EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT the pain of divorce. You don’t even have to talk about it; you can see it in the eyes of recently divorced couples, read it in their posture, hear it in their voices.
Oh, yes, they say, it is all better now; that was a bad situation, and I’m happier this way.
But you can also hear the other voice, the faint chorus just underneath: “I didn’t want to do this.” “I feel so alone.” “I wish…. how I wish…..” It’s as if they are being pulled between existences, the old and the new, and they just don’t know which one to embrace.
When I was divorced many years ago, I had to leave my home. It was a nice house, in a quiet neighborhood. We had done quite a bit of work on it in the two years we had lived there. New paint, new insulation, a new fireplace. Not to mention a new lawn and a terrific little garden where I raised excellent tomatoes. And a six-year-old daughter, struggling in school.
I left the house and the new paint and the new fireplace and the terrific little garden. I smashed the new tomatoes just beginning to spread their leaves in the window, ready for transplanting in a few weeks, but now just dirt and green weeds on the floor. I left the warm fireplace with its special heating insert. The weather was still chilly in March.
I left my daughter.
I also left the car, a huge Dodge van. Instead, I pulled out of the garage an old, black, one-speed bicycle with a wire basket, which I used as transportation while I investigated possible housing. The Crawfordsville market was not promising. Most of the apartments belonged to students or young employees at Donnelly’s, and my realtor, who sold us the house two years ago, had moved to Florida. The Friday paper listed a few possibilities: A furnished studio apartment on Pike Street; a house for rent on busy Market Street; the upper floor of an older house on East Wabash Avenue, unfurnished.
A colleague who lived near my now-former house had offered me shelter for the week. Since it was spring break, he and his family were out of town, somewhere much warmer, safer, and happier. I had his key in my pocket. As I pedaled down Main Street, past the comfortable houses of several other colleagues, I tried to put my thoughts in order.
It was difficult to see clearly.
I remember turning onto Pike Street, and pedaling past the studio apartment several times, turning around, and retracing my path, before I finally found it, but I never went inside. I didn’t even bother with the Market Street house, which seemed too far away, too big, and too busy. I wasn’t used to the bike, having taken the van on errands for the past two years. I remember that it was hard to pedal; perhaps the chain was a bit rusted from disuse, or perhaps my legs were out of shape. The East Wabash apartment seemed promising, but it, too, was a good distance away.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to go somewhere. I decided to give the East Wabash place a try.
The landlady lived a couple of houses down the street, in an old mansion. I parked my bike and rang the bell. She appeared at the door, small, wrinkled, her grey hair done up in small, twin spirals on the side of her head.
Yes, she said, it’s still for rent. I understand you work at Wabash College? My son went there many years ago. Here’s the key. You can spend the night. Let me know in the morning if you want it.
I fumbled at the unfamiliar lock, went up the stairs, looked inside. It was huge, and old, and cold. My footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors. It was empty. Not a curtain. Not a couch. Not a stove. Not even a bed. I walked back to the mansion. I could give you a cot, she said; my son used to take it camping. Here, you can set it up. I carried it up the stairs and put it together in a corner of the smallest room. As an experiment, I lay down. The cot was rickety and old. I could never go to sleep on it.
I got up, jumped on my bike, and pedaled furiously to my colleague’s house.
Here, at least, it was warm, and crowded with furniture; the refrigerator was stocked with food which I could heat on an actual stove. Upstairs, in the guest bedroom he had showed me, was a fine old double bed with a warm comforter.
WHEN NIGHT FELL, I was still in his house. I don’t remember what I was doing— perhaps just sitting in the crowded living room, looking out the window, or maybe looking at nothing at all. I do not even remember eating that night—perhaps I did, or perhaps I was just lost in thought, or no-thought, as the case may be. I wearily climbed the stairs, undressed, lay down in the comfortable old bed. I waited for sleep, but nothing happened. I closed my eyes, but they kept opening. This was no good.
I got up, dressed, left the house, pedaled to the empty, cold, apartment.
Well, the lights worked—that was a good sign—but it seemed even emptier and colder at night. The cot was not inviting. I lay down anyway. Same business: eyes wide open, alert to sounds of the street, hearing creaks and ticks of the old floor. I got up, carefully, so as not to tip over the cot, and left.
Rode back to the house, up the stairs, into bed. Out of bed, down the stairs, onto the bike, pedaling a mile to the apartment, into the cot, staring at the empty ceiling, tippily rising, onto the bike again.
Back and forth, back and forth.
The neighbor’s house was not mine, I realized; it was someone else’s home, rich and full and comfortable with a long-term marriage, grown children, successful tenancy. To stay here was to admit my own failure. I could not go back. But the apartment was not mine, either; it was cold, empty, and lonely. I was afraid of what it meant to go forward. I tried to settle on one alternative, tried to let sleep take me away from a decision, but I could not.
Then, halfway from the apartment to the house, on perhaps my fifth or sixth cycle, I stopped, out of breath, or at least breathing smoky clouds in the cold, early morning air.
I looked up.
The sky was unusually clear, and the stars seemed to be closer than normal—brighter, more lucid than I’d ever remembered. “At least the stars are still here,” I said aloud. “Whatever else is changing, they have not.”
The rest was easy. I turned around, pedaled back to the apartment, lay down on the little rickety cot, and fell asleep. The next day, I signed the rental lease. My life had changed, unutterably, but the stars remained; and I could use their steadiness now.
Tom Campbell was professor emeritus of English.