The only good thing about living alone was the freedom. The freedom to drink directly out of the milk carton if he felt so inclined. The freedom to leave the toilet seat up, not flush, make a total mess of the place if he wanted. Well, the place -was- a total mess, but it hadn't gotten that way via any sort of violent "Free at Last!" tribal dance that he'd done, he simply couldn't be bothered to do any cleaning, these days. He'd also enjoyed the freedom of just walking around naked, but it soon dawned on him that walking around bare-assed during the winter, even if the heat is kicked up to 72 degrees, still isn't the best of ideas, and he soon gave that freedom up with little to no reluctance. His trusty (if not a tad threadbare) bathrobe would do. The bathrobe he'd commandeered from Amy, but not without merit; it was rightfully his, and she'd always been the one to steal it from -him-.
Mort flopped down on the couch, pulling aforementioned rag closer around him and snuggling down into the ample cushions of his beloved couch. It had always been his couch. It had been the place Amy had banished him to when he'd been a jerk (or so she thought, leastaways). It was where he spent 90 of his time in the cabin at Tashmore, lately, and he was fairly content in doing so.
Except he wasn't. He only told himself it was okay, he had nothing better to do, to keep from going insane.
He tearfully recalled he and Amy's first night in their new summer home. How they'd blessed the entire place, couch-first, and spent the night in eachother's arms on it. God, but he was sick of crying. He felt very much like a teenaged girl, or at least what he imagined one would feel like. He'd written about one or two of them, as minour characters, but had never really been in what one could call close contact with one, not even when he himself was an adolescent. He'd been attractive, if not a bit awkward and greasy-haired, but he'd been able to suceed romantically once he'd entered college. Then his gangly-ness had turned into a kind of tall, lean grace, and his hair, though still rather greasy, was long, and chicks "dug" that. Well, a few anyway...Amy, of course, being one of them.
Ten years of marriage, three years of courtship, down the drain. And for what? All because of a stupid affair she'd had with some hick bastard who apparently didn't understand the significance of a wedding ring. Mort plucked his glasses from his face and scrubbed his damp cheeks with a sleeve of his bathrobe. iMaybe I -should've- bought her the one with the bigger diamond/i Mort mused to himself. iI guess it never pays to be cheap./i
He'd known she'd been cheating on him for a while before he'd actually caught her with him in the motel room. Well, okay, he hadn't -known-, for certain, but he'd been pretty damned sure, and that was the part of him that made him drive out there in the snow so that he could see for himself. The part of him that decided to turn around in the parking lot, filch the keys from behind the desk and open that horrible orange-coloured door. It was the part of him that had wanted her to be cheating on him, all along, just so that he could catch her. Well, he caught her. Just so that he could be the victim, and spend months and months being angry and hurt and self-pitying. Well, that's exactly what he was doing, and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Mort called that part of him a masochist, and wished he could make it go away, but he'd never been very good at banishing his demons without medication, and he'd run out of pills in March.
Morton Rainey was a thirty-six year-old divorcee. It didn't matter that he was a successful author, or that he'd made enough money from his books so that he would never have to work again, or that he had an expensive cabin in the middle of the woods. Everything else didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the ending. Their ending. It had been so abrupt, so completely without a proper warning (but then you never can really prepare yourself for things like this, can you?) that the loose ends were flying in the breeze like so many ribbons on a Maypole. And it hurt to think about it, and all Mort did was think about it. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been in pain.
The phone rang and Mort jumped. "Shit," he cursed under his breath, putting his glasses back on and reaching over to answer the phone. "Just what I always wanted," he muttered quickly before forcing out a "Hello?"
"Mort?"
It was Amy. Of course. Who the hell else should it be? She was the only one that ever called him. Well, and very rarely a family member, or a telemarketer, but he would have much rather spoken to someone trying to sell him something. He wouldn't have minded speaking to a telemarketer, either. Anything but another helpful reminder that his life had turned to shit.
"Yes, Amy. What is it?"
Guess what? Another reminder. Not after the usual pleasantries, of course, though Mort didn't really consider them very pleasant.
"I really need for you to sign your papers, Mort..."
He was about an inch away from hanging up on her. Literally. The cradle was so close. SLAM! and that's all it would have taken. But he didn't. He swallowed, he sighed, and he stayed on the phone with her, against his better judgment.
"I know, Amy. You really don't have to keep reminding me."
"I'll remind you until it's done. You know that. Why won't you just do it? Please?"
Mort thought for a moment, massaging his temples as he did so. Nothing like a phone call from the ex to give you a lovely migrane. But even after he'd sat in silence for what seemed like a good two or possibly even three minutes, he still had not come up with anything to say, and he said so.
"I don't know what to say, Amy." And that was that.
"...Fine, Mort. Obviously you're in no mood to talk, right now"
"Gee, what ever gave you ithat/i idea, Amy?"
"There's no need to be a jerk about it, Morton."
Mort was tempted to make a comment about how she couldn't send him to the couch, because he was all ready there, or that only his mother could get away with calling him that, but thought better of it. Best to just let it go, get off the phone, and take a nice long nap. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded, and the looser his grip on the phone became.
"Good-bye, Amy," he said, and this time his heart forgot to hurt when they hung-up without saying exchanging 'I love you's, not that he was complaining. But his head was doing plenty of that, so decided that the best course of action would, in fact, be to take a nap. He'd been doing an awful lot of that lately, but he was beyond caring at this point. Right now, his temples were throbbing, the sun was setting, and the cushions were trying to suck them down into their soft embrace. He had no trouble giving in. He never did, these days.
Without another thought about Amy, the divorce papers, Ted, anything of the mess his life had become, he kicked off his slippers, fell down onto his side, fiddled with the pillows so that they were in ijust/i the right places, and fell fast asleep.