An online novel by Gillette Edmunds

“I know it’s a perverse way of getting rid of Chuck. But it had to be irreconcilable differences. That’s the law. I wasn’t trying to hurt you Michael. I didn’t even know you then. If I did, I would have broken in on them.”

“Sonya was going to leave me anyway. It just doesn’t matter.”

His shoes on, he walked to the desk and sat on top of it, looking down at Barbara on the bed. She did not look up at him. He said, “you didn’t do anything. Sonya makes up her own mind about things. You just tortured yourself for nothing, Barbara. Sonya was just tired of me. None of it is your fault. I’m having a hard time I guess. Something is going on. I do not know how to deal with this kind of thing. You are doing fine. Chuck was going to leave you sooner or later, anyway.”

“No,” Barbara said squeezing her hands together as hard as she could. “He wouldn’t have left if I didn’t let him.”

Her palms hurt terribly when she opened her hands, peering inside them.

“Do you think there ever was a Garden of Eden?” Barbara asked him. “Like in the Sistine Chapel?”

“No,” he said, looking at his shoes, to be sure he had both of them on.

“Chuck and I had everything: a big house with skylights everywhere, a blue swimming pool, shiny new cars, children. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anything. Do you think there’s a heaven, Michael? Do you think I’ll go to hell for how I’ve been?”

She looked across at him and shook out her hair.

“No,” he said. “There’s just people, Barbara. Nothing else. No heavens, no hells, no gods as far as I can tell. But people need their pride to be people. They act right to keep their pride intact. That’s all I do. But it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. A divorce, another week on this shitty tour. A terrible headache. The dry heaves.”

“What are you going to do? I’ve been telling you all about me. I want to know about you.?”

“I don’t know Barbara. I’ve got to get off the tour. I can’t be around all these heavy drinkers. I wouldn’t be drinking like this if it wasn’t for them.”