The Last Cadillac by Nancy Nau Sullivan

mattered to me. He’d been adorable, a sort of Paul Newman straight out of Hud. Once we’d nearly seen eye-to-eye, all the better to get along nicely. We’d made mad love in the Indiana dunes, the West Point library, and every place in between; we’d sworn “everything forever,” and believe me, it finally came down to that: a world of joy and hurt and regret. Except there was never any regretabout those kids. We were ever so blessed with the kids. That blessing, however central to the marriage, did not hold us together, and now we stood, on opposite sides of the brick threshold of my parents’ condo. We might as well have faced each other across the Grand Canyon.
    â€œWho let you in?” I said.
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” he said.
    â€œThis is a gated community.” I sounded snobbish. It came out the wrong way.
    â€œYes, I know.” He stood squarely, almost like he was at attention. I had the urge to say, “At ease,” but I didn’t care if he were ever at ease again.
    â€œThey didn’t call from the guardhouse and warn me you were coming.”
    â€œSorry. I guess I should have called you.” He spoke like a courteous stranger, this person I’d been married to for more than twenty years. For some reason, the distance between us felt good.
    â€œThat’s all right. I’m not doing anything, except about a million things. How did you get in here?”
    â€œI’m a member of the country club. The guard let me in. It’s on my sticker.”
    â€œWe should all come with warning stickers.”
    He looked at me blankly, and patiently, which was unusual for him. He was making me nervous.
    Finally, I said, “You’re a member of the country club? I thought you didn’t like country clubs, too elitist and all that.”
    â€œI’ve changed.” He didn’t say that his new wife was a member of the country club, and that was the reason he was a member. He didn’t bring that up, or that he’d moved into her house, mortgage paid, with all the dark, gloomy furnitureof a museum, and the heavy draperies and other frippery to keep him warm and cozy, and secure, the shithead.
    â€œYou’ve changed. That’s nice.” I didn’t ask him in. He seemed pleasant and subdued enough—but he was stiff and poised, sort of like a snake, before it strikes.
    Then, he struck.
    â€œShe threw me out.” His face went from pink to pale, and he shifted to his other foot.
    My mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.
    â€œThen she threw every piece of paper and clothing I own down the stairs and out the door. Except for the computer, which I guess was too heavy.” He trailed off on the last detail.
    â€œCrazy,” I said. I’m surrounded by crazy people, and it’s making me nuts. He’d married the woman before the ink had dried on the divorce, and I should feel sorry for him? But I did feel sorry for him. God help me, I did. What could I say? I was glad that the father of my children was on the street? What exactly was I supposed to do with this bit of news?
    â€œWant to go to lunch?” he said.
    We sat in a brown, sticky plastic booth at Wing Loh Fat’s Chinese restaurant on Indianapolis Boulevard, which ironically is US 41, and a direct, if ponderous, route to Florida. How far away from Florida I felt, looking at oriental glazed broccoli and beef, shiny pineapple-candied chicken and fried rice, and the face of a stranger, my ex-husband, in a restaurant not fifteen minutes away from the gross steel mills of Gary. I cracked open the cookie and wondered what my fortune would say. “You will meet a tall stranger.” Boy, that was wrong, too.
    We hardly said a word, but I noticed some things had not changed. His appetite had not dimmed; he shoveled large forkfuls here and there, with nauseating speed and a lack of discrimination about the food itself. I either had to