“Anyway, a year after Chloe was born, when Anthony was five, you got pregnant again. A real accident this time, and we were both upset. I was building my business and working like crazy, you were working like a dog on movie sets all over the world. Anthony and Chloe seemed enough then, but we went ahead with it. But you lost the baby. You were devastated, and I actually was too. I'd gotten used to the idea by then of a third child. You'd been on a set in Africa doing your own stunt work, which seemed crazy, and had a miscarriage. They made you go back to work four weeks later. You had a miserable contract, and two pictures backed up behind it. It was a constant merry-go-round. Two years later you won your first Oscar, and the pressure only got worse. I think something happened then, not to you, but to me.
“You were still young. You were thirty when you got the Oscar. I was turning forty, and I never admitted it to myself then, but I think I was pissed off having a wife who was more successful than I was. You were making a goddamn fortune, everyone in the world knew you. And I think I was tired of dealing with the press, the gossip, everyone looking at you every time we walked into a room. It was never about me, always about you. That gets old, or it's hard on a guy's ego. Maybe I wanted to be a star too, what do I know? I just wanted a normal life, a wife, two kids, a house in Connecticut, maybe Maine in the summer. Instead I was flying all over the world to see you, you either had our kids with you, or I had them, and you were miserable without them. We started fighting a lot. I wanted you to quit, but I didn't have the balls to tell you, so I took it out on you. I hardly saw you, and when we did, we were fighting. And then you won another Oscar two years later, and I think that did it. That was the end. I felt hopeless after that. I knew you were never going to quit, not for a long time anyway. You signed on to do a picture for eight months in Paris, and I was pissed out of my mind. I should have told you, but I didn't. I don't think you knew what was going on with me. You were too busy to think about it, and I never told you how upset I was. You were making movies, trying to keep our kids with you on the set, and flying around to see me whenever you had a couple of days off to do it. Your heart was in the right place. There just weren't enough days in the year to do everything you wanted to do, your career, our kids, and me. Maybe you'd have quit then if I'd asked you. Who knows? But I didn't ask.” He looked at her then with regret for not having asked her to quit. It had taken Jason years to acquire the insights he had now, and he was sharing them all with Carole.
He went on with a somber look as Carole watched him, intent and silent. She didn't want to interrupt him. “I started drinking and going to parties then, and I'll admit, I got out of line at times. I wound up in the tabloids more than once, and you never complained about it. You asked me what was going on a couple of times, and I said I was just playing, which was true. You tried to come home more often, but once you started the movie in Paris, you were stuck there, you were shooting six days a week. Anthony was eight, so you put him in school there, Chloe was four, she was in kindergarten part-time and the rest of the time you had her on the set with you, with the nanny. And I started acting like a bachelor at home. Like a fool actually.” He looked genuinely embarrassed as he looked at his ex-wife and she smiled at him.
“It sounds like we were both young and foolish,” she said generously. “It must have been miserable being married to someone who was gone most of the time, and worked so much.”
He nodded, grateful for what she said. “It was hard. The more I think about it, the more I know I should have asked you to quit, or at least slow down. But with two Oscars under your belt, you were zooming. I didn't feel I had the right to screw up your career, so I screwed up our marriage instead, and just so you know, I'll always regret it. I've never told you that before, but it's how I feel.”
Carole was listening quietly and nodded. She appreciated his honesty. She remembered none of it, but she was grateful for his honesty, even about himself. He seemed like a genuinely kind man. It was fascinating as their story unfolded. As always now, it sounded like someone else's life and sparked no visual memory in her head. As she listened she kept wondering why she herself hadn't had the brains to quit and save their marriage, but listening to it was like hearing about an avalanche that couldn't have been stopped. The early warning signs had been there, but apparently her career had been too powerful then. It was a force unto itself, with a life of its own. She could see now how their problems had happened, and so could he. It was a shame they hadn't done something about it then, but neither of them had. She had been oblivious, wrapped up in the excitement of her career, and he had been resentful and concealed it from her, eaten up inside, and eventually took it out on her. It had taken years for him to acknowledge that, even to himself. It was classic, and tragic to hear it. She was sorry that she hadn't been wiser then. But she'd been young, if that was an adequate excuse.
“You left for Paris with the kids. You landed a great role playing Marie Antoinette. It was one of those major epics. And a week after you left, I went to a party, given by Hugh Hefner. I've never seen such beautiful girls in my life, almost as beautiful as you.” He smiled ruefully at her, and she smiled back. It was sad to listen to. The end was predictable. No surprises here. She knew how the movie had turned out, and they didn't live happily ever after, or he wouldn't be telling her this story.
“They weren't women like you. You were always decent, kind, and sincere, and good to me. You worked constantly, and you were gone a lot, but you were a good woman, Carole. You always have been. These girls were a different breed. Cheap gold-diggers, pros some of them, wannabe starlets, models, tramps. I was married to the real thing. These girls were showy fakes, and they worked the crowd like magic. I met a Russian supermodel named Natalya. She was making a big splash in New York then. Everyone knew her. She had come out of nowhere, from Moscow, via Paris, and she was after the big bucks, in every way. Mine and everyone else's. I think she'd been the mistress of some playboy in Paris, I forget now. In any case, she's had plenty of guys like that since then. She's currently married to her fourth husband, in Hong Kong. I think he's Brazilian, and an arms dealer or something, but he has a shitload of money. He pretends to be a banker, but I think he's in much rougher trade than that. Anyway, she blew my socks off. To be honest, I drank too much, did a little coke someone handed me, and wound up in bed with her. We weren't at Hefner's place by then. We were on someone's yacht in the Hudson River. It was a racy crowd. I was forty-one, she was twenty-one. You were thirty-two, and working in Paris, trying to be a good mom, even if you were an absentee wife. I don't think you ever cheated on me. I don't think it crossed your mind, and you didn't have time. You had a lily-white reputation in Hollywood, but I can't say the same for me.