Glenda stayed in touch with her roommates but didn’t seem to make as many friends at the law firm, probably because they seemed pretty stuffy, at least as far as I could tell. But if her work wasn’t a source of social opportunity, it was definitely rewarding from a career perspective. Glenda showed a real aptitude for legal matters, and her talent was recognized and rewarded. She began to be given more demanding assignments, which she relished, and after performing well she was promoted and assigned to a more senior partner in the firm. Inevitably this resulted in longer hours for her, but she welcomed the opportunity to show what she could do, and I was delighted for her.
And that brought me back to tonight and Glenda’s sudden, unfathomable departure. I went to the refrigerator, pulled out a six-pack of beer and returned to the sofa to try to figure out what had happened. I hadn’t seen it coming. Sure we no longer had that I-can’t-stand-to-be-away-from-you-for-a-minute feeling of first love, but nobody stays that way forever. Sure our jobs had been keeping us apart more of late, but wasn’t that the price you had to pay to get ahead?
What was driving me crazy was that we hadn’t had any big fights, no clash of goals or values, nothing I could point to that might explain her decision. Okay, I admit that there’d been times when she was impatient with our standard of living, but I felt the same way. And anyway, weren’t we on a path that would lead us to more of the things we wanted in due course? Glenda was already moving in that direction, and as soon as one of the senior citizens (as we called the older editors at my company) finally decided to retire, I’d be in line for a nice promotion too. So what was the problem?
The more I kept rehashing events and the longer I drank, the more chaotic my emotions became. I grew maudlin at the thought of my marriage dissolving. I loved Glenda, and it hurt like hell to learn she didn’t love me anymore. What was I going to tell my parents? They loved Glenda too and could hardly wait for us to start having grandchildren. That thought made me angry: how could she be so impetuous and selfish? Didn’t she realize how many people she was hurting, starting with me? That, of course, plunged me back into another round of depression at her inexplicable departure.
When I reached for another beer and discovered that I’d just finished the last one, I staggered back to the bedroom and collapsed on our double bed without bothering to undress. “Fuck it,” I thought drunkenly. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”
The trouble with beer is that it creates an undeniable demand for relief, one so strong that it managed to wake me in the early morning hours and force me to the bathroom. I barely made it, and relieving my bladder was so painful that I almost cried out loud. When I finally finished, I found that I was wide awake. My stomach felt like I’d been drinking battery acid, yet it also felt like I hadn’t eaten in a day, which was, I realized, almost true.