What do you expect will happen, Claude De Beers? I asked myself each day I headed for the clinic. Can't you see how impossible all this is? You can only ruin someone else's life along with your own. The voice of my conscience grew louder and stronger almost every new day. One night I arrived at what I thought was a prescription for ending all this. I decided to throw myself at Alberta, to try to resurrect our early passion for each other, to cure myself of this nonsense by reminding myself in no uncertain terms that I was a married man.
It was a good night to try it. Alberta had not gone to any of her usual meetings, lunches, or dinners. She had spent the day meeting with some decorators because she wanted to redo our sitting room and our entryway. The house was old, but historic. a classic structure in our community. She knew I would not permit her to change the exterior very much, so she focused her attention on modernizing the interior. I used to think our furniture should be on wheels. She had it moved around and changed that often. Every time she visited one of her wealthy friends, she returned depressed about our home. For Alberta, the grass would always be greener somewhere else.
I confess I was somewhat to blame for her behavior. As long as she was doing these things, she wasn't nagging me, criticizing me for the time I spent at my clinic. Occasionally she would burst into my office with a brochure of furnishings or with samples of rugs and demand I give her an opinion.
"Well, which is right for the room?" she would ask again, impatient with the time I was taking.
Almost invariably, what I chose, she hated. I began to think that my not choosing what she liked was her way of confirming her choice was correct. In her mind I had no taste, no sense of style because I was the classic absentminded professor. It was all simply another nail in the coffin that marked the death of our marriage, and I hav
e to admit that after I had met Grace Montgomery, I not only didn't notice all the nails. I didn't care.
It frightened me. Would I. the psychiatrist's psychiatrist, go mad myself?
Bring it to an end; I ordered my rebellious heart. Bring this all to an abrupt and final end. And there is no better way to do that than to reinforce the oath of marriage you have already taken; I told myself.
I fortified myself with a tumbler of scotch on the rocks and concentrated my thoughts on memories of Alberta when we had first met, courted, and made love. I blamed my infatuation with Grace and my awn neglectful ways on my failure to regenerate my own marriage. I had become too comfortable with myself and my work, and now I was almost a married man living like a bachelor. Why should I blame Alberta for her interest in other things? What had I done to deserve her romantic interest in me? I was rarely escorting her to social events anymore. We had so little in common, and that was at least half my fault, I told myself. I had to do something to change that.
In short. I was fleeing from Grace, retreating to my own marriage.
Would it work?
I knocked on Alberta's bedroom door. "Yes?" she called,
"It's Claude." I said May I came in?"
She opened the door and looked out at me. She was in her nightgown and had her hair in a hair net. I could see she had just begun to remove her makeup. She looked a little annoyed until she saw the tumbler of scotch in my hand. I hadn't realized I was still carrying it.
"What is it. Claude?" she asked with a curious little smile nesting on her lips,
"I was wondering if I could stop in to see you." I said.
Our long love draughts and lack of intimacy made me sound more formal than I wanted to be.
"Why?" she asked.
There was a time when she wouldn't have had to ask that. I thought, although it was never easy for me to be amorous. Perhaps that was why I was so eager and happy to marry Alberta. Here was a very attractive young woman with a certain elegance who was willing to accept me as I was, at least in the beginning. I was quite conscious of my male friends and associates thinking I had done the equivalent of winning the lottery. Why would such a stunning beauty want to be with me above anyone else? Not that I think of myself as an unattractive man. Hardly that, Willow. I am just realistic about my romantic qualities and admit I am and was not the most exciting beau she could find or even the most exciting she was courting. I am quite familiar with the Don Juan syndrome. but I am by no means a Don Juan.
In any case I felt a bit awkward standing there with a drink in my hand that was obviously needed to bolster my courage.
"Well. I just... thought... it's been a while since... I mean..."
"Really? What did you do. Claude, get yourself a testosterone booster?" she asked dryly.
I guess my face fell a bit.
She shook her head and stepped back.
"Come in," she said. "I don't see you drinking much anymore or relaxing in any way," she added, nodding at the glass in my hand.
"Yes. I know. I've been so occupied with my work. I..."
"Forgot you were married? I know," she said and laughed. She removed her hair net and shook out her hair a bit, "You're lucky," she said. "Twenty minutes more and you would have been out of luck. I would have my facial set. and I don't think that would have been very attractive to you Loosen your tie, at least. Claude. You look as if you're here to give me therapy," she added and laughed again.
I smiled,
I suppose I was a funny sight standing there in my jacket and tie, my drink in hand, looking more like a meek librarian asking someone to please pay her library debt.
As she spoke to me. Alberta looked at herself in the mirror and primped her hair.