Three Women at the Water's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page B

you. I can’t bear to look at you. You used to be beautiful; now you’re not. You don’t interest me. There’s just nothing there for me. I don’t enjoy life with you. I am not interested in anything you’re interested in. When I was sitting at that parent-teacher meeting for Danny’s preschool, I thought I’d get sick or start tearing my hair, and you were so happy, making suggestions, really caring. The life you want is just not the life I want. I want to live with Monica; I want to eat elegant meals every night without children whining and interrupting, I want to be free to go out on the spur of the moment or to lie in bed screwing all Sunday morning, or to sleep all night long without some kid wailing. I want to be selfish.”
    “So what will you do if Monica gets pregnant?” Daisy said. “She’s young. Accidents happen. Will you leave her then, too?”
    “I’m going to get a vasectomy,” Paul said. “And Monica’s getting her tubes tied. There is no way we will have children in our lives. Although she’s perfectly willing to be agreeable to Danny and Jenny and the new baby whenever they come to visit,” he added.
    Daisy stared at him over the rim of her cup. How completely Paul had planned his new life. Monica was even willing to be
agreeable
to the children! An urge moved through Daisy: covertly she looked about the table, searching for something hot and peppery, or oily and sharp with onions, to throw in Paul’s face. But the table had been cleared, had even been brushed clean of crumbs. There was only the expanse of white linen, and the water glasses, and Paul’s cup, and her own coffee, which tasted too good to be thrown away. It occurred to Daisy that there was not very much left she could do about the situation. It occurred to her that Paul had become the sort of person she did not like, would not even have wanted to know. And perhaps she had gotten what she wanted from him, the lovely children, the good house. She did not need to keep him around, as he was, as a father; his genes might be okay, because he was tall and good-looking, but perhaps it would be best if his influence ended right there.
    “Well,” Paul said impatiently. “Well?”
    Yet she did not want to admit this. She did not want to give in too easily. She was afraid, of vague things she could not even name. She felt that now she still somehow had the upper hand, and she was not willing to relinquish it, not when she was so unsure of the rules of the game, of the game itself. She hesitated. She stared at Paul, seeing a handsome man just past thirty, who had a neatly trimmed mustache riding a voluptuous mouth, and eyes as hard as—as what? His heart?
    “You bastard,” she said calmly. “You bastard.”
    To her awe and consternation, Paul burst into tears, right there in the restaurant. “Oh
Jesus
, Daisy,
come on
,” he said. “Why are you doing this? You don’t love me anymore. You haven’t loved me for a long time. You haven’t wanted me to touch you for
years
. You’ve detested me because I’ve scrambled to make money, because I haven’t gotten rich in the offhanded, altruistic, quiet way your father has. Yet you’ve been quick enough to want all the things that take money: the house, Montessori for the children. Somewhere along the way you stopped seeing
me
; the only time I please you is when I’m doing something with or for the children. How in the world can you want me to live with you? Can’t you be generous? Can’t you be kind? You have so much—you love the children, and they love you. Won’t you let me go off somewhere so I can be loved, too?”
    At the end of this speech, Paul did an incredible thing: he blew his nose in the restaurant’s white linen napkin. It made Daisy laugh, and she sat there, aware that she could say something snide and cutting now. But Paul’s head was bent as he blew his nose and wiped his tears on the napkin, and across his white forehead a speckling of red appeared: the