Until It’s Over

There’s a difference between accountability and saying it was the way it was.

As the leaves fall crisp along the San Francisco hills, and the fog blows twilight into night I sit by the window, yearning for love. Why is it that I’m alone and never had romantic love? Or when I had it did I not know it? When I was in a marriage or a relationship I always thought love should be something else — — something more gallant, breathtaking, I’d thought.

I sit straight in my gray leather chair. So I won’t get up, and scrub the pot I burned earlier. Anything to avoid the truths I don’t want to face. But I have to find out. I have to know my part in my stream of broken marriages and romantic relationships. I have to, until it’s over.Bob saved my life. In forty years, I never dedicated a book to him. Or mention him. I take a deep breath. Ready to tell the story.

It’s 1972. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m divorced. The girls are four, and seven years old. I rent a small flat in San Francisco. I have a job working at the Bank of America. Mostly, my ex-mother-in law, and an array of babysitters take care of the girls. I’m broke. I’ve gone through the money from the sale of my beautiful home. I bought expensive clothes, an expensive car, and dream of love with a fabulous man. “True love. Prince Charming,” I repeat. Often, I burst into tears, and don’t know why. I know I’m a mother, but I don’t feel it. I was terrified of my mother, her sudden slaps, shrill shouts, criticisms.

It’s a dark, rainy, day and after work, I ride a crowded bus home. I arrive home when it’s dark. My older daughter is at her friend’s house overnight. She’s always gone. She prefers to be gone. She likes to stay with her friend’s warm parents and cozy, loving, home. When I see my little girl’s Mary Poppins rubber bib folded on her empty chair, suddenly, I remember it’s the babysitters day off, and that I forgot to pick her up at nursery school. I rush down the street, to the little red nursery school. My sweet little girl is slumped over a wooden play table, asleep. Her dark tangled hair is sprayed over her chubby arms, her Pitiful Pearl doll in her arms. Her two teachers give me disapproving looks. “We were about to call the police,” one said. I lift my daughter and carry her home. “Mommy is sorry. I love you,” I whisper as I run down the street. Her arms are so tight around my neck, I can’t breathe.

I open my eyes. Why am I trembling? I hold my breath until I’m almost out of breath. I feel shame. I feel shocked. A CNN reporter reports that Trump says that the election is “rigged!” Trump is a cruel man. A weak man. He does not make himself accountable. I close my eyes again. I stay with the pain as long as I can, stay until the trembling stops. Slowly, I let out my breath, until the pain subsides. Until it’s over. I remember the day I met Bob.

I had been fired from my job. Of course I was fired. I threw out the bank statements, and took three hour lunches. I am in debt. The PG&E turned off the lights. It’s near Christmas, and the City is flooded with rain. My older daughter is at her Grandmother’s house in Piedmont. My ex-mother-in law loves her. Takes her to her doctor appointments, does everything a Mom should do. She buys her things she needs and wants. She does what I don’t think about, or want to do. Resent. Something is missing in me. Something about being a mother makes me angry. Conflicted. Why does everything go wrong? why does love elude me? The flat is freezing. My little girl has a cold. A bed wetter, her rubber pants fall loose around her chubby thighs. She is hanging on to my knees, whining, “Mommy! Hold me. Hold me, Mommy.”The doorbell rings. I answer the door. A very tall, very slender, handsome, older man with thick silver hair, smooth olive skin, and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, blue as cornflowers, stands on the porch. He closes a tall black umbrella. He wears a tan long trench coat, tied in two knots at his slender waist. He looks like a movie star. “I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes on my little girl curled around my leg, “I have to repossess your car. Your payments are six months overdue. I’m sorry.”

“Oh please sir. Please sir,” I say, tears coming to my eyes, and rarely do I cry. “I need my car for carpool, to drive my girls to school. I lost my job. Please, sir. I’ll borrow the money from family. I will. I promise.” He glances over my shoulder, intently looking at the large painting I’d painted of an elongated naked woman with long dark hair, and wearing a bright green hat. “I like the painting. It’s haunting,” he says, his eyes still on the painting. “Who is the artist?”

“I am.”

He nods, as if approval. He loves contemporary art. He collects art. He owns a Hockney drawing, and also a Diebenkorn painting. He haunts galleries. Saves his money to buy art.

“Would you like to come in?”

He steps inside, standing back, politely. Hesitantly. He smiles at my little girl “Have you ever had Japanese food?”

“Never,” I reply.

“Have you eaten? You and your daughter look like you need to eat. Would you like to go to lunch in Japan town?”

“Well, I….”

“It’s healthy. It’s good food.” He smiles. When he smiles his long mouth doesn’t reveal his teeth. “Your little girl could use some vegetables, rice, and Miso soup. I’ll wait outside?”

“I’ll be outside in fifteen minutes,” I say after a hesitant silence.

I change my little girl to the last clean pair of panties and rubber pants. Over her jumper, I button her red plaid raincoat with the fleece lining, warm hat, and her fleece lined boots. “We’re going to a restaurant with the nice man. You love rice. Cookies,” I say. She reaches her arms up, for me to carry her. Not once have I ever thought — considered, that my innocent, poor little girls might wonder what happened to their father? Wonder why I sold their pretty house where they had friends, a vegetable garden, a playground with a sandbox and slides and swings, and a swimming pool where they had swimming lessons.

The restaurant in Japantown is warm and away from the thunder and heavy rain slamming the windows. Bob requests a booster seat for my little girl. Who is already eating a rice ball wrapped with shrimp. A lovely woman in full Japanese costume, warmly fusses over us. She brings my little girl a pink paper umbrella, and a lovely hand painted paper fan. Bob eats here frequently. Fluently, in Japanese, Bob orders several dishes. “You can take what you don’t eat, home,” he says. A few couples sit in nearby booths. A large red paper dragon is on one wall, and orange goldfish swim in a wall size clean fish tank.

The food is delicious. I love the Sushi, the eel, Yellow tail, the various fish. Bob explains each dish, makes sure that my little girl has enough, and is content with her rice, shrimp and vegetables. Expertly, he maneuvers his chopsticks, making sure my daughter’s soup isn’t too hot. Japanese soft music plays from speakers behind tall lovely screens painted with birds and flowers.

We talk about art. He admires Pollack, DeKooning, and the abstract expressionists. Currently, he is interested in New York Minimal art. He wants me to see paintings by Robert Mangold. He tells me about a new gallery that shows this art. He is saving money to buy a Sol Le Witt and a Mangold painting. He shows me photographs of his two beautiful, glamorous daughters. A sadness comes over his eyes as he tells me that he adored his wife but she left him and married a very wealthy man. His two daughters live in Carmel, but he sees them as much as he can. He just bought his older daughter a car. He is interested in Japanese art.

I don’t tell him that I don’t feel sad about my divorce, that I don’t feel anything. I don’t tell him that I didn’t feel anything for the girls’ father. That he was a re-bound marriage, and a drunk.That he was immature. Or that he was smart and knew how to make money and provided a beautiful home and that I was too broken to love him, let alone to love myself.I don’t tell him about Charley who jilted me on my wedding night, when I was nineteen and a virgin. Who refused to consummate our marriage because he said he made a mistake and didn’t love me. I don’t tell him that I get migraines. That I’m afraid all the time and that I feel inadequate and that I know some men find me attractive, sometimes say I look like Natalie Wood, and that I know how to seduce. I don’t tell him that I fantasize about love, the kind of love that I see in movies, read in my novels, undying passionate love. I don’t tell him that I feel numb inside. Or that my pattern is to move on to the next man and that only being “taken care of by a man,” as my mother would say, gives me self esteem. Identity. I assure myself that a good man will make all this go away.

He is impressed with my painting and wants to see more. He sees something in it, “Something dark. Something deep,” he says, intently. He pours rice hot more hot tea in my cup. Makes sure that my little girl has more green beans. She loves the green beans. He is genteel, a contrast to the clichés of used car salesmen. He has the gentility of a European Count, of a Knight. He is easy to talk with. He is interested in everything I say. I don’t tell him I’m fearful. I don’t tell him. I don’t tell him anything true.I tell him that I too, feel the sadness of a “broken home.” But I don’t.

“Yesterday is on a bucket of ashes,” he repeats. He sighs heavily.He’s interested in rowing orchids, beautiful fabrics, and cashmere. “Fine things,” he says, sighing. He has never traveled. He wants to. He has dreams. I sense a man who hasn’t been able to make his dreams come true and has worked all his life with cars. He’s from Norway. “My mother was part English and I took care of her all her life. My father was Norwegian and an actor. He left her penniless.”

“You’re a caretaker,” I murmur, smiling.

He never was able to get an “education” he confides. He would have been an art historian. After a long silence, my daughter, enjoying several rice cookies, and a lemonade, he asks, “Do you cross country ski?” He cross country skis. He loves trees, snow, and the cold.

We have come together based on our experiences, and not as we are, or will become. We are fallen birds. Does he, this Norwegian beautiful car salesman, sense that I am searching for someone to help me achieve the goals I too, dream about — -to publish books, get a masters degree in creative writing. A man to financially take care of my children, to take over what I can’t emotionally provide? Does he know this?

“I want more than anything to go to college,” I say. “My mother wanted me to marry. College wasn’t an option. It was that… .”

“Generation,” he finishes. “You’re talented. You should go to college. You will go to college.”

The day is turning dark. The rain is harder. I’m lost in his eyes. In his voice. In him. Until it’s over, and time to go.

“I have…to… .”

He nods. “Of course.”

In his long silver Cadillac with the fins, he drives us home. My daughter sits in my lap, clutching the paper umbrella. He walks us to the door, bows slightly.

“I’ll get the money as soon as I can,” I say.

He opens his umbrella, and rushes into the night.

I don’t sleep well. It is past midnight. Still raining. I decide to make coffee. I like to drink coffee with pet milk in it. My Grandmother used to make it for me. When I see part of a white envelope sticking out from under the front door, I grab it, open it, and it reads: “Your bill is paid. Keep the car. Bob.”

We marry six weeks later.

We live in a rented large flat. I am enrolled at City College. Every night, when Bob arrives home, he holds up his hands. Hundred dollar bills are between his fingers, like a fan. “Look what I brought,” he says, his eyes shining. The girls laugh. Then he cooks dinner while I stay in my room, typing papers for school, reading, studying, writing, wishing I had a great love beside me, writing great scripts, discussing Tolstoy and Anais Nin. After dinner he washes the dishes, talks on the phone to his clients, while drinking red wine from one of those gallon jugs. His beloved Frank Sinatra records play from the background. He pays for the girls to go to private schools. He is kind. He is drunk.

On our tenth anniversary, he buys me pearls. A silver Navajo bracelet. A Navajo silver and turquoise necklace. He buys the Mangold painting, and two minimal sculptures. Most Sundays, after going to the museum with the girls, we drive in his baby blue Cadillac, looking at the beautiful homes in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. “See that house I could have bought that,” he says, stopping the car, and pointing to a gated mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Twenty years ago he had the cash, he says. “I could have bought it but I turned it down.” He sighs, wistfully. He stops on top of Russian Hill, in front of a cottage type overlooking the San Francisco Bay. “See that house. I want to bid on that house. It’s perfect for our art, for your writing. A studio. Someday, I’ll buy it. You’ll see. I’ll buy it,” he repeats.

“Yes,” I say, my mind on my Chaucer paper. I know he will never bid on the house. I know that fate has done him in. I know that his business is in peril and that he works too hard. Why don’t I say to him, “I don’t need the house. Want the house. I want you. I want us?”

I don’t.

Often on Tuesdays, Bob’s only day off, we go to art galleries. In his respect for art, he wears a beautiful gray woolen suit, and lovely tie. I love the galleries, the art, and feel exhilarated. He brings his friend Sam, a periodontist who trades dental surgeries for art and has a renowned museum collection. I love these days. Afterwards, we have dinner at Johns Grill. Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons, Bob takes the Sam and the girls and myself to the top of the Mark Hopkins and we eat Pancakes Oscar, pancakes topped with bananas and whip crème.

His daughters hate me. I’m jealous of them. I hate them. Hate them because they see through me. Because they love their father. Because they know I’m using him. They don’t visit. He visits them in Carmel. They know I’m mean to Bob. Nothing is meaner than indifference. When he rambles on about Monarch Butterflies, I continue typing, or sigh and avert my eyes.

Except when I’m at the art galleries, then I’m not indifferent to him, or silent. I’m indulgent. “I see what you mean,” I say to Bob as he discusses a painting he wants to buy. “For your collection. It will be worth a fortune someday,” he says. He arranges to make payments. He is now an official collector. He brings me closer to the artistic world in which I want to be in.

My novel is almost finished. A professor in the creative writing department says it should be published. He introduces me to a literary agent. Who loves the novel and predicts it will be a bestseller. Bob is thrilled. “You see! I told you you’ll be a famous author.”

“You’re drunk again,” I say.

The Frank Sinatra records are too loud. I have a headache. Why don’t I thank him, love him, help him? Kiss him. Kiss this beautiful man with the beautiful soul.

Did you ever think he drinks too much wine because you reject him all the time? Because, like you, he has low self esteem? If he didn’t, why would he put up with your cruel indifference? “I love you,” he always says.

It’s Thursday night and winter. The air is cool. Crisp. Bob brings me to the gallery that shows minimal art. Where the famous dealer known for his “eye,” and his own collection of New York minimal art, has a show of upcoming New York painters. “Scott Burton’s piece is incredible,” Bob says. A posh looking crowd is at this opening. Not the usual art groupies wearing beat up leather and feathers. No. Rich wasp type women wear black and Elsa Peretti jewelry. The men wear leather soft as silk and black turtlenecks and walk like they are floating. Their eyes glance at the minimal art on the whitewalls, as if their glances are making history.

Bob introduces me to the gallery owner. His name is Dan. Immediately, I’m struck, as if the floor caved under my feet. Everything about him is art. His elegant dark brown velvet hip length jacket, nipped in at his thin waist. The silver bracelet on his thin wrist, his auburn color wavy hair slicked back and wavy to his shoulders. His voice confident, deep, and arrogant. I knew I loved him. I knew this. Knew I’d love him forever. “This is love. This is the man,” I say to myself.

I watch Dan. He moves like a firefly, his slightly hunched thin body weaving between groups of curators, socialites, beautiful women, who air kiss him. I stand in a far corner, clutching my vodka in a real glass, not those plastic cups in most galleries. A gray bowler hat covers my eyebrows, and my waist length dark hair is braided. I wear a beautiful gray flannel fitted jacket Bob bought me at Neiman Marcus. “Fits you like a glove,” he says.

Our flat fills with artists, and writers. At openings. Bob invites hungry artists to our flat. “I’ll cook for you,” he says exuberantly. He stands close to them when he talks, as if he wants to live in them, and promises to help them. We attend all Dan’s openings. Sometimes, Dan takes me into the stock room and shows me art I’ve only read about in Art Forum Magazine, or heard about. “You and Bob have a good eye,” he says, standing close to me. “I like your hat. I like your style, kid.”

Bob is drunk almost every night. He comes home with twenty dollar bills folded between his fingers now. Then, the Frank Sinatra records blasting, he cooks our dinner, while I’m typing. The rest of the night he’s on the phone calling artists we met, bellowing that his wife is also an artist. “She’s going to be a famous author! Wait and See! You’ll see!’ he shouts.

After he pours the cheap red wine into a shot glass, he carefully places the metal cap on the jug. Just the sound of it turning on the bottle is like nails on a blackboard for me. My little girl twists her hula hoop , my older daughter, sits nearby and fills out college forms for a scholarship. She wants to go to NYU, and major in film. My ex in laws have died. My mother doesn’t call them.I continue typing. Have I ever taken Bob’s clothes to the cleaners, bought him a gift? Voluntarily hugged him, said, I love you? Recently I shouted at him, not to be so drunk. So stupid. Then I apologized. “So much on my mind,” I say.

He smiles. His hand smooths the side of my hair where the wave falls in my eye. “Yesterday is a buck et of ashes. You have important work to do.”

I open my eyes. I I’m not breathing . Remembering is not easy. I had the divine love I fantasized about. It was there. Right there. The love was there in the art we loved, in his relentless belief in me, in my work, in my daughters, in his admiration of my work. All the time it was there, as romantic as Rhett Butler’s love for Scarlett O’hara. It was there. It wasn’t in the cash between his fingers, or the things he bought me. It was there.

I didn’t see it.

I didn’t know it.

I didn’t feel it.

I didn’t know myself.

Instead one night, I burst into the bedroom we shared. He had taken a fall and hurt his back. I burst into the room. He’s lying on the bed, a heating pad behind his back, a bowl of popcorn balanced on his lap. The television is on to a Western. Even at sixty, he’s beautiful. Above the bed is the Mangold painting. “You look beautiful in green. I love you in green,” he says. “I love you.”

“You have to leave,” I say. “Leave tonight. I love Dan. You have to leave. I’m sorry.”

Slowly, as if in slow motion, he gets up. At the closet we share, he packs some clothes into his one fine leather bag the one he bought at Mark Cross. “It’s always good to have fine things,” he said. I stand here until I hear the door shut, and his footsteps retreat down the front steps, until the sound of his Cadillac retreats down the street. Until it’s over.

The rain has stopped. The TV is still on to CNN. The news is bad. The Covid is rising, along with more deaths. Trump says he’s cured from the Covid. He rants that the Covid is disappearing. Footsteps thump above me. The old shabby apartment building I live in, is preparing for the night. Everything is gone. Except for the Mangold painting that hangs near the window.

Until it’s over you don’t know that you had it all.

BarbaraRose is an author of many books. She is working on a book of short stories that will be published the end of 2021. Her latest novel, published Feb 2020, Post Hill Press, Simon & Schuster, Her TV appearances, podcasts and books are available on www.barbararosebrooker.com