Identity Thief by JP Bloch Page B

Esther have possibly had something to do with it?
    I completely lost my cool with Esther for the first time in front of Sabrina, accusing my wife of plotting to drive me crazy. Esther put her hand on her hip to reply there was no need for her to drive me crazy since I already was and things pretty much digressed from there.
    “I didn’t tear up your stupid papers!” Esther shouted. “You must’ve done it. When you were . . . you know . . . ”
    “You mean drunk? You mean strung out on meds?” In a fit of sarcasm, I threw a couple of handfuls of confetti over my head. “Look at me, I’m crazy.”
    Esther stared at me sadly, like I was a teenager beyond redemption. “I know you’re embarrassed. Because you can’t remember doing it. You honestly can’t.”
    “Oh, well, aren’t you so wonderful to find it in your heart to pity me? Quick, call the Pope. There is a living saint among us.”
    To my horror, Sabrina grabbed her suitcase and said, “Dad, I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t even know you anymore. And I don’t want to know you.” She refused to hug or kiss me good-bye, and rubbed salt on the wound by letting her mother do so. “Oh Mom,” she said, “please let me know if I can help. Come and visit, if you’d like.”
    As soon as Sabrina left, Esther said, “I need to get out of here. I’m going for a drive.”
    “Hopefully off the edge of a cliff.” I couldn’t resist.
    I expected some bitchy reply, but she stood there for a minute. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s not worth saying.”
    After falling asleep on the couch, I woke up and thought to go to Esther’s bedroom, to see if she’d returned. I felt like shit—drunk and hung over at the same time and woozily depressed from my meds. I opened her door and found her in bed, reading some decorating magazine as if nothing unpleasant had ever entered her world. Sometimes we’d have huge fights, but if someone called, she’d answer the phone with a lilting, smiling, “Hel- lo ,” as if she were in the midst of feeding the goldfish.
    She took off her reading glasses. “Don’t come near me. I’ll call 911.”
    I rubbed my eyes for my headache or hangover or whatever it was. “Relax, Esther. I’m not going to hurt you.”
    She breathed in and out with fear. “Then what . . . what do you want?”
    I sat down on the bed, looking deep into her eyes. “I want . . . I want you to stop slamming the door. I mean, I want to stop making you slam the door. I mean, I want life to stop making me make you slam the door.” Totally out of nowhere, I started to shiver. But it seemed more like I was a reptile shedding its skin, cleansing all the poison from my life.
    “It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? You always . . . oh, come here.” Esther was crying. She held me until I stopped shaking, which took about an hour. As much as I hated to admit it, there was still a glimmer of something between us. I remembered the girl I married. I could see her before me. All the mutual hate was gone. I realized in that moment that we really were married —only death would part us.
    We made love for the first time in years. She was never a particularly demonstrative or inventive sex partner, but as the old saying goes, it was the thought that counted.
    Esther fell asleep in my arms as I stared at the blank ceiling, trying to remember the last time I was at peace. All at once, I realized something that felt like the heaviest weight of all time. O h my God , I thought, as all the fear, dread and anger returned.
    As a psychologist, I wondered if stress was impeding my long-term memory. But as just another schmuck, I wondered how I could be so stupid. That lunatic Linda. She told me she had a note that explained everything when she called me that ill-fated night. Yes, she most definitely said that, no matter how hard I tried to tell myself I was imagining things. Was the note in the long-gone mink coat? Did some homeless