me, and I was so wrong about Susan. I took her for a sad waif, a person who needed comfort and protection. Yet I learned later that she was an accomplished doctor of psychiatry with a large group of enthusiastic patients.
I thought she needed me.
She thought I could help her.
We were both so wrong.
Yet there was an immediate attraction between us. Was our powerful chemistry proof of the saying that opposites attract? Especially early morning in a gym. I had nothing better to do. And she had two hours free before she had to see her next patient.
Since I had been fired, I had found it impossible to make love to my wife, not that we tried that often. Like many married couples, we made love only occasionally. Still, it had scared me when I had tried to perform last time and failed. That physical failure compounded my recent professional failure. I had always counted on sex as a joyous release. Now it was one more sign of my seemingly irreversible decline.
Until I met Susan.
Yet, despite the attraction, I moved to the door. I was inflexible, and did not have affairs … especially with people I met at a less-than-exclusive gym.
“Would you like to have a cup of coffee?” Susan asked gently as I moved toward the exit. I almost did not hear her. She spoke so softly.
I found myself saying, “Sure, let’s have a cup of coffee.”
What could be the harm in having a cup of coffee with a sorrowful little person? We could get a latte at Starbucks and I could cheer her up.
But instead of Starbucks, she suggested her apartment. I went with her, and I was hooked. After that, I saw Susan almost every morning when she was free—which was two or three times a week.
Susan was not that young. In her mid-forties. She told me that her gynecologist had told her she could not have babies. So she said she saw no point in getting married.
“Marriage is for having kids,” she said. “Sex is better without the bonds.”
“Not to mention you already are married,” she reminded me, glancing at my ring to confirm the fact.
I acknowledged her point with a significant amount of guilt. I loved how Susan made me feel, but I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I loved my wife and wanted my four kids to live in a stable family environment.
Then one morning Susan called me at home—something she had never done before.
“I have to see you.”
“When?” It was seven-thirty A.M. I had not even had breakfast.
“Now.”
She was standing naked in her apartment; the curtains open to the East River. It was a March morning, but the sun was bouncing off the water.
“Michael,” she whispered, “I’m pregnant. And God has told me I should have this baby.”
My heart stopped. This was not on my agenda. I had lost my job and was struggling just to support my own family. I did not need another child.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“You have got to decide,” I said.
“Tell me.”
“No,” I said, getting up. I was not going to tell her to have an abortion. This might be her only chance for a child.
“It’s a miracle, Michael, but I need your support.”
“I’m broke.”
She laughed. Susan had another misapprehension: She thought because I dressed well and seemed well off that I was rich. She had no idea that behind my Ruling Class attitude I was getting poorer every day.
I had kept my relationship with Susan secret, but when Jonathan was born, I told my wife. She could not stand it.
“An affair is one thing,” she said. “A child is another.”
Betsy is very clearheaded.
“I just can’t do it,” she told me. “I’m not made for this kind of thing.”
So we got an “amicable” divorce, although she was rightly furious with me for being so stupid.
“I thought we would spend the rest of our lives together,” she said. I felt terrible.
My kids, now practically grown-ups, were understanding in a grown-up way, but hurt and angry too. I had given Betsy our big house, and she had enough family money to be okay, but I knew it wasn’t just about money. I had ruined her life.
And ruined my own life as well.
I took a small apartment in a New York City suburb. Desperately wanting to do the right thing after doing all the wrong things, I resolved to try to be there for Susan and my new child, Jonathan. I would come by around four or five A.M. and play with Jonathan so Susan could have a little sleep.
I was doing it out of a sense of obligation. But an unexpected thing happened. I became more and more attached to Jonathan. And he to me. Together, Jonathan and I would watch the dawn. When my other children were young, I did not have the time to watch them catch the wonder of each new moment. I was working twelve-hour days at JWT.
Here, I was being given another chance to be a father—in many ways, an opportunity I didn’t deserve. I loved to see Jonathan grow before my eyes; to watch as he waved his little hand as though conducting when I would sing a gentle song, or hear him laugh with such uninhibited delight when I threw a stuffed animal up in the air.
One day, when I was putting my sleeping baby back in his crib, Jonathan opened his eyes and smiled at me. He opened his mouth and out came the beautiful sounds “Da da.” Two simple, heartbreaking syllables. Thinking back to how I had missed such magical moments with my other children caused a physical pain in my chest. And for what? For a company that rewarded my loyalty with a pink slip. I wanted to sit each of my children down and instruct them: You only live one life; take it from me, live it wisely. Weigh your priorities.
I spent less and less time chasing new clients, and more and more time with Jonathan. He loved me and he needed me. I was somebody wonderful in his eyes.
Jonathan seemed to be the only one who felt that way these days. Susan had gradually lost interest in me, first as a conversationalist. She told me I was “boring.” I was not open to new ideas. And then she lost interest in me as a lover. She told me I was “too routine.” In a peculiar way, the more available I became to her—after divorcing my wife, and having fewer clients and work to do, more time on my hands—the less appealing I was to her. She imagined me as a man at the top of America, fulfilled, productive, successful, and happy. She got to know me as I was: an insecure little boy not that good at dealing with reality.
Jonathan was my last fan, and my best pal. But now he had started spending his days in school, so I was left with more time on my hands, fewer excuses for not finding work, and a greater need for a job just for bare survival. Hell, I wasn’t even providing my little boy with health insurance.
How had I managed to be so incompetent in all of my personal and professional relationships? I tried to clear my mind of all my guilty, negative thoughts and focus on Crystal and this surprising interview. By luck or on a whim, Crystal had given me a chance—maybe my last chance—to stop my downward spiral. I did not want to blow it.
I looked up at Crystal and tried to give her a confident smile.
She wasn’t buying it. It was clear that Crystal was balancing a personal dislike for me with her commitment to being a professional. Her store was in desperate need of new workers. And I was desperate for work. Convince her, I told myself. Convince her that this is a match made in heaven. I willed myself to be positive.
“Now I want to ask you some questions about your work experience,” Crystal said