Aspiring To Be Better

Listen the opening of For Better or for Worse, circa 1995, from Finkel in the WP magazine: Everyone has had something to say.

Her mother said: Get your hair cut. It'll make you feel better.

Her father said: Monitor the joint bank accounts. He might empty them.

Her sister said: Take your time. See a counselor.

Her counselor said: Have faith. It will work out.

Her friends said: Get even. Nail him in the settlement.

Even he had something to say, delivered in a seven-page letter a few weeks after he left.

"Val:" he'd written, "Let me begin this by stating that I am truly sorry that all of this is a painful experience for all involved, and that it comes with difficult issues and situations. I'm confident that in the future all of this will be worked out, feelings will recover, and our lives will return to something that is normal and acceptable. This, unfortunately, is a step toward that future . . ."

And so, trying to gain some control, she has come to a lawyer to see about getting a divorce. Her name is Valerie. Her maiden name is Perrino. Her married name is something she doesn't want published because she has two young children, and because she has no idea what is about to happen to their lives. She is 34, lives in Northern Virginia, has lost 17 pounds since the day her husband left, and now finds herself in Vienna, across from a lawyer named Mark Barondess, who is sitting beneath a large photograph of a snarling Doberman pinscher. "Okay," he is saying, pushing some papers he has prepared across the desk for her to sign. "Here it is." It is the moment she has been dreading. Earlier in the day, thinking about it, she nearly canceled the appointment. She had woken up with a headache. She had driven to Vienna wondering if she would be physically sick. She had come into Barondess's office, noticed the photograph of the Doberman and almost panicked. Up to this point, though, she'd surprised herself with how well she'd maintained her composure, even when Barondess was going over what he'd written, which was a reduction of her marriage to 12 cold paragraphs of type.

"Paragraph 4," he'd read. "The parties hereto were lawfully married on or about the 23rd day of May, 1981 in Alexandria . . ."

"Paragraph 8. That on the 1st day of January, 1995, the Defendant did intentionally and willfully desert the parties' marital relationship . . ."

"Paragraph 12. There is no hope or possibility of a reconciliation between the parties . . ."

"It all makes him sound so awful," she'd said when he was done, and he'd said, "It really doesn't," and she'd asked, "Is all of this pretty standard?" and he'd said, "You bet," and she'd said, "Should I tell him anything about these papers before he gets them?" and he'd said, "No, it would destroy the effect," and through all of that she had been fine. The only sign of her nervousness was the way she'd been kneading one of her fingers, fourth finger, left hand, the one where there was no longer a ring. But now Barondess gives her the papers, and now he hands her a pen, and just like that it becomes clear that she isn't doing well at all because she takes the pen and begins staring at it, so noticeably, so intently, that Barondess feels compelled to say something.

"It's a Uni-Ball," he says.

She knows. It happens to be her husband's favorite type of pen. It's the one he uses all the time, same model, same color, something she is aware of because for nearly 14 years she tried to know everything about him, and then, on a day she thought she knew him better than ever, he walked out, and now her 7-year-old can't get to sleep, and her 5-year-old is constantly angry, and she is waking up every morning with a headache, alone in a big bed that she no longer wants. She doesn't want the bed. She doesn't want to cut her hair. She doesn't want to be monitoring the bank account. She doesn't want to be at the lawyer's. Most of all, she doesn't want to sign her name with that pen. She knows she should say something to Barondess, explain this, but she's not sure at the moment that her voice will even come out, and when, after a few seconds, it does, all she can manage to say is, "I don't like those pens," and then, "Can I have a different one?" and Barondess searches around until he finds a ballpoint, and she says, "I like those much better," and laughs a little, knowing how silly she must sound.

"Okay," she says.

She looks once more at the papers.

She breathes in and out.

"It is hard," she says after a while, "to actually put the pen down."

"If you don't want to do this, you don't have to," Barondess says.

She doesn't want to.

But she does.