After the Love Is Gone - New York Times
The New York Times

September 29, 2005
After the Love Is Gone
By NORA EPHRON

I broke up with Bill a long time ago. It's always hard to remember love -
years pass and you say to yourself, was I really in love or was I just
kidding
myself? Was I really in love or was I just pretending he was the man of my
dreams? Was I really in love or was I just desperate? But when it came to
Bill,
I'm pretty sure it was the real deal. I loved the guy.

As for Bill, I have to be honest: he did not love me. In fact, I never even
crossed his mind. Not once. But in the beginning that didn't stop me. I
loved
him, I believed in him, and I didn't even think he was a liar. Of course, I
knew he'd lied about his thing with Gennifer, but at the time I believed
that
lies of that sort didn't count. How stupid was that?

Anyway, I fell out of love with Bill early in the game - over gays in the
military. That was in 1993, after he was inaugurated, and at that moment my
heart
turned to stone. People use that expression and mean it metaphorically, but
if your heart can turn to stone and not have it be metaphorical, that's how
stony my heart was where Bill was concerned. I'd had faith in him. I'd been
positive he'd never back down. How could he? But then he did, he backed down
just like that. He turned out to be just like the others. So that was it.
Goodbye, big guy. I'm out of here. Don't even think about calling. And by
the
way, if your phone rings and your wife answers and the caller hangs up,
don't think it's me because it's not.

By the time Bill got involved with Monica, you'd have thought I was past
being hurt by him. You'd have thought I'd have shrugged and said, I told you
so,
you can't trust the guy as far as you can spit. But much to my surprise,
Bill broke my heart all over again. I couldn't believe how betrayed I felt.
He'd
had it all, he'd had everything, and he'd thrown it away, and here's the
thing: it wasn't his to throw away. It was ours. We'd given it to him, and h
e'd
squandered it.

Years passed. I'd sit around with friends at dinner talking about How We Got
Here and Whose Fault Was It? Was it Nader's fault? Or Gore's? Or Scalia's?
Even Monica got onto the list, because after all, she delivered the pizza,
and that pizza was truly the beginning of the end. Most of my friends had a
hard time narrowing it down to a choice, but not me: only one person was at
fault, and it was Bill. I drew a straight line from that pizza to the war.
The way I saw it, if Bill had behaved, Al would have been elected, and
thousands and thousands of people would be alive today who are instead dead.

I bring all this up because I bumped into Bill the other day. I was watching
the Sunday news programs, and there he was. I have to say, he looked good.
And he was succinct, none of that wordy blah-blah thing that used to drive
me nuts. He'd invited a whole bunch of people to a conference in New York
and
they'd spent the week talking about global warming, and poverty, and all
sorts of obscure places he knows a huge amount about.

When Bill described the conference, it was riveting. I could see how much he
cared; and of course, I could see how smart he was. It was so refreshing. It
was practically moving. To my amazement, I could even see why I'd loved the
guy in the first place. It made me sadder than I can say. It's much easier
to get over someone if you can delude yourself into thinking you never
really cared that much.

Then, later in the week, I was reading about Bill's conference, and I came
upon something that made me think, for just a moment, that Bill might even
want
me back. "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens
to me," he said. "I just don't want anyone to die before their time any
more."
It almost really got to me. But then I came to my senses. And instead I just
wanted to pick up the phone and call him and say, if you genuinely believe
that, you hypocrite, why don't you stand up and take a position against this
war?

But I'm not calling. I haven't called in years and I'm not starting now.

Posted by Miriam V.
Nora Ephron is a writer and director.