The Paris Review - Fall 2016

On a sunny Saturday in spring, I was driving down U.S. 1 toward my
parents’ and I saw a blue Corolla like the one Betsy drove. I began following
the car. I knew it probably wasn’t hers, but every time I lost sight of the car,
my heart began to race. “This is stupid. This is crazy,” I said to myself, and
the words spoken aloud made me feel my helplessness even more. I followed
the car for an hour, until I lost it near the exit for Cranbury.
The weeks and months kept passing. I tried to distract myself. I would
go to see my parents. My mother had lost a tooth near the top center of her
mouth. The gap made her appear vulnerable and surprisingly young. She
remained mean, though. One of my high school classmates had become an
investment banker, and she had learned from his mother what he earned. At
the kitchen table, she asked me how much I made, even though she already
knew. I thought periodically of telling her about Betsy, but I knew she looked
forward to the prospect of negotiating my marriage, and she would get angry
and perhaps start cursing me and Betsy if I told her.
BETSY AND I BEGAN having sex. I always tried to do it without a
condom. She was still going on dates with other men, and I believed that if
I could get her pregnant she would stop. Sometimes she demanded I wear a
condom, sometimes not. Once, in the middle of sex, as she was on her knees
and I was inside her, I, full of sexual excitement, asked what she wanted. “A
rubber,” she said angrily.
Despite the fact that we were having sex, I thought she did not care for
me, that she was probably just tolerating me. I think, though, that she did
care for me. I don’t think it is possible to have sex with someone regularly
without caring for the person. Once she told me I was the best lover she had
ever had. I don’t know what this meant. She sometimes spoke of a French
soccer player she had dated as being the great love of her life. I asked her one
night if she had told any of her friends about me. She said no.
Betsy was afraid of getting pregnant. For some reason having to do with
her skin cancer, she couldn’t go on the pill. Twice she had had abortions,
once because of a rape. Occasionally after we had sex, she would lie there in
the dark murmuring to herself, “I am pregnant. I can tell.” She looked small
and helpless then, her hair damp, sticking to her forehead. I couldn’t understand
why she would have sex with me without a condom. The only possible
explanation was that there was something in her that was weak and baffled,
168