It wasn’t until he saw the stone, the smooth stone lying in the pool of water by the curb, the water undisturbed by the wind and reflecting the streetlight overhead--not until then did he stop. He had told himself he wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t look back, that it was over--all of that--but something about the stone, its smoothness, the oddity of it being here on a city street, unhinged him, and he stopped and looked down at it, coming close so that his own image was reflected back at him from the puddle.

He almost did not recognize himself.

Behind him loomed the huge brick apartment house where his wife now lived, had lived for over a month. It was an old building, with “character,” meaning a broken elevator and a stairwell with a pre-War carpet. She lived in a studio with a trundle bed, had a view of the central shaft where pigeons did their business on the ledges, and had “friends” over whose names he couldn’t even pronounce. She had gotten a job at an art gallery, though she never told him where.

It was supposed to be only temporary, they were only trying this out, she was only taking a six-month lease instead of the year and because of this evening, he realized how much he had been ringing to the hope that it was true, that their separation really was only temporary. And he realized just how pathetic he must have appeared in his wife’s eyes, so when he looked down at the stone in the water, when he caught sight of himself, something inside him collapsed.

“Son of a bitch,” he whimpered.

Behind him the huge apartment building sailed through the night like a ship with windows blazing.

He’d come over after work, dropped by as he did from time to time, just to say hello, just to see how she was doing. He felt he had that right, that as her husband he ought to be interested, ought to rant to stay involved in her life. And, he liked to pretend, it was important for her to know what was happening in his life with the house they’d bought together, with their friends (though she never saw them anymore), with the new car they’d picked out just after they’d gotten married. He’d pretended to believe that her pretense was real, pretended not to notice her look at the clock over his shoulder, her polite smile, the slight shake of her head. Was someone else coming over? Was she in a hurry to go out somewhere? Her life was a mystery to him and, this much was clear, she liked if that way.

“Well,” she’d say, smiling, pronouncing the word like a bell tolling. “I should get going.”

That was the phrase” I should get going”that he hated. She used it on the phone, she used it to get rid of him. “Why should you get going?” he wanted to ask. But he didn’t. He never did.

“All right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

But she wouldn’t respond with an “okay.” Instead, she’d say, “Goodbye.”

Earlier, when she opened the door and saw him, her expression went flat and she said, “Oh. What are you doing here?”

So they had come this far, he thought.

“Can’t I come by from time to time? I’m still your husband.”

She hesitated but then let him through the door.

“How did you get up? 1 didn’t ring you in.”

“The door was propped open. Why, is it a problem?”

He sat on the couch, lay back. He watched her. She had something on the stove. She went into the tiny kitchen to stir it.

“Expecting company?”

She kept stirring, though he knew she’d heard.

“Hmm?” she asked.

“Forget it.”

He felt her watching, felt her worry. This bothered him, made him suspicious. He got up and looked around.

“How are things?” he called.

“Fine.”

She had a large desk by the window, a desk they’d found at a garage sale just after she announced she was moving out, “needing some time,” she said. He went along, after he saw he couldn’t change her mind. He pretended he was having fun, that her taking an apartment downtown was a good thing, finally. He helped her find furniture, gave her money.

The desk now was covered in magazine clippings, paint, glue, an odd assortment of gadgets and junk--she was making something, something artsy. She. had various projects lying about, all half done, all looking like not quite something. “Joseph Cornell,” she’d said, once, and he went home to look up on the Internet the Chicago artist who’d lived in the basement of his mother’s house and created amazing sculptures from found objects. If she was trying that, he was impressed.

“What’s this?” he asked.

Above the desk, on the window sill, was a glass bowl, obviously very old, very likely lead crystal.

“Hmm?”

“This bowl. Where did you get it?”

He hefted the bowl from the sill, felt its weight, its permanence.

“Oh, that,” she said, peering out from the kitchen. “A friend gave it to me.”

“Nice,” he said, setting it carefully back in its place.

“I’ve got to pee,” he called.

In the bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet and found a box of condoms. They were colored, a variety--blue, green, red and the box was open. He examined the box, counted the condoms inside, and then put the box back. From a pack of 12, there were 10 left. That meant two. Twice. Twice. He did not know what to make of that. He came from the bathroom prepared not to ask her about it, or prepared to ask her about it, he didn’t know which, even though something velvety was wiggling in his stomach and he felt he was about to puke.

“Richard,” his wife said. “This is my friend Raj.”

She stood there, dwarfed by a tall, dark man in a turban, who’d apparently just come in.

“Raj,” he said, reaching out automatically to shake the man’s hand. “How are you?”

“Very well,” said Raj and returned Richard’s firm handshake.

The three of them stood there in his wife’s studio apartment, next to the cabinets which hid the rundle bed, which she rolled out each night, on which--

“How are you?” Richard asked again, stupidly.

“Very well. Thank you.”

“Did you give that to her? That crystal bowl?”

The two of them turned in unison to look. The bowl sat above the desk, now reflecting the candle lightwhen had she lit a candle?

. “Yes. I saw it and thought of Mara.”

“Very nice. It must have been expensive.”

“Richard!’”

She had always accused him though not in so many words of being cheap.

“That’s all right,” Raj laughed. “Yes, it was a little expensive. But in my culture, when we give a gift, we always make sure it is worthy of the recipient.”

“And what does your culture say about screwing another man’s wife?”

That was when Mara told Richard he’d better leave. And Richard agreed. He knew he’d transgressed, that he should have remained indifferent, or pretended to. Everything was to be pretended, apparently. They’d pretend the separation, and then pretend the divorce. And Richard would quietly be pushed out of the way, like a piece of junk that didn’t fit her sculpture. Just throw it away.

As he looked down at the stone, he thought of the odd juxtaposition--the found-object sculpture, which relied on the heterodoxy of unlike objects for effect, and the purity of the crystal bowl, whose effect was clarity and beauty. How much had Raj paid for it? How much was he getting?

Behind him sailed the apartment house, the windows blazing, the crystal bowl on the window sill in his wife’s apartment. Below him lay the stone in the water, smoothed by years of river action but now lying in the filth of a city puddle. And over the surface of the water lay his own reflection, oddly distorted and foreign.

What could all this mean? How could there be order in such disjunction?

And what would the stone feel like in his hand? How much would it weigh and how far and hard could he throw it?

- Jeffrey Klausman