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The Russians arrive.

Back in our yard Sheila asked to take the three children directly to her loft. She knew her time with her son was limited and she wanted it all. She set them up with a movie and snacks while she dived into one of our laptops for some research, a few feet away. I went to the bunker and retrieved several hard drives she requested, all about weapons and radar.

As I strolled back to the house I wondered what she had in mind. But I should have been thinking about the barrage of questioning I was about to face, like a firing squad, as I entered the living room.

Jane and Nancy were tearing into Jim, sitting across from them. An intense glare in their eyes and his look of confusion did not bode well as I sat down beside him.

“So what are your plans, running off to war, leaving us here in danger with the kids?”  Jane was saying, “while you drive off. Maybe you’ll just make a room for yourself in the hospital, tend to all the wounded around the clock.”

The anger in her voice was loud and shrill, the tension in the air palpable. It was as if the war had already begun.

He said he didn’t know what would happen. But if there was combat and wounded soldiers it was his duty to manage the hospital and take care of them. He had no choice. He couldn’t live with himself if he stayed here in hiding. It was his oath and he said so.

Jane shrugged in anger, then blurted out the single word: “men,” as if that summed up everything.

Now it was Nancy’s turn to tear into me. She was already angry over Sheila’s return, breaking up our peace and quiet, our perfect life, and giving her all my attention.

“So, you’re headed out too, with Sheila again on some new adventure, leaving your children behind.”

“Nancy don’t be jealous. This is a war. And as far as Sheila and me, we’ll probably be a hundred miles apart by the end of tomorrow.”

“How will I know, just like I never knew what happened in Washington?”

This unexpected accusation and the way she said it, right in front of Jane and Jim, caught me off guard. It put questions in my head.

Did she hear something? She never mentioned it before. But she should have.

I realized there a growing gulf between us, while in the early days when we shared everything. I could see from her passion that the thought must have been brewing in her a long time before this volcanic eruption.

“Nancy” I replied, “this isn’t the place or time. It’s unimportant. Let’s talk about it later, privately. I have bigger questions to tackle with Sheila. I’ll be spending the rest of the day with her. All our lives are at stake.”

“Go share your afternoon with her. But bring the kids back right now so they won’t be in your way. Jane and I will take care of them while you two make plans to sneak away and give us no clue when you’ll be back” she almost shouted.

This was too much for me. As far as anger management went, I threw in the towel.

“Get your heads together” I yelled back. “I’m seeing a general tomorrow and you’re bitching. I’ll be with Sheila late into the night. We have critical plans to discuss. We’re talking about war and you’re talking about babysitting! Tomorrow we’re off. If you two feel left out I’ll send a jeep when the shooting begins. Bring the kids along. You both look like you’ve been pumping up for a battle for quite a while. Come in your tank-tops and shorts. We’ll get you belts with clips and grenades and Uzis to sling over your shoulders. You’ll make a stunning pair with your tanned bodies. And you Jane, you’re all set. You have the perfect name: G.I. Jane. You even look like the plastic doll.”

With that I stormed out. I’d never yelled at Nancy before. I’m sure what I said was unforgivable but it was three years of taking orders from them and changing diapers while they pressed barbells. Now it snapped. I had to walk around the barn three times to let off steam before I could calmly face Sheila.

The kitchen cabinets above the fridge were never entirely cleaned out from Bill’s tenancy. Either they were too high for the women to reach or just sloppy work on Nancy’s part. But I knew exactly what they contained, as it was always the cupboard I went to when I’d visit him, full of cigarettes and bourbon.

I pulled out a bottle and a pack of smokes, grabbed two glasses and set them down beside Sheila, pulling my chair around to sit right next to her. I poured myself a stiff drink but she didn’t want one, so I lit a cigarette and used her glass for an ashtray. She looked curiously at this behavior but was wise enough to stay silent and hear what I had to say. She was nothing like Nancy.

I took several belts of bourbon and began: “I’ve just had my first big fight with Nancy. It’s about me heading out with you again and deserting the kids. She suspects we slept together in Washington.”

“Well, we did.” Sheila replied, "with calm, professional, motives.”

“This is no time to deal petty jealousies. You should have heard the barrage I just went through from both of them, teamed up, scheming women wanting everything their way. I’m staying here with you tonight. That should settle the matter. She’ll either get over it or she won’t. I’ll find out when I get back.

“But right now I have to take the kids home. When I come back we’re locking the door. We’ve got a war to think about and we’ll be gone before sunup.”

She looked bemused at my proposition, the first time I’d seen a glimmer of a smile on her lips.

“What war are you talking about? The one between Nancy and us or with the Russians?”

I had to laugh at that and gave her a quick kiss. She went over and hugged each of the children in turn and told them their mothers were waiting for them. As I led out the little flock, all holding hands, she smiled and said:

“I’ll see you back here in a few, hopefully not with a black eye.”

She was not that far off. The women came out as I approached the front door. Jane took the children inside and Nancy again confronted me on the landing with the same glare, her face just inches from mine, as if threatening violence. I returned her a look she hadn’t seen in eight years, since the day she walked out on me when I was at work on my novel, laying on the couch as she slammed the door. It was the look of disinterest, as my mind was very far away that day. She seemed puzzled at this and at my calm, expecting no doubt that her fury would kindle some sort of reciprocal anger in me. But I wasn’t going to fall for that. I pulled a cigarette from my pocket, lit it slowly and blew a smoke ring in her face.

“Remember those days” I said. “Well we’re back to square one. Only this time I’m walking out and you’re the one ditched to mull things over, waiting for a phone call. I guess it’s come full circle.”

She was open-mouthed but speechless. I skipped down the steps and back to Sheila’s, sat and drank several more glasses, slowly now, while she made dinner. She listened closely as I described this brief encounter on the porch, to which she had nothing to reply as it was all so enigmatic, unresolved, as impossible to grasp as the smoke ring itself. The far larger question was where our relationship stood, where it might go. But like all matters in wartime everything’s uncertain, and that’s exactly where we were, about to enter a great unknown.

This mutual silence continued through dinner, our minds each plunged in our own private kaleidoscope of thoughts. As I cleaned up the dishes and she sat there, wearing an almost sad expression, I poured her a drink, which she took, and now I sat across from her and we talked from our hearts, till the bottle was drained, as I’d done so many times before with Bill.

She admitted for the first time that she did have strong feelings for me, loved me, but would never dare hurt my relationship with Nancy. That was in large part the reason she went away for so many years, sacrificing motherhood and her child. At this point she teared up but brushed them from her cheek and asked me what we should do.

I began by laying my life bare to her from the start, in detail, so she’d know exactly the chain of events I went through and know my qualities and defects. I knew she had the intelligence to listen objectively, not through the colored lenses and convoluted objectives that moved Nancy. I took another bottle from the shelf halfway through, my throat dry, as the account lasted over an hour.

I told her that my core being was independent, full of knowledge and self-esteem and confidence, formed during my student years, fed and lasting to this day, as my one and only hobby was reading and introspection. I said this might sound cold or presumptuous but nobody on earth could touch or affect this inner self, because I’d read everything in Western culture that mattered and had a certitude about exactly what this world was and what I should be. I was a stone cold Stoic at heart and nothing could change that. This whole empirical realm with everyone in it could melt before my eyes and if I were left, standing alone on some sand dune, I’d still feel as complete a human being as can be, content and satisfied with my life, and I’d make my way from there and build a new world with whatever I found. And if I found nothing I could build it in my mind and be happy till I died.

“I had companions in my youth and loved their company, but honestly, I never needed them and would have passed just as rich a life without them. Then Naomi came along and I discovered the intriguing pleasures of sex, intimacy and the female mind. To explore this more, I became the minion of every woman I met, starting with my agent, manipulated. It looked like I was being led by the hand, a weakling character. But I was walking in a park, taking everything in, my wide intelligence always intact. I had a gentle and generous nature, too agreeable, eager to please, without ulterior motives or lies, but with smiles and compliance to every female whim and wish, giving of myself and my time because I had much to give and asked nothing in return. It was a curiosity about other beings, and the strangest and most fascinating were women.

“This also explains my perspective on money. I took no notice of it. Naomi might have taken large sums with my checks and bank books but I didn’t care. I only explored her kisses. In New York I practically threw it away, hundred-dollar bills in the air like confetti, all the while my agent and publisher were probably robbing me blind. But I never once asked to see ledgers because poverty or wealth made no difference to me. I was complete in myself, and worldly matters couldn’t touch that.

“When Nancy came along, awed by the mansion they’d given me, she took charge of all finances, all domestic matters too. I think that was a large part of her love for me, this secluded paradise with her in charge and an escape from her former drab, demanding career. It wasn’t me. Our personalities were too far apart. I tried to introduce her to literature, but it didn’t take. She’d rather be bailing hay and riding horses. But she loved this secluded farm, with all the luxuries money could buy and her complete control over me. I loved her too, her body and sex, and to see her happy. I still do, though now it’s blemished.

“They pushed it too far once the babies came along, Nancy and Jane. They saw my compliance and used it up, my sympathy, my generosity. They did the same with Jim, treated us like tools, ordered us to demeaning tasks, not seeing all the kindness they took advantage of. I could have easily found helpers for the children’s needs if they asked. But they preferred lording it over us because we were so compliant, always obeying, thinking this would show our love as good husbands. But their disrespect for us began to show.

“The thing is, that when a mind’s complete, other people’s slings and arrows don’t hurt. And even when they gave me what they deemed menial chores, as they sunned themselves, I was learning human psychology, fascinated by it. And the babies taught us too. These last two years with the children, you couldn’t imagine the pleasure I found in watching them, seeing the rudiments of language and intelligence forming in their pure minds, while others call it babysitting.

I could have been in my study reading Plato. But I’d already done that. These children were a book just as interesting, just as complex and full of lessons. I shared many of these insights with Jim and I saw his curiosity light up. I wish I could have shared them with you. But I could never have shared them with Nancy. She wouldn’t understand. She’d look at me like I was babbling about old books again.

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘throwing pearls to swine’? Well that’s how I feel about her, wasted effort, not understood.”

“At first she could feel and share the enthusiasm in me as I read to her. But she didn’t grasp the beauties in what I recited. So after a while she thought me a fool or a freak, as all illiterates view the finest poetry, never realizing that they’re the fools and imbeciles.

I looked down at the liquor in my glass, feeling dejected, and uttered two lines from Coleridge:

“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.”

Sheila looked puzzled at this but commiserated with me.

I wasn’t going to leave her in the dark, as I did Nancy. So I said, rather briskly: “Look, change the word ‘Work’ to ‘Love.’ That was my life.”

“I see it now, clearly. I’m sorry. I’m not used to poetry. It’s beautiful, but it’s so sad.” Then she gave me the warmest embrace.

I tried to sum it up, my feelings.

“I’m no longer blind to one-sided love. I think Nancy and I are done. The children are another issue, far too complicated by all of us mixing up sex and genetics. Let’s not even go there now.

“I’ll just say this. I’d much rather be in your arms than hers. But if you don’t want that I’ll take the couch, no hard feelings. We have to be clear-headed tomorrow and work as a team. Maybe we can be a team, a couple, when this war is over. You don’t use me and we both share all consuming interests, mine in books and yours in science. If you love me, I’ll return that love. What are your thoughts?”

 “If Nancy is out of the picture I’d like to be in it, in your life. You’re the only man I’ve ever been attracted to, and we have a child. But this war is going to change everything. It’s unpredictable, so let’s just wait and see what happens. Tonight let’s sleep together. It may be our last, and it’s getting late.”

She stepped into the bedroom and stepped out in a white nightgown and took me by the hand into that dim room, while I followed, both of us ready to bury our overburdened heads in the oblivion of each other’s embrace.

Here is a link to the beginning of the book. Each chapter has a link to the next.

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