The Cottage

“Are you ready to start looking for something for you?” the realtor asked hopefully. “I have some great small houses for you up in the hills, and there's a little gem in Hancock Park. There are some nice apartments around right now too.” February was always a good month to look. The holiday doldrums were over, and some great listings came on the market in the spring. And with the sale of the house, and the price he'd gotten for it, she knew he had money to spend. Even his half was more than enough to buy himself a handsome new place. And he had a good job. Money wasn't a problem for Mark. Just everything else.

“I'm fine at the hotel,” he said, slipping into his Mercedes after thanking her again. She had done a great job, and closed the sale smoothly and in record time. He almost wished she hadn't been so efficient, or had even lost the sale. He hadn't been ready to move on. It was something to talk about with his new therapist, grist for the mill. He had never been to a therapist before, and he seemed like a nice guy, but Mark wasn't sure it would help. Maybe with the sleep problem, but what could he do about the rest? No matter what they said in the counseling sessions, Janet and the kids were still gone, and without them he had no life. He didn't want a life. He wanted them. And now she belonged to someone else, and maybe the kids would like him better too. It was a devastating thought. He had never felt as hopeless in his life, or as lost.

He drove back to the office, and was back at his desk by noon. He dictated a stack of letters, and went over some reports. He had a partners' meeting that afternoon. He didn't even bother eating lunch. He had lost ten pounds in the last five weeks, maybe twelve. All he could do now was keep moving, putting one foot after the other, and try not to think. He did his thinking at night, when it all came back to him, and he heard her words again and again, and thought about the kids and how much they had cried. He called them every night, he had promised to come and visit them in a few weeks. He was taking them to the Caribbean over the Easter vacation, and they were going to come out to LA in the summer, but now he had nowhere for them to stay. Just thinking about all of it made him feel sick.

When he saw Abe Braunstein in a meeting about new tax laws late that afternoon, the accountant was stunned. Mark looked like he had a terminal disease. He usually looked healthy and young and athletic, he was always in good spirits, and even though he was forty-two, Abe always thought of Mark as a nice kid. He looked like the boy next door. Now he looked like someone had died. And he felt as though he had.

“Are you all right?” Abe asked with a look of concern.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Mark answered vaguely, looking numb. His face even looked somewhat gray. He seemed exhausted and pale, and Abe was genuinely worried about him.

“You look like you've been sick. You've dropped a lot of weight.” Mark nodded, and didn't respond, and then after the meeting, he felt like a jerk for not reacting to Abe's concern. Abe was going to be the second person he'd told, the first being his therapist. He hadn't had the guts, or the stomach, to tell anyone else. It was too humiliating, it made him seem like such a loser, and he worried that people would think he'd been a shit to her. He wanted to explain, and he was torn between wanting to whine, and needing to hide.

“Janet left,” Mark said cryptically as they left the meeting side by side. It was nearly six o'clock. He hadn't heard half of what was said, and Abe had noticed that too. Mark looked like he was having an out-of-body experience, and felt like it. But at first, Abe didn't get his drift.

“On a trip?” he asked, looking confused.

“No. For good,” Mark explained, looking grim. But in a way, it was a relief to tell the truth. “She left three weeks ago. She moved to New York with the kids. I just sold the house. We're getting a divorce.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Abe said, feeling sorry for him. The poor guy looked destroyed. But he was young, he'd find another wife, maybe even have more kids. He was a good-looking guy, Abe had always thought. “That's really rough. I didn't know.” He hadn't heard a thing, although he did a lot of accounting work with Mark's firm. But they usually talked about tax law, or their clients, not about themselves. “Where are you living now?” It was funny how men asked each other what they were doing, not how they felt.

“In a hotel two blocks from here. It's kind of a dump, but it's okay for now.”

“Do you want to go out and get something to eat?” Abe's wife was expecting him at home, but Mark looked as though he needed a friend. He did, but he felt too lousy to go anywhere. Closing on the house had made everything seem even worse. It was tangible evidence that his life with Janet was over for good.

“No, thanks.” Mark managed to force out a smile. “Maybe another time.”