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They're also pretty angry at their mother for moving to Paris, and it's instructive to
witness Jan's patience with the casually accusatory barbs they sometimes sling at her.
I hear about them afterward, and a couple of times I was in the room during a phone
call—how their lives are more difficult now without a cohesive family, how they envy
their friends who have a solid and comforting support structure, how they don't know
how to think about holidays anymore. What Jan does is listen and sympathize and con-
sole, letting blame rest on her shoulders. I told her once that I'm not sure I could sit still
for it all without getting angry—or at least defending myself.
“Well, they're beginning to understand that I wasn't happy, and I want them to realize
that they can take action in their lives when they're not happy,” she said. “And it's good
that they still call to talk to me about this stuff, isn't it?”
She added, with sweetness and relief, “They're not quite cooked yet. They still need
their mom.”
I should say a couple of things. First, there was no romance between Jan and me
before she separated from her husband. Second, that said, I've had a crush on her for
twenty-five years (unspoken, though all my friends seem to have known about it), and I
was pretty disheartened myself when she announced she was leaving the continent for a
job at the
International Herald Tribune
.
1
I'd known her marriage was in trouble; she let me know before she moved out, and
though the news surprised me, that she'd told me didn't. One element of our being
friends over the years was a mutual confidant-ship. When we first met, before the girls
were born, we'd leave the office and go to lunch once a month at McHale's, a late and
lamented bar on Eighth Avenue in the 40s that served huge burgers and surprisingly
authentic Mexican food, and talk about our respective experiences in therapy. In my
sessions, I told her, we talked about sex, which I was either having or not. In hers, she
said, they talked about death, though it wasn't her own she obsessed about. It was her
grandmother's, her parents', and, of course, even though she hadn't had them yet, her
children's.
“One of these days, Jan, you're going to have to talk about sex,” I often joked, and
she always responded, “And you're going to have to talk about death.”
Prescient!
This all sounds suspicious, I realize that, but nothing happened, I swear. Here's the
timeline:
She left for Paris last September. In February, I made plans to go bicycling with a tour
group in Provence and I asked Jan if she wanted to come along. In May, I flew to Paris,
where I stayed with her for two nights—she has a second bedroom—and on a Saturday
