Autopsy of a Boring Wife Read online

  “Just think of me as an old friend who only wants the best for the family — your family.”

  “It’s just that over the past few years, Jacques was starting to get . . . more . . . well . . . demanding.”

  “Demanding?”

  “Yes. I wasn’t able to . . . I don’t know how to put this . . . fulfil his . . . ”

  “Fantasies?”

  “That’s right, his fantasies.”

  “But everyone has fantasies, darling. It’s normal.”

  “Maybe. But with Jacques, they’d . . . well . . . they’d taken on a new character.”

  “What do you mean, ‘new character’? Did he ask to role-play?”

  “Umm . . . I suppose. He liked scenarios that made me really uncomfortable.”

  “Oh? Wasn’t there a way to compromise?”

  “Uh . . . no. But I don’t think I should tell you about it.”

  “Is it really so bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, come now. You’re scaring me.”

  * * *

  I was having fun retelling my story. Claudine was at the edge of her seat.

  “Oh, come on, what did you say that was so awful?”

  “Think about it, what would really kill her . . . ”

  “You’ve got me.”

  “I told her Jacques wanted me to dress as a guy so he could get it up.”

  “Oh God, you didn’t!”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. She covered her mouth with her hand to muffle a little squeak, picked up her things, and rushed out. I just sat there and finished my hot water with lemon.”

  “So now she must think . . . ”

  “ . . . the gay gene is her doing! Screw her!”

  “I bet she’ll ask Jacques if it’s true.”

  “Never in her life. We were talking ‘woman to woman.’ She’d never involve him.”

  “Well, too bad for her, the old witch!”

  When we’d announced, a few years back, that Alexandre was bringing his boyfriend to the family Christmas party, there’d been quite a stir. (We’d expected as much, hence the pre-emptive announcement to the so-called family.) Since, according to Blanche’s genealogical research, both the Valois and Garrigues lines included only “normal people” — no branches of the family tree had dried up so far — the possibility that the “flaw” might have come from my side was mentioned. Jacques had clenched his teeth and tightened his fists in an effort to defend his son and “everybody like him,” but the nasty exchange of words only escalated, forcing us to revise our holiday plans that year. World views had collided in an intergenerational Big Bang with a lot of collateral damage. To my mother-in-law, homosexuality was a disease with an as yet undetermined cause, like allergies. And, confronted with such narrow-mindedness, I got a little carried away and used words in tune with my feelings. I called her a “demented old bigot,” among other things. Even today, some of the wounds are still open and festering. Our relationship has not been the same since, like one of those reconstituted vases that fool no one, their fault lines still visible and the whole structure compromised.

  I was never out to avenge myself, but that day my ex-mother-in-law handed me the opportunity on a silver platter. And I took it. I still resented her, that I’ll admit, and just picturing her torture herself over how she might have engendered what she’d imagine to be such an aberration gave me a delicious sense of satisfaction.

  In all honesty, we’d wound up utterly bored in bed, Jacques and I. We were stuck on autopilot, doing the same things in the same order, over and over. No, we certainly hadn’t managed to shake things up. At its core, our life had ended up taking on a time-worn patina. Proposing anything new would have been to acknowledge the ennui neither of us was ready to address. And even if I’d had the guts to suggest something new, I’d have been terrified of his judgement, just as I’d have feared his suggestions if he’d dared to make any. We were prisoners of the centrifugal force of our relationship pushing us inexorably apart.

  Whenever he did want to have sex, Jacques would say, “Wait for me, I’m coming!” as soon as he saw me getting ready for bed. I’m boring — I have always been — and the only thing I want to do at the end of the day is sleep. While I’d made the effort to prioritize other things over sleep in those first years of marriage, it’s true that for some time I’d gladly given myself over to the sandman anytime the opportunity arose. I used sleep like others did migraines. I loved my husband with all my heart, but my body was telling me — commanding me — to sleep, and there was nothing I could do about it. Plus, I knew Jacques was too respectful to ever wake me up to satisfy him.

  Not all women are so lucky, office gossip has taught me.

  So no, we never shook things up in bed, neither with him cross-dressing or me in a schoolgirl outfit. We treated our desire like a hygienic matter, like a necessary routine. It was no surprise, then, that my rhythmically challenged husband eventually sought “happiness” elsewhere.

  But absolutely none of this was my ex-mother-in-law’s business. That she believed she had a right to know the details of my sex life infuriated me. As soon as she stepped out the door, I went to grab the sledgehammer.

  Once I’d calmed down, I read Antoine’s text: “Love you, Mom.”

  14

  In which I say “yes” one more time

  “So you think Jacques is going to come back?”

  “I don’t know, I was just talking.”

  “It’s a serious question: are you expecting Jacques to walk back through the door?”

  The mandarin collar jacket she was wearing gave her a stern look. She was swinging a fountain pen back and forth between her fingers like a metronome, to the beat of my confessions. Maybe she didn’t like regular ballpoint pens; I never asked.

  “Diane?”

  “It’s not an impossible turn of events. It happens a lot.”

  “So you’re hoping he’ll come back?”

  “Honestly? Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would be easier. I’m thinking of the kids, especially.”

  “But your kids are out of the house.”

  “Yes, but Charlotte is probably going to move back home, she only left for school. And who knows about the other two. Relationships don’t last long these days. They might need a place to land at some point.”

  “But Jacques doesn’t need to be there.”

  “It would be weird without their father around. They always saw us together, the house was ours. I don’t know . . . ”

  “You think your kids won’t come home if Jacques isn’t there?”

  “They might not want to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did your parents split up?”

  “When I was twenty.”

  “Were you still living at home?”

  “No, I had an apartment.”

  “How did things go between them?”

  “Pretty badly.”

  A raising of the eyebrows.

  “Tell me about that, Diane.”

  “My parents sold the house, and my mom found an apartment on the third floor of a beige building in a beige neighbourhood. My dad moved to Sherbrooke.”

  “So you stayed with your father or mother once you finished university?”

  “I went to my mother’s for a month. The saddest month of my life.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It was just sad. It wasn’t our house anymore, and I didn’t like it. There were no memories, no neighbours, no friends, no back lane, and it didn’t smell like home . . . When I got up at night I didn’t know where I was, and when I saw the parking lot through the window, I just wanted to cry.”

  “An
d things were different in your own apartment?”

  “No, that wasn’t home either. I had roommates and knew it was only temporary. To be ‘home’ was to be at my mom’s place, but I never felt comfortable there. I didn’t even have a room. I slept on a pull-out in the living room, and she had the TV on all day to keep her company. She was so happy to be there! ‘Much less work, much less to clean.’ But for me, it was sad. Just sad.”

  “Hmm. And what if he never comes back?”

  The possibility was so fabulously difficult to picture that I was still avoiding it.

  “I know I should think about it, but I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “And what would you do if he did come back?”

  “Oh boy . . . I don’t know. He’d have to buy me a new ring for a start — a hell of a big one!”

  “How big?”

  “As big as the mess he’s made.”

  “And you’d be able to forgive him?”

  I’d asked myself the question a million times. The road to my forgiveness would be long and winding; he would need to redeem himself big-time. I wanted him to suffer, for him to blame himself, for him to crawl, beg, plead, and break down at my feet.

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “ . . . ”

  “Diane?”

  “Yes.”

  15

  In which I take a dislike to leaf blowers

  The opportunities for vengeance afforded by Charlene and Blanche should have appeased me; instead, they raised the hackles of an acute irritability that, surprisingly, I had never encountered in myself. Not yet, at any rate. Whether my anger had been dormant or suddenly flourished because Jacques had left was immaterial and had the same result: I ended up destroying something.

  Jacques had often reproached me, saying I didn’t know how to relax. And he was absolutely right — I didn’t. It was a bad habit I’d developed raising children and working full-time. Even after the kids moved out, and despite the hours of freedom that subsequently fell down upon me like manna, I never managed to change pace. I still ate breakfast standing up at the corner of the counter and scheduled hair appointments in between running errands, housecleaning, paperwork, organizing birthday parties, and helping with this and that. All my free time evaporated in the zeal of my rushing about to get everything done, as if I was afraid of the void. I was continually in awe of my colleagues discussing the books they’d read or the movies they’d watched over the weekend.

  So now — as much to prove to myself that I could as to calm the rage within me — I decided to relax. I was willing to do anything, to live in filth or eat frozen TV dinners, if that’s what it took. I would master the art of doing nothing, and let it cost what it cost. I’d already reclaimed my Wednesday nights.

  Thursday night

  I had to comb through the entire Murdoch file to see where the order to the wholesaler had gone wrong. Normally, I’d have thrown myself into the task until death ensued. But that night I decided to order a takeout box of chicken and finish every last French fry out on the back deck without a single regret. I did nothing but savour what I brought to my mouth. Between gulps of the Château Margaux I’d taken up from the cellar, still filled with decent bottles of wine, I licked my salty, sauce-covered fingers. Yes, it’s true: a sacrilege. The only shadow cast over the scene? Mr. Nadaud had chosen the moment to mow his lawn and tend to the hedges. He’d been retired for a while and could have picked any time of day — when the rest of the neighbourhood was at work, for instance — but suddenly he’d felt the need to “spruce things up” in my company.

  After scraping the bottom of the container clean — I’d have licked it if I’d been alone — I planted myself down in front of the TV, slumping into my papasan chair like a lazy teenager. (I still hadn’t replaced the couch.) I knew exactly what to do as each of my children had been through this phase — Antoine never really grew out of it.

  As the wine worked its magic, I entertained myself watching a dumb spy movie in which all the bad guys were ugly and all the good guys were attractive. And even though their guns were smaller, they wreaked much more havoc than the bad guys. The best things come in small packages.

  Friday morning

  I made a point of getting to work a few minutes late, just to honour my new resolution. Claudine was waiting for me, bouncing up and down excitedly and clapping her hands.

  “Go look! There’s a surprise on your desk!”

  “What for?”

  “It’s not from me!”

  “Who’s it from, then?”

  “Josée.”

  “Josée who?”

  “J.P.’s secretary!”

  “Josy?”

  “Her real name is Josée.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’ve got her personnel file.”

  “I like Josée better.”

  “Who cares? Quick, open it!”

  I had barely any time to feel butterflies in my stomach before I was pulling out my wonderfully heavy blue boots. There was a bottle of wine in each — actually, one of sparkling wine and another of white — along with a little card that I quickly slipped into my pocket.

  “Are those the boots you gave J.P. the other day?”

  “Yeah, they’re my boots. My new old pair.”

  “With some nice bubbly!”

  “You should come over and drink it with me.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever you want.”

  “I’ve got the girls until Sunday afternoon.”

  “Sunday evening, then. Perfect! I’ll put it in the fridge.”

  “So, are you going to read the card now or Sunday?”

  “What card?”

  Because it was crazy, given the work I needed to finish, I decided to take the afternoon off and enjoy the beautiful day. I was going to drag the papasan out onto the deck, wrap myself in an alpaca throw, curl up into a ball inside it, and soak up the sun while reading a little and watching the leaves fall. I’d been given some two dozen novels from my kids over the years, none of which I’d ever found time to start. My brain needed exercise. Probably more than my body did, which was saying a lot. I ended up falling asleep. The Nadauds’ lawn still smelled like freshly mown grass.

  Friday afternoon

  I could feel the heat radiating off J.P.’s card, tucked into the right-side back pocket of my jeans. It was unlikely to contain any earth-shattering revelations, though possibly a few sweet words. I put off reading it to make the giddiness last, basking in the feeling before I dove in. Meanwhile, Mr. Michaud had taken out his electric sander and begun working on his beloved deck. I thought he’d given it a complete overhaul at the beginning of the summer, but maybe I’d gotten the houses mixed up. At least he was going at it in the middle of the afternoon on a workday. I couldn’t complain. Heavy machines were already roaring to life at and around number 5412 just down the street, which had recently sold. I had no idea what the new owners were planning, but teams of workers had been on the job by 7 a.m. every day for weeks now. The tak-tak-tak! of the nail guns had rocked my post-bomb catalepsy.

  I resisted the pull of the card in my pocket for another hour before opening it. Almost an hour. Okay, a few minutes.

  “Shit!”

  His chicken-scratch handwriting made me go back in to get my glasses. It was the first time I’d received a card from a man other than Jacques — even at that, I couldn’t remember the last one he’d given me — and my eyes had become too old and tired to read without help.

  Drum roll, please. The opening of the card.

  The boots look too good on you.

  And you have really beautiful eyes.

  Cheers!

  JP

  Things between us would never go any further but, at that moment, the simple compliment made my heart
skip a beat. Everything slipped away, even the noise of the sander and jackhammers. I had “really beautiful eyes” and that was enough. I had been reborn and all it had taken was a compliment. The only snag: I couldn’t stop wondering if Jacques and Charlene’s story had started the same way. I would need to go through Jacques’s most recent gifts.

  Friday night

  It was the cold that woke me. The cold and the sound of a lawn mower belonging to Mr. Gomez, my neighbour on the left. But I couldn’t be angry with him since he’d spent the past few months helping me with the furniture I’d “moved” out the window and onto the curb, no questions asked. His wife kept an eye on what was happening through her kitchen window, too. They’d probably known before I did that my marriage was falling apart. I’m sure I’d have learned a bunch of things if I’d just asked the neighbours.

  I retreated inside.

  There was a voicemail from Jacques. He wanted me to send a text letting him know a good time to call. He said he didn’t want me to call him, for obvious reasons. So of course I called him. Once, twice, three times, ten times, until he picked up.

  “Diane, I’d rather we talked when it’s a good time for both of us.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  Seriously, he could have broken both legs and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I caught myself hoping he’d at least caught the flu, a little pneumonia, or a nasty case of foot fungus. Even better, warts. Hundreds of warts.

  “No, nothing serious. But now’s not a good time. Can I call you back tomorrow?”

  “No, I won’t be around.”

  “I can’t call your cell?”

  “Uh . . . there’s no signal where I’m going.”

  “Oh? There are still places with no reception?”

  He was annoyed. I could tell by his sarcastic tone.

  “Just say whatever it is you wanted to say and we’ll be done.”

  “We have people here for dinner. I’d rather call you back.”