She couldn’t see the writing on the wall. Or, if she did perceive it dimly from time to time, she dismissed it; maybe she was just imagining it.
The “it,” the “writing that she didn’t see,” was his growing indifference to her. She provided excuses for him: he had worked too hard, he hadn’t slept well, his job was suddenly making demands on him beyond the usual, he was worried about one of his daughters. None of these reasons for his lack of warmth was directed to her.
None of it was, in her mind, because he didn’t love her as much.
Or anymore.
She never—never!—entertained the idea of “not anymore,” the idea of love being gone all together.
In that way, in her refusal to see what was smack in front of her face if she really focused on his automatic smiles, or the way he rotely opened a car door, or pulled out her chair at the restaurant, or even paid the bill, looking around the restaurant and not in her direction the way he once did—in that oblivion to recognition, she carried on the self-deception for months.
Or was it almost a year?
How long had he been stringing her along, out of obligation or kindness, or . . . what? lack of nerve to let her drop?
It was a strain, the relationship. She had to sparkle all the more. Sparkle Plenty—it had been the name of a character in the old Dick Tracy comics. Once there were comics, a whole section in color in the Sunday paper.
Once there was love.
It was so hard to give up that reciprocal, dizzy feeling of wanting to be together. In all fairness, she tried to console herself, in those dim and few moments when she entertained the painful notion that things were changing, that he was still kind. She couldn’t deny that kindness, a consideration that, nevertheless, was distant. She couldn’t explain it, although she tried to, to herself, endlessly.
He would even repeat her words: “I love you,” she’d say.
“I love you, too,” he’d say and do that automatic smile.
What was going on?
They were merely lovers, they “dated;” they didn’t live together. She agonized during the nights when she didn’t see him. She’d claimed the weekends for years – four—five, was it? Yes, five—and now felt she was tagging along. He included her, didn’t he? But he wasn’t “there,” it wasn’t the same.
She felt phonier and phonier, trying so hard to be charming, attentive, attentive in bed (before that too became a problem) but the days and evenings that she wasn’t with him became fraught with suspicion.
Finally – and there came a scene of “finally,” a final scene—she snapped at him because of his phony indifference and he invited her to leave, just leave.
She left.
She’d show him. But he was not there to “show.” It was, indeed, her final exit.