Outside her door, I decided to wake Lucia, and tell her that I was going
to get a divorce. She would be sufficiently interested so that she would
not mind being waked.
“Lucia, I’m going to get a divorce from Peter.”
“I’m glad, Pat. I’ll take you to my lawyer tomorrow at lunch time.” I
sat on her little couch. I was too tired to go upstairs.
“Talk if you want to, Pat.”
“All right. I held on because I couldn’t let go. Now I’m letting go
because I can’t hold on any more.”
“You’d better sleep down here, Pat. Sit in a chair, while I fix up the
couch.”
“What is it like to get a divorce, Lucia?”
“Like having a tooth out. A wrench, and you feel better the day
afterward.”
“My Great Romance threw me out into a snowstorm, Lucia, so I decided
he’d had enough of me.”
“Patricia, darling, pull yourself together. Think about tomorrow being
another day; or if that’s no good, remember that nothing ever in your
whole life will hurt you very much, after this.”
“Is that true, Lucia, or are you being kind to me?”
She laughed, and put a cushion behind my head, and told me to take off
my shoes, because they were soaked through from walking in the snow.
“This is true, Pat. It is unlikely that any other man will ‘desert’ you
. . . any man you want to hold. Because, when first you suspect he’s
ready to go, you’ll pack his baggage and buy him a one-way ticket
anywhere he likes, so fast that he’ll leave reluctantly. You’ll never
hold on again. It’s the holding on that hurts. Difference between sudden
or long-prolonged dying. Do you think you could sleep now, if you went
to bed? It’s four o’clock.”
“I think so.”
Next morning Lucia brought me my breakfast in bed, and was very
entertaining about the virtues of Sam. That noon we went to see her
lawyer.