Nightmares

It's late, you're making tea, the night is quiet and still. The phone goes off and you grab it before the second ring, so as not to wake the person sleeping in the next room.

"Hello, Tim? It's me."

It's me. Which is worse: that after five years she still considers herself to be the only me in your life, or that you respond as if it were true?

"Oh, hi. How are you doing?"

"Not so good," she says, "do you have a minute?"

What she tells you is sad, though hardly surprising. You knew something like this would probably happen, even if you hoped it wouldn't. In your more cynical moments you thought that the two of them together meant there were two less miserable people elsewhere in the world.

"He was cheating on me. It started after the baby was born. I began having my suspicions about six months ago, and then I hacked into his e-mail account and it was all right there. My lawyer had him served with divorce papers today. The person he's sleeping with is engaged, and I found out who her fiance is. I called him up and told him what was going on. We're having lunch tomorrow to talk about it."

You don't know what to say, you tell her.

"I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the way things ended between us. If it's any comfort, just know that I've been paid back in spades, call it karma or whatever. I don't know if it means anything to you, but I wanted you to know that you were the best boyfriend I ever had, you treated me nicer and made me laugh more than anybody."

Thank you, you say.

"Remember those nights at Coney Island High and Green Door? Remember hanging out with Mike and Marlena and Flip, and Chris and Ally, and how much fun we used to have dancing and just being silly?"

You remember, you tell her.

"I felt like after you and I split, I never had any time to mourn our relationship."

That's because you were too busy playing Betty Crocker for some toolbox from Queens, you think. You can still hear her screaming how blue-collar men were more noble and decent. She listened to a lot of Springsteen back then.

"It felt like I was in a cult, he was just so domineering and controlling. I thought I wanted that at the time, a real strong person, a father figure, to tell me what to do, what to wear, how to think."

You get chills. You can still see him in his wifebeater, wallet chain hanging off his work pants, beefy arms crossed as he leans against the car outside, looking around himself with an air of smug triumph. And you, standing in the spare room that was your own self-imposed exile, peeking cowardly from behind the curtain, watching as she runs outside in her tightest cutoffs and her hair done in a way you'd never seen before, careful not to kiss him until they're inside the car.

"That's the last time I'll ever go out with somebody with tattoos," she says. "What did you used to call him?"

"A rockabully."

"Yeah, that's it. It still makes me laugh. Well, if it's any consolation you were completely right about him, everything you said about him was true. You had him pegged as a phony from the beginning. Boy, was I dumb. You always accepted and loved me for who I was, and I'm just realizing how special that was."

"Thank you."

"Can I ask you something? I know you're married now, and I really hope you're happy, but...are you guys going to stay together?"

Ah. Ah ah.

You remember the last time you spoke with her. It was a year after she'd left, and you had a terrible nightmare that she was in grave danger. You saw her screaming, trapped, being pulled down into a dark cave that was filled, hilariously, with a translucent sticky goo. You remember in your dream she screamed for you to help her as you flew above the scene, and that you looked down and called, "I can't help you, I'm sorry," and then flew away. It was such a creepy dream that you couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong, and the next day you finally broke down and left her a voicemail. When she called you back the following night, she told you that you had left the message exactly in the middle of her wedding ceremony.

You decide to aerosolize.

"Well," you say, "I certainly hope so. But the truth is, Beth, none of us has a crystal ball, we can't see into the future. We just take things one day at a time and do our best, and that's about all anybody can do."

She agrees and her voice is dreamy and distant, like it's the most profound thing she's ever heard. She tells you she's on tranquilizers.

"I wish you the very best, and happiness," she says. "Maybe we could get together for dinner sometime."

Maybe, you tell her. You thank her for calling.

You put down the phone and your hand is trembling, it's like the saddest song Yo La Tengo ever sang. You go quietly into the other room where your wife, your beautiful bride, is sleeping, surrounded by the cats. You smooth her hair, kiss her forehead and chew your lip as you go back to the living room to finish packing. You're leaving her.