Chapter 1: Delayed Reaction

I never expect to fail. It's just not in my makeup. I don't even consider it an option. It's not like it doesn't happen, but when it does it always takes me by surprise. Consider, if you will, the following conversation with my wife that took place some months ago.

"I see you're home finally," Leona said in a desultory tone.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was twenty to six.

"I'm ten minutes later than normal. Nothing to get upset about."

When I looked more carefully, I noticed she hadn't started our dinner. The oven was off and there was nothing on the counter or in the microwave. That was unusual.

"You'd better sit down, Will. I have something to tell you."

I knew immediately that this also wasn't normal. There was an ominous note to the tone of her voice that wasn't so much demanding as resolute. I sat, my eyes not leaving her face -- a face with eyes that were not looking at me.

"I'm leaving you, Will. I've been thinking about this for some time and I've decided now is the time." She finally looked me in the eye as she finished her blunt statement.

I couldn't think of anything to say that would make sense, so I said nothing. I was sure something would come to mind presently, but for now, I would let her have her say. My gaze continued unwavering as I watched her, now squirming in her chair.

"I'm not happy and staying with you won't cure that. I have to go somewhere and find someone else who will make me happy. And no, there isn't anyone that I'm seeing and I haven't been unfaithful, just unhappy."

She couldn't hold her eyes on me for more than a few seconds. It occurred to me that she felt guilty, but I wasn't sure what for. She said she hadn't been cheating on me and there wasn't another man. I remained silent but my eyes were still fixed on her.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?" she finally blurted out in frustration.

"What's there to say?" I shrugged. "I don't hear you asking for a debate. It's pretty much a unilateral declaration of intent to divorce."

"Don't you care?" she asked, now showing signs of exasperation.

"Certainly I care. I care about you. I care about our eight year marriage. I care about why you are unhappy. I care about a lot of things."

"I just don't think this marriage is going anywhere," she said sadly. "Ever since you found out you couldn't father children it's been going downhill."

"Ah. Well, now we're getting to the root of it, aren't we. All those protestations to the contrary, you really did get hurt when we found that out. It really was the deal-breaker I worried it might be."

She nodded, looking down in her lap, now in sorrow rather than her false front of bravado.

"It took you a long time to be honest about it," I said.

"It took me a long time to admit it," she said, looking up at me sadly.

"At least I can understand it, Leona. I can't say I blame you. You aren't thirty yet, so there's plenty of time for you to have children with another man. I just wish you'd been honest with your feelings a little sooner. Before I ... we ... had so much invested in each other."

"I'm sorry, Will. I would give anything if I'd have had the courage to tell you back then. I didn't want to hurt you ... and now ... it's worse, isn't it?"

"Yes. It would have hurt in either case, but going along for six years thinking we could get by it just makes it more difficult to accept. But ... I do accept it. So ... what happens now?"

"I'm moving in with a friend, Charlotte. You've met her. We've been talking about this for some time, so she's well aware of the reason. I'll contact a lawyer and start the proceedings. It doesn't have to be ugly, Will. If we divide everything fifty-fifty we can get by this without too much grief."

"All right. I won't fight you on it and I won't be unreasonable in the property settlement. Fifty-fifty is fair."

We both rose and I moved to her, opening my arms to hug her. She was stiff in my embrace, but I could see the beginnings of tears as we broke and she walked slowly to the bedroom. She returned in less than a minute with two already packed suitcases, ready to leave.

"Let me help you," I offered and for the first time, she smiled.

It was a faint and brief gesture, but it was there. It might have been a smile of relief, relief that our meeting hadn't deteriorated into something spiteful or even physical. In fact, it was almost completely devoid of emotion when I thought back on it. How strange. The end of a marriage. The end of a love affair. And what was there to show for it? A couple of tears by her and a sense of inevitability in me? Not much after eight years. Not much at all.

On the other hand, I should have known. Not just about the low sperm count causing her distress, but the other thing. She wasn't left-handed. I knew in my heart of hearts that I should have married a left-handed woman, but no, not me. I had to let the little head make decisions for the big head. Leona was a hot babe back when I first met her and I kind of knew then that I wouldn't be in control of the situation. Regrettably, that was the case. Elvis nailed it down over fifty years ago with I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone.

Okay, I admit, it sounds crazy, but I've come to believe that there is something about left-handedness that demands you find a compatible mate. It's complicated because you have to define what left-handedness really is. For instance, I'm left-handed but I play golf right-handed. The same with swinging a baseball bat. But then, lots of right-handed people swing the club or the bat left-handed, don't they. It's complicated. But, from my point of view, if you write or draw or paint left-handed, you are left-handed. End of story.

My name is William Travers. I'm a newspaper reporter with the Bay City, Michigan Post and a part-time writer for an allied television station's news department. My job at the newspaper is loosely defined as "features writer", which covers everything that isn't hard news. Once upon a time, in the heyday of the newspaper, we had separate reporters who handled some of my responsibilities, but no more.

The newspaper was dying ... at least in its traditional format. At first it was television that altered how people got the news. Lately it was the Internet: more specifically the blogosphere, whatever that was. Any joker with a keyboard could write a blog and post it and literally hundreds of millions of people could read it. There was no accreditation in the blogosphere. No one had to prove their bona-fides to back up their opinion. And God knows, they all had opinions.

But I would survive. I knew that for a certainty now. The talking heads could seldom write their own material unless they had come from a real news background. My part-time job would ultimately become a full-time job simply because I could do it and do it in a compressed time format. Instead of space, as I concerned myself with at the newspaper, it was time that was the master of television. No matter, I could manage both.

So, Will Travers (that's what my by-line reads) would survive even though his marriage would not.

As I lay in bed that first night that Leona was gone I was aware that I didn't feel sorrow as much as I felt being overcome by the inevitable. I don't know why. I loved Leona. I knew that for certain, even if it was no longer mutual. I never in a thousand years expected our marriage to fail. It just wasn't possible, I thought. But I was wrong and that was a surprise.