“Yeah, that’s where you get regular people to loan money to poor people in other countries. To start small businesses and stuff, right?”
“Basically, yes, but my company focuses on microlending to unique entrepreneurs in the United States.”
“Ah, so what’s your bank called?”
“We’re in the start-up phase, so I don’t want to get into that quite yet.”
He was a little insulted, but then he realized that he was a stranger, after all, so her secrecy was understandable.
“You’re just starting out then?” Paul asked. “That’s why you’re traveling so much?”
“Yes. We have initial funding from one source,” she said, “and I’m meeting with other potential funders around the country.”
“Sounds exciting,” Paul said. He lied. Paul didn’t trust the concept of using money to make more money. He believed it was all imaginary. He preferred his job — the selling of tangible goods. Paul trusted his merchandise. He knew a pair of blue jeans would never betray him.
“It’s good work, but it’s not exciting,” she said. “Fund-raising is fucking humiliating. You know what I really do? You know what I’m good at? I’m good at making millionaires cry. And crying millionaires are generous with their money.”
“I’m a millionaire,” Paul said, “and you haven’t made me cry yet.”
“I haven’t tried to,” she said. She patted Paul on the cheek — let the hounds of condescension loose! — and walked out of the bookstore.
After she left, Paul bought the book she’d been browsing — the list of the greatest movies of all time — and read it on the flight back to Seattle. It was a book composed entirely of information taken from other sources. But Paul set it on his nightstand, then set his alarm clock on the book, and thought about the beautiful microbanker whenever he glanced at the time.
On a Tuesday, a year and a half into their separation, while sitting in their marriage counselor’s office, Paul turned to his wife and tried to tell the truth.
“I love you,” he said. “You’re my best friend. I can’t imagine a life without you as my wife. But, the thing is, I’ve lost my desire — my sexual desire — for you.”
Could there be a more painful thing to say to her? To say to anyone? You are not desirable. That was a treasonous, even murderous, statement inside of a marriage. What kind of person could say that to his wife? To the person who’d most often allowed herself to be naked and vulnerable in front of him? Paul supposed he was being honest, but fuck honesty completely, fuck honesty all the way to the spine, and fuck the honest man who tells the truth on his way out the door.
“How can you say this shit to me?” she asked. “We’ve been separated for almost two years. You keep telling me you don’t want a divorce. You keep begging me for another chance. For months, you have begged me. So here we are, Paul, this is your chance. And all you can say is that you don’t desire me? What are you talking about?”
“I remember when we used to have sex all day and night,” he said. “I remember we used to count your orgasms.”
It was true. On a cool Saturday in early April, in the first year of their marriage, Paul had orgasmed six times while his wife had come eleven times. What had happened to those Olympian days?
“Is that the only way you can think about a marriage?” she asked. “Jesus, Paul, we were young. Our marriage was young. Everything is easier when you’re young.”
Paul didn’t think that was true. His life had steadily improved over the years and, even in the middle of a marital blowup, Paul was still pleased with his progress and place in the world.
“I don’t know why I feel the way I do,” Paul said. “I just feel that way. I feel like we have gone cold to each other.”
“I haven’t gone cold,” she said. “I’m burning, okay? You know how long it’s been since I’ve had sex? It’s been almost four years. Four years! And you know what? I’m ashamed to say that aloud. Listen to me. I’m ashamed that I’m still married to the man who has not fucked me in four years.”
Paul looked to the marriage counselor for help. He felt lost in the ocean of his wife’s rage and needed a friggin’ lifeguard. But the counselor sat in silence. In learned silence, the bastard.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked Paul. “I’m your wife. I’m the mother of your children. I deserve some respect. No, I demand it. I demand your respect.”
He wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to tell himself the truth, really. But was he capable of such a thing? Could he tell her what he suspected? Could he share his theory about the loss of desire? If he sang to her, would that make it easier? Is honesty easier in four/four time?
“Are you just going to sit there?” she asked. “Is this what it comes down to, you sitting there?”
My love, he wanted to say to her, I began to lose my desire for you during the birth of our first child, and it was gone by the birth of our third. Something happened to me in those delivery rooms. I saw too much. I saw your body do things — I saw it change — and I have not been able to look at you, to see you naked, without remembering all the blood and pain and fear. All the changes. I was terrified. I thought you were dying. I felt like I was in the triage room of a wartime hospital, and there was nothing I could do. I felt so powerless. I felt like I was failing you. I know it’s irrational. Jesus, I know it’s immature and ignorant and completely irrational. I know it’s wrong. I should have told you that I didn’t want to be in the delivery room for the first birth. And I should have never been in the delivery room during the second and third. Maybe my desire would have survived, would have recovered, if I had not seen the second and third births. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a failure. But how was I supposed to admit to these things? In the twenty-first-century United States, what kind of father and husband chooses not to be in the delivery room?
My love, Paul wanted to say, I am a small and lonely man made smaller and lonelier by my unspoken fears.
“Paul!” his wife screamed. “Talk to me!”
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “I don’t know why I feel this way. I just do.”
“Paul.” The counselor finally spoke, finally had an opinion. “Have you considered that your lack of desire might be a physical issue? Have you consulted a doctor about this? There are—”
“He has no problem fucking other women,” she said. “He’s fucked plenty of other women. He just has a problem fucking me.”
She was right. Even now, as they fought to save their marriage, Paul was thinking of the woman in the airport. He was thinking about all other women and not the woman in his life.
That night, on eBay, Paul bid on a suit once worn by Sean Connery during the publicity tour for Thunderball. It would be too big for Paul; Connery is a big man. But Paul still wanted it. Maybe he’d frame it and put it on the wall of his apartment. Maybe he’d drink martinis and stare at it. Maybe he’d imagine that a crisp white pocket square made all the difference in the world. But he lost track of the auction and lost the suit to somebody whose screen name was Shaken, Not Stirred.
Jesus, Paul thought, I’m wasting my life.
After the divorce, Paul’s daughters spent every other weekend with him. It was not enough time. It would never be enough. And he rarely saw them during his weekends anyway because they were teenagers. Everywhere he looked, he saw happy men — good and present fathers — and he was not one of them. A wealthy man, an educated man, a privileged man, he had failed his family — his children — as easily and brutally as the poorest, most illiterate, and helpless man in the country. And didn’t that prove the greatness of the United States? All of us wealthy and imperial Americans are the children of bad fathers! Ha! thought Paul. Each of us — rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white — we are fragile and finite. We all go through this glorious life without guarantees, without promise of rescue or redemption. We have freedom of speech and religion, and the absolute freedom to leave behind our loved ones, to force them to unhappily pursue us. How can I possibly protect my daughters from their nightmares, from their waking fears, Paul thought, if I am not sleeping in the room next door? Oh, God, he missed them! Pure and simple, he ached. But who has sympathy for the failed father? Who sings honor songs for the monster?