Scenes from a Marriage
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You put it in a folder somewhere.
Id need a couple of hours to find mine.
But when Jonathan and Miras marriage breaks down, the legal contract becomes urgently significant.
The vows are already undone; they live in separate homes.
This sheet of paper they glanced at every few years is the last knot of their shared life.
The couples divorce seems amicable enough so far.
Tonight, Jonathan and Mira are divvying their stuff following the settlement negotiated by their lawyers.
Theres no neutral party present to referee; the aggrieved trust themselves alone with each other.
Mira starts the episode across the street, as far from the house as weve seen her.
The journey home is getting longer.
Soon, the same route wont even be a journey home.
When Mira arrives, the packing is finished, and Jons on the phone with the movers.
Mira is on the phone with Ava, who is screaming about her dolls getting lost.
Mira knows her anger is normal because Avas therapist told her so.
Between Jonathan and Mira, the mood is friendly.
He calls Mira his wife; she calls him honey.
Professionally, hes hot shit right now.
Rather than affecting her trademark aloofness, shes too exhausted to care.
She hasnt read the contract; it doesnt matter what the house is worth.
Take it all, Jonathan.
He reminds her that American divorce is comparatively easy.
Youre either in or youre out, and if youre out, theres no going back, he says.
Her MO hasnt changed.
Theyre sitting beside each other on the plastic-wrapped green settee that they both want.
They hug, then they caress, then they fuck, doggy-style.
Everyone has fun, but it doesnt look like love.
It looks like sex.
Not getting-back-together sex, not good-bye sex.
Maybe its primal: the last time their bodies will belong to each other.
Mira kisses Jonathan tenderly, and they get ready for a quick dinner before the movers arrive.
Jonathan washes exclusively his groin with a handheld showerhead.
Maybe its nothing, or maybe its symbolic.
Mira giggles as she slides her heels back on.
Maybe its optimism, or maybe its nothing.
Jonathan re-emerges with the divorce papers, and Mira again refuses to sign.
The argument grows slippery.
Its about divorce; its about the extortionate cost of dance class.
Its about how much Ava hates her mother.
Mira thinks we should teach kids that love ends so that divorce can be less painful.
Personally, I think she shouldnt have had an affair so that divorce could be less painful.
We dont have norms and rituals to match loves beginning.
But Jonathan is done being philosophical.
His pain is his uncertainty.
If hes not going to be married to Mira, he needs to be divorced from her.
Just sign the papers, yo.
She cant afford to lose more parts of herself.
She got fired earlier in the day.
The accusation feels uncharitable but, turns out, she knows him a lot better than we do.
Jonathan confesses that her sob story evokes nothing in him.
Hes not trying to be callous; the callous is just there around his heart now.
Its been accreting so slowly hes surprised by it.
He can live without Mira.
No, its more than that.
He doesnt want to live with her.
They fight in the manner of all their fights.
Theres name-calling and recriminations.
Mira mocks Jonathan for going to therapy.
He basically tells her she deserves to be fired.
Jonathans religious hang-ups around sex made her feel depraved, she says in a tirade of resentment.
She denied her sexuality for fear hed find it grotesque.
His hang-ups became hers, which, if true, is a terrible and unkind reversal.
What if there was never anythingthatwrong with him?
What if some women dont care if you wash your balls after sex?
Mira made Jonathan feel aberrant and exploited his inexperience.
They dont dispute the facts, but their meanings.
Theyre talking about sex, but their incompatibilities lurk around every corner of the house.
Now, theyre in the kitchen, Mira pretending that she might sign the divorce settlement.
If shes not going to sign it, Jonathan needs her to say so.
Mira can only whisper an answer.
I want to come home.
MIRA, MIRA, MIRA.
She and Poli broke up weeks ago because she refused to have his kid.
Its her turn to play the narcissist, spewing her feelings.
Sheknowsit would be different this time around, but Jonathan disagrees.
Even if it was different for her, hes not in love anymore.
Im sober; Im inoculated.
Its brutal to listen to, even if its fair.
Miras made so many decisions; shes not sure which ones were mistakes.
She wants to press reset.
He used to want it, too.
They fill the space between them with pineapple vodka, the most accessible alcohol among the boxes.
He asks Mira to be happy for him and herself.
It could be a really exciting time for you, he says.
But Mira doesnt want anything new.
The Mira who negotiated the settlement isnt the fragile person here now.
He tells her hes thinking of having a child with his colleague elective co-parenting.
She wants a kid!
They should have a kid.
But, of course, they should not have a kid.
They can barely have a conversation.
Offended, he moves to leave.
On second thought, Mira can deal with the movers herself.
He tries to push past her, but Mira locks them in the house and hides the key.
She just wants to talk.
Jonathan moves for the key, and she pushes him and hits him.
He shoves back, I think, still searching for it.
She returns the shove, and he hits her in the face.
Mira throws Jonathan to the ground, and he hits his head on the way down.
She throws books at him.
She throws anything she can grab at him.
They collapse, bloody, more pained than ever.
Wordlessly, they sign the papers on the floor, the Boston cold creeping under the front door.
Jonathan prepares to go.
Shouldve done that a long time ago, he says menacingly.
The sentence lacks a subject.
They should have signed the papers?
They should have hit this ugly, irrevocable low?
Or worse, he should have hit her?
Should he have let his contempt for her be so manifest in the world that she couldnt miss it?
When it fades completely, the words will be whats left of the violence.
Nothing they just did to each other shouldve been done.
Jonathan leaves as the movers arrive.
Hes finally the one to escape the pull of the house.
It was confetti, or it was something at the bottom of a drawer.
Now, its maybe in one of those cardboard boxes earmarked for a storage unit.
Its an artifact of a past civilization.
