After Harry left, Gabriel removed the photos of Yvonne and Melanie from the wall and clasped them tightly to his chest as he lay on the bed. He stared at his fingernails. They were thicker than they used to be. He considered the fact that fingernails grew a nanometer every second. He could break a fingernail, and it would grow back in no time.
But he couldn’t break a marriage and expect it to grow back the same way. Broken marriages didn’t grow back.
Chapter 37:
Climax
October 1985
Even though it was only afternoon, it was dark outside. The sky had been pouring out rain for nearly two days. Gabriel sat in front of the fireplace, somewhere in the grey area between depression and rage. He glared into the flames, picturing imaginary faces within their orange glow. Pareidolia. He sucked down the last drop of his sixteenth beer and threw the can into the fire.
He clambered to his feet and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. As he passed the bedroom, Yvonne’s sobs made him shudder with guilt, but there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t make things worse. She had tried to do something special for his birthday, a brunch just for the two of them. It had gone terribly awry because of Gabriel’s self-pitying callousness. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t deserve a birthday party. He was a stupid drunk, Father Gareth was dead, and AIDS, the epidemic he’d spent his life trying to prevent, was all over the news.
In front of the toilet, Gabriel frantically unzipped his fly. His urine was dark and burned like gasoline as he emptied his bladder. He grimaced at his ugly, unshaven reflection in the mirror. Growing from his chin was his first white hair. In normal light, it was probably nearly indistinguishable from the red ones, but under the florescent glare of the bulb above the sink, that white was quite apparent. He tugged the hair free and examined it, The color reminded him of Gareth’s hair, and Gabriel quivered at the memory of that phone call that had come from some man he’d never met, the dreaded moment in which he’d realized that he’d never get to say goodbye to the one man who had most influenced him.
He zipped up, washed his hands, and went to his study. The table had been cleared, and he had already emptied the top two drawers of the desk.
It was time to finish the job. Gabriel ripped the bottom two drawers out and dumped the files and books into a pile. There were so many papers, junk that he’d collected throughout his entire life, from the notes he’d written as a child to the ridiculous theories he’d contemplated as an adolescent, the sum total of his life’s work.
Gabriel scooped up the huge stack, and taking care not to fall, he carried it down the hall. The weight was almost too much for his drunken legs, and he nearly fell several times. In the living room, he unceremoniously dumped the paperwork on the floor beside the chair.
The top piece of paper was only two years old. It was covered by tiny, messy print with new research notes on autopoiesis. Gabriel ripped the page from its tree-killing family, crumpled it into an ball, and tossed it into the fireplace. Then, without missing a beat, he popped open his seventeenth beer.
The paper blackened and disintegrated. Gabriel balled up another paper ball and sent it after its big brother. His life’s work smoldered before his eyes.
“Gabriel,” Yvonne said from the doorway.
Gabriel didn’t turn around. He tried to remember the smoothness of her skin, the way their bodies melted together like a perfect chemical combination. He hadn’t felt her skin in months. He lit a cigarette, even though he usually didn’t smoke in the house.
“Gabriel,” she repeated, moving to stand only a few feet away.
He crumpled up another paper and tossed it into the fire. Happy birthday, Gabriel. Happy fucking birthday. With his wife watching him, he felt as if he were under one of his microscopes. Finally turning around, he saw that her eyes were red from crying. Her hair, which she’d cut into a short, contemporary style, was hidden beneath the hood of a raincoat. She clutched a suitcase in each hand.
Gabriel’s gaze moved down to her pregnant belly. There was something beautiful about that roundness on such a petite woman, and how it signified that, together, he and Yvonne had created life. They’d made a child that someday soon would be as real as the two of them. He’d always craved fatherhood, though he’d rarely admitted it, even to himself. He loved the notion of a tiny baby swaddled in blankets, staring up at him. He could practically hear the baby’s giggling and feel the warm touch of its hand wrapped around his thumb. He wanted to put tiny baby socks on tiny baby feet.
He shook off those thoughts and looked back at her face. “Those suitcases look heavy.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He gulped the rest of his beer.
Yvonne winced, and tears appeared at the corners of her eyes. “I’m leaving, Gabriel.”
He nodded and tossed his empty can into the crackling fire.
“That’s it?” Her voice cracked. “You’re not even going to say anything?”
He popped the top on another beer. “No.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. Gabriel noticed that she still wore her wedding ring, a grim reminder of the love that had once bound their lives together like the braids of a rope.
“No, Yvonne. I know it’s my fault. Nothing I say will make any difference.”
“I can’t do this, Gabriel.”
“I know.” He hated himself for talking to her that way. He hated the cold harshness of his voice. He hated everything except her and the child growing in her belly, the only lights in his existence.
“Baby…” She put down the suitcases. “Do you even know what I’m saying? Gabriel, are you even listening to me?”
Baby. Gabriel’s eyes moistened, and he took a long drag from his cigarette. “I’m listening.”
“Gabriel, if I leave, it’s a permanent thing. If you make me walk out that door, I swear I’ll never come back. My parents just bought a new house up in New Hampshire. I’m going to live with them there. I’m… I…”
Gabriel could see in her eyes that she wanted to lunge forward, maybe even to kiss him, and he wanted the same. He wanted to lift her into the air and carry her into the clouds. He wanted to sail out into the ocean with her, right into the horizon, into a future that they could name, define, and create to their liking. He wanted to grow old with her.
“I love you,” Yvonne whispered. “Please talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“God, Gabriel, just say something! I love you so much, but I can’t do this. I can’t do this because I love you. Baby, I can’t just stand here and watch a man like you—a man who is so gifted, so amazing, so brilliantly creative—destroy himself for no good reason. I know that all of your contemporaries think you’re a nut job. I know this pregnancy was unexpected. I know Gareth died a couple of months ago. Yes, all that’s been hard. I know you still haven’t found a job. But you can do better than this!”
“You give me too much credit. You know I tried to stop drinking when Gareth died. I failed.”
Yvonne picked up the suitcases. Gabriel’s heart leapt into his throat, and he nearly sprang to his feet. Stop her, you idiot!
She stomped her foot. “Dammit, Gabriel! How can you throw everything away like this? Just give up the drinking and your self-pitying bullshit. I want to be with you. Ever since I first saw you on the beach, that’s all I’ve wanted. I want a life with you, a family. There’s nothing I want more than that. Please…”
He turned to the fire, maintaining a blank exterior to keep from showing his torment. He threw in another crumpled paper. Stand up, asshole. Take her into your arms. Stop acting pathetic. Be a man. But he said nothing and did nothing. Yvonne stood there, stranded in empty space as she waited for the man she loved to stand up for their marriage.
“Once I leave,” she said, “I’m never coming back. Goodbye, Gabriel.”
Gabriel forced himself to look up, and he saw her retreating into the hall. Everything boiled over. He couldn’t just sit there.
“Wait!” Gabriel cried.
Yvonne stopped and turned back to him with a sigh. “What?”
Tears running down his cheeks, Gabriel jumped out of his chair and hurried over to her. He held out his hand. “Stay. Please.”
She glanced at his hand then studied his face. They watched each other, crying together but painfully separated by what might as well have been a stone wall.
“I love you, Yvonne.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I love you more than anything. But I can’t give up drinking. I can’t. I won’t. This is who I am.” Gabriel looked at the beer in his hand. Even standing there with his wife about to walk out of his life, he had to fight the urge to take a drink.
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. Then I guess this is over.”
“Yvonne, the two of us can—”
