Where I'm Calling From

doesn’t seem surprised. We don’t shake hands, much less kiss each other. She takes me into the living room. As soon as I sit down she brings me some coffee. Then she comes out with what’s on her mind. She says I’ve caused her anguish, made her feel exposed and humiliated.
    Make no mistake, I feel I’m home. She says. 
    But then you were into betrayal early. You always felt comfortable with betrayal. No, she says, that’s not true. Not in the beginning, at any rate. You were different then. But I guess I was different too. Everything was different, she says. No, it was after you turned thirty-five, or thirty-six, whenever it was, around in there anyway, your mid-thirties somewhere, then you started in. You really started in. You turned on me. You did it up pretty then. You must be proud of yourself.
    She says, Sometimes I could scream.
    She says she wishes I’d forget about the hard times, the bad times, when I talk about back then. Spend some time on the good times, she says. Weren’t there some good times? She wishes I’d get off that other subject. She’s bored with it. Sick of hearing about it. Your private hobby horse, she says. What’s done is done and water under the bridge, she says. A tragedy, yes. God knows it was a tragedy and then some. But why keep it going? Don’t you ever get tired of dredging up that old business?
    She says, Let go of the past, for Christ’s sake. Those old hurts. You must have some other arrows in your quiver, she says.
    She says, You know something? I think you’re sick. I think you’re crazy as a bedbug. Hey, you don’t believe the things they’re saying about you, do you? Don’t believe them for a minute, she says. Listen, I could tell them a thing or two. Let them talk to me about it, if they want to hear a story.
    She says, Are you listening to me?
    I’m listening, I say. I’m all ears, I say.
    She says, I’ve really had a bellyful of it, buster! Who asked you here today anyway? I sure as hell didn’t.
    You just show up and walk in. What the hell do you want from me? Blood? You want more blood? I thought you had your fill by now.
    She says, Think of me as dead. I want to be left in peace now. That’s all I want anymore is to be left in peace and forgotten about. Hey, I’m forty-five years old, she says. Forty-five going on fifty-five, or sixtyfive. Lay off, will you.
    She says, Why don’t you wipe the blackboard clean and see what you have left after that? Why don’t you start with a clean slate? See how far that gets you, she says.
    She has to laugh at this. I laugh too, but it’s nerves.
    She says, You know something? I had my chance once, but I let it go. I just let it go. I don’t guess I ever told you. But now look at me. Look! Take a good look while you’re at it. You threw me away, you son of a bitch.
    She says, I was younger then and a better person. Maybe you were too, she says. A better person, I mean. You had to be. You were better then or I wouldn’t have had anything to do with you.
    She says, I loved you so much once. I loved you to the point of distraction. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you imagine it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can’t believe it now. I think that’s the strangest thing of all now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can’t imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven’t been.
    She says, Frankly, and I mean this, I want to be kept out of it from here on out. Who do you think you are anyway? You think you’re God or somebody? You’re not fit to lick God’s boots, or anybody else’s for that matter. Mister, you’ve been hanging out with the wrong people. But what do I know? I don’t even know what I know any longer. I know I don’t like what you’ve been dishing out. I know that much. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Am I right?
    Right, I say. Right as rain.
    She says, You’ll agree to anything, won’t you? You give in too easy. You always did. You don’t have any principles, not one. Anything to avoid a fuss. But that’s neither here nor there.
    She says, You remember that time I pulled the knife on you?
    She says this as if in passing, as if it’s not important.
    Vaguely, I say. I must have deserved it, but I don’t remember much about it. Go ahead, why don’t you, and tell me about it.
    She says, I’m beginning to understand something