2004, Singapore

By Amy Rashap

Dear Amy,I almost had a heart attack getting to the airplane. I was on my way to the hospital. But I’m OK now. We really need to talk because I think our marriage is over.

Paul

And that was it. The e-mail from my husband — now in Copenhagen on a business trip — had an innocuous “US” as the subject heading.

As I opened the message, I wondered whether he had read something interesting about the forthcoming presidential elections. Oh. Not that U.S.

It’s amazing how much is said — and not said — in a tiny three-line e-mail. A joke, it’s a joke. Well, he doesn’t, exactly, sound like he is joking. Midlife crisis?

“Lena, what do I do? I knew we were going through a flat time in our relationship, but I thought it’d get better. It always has,” I sniffle loudly into the phone. “I mean, OK, maybe I’m not always the best stepmom in the world, but I do try, right?”

“Amy, you’re a fine stepmom. The kids love you,” Lena says calmly. Lena is a healer. She has a serenity about her that seems to infuse the air around her - or, in this case, the telephone wires. I clutch the phone tightly as I listen.

“Really? You really think so? Then - ”

“I know so. Look, Paul loves you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You’re supposed to go to Chiang Mai (Thailand) in a few days, right?”

“Right.”

“Don’t go,” Lena says. “Meet him when he gets home. Talk to him. This will pass. Really.”

“Ay ay ay. I hope you’re right.”

“I am,” Lena says. “I love you, Amy.”

“Yeah, thanks. I love you too.” I hang up, and reality crashes around me.

That night, Paul’s two children are participating in a show at their international school in Singapore. I would go, of course. Somehow, I manage to chat casually with them before the show, snap dutiful pictures during the show, and reassure the girls that they had been fine afterward. Man, I thought, this is hard. Could men do this?

Would that all good deeds deserve another one in turn. For when Paul comes home, I know it is over. His hazel eyes, which usually look at me with a steadfast regard, are now dead, lifeless. Nothing there.

“What’s this all about?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual. “This is kind of unexpected.”

He shakes his head. Mute.

“Can we TALK about it?” My voice rises a few pitches.

The mute head shakes. Nothing.

“Paul, what’s going on? Why won’t you talk to me?”

“There’s nothing to say,” he says softly.

“Can we see a counselor?”

He shakes his head again as he intently views his wine glass.

“Just for an hour! Please!” Nothing.

“How can you do this?” (It’s amazing how we revert to clichés in a pinch.)

“Keep your voice down!” Paul says. “The kids are in the next room.”

I pick up his wine glass and fling the wine in his face. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

“No!” I say. “Tell them! If you’re really going to be such a jerk and end this just like that, the kids should know what kind of an idiot you are — let’s tell them. Now.” (Of course, I am hoping that this drastic action would snap him out of this nightmare. No luck.) He nods, ever so slightly, and quickly wipes off his wet face.

I poke my head out of the room. “Maria! Katrina! Come here!” My voice must have held a raspy urgency, for both girls immediately appear — rare behavior for two teenagers.

“Your father,” I say (knowing this is unconscionably cruel behavior), “has decided to leave me. Just like that. No reason. I thought you should know.”

Maria, the oldest, goes into her famous poker face mode; Katrina, the more expressive, darts her eyes back and forth between us. Back. Forth. With fear in them.

I rushed out of the room, heart pounding. How can this be? How can this be? And where do I spend the night? What do I do?

Not thinking, I run into our (former) bedroom and start slamming clothes in a nearby suitcase. The brain logically ticks off what to do, functioning well while the soul is dying. I hear my breathing as I throw in a piece of underwear. The large apartment around me is tomb-silent. I think the loudest sound is the pounding of my heart.

Then I see — in the middle of the bed, Paul’s camera. No, it’s his daughter Katrina’s camera. Paul must have borrowed it when he went to Copenha- … Why would he borrow a camera to go on a business trip?

I grasp it and figure out how to look at the pictures.

Ho-leee!! Paul with a woman in a Bali-like setting (probably was in Bali). He has the same strangely dead eyes and a slight smirk on his face as he has his arm around the waist of a younger woman — surprisingly unattractive, with a hard face.

As I quickly toggle through the pictures, I see more than her face. In the next 30 seconds, I learn more of her intimate parts than I know of mine. And that self-surviving brain of mine orders me: Take out the picture card, you’ll need it one day. So I do. And I run downstairs and outside.

Then I remember that I have no idea where I’m going. I flag a cab, and the good-humored driver recommends a place not far from Orchard Road.

I walk inside. It’s a typical impersonal lobby with tiny check-in desk, uninhabitable dirty chairs, and the smell of disinfectant. I feel as if I’m in a B-grade movie, I think, but hell, this is real. And my eyes fill with tears. Go to the check-in person. Ask for a room.

“May I see your passport?”

My passport?? “Sorry, sorry, didn’t bring it. I live here.”

I get the careful, incredulous look-over. “And how will you pay?”

“Uhh … cash?” When Paul and I got married, I ended up rescinding all my credit cards. I am as fiscally helpless as a kitten.

“Cash?” The impersonal eyes widen. “We don’t take….” She stares at me and sees my face. She makes a slight gesture with her hands to receive the cash. “This is nonrefundable,” she says, avoiding my eyes, thrusting the key in my hands.

“Thank you,” I whisper and go to my room.

“I can’t,” I say to myself, “I just can’t!” The room literally is as big as the bed that is in it. There is a broken TV on the wall. A tiny end table. Cracks on the wall.

“I can’t,” I whisper; I see myself staying in this room a lot over the next few days. Surely, there is something better?

I leave the room to go downstairs to ask for a larger room. Heck, I’ll take the stairs, I think. I hear a cold “clang” as the door shuts behind me.

Oh no. Don’t tell me that these stairs aren’t meant to be used! I rush downstairs and tug at the door. Sure enough, it’s locked. The door upstairs is locked.

So here I am, in the darkness, on a narrow stairwell, feeling every part of myself crumble. And hearing the beat of my heart.

Amy Rashap is still living in Singapore and is doing quite well.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 | Email This Post

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