Sarah Glasser has alwavs been a good girl. striving for perfection in her life with her financial adviser husband, Adam, and their two boys. A good mother: she volunteers at the school library. A good wife: she runs their household with precision. She even mails out Christmas cards to all her husband's clients.
When Adam comes home one night, hours late from a business meeting, drunk and agitated and asking for a divorce, Sarah is shaken and frightened by thoughts of an unknown life so altered from the one she has carefully cultivated. This incident sets the stage for all that follows: stormy arguments, Adam's binge-drinking, and his purposeful absences from family obligations and social gatherings â to Sarah's eventual, rebellious, slow-burn affair with Troy Middleton, the contractor renovating their Victorian house.
While the collapse of a marriage is a tried-and-true plot, the characters in AN UNFINISHED MARRIAGE are complex and relatable, with humor lightening the drama and propelling the novel forward. The layers of the story peel away to reveal familiar feelings of devotion, betrayal, selfishness, and the complicated love between women and men, parents and children, and friends who sometimes become enemies.
Sarah Glasser has alwavs been a good girl. striving for perfection in her life with her financial adviser husband, Adam, and their two boys. A good mother: she volunteers at the school library. A good wife: she runs their household with precision. She even mails out Christmas cards to all her husband's clients.
When Adam comes home one night, hours late from a business meeting, drunk and agitated and asking for a divorce, Sarah is shaken and frightened by thoughts of an unknown life so altered from the one she has carefully cultivated. This incident sets the stage for all that follows: stormy arguments, Adam's binge-drinking, and his purposeful absences from family obligations and social gatherings â to Sarah's eventual, rebellious, slow-burn affair with Troy Middleton, the contractor renovating their Victorian house.
While the collapse of a marriage is a tried-and-true plot, the characters in AN UNFINISHED MARRIAGE are complex and relatable, with humor lightening the drama and propelling the novel forward. The layers of the story peel away to reveal familiar feelings of devotion, betrayal, selfishness, and the complicated love between women and men, parents and children, and friends who sometimes become enemies.
October 26, 1988
When Adam comes home, Iâm downstairs in my nightgown. For the past four hours, I have paced from window to window, watching the driveway. He called at six, said he had to take a client to the airport. Said heâd be home in a couple of hours. A couple equals two, right? Itâs now half past midnight.
When the headlights on his Jeep flicker through the bathroom window, I dash through the kitchen and upstairs for bed. I dive beneath the covers and shut my eyes. Silently, I plead with my lungs to regulate and not give me away. I donât want him to know Iâve waited up. Heâll say Iâm hovering too much, smothering him. Heâll say he doesnât need another mother, that the one he has is quite enough.
Iâve left his supper in the oven on low. Probably heâll see the oven light and eat before he comes upstairs. By then, if I try hard enough, I might be able to will myself to sleep. I wedge my arm beneath my pillow and tell my body to relax.
The back door opens and closes. I hear it clearly and feel the slight shudder through our old house. In another moment his feet hit the stairs, each step creaking as he climbs. Either he missed the oven light or ate somewhere else. God, let him be sober I pray, then tell myself it doesnât matter. Heâs home. Thatâs the important thing.
He comes straight into the bedroom as if he senses me pretending to be asleep. He touches my hip, his hand warm through the quilt. âSarah?â He gives me an easy shake. I lift my head. His figure is a silhouette in the light from the hallway. âAre you awake? Please get up.â
I rise from the pillow. Something in his tone makes me forget to act sleepy. Itâs that word please. It sounds so formal, so foreignÂ, so un-Adam-like. âWhat is it?â
âCan we talk?â
âTalk? What time is it?â I ask, as if I donât know, as if I havenât been watching the clock for the past four hours.
âCome downstairs, please.â
There it is again. That please. My stomach tightens.
I follow him out of the dark bedroom and into the hall. The doors to both boysâ rooms are closed. Theyâve been asleep for hours. School day tomorrow.
We descend the stairs in a line, me behind Adam, matching my steps to his. I feel like Marie Antoinette being led to the guillotine. My brain scans through possibilities: The clientâs flight was delayed, or maybe the plane crashed. Ridiculousâthat would have made the news. Heâs been in an accident. No, heâs home and unscathed, walking right in front of me. Light from the window on the landing catches the blond whirl at the back of his head. Could it be somethingâs happened to his parents? Mine are still on vacation in Europe, so it would have to be his. Adamâs dad, Oliver, has a bad heart.
Once weâre down in the den, Adam switches on the lamp beside the couch. The room smells like the new varnish and wallpaper paste from the recent remodel, all mixed together with the complicated, musty, hundred-year-old-house smell.
He waves me over to the couch, then begins to pace in front of me, the same steps Iâve taken for several hours. His stride is uneven, listing to one side and then the other. So he has been drinking. His tie is missing, his collar open and wrinkled. His hair looks wet.
The leather couch against my back feels cold. It causes an involuntary shiver. âWhy is your hair wet?â I ask, breaking the silence. âWhere have you been? Adam?â I soften my tone. I donât want to sound confrontational.
He stops pacing, gives me a strange, piercing look. âWith Carolyn.â
âCarolyn?â My voice is thick. Carolyn Jeffrey is my best friend. She lives in west Austin, in a new apartment complex halfway between Adamâs office and the airport. But until this second I didnât realize he even knew that. âYou were at her place?â Why hadnât she called me? âWhatâs going on, Adam? What do you want to talk to me about?â
He puts his hands on his hips. His face is tight, mouth pale at the edges. He keeps his eyes on the floor, the rug under his feet. I look where heâs staring and see nothing but his brown tasseled loafers.
âI donât think I love you anymore, Sarah . . . I mean, I just donât feel like I love youââ
âWhat do you mean you donât feel like it?â
âI donât want to sound cold, I really donât. But I donât know how else to say it. Iâm not in love with you anymore. Iâm just not. I feel like weâre friends, or . . . I donât know . . . roommates.â
âYou do too love me, you know you do.â I move to the edge of the couch. I feel hollowed out suddenly.
He hurries to sit down beside me, takes my hand. His thumb presses my knuckles. âThatâs not how I meant to say it. I do love you, Iâm just not in love with you anymore. I feel like weâve lost that . . . like weâre just living together. Like brother and sister. Or likeââ
âRoommates. I heard you.â I pull my hand away from his. âI think weâve just hit a lull. Weâve talked about this, remember? We both said itâs normal for good marriages to have hills and valleys. We said that. You said that. Well, I think weâre just in a valley. Thatâs all.â
His eyes are Paul Newman blue. Iâve always loved the color of his eyes. They waver away from me. A single tear slips down his cheek. I resent that tear. Iâm the one who gets to cry right now. I havenât just told him I donât love him. But I sit there dry-eyed, numb.
âThis is more than just a lull,â he says finally. âI donât want to argue, Sarah. Please, letâs donât argue. Carolyn said I should come tell you before I left.â
My mouth goes dry. âWhat do you mean before you left?â
âI wasnât planning to do this tonight. I thought I would just check into a hotel and call you tomorrow. But Carolyn saidââ
âCarolyn said what? She told you to leave me?â
âNo, youâre not listening to me. You never listen. She made me come home and tell you before I just walked out.â
âShe made you?â
âChrist, Sarah, Iâm trying to do this the right way, OK?â
âYou mean youâre leaving now? This minute?â
âI just came home to get some of my things.â He stands up. I grab hold of his arm. I want to pull him back down on the couch beside me. I only manage to make him bend a little sideways.
âDonât go, Adam. Not tonight. Itâs late and youâve been drinââ I stop myself, quickly course correct. âYouâre tired. Weâre both tired.â
âDrinking? You were about to say drinking.â He flicks my hand away. âYou think Iâm drunk and donât know what Iâm saying?â
âNoâlisten, Adam . . .â I stand, too. I donât want to make him angry. Not right now. âItâs late. Weâre both tired. Letâs talk about this in the morning.â
âNothing will be any different in the morning. This isnât going away.â
âYou canât leave like this. Not so abruptly like this. Letâs talk tomorrow. I want to understand, I really do, Adam. Please. Think about the boys. What will they think if they wake up in the morning, and youâre gone? Just like that. Without a word.â
I hold my eyes wide and unblinking, until the air stings them, and finally, finallyâthey start to water. Two tears drip off my bottom lashes and slide down my cheeks. Adam has never been able to withstand tears. Heâs softhearted that way. When he sees my tears his own eyes well up again. I reach my arms around him, press my cheek against his chest. I hear the familiar thud of his heartbeat. His hand ventures up to pat my shoulder.
He doesnât leave. In fact, he doesnât go anywhere for four daysânot to work, not outside. Neither of us do. We sit in the den or at the dining table, while the boys are at school, and we talkâand talk and talkâuntil we both feel crazy.
He has needs, he says, needs Iâm not providing. I want to throw up. Needs? Iâve given him children, a home, a life. What more could he possibly need from me? But I donât say any of it out loud. Iâm afraid to provoke him into leavingânot just me but two children and fifteen years of an unfinished marriage. I donât think I could make it on my own. I wouldnât know where to start living without him.
At one point I ask, âIs this about Carolyn? Are you having an affair?â
He gives me a disgusted look. âJesus, Sarah.â
I sit quiet; try to listen. He feels trapped. I donât understand him. I pay more attention to the boys than I do to him. He wishes Iâd put on a dress once in a while, wear heels, comb my hair a different way, get a manicure, be somebody who isnât me. At the end of those four days, when school lets out for the weekend and the boys are home all day, we stop talking. I feel drained, stripped to bare bone, ugly and undesirable. At times during these long, too long, conversations, and during those first days afterward, I wish I had just let him go.
Gradually, without any resolutions, promises, or apologies, we drift back into our old routines, except maybe thereâs more politeness, more caution. Thereâs definitely a new distance. I work hard at smoothing things over, like spackling a hole in a wall. But we arenât newlyweds anymore, and quietly I wonder if marriage is supposed to be this difficult. And if this is just another lull, a valley, can we drag it back up the hill again?
Cindy Bonner never disappoints! The first book of hers that I read was Looking After Lily and I loved it! An Unfinished Marriage managed to take it all up a notch. When Sarah Glasserâs husband, Adam Glasser, stumbles into their house after midnight, things take an unexpected turn. Reeking of alcohol, he sits the devoted mother and dutiful wife down so he can tell her that he is no longer in love with her. As she is aware of the troubles in her marriage, she thinks this is just because they have reached a lull in their marriage, but Adam believes this is the end of the road for them. Whichever one of them is correct, can this marriage be salvaged or will it be an unfinished marriage?
I started reading the book to test it out and get a feel of it but, before I knew it, I had been reading for hours and still could not put it down. I snuck away to read a quick chapter and paused tasks because I couldnât fight the urge to know what would happen next. So be warned, itâs a definite must-read that will have you hooked from the first page right up to the last one. Great as the story is, the drama and convoluted relations in the story might be best suited for adults who enjoy family stories that are a bit messy.
The juxtaposition of the state of their marriage and house calls for book club discussions that can last for hours. Although editing might not be her strongest skill since the book is littered with writing errors, Bonner knows how to deliver a story one cannot help but love. Even with its mess and drama, it ends quite cleanly. So, if youâre a fan of family-oriented stories with multi-perspective narration that end with a nice, little bow tied to them, this might be a great read for you.