Water ran in rivers across the road, and Sarah had to raise her voice above the noise of the rain on the car roof "I don't think you really care that she said. much, The other day I said to you "Now that Ethan's l sometimes w there's any point to life." Do you remember what you said? Well, not exactly," Macon said. You said, "Honey, to tell the truth, it never seemed to me there was much point to begin with." Those were your words You're not a comfort, Macon,' Sarah said. Honey, I'm trying to be." You just go on your same old way like before. Your little routines and habits, day after day. No comfort at all. This rain, for example. You know it makes me nervous. What harm would it do to stop a while, show your concern for me?' Macon stared ahead at the road. drive according to a system, Sarah. You know that. Also, if you don't see any point to life, 1 can't see why a rainstorm would make you nervous." Sarah turned her head away. "Macon, I want a divorce. Macon braked and looked at her. "What?" he said. He had to look back at the road again. What did I say?' he asked. "I just can't live with you anymore," Sarah said. Macon's face seemed thinner and paler. He cleared his throat. Honey. Listen. We've had a hard time. People who lose a child often feel this way. Everybody says that a marriage I'd like to find a place of my own as soon as we get back, Sarah said. "You can keep the house. You never did like moving. Macon pulled over and stopped the car. He turned off the engine and sat rubbing his knees with his hands. Sarah stared out of the window. The only sound was the drumming of the rain
After his wife left him, Macon had thought the house would seem larger. Instead, he felt more crowded. The windows got smaller, the ceilings lowered, the furniture seemed bigger. The house itself was very ordinary, standing on a street of similar houses in an older part of Baltimore. The rooms were square and dark, shaded from the hot summer sun by tall trees outside. Their son Ethan old room was very neat, as tidy and ordered as a room in a Holiday Inn s personal things like clothes were all gone, of course, but it seemed that other things could be personal too. Her sun chair, for example. Macon looked at it, and wondered how an empty space could be so full of a person. He could almost smell her sun oil, and see the reflections in her dark glasses. Well, you have to carry on. You have to carry on. It was a chance to reorganize, he told himself. You had to have some kind of system to run a house, and Sarah had never understood that. She was the sort of woman who put plates of different sizes in one pile, and who ran the dishwasher with only five forks in it. He started keeping the kitchen sink full of water at all times. As he finished using each dish, he put it in the sink. Every other day he let the water out, and put in very hot water. Then he put the clean dishes in the dishwasher, using it as a cupboard He found a way of doing his laundry that saved water. He took his shower in the evening, and put the day's dirty clothes underfoot, walking up and down on them in the water from the shower. He sewed sheets together to make what he called body bags, which made it quicker and easier to make the bed. Sometimes he wondered if he was going too far. He imagined Sarah watching him, with a smile in her eyes. He tried to early years, the good times, but it all came back remember the to that last miserable year together, when everything they said
was wrong. They were like people running to meet, holding out their arms, but they miss; they pass each other and keep runni Most of his work was done at home, which was why the house systems were important to him. He wrote guidebooks f people forced to travel on business. Ridiculous, you thought about it Macon hated travel. He hurried thro foreign countries with his eyes shut, holding his breath, till h was safely back home, where with a happy sigh he would get on with producing his next passport-sized paperback. Tourist in France. Accidental Tourist in Germany. In Belgium He only wrote about cities in these guides, as people t ing business trips into cities and out again, and their flew ma concern was how to pretend they had never left home. hotels in Madrid had American-style beds? hat restaurants in Tokyo offered American food? id Amsterdam, Rome, Mexico City have a McDonalds? Although Macon hated the travel, he loved the writin delight of organizing a disorganized country, putting down in short neat paragraphs just the essential information. He pleasurable hours over the right choice of words, the correct use of a comma. l am happy to say, he would type, frowning in concentration, that it's possible now to buy Kentucky F Chicken in Stockholm. "But why didn't you tell us?" his sister said on the phone. 'Sarah's been gone three weeks, and I only hear about it today! "The last thing I need," Macon said, "is my family around me saying, "Oh, poor Macon, how could Sarah do this to you-"' "Why would I say that?" Rose asked. "Everybody knows the Leary men are difficult to live with Oh," Macon said.
"Where is she?' "She's got an apartment downtown," he said. "And look, there's no need to go asking her to dinner or anything like that." on "When Charles's wife got her divorce,' Rose said, "we went having her to dinner every Christmas, just like always.' es, I remember," Macon said wearily. Charles was their oldest brother. "But she's been remarried quite a while now." "Yes. Well, Rose said. "Has Sarah been in touch she left? "Once. She came by to pick up a favorite pan, but we didn't talk. I just gave her the pan.