For her part, Kate told of also becoming free and seeking to again settle down with someone she could love. It was quite intimate for the two, and after eating they were lying back on the blanket with their thoughts and their wine.
“Do you believe in God?” She had to ask.
Simon paused. It was not something he gave much thought to.
“I was sort of raised Catholic, but now I’m agnostic about it.”
“Religion is very important to me. I want you to know that off the bat. It is what led to my divorce.”
Simon raised himself to look at her. He reached and gave her arm a rub.
“It was about Suzanne, my daughter. Long story short, she came out as gay, I initially tried to ‘save’ her then she saved me. Choosing between my Church and my daughter was easy. I saw God differently and became an Episcopalian.”
“Wait. You haven’t always been an Episcopalian?”
“Roman Catholic all the way. My husband, my ex, couldn’t adapt. It’s why I’m divorced. Not in the eyes of the Church, of course.”
Simon lay back down. Now she got up on one of her elbow and looked over at him.
“Without a church or a belief in God, what about your spirit?”
He sat up and they sat opposite one another, ignoring the passersby.
“There may be a God. I just don’t believe in an active one. I see cruelty and can’t believe that a loving God would inflict that on people. Especially children. Or like the one you ex seems to believe in.”
“Suzanne has made clear that she will welcome him back if he accepts her and who she is.”
“Yet he hasn’t. Who’s the better Christian? I guess I agree with you. What kind of God would do that to a family? But I just go day-to-day, trying to be kind and considerate to others. If that is spirituality, I guess that makes me spiritual.”
“I like that answer. Let’s get going.”
And with that, the pair put their stuff in the Zabar’s bags—one to dispose of, one to keep—rolled up the blanket and headed back to the car. They were both tired and it was getting late so after Kate gave him a kiss on the cheek, Simon headed to Greenwich while she went to her apartment.
* * *
To be clear, Simon Douglas had not let grass grow underneath his feet after Eileen committed to Tom. He was still a very-eligible bachelor and semi-retired banker with a big house and fast car in Greenwich. He dated quite a few women. But he soon exhausted the supply of eligible ones, mostly divorcées, in and around town. He enjoyed dating and he enjoyed occasionally sleeping with women but through it all, he remained a very-eligible bachelor.
He was thrilled and disappointed when he got the invitation to Eileen’s wedding to Tom and when he saw them he was pleased. He did not know anyone he thought close enough to share the wedding so he went alone. Which was why he ended up spending some time with Kate Nelson. From her, he learned that she had some complicated backstory, but she did not divulge much beyond that she was separated from her husband in California and was thinking of getting a divorce since she moved to New York to be near her daughter, who was married to Eileen’s daughter. It sounded pretty complicated, but Simon’s head for figures helped him understand at least the broad strokes. The most important being that Kate was separated and contemplating divorce.
Simon filed that information away and memories of speaking to Kate popped into his head now and then. Somehow he heard—it might have been from someone at his firm who got it from someone at Eileen’s firm—that Kate had gotten that divorce and was a single woman living and working in Manhattan. After some internet sleuthing, he got her number and gave her a call. Which is where our story began.
Simon liked sex. He never initiated. He knew that dating was binary. Either it went somewhere or it did not. Most of the women he dated viewed things as he did. At some point during dinner, they would decide whether they wanted simple sex with Simon or whether they hoped for something more. Sometimes it was neither. If they wanted simple sex, Simon was happy, and more than ready, to oblige. He was a sweet and tender lover and on more than one occasion what his date thought would be a one-night hookup turned into something more—thanks to Simon’s prowess and generosity in bed—and there were several women who Simon dated regularly with no expectations beyond a good evening in bed. If he and they were younger, they would be known as “fuck buddies.”
Since breaking up with Eileen back in November 2017, Simon had one serious relationship. Sandra O’Neil was divorced and had gotten the short end of her divorce from her husband, who worked at a financial firm on Wall Street. They had two kids and lived in Greenwich. She got the big house and he bought a condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She had primary custody of the kids, who were still in high school, and he had generous visitation rights.
The divorce, though, was not amicable. Sandra’s ex had been having an affair with a junior banker at his firm and its exposure risked torpedoing his career, insofar as in those pre-MeToo years such a thing could torpedo a man’s career on Wall Street. That risk, in fact, was what got Sandra as much as she got. She had left college to get married, and now worked as a secretary at a law firm in Greenwich. She enjoyed the work and the people at the firm. When the divorce was finally settled, her thoughts turned to meeting men.