Chapter 8

That Saturday was Frank's third session with Tyrone, and when he came back home he was exhausted. I sat across from him with my coffee, and he could barely lift his fork to his mouth. The bite of cheesecake seemed heavier than he could bear. I could tell he was starving, for he kept lifting those heavy bites, and he ate two pieces – and cheesecake, especially mine, is rich food. But he seemed as though he'd walked miles without rest.

When he pushed his plate away, he leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. "This is so hard, Genesis," he said. It was a weary, almost defeated utterance, but in a way it was a beautiful one. For the first time since I'd confessed my adultery Frank sounded completely normal in speaking to me.

"If you're having as hard a time as I am," I said, "then it's got to be almost killing you."

"I'm not sure that 'almost' is an appropriate qualifier, Gen." Even when his mind and spirit were utterly worn down, Frank's diction was always better than mine. "I think perhaps it is killing me – simply that."

"But you're continuing."

"Yes." He lifted his head and rested his chin on his fists. "I have, essentially, two options at this point. One is to dissolve our marriage – for I realize now that to continue as we have been living would mean, eventually, your death. And I could not permit myself to cause your death; I love you, and if your life requires me to free you, then I will free you. The other option is to fix whatever is wrong with us. Since I cannot tolerate your death, and I am not sure I would survive a divorce, there is, actually, just one option open to me."

Frank had never been so open with me about his feelings. I'd known he loved me. Even during the dark days, I hadn't, quite, lost that assurance. But aside from those three words – I love you – that men stereotypically can't or won't say, but Frank never had trouble with, he had been closed off. I hadn't realized it, not until our discussion on Monday. But it was true, and I realized it afresh as he spoke.

I reached across the table, feeling terribly daring after so many months of separation in the same house, and put my hand on his arm. "Your consideration is important to me, Frank. It gives me hope. I just wish that the way to a healthy marriage wasn't so roughshod over your heart."

"I've been talking to Tyrone ... I guess you know that, don't you?" He smiled, the smile as weary as his voice. "I'm sorry – my mind isn't functioning as well as I would prefer. He hasn't said a whole lot, but I've heard the things I've been telling him. I don't think I've ever really listened to myself before. And the things that came from my mouth..."

He lowered his hands, and took mine in both of his. "Monday you confessed to being angry at me, because I had treated you like a thing. I hadn't even realized you were angry, nor understood that you could have cause for anger." He looked down at the table, and then with what I could tell was a tremendous effort forced himself to look me in the face again. "I have my own confession to make. In Tyrone's office I have said some vicious, hateful things about you. I said things I didn't know I had the ability to say. I expressed feelings – squeezing them out with all my strength, for otherwise I couldn't have spoken of them – I expressed feelings regarding you which were despicable, vile, nasty ... I am ashamed that I could ever think such things about you, Gen. And I didn't even know that I did, until I heard myself vilifying you so blackly."

His hands were crushing mine, but I refused to react. I knew that this confession was costing my husband dearly, and I would do nothing to prevent him from making it. A decision to make such a confession is a painful one – at least it would have been for me – and I would not detract from the courage Frank was showing. He spoke again. "Genesis, though you didn't, in explicit words, ask me to forgive you when you confessed your anger to me, clearly that was what you wanted. I think you know that I did and do forgive you, though my expression of that was ... crippled. I am not as – poetic, is perhaps the word – as you are. Something like this I can only ask bluntly, probably crudely. Will you please forgive me for the vileness I've said, and thought, about you?"

Of course there could only be one answer. "I forgive you, Frank. I have no choice – I love you."

And again Monday came. I was beginning to feel like the wheat between the millstones must feel – utterly ground down. I knew it was necessary. I could see the benefit from it, and I could see that Frank was benefiting too. But three weeks of pouring my soul out had rendered me very weary.

I must have appeared weary, in spite of my cheery canary sleeveless dress and the fact that I'd done nothing more to my hair than hold it back with a pair of giant barrettes. Tyrone led me into his office and got himself settled in his chair, and said, "It's been hard on you, hasn't it, Genesis?"

I dropped what I realized had been a false perkiness. I had hardly realized I was putting up a front, but when I ceased to do so I could feel myself drooping – spiritually more than physically. "Yes, it has. In some ways it's been harder than living with Frank was."

"Was?" Already Tyrone's eyes were closed as he – I suppose – concentrated his faculties in his hearing.

"Yes, was ... Oh! You mean I used the past tense."

"Yes."

I thought about that. I'd learned that while Tyrone didn't do what I so despised, and ask me what I thought my problem and cure were, it was helpful when I could work things out in my own mind. I wasn't always right – or at least I didn't always arrive at the conclusion Tyrone was leading me toward – but when I came to an answer through my own efforts, it penetrated better than it would have had it merely been given to me.

"I think," I finally said, "that things have gotten better. I'm not willing to be definite, not yet, but it seems like Frank is unbending. In fact," I said, "Saturday he confessed that he's harbored some unkind thoughts toward me. I hadn't known it, and for Frank to make such a confession ... well, I would never have expected it."

"What has he told you about our sessions together?"

"Almost nothing. He's been as respectful of confidentiality as I have. But he did say, in the course of his apology, that he'd told you just how poorly he'd been thinking of me."

"I can, then, verify that he has said some harsh things. I won't go into detail – I too respect our confidentiality – but the hurt you gave him drove him to a very great anger."

Things came together in a new way for me just then. My insight was probably not very original, and it was late in coming, but it was new to me. "We've been hurting each other, haven't we?"

"Hurt is usually like that."

"I'd thought of how I hurt him, and then of how he hurt me, but I'd never put the two together."

"It can be hard to see past one's own wounds."

"Very hard, impossible almost ... no, not just almost."

Tyrone nodded. "I have been so hurt sometimes that I couldn't see the pain Pat was in. And I'm sure I've done the same to her."

"So how have you managed to stay happily married?" As soon as the words were out I clapped my palm over my mouth, my hand acting out a cliché that I never would have consciously embodied. "I'm sorry, Tyrone, I don't mean to pry."

"That's all right, Genesis. Much of what I do when I counsel people on marriage comes out of my own experience." He laced his fingers together across his stomach. "Pat and I have stayed together, in spite of the hurt we've done each other, for a few simple reasons.

"First, we love each other. I met her and it was over for me. I was on the brink of proposing to someone else, but I met Pat and never thought again of that other woman as a potential wife. And she's told me that she never considered marrying anyone besides me. There simply isn't anyone else for either of us.

"And second, we've acted that way. We don't say 'I love you, ' and then give to someone else what belongs only to each other. I don't say this, Genesis, to whip you – that's not the purpose. I'm telling you how my marriage has worked.