If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This by Robin Black Page A

silly this late in the season, another chore that got lost in the mess of the marital collapse.
    It starts there, and then it shifts very quickly into discomfort, the scene being almost something she knows so intimately. It’s that unbidden intimacy that slips in and unsettles her. George has pulled into the wide oil-stained drive outside the garage and they are facing each other to say goodbye. She notices the precise shade of brown of his eyes. She sees how his upper lip is so much thinner than the lower. She understands exactly how she would paint that lip. Having known him for so many years, she is learning too much about him, in only seconds. As though she is seeing him for the first time now.
    She hears herself mention Janet’s name. I’ll call Janet in the morning , she says. And he says, I’ll let her know . And as he speaks, she notices the different tones of darkness in his mouth. He asks her if she wants him to wait and be sure her car is ready, just to be certain she won’t be left here alone in this sketchy part of town. But she says that she’s already called and checked. The car is ready. She says, Thank you, though and opens her door and feels the coldness of the air outside. Here , he says, reaching over. Don’t forget this . And he hands her the pocketbook she’s left in the car.

    A S CLARA MAKES her way down Locust Street, after meeting the Parkers, she thinks glumly about the husband, John, about his silence and his evocation of that word dull . The truth is, she isn’t relishing the job. He doesn’t seem like a very interesting subject, to her. But then maybe nobody would at this time.
    It’s a familiar route from the studio home, one she can walk with her mind entirely occupied, one she suspects she could walk in her sleep. Clara has lived for well over twenty years in her town house off Rittenhouse Square. After the children moved out to college, first Daniel, then Ellie, she spent a few years on her own in the big house out in Bryn Mawr. But it never felt like her own home, even then. It belonged to them all, to Clara, Harold, Daniel, and Ellie; to them and to the way their lives had unfolded there, intricately wound together, then pulled apart, in small and larger ways.
    Family life. Looking back, it seems like a dance, a four-person minuet comprised of steps toward and steps away, approaches and retreats, ending, finally, with each of them standing entirely alone. By the time she was the sole occupant, the big, cold fieldstone house was more museum than home to her. Even the rooms themselves bore names that no longer applied. Harold’s study. The playroom. The au pair’s bathroom. Phrases, like old photographs, offering remnants of a different time, relics and evidence.
    When she left, she took almost nothing. The children could have whatever they wanted. Goodwill could have the rest. A few boxes of papers, albums, some keepsakes from her own childhood, her mother’s candlesticks, her father’s pocketknife. Her own paintings, of course. Even the ones she no longer liked. That was all. It didn’t occur to her until after the move, everything long gone, that she might have offered Harold a pick at what he wanted. But when it did occur to her, the thought came without regret. Harold wasn’t her problem anymore.
    The Bryn Mawr house had been done up in a somber, traditional style, the new bride following the old rules. But Clara drenched the place on Spruce Street with color, so it was giddy with color, as though all that mattered was a sensation of abundance. Too much. Too bright. It hardly looked like the home of a well-respected artist. Certainly not of the creator of the careful, muted portraits for which Clara was becoming known. No. It looked more like the set of a children’s television show.
    “God, it’s like a paint store threw up,” Ellie said the first time she visited, and then apologized. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t think I’d be able to sleep in