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Pilar visits Nancy in the hospital and talks her into leaving Esteban's name off the baby's birth certificate, which -- now that her life is no longer in jeopardy -- she's willing to do in order to force his hand. He will not, of course, be forced, so she tells him to fuck off and writes Andy's name instead. At first Andy tells her to fuck off in turn, and won't let her move back into her bedroom, so she calls Lupita (!) in to take care of the baby, being I guess otherwise occupied, and ends up on the couch.
Celia has a bit of a showdown with Raylene from You're Pretty, and realizes she has to unload her makeup somehow. She goes to Dean for legal support, but he's all wrapped up in being counsel of record for Doug and Silas's nonexistent pot parlor -- a job he takes only after slamming Doug's literal dick in his actual desk drawer -- until Celia decides to turn her makeup business into a makeup-and-pot business. Just to make it look more realistic, she also randomly beats the shit out of Dean, which causes him to fall a little bit in love with her again. Those two!
High on having said no to Nancy for the first time in a long time, Andy asks Dr. Alanis out on the most awesome date of all time, in which she calmly and rationally dismantles his entire personality in front of him, and then bounces. Her point -- that she is a doctor and a person of substance who is not impressed by the General Lee -- actually penetrates, sending him rocketing back to Nancy and their son.
A bris follows, at which Andy once again asks the good doctor out, and during the afterparty of which Esteban shows up and Nancy tells him he's out of the picture in a very intense fight. He takes off, because she's actually done a good job of pushing him out of the way, but the fact that they are still and actually in love with each other casts a pall over her victory: Little Stevie Ray (yeah, for real) Botwin's Hebrew name is Avi Melech, meaning his real father, Esteban Reyes, is still in there somewhere.
week: Esteban isn't giving up, somebody gets shot, Shane gets an STD, Andy masturbates some more, and Doug and Silas find out about Celia's latest scheme.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Nancy wakes up in the hospital. It's nighttime and the baby is gurgling. There's a night sound, at first, that turns out to be a very terrifying Pilar, standing over his crib like the wicked fairy in every story. She congratulates Nancy on her handsome son and her perfect life, and Nancy starts to ask what the fuck she's doing there, but Pilar tells her not to interrupt: "Breaches in etiquette make me want to... Throw things," she says, staring down at the kid. Anybody else they'd rip out their stitches trying to choke a bitch for saying that, but hey, this is Nancy Botwin. If Pilar did toss him against the wall Nancy would probably just send him a gift basket.
"You want to know why I never had children?" Pilar asks, and Nancy surmises that she would eat them, and babies are super fattening, but no: They are inconvenient, they complicate everything and they take and take. She explains that the baby was a mistake, and one that will probably end Esteban's career. "I am here to correct that mistake," she says, and gives Nancy the option of helping her do so.
Celia sits around outside a You're Pretty seminar, finally ambushing Raylene as she comes stalking out with a retinue, and Raylene tells her there's a Q&A after the seminar that will answer all her questions. "No one is buying this shit," Celia explains, and Raylene sends her posse away, because while I'm sure there's a whole chapter in the three-ring about what to do when crazy ladies show up, there is no three-ring binder that contains the possibility of Celia Hodes.
"It's like the Depression out there, all right? Women are pinching their cheeks for blush. Trannies are staining their lips with plum juice. I cannot sell makeup when civilization is collapsing!" Raylene laughs and calls her Cece, explaining that economic downturns are great for beauty: "Poor people wear the most makeup!" That is so true. But if that's true, the poor people are stealing their makeup, because they are not buying them from Celia, which by the way is her name. Names are the thing this week.
"Well. I am not interested in Celia," Raylene explains. "I am interested in Cece." Celia is a quitter, see, while Cece sells "A lifestyle. Self-esteem in small doses. A positive reflection in a floor-length mirror. Confidence. Happiness. Sex." Man, she's good. I'm glad I'm not Celia because right then I would have been like, "Sign me up!" That shit sounds good. Sales people are my obsession, I can't imagine saying that shit with a straight face.
"Bully for Cece! I am returning your shit product," Celia explains, saying that she'll pay for what she's used, but I mean, pyramid schemes weren't born yesterday, so Raylene explains that she's liable not only for the whole starter kit, but also for the twelve months of deliveries, so work it out. Or she will go to jail. Celia, hilariously, says through gritted teeth: "No. I will not go back there."
Rather than asking what that means -- and speaking of pretty, remember Celia's prison fish look? -- Raylene punches her in the arm and says, exactly: she'll sell cosmetics instead! "Cece is selling the You're Pretty dream, so Celia doesn't have to live the You're Ugly And Behind Bars nightmare!" Case closed, Raylene sails into the seminar room full of rabid ladies, and she goes, "WHO'S PRETTY?" And they all cheer, "You're Pretty!" Man, I love cults. It's nice to feel like you belong to something.
So Pilar and Nancy have decided to leave Esteban's name off the birth certificate, meaning that while her life is no longer as endangered as it was, she's still denying Esteban the fact of being involved. Which is a pretty simple plan, but pretty elegant. I mean, he could still murder her, but the paper trail is what's important. Esteban whines that he's the kid's father, and that Pilar's just looking out for him. Nancy's feelings get hurt, which is always scary. "Wow. Did you break an ankle backpedalling that fast? She threatened our son. Your son!"
Esteban says they will just leave it blank until after the election, and Nancy says there's going to be another election at some point after that, and another one, because that's what he's choosing. He lamely offers to talk to Pilar, but Nancy says she was very clear that there could be no public record linking him to Nancy or the baby -- essentially, the same reason they couldn't get married -- but that he could always just tell Pilar to eat shit and die, and they could go live happily ever after. He says it's not that easy, but you can't tell Nancy that, because she won't know what you're talking about. She'd just be like, "Let's have Guillermo burn down Mexico, it'll be fine."
Esteban says it's not that easy, and she goads him a little, sadly, that Pilar owns him, because she knows that irks him. He points out that they are still in love, they still love each other, and she gets all passive-aggressive about "No, it's cool, it's fine, my family is coming and I can just go rock out with them, don't worry about it." It's funny how they're both being such weak little whiners right now, and that's how you know, paradoxically, that they really do love each other, because the intense fighting and spanking and raping and power plays are just like garnish on their dorkier true love. Well, "funny" isn't really the word, but it's intriguing.
A nurse comes in to sign Nancy out, and Esteban sadly blesses his son before leaving. Nancy can't believe he actually left, and she's spaced out enough that she can't remember the word for "wheelchair," and after a token attempt at blowing off the nurse's question about the birth certificate she goes, "Fuck it," and writes down a name in the Father box. After the nurse leaves, Nancy stares into space, wondering as she often does what the hell she just did.
Doug makes fun of Dean's booming legal business, pointing out that his office space is to a boba tea place, and he and Dean snark back and forth boringly for awhile. Silas exposits that their drugs were seized in the raid, but Dean should be able to get them back by court order, and Dean says he'll help... For $500 an hour. "That better include a rim job," says Doug, which is something he probably says six times a day anyway. Silas offers him some pot as well, and Doug calls him an asshole sixteen different ways, because he's irrational about Dean, and Dean finally says he'll help them, but only if he gets to slam Doug's dick in his desk drawer.
That makes me sad. Doug and Dean used to love their dicks, they'd whip them out and look at them all the time. It was like the one hobby they shared. Doug's stupid ass decides that it will hurt less if he has an erection, so he shoves his hand down his shorts and starts fooling around down there, which gets Silas up and out of his chair right quick. Silas signs some paperwork while Doug manipulates himself, and a few moments later the boba tea sellers are startled by an inhuman scream.
Nancy brings the baby home, which is still looking like Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and Shane says that while he didn't do much babyproofing, he did get ahold of ecofriendly diapers. She offers to let him hold the baby, correcting his gender from "it" to "he," and Shane's disinterested. "He's your brother," Nancy says unconvincingly. "Get used to it!" Shane continues to be completely not into it, and finally Nancy goes, "I gotta take a fucking shower," and disappears. The boys stare down at him, Silas says he's kind of cute, and Shane says distrustingly that he'll probably just want to play soccer. Prophet of disaster as usual, and uncomfortably racist to boot, but then Shane never did like soccer, and he's had it out for this baby for awhile.
Nancy looks around Andy's insane bachelor boudoir, and says she's there to reclaim her territory. She calls him Superfly, and he reminds her that the house is actually his. She's like, "I HAVE A BABY!" as though anybody could have forgotten that for even a second, and he takes his twelfth bong hit and directs her across the hall. Oh
, and by the way, the hospital just called to schedule him for New Daddy classes. "I was confused, so asked if they had the right person. 'Is this Andrew Botwin?,' says she. 'Why yes,' I reply, as I usually do to that particular question..." Nancy grins, because he's being awfully funny, and he finally asks how they got his name.
Nancy explains, briefly, that she couldn't write down Esteban's name, and congratulates him on being a babydaddy. He finds this presumptuous, to say the least, and you can tell she didn't put so much thought into the list of defenses for this conversation. Basically, her reasons that he should give into this scheme are that he will be carrying on the Botwin name, and also mazel tov. Neither of which is compelling, really.
More compelling is Andy's trippy poetic pothead point that a birth certificate is our first ID, so her son's first one will be fake. He says he's done playing babydaddy to your kids, which is a wretched lie, and she does that silent-scream thing she always does when people somehow manage to tell her no. "ANDY I DON'T HAVE ANYBODY ELSE," she freaks, and he's like, "Once again, that is your fault."
She leaves him to his bong, but again: someone, usually Andy, says this at least once an episode this season, and it's like, did you think Nancy was so terribly likeable and possessed of such good judgment that we didn't already kind of get that she's an asshole? Because memo received. Sometimes all it takes to turn a casual viewer into a disappointed one is telling them to be disappointed over and over. People like to feel smart, but they also hate ambiguity, so being given permission over and over to hate the lead character eventually just starts feeling like being instructed to do so, at which point there's not a whole lot of reasons left to watch.
But there have been a lot of similar concerns with individual plotpoints this season -- like Celia suddenly deciding to sell drugs last week, and ... suddenly deciding to sell drugs this week -- that make me think it's a showrunner thing, like it came up in the room that Nancy would finally be accountable, so every episode that comes in has something pointing to that, but now they're all just kind of blending together into Dogville. Or maybe it's not just repetition and it's actually building to something we can't see yet. I don't know, it seems like a placeholder concept with the tags still attached instead of being woven into the episodes in a way that doesn't make them stick out like this.
Celia brings her YP contract to Dean -- it is perfumed! -- and immediately starts bitching at him about the prodigious amounts of weed all over his office. He explains that it's a client's, and laughs at her contract, which is signed and countersigned and notarized and airtight. All he can do, he says, is get her high, but you know she was in rehab and she's clean now, so does he have any booze? Oh, Celia. She gulps scotch out of the bottle and breathes, and tries to get him to tell her about this mysterious pot client.
High as a kite, Dean laughs that the privileged people in question rhyme with "Drug" and "Highless," whose "pop club" got "rusted," so he had to get their "schmarijuana" back from the "grolice." Great to have you back, Dean! Celia of course sees this as a personal attack on her by God, that "assholes" have thousands of dollars of weed, while she's got a room full of unsalable You're Pretty. Dean points out that Highless has gotten kind of awesome lately, and she gets in his face: "Are you a closer? Or a loser?" Both, of course: he giggles weirdly that he likes to close desk drawers, for example, and rather than following up on that, thank God, Celia says she wants to sell pot with her makeup, as a free gift with purchase. Dean protests that he can't steal the weed, and she shrugs. "Just tell them you got ripped off by black people!" she says, and then punches the shit out of him to make it seem more real.
This cute psycho picketer is standing outside the Ren Mar Women's Center when Andy arrives, high on life and proud of telling Nancy off, moonshiner merkin gone forever, and gets very affectionate with him: "You're tenacious -- if backward -- so bravo!" He explains further that he's on the SIDE OF STICKING TO ONE'S GUNS, fairly hopping with excitement, and when Alanis comes out in her bulletproof jacket to smoke an American Spirit, he sprints over to her.
She asks about the baby, and the guy is like, "BABY MURDERER!" and she reminds him by name that he needs to stay 25 feet back, like, this is just her life so she can take this with equanimity, because it's just Gale with his like one sign. "You're wearing armor," Andy notes, and she nods: "Can't be too careful." She's also smoking, which is funny when doctors do it, which they always do on TV. Finally he asks her out to dinner. "I shaved!" he says excitedly, and she asks when. "Just now! Right before I came!" This is just charming enough, and she agrees.
She asks how she'll know his car, and he admits that it has a "distinctive horn," and Gale's all, "You are in the crosshairs of the righteous! Ignore the dark warnings at your peril!" Andy totally loves Gale some more, and Audra produces a blister pack of Claritin. "Gale, today's pollen count is off the charts." Again, I can't tell if she's the best character ever created, or it's just the stark difference between her sort of holy goodness and Nancy's unholy nanciness, or it's the magic of Alanis, or what, but I love her so, so much. She wears a bulletproof jacket and still gives the guy allergy pills, you know? That's as anti-Nancy as you can get. Andy happily takes the pills over to Gale, and he reaches bizarrely over the imaginary line to take them, and then informs Andy that he's going to burn in hell for eternity, which makes Andy do a little dance and shrug cutely.
There's something about the jauntiness here, the wonderfulness of both Audra and Gale among the death threats and flak jackets, that makes me feel something, but I don't know what it is. A sort of dread, but thematically I can't figure out why this location and these characters are scary, it's like in the peripheral vision somewhere. Like how last season was all about birth and motherhood and you didn't see it until it was too late. I mean, this is an abortion clinic we're talking about, among other things. I can't see it yet. I'm probably just making it up, because Rudolfo and the machetes and the whole kidnapping were ultimately pointless, and that hot guy in Cleveland National Forest was pointless too, and I really thought those were both going to get nasty. I do know that even just the idea of anybody pretending to hurt Alanis Morissette in a made up TV show still makes me want to punch somebody.
The dog doorbells bark, and Nancy walks slowly over to the door, where Lupita is! I often like Lupita. A lot of times she's an empty stereotype for cheap laughs, but since most of those scenes are with Nancy it's not that egregious. Lupita congratulates Nancy on her timing: "William Morris just merged with Endeavor and Mr. Kaplan out on his ass!" Nancy doesn't know what she means by that, but it's actually kinda funny and not all that dated.
Lupita says their house looks like a dive bar, and asks about her bedroom. Nancy tries to say there's not one, but her ass is halfway out the door when Nancy backtracks and says she'll just be taking the couch, then. By which I assume she means, "Until I manipulate Andy into giving me his bedroom, which will take three seconds." Lupita says she had her last baby when she was 52: "Women in my family bleed forever." Nancy takes this in stride, and asks in a hush how old Lupita actually is. "37. So, one night stand?"
Nancy says the baby situation is a little more complicated than that and Lupita fake-commiserates: "Aw, he'll leave his wife?" More complicated than that. Lupita's like, "Great to see you, Nancy," and they laugh about what a constant shitstorm Nancy's life is, and then she offers her demands: pay in cash, feed her, no working
on Sundays or when her novelas are on, no cleaning, no laundry: Just baby. Nancy's heart breaks a little bit more with each condition. Lupita waxes joyfully about taking up surfing again, and Shane comes in, happily surprised to see her; she offers to take him surfing, for an additional fee.
The blonde waitress at a crummy Mexican restaurant puts Andy's flaming drink in front of Audra as she tells him her geography: "Oregon, West Germany, Uruguay." Andy's is less amazing: "Tarzana. And then the other side of Tarzana." She's not impressed. He asks what she wanted to be when she grew up, Jane Goodall, and he says he wanted to be a dog and blows out his drink. "This is fun! I'm having fun!" he says desperately, trying to convince them both. She finally just gives up and tries to bounce. "We haven't even gotten our combo platos yet!" She explains that, in considering her night's options, she would rather be in her PJs watching Friday Night Lights DVDs than dealing with his sixteen miles of bull.
He asks what's wrong, and she says something that is so rarely appropriate that seeing it used properly is like seeing a unicorn: "In a nutshell? I'm past you." Past in what sense? "In life." She explains that there are plenty of girls that would be "dazzled" by "two-dollar taco night at Borracho's," or the way he can balance a salt shaker on the bridge of his nose, but that honestly, he lost her about fifteen minutes in. She downs a shot and looks to see if he's still alive. "This is stunning," he says. Great and careful work, Andy. "I'm stunned."
"Stunned," she says. "Really." Because he's unemployed, nearing forty, drives a car from a TV show, and his greatest recent accomplishment was beating "the upside-down kill screen" in Ms. Pac-Man, "which I know meant something to me at some point, but I couldn't handle that movie about the hygiene people playing Donkey Kong so that word means nothing to me now." Man, the dialogue in this episode is way above average for this show. So Andy's exasperated that she wasn't paying attention: "I didn't beat it, I just got to it. I died almost immediately, the thing's upside-down!"
Audra tries to explain that Andy is a frozen margarita, while she is a doctor, and manages to do this without coming off like a complete asshole, and he tries half-heartedly to go to the "I play doctor" place, she's not having it, he finally asks why the hell she went out with him at all. "My mother always said if they feed you, go." Heh. She stands up, noting that this was not the only terrible advice her mother ever gave her, and assures him she can find her own way home: "Preferably in a car where the doors open." He stares after her and is wounded and sweet.
Lupita says the baby sleeps too much, and Nancy says he's probably just waiting to wake up when it's all over. "I really need to name this baby," she says, and Lupita stands up in her surf gear, offering "Bernardo," by way of reference to the huge schnozz in West Side Story. I love that movie. I wasn't allowed to watch it when I was little because my mom thought Natalie Wood was being racist or something. Meanwhile Mickey Rooney in Tiffany's was a regrettable moment in our culture heritage, but none of those fake Puerto Ricans! Ah well. I still like Breakfast At Tiffany's way better, and I like to think that it's because even as an innocent child I knew musicals couldn't be trusted.
"Bernardo Botwin. I'll think about it." Andy appears, pointing out that Bernardo is killed by Tony, and she offers to name him Andy Junior. "That's what I call my penis!" he laughs delightedly, and then remembers that he's no longer allowed to be juvenile and/or crack jokes with Nancy: to stop playing doctor and become a real one. To Nancy's joy, he decides he wants to be the father, but really really, like, 50% ownership, half the voting shares, and a place at the bimah at his Bar Mitzvah. Nancy gets whiplash -- "Wait, he's Jewish now?" -- and he's like, "Reform, but yeah."
They talk about how this is part of Andy becoming a substantial person, and she starts getting into the idea of raising the child with him, handing him over so "papa" can change him. I see this ending poorly. "Let's see what you're packing downstairs," Andy says, and Nancy watches him affectionately, trying this new life on. "WHOA!" he screams suddenly. "Bun's still on the hotdog!" She's like, "Right. checkup," but Andy goes off about how he wants a bris and the whole thing. "Oy," she tries.
Doug holds the baby and the whole family is ranged around them, with Audra and a bunch of randoms, whom Shane explains were brought by the rabbi, because you need ten witnesses. The mohel does his deal, and Doug of course jumps about a foot in the air, and then it's time to name the baby and eat. Standing around the food, Shane asks the mohel what he practices on, and the guy deadpans, "Goyim." Shane calls it a "barbaric ritual," and then, weirding Silas right now, mentions that circumcision decreases pleasure. "Paid for my summer house," the guy says, and you can't argue with that. We've gotten much more barbaric for much less than that.
Andy spots Audra rocking out on the Ms. Pac-Man game and gives her a little hell about it, but she admits that it's a fairly awesome game. He says this proves she can look beyond first impressions, distracting her long enough that she dies. (See?) He presses his suit, saying that she's there because she secretly likes him, and she says that she's there because A) Nancy invited her and B) she's addicted to the drama and the danger of the gangster-babydaddy scenario. He tells her she was mean to him on their date, and she was, but she points out she was also being honest. "It was harsh," he says, already much more mature than he was like a week ago, and says it was almost enough that he considered not asking her out again. They flirt, and it is good.
Dean and Celia package up their makeup/pot sachets -- "dimes in the lipsticks, eighths in the compacts, half-ounces in the eyeshadow kit" -- and he gets a little flirty with her. She reminds him to break the news to Silas and Doug before the swelling goes down, and he exposits that she fractured his cheekbone. She coyly admits that she's been working out, since the garage she's squatting in has all that workout equipment, and he appreciates her current physical form, so she flirts right back.
Doug harasses the mohel about his smashed penis, and says he can't see a doctor because he hasn't got insurance, and that he's been taping it to popsicle sticks. "It's turning blue!" he whines, and the guy gets the eff away from him. "Try cherry." I'm so sure, Doug.
Andy and Nancy are cuddling the baby on the couch when Esteban walks in, and she congratulates Andy on the bris: "Now he looks like his daddy!" she says, and Andy grins. "Yeah! And you too, from what I hear," he says, unable to help himself: "But slightly smaller." Esteban, on the way to ruling out Andy as the new daddy, says that no way is his son Jewish, but that pig's out of the barn. "It's an ancient and scholarly religion!" Nancy says nastily, fake-brightly, the one face she makes that I can't love her past: "Disproportionate numbers of Nobel Prize winners..." He could have been that anyway. Whip-smart, all three of his parents.
"Meet my son," Andy says meaningfully: "Avi Melech." Nancy nods, staring right into Esteban's eyes, begging him to hear her: "Avi means 'my father.' And Melech, 'the king.'" He's still your son, she's saying. Even his Hebrew name tells you where he came from. You can still have us, she's saying. Can he hear it? "In English, Stephen Ray Botwin," Andy says -- in Spanish, Esteban Rey.
Does Esteban hear that? Does Andy even know, or did she slip it by him too? Two names, and both of them are a love letter and an apology and the promise that they can work this out. Their son is still between them, theirs alone, even with the cavalry called in and the bris accomplished: he's still the thing that unites them. "Stevie Ray," Andy says, which is enough to make my head spin, and offers Esteban a bagel. Esteban asks her to come speak with him, and she's irritated with him, and afraid, and so angry. She's got those Daredevil Girl eyes happening as she follows him out onto the porch.
"This is unacceptable," Esteban starts, and she rolls her eyes as he starts demanding baptism, priests, church. The tears stand in her eyes. "Sorry, he's Jewish. Snip-snip, eat fish, start saving for law school." See what you made me do? her eyes ask accusingly. Do you see how far I'm willing to go with this, for you? "I am his father, I choose his life." She snaps to attention, having finally been given her opening to say what she's been practicing: "You had your chance to choose, you walked out. I have to think about the baby now," she says, making for the door, and Esteban says this is just more selfishness, not a mother's love. She's offended, considering the whole birth certificate thing that started this mess, and the position it put her into.
Esteban steers them into scarier waters still: "My son's not going to be raised by that pendejo," he barks, and she looks into his eyes: "That pendelo sticks around. He fights for what he loves. He's not a coward." Mission accomplished: Esteban kicks the furniture, throws things around, the whole bit. And now that she's fully angry, but more importantly now that she's said the hurtful things she was saving up to say, she can throw him out.
Esteban calms down immediately, holding up his hands, and she closes the gap between them, quickly; he smiles, thinking she'll kiss him, or hit him, and they will come back together the way they always do. He thinks this is about sex, but it's not: it's about power. His smile only makes him weak. She pushes at him, throwing punches, nearly screaming now: "Get out! My son won't grow up to be like you. He won't see you, he won't know you..."
Esteban grabs her fists, trying again for the clinch, swearing that the child is his, but that's not what he means: he means she is his. And they both know it: "No," she says, "You've lost him." She prays it's true; she promises herself it's true. He breaks the clinch and leaves, slamming the door behind him. Nancy sits down, wondering how she fucked that one up; Andy appears holding their son, and the look in her eyes tells him the whole story.
If you think about it, you can see how her crazy ass got there: how could he take this offer, this good faith offer of reconciliation, and throw it in her face like that? All she did was consecrate their child to another religion and name another man as the father. That's like a regular Monday for her. How could he be so blind to the declaration of love it so obviously was?
She held up fucking Andy Botwin in front of him and said, "Even this is a better man than you are." With the exception of Guillermo, Nancy has never been vindictive. She's too self-centered for that -- and she has every reason, if not every right -- and to used to seeing everybody as a tool, a prize, a pawn or a part of the landscape. Those are the kinds of people Nancy can see when she looks outside herself: how they can best be put to use. Including her children, as usual. Between Wicked Fairy Pilar and this whole mess, I'm thinking we're gonna need to keep him away from spinning wheels and stuff moving forward.
Esteban Reyes -- the father of her child, the king-father of Avi Melech, of Stevie Ray -- is the only person on earth whose love doesn't make her feel like she's drowning, and she's laid herself on the floor for him this time: See what I'm prepared to do, see the humiliating and hilarious lengths I'm prepared to reach, in order to prove how much I love you? Why can't he love her enough to see beyond the humiliations she's heaping at his door, and see the roses underneath?
I mean, it's the most fucked-up thing in the world, but the scariest thing is how easy it is to get into that headspace. I've seen men marry women they hated, just to prove they didn't love other men. I've seen married people commit infidelity in order to bring their spouses back, or to prove how strong their love must still be. This kind of emotional terrorism happens constantly, when we let the measure of our pain show us the depth of our love. If we didn't love each other, we say, then this wouldn't hurt so much. You could bleed forever. Pretty awful when you think about it: like Andy under the boardwalk, fucking his way toward becoming a provider. All you were trying to do was call somebody else's bluff, and you ended up ugly, and behind bars.
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