Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan Page A

leave.”
    “Leave?”
    “Yes, go. Like get out.”
    “I suppose I will.”
    “Right now, Isaac!”
    “Right now?”
    “Yes, right now.”
    “Wait a minute. I can’t—”
    “I want you to get the fuck out of here!”
    “And where am I supposed to go?”
    “Go live with your bitch or your mama! I don’t care! But I want you out of my house!”
    “Oh, so it’s your house?”
    “It was my house when I met you, and the last time I checked you have yet to make a mortgage payment, so whose house do you think it is?”
    “Yours,” he says, hunching his shoulders. “It’s yours.”
    “I can’t stand to look at you right now, Isaac. And the thought of—”
    “What if I said I don’t want to leave?”
    “It doesn’t matter what you want. Just go! And I don’t really care where!”
    “Okay. Take it easy, Savannah. Don’t blow a gasket. You got a good punch in, and I hope it makes you feel better.”
    I just roll my eyes at him.
    “I’ll take off for now to give you a chance to cool down.”
    “I don’t need to cool down. You’ve made yourself crystal clear, Isaac.”
    “And so have you.”
    “Yeah, but the difference is I’m not the one who’s been having an affair behind your back while fucking you at the same time, have I?”
    “I don’t know that.”
    This time I grab a paperback off the counter— Sugar by Bernice McFadden—and throw it at him, but he’s quick and dodges it. “You do know! You’re making me sick to my stomach! Now go! I mean it, Isaac!”
    “So this is how we end our marriage? Like a boxing match?”
    “You’re the one who hit below the belt. You’re the one who didn’t play by the rules. Not me. And for the record, if I hadn’t cared about what made you tick I never would have married you in the first place. I certainly wouldn’t have helped you start your business. But I did it because I had faith in you and because I had something you didn’t have at the time, and that was resources and money, and I showed you something else you still don’t seem to understand, and that was patience and compassion because I understood how hard it is to be a black man with talent and skills, and so I gave you my shoulder to lean on and all I wanted was for you to let me lean on yours.”
    “I thought I was.”
    “That’s what the problem was, Isaac. Your shoulder was synthetic. You went through the motions because your heart wasn’t in it. So just go. Please. Go.”
    “I’m sorry you feel this way.”
    “I’m sorry I do, too.”
    I walk over toward him but this time he just stands there. He looks down at me and I cannot look at him. I look down at his feet and then push him toward the door leading to the garage. Touching him burns.
    “What about all of my stuff?”
    “You can get it while I’m at work. And please leave the key on the table.”
    “Leave the key on the table?”
    “I don’t care. Keep it. I’m going to be changing the locks anyway,” I say, not having thought about any of this until this very moment.
    He looks at me as if he just remembered something. “I’m not a burglar, Savannah.”
    “Yes you are.”
    Now his black eyes are glistening. “I’m really, really sorry, Savannah.”
    “No you’re not,” I say, and slam the door. I turn the lock so hard I break two nails. I then lean my back against the door and slide until I’m in a sitting position. The tile is ice cold against my bare thighs. I sit here for the longest and count the number of tiles I can see, over and over and over. It becomes obvious to me that some things just don’t add up, because I keep getting a different number.
    I think I knew it was over when we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. I remember looking at him across the dinner table in a restaurant we’d eaten at the previous seven. That’s when I realized we had flat-lined. Being married to Isaac was like walking on a sidewalk that suddenly stopped. There was nowhere else to go. Little did I know he was