The Ranch

The day Mary Stuart left New York she stood for a last time in her living room and looked around her apartment. The shades were drawn, the curtains were closed, the air-conditioning was off, and the apartment was slowly warming up. For the past week there had been a tremendous heat wave. She had talked to Alyssa in Holland the night before, she was having a fantastic time traveling with five friends, and Mary Stuart suspected she was having her first really serious romance. She was happy for her, and still more than a little sad to have missed their opportunity to travel around Europe together.

She had spoken to Bill several times too. He was working hard, and he sounded startled when she told him she was going to Wyoming. He couldn't understand why and thought she should go to Martha's Vineyard, or the Hamptons to stay with their friends, as she had on the Fourth. He had never really approved of her friendship with Tanya Thomas. And he didn't see why she wanted to go to a dude ranch. He never thought she had any particular affinity for horses. He said all the things which, years before, would have made her reconsider, but this time did not affect her. She wanted to spend two weeks at the ranch with Tanya. She wanted to be with her friend, to talk to her, and look up at the mountains in the morning. She suddenly realized that she needed to get away and reevaluate her life, and if he didn't understand that, then that was his problem. He was in London for two months and didn't want her with him, and he had no right now to make her feel uncomfortable about what she was doing. He had given up that right when he had told her he didn't want her in London with him. He had given up a lot of things that year, intentionally and otherwise, and she wanted to do some serious thinking about it. She couldn't imagine coming back to their relationship the way it had been, the way it had become. She couldn't live in the airless, loveless, joyless atmosphere he had created. And even though the night before he left she had caught a glimpse of him again, there was no promise that she would find him again at the end of the summer. Or ever again for that matter.

She was beginning to realize that what they had once had was gone, very probably forever. And she doubted if what had been left in its place was worth keeping. She couldn't believe what she was thinking. But she couldn't imagine going back to him, couldn't think about living with him that way again, never speaking, holding, touching. They had lost their dreams, their lives, more than just Todd had died. In many ways, she felt they had. And going to Wyoming was a way of leaving what had been, and trying to figure out what was still possible between them. And for an odd moment, as she looked around, she felt as though she were leaving their old life forever. It would never be the same again. She would never come back to the man who had left her so bereft and so abandoned for the past year. Either she would come back to the man she had once known, or she wasn't coming back at all. And in either case she wanted to think about whether or not to tell Bill to sell the apartment. But nothing was ever going to be the same again, nor had it been for the past year, and she knew it.

The prospect of being on her own again at her age was a frightening one. But the thought of being alone with him, in the tomb he had created for both of them, was an even worse fate. She walked down the long hall, and stopped for a long moment in front of the room that had been Todd's. The curtains were gone, the bedspreads were out being cleaned. It had all been put away, and there was nothing left of him. What she still had was in her heart and her memories. He was free now.

She picked her suitcase up again and walked slowly down the hall, thinking about him… and about Bill… and Alyssa, how happy they had once been, and how different it all was now. The cruel hand of fate, with a quick flick of the wrist, the dream was over. It had all ended so quickly. It was strange to think about it now. She felt as though she had been treading water in icy seas for a long time, she had almost drowned, but she was beginning to move forward again, still frozen, still numb, injured and bruised, but she was beginning to think she might not drown after all. There was the very faintest chance now that she might make it. And as she stood in the doorway with the keys in her hand, she wanted to say good-bye to someone… her husband… her child… the life they had once shared here. “I love you,” she said softly into the empty hall, not sure which of them she meant, Bill or Todd… or the life they had shared together. And then, with a last look, she closed the door softly behind her.

The doorman put her in a cab downstairs, and she reached Kennedy Airport just under an hour later. And the flight to Los Angeles was uneventful.