Divorce Stories | The Affair at Happy Brook

• Posted: August 22, 2011
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• Author: adminadam
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• Filed under: Divorce Stories
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• Tags: No tags set for this entry.

Pretty amazing story submitted by a reader this week. Well written with a very vivid recollection of the story. Thanks again for this submission!

I am of a roving disposition, but I travel not to see exotic places, which come very quickly to bore me. I journey to meet new people. In this aim I have endeavored to avoid the prosperous persons of society: the wealthy, the celebrated, and so on. I find them as dull as the exotic places and remain content to know them in a glanced headline or overheard conversation. Yet I have slept beneath rainy skies a fortnight to witness how a grocer by day poaches hawks by night and spent a weekend with a janitor to learn the elusive recipe of his highly sought after crystal methamphetamine.

For a number of years I have been gratified to study human beings in their many different incarnations and modes of existence. I daresay they remain an enigma to me and have proven—as the case invariably must turn out in the particular tale at hand—impossible to write about with any real accuracy on account of their many self-contradictions and ambiguities. I find the longer I am acquainted with someone the more they surprise me and the less I feel I know them. Indeed, my oldest friends, of whom I have not a few, are the most baffling to me. The seemingly most obvious of their signature characteristics have revealed themselves upon exhaustive inspection as deep wells of dark complexity. I would never think of attempting to write about them.

I have said that I rove and write, yet I do so with no particular aim in mind. I never have established a logical itinerary and have no interest in publishing my scribbled observations. I feel that to do so would separate me overly much from the everyday people and lives which serve as my private canvas and the wellspring of what wisdom I may have earned. It is enough that they instruct me and I make record of it.

Given my penchant for cataloging it should come as little surprise that I travel under the guise of an assistant librarian of the secondary schools. I find this sort of cover occupation suits me very well: the work is unchallenging and the environment allows me to observe closely students and coworkers while dwelling among books. Though I never stay long in any one place, I am pleased to report the impression I give to my coworkers—at least to my knowledge—is always a favorable, or at least harmless, one. I take an interest in the people around me, listening to their trials and aspirations, as well as the books placed in my charge, binding them if necessary and organizing them into their designated places. Many a school librarian will frown at a student who takes down from the shelves a great stack of books, but I am always delighted following such a student’s departure to learn what he or she has been reading, speculating about the nature of their assignment or personal interests, before returning the books to their places like the parent who gently tucks their children back into bed.

________

The account I set down here is strange and terrible—a tale one scarcely dares disturb the ashes of its memory. Indeed, so peculiar are the circumstances of the story that I can hardly believe myself to have actually been party to them. I cannot vouch for all of its particulars—at times I was reduced to speculation—but its undeniable sadness serves to fire its veracity, as is often the case with the events of life in this, our sad world.

I was entering my second year as assistant librarian at Happy Brook Middle School, a public institution of perhaps five hundred students set among the gentle rolling hills of rural western central Virginia. I had just returned from London where I had helped my mother sell her house in St. John’s Wood so that she could take up a little age-friendly flat within convenient walking distance of Whitehall and was looking forward to assuming my usual routine of observing people and organizing books against the backdrop of a new school term.

My best friends at Happy Brook were Gorm Morstlan and Charlotte Sheppard, a married couple of uncommon talent and charm. Upon my arrival I had taken a fancy to them at once and they, in turn, had tucked me under their wing, introducing me to coworkers and their friends, and helping me to navigate the various machinations of the school. It was not uncommon for me to dine with them twice a month and also to spend time with each of them separately. As head librarian of Happy Brook, Charlotte was my immediate supervisor whom I interacted with on a daily basis. Gorm, on the other hand, I saw away from school, attending the shows of the various bands in which he performed. He played a passable jazz flute and I took pleasure in having a drink or two with him after one of his performances and studying also the diverse persons in the crowds who attended his barroom gigs.

Gorm had an easy manner and humorous way about him. He took life—his teaching included, I am afraid—none too seriously, which made him a light and entertaining companion. He was small, slangy of speech, pleasantly sarcastic, and not a little narcissistic, though this quality did not offend me. He seemed happy in his marriage and his variable day-job/night-job routine. Charlotte was an extremely nice smallish, sensitive woman with dark eyes which lurked beneath fine eyebrows. She was not pretty in the conventional sense, but certainly attractive and possessed of a very agreeable disposition which drew people to her.

When I was new at Happy Brook, Gorm and Charlotte had appeared genuinely happy to meet and come to know me. Indeed, very quickly I seemed to assume some positive function in their marriage the entire nature of which I remained uncertain. Charlotte informed me she was grateful for my arrival in the library given that she seldom had anyone with whom to talk books. For Gorm it was my occasional presence at his gigs and willingness to have drinks with him which I think both stoked his ego and afforded him something of the illusion of being single again. Indeed, he was not above flirting with a girl or two at his performances and seemed to take my presence as an available male as license to do so.

My collective friendship with Gorm and Charlotte—especially those occasions on which I taught them Bridge and Canasta or lounged about the lake near their home—brought a sense of warm belonging to me. Rarely had I bonded with coworkers as I moved from place to place. Part of the reason, of course, is that I knew I would be passing on by and by. Another circumstance, however, was my conviction that if I came to know the people with whom I interacted too well, I would sacrifice that capacity to observe, which enabled my particular life’s passion and purpose. Yet I gave myself over to both Gorm and Charlotte as confidant and bosom spirit. This, I believe in retrospect, is precisely what blinded me to the true nature of their lives and the tragic events which transpired. One eventually discovers or recalls that attached to the high brow is the bone head, and it soon became evident there was much which had eluded me, despite the not insignificant pride I took in my powers of observation.

________

I was shocked—and I am not one easily shocked—when, during the second week of new term classes and within two days of each other, Gorm and Charlotte approached me separately to request my attendance at a deposition arranged by a lawyer of Charlotte’s which was aimed to serve as a precursor to facilitating their divorce. Gorm apparently had been involved in sexual exploits with a number of women for years and currently was involved in a relationship of sorts with Happy Brook’s guidance counselor—a woman I knew only by appearance named Jasmine Sykes.

“I’m afraid most of it’s true,” he informed me flat out. “I’d like to try to make you understand later, but for now all I’m asking for is your support as a friend. I’d like you to be there”

Gorm appeared troubled as he uttered these words, but otherwise he was his normal self: prepossessed, laid back, and not a little self-righteous. I never would have guessed the true circumstances of his life at that time.

On the other hand, though I did not know the reason for it, I had been suspicious of the condition of Charlotte’s physical health since the school year began. Upon the resumption of classes following the summer break, I had noted her marked loss of weight, the dark circles beneath her eyes, and the frequency with which she retired to her office and shut the door. I wondered at these signs, but thought better of asking her about them given the possibility she might take offense and interpret my inquiries as insults to her appearance or professional demeanor. Yet these concerns proved groundless when she approached me about the deposition a day or two after Gorm had.

“I’d like for you to be there,” she said, echoing the sentiments of her estranged husband, “as a friend who knows us both.”

I elected to say nothing of Gorm’s request out of my divided loyalty, but I readily agreed to her request.

“You realize this is heartbreaking for me, Charlotte,” I said. “I think so much of you and Gorm and you both have been so kind to me.”

She smiled—a bitter smile, I thought—before she spoke. “Thank you,” she said through tight lips, “but it’s likely you won’t think so well of him when this thing is over.”

With that she had turned and entered her office, slamming the door behind her.

________

I slept poorly the night before the deposition. The three weeks which lay between my double-invitation and the actual event had seemed an eternity as I awkwardly maintained my friendships with Gorm and Charlotte. Gone, however, was the warmth of that three-person fellowship which had brought us all together the previous year. Eyes open to the adverse nature of their lives, I began to notice things about both of them which I had either neglected before or which had evolved more recently out of the general dysfunction of their marriage. Whereas I know for a fact she had loved her job in the past, Charlotte had come to be short with coworkers and students alike, ushering them out of her path as quickly as she might. She continued to lose weight and employed her office as if it were a bunker to shut out the bombardment of life’s events. On two occasions, needing to ask her an urgent question, I had knocked and opened the door to discover her lying in the dark, back against the floor, breathing heavily.

“Charlotte,” I asked softly the second time this happened, gently closing the door behind me so that no one else might see, “are you alright?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please go.”

And I had, as softly as I had entered, but not without a great heaviness in my heart.

Meanwhile, I took note of Gorm’s trajectory in the opposite direction. He seemed to have more energy, more vitality. He had put on weight and his eyes and voice conveyed a kind of unnatural fever.

“Come out with me,” he urged. “I’ll tell you all about it. You’re the great observer.” He laughed.

“I’d like to,” I said, as politely as I might, “and I’ve promised to support you at the deposition, but remember I am still Charlotte’s friend too.”

At this his face had darkened slightly.

“She’s causing me a lot of trouble,” he said. “Needless trouble.”

It was then we were joined by Jasmine Sykes. The two of us inspected each other coolly. She was an attractive woman despite her flat chest, stringy blonde hair, and lusterless eyes.

Gorm had the presence of mind to introduce us, but when he had done so she grasped his hand and whispered something in his ear. They both smiled.

Clearly the whisper and handholding was less for Gorm and more a voiceless sign to me, albeit something I was not meant to know but rather only guess at. I stood there awkwardly as they bade me farewell and sauntered away together. Happy Brook it seemed had become a place of unspeakable things

________

I arrived early on the day of the deposition, resigned I suppose to make myself available to Gorm or Charlotte should either wish to have a word with me beforehand. However, I found the little room in the courthouse already occupied. Gorm was sitting next to Jasmine Sykes. As he was positioned closest to the door, he was able to shake my hand as I entered and murmur his thanks. Jasmine did not look at me and instead stared straight ahead as though she were inhabiting some other place.

On the other side of the room sat Charlotte between her lawyer and a man I would later learn had served as Gorm’s and Charlotte’s marriage counselor: a Dr. Short. Charlotte smiled at me and mouthed her thanks as I took up a chair near the middle of the room, almost directly between the two parties. I let out a weary sigh. Each thought I was there for them.

Once seated I was able to examine the room’s other two occupants: attractive, younger women whom I had never before seen. Involuntarily, I glanced from them to Gorm. It was not difficult to guess the form the deposition would take.

It is unnecessary to relate in detail how the proceeding transpired once they were underway. One by one, in succession, Gorm and his lovers were examined and picked apart, the most humiliating and squalid of their acts laid bare for all in attendance to absorb. I periodically glanced at Charlotte throughout. Her expression fluctuated but was always difficult to read. Sometimes it seemed one of disgust, while at other points there appeared almost a glimmer of sorrow, even pity for the woman on hand. When Jasmine was called forth Charlotte’s face was a blank; there might have been no one there speaking. Charlotte’s lawyer had prepared a visual presentation based largely on evidence gathered by a private investigator. It documented Gorm’s and Jasmine’s illicit relationship in excruciating detail with entries from Gorm’s computer journal, explicit phone messages, and vulgar photos, including a disgusting sequence involving Jasmine’s twin sister, Mona.

It is a dangerous thing to seek to artificially order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the legal system’s confidence in forcing upon its victims measures that must necessarily alter their psyches and life paths. As the deposition wore on, I began to wonder what real good it was accomplishing. Gorm’s former lovers were subjected to embarrassment and humiliation in a manner that aided no one while, if anything, the proceedings likely would only draw Gorm and Jasmine closer together, increasing the strength of their bond. And it was clear the event was affording Charlotte little or no genuine satisfaction or peace. Indeed, at that moment a distasteful thought entered my mind: that Charlotte was hurt when she discovered Gorm’s unfaithfulness not because she loved him so much, but more because she loved herself so much. Shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, I nevertheless failed to banish the notion.

*

One of the inconveniences of real life—of a true tale drawn from life—is that it seldom affords you a complete and satisfactory story. I saw little of Gorm and Charlotte after the deposition. Whereas before I had served each as a symbol of something positive which existed between them exclusive of me, after the proceedings it seems I performed a similar function albeit in a negative light. It was as if I had come to be a symbol of their marriage—of its best parts—and thus held no future function for either of them once they were resigned to the fact that it should be destroyed forever.

As for myself, I wished only to make it through the remainder of the term before quitting the place. I had turned in my resignation not long after the deposition, even though I had no future plans of my own and lacked a clear idea of what I wished to do. I did however begin to rethink the way I had been living my life and began to doubt if I would continue to persist in my old habits. It has been said the wise traveler travels only in his imagination and that quotation was much on my mind in the weeks following my resignation. At last I resolved that I would give up my roaming for a time and live in the little cottage in St. John’s Wood mother had refrained from selling along with her house.

I knew, however, this would not serve as a permanent arrangement—had known it long before, just minutes in fact after the conclusion of the deposition. The room having emptied, I was left standing with Charlotte. She was very pale and her eyes possessed a glazed quality.

“My lawyer said that divorce could be like death,” she mumured, staring off into space. “The loss of a past loved one in all capacities.”

“Don’t say that, Charlotte,” I said.

I hesitated before adding, “Remember you have the power, to a certain degree, to shape it as you like.”

For a moment she was very still. Then she looked up at me—cold, hard eyes. “I wish he was dead,” she said through clenched teeth. “I really do.”

Though I knew her feelings were justified to a certain extent, an involuntary chill ran through me and for a moment I was afraid of her, even should an ocean stand between us.

But then the fear faded even as a frail warmth returned to her eyes and she collapsed against me, thin frame in convulsions. And it was in that instant I became aware of the presence of a wondrous grand thing I had encountered only once before. Invisible yet felt, always: the warm smile of life—of existence—on all its creatures, great and small, including these two sad people and the lonely person that was me. What choice had either of us but go on though our hearts prove as heavy as the world? With all of the books in existence, there remains always another tale to tell.

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