I just read the last two electronic-mail messages Lauren has sent me. The first was from late yesterday afternoon and the second from early this morning. I let them sit unopened for a long time, but this evening I realized I would open them sooner or later. Why wait any longer? Earlier today I refused to talk to her on the phone, and so the messages surprised me. Even in our quarrels we expect to be understood. She tells me my behavior will need looking into, but that she will still accept me back. If I return to London on Friday, as usual, that is. She knows I love her but she also knows that I hate her, too. This will need to be examined, looked into, presumably with someone’s professional help. That is all Lauren has to tell me. In other words, she does not understand I have had enough of her complaining, her prodding, her questioning, her nagging, her probing. She is innocent of my despair with her weighing, her considering, her choosing, her reckoning, her testing, her rummaging, her analyzing, her balancing. She does not have the slightest inkling that I am fed up with her inability to accept me, all of me, and to dedicate herself, all of herself, to me. She has no idea this was my last attempt to get through to her, my last battle, my last hurrah. And she never will. All my entreaties have been in vain. Till the end of her days she will believe that it was I who was confused about what I wanted from her. As time passes, she will be ever more sure it was I who had failed to reconcile my love with my hate of her. And that is perhaps how it should be. This is perhaps a fitting end to our tumultuous marriage. For how could I expect her to agree with me on the last few days or weeks when she could not agree with me on most of the nearly twelve years together?