“How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of.Eventually N produces three answers, in this order:1. "Because I am a complete rotter." I silently agree, but it´s a cop-out: I have maggots, therefore I am dead.2. "I was stressed at work and unhappy and we were always fighting...and you know I was just crazy..."I cut him off, saying, "You don´t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do."Which is true, he did. It is what he has always done. He therefore seems slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which may explain his third response:3. "I don´t know."This, I feel instinctively, is the correct answer. How can I stay angry with him for being what he is? I was, after all, his wife, and I chose him. No coincidences, that´s what Freud said. None. Ever.I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and walk toward the truck, saying to his general direction, "Fine. At least now I know: You don´t know."I stop and turn around and fire one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it enters the skin and spreads outward, an important bullet that must be acknowledged."What did you feel?"After a lengthy pause, he answers. "I felt nothing."And that, I realize too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth.Oh, and welcome to the Serengeti. That too.”

“Next to me N floats in a parachute of his own design: He wants the divorce; I don´t. He pushed me; I fell. I plummet; he pulls the ripcoard and feels a refreshing lack of weight or gravity.”

“He announces that lately he keeps losing things. "Like your wife and child," I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.”

“I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-for-hire outfits that lure men; even shoes with laces evade me. Plus my hair is Fran Lebowitz-esque. I think my eyes are getting closer together. I don´t know.”

“It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.”

“N complained of his unhappiness whereas I bore mine like a Brownie badge. I like to think I acted out less than he did, but I am probably wrong. I can´t see anymore.”

“I´ve always wanted him to love me the way I loved him. He did love me, I know he did. Just not the way I wanted him to."And it´s so different for a lot of people I´ve known. One partner doesn´t love the other enough to stop drinking, or gambling, or running around with other women. One is the giver and one is the taker. The giver wishes the taker would stop.""But the taker never changes," Luke says, though he wonders if this is always the case."Sometimes the giver has to let go, but sometimes you don´t. You can´t. I couldn´t give up on Jonathan. I seemed to be able to forgive him anything.”