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  “Can I get your opinion on something?” he said.

  “Sure,” Sandy said.

  “So I was coming over here from Presidio Heights. I was going down Bush Street. The next thing I knew I was on the Embarcadero. I had overshot Fillmore. I had no memory of having gotten to the Embarcadero. I had to turn around to head back toward Fillmore. Then I was on Fillmore but with no memory of how I got there. Next thing I knew, I was in your parking lot.”

  “Are you taking drugs, Steve?” Sandy asked. “Drinking?”

  It brought him up in the chair, snapped him into the moment, into right now.

  “What!” he said. “No, I’m not taking any drugs. Maybe I should, because I’m not sleeping, but I’m not. I’m not drinking. Is that what you think?”

  “I have no idea,” Sandy said. “I met you once, four days ago. But I know you work in a stressful environment and—”

  He cut her off.

  “Yes, but I don’t take drugs,” he said forcefully.

  Sandy saw that she had pushed him down to the bottom of his self-respect.

  “So what is going on? How are you driving and not knowing where you are?” Sandy asked.

  “I was coming to see you, I had a lot on my mind,” Steve said. “I guess my mind handed over the driving to my subconscious while I thought about what I was going to say to you.”

  If he was being cross-examined in a divorce proceeding, is this what he would say? I was driving the kids to school and I handed the wheel over to my subconscious?

  But you got here, Sandy thought. She thought: When you’re this loose you might be able to change.

  “Driving over, you were thinking about what you were going to say to me?” Sandy asked.

  “I was going to tell you how hard Gretchen and I had been working,” Steve said. “How that got us into trouble. I work with a bunch of insanely driven egomaniacs. I was working flat-out. And Gretchen was killing herself to get tenure. Is it any wonder we got into trouble?”

  “There are many couples running flat-out at max, and they don’t get into trouble,” Sandy said.

  “What’s their secret?” Steve asked.

  “They’re helping each other to run flat-out,” Sandy said.

  “We were doing such different things,” Steve said. “It was tough to understand what we were each going through. I didn’t know how to help Gretchen get tenure.”

  “Helping Gretchen get tenure may not be something you could do,” Sandy said. “Understanding what she is going through is something else. Getting tenure is a life-changing event. If you don’t make it, it’s going to kill you. She must have been scared stiff.”

  “She wasn’t scared stiff,” Steve said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Gretchen was going to get tenure. She was the best thing that ever happened to the English department at USF,” he said.

  “How do you know? Did she tell you that?” Sandy said. “Do you think Gretchen thought that?”

  “I don’t know what Gretchen thought because she would never tell me what she thought. She was usually writing a paper at the kitchen table and I had to tiptoe around her, or she was at a conference,” Steve said. “I tried to talk to Gretchen about her work, and it just made her angry.”

  “Explain that to me?” Sandy said.

  “She would tell me I didn’t understand,” Steve said. “That was her mantra: You wouldn’t understand.”

  Sandy thought: How does this relate to what’s happening now?

  “So how are things going now, this week?” Sandy asked. “The kids? How are they doing?”

  “I pick the kids up at after-school day care two afternoons a week, I do something with them until around seven, when I drop them with Gretchen. Then every other weekend, I have them,” Steve said.

  Sandy noted that Steve had answered a different question from the one she’d asked him.

  “Are you happy having the children on such a limited basis?” Sandy asked.

  “No,” Steve said slowly. “When we separated, this was what Gretchen wanted. I’m just beginning to understand what I want. I want more time with them. It has to change.”

  “Could you arrange that with your work?” Sandy asked.

  “I have an equity interest in the firm now,” Steve said. “I could make some sort of deal.”

  “So they can’t fire you?”

  “They could, but it would cost them,” Steve said. “And now Gretchen has tenure. I suppose if we’d managed to hold on for another year, we would still be together, instead of getting separated.”

  “There is a lot going on here, Steve,” Sandy said. “I think there’s a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with your job or Gretchen’s. It has to do with how you two relate to each other. You are terrible at communicating with each other.”

  “Yes, but we can work on it, I hope,” Steve said.

  “We can try,” Sandy said.

  “What are our chances of getting back together?” he asked suddenly. Sandy felt Steve had wanted to ask about this for a while—she wasn’t surprised at the question.

  “The chances are not good,” Sandy said.

  “Are they fifty-fifty?” Steve asked.

  “More like one in a thousand,” Sandy said.

  A look of terror and then anger and then incredible sadness swept over Steve.

  “How can you know that?” he said, his voice rising.

  “You asked me what I thought, and I tried to give you a straight answer,” Sandy said.

  “I can’t accept this,” Steve said. “We have to work it out. There must be something I can do.”

  His desperation moved Sandy. She felt for him. But Steve would have to make huge changes to get back together with Gretchen. It would be a monumental job. On top of that he would need lots of luck.

  “Don’t some of the people you see get back together?” Steve asked.

  “Steve, most of the people I see have intact marriages. They’re here to make them better,” Sandy said.

  “But you’ve had clients who have been separated, right?” Steve said desperately.

  “Of course,” Sandy said. “And I’ve had people who were divorced but had kids together and wanted a good relationship for the sake of their kids.”

  “Look, haven’t you had clients who were separated and managed to get back together?” Steve said.

  “A few,” Sandy said.

  “How many?”

  “Two couples,” Sandy said. It was the truth. When you got as far down the line as Steve and Gretchen had, it was really hard to slow down the divorce train so you could hop off.

  “Two?” Steve said. He looked at Sandy, dumbfounded. As if he’d been shot.

  “How long have you been a marriage counselor?” Steve asked.

  “This isn’t going anywhere,” Sandy said.

  “Yes it is,” Steve said. “I want to know something important. Are we here to make the divorce as peaceful as we can, or are we here to try to repair the relationship?”

  “Those two goals aren’t mutually exclusive,” Sandy said.

  “I thought this was marriage counseling,” Steve snapped. “As in there is a marriage that we are trying to save. You would like to save this marriage, right?”

  “This isn’t about me,” Sandy said.

  “Well, I want to save this marriage,” Steve said forcefully.

  “Then save it,” Sandy said evenly.

  Her challenge hung in the air between them.

  “I thought you were going to help me figure out how to do that,” Steve said after a moment. “Like there would be some sort of plan. For starters we would agree not to sleep with other people. Then we’d identify our problems and try to take them on, one by one. Some sort of action plan.”

  “I want to make sure you hear me,” Sandy said low and hard. “I want you to really listen.”

  “I’m really listening,” Steve said. “Believe me.”

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “There is no action pl
an. There is no plan at all. And there are not going to be any agreements like you won’t sleep with other people. I’m certainly not going to suggest it, because I think it would be the wrong way to go.”

  “It would be wrong?” Steve said. He looked confused. As if there were no way out.

  “It would be useless to suggest it. If Gretchen wants to sleep with someone, she will,” Sandy said. “And why shouldn’t she? You guys aren’t living together.”

  Steve looked doomed. The jury had come in with a death sentence.

  “I will say this,” Sandy said. “I remember now that I know three couples who were separated and got back together. My husband and I lived apart for almost a year. We got back together eventually.”

  This news seemed to lift Steve’s spirits.

  “You told me to save the marriage,” Steve said.

  “Yes,” Sandy said.

  “But you don’t have any ideas about how I should do that? Not one? Even though you and your husband managed to get back together?”

  “I didn’t say I had no ideas,” Sandy said. “I have one idea. I think you need to feel better about yourself. I think that is the place to start. You can’t do anything about Gretchen right now, but you can do something about yourself. You need to do whatever will make you feel better. And I have another idea.

  “I want you to try an exercise: when Gretchen says something, I want you to imagine that she means the opposite of what she is saying.”

  “Are you saying that Gretchen says the opposite of what she really thinks?”

  “Not literally all the time, but sometimes. But that’s not important. I want you to think about what’s behind what Gretchen is saying, look for the real meaning. If you imagine that she means the opposite of what she’s saying, maybe you will be open to the multiple meanings that are possible.”

  “So if Gretchen says she hates me, she really means she loves me?”

  Sandy had to smile.

  “It’s possible. Or maybe she hates you and loves you. Consider all the possibilities,” Sandy said.

  4.

  Sandy had been thinking about her mom’s big black screaming Mercedes, the AMG C63, all morning, and now that she was in her office, she decided she wasn’t ready to reach a decision about it. She called the garage, and Don answered.

  “Don,” Don said.

  “Hey, Don, it’s Sandy Hyland,” Sandy said. “I’ve decided I’m not ready to sell the car.”

  “I offered you a good price,” Don said. “Did you check it out on Edmunds?”

  “It’s not about the price,” Sandy said. “I’m not ready to sell the Mercedes.”

  “You drive a Prius,” Don said. “What would you want a C63 for?”

  Like she had to explain her reasons? She needed some justification for not wanting to sell her mother’s car? Would her mother have given Don an explanation?

  She hung up on Don. Then she put her desk phone on standby. The only way to reach her now was on her cell and the only one who had her cell number was her answering service, and if it was a real emergency, her cell would vibrate, not ring.

  She looked at her watch. She had five minutes. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. The deep thunk-thunk of Steve’s car, the twin to her mother’s car, woke her out of it. She gave them a little time to get up the stairs, to settle down in the waiting room. Then she opened the door: they were sitting across from each other, Steve staring into space and Gretchen with a pen in her hand, reading a paper and making comments on it.

  “Hey there,” Sandy said. “Come on in.”

  And they did.

  “How are you guys doing?” Sandy asked, looking at them, thinking Steve looked somewhat better.

  “I have something that I want to discuss,” Gretchen said.

  “Okay,” Sandy said, knowing what was coming.

  “I’m in a relationship with someone,” Gretchen said briskly. She looked at Sandy, then Steve. “It doesn’t feel as if it’s your business. But Sandy says we have to be honest with each other or there is no reason to be here at all.”

  “I knew you were having an affair,” Steve said.

  “How did you know that?” Sandy asked.

  “I’ve been inside Gretchen’s computer,” Steve said quietly.

  “How did you do that?” Gretchen said angrily.

  “We used to live together, I had your passwords, I accessed your computer remotely,” Steve said.

  “My e-mail?” Gretchen asked.

  “Yes,” Steve said.

  “Was my e-mail informative?” Gretchen spit it out.

  “Afterward, I was sorry I did it,” Steve said. “I did it once. I was crazy, I couldn’t stand what was happening to us. It won’t happen again.”

  “It certainly won’t,” Gretchen said forcefully. “I’m changing all my passwords. I’m taking my laptop to the university IT department and having them go through it to see if you’ve put any bugs in it, and then having them install the best privacy software they have.”

  “I told you I’m not going to go into your computer again,” Steve said. “But do whatever you want.”

  “As if you could stop me,” Gretchen said. “What else have you done?”

  Sandy guessed what Steve had done. Of course, Steve would do a better job than most injured husbands. He was a creative, hard-driving guy, a force to be reckoned with.

  “I’m sorry about this, but I couldn’t help myself. At the time, I was out-of-my-mind jealous and scared,” Steve said. “I commissioned a full report on Bill.”

  “What does that mean?” Gretchen said.

  “The kind of report we get on the principals, when we’re buying a business,” Steve said. “Have they ever been arrested? Did they pay their taxes?”

  “Are they having an affair on the side?” Gretchen asked.

  “It’s come up in the reports,” Steve said.

  “When you got this report, did I come up?” Gretchen asked.

  “No,” Steve said. “You didn’t come up.”

  “I really, really am so sick of you,” Gretchen said. “How can you be so controlling?”

  How could he be so miserable, Sandy thought.

  “So what did you think?” Sandy asked Steve, curious.

  “About what?” Steve said.

  “What did you think after you read your report on Bill?”

  “Does it really matter?” Gretchen said. “What matters is that he did it in the first place.”

  “I think it matters,” Sandy said. “I want to know what Steve thought about the report. Don’t you?”

  “I’m having a hard time just getting through the fact he investigated Bill,” Gretchen said. “It’s crazy.”

  “It was a dumb thing to do. I can see that,” Steve said.

  “Dumb? To me it seems like a natural reaction.” Sandy looked at Gretchen, then back at Steve. “Am I the only one who is interested in the report?” she said. “Steve, tell me what you thought after you’d read it.”

  He paused. He was unsure about explaining what he thought. He was used to being able to hide difficult stuff from Gretchen. Sandy wanted to grab Steve by the lapels and shake him.

  “It sounds like Bill is a very good teacher,” Steve said, picking his words carefully, cautiously. “Very involved with his students. He’s won several teaching awards. His students seem to like him a lot.”

  Sandy thought about the way Gretchen and Steve were entwined together, trapped together, how both of them tried to avoid talking about the hard stuff. Would they rather get divorced than talk about the difficult issues between them? Maybe.

  “Steve, I don’t believe you came away from reading this report thinking what a good teacher Bill was,” Sandy said.

  “He is a good teacher,” Gretchen said. “Bill is a great teacher.”

  “I came away thinking I was in trouble, if you want to know the truth,” Steve said.

  You are in trouble, Sandy thought.

  “I could see he could be a very p
ersuasive man, I could see that he might be exactly what Gretchen wanted. A sensitive, articulate guy who she could share her work with, both of them teaching college English.”

  “He is a sensitive, articulate man,” Gretchen said. “He is also honest, and caring.”

  “I wasn’t so sure about the honest and caring part,” Steve said. “He left his first wife and a young child for a student.”

  “She was a graduate student,” Gretchen said, stone-cold.

  “He was supervising her thesis, he was her mentor,” Steve said.

  “This stuff is in the report? Fuck,” Gretchen said, warming.

  “He got divorced. They went to court. There is a public record,” Steve said. “His first wife was really mad when she found out about the graduate student.”

  “You are hardly one to talk about cheating on your wife,” Gretchen said.

  “No, I’m not,” Steve said quietly. “I am very, very sorry for what I did, and I wish I could undo it. I really don’t want to lose you.”

  “You lost me a long time ago,” Gretchen snapped. “Bill helped me to leave you, he gave me strength, he was a gift. But he didn’t have anything to do with why I left you. You caused that to happen all on your own.”

  Gretchen sat back, she folded her arms across her chest. Then she looked at Sandy.

  “What am I going to do?” Gretchen said. “Is there any way to stop him?”

  Stop him from being human? Sandy wondered.

  “Why do you want to stop him?” Sandy said. “Everything that Steve did is predictable. If you thought about it, you knew he would do it. What I’m interested in is why you didn’t realize he would do it. Why are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. We should deal with that and we will. But let me ask: Was it so terrible?”

  “He invaded my privacy,” Gretchen said, sitting up ramrod-straight in her chair. “It is a personal violation.”

  “Why is it a personal violation?” Sandy said.

  “He invaded my privacy,” Gretchen repeated stubbornly. “Of course that’s personal.”

  “Really? I mean, so what?” Sandy said. “You’re married. You are supposed to talk to each other. Were you talking to Steve?”

  “I want autonomy,” Gretchen said. “Steve never gave it to me.”