Hybrids Read Online Free PDF Page A

prefer a divorce,” Mary said, her voice soft.
    “Well,” said Colm. He looked away, at the fireplace on the far side of the dining room, the hearth stone cold. “Well, well.”
    “It just seems time, that’s all,” said Mary.
    “Does it?” said Colm. “Why now?”
    Mary frowned ruefully. If there was one thing that studying Shakespeare inculcated in you, it was that there were always undercurrents and hidden agendas; nothing ever just happened. But she wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it.
    No—no, that wasn’t true. She’d rehearsed the wording over and over in her head on the way here. It was his reaction she was unsure of.
    “I’ve met somebody new,” Mary said. “We’re going to try to make a life together.”
    Colm lifted his glass, took another sip of wine, then picked up a small piece of bread from the basket the waitress had brought with the salads. A mock communion; it said all that needed to be said. But Colm underscored the message with words anyway: “Divorce means excommunication.”
    “I know,” replied Mary, her heart heavy. “But an annulment seems so hypocritical.”
    “I don’t want to leave the Church, Mary. I’ve lost enough stability in my life as it is.”
    Mary frowned at the dig; she was the one who had left him, after all. Still, maybe he was right. Maybe she owed him that much. “But I don’t want to claim that our marriage never existed.”
    That mollified Colm and for a moment Mary thought he was going to reach across the linen tablecloth and take her hand. “Is it anyone I know—this new guy of yours?”
    Mary shook her head.
    “Some American, I suppose,” Colm continued. “Swept you off your feet, did he?”
    “He’s not American,” said Mary, defensively. “He’s a Canadian citizen.” Then, surprised by her own cruelty, she added, “But, yes, he quite literally swept me off my feet.”
    “What’s his name?”
    Mary knew why Colm was asking: not because he expected to recognize it, but because a surname could reveal much, in his view. If Colm had a failing, it was that he was his father’s son, a plain-talking, thickheaded man who compartmentalized the world based on ethnic groups. Doubtless Colm was already mentally thumbing through his lexicon of responses. If Mary were to mention an Italian name, Colm would dismiss him as a gigolo. If it were a Jewish name, Colm would assume he must have lots of money, and would say something about how Mary never really was happy with a humble academic as a husband.
    “You don’t know him,” said Mary.
    “You already said that. But I’d like to know his name.”
    Mary closed her eyes. She’d hoped, naïvely, to avoid this issue altogether, but of course it was bound to come out eventually. She took a forkful of salad, buying time, then, looking down at her plate, unable to meet Colm’s eyes, she said, “Ponter Boddit.”
    She heard his fork bang against his salad plate as he put it down sharply. “Oh, Christ, Mary. The
Neanderthal?
”
    Mary found herself defending Ponter, a reflex she immediately wished that she’d been able to suppress. “He’s a good man, Colm. Gentle, intelligent, loving.”
    “So how does this work?” Colm asked, his tone not as mocking as his words. “Do you play Musical Names again? What’s it going to be this time, ‘Mary Boddit’? And are you going to live here, or are the two of you going to set up house in his world, and—”
    Suddenly Colm fell silent, and his eyebrows shot up. “No—no, you can’t do that, can you? I’ve read some of the newspaper articles. Males and females don’t live together on his world. Jesus, Mary, what sort of bizarre midlife crisis is this?”
    Responses warred in Mary’s head. She was only thirty-nine, for God’s sake—perhaps “midlife” mathematically, but certainly not emotionally. And it had been Colm, not her, who had first acquired a significant other after they’d stopped living together, although his relationship with Lynda