by Sonja Yoerg
Beep.
Jackie stops at a lamppost to let the foot traffic flow by her. “It’s Jackie. Listen, Harlan, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but Nasira is my postdoc. I work with her, and I can’t have you telling her I’m dangerous or whatever nonsense you put in her head.” Her heart is pounding, but she’s not finished. “Same goes for Miles. He might be your friend, but he’s my husband first, so stop whispering in his ear. Stop interfering in my life.” She closes the call and stuffs her phone in her pocket.
She ought to feel better for having told him off, but she doesn’t. As she pushes open the door of the dry cleaners, she imagines him listening to her indignation and hearing it, recognizing it, as defensive.
Jackie arrives home and leaves her bags inside the door. She carries the dry cleaning upstairs, hangs up the knit dress she wore to work, and slips on pajama pants, thick socks, and her favorite sweatshirt. Her plans for the evening no longer seem simple and relaxing; they seem pathetic. If only Miles were home. She thinks about calling him, but remembers his meetings with the players and their coaches will run until nine or later.
She microwaves some leftovers, and curls up on the couch with her food, a glass of wine, and the remote. She scrolls through the offerings and finishes her dinner before finding anything worth watching. Giving up on TV, she retrieves her Kindle from the bedroom, makes popcorn, refills her wine, and settles on the couch once again. She’s halfway through a suspense novel about a missing husband. The wife is uncovering some ugly truths that leave her torn about whether she actually wants to find the bastard. Jackie is becoming increasingly impatient with the wife’s vacillation and hopes it turns out that when she does find him, she exacts revenge. She reads a few pages and puts the Kindle aside.
So easy to talk tough about a hypothetical situation in a book, Jackie thinks. Distance—and perspective—are everything, which is why she started her career studying theory of mind.
A huge cognitive milestone for a child is the ability to take someone else’s perspective, to imagine herself in another person’s shoes. Before the age of four or five, a child can’t differentiate between what she knows and what someone else knows, and she can’t generalize from her own internal experience (her mind) to that of others. A three-year-old will hide himself by covering his eyes because he hasn’t figured out that just because he can’t see doesn’t mean everyone else is also in the dark. He doesn’t know that different minds can see the world differently (literally and figuratively) and have different information.
But once children develop a theory of mind, once they get that not everybody sees and knows what they do, their horizons explode. Hide-and-seek works because they don’t leave bits of themselves sticking out. Secrets become possible. Telling the truth becomes optional. And emotions get complicated. The moment you see yourself as others see you, you become self-conscious. Welcome to embarrassment. And shame.
And empathy. There is a bright side.
Jackie feels empathy for the fictional woman whose missing husband may not be worth finding. But the woman is caught up in the quest, is desperate to find the truth, and Jackie understands that, too. It parallels her own situation, after all. If only Jackie’s frustration with herself were enough to change her behavior, to make her stop caring about what Harlan feels for Nasira. She wants to get inside Harlan’s mind and know, really know, what he thinks of Nasira, and of her. Jackie’s only clues are his behavior, and lately none of it makes sense. When Harlan was hers, she understood him, and trusted his view of her. She was certain of his perspective. She saw clearly through his eyes, and what she saw made her happy.
Isn’t that what love is, the belief that you exist in the private world of someone else’s mind as a beautiful, cherished being? Perhaps that’s the problem with love: it’s unverifiable.
She gets up, pours another glass of wine, and checks the time on her phone. Almost ten. She calls Miles, and it goes straight to voice mail. She texts him, asking if he is still working. While she waits for his reply, she empties the dishwasher. Still no text. She goes back to the couch and her book, willing her attention to stick. The next time she checks her phone, it is eleven, and Miles hasn’t responded.
She imagines Miles with his arms around another woman, a faceless other. The knifepoint of jealousy pierces her.
Jackie pours the wine remaining in her glass down the sink, checks the front door is locked, and heads to bed. She is foolish to make anything out of an unanswered text or of the slight but undeniable increase in the distance between her and Miles since Thanksgiving. Still, she cannot deny her loneliness. She never expected to be isolated inside her marriage. The point of marriage is to have a partner, to belong. Her husband has become her roommate, an occasional one at that.
As she brushes her teeth, she parses her emotions, teasing jealousy apart from regret, love apart from nostalgia, pain apart from self-pity, all with limited success. The wine has not obliterated her encounter with Nasira, only deepened how shitty she feels. She takes an Ambien and puts her faith in pharmaceutical sleep. Until it arrives, she lies in bed, facing the empty space where Miles ought to be. She cannot possibly sleep facing away from this void, but tonight confronting it is just as bad.
While she is alone and medicated, Harlan and Nasira are enjoying a drink together, relaxing on Harlan’s low-slung tweed couch. He’s talking about how well the grant is coming along, how strong her writing is, or a more intimate topic, how beautiful she looks. While Jackie stares into the empty room, not bothering to close her eyes to help bring sleep, Nasira moves closer to Harlan, tucking her feet neatly beneath her like a cat wrapping its tail along its leg, conforming her body to the space he makes for her against his side, under his arm. While Jackie hates herself for her dissatisfaction and selfishness, for her inability to release the past, for her thoughts that will not unhook from the happy couple, the happy couple is thinking of nothing other than each other, and pleasure.
CHAPTER 13
October 2010
Jackie gave Harlan an ultimatum, overdue by at least a year by her reckoning. Seeing each other two and a half days per week for two years was reasonable, allowing for their busy schedules. Allowing for Harlan, she waited another year. They were out for dinner celebrating their third anniversary when Jackie brought up the subject of living together.
“Why?” he asked. “Are you unhappy?”
“No. Not at all. I’d like more happiness.”
He smiled. “Ah, but if you try to maximize ‘happiness,’ you might inadvertently decrease something else.”
“Like what?”
“The need for solitude. Autonomy.” He paused and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “The ability to tolerate the foibles or even the unsavory qualities of the other person.”
“You have unsavory qualities?” She was sure he was joking and played along.
“We all do. And not being totally enmeshed with another person keeps them submerged.”
Jackie laughed. “You sound like you’re talking about Mr. Hyde.”
His tone was pleasant but he didn’t laugh. “Only a little.”
In rehearsing this discussion, Jackie had resolved to not be deflected. Harlan was an expert at deflection. “I’m serious, Harlan. We’ve been together for three years.”
He reached for her hand and held it gently. “You’re right. Three perfect years.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her fingers, never taking his eyes off hers, then released her. “We should celebrate with more than dinner. How about a trip?”
She ignored the heat in her cheeks. “A trip is not cohabitation.”
“Indeed. And neither you nor I are ordinary people. Let’s do what suits us, not what is supposed to come next.”
He spoke with assurance, and it was flattering to be categorized as extraordinary, so Jackie let it go. Or, rather, she stepped to the side of her own proposal. She was happy with him as they were. Why change a winning strategy? Besides, in three years she’d be
up for tenure, so she only had two years to complete the studies and write the papers the department would evaluate. Once that hurdle was cleared, she could breathe and think about making bigger changes. She was only thirty after all.
Harlan noticed the shift in her and smiled, lighting his eyes. “So, my dear Jackie. Where would you like to go?”
In May 2013, at the end of her sixth year at Adams, Jackie received the email from the department chair informing her she had been awarded tenure. She treated Harlan to an elaborate dinner at Chopin to thank him for everything he’d done to support her over the previous five years. It had been considerable, beyond what any colleague or friend would have done. He had supported her every step of the way, never overstepping or intruding on her process or her decisions, but always there with a hand at her elbow, and a word of encouragement or a morsel of advice in her ear. He read drafts of her papers and grant proposals, spitballed study design ideas with her, walked her through the procedures for submitting her studies to the Institutional Review Board, the university committee that oversaw the ethical conduct of experiments. When Jackie had been a new assistant professor, Harlan had sketched the interpersonal dynamics of the department for her. “We are a large family, and dysfunctional like all the others,” he said, smiling. He was correct, of course, and Jackie’s insider knowledge of the faculty—their sensitivities and peccadilloes—gave her a leg up.
Jackie wondered at times whether she would have made tenure without Harlan. Perhaps it was only impostor syndrome, so common as to be banal, but nevertheless, Jackie did wonder.
Across the table at Chopin, Harlan listened as Jackie thanked him. He looked very handsome that night, softened by the indirect lighting, the polite hush of the room, the glittering crystal filled with deep-red wine. He had shaved carefully and wore a new shirt in navy, his best color.
“I’m rambling,” Jackie said, as she lifted her glass. “Thank you, Harlan. For everything.”
He smiled, and she thought, in that moment, her life had never shone brighter. They touched glasses and drank.
Harlan reached under his chair and presented her with a wrapped box, a four-inch cube. For a split second, she thought it might be a ring. Her heart lurched, then recovered. Of course it was not a ring. This was Harlan and Jackie, not a rom-com.
“But this dinner is for you.”
“In that case, you can wait to open it.” He grinned with mischief; her impatience was legendary.
“If you insist—”
“I did nothing of the kind.”
She snatched the box from him and untied the ribbon. “Too late. I’ve started now.” She removed the wrapping and opened the box stamped with Bell & Ross in gold. Inside was a rose-gold watch with a black face and a black alligator band. “It’s stunning.” Tears filled her eyes. He’d given her beautiful gifts before, but nothing as magnificent as this. She came around the table and kissed him, a long, full kiss. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. If it’s not exactly your taste, feel free to exchange it. I won’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Six weeks later she would leave the watch at his house and not return. She would also leave the toiletries she kept in a drawer in his bathroom and the bathrobe in his closet. The pathos contained in those few items—that there were so few—was enormous. She removed the watch as she backed out the door, venomous with anger, eyes flooded with tears, and threw it in the bird’s-eye maple bowl in which Harlan stashed his keys. The watch no longer represented the achievement of tenure or Harlan’s pride in her but everything she had given up to arrive at that moment, everything she would never get back.
Grace gave birth to the twins, Michael and Maria, on June 1, two weeks after Harlan gave Jackie the watch. Hector was behind on a project for an important client, and with Daniel barely two years old, Grace needed help. Their mother, Cheryl, clucked in sympathy, but offered nothing more.
The timing was perfect for Jackie. Classes were over, and her research was in a slow part of the cycle, but Jackie would’ve made time regardless. She packed a bag and her laptop and moved in to care for her niece and nephews and her sister. Michael, the smaller of the twins, developed digestive problems, Daniel was acting out from having to share his mother, and Grace was a zombie. Jackie stayed three weeks.
Harlan was not amused. After the first week, he called Jackie to announce he had tickets for a new play at the Woolly Mammoth the next night.
“I’m here, Harlan. Until I’m not needed.”
“I see.”
“I’m glad you understand.” Jackie moved her phone to the other ear, away from the squalling Maria. “You’re welcome to visit. It’s not far.”
“I’d prefer to see you here.”
“Up to you.”
He called every few days, seeking to entice her with restaurants, movies, even a trip to Chesapeake Bay. This last offer signaled desperation.
“I miss you, too, Harlan.” Jackie wasn’t sure if that was honest; she was too exhausted to miss anything other than sleep. “Drive down and I’ll make some time for you.”
A long quiet moment passed. “Let me check my schedule.”
He drove up to the house at noon on a Friday. Jackie was outside playing ball with Daniel. He had gotten bored with rolling it back and forth, and was now kicking it. The sight of Harlan’s car distracted him midkick, and he stumbled over the ball, landing hard. Before he could start crying, Jackie scooped him up. “You’re fine, big guy.” She smoothed back her hair, which she had styled for the first time in two weeks, and she was fairly confident her shirt was still clean.
Harlan met her on the walk and kissed her. “Wonderful to see you finally, Jackie.”
“You too.” He smelled delicious. “Let’s go in and you can meet the babies and say hi to Grace.”
“Sure, for a bit. I was hoping to take you out to lunch.”
He hadn’t mentioned this before. “Sounds good, but I’ll have to see how everyone’s faring.”
She opened the screen door and set Daniel down. He toddled over to his mother, who was swaddling one of the babies on the couch, probably Maria. Jackie had a vague memory of putting that yellow onesie on her earlier. The baby was kicking and red-faced. Daniel made a grab for the blanket, but Grace deflected him with a tickle to his belly.
“Hey, Harlan.” Grace lifted the cocooned Maria onto her shoulder. The baby closed her eyes, peaceful.
“Hello, Grace. Congratulations.” He stood rooted in the entryway. Jackie followed his gaze as he took in the blizzard of toys, diapers, dishes. She had tidied the room before she’d gone outside with Daniel, but in a house with small children, entropy is queen.
“Thanks. You guys going to grab lunch somewhere?”
“Only if you can spare me.” Jackie collected the dishes and carried them to the sink. “Can I make you something, Grace? A sandwich?”
“I’m fine. I just finished that breakfast burrito you made. Scrumptious, by the way.”
A mewling came from the den, where the newborns slept in bassinets during the day. Or not.
“I’ll change him and then sneak out,” Jackie said.
“Great. I’m putting this one down and grabbing a quick shower.”
“I’ve got her, Grace.” Jackie took Maria from her sister and rubbed her back.
Grace spoke to Daniel, who was stacking blocks into the bed of a toy truck on the living room floor. “You be good for Uncle Harlan for a little bit, okay?” She smiled at Harlan, who nodded, and went upstairs.
The cries from the den grew louder. Jackie said to Harlan, “Five minutes, ten tops.”
“I’ll be here.”
He smiled at her, but his impatience—or was it discomfort?—was obvious. Whenever they’d visited Grace and Hector, there had always been four adults and one child—Daniel. Jackie noticed Harlan didn’t go out of his way to interact with the boy, but many men had little interest in babies or small children. Given that Harlan didn’t spe
nd time with children, it was hardly surprising that two newborns and a toddler might be excessive.
Jackie carried Maria into the den, placed her in the empty bassinet, and picked up Michael, who was howling. Jackie swayed and rubbed his back, but he would not be soothed. Afraid he might wake his sister, Jackie grabbed a couple of diapers and the wipes from the changing table and went out into the hallway. The baby quieted, probably from the change of scenery.
“Okay, okay, my little man,” Jackie whispered in his ear. She planned to change him in the downstairs bathroom, but as she passed the opening to the living room, she paused to check on Harlan and Daniel.
Harlan sat on the couch, in profile to Jackie, his phone in his hand, scrolling. He hadn’t noticed her. Daniel stood two feet from Harlan’s knees holding a blue plastic square in one hand and a yellow box with different-shaped openings on each side, only one of which would accommodate the blue square.
“Help,” Daniel said as he pushed the square against the wrong hole. “Go in. Go in.”
Harlan glanced at Daniel and returned his attention to his phone.
“Help.” Daniel hit the square against the yellow box. “Please!”
Harlan ignored him. The boy stepped closer and gently placed the box on Harlan’s knee.
Jackie held her breath.
Harlan fixed Daniel with a look that made Jackie’s blood run cold. The box fell from Harlan’s knee with a clatter. Jackie took a step back in the hallway, her heart beating in her ears. What had she just witnessed?
Michael squirmed in her arms. She talked to him, loudly enough for Harlan to hear. “It’s okay, Mikey. I’m going to change you now.” She passed behind the couch on her way to the bathroom and called to Daniel. “Everything okay, Daniel?”
The boy gave Harlan a sidelong glance. “Hungry.”
Harlan picked up the box from the floor and held it in front of Daniel. “Why don’t you give it another try?” He swiveled to face Jackie and winked. Just Uncle Harlan bonding with little Daniel.