His Wife Leaves Him полностью

They crossed the Bay Bridge and were driving on Route 50, he thinks, to Washington College for a reading he was giving that night. The school was putting them up at an inn: he, Gwen and Rosalind, who was still nursing. Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah, he thinks it’s called, was playing on the radio, or is it by another English composer of the same period — Byrd, maybe? The music was beautiful and he said to her “What a moment. Gorgeous music, infant sleeping peacefully after a long tantrum, sky lit up in several pastel colors by the setting sun.” Then he heard geese overhead and said “Listen,” and opened his window all the way and motioned for her to roll down hers and they heard the geese honking louder and then saw a flock of about a hundred of them flying in formation. “Oh, this is too much, too wonderful, all of this at once. I almost feel like waking the baby so she could hear and see this too.” She said “It is wonderful, all of it. But the best part to me is that Rosalind’s finally asleep, so please don’t wake her,” and they drove without talking and with the sky getting even more beautiful and the geese flying in the same direction as them. Then the geese flew off to the side and they couldn’t see them anymore and only heard them faintly and then not at all. At almost the same moment, the music ended, and he turned the radio off. “That was truly something,” he said. “It was,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” and she put her hand over his on the steering wheel. “Better on my shoulder, so I can drive in absolute safety,” and she put her hand on his shoulder and they drove like that most of the rest of the way.

Whenever they drove back to Baltimore from their apartment in New York, he got off at exit 7 on the New Jersey Turnpike, got on 295, and a few miles south on it pulled into a rest area run by the state. He’d get from the back a take-out container of basil rolls or sushi he’d bought at an Asian fusion restaurant before they left New York and give it to her with a couple of napkins. Then he’d go into the building and use the restroom and get a cappuccino or hazelnut-flavored coffee out of a vending machine there and sometimes either peanut butter crackers or a bag of salted peanuts from the candy machine. He’d sit in the car with her or, if it was a nice day, outside on a bench or at a picnic table and drink his coffee and eat about half his crackers or all the peanuts while she finished her sushi or basil rolls. Sometimes he’d get her both, but she’d only eat one at the rest area — usually the sushi because she was afraid it’d spoil — and save the other for home. Once or twice, after he told her they had them, she asked for an ice cream sandwich from another machine. He doesn’t ever remember her coming into the building. And she never had anything to drink. She didn’t want to have to pee so soon after, she explained. If the kids were with them, they’d get what snacks and drinks they wanted with the money he’d give them, or wait in the car till they got to the big rest stop in Delaware on 95, where they’d always get a plate of spaghetti and a garlic roll with it and iced tea and he’d get another coffee. At the New Jersey rest area, Gwen once said “This is the best part of the trip. Thank you for always thinking of getting me this food. Coffee smells good. Is it?” and he said “Not bad, coming from a machine. And certainly cheap enough, cappuccino for a buck.” Then, about three years ago, they saw a sign a few miles after they got on 295, saying something like “Public rest area open, facilities permanently closed.” “Do you think that means the building?’ he said. And she said “Probably everything but the benches outside, if we’re lucky.” “Damn,” he said. “No restrooms and vending machines and the end of our little traveling ritual. You could still eat your basil rolls there, which is what I got for you today, but it wouldn’t be the same for my bladder.” “Just get the container for me and I’ll eat out of it while you drive.” “It might be too sloppy,” he said, “and it’ll also mean stopping and getting it from the back. Let’s wait till the Delaware rest stop. It’s the nearest one to here, unless we want to get back on the turnpike, and I’ll get gas and maybe something to eat and the kids can get their usual, and we can all pee, if I’m able to hold out that long. If I’m not, I don’t know what.” She said “How disappointing. I hate sounding pessimistic, but it’s like bread in Baltimore. Just when we think we’ve found a good place to buy some, it closes.”