|
I know this is a couple pages old, but drat Matt Ryan looks like a pretty successful businessman who is rapidly closing in on 40. He competes in triathlons in his spare time and he has come to the realization that he never really loved his wife. He goes on long runs early on Saturday mornings, and the last several weeks he's been arriving at the river trail a few minutes later than normal so that he spends part of his run staring at the rear end of the 20-something grad-student who he has started to chat up. Maybe this weekend he'll invite her to get some coffee after their run. He's fantasizes about the impending divorce. He doesn't hate his wife; he plans on making sure that she is comfortable and well taken care of, and he'd prefer to not have a contentious split since he knows that would be harder on his daughter. He tells himself that he wants to make sure he is still a part of his daughter's life, but he hasn't really ever been that involved with her and deep down he knows their relationship will devolve into the odd phone call and birthday card. If he could pinpoint where it all started to go wrong it would probably be after his wife had her third miscarriage. He had always wanted a big family, but at that point it was just too much for her and they stopped trying. He thinks that if they had more kids they could have made it work, but he's still not quite 40 and it isn't too late to start over. He wonders if the grad-student wants a big family... You guys can't tell me that when you look into that picture of Matt Ryan you don't see a man who grew up in the shadow of an older brother. Jerry was the better athlete, Jerry had all the girlfriends, Jerry was the charmer who could roll around in pig poo poo, flash that million dollar smile, and come out smelling like roses. That’s not to say Matt wasn’t a decent athlete or didn’t have any girlfriends, but Jerry was the star player on the high school football team (although “star” is a relative term on a team that won 6 games in 2 years) and Jerry’s wife (then girlfriend) was the prom queen, and how exactly was Matt supposed to compete with that? Matt would say he had the last laugh now that Jerry is a balding, over-weight claims adjuster living in Overland Park Kansas, but Jerry and Cynthia found Jesus and have five kids and Matt is preparing to divorce his wife whom he hasn’t seen naked in over a year so it’s difficult to feel superior. Matt stopped being bitter at Jerry a long time ago anyways. Once they grew up and stopped competing with each other at everything Matt realized that his brother is just like everyone else, trying to do his best and get by day to day. Matt sometimes lies awake at night wondering if his financial success, which he considers moderate but which any sane person would consider substantial, has really bought him anything but heartburn and a failed marriage, but it’s the sort of crisis that doesn’t lead to any meaningful change and is forgotten by the time the alarm goes off and it’s time to hit the river trail. It’s a cold morning and Matt hopes the grad-student doesn’t decide to hit the snooze button. You misunderstand. It’s not fan fiction. I’m just trying to describe what this picture looks like: And what it looks like is a man who has been calling his lawyer’s office for the past week and a half and hanging up as soon as the receptionist answers because he feels guilty for beginning this process and blindsiding his wife with divorce papers. But it isn’t really blindsiding is it? Shannon has to know this is coming. She has to. She knows what has been going on for the past five years, or, more to the point, what has not been going on. Hell, she’s probably been seeing someone else behind his back. Who the gently caress knows what goes on all day when he’s at the office? But then again, this is a woman who spends forty-five minutes in the bathroom at a time and he can hear the sobbing through the door on occasion when she forgets to run the sink to drown it out. She still isn’t well and probably never will be, and if he were to serve her and she were to hurt herself he’s not sure he could forgive himself, not to mention the damage that would do to their daughter. So he continues to put it off, and most nights when he gets home from work he parks his Lexus in the driveway and rehearses what he’s going to say when he walks through the door. “Shannon, we both know this isn’t working. It’s not good for either of us to go on this way.” But what if she wants to work things out? He’s well past wanting to try and make it work, but what if she wants to? Could he actually say no to counseling? Wouldn’t that make him a bad person? And as soon as he’s ready to finally say it, he walks in the door and into the bedroom and the master bathroom door is closed and he can hear the sink running. So he changes into his running clothes and heads out to the river trail. Sorry jefe, it’s June and the Halos are bottom feeders so I feel empty inside. Matt looks like he feels pretty empty inside, sort of like a man who just had a two hour argument with his wife because she felt “Way too loving fat” to go to dinner at the club with the Applebaums. But he’s tired of making excuses for her, “Oh sorry, Shannon is a bit under the weather,” “Oh sorry, our baby sitter canceled at the last minute,” “Oh sorry, Shannon is feeling way too loving fat to come tonight.” So he begs and pleads and she slams the bathroom door so hard the windows shake. They ride to the club in total silence. He reaches for the radio, but she shifts in her seat and groans so he retracts his hand and curses to himself internally. At the club it’s all handshakes and smiles, though she does manage a subtle glare at him when he orders a double Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks. Janice Applebaum asks if she’d like to share a bottle of wine, and she says “No thank you, I think one of us should remain sober.” Other than that little dig things go smoothly enough, but before they’ve ordered dessert she excuses herself and doesn’t return for twenty or so minutes. She claims to have run into Emilia Parker in the ladies restroom and she just couldn’t get away any sooner, but he notices the hastily reapplied lipstick and he’s sure the Applebaum’s do as well. On the way home he catches a brief whiff of sour breath from her and he almost says something, but before he can she asks if he wouldn’t mind sleeping on the couch tonight because he always wakes her up when he leaves early to head out for a run. As they walk through the door she heads straight into the master bath and shuts the door.
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2017 04:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:13 |
|