I got up and retrieved a bottle of Mondavi red wine from the wine rack.
“Marino,” I said, pouring each of us a glass, “whose photograph did you show to Hilda? Was it your wife? He leaned back in his chair and would not look at me “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you haven’t been yourself for quite a while. It’s very apparent.”
“What she said freaked me out,” he replied.
“What Hilda said?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“I haven’t told no one about it.”
He paused, reaching for his wine. His face was hard, eyes humiliated. “She went back to Jersey last November.”
“I’m not sure you’ve ever told me your wife’s name.”
“Wow,” he muttered bitterly. “Ain’t that a comment.”
“Yes, it is. You keep an awful lot to yourself.”
“I’ve always been that way. But I guess being a cop has made it worse. I’m so used to hearing the guys bitch and moan about their wives, girlfriends, kids. They cry on your shoulder, you think they’re your brothers. Then when it’s your turn to have a problem, you make the mistake of spilling your guts and next thing it’s all the hell over the police department. I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut.”
He paused, getting out his wallet. “Her name’s Doris.”
He handed me the snapshot he had shown Hilda Ozimek this morning.
Doris had a good face and a round, comfortable body. She was standing stiffly, dressed for church, her expression self-conscious and reluctant. I had seen her a hundred times, for the world was full of Dorises. They were the sweet young women who sat on porch swings dreaming of love as they stared into nights magic with stars and the smells of summer. They were mirrors, their images of themselves reflections of the significant people in their lives. They derived their importance from the services they rendered, survived by killing off their expectations in inches, and then one day woke up mad as hell.
“We would’ve been married thirty years this June,” Marino said as I returned the photograph. “They suddenly she ain’t happy. Says I work too much, never around. She don’t know me. Things like that. But I wasn’t born yesterday. That’s not the real story.”
“Then what is?”
“It got started last summer when her mother had a stroke. Doris went to look after her. Was up north for almost a month, getting her mother out of the hose and into a nursing home, taking care of everything When Doris came home, she was different. It’s like she was somebody else.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I know she met this guy up there whose wife died a couple years back. He’s into real estate, was helping sell her mother’s house. Doris mentioned him once or twice like it was no big deal. But something was going on. The phone would ring late, and when I answered it, person would hang up. Doris would rush out to get mail before I did. Then in November, she suddenly up and leaves, says her mother needs her.”
“Has she been home since?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Oh, she calls now and then, wants a divorce.”
“Marino, I’m sorry.”
“Her mother’s in this home, you see. And Doris looking after her, seeing this real estate guy, I guess. Upset one minute, happy the next. Like she wants to come back, but don’t want to. Guilty, then don’t give. damn. It’s just like Hilda said when she was looking her picture. Back and forth.”
“Very painful for you.”
“Hey.”
He tossed his napkin on the table. “She can do what she wants. Screw her.”
I knew he did not mean that. He was devastated, and my heart ached for him. At the same time, I could not help but feel sympathy for his wife. Marino would not be easy to love.
“Do you want her to come home?”
“I’ve been with her longer than I was alive before we met. But let’s face it, Doc.”
He glanced at me, his eyes frightened. “My life sucks. Always counting nickels and dimes, called out on the street in the middle of the night. Plan vacations and then something goes down and Doris unpacks and waits at home – like Labor Day weekend when the Harvey girl and her boyfriend disappeared. That was the last straw.”