do was live in Washington again: miserable, weepy Washington.

“Billie, anything. I’m a changed man. I’ll do anything.”

It took him another week to convince me to come back to New York with him, and I have a feeling it was his lasthurrahbefore he left to go back himself. He’d come to sit on my porch, which was really just four feet of concrete with two rickety old chairs I’d found at a thrift store. I’d been sitting in one sipping tea when he’d walked the path from the main house, his head bowed against the drizzle.

“Billie,” he’d said in greeting.

“Woods,” I mimicked back.

“Is there any alcohol in that?” he’d asked.

I handed him the mug because there was. He took a few appreciative sips before passing it back to me.

“Just give me one month,” he said. “You can come right back if you don’t want to stay—I’ll pay for everything…”

I’d looked at the water dripping off his hair and made my decision. I couldn’t stay here. I could choose somewhere else or go back to New York, but I couldn’t stay here. I agreed, partly because I wanted to believe him, and partly because my old habits were settling in. Just that morning I’d been on Craigslist searching for a used treadmill. I needed to get away from the rain and the trees—a forest of trees pressing in on me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Give me skyscrapers any day, but trees were the thing that made me feel claustrophobic. My parents were starting to look at me in that dubious way that said they didn’t understand me. And I hated that—hated the feeling of not being understood. And so, I’d packed up my things on a Monday and by Tuesday I was sitting in the back of a cab speeding through the Midtown Tunnel with Woods holding my hand.You should be happy.The thought played itself over and over in my head as I tried to grasp this elusive happiness. Happy ... happy ... what was happy? Getting what you wanted?

Istayed with Loren, refusing to go anywhere near the apartment Woods and Pearl had shared. Pearl vacated his life and home the day he left New York to retrieve me from Washington. He said he’d come home from work and confessed that he was still in love with me. She’d slapped him across the face and stormed out, taking his car. But Woods hadn’t cared about the car. He’d booked a one-way ticket to Seattle and caught a cab to the airport. By the time we arrived back in New York together, the only thing left of their relationship was the $10,000 credit card bill she’d left on the counter. Woods grimaced when he picked it up.

“She went on a little post-breakup shopping spree,”he’d said.

Since Woods’ lease wasn’t up for another few months, he stayed there until we found our own place.

Jules, who has not spoken to me since Satcher told her about us, is still in her apartment. I imagine she turned her office into a nursery. I heard from Woods that she called me a snake and said she never wanted to lay eyes on me again. Though she had never wanted to lay eyes on Woods again after he cheated on me, and yet, she was divulging her feelings about me to him. Jules, who had been my friend when no one else was; I hadn’t meant to hurt her. I tried to reach out to her, but she sent my calls to voicemail, and eventually I was forced to write her an email. Even though I hadn’t known they were together before Satcher and I were, she didn’t want to talk to me. I was the reason they weren’t together; she blamed me for her lack of happiness. Their baby, born in September, was a boy. I saw a picture of him online, a tiny version of Satcher that they named Clive.

I haven’t seen Satcher, not since that night he saw Woods and me embracing in his foyer. I’d sent him an email handing in my resignation for Rhubarb and apologizing for ... everything. My heart had dropped when instead of Satcher, Bilbo had been the one to answer my email, asking for an address where he could forward my things. The slight hurt, the fact that he’d rather Bilbo deal with me than talk to me himself. I didn’t know how he was, or where he was. Every time Woods and I were out together I looked for him: in restaurants, at bars, at the post office. I looked for his shoulders, his side part, his dimple. I looked with an aching heart, but the city I loved seemed to have taken his side and was hiding him from me. There’d been two occasions where I’d smelled his cologne: once had been in a restaurant, and the other in a bar. I’d spun around both times to search for him, but there had always been a stranger there instead.

Don’t forget the ice.

Woods brought home a puppy after three months of us being officially back together. He’s a Saint Bernard and already the size of a small suitcase. I balked when I saw him, which made Woods upset.

“We talked about this,” he’d said. “I thought you were ready—”

“I was ready for a ... Chihuahua,” I said, stroking the puppy’s silky head. “Not a dog giant. We live in an apartment in the city.”

“I was walking past a pet shop.” Woods looked pained, like he desperately needed my approval. “He looked so sad in his cage,” he finished.

Typical Woods. He liked sad women and sad animals. I’d summed it up to a savior complex. I didn’t mention the fact that this apartment was going to feel like a cage when the puppy was full-grown. I’d been out of work since I left Rhubarb, and despite my hesitation about being a pet owner, I currently had all the time in the world to adjust to it.

“Okay,” I said. “What are we naming him?” He was already growing on me because he did indeed have sad eyes.

Woods looked relieved as he sat down next to me on the couch.

“Percy,” he said.

I picked Percy up and stared into his eyes.

“I’m sorry in advance for being a terrible dog owner, Percy.” He whined and licked my face and I was instantly in love.

Percy, as it turned out, was a one-person dog. I was the chosen one and he rarely left my side, skidding around corners to keep up with me, and sleeping on my feet while I cooked. It was hard not to laugh at the wounded looks Woods gave the dog, like he’d been betrayed in the worst way. Woods whined about it too: “I’m the one who wanted a dog. I’m the one who saved him. And all he does is follow you around.”

Three months into our dog ownership, Woods suggested getting another dog. His excuse was that Percy needed company, but I knew that his real reason was his need for favoritism. I spiraled into one of the worst depressions I’d ever experienced. Woods was temporarily silenced by my very poignant emotional plummet. This was who Woods was—it wasn’t even his fault. People were capable of changing small things in their behavior: being neat, eating healthier, and controlling their tempers. But there were core things like Woods’ propensity to look elsewhere for attention. That was not a behavior, but rather an innate flaw that led to the demise of our marriage. It was a much larger issue than remembering to put socks in the hamper, and it put my heart at risk. When I finally emerged from a three-week darkness, Woods proposed to me. Again.

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