Dante's Wood Read online

  It was a Friday evening, and we’d gone to LeCirce after work to celebrate one of Annie’s new accounts. As the waiter was clearing away the remains of our dessert soufflé, I woke up to the sight of Annie fluttering her fingers in my face.

  “Mark?”

  “Huh?” I said, coming to.

  “What’s the matter with you tonight? It’s like I’ve been sitting here by myself the whole time.”

  “Really?” I said. “Do you think anyone’s noticed? Maybe we can get a discount on the check.”

  “Very funny. I bet you can’t remember one word I’ve said.”

  I couldn’t, of course. Nor would I have cared to, being sure it was something I’d already heard a thousand times before and didn’t have much interest in to begin with. But I could remember the odd sensation I’d been experiencing earlier, like I was standing across the room watching an undistinguished-looking fellow fiddle with his cutlery while his companion yakked heedlessly away. It didn’t hit me like a sledgehammer. It wasn’t startling enough for that. But the snapshot left no room for doubt: I had become one of those men who are bored with their wives.

  In the months that followed I could only shake my head at my own stupidity. The woman I began seeing clearly for the first time that night was the same person I’d known from the very beginning, but I had been as blind to her as the man I was destined, with exacting fairness, to become. I couldn’t excuse my own conduct, nor could I condemn Annie. It would have been easier if I’d been able to say, with any justification, that she was vapid or shallow or materialistic. But she wasn’t any of those things. She was simply the uncomplicated daughter of a wealthy man, content to accept her privileged lot in life and not much given over to meditation on fate, or the universe, or the dark workings of the psyche. If I’d expected real companionship from her, I had no one to blame but myself. And I told myself I was asking for too much. The kind of kinship I wanted—that I now realized I’d been aching for my entire life—was granted only to a deserving few, and I wasn’t going to be one of them. Meanwhile, it was enough, enviable even, to be hitched to a woman of such breeding and polish, who could look sensational in a cocktail dress and lean and graceful on a tennis court.

  The first pregnancy resuscitated our marriage somewhat. There was so much to do and it gave Annie a fresh source of topics to chatter about. We traded our city digs for a shingled Colonial in Cos Cob, decorated a nursery, went to Lamaze classes. I started to commute to work by car. Annie carried the pregnancy well and looked great, hardly more than a bump until she blossomed in her eighth month. Her new proportions revived my interest in her sexually, though I missed the small breasts. It was delicious to press against her aqueous belly while I slid my penis up inside, next to where my son lay dozing in his little sac. For we’d known right away it was a boy; the ultrasound left no doubt. A grandson straight out of the box pleased Roger too and confirmed the wisdom of his choice of son-in-law. When I cut our baby’s cord and cradled his tiny, warm head in the palm of my hand, I even allowed myself to think I could be happy with Annie again.

  The day we brought Jack home was one of my few experiences of joy. My memories of swinging him over the threshold in his infant seat, of Annie and I laughing together while we tried to solve the Chinese puzzle of his various contraptions, of the rise and fall of his little chest as he lay snuggled between us in bed that night, still bring a knife blade to my chest.

  But no advice manual in the world can prepare you for what happens next. There would have been tremendous strain, even if ours had been a good marriage and even if things hadn’t gone so badly for us right from the start. Annie was not one of those women who take to birthing like cows or sheep. She’d labored for thirty-six hours before delivering Jack, and his large size required an impressive episiotomy. It was ages before she could sit comfortably without a bucket of ice packs underneath or walk without a sailor’s gait. Then she had trouble breastfeeding; for a long time her nipples cracked and bled. Jack’s colic started within days of getting him home and quickly built to a nightly ordeal of nonstop wailing. Within a short time we were haggard and snapping at each other. Nine months later we were still at it, and I was flunking Bonding 101.

  Infants, I have to confess, have never been all that fascinating to me. Still, I might have developed a stronger attachment to Jack if I’d been allowed to do what came naturally. But even there my luck was off. Once she’d gotten past the initial physical pains, Annie turned to mothering with the fervor of a novitiate. It took her a nanosecond to decide that working again was out of the question, and it was equally plain to her that, biology to one side, parenthood was a calling for which fathers need not apply. Despite years of medical training, I was deemed instantly incompetent, not even trustworthy enough to juggle Jack during his evening squalls or change the occasional diaper. Bottles too were out of the question; they would cause nipple confusion. This left me with little to do but truck to the store when we ran out of Huggies and phone every other evening for Chinese. On the rare days when I was allowed to spend time alone with Jack, he barely seemed to recognize me, brightening only when Annie returned to scoop him up, amid squeals of mutual delight.

  But there was more to it than just being left out of the party. I’d become impatient with Annie again. When she wasn’t cooing at Jack or waving a developmentally appropriate toy in his face, she was boning up on motherhood like it was a graduate course in quantum physics. Soon my library ended up in boxes in the attic to make way for those best-sellers that equate routine baby care with the operating instructions for a nuclear submarine. Our adult conversation, such as it ever was, dwindled to zero. And forget about sex. Annie’s tenderness ruled out even that small consolation for the better part of a year, and she wasn’t as appealing anymore. The nursing made it hard to lose those last ten pounds and her swollen, vein-rich breasts were not to my taste, even if I could have brought myself to share them with my son.

  I wasn’t so shallow that I didn’t understand what was happening. Part of what we were undergoing was the great Freudian drama that plays itself out in every family. I was experiencing a father’s primitive rage at being displaced in the marital bed. Soon the tables would be turned when Jack started fantasizing my end so he could have Annie all to himself. But that didn’t stop me from feeling trapped. Annie had already explained there would have to be more children, three at least, possibly four if the next one wasn’t a girl, so I could expect new contenders for the throne to keep arriving every second year. And when I wasn’t at work she expected me to be an energetic cheerleader of her love affair with my son. I wasn’t allowed to read a book, or work on my bike, or follow the tale of Jack’s latest triumph merely by grunting every so often.

  I grew even more bored with her. And then bitter. And then disgusted with myself for being so unlike all the other new fathers I was now expected to socialize with, who seemed just as besotted with their offspring as their wives.

  Maybe it would have helped if Jack had resembled me. But he was pure Whittaker, large and pale and towheaded. I couldn’t find a single point of identification, not even after Jack grew out of infancy, passed his first birthday, and started displaying a personality. By that time Annie had pulled off becoming pregnant again—a feat nearly as miraculous as the Annunciation—meaning Jack had to give up his habit of snacking at her breasts whenever he liked. He reacted to the sudden deprivation by becoming a whiney, overbearing tyrant. I wasn’t surprised. Annie couldn’t manage the slightest brinkmanship with him, even though she was the one with the arsenal. Jack began refusing to go to sleep at night. I wanted to drop him in his crib and shut the door, figuring he’d eventually get the message, but Annie couldn’t sit through ten minutes of his crying. So evenings in our home became a wearying cycle of threats, counterthreats, and ultimatums Jack could see right through—because they were never enforced—until he finally passed out, lathered with sweat and tears, sometime after the eleven o’clock news.

  In the time-ho
nored tradition of male absenteeism I fled, throwing myself into work, spending more and more late nights in the city. And though I tried to resist it, the temptation eventually overcame me. I started seeing other women.

  Not many, you understand. With my father-in-law right there in the hospital I had to be careful. I didn’t do it often either, maybe once or twice a month, with a few women who understood it was for recreation, not for keeps, and who liked me well enough to accept it on those terms. They were as easy to find as in the old days, and because they were now forbidden, more interesting. My liaisons required secrecy, evasion, sometimes even the construction of elaborate falsehoods, and I enjoyed the modest peril this put me in. It dulled my senses to what was going on at home and sharpened my wits at work. If I’d stopped even once to think about what I was doing, or what it was making me into, I would have been able to shrug it off, because by that time the habit of lying to myself had become ingrained.

  The day it all ended started innocently enough. It was May and close to the summer solstice, so I’d been able to take my morning ride early. I couldn’t leave for work early though, because Jack was running a fever.

  “I’m really worried about him,” Annie said, as I was knotting my tie in front of the bedroom mirror. The skin under her eyes was puckered and gray from lack of sleep. Annie was always anxious about Jack’s health, and even more so lately as she neared her second due date, only three weeks away.

  “How high was his fever when you last checked?”

  “Hundred and one.”

  “That’s nothing,” I said. “Kids his age are always running fevers that high. Probably just a cold. Or teeth. Is he drooling?”

  “Yes, but I think it’s an ear infection. He never really got over the last one. And he was so cranky last night.”

  I let that pass and started looking around for my shoes.

  “Can’t you take him to the pediatrician for me?”

  “Right now? I have a consult scheduled at nine.” I spotted the heel of a loafer peeking from under the bedclothes and reached down for it.

  “Please? Or look at him yourself?”

  “OK, OK. Do you know where I left the otoscope last time?”

  I didn’t see anything amiss when I looked in Jack’s ears, and once I’d ruled out an infection I wasn’t concerned. The fever wasn’t at all high for a toddler and his gums looked sore, so second-year molars were probably the answer. Of course, it was wrong to diagnose my own child, but it was easier than having to haul him to his pediatrician every third day, and I really did need to get to the hospital on time. I told Annie that Jack should have Tylenol every four hours and to call me if his fever climbed much higher. Then I left for work, a good thirty minutes later than usual.

  By the time I reached the Henry Hudson the traffic was bumper to bumper. I passed the time in my customary way, with a journal balanced against the steering wheel. It was a dangerous habit but a good antidote to New York road rage, and I did it often. Recently I’d noticed it was getting harder to read small print, which I’d put down to needing reading glasses, so I switched on the lamp over the dashboard to make it easier to see. By the time I got to work I was late for my consult, a bipolar man in his fifties who went into full meltdown halfway through the interview. The rest of the day snowballed from there, and by 6:00 p.m. the back of my neck felt like it had been used to tug merchant vessels up and down the East River. I was looking forward to a date that night with a woman I’d been seeing recently, a whip-thin anesthesiologist with an appetite for ethnic food and athletic lovemaking. I’d already prepared Annie for a late-night arrival, telling her I was trying to catch up on things so I’d be able to spend more time at home when the new baby arrived.

  Just as I was walking out the door at 6:45, Annie called.

  “Mark, Jack’s getting worse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He’s crying all the time and I can’t get him to stop.”

  No surprise there. “When did you last check his temperature?”

  “Ten minutes ago. It’s up to almost a hundred and three.”

  Once more, I didn’t see anything to be worried about, and I was impatient to get to my date. “Annie, I’ve told you over and over. Fevers in young kids, even high ones, are nothing to get upset about. Put him to bed early—for a change—and he’ll be fine in the morning.”

  “Can’t you come home? I’ve been having contractions all day and I’m exhausted from dealing with him.”

  It’s funny how one moment of selfishness can derail an entire life. I didn’t want to do it. I needed time away from Jack and it was just a fever, after all. Annie always overreacted to the slightest sneeze, and it was her fault the kid was such a brat. If she needed a break, she could ask our live-in to watch him. The woman should have been doing something to earn her salary. So I lied and said I was in the middle of an emergency. I told Annie I’d get home as soon as I could, but she shouldn’t count on anything earlier than eleven. I said she should continue to administer Tylenol every few hours and to page me if the fever climbed past 104. And then I left to meet my date.

  In classic fashion, it wasn’t a good time. Rachel had been through a hellish day too, losing a patient on the operating-room table. She was sure it was nobody’s fault, but it was always upsetting when it happened. The atmosphere was grim as we slogged through our meal, drinking too much and finding each other’s company less inspiring than usual. When we got to her apartment in the West Eighties, I turned off my cell phone and pager, as I always did during sex. Haplessly, afterward, I forgot to turn them back on. And then I did something else I seldom did: I fell asleep.

  When I woke a little after ten there was still time to make it home on time if I ignored the speed limit, but when I reached my car the battery was dead. I’d neglected to turn off the dashboard lamp that morning and it had spent the entire day draining my battery. It was forty-five minutes before I could get a jump from the garage attendant, another thirty before I reached the Cross-Westchester and I-95. There I got stuck in a long line of cars behind a semi that had just tipped over outside the Byram exit. By the time they got it cleared, I was already ninety minutes past my deadline. When I walked in the door after midnight, trying to construct an excuse for what had kept me out so late, Annie was beyond hysteria. She’d been trying to reach me for hours. Why hadn’t I called? Jack’s fever was up to 106. He’d stopped crying an hour ago and was now lying listlessly in his crib. I took one look at his stiff posture and unnatural pallor and knew immediately what it was. I wasted no time getting him to the emergency room, ran every red light on the way, but by the time we got there it was too late for the antibiotics to do much good.

  My son was dead, of meningitis, by the following morning.

  The next day, while I was packing my suitcase, I told Annie where I’d been that night, and other nights as well. I didn’t say I was sorry because I wasn’t asking for or expecting any forgiveness. I understood perfectly when she said she never wanted to see me again: I wished that option had been available to me, too. Even at the funeral she hadn’t looked at me once, not during the brief ceremony or after, when she walked from Jack’s grave on her father’s arm with the tears spilling down onto the folds of her black maternity dress. I wasn’t able to cry, though there was a moment when they were lowering the tiny coffin into the ground when I felt unsteady and thought I might not be able to keep upright.

  I knew better than to expect any mercy from Roger. I’d broken the sacred covenant, failed to protect his daughter and grandson, the most important responsibility I’d been given. It didn’t matter that Annie was a competent adult who could have called a doctor, or an ambulance, or even Roger as the evening went on and Jack’s condition worsened. Causation was beside the point. We met the afternoon of the funeral, at the offices of the Whittaker family’s attorneys in downtown Greenwich. Roger’s eyes shone with icy malice from his wing chair across the room while the lawyer laid down my sentence. The divorce would be
uncontested in every respect. I could have my own attorney look at the papers if I cared to, but propose no alterations. There would be a small settlement for Annie, a token for appearances’ sake, because her trust fund was more than adequate for her needs. I would pay full support for the child soon to be born until he reached his majority. I would relinquish all rights to custody and visitation, save for one annual meeting at a time and place acceptable to Annie. I would leave the hospital where I worked and find new employment out-of-state. Roger would lend his backing to the search and provide appropriate recommendations. Neither side would ever speak of the matters leading to the split.

  I agreed to everything. I had proved myself utterly worthless, as both a father and a man, so what did it matter? Ten days later, Annie gave birth to our second son, whom she named Louis. The only time I saw him in person was through the window of the hospital nursery while Annie was napping in her room. I accepted the job from Sep and moved to Chicago. I didn’t think it was appropriate to insist on my paternal visit the first year, but Annie sent me a photograph of Louis taken on his first birthday. I still carried it in my wallet. When the second birthday photo arrived, I was already deep into my mobility training with Cherie.

  True to my promise to Roger—I owed Annie that much—I never breathed a word about what happened, not to a single soul. No one in Chicago was aware I’d been married, much less buried a child. I think Josh suspected a relationship of some kind, but we’d fallen out of touch after medical school, and he knew me well enough not to pry. Sep had never asked, and my other colleagues probably thought I was gay. If so, I did nothing to correct the misimpression. I wanted no more women in my life and had been celibate since the day I left Annie.