“It is disgusting. It was terrible …but there was nothing pornographic about the pictures. It's a story about abused children. I wanted people to feel exactly what you do, about what happened to them. I wanted people to feel sick and outraged. That's the whole point of what I was doing.” He had in fact proven that she'd done a good job with it, but he was not outraged at the perpetrators, he was incensed at her for covering the story. His point of view was more than a little twisted.

“I think you're twisted to have had any part of it, India. Think of your own children, how will they feel when they know you covered this? They're going to be as ashamed of you as I am.” She had never realized how narrow he was, how limited, and how archaic. It was depressing to hear him say it.

“I hope not,” she said quietly. “I hope they understand, if you don't, that I wanted to help, to stop a terrible crime from happening again. That's what my work is about, not just taking pretty pictures at weddings. In fact, this is a lot more up my alley than covering a wedding.”

“I think you're a very sick person,” he said coldly.

“I think our marriage is much sicker than I am, Doug. I don't understand your reaction.”

“You deceived me. I would never have let you go over there to do this, which is undoubtedly why you didn't tell me. India, you were deceitful.”

“For chrissake, Doug. Grow up. There's a real world out there full of dangers and tragedies and terrible people. If no one exposes them, what's going to stop those people from hurting me, or you, or our children? Don't you understand that?”

“All I understand is that you lied to me in order to take photographs of a lot of filth and teenage prostitutes and revolting old men. If that's what you want in your life, India, fine, go for it. But I want no part of it, or of you, if this is the world you want to live in.”

“I've been getting that message loud and clear from you,” she said, looking at him with disbelief. There was no pride, no praise, no recognition of what she might have accomplished with her story. She hadn't even seen it, but she knew that if it had elicited this reaction from him, it must have been as powerful as she had intended. “I thought you'd get over it, maybe even ‘forgive’ me for wanting to have a little more in my life than just picking Sam up at soccer, but I'm beginning to think it is going to go on forever like this, with you punishing me for what you perceive as my many offenses.”

“You're not the woman I married, India,” he accused, as she looked at him with sorrow.

“Yes, I am, Doug. That's exactly who I am. I haven't been that person in a long time. I've only been the person you wanted me to become. And I tried. God knows I tried. But I think I could be both people, the one you want, and the one I've always been, the one I was before I was your wife. But you won't let me. All you want to do is kill that person. All you want is what you can make me.

“I want what you owe me,” he said. And for the first time in seventeen years, after what he'd just said to her, she felt she owed him nothing.

“I don't owe you anything, Doug, any more than you owe me. All we owe each other is to be good to our children, and make each other happy. Neither of us owes the other a life of misery, or of forcing each other into being something we can't be, or worse yet, depriving each other of something that makes us feel better, as human beings. What kind of a ‘deal’ is that? Not a very good one.” She said it with a look of grief, and everything about the way she stood there and looked at him said she felt defeated.

“I'm getting out of here,” he said, looking at her furiously. He was enraged by everything she had said to him, as well as the article she'd done in London. She had been making him miserable for the last six months, and he was sick and tired of it. As far as he was concerned, she had broken every contract she had ever made with him when they married. “I've had it up to here with your bullshit,” he said, as he pulled a suitcase out of the top of his closet, threw it on the bed, and started throwing things in it. He wasn't even looking at what he was packing, he was just throwing in handfuls of ties, loose socks, and whatever underwear he found in his drawers without caring what it looked like.

“Are you divorcing me?” she asked miserably. It was a hell of a time of year to do it. But there never was a good one.

“I don't know yet,” he said, as he snapped his suitcase shut. “I'm going to stay in a hotel in the city. At least I won't have to do that goddamn commute every day, and then come home to listen to you bitch about your career and how unfair I'm being to you. Why did you even bother to get married?”

With a handful of words he had cast aside the years she had devoted tirelessly to him and their children. With a single gesture he was willing to throw away seventeen years of their marriage. But she had no idea what to do now to stop him, or change things. She just couldn't give up everything to please him. In the end, it would do just as much harm as what he was doing now. And she didn't entirely disagree with him. The last six months had been a nightmare.

He stomped down the stairs and out the front door without saying a word to her, or the children watching TV in the living room. And he slammed the door as hard as he could behind him. India looked out the window and saw him drive away, and she could see it had started snowing. Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she picked up the magazine he had left on the floor. She sat down heavily in a chair, and looked at it, and realized as she did, that it was the best thing she'd ever done, and made the Harlem child abuse story look like a fairy tale in comparison. This one was brutal. And everything those children had been through showed in their eyes and on their faces. And as she went from page to page, all India could think was that she was glad she'd done it. No matter what Doug thought.

It was a long, lonely night for her, thinking of Doug, and wondering where he was. He had never called to tell her what hotel he had decided to stay in. She lay awake, and thought about him all night, and everything that had happened since June. It was beginning to look like a mountain the size of Everest that stood between them, and she had no idea how to scale it.

At three o'clock, she rolled over and looked at the clock again, and realized that it was already nine in the morning in Venice. And with a rock still sitting on her heart, she dialed and asked for Paul, and was relieved when she heard him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding worried. “You sound awful. Are you sick, India?”

“Sort of.” She started to cry as soon as she said it. It was odd calling him about Doug, but she needed a shoulder to cry on. And she could hardly call Gail at three o'clock in the morning in Westport. “Doug walked out on me tonight. On us. He's staying at a hotel in the city.”

“What happened?”

“That story on the kids in London broke. It's beautiful. The best thing I ever did. He thought it was disgusting, he called it pornography, and said I was sick to cover something like that, and he wants no part of me as a result. He said I lied to him about doing the story. I did,” she sighed, “but if I had told him the truth, he wouldn't have let me do it. And Paul, it's terrific. Even after all this, I'm glad I did it.”

“I'll go to one of the hotels here today to get it.” It was in an international publication and he was sure he could find it. “I want to see it.” And then he addressed her immediate problem. “What are you going to do about your husband?”

“I don't know. Wait. See what he does. I don't know what to tell the kids. If he calms down, it seems stupid to upset them. If he doesn't, they'll have to know sooner or later.” And then she started crying again. “It's only nine days till Christmas…. Why did he have to do this now? It's going to ruin their Christmas.”

“He did it because he's a son of a bitch,” Paul said in a voice India had never heard him use before, “and he's been hurting you ever since the day I met you. I don't know what it was like before, India. But I'd be willing to bet that the only reason it worked for so long is because you made all the concessions.” She had only recently begun to see that. “He's been a total shit to you ever since last summer, from what you said. And just what I've heard in the last few months should be enough to make you walk out on him, never mind what he wants.” He was absolutely furious at what she'd told him. “You did something very important with that story and you know it. You're an incredible human being, a great mother, and I'm sure you've been a good wife to him. He has no right to be such a bastard to you. You're a decent, talented, nice person, and he doesn't deserve you.”

India felt as though she'd watched an express train roar by as she listened. Paul was livid. “I'm tired of listening to you tell me stories about how he hurts you. He has no right to do that. Maybe he did the right thing today. Maybe in the long run, it will be a blessing for you and the children.” But she wasn't sure yet. She was still feeling the shock and the loss and the shame of what Doug had told her. She would never forget the look on his face as he stormed out of their bedroom.

“India,” Paul went on then, “I want you to hear me. You're going to be okay. You're going to be just fine. You have your kids, and your work. And he'll have to support you. You're not going to be abandoned. This is not like when your father died. This is very different.” He knew from her that her father hadn't left them a dime when he died, he had nothing, and her mother had had to take extra jobs to make ends meet. She never complained, but they had been frightened for a long time about literally starving.