ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife

Book One, Part One, Chapter 64: Talk of Love

We travel from Oxford to London to Paris. Now, we’re back home. Ernie goes quiet. When he’s really angry, deep-down angry, he goes quiet. Finally, he speaks.

“I don’t understand you, Ernestina. I don’t know where you’re coming from.”

“What do you mean, Ernie?”

“One day in Paris, I called the office of the Orient Express. I asked the price of a single ticket to Istanbul.”

“You were going to Istanbul by yourself?”

“Why not? It felt as if I were on the whole trip by myself. When I was sitting on the deck of the QEII, you ran off to talk with another man. When I was standing in line to see the Eiffel Tower, you ran off to the bois. You seem to want to be by yourself, or with someone else, more than you want to be with me.”

“Why didn’t you go to Istanbul? You’ve always wanted to travel on the Orient Express.”

“The ticket was too expensive, or I would have.” He glares at me. “I guess I’m stuck with you.”

“Maybe we just don’t travel well together, Ernie. Maybe that’s it.”

“Maybe we don’t live well together, Ernestina. Maybe that’s it.”

Ernie and I have been together thirty years. Doesn’t that prove I love him? I edit and type his writing. Doesn’t that prove I love him? I do dishes and the laundry and occasionally fix a meal, and I keep the bathroom clean. Doesn’t that prove something? I go places with him — to the library and to doctors’ appointments and sometimes even to the track. To the hospital. Doesn’t that prove I love him?

“No matter what I do for you, it’s never enough,” I say.

“I don’t feel loved,” he says. “I love you. Why don’t you love me?”

Don’t I? I thought I did. Or am I fooling myself?

“You think you can wrap me around your little finger,” he says. “You take me for a fool.”

And he grows quiet again.