Chapter Eleven
Julie's parents told her she couldn't stay in Philadelphia until the end of the summer. She had to go back to Savannah and talk to Matt in person. She reluctantly agreed, though she was afraid of the confrontation.
When she arrived at the house, she found his dresser drawers empty and many of his belongings missing, but there was a light on in the shed he had turned into a studio. She called her friend Kim and asked her to take Jackson for a while. Kim's son, who was a full year younger than Jackson, played well with him. The two boys were at pretty much the same maturity level, which worried Julie, but she was glad Jackson had a good friend.
When Matt opened the door to the studio, his white T-shirt was splattered with paint, as were his fingers. The shirt pulled tightly across his muscular chest, and she was reminded how good looking her husband was – much better looking than the fellow teacher she had kissed - but the average man had become attractive through the attention he had paid her at a time when she felt starved for attention. Matt had asked, Why him? What does he have that I don't have? It wasn't money. It wasn't looks. It was simply that Paul had been fully there when Matt only half was.
Julie understood that now. For a short time, she had thought maybe she was falling in love with Paul, and she questioned whether she had ever truly loved Matt. But time away from both, and conversations with her mother, and a little perspective had made the picture plain. She loved her husband. She missed him. He was her first love, and she wanted him to be her last. She wanted to fix this, and not just for Jackson.
"You're back," he said.
"Did you…move out?"
"I moved in here."
She peered around him and saw the cot in the corner, the suitcases, the small card table with a bowl and spoon. "You don't have to do that."
"We don't have a guest bedroom. Just Jackson's room and our room." It was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom rambler. They hadn't wanted to buy a bigger house, because Matt was saving up to become a partner in the gallery.
"What about a bathroom?" Why was she asking about logistics? He'd moved out. Moved out. Her brain was refusing to process what that meant.
"I'll come in the house when I need to. We don't have to tell Jackson yet. Until it's final."
Julie leaned against the door frame for support. "Until what's final?"
"I mean, until we decided whether or not we're going to divorce."
"Are you considering it?"
"Of course I am."
"But you'll go to marriage counseling?"
"Not now. I don't want to now. I need…" He shook his head. "I don't know what I need. I'm sleeping here for now. You can have the house with Jackson. We'll all eat dinner together twice a week and be polite to each other." They only ate dinner together three times a week usually anyway, Julie thought, and that was when he was in town. It would be nothing new to Jackson. "I'll do the stuff I usually do with him. But I don't want to see you any more than that. Not now. You just tell him I'm working when I'm not around."
"I guess that will be easy for him to believe." She bit her bottom lip. That wasn't going to help. She began to realize what was happening, what all this might mean. "So…this is like a separation? You're not…you're not going to see anyone, are you?" She had a strong fear he might retaliate with something more than a single make-out session. She knew women were interested in them. There was one local artist, about twelve years older than Matt, who was always stopping by the gallery. They joked about it at first, how obvious she was…called her the "painting cougar" (she often wore tight, black dresses too, so it worked on more levels than one). That was probably over a year ago, though. Julie hadn't heard Matt joke about her in a long time. Maybe she'd ceased to be a joke to him. She was fairly attractive, for her age, and God knew she was willing.
"We're still married," he answered to her relief. "Are you going to see him?"
"No. I told him it could never happen again. That we couldn't even be alone in a room. You know that."
"You'll see him when school starts, though. Every day."
"I sent in my resignation. I'm going to do temp work – office work for the next year. And I'll try to get a teaching job at a different school next year." It was her mother who had suggested changing schools to avoid temptation and reassure Matt of her commitment. "I want you to know I'm serious about fixing this."
"You quit?" he asked with disbelief.
"Yeah."
He seemed almost literally to soften, as though a bit of the rigidness went out of his muscles. "Where's Jackson?"
"With Kim."
He put hand on the door. "Tell me when he's home. I want to spend the rest of the day with him at the park. It's my day off." His day off from the gallery, but not his day off from the studio. He often painted on his days off, sometimes most of the day.
"Can I come in? Can we talk some more?"
"I have to work." He closed the door.
Julie stood there for a moment, hugging herself, the sticky, Georgia heat descending like the weight that was sinking her heart.
