Even though they were divorced, Quint agreed to telephone Ellie every night at ten. Their marriage ended on a dull gray day better suited for a funeral. One would think someone had died. In some ways, someone did—Ellie. She was in absolute despair. Her rosy lips and soft pink skin became as white as a sheet, in stark contrast to her dark hair which bounced on her shoulder as she walked.

Ellie had always been a talkative jolly person, a good friend, full of color, drunk on life. But now, she was withdrawn and colorless, except for her eyes, sad green pools that seemed lifeless, like the eyes of a doll.

Quint was the one who walked out, leaving their home and responsibilities behind. After much coaching from her friends, Ellie found the courage to divorce him, even though it was the last thing she wanted. Even though he had a bad temper and he liked to drink, he was something of a charmer. Ellie suspected he played around, but she thought it was nothing more than harmless flirting and lip service. When he moved out, she started to see the whole picture.

Three of his female “friends” seemed to be more than just friends. They were Quint’s cheerleaders. Susan encouraged him to leave Ellie. Stacie brought him home-cooked meals in microwavable casserole dishes. Laurie brought him a set of sheets, a night stand, and a headboard for his bed. Ellie was overloaded by little clues that could have warned her, if only she had been able to connect the dots. Now she found it hard to remember it all.

What she did remember was an unattractive bleached-blonde with dark roots, a muddy complexion, and pop-bottle glasses. Her name was Layla, a poison-ivy predator, the kind of woman who wants to lure away the husbands of other women. Ellie later learned she was the talk of the building where Quint worked. She had a litter of kids, all fathered by some unsuspecting fools who believed her when she said she couldn’t have any more children.

This woman was the last straw. Ellie caught her with him in his apartment. Ellie had stopped by to give him the extra keys to his car on a whim. She had noticed a van with a passenger side door that didn’t match in the parking lot with the license plate S3X TOY. It seemed out of place among the Hondas and BMWs.

Through three small windowpanes in the front door, Ellie saw her husband in bed with this woman tumbling beneath the same blue striped comforter they had used on their bed when they were first married. Ellie knocked on the door until her knuckles started to turn purple, but Quint wouldn’t come to the door.

Ellie was so upset she put her fist through the glass and let herself in. The woman ran out the back door half-dressed and Quint started screaming at Ellie and threatening to call the police. Ellie was in shock and it was a miracle she didn’t cut her hand to shreds.

She didn’t know whether she was upset because she caught them or because this woman looked cheap, like a dime-store whore. She couldn’t imagine why Quint would take up with someone like that. They had agreed not to get into a relationship with anyone until they had called it quits. Another woman was a slap in the face. She felt she was in some sort of competition and she wanted to know what this woman had to offer that Ellie couldn’t give him.

“I want answers. When did this start?’

“I met her at work. She’s a clerk in an office downstairs.”

“How did you go from meeting to ending up in your apartment?”

“I don’t know; it just happened. It doesn’t really matter.”

“How many times were you with her?”

“Once.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look, I don’t remember.” Ellie pressed hard against him and began to kiss him wildly. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t remember something like this?”

“Look, Ellie, it was nothing. It didn’t mean anything.”

“It meant something to me.” The unanswered questions were eating away ay her like an undiscovered cancer cell.

Quint looked like a European aristocrat with his long Germanic nose and sculptured good looks. His eyes were like two bright sapphires fighting for attention. When he entered a room, heads turned. Ellie remembered a photo of him and his older brother Edward. They had the same build and the same eyes and dark hair, but Edward radiated an extraordinary compassion which made him seem much more handsome.

“Edward is Mother’s favorite,” he told Ellie at his mother’s sixty-fifth birthday party.

“What makes you say that?” Ellie asked.

“Whenever she needs an answer to something, she always asks Edward. The other day she asked him about some of father’s corporate shares. Edward leaves that to me because that’s what I do 24/7.”

Ellie didn’t know what made of her think of that day after all these years. Ellie’s brother Richard was the golden boy in their family.

Quint claimed he met “that woman” at the office. It seemed unlikely because she was a telephone representative for a cable TV company located in a suite of offices downstairs. Ellie went there to look for this woman. After asking around a little, she was pointed in Layla’s direction. At the soft drink machine at the end of the hall, Ellie spotted a homely woman in a short skirt and cheap-looking heels who was giggling with a couple of men in suits. She knew that was her.

Somehow though, in spite of the gaping hole betrayal had left in her heart, his phone calls eased Ellie’s pain. She looked forward to his calls, like she had when they first met, turning down invitations that would prevent her from making it home by ten. In her mind, his calls took the place of their goodnight kisses they had shared during their marriage. She often wished she could re-live those nights of pillow talk and kisses before drifting off to sleep.

Ellie’s friends tried to convince her that these phone calls were compounding her misery.

“I understand how you feel,” her friend Mary told her one day at lunch. “If you just cut your ties with him, you’ll feel much better. Trust me. Just try it, you’ll find a whole new wonderful life, without Quint.”

“I just can’t do that. I still love him.” Ellie blushed when she spoke about Quinton, in spite of the awful things he had done. “And he still loves me, Mary.”

Mary pushed away her salad. “Did he tell you that?”

“He has been coming over now and then.” Ellie paused sheepishly. “For dinner.”

“ Ellie, is that really a good idea? I suppose he’s spending the night too.”

Ellie was speechless. How was it that Mary figured that out in two minutes when she herself didn’t know they would get back together so to speak.

“It’s a fresh new start,” she said. “We’re much better now without the pressures of marriage. And we get along great. And no arguing.”

“You mean without the pressures and responsibilities. Having his cake and eating it too.”

 “You don’t understand, Mary. Just leave it me, ok? “ She wasn’t angry with Mary, but she still wanted to believe Quint realized he was a damned fool and he was coming to his senses.

“Ellie, tell me one thing. How do you deal with it, when he doesn’t call?”

“He’ll call, he always does.”

Ellie settled into a new routine. She left work at five and by the time she drove home, it was nearly six. That gave her only four hours to keep busy until Quint would call.

On the nights he said he would stop over, she prepared his favorite dishes. On the nights she didn’t expect him, she still cooked enough for two, just in case he decided to come over.

Food, sex, and nagging were Quint’s chief complaints. He told other people, but not Ellie, so it was all news to her. When Quint said she nagged, he meant that she asked questions, questions that he didn’t really want to answer. When he told Ellie about the other woman, he said it happened because Ellie was “riding his ass” “

Even if I complained, it’s still no reason to cheat.”

“She didn’t nag at me,” he said. “She was fun to be with.”

“ It’s easy to be the pink polka-dotted party girl. She only sees your good side. The two of you have no responsibilities together, no bills, no house payment, no history. It’s like having candy for dinner without caring that it could be bad for your teeth. I’m sure it was much easier to spend a couple of hours with someone like that than it was to work on our relationship. I trusted you. Marriage is an investment.”

“You talk like an accountant.”

“I’m not talking about tangible material things with price tags and equity. I’m talking about the life we built together. It’s not fair that a woman like that can tear down what we have worked years to build.”

“You pushed me away.” Quint loved using that excuse, as if that made it ok to be unfaithful. “We weren’t getting along.”

“Only because you wanted us not to get along.”

“Sometimes a man likes a little variety.”

Ellie threw a vase of flowers. She didn’t hit him but she wished she had. What he meant was he was bored with their love-making.

“Unless I initiated it you were never in the mood,” he told her. “What happened to wearing sexy lingerie?”

“What you’re saying then is you threw what we had away on a cheap piece of ass in a frilly bra and panties. And besides, that is a total lie. You know damned well you could count the times I didn’t want to make love to you on one hand.”

Time was flying, much to Ellie’s relief. It was almost seven-thirty.

Tomorrow would have been their tenth wedding anniversary. Aluminum and tin were the traditional anniversary gifts, she thought, as she wrapped up the leftovers from dinner in aluminum foil.

Ellie didn’t like eating leftovers, but Quint appreciated what she had prepared. Quite a change from the days when he’d come home and tell her to be ready to go out in five minutes; even though she was standing at the stove and dinner was nearly ready.

“Let’s go to a restaurant where someone knows how to prepare Swiss steak, with mashed potatoes, gravy, and the works” as if Ellie didn’t know how to cook anything decent.

By eight-thirty, the kitchen was spotless. The pots and pans and dishes were washed up and put away. Ellie loved taking baths—that was her escape from her worries. She filled the bathtub with warm water and French lavender bubble bath. The fragrant suds relaxed her, but she still kept an eye on the clock. Just in case he called early, she left the cordless phone on the bathroom vanity.

At nine, she went downstairs and curled up with a book in the plush green Lazyboy that had been Quint’s. His apartment was too small for it, and now, it was her favorite place to sit, as if sitting in his chair somehow brought him closer to her. She read a couple of chapters quickly and pretended to be completely absorbed by the story. She told herself if she happened to see the big hands out of the corner of her eye, it wasn’t the same as watching the clock.

At 9:45 she went to the kitchen for cup of tea. She watched the blue flames dance beneath the tea kettle, wishing he would just call.

Ten o’clock came and went. She tried dialing out to make sure the phone line was open. She thought about calling him herself and telling him a flimsy lie about hearing the phone when she was taking her bath and that she thought it was him calling, but she didn’t. She felt physical pain as she waited, but still she resisted calling him.

At 10:15 she turned on the TV for a minute, just to check the time. It pleased her that the clock in the living room was two minutes fast.

By 10:17, she decided to straighten her spices in the cupboard. She stood awkwardly on a step stool, thinking if she was busy, he’d be sure to call, but nothing charmed the phone into ringing. In a few minutes everything was in order, the jars of spices all facing the same direction to make the labels easy to read.

By 10:23, Ellie knew Quint was drinking. It occurred to her that maybe one of his buddies had convinced him to stay for one more round of drinks.

By 10:25, she had tossed out that theory. Instead, he was probably buying drinks for a flirty bar-fly in a short skirt and dime-store jewelry, someone who thought he was the catch of the day, someone who didn’t care that Ellie was waiting. Ellie fought back her tears. Her head started to spin and she felt queasy, with tiny beads of perspiration on the back of her neck. She dialed his number. It went right into voicemail. She waited a couple minutes and she dialed again. She began to pace.

At 10:30 she dialed again and again, and he was still on the phone. She was so angry her hands were shaking. She was red-hot angry at herself for waiting and for being a chump.

“That’s it you bastard,” she shouted. “I’m not waiting one more precious day. It’s time I went on with my life.”

At 10:55 the phone rang and rang. Ellie didn’t answer. While the phone was still ringing, she went to the refrigerator. She took out everything she had wrapped up after dinner. She tore off the shiny, neatly-folded foil, threw out the food, and wadded up the aluminum foil into tight fist-clenched balls.

“Happy Anniversary,” she said with a smile.