by Maren Foster
“Nate’s out late tonight too,” I said. “Why don’t you stay?”
He nodded.
I set the table and poured another glass of wine. We sat down across from each other.
“So, how’s work?” I asked.
“It’s been good lately. I really like my new role. How’re things for you?”
“I don’t know. I should be up for a promotion this year. I’m overdue.”
“Well, I hope you get it,” he said raising his wine glass.
“Thanks.” I tapped my glass against his and took a sip of wine.
“So where’s Nate?” he asked.
“Not sure. He said he needed to work late tonight. Said he wouldn’t be home for dinner.”
“He works late a lot, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, bit of a workaholic I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nah, it is what it is,” I said.
We finished dinner and he kept me company while I did the dishes.
I woke up early the next morning. Nate was sprawled out on his side of the bed, snoring lightly. I slowly swung my legs around and climbed off the bed as quietly as possible. I tiptoed over to the dresser and slowly slid open two drawers to find my sports bra and yoga pants. As I pulled my bra on over my head, my eyes caught the mirror above the dresser and I saw Nate propped up against the headboard watching me.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning,” he muttered back. I continued to pull on my thong and yoga pants.
“What time did you get home?”
“Late. Sorry, you were already asleep.”
I nodded.
“Have you stopped going to yoga?” he asked. This was of course his way of pointing out that I had gained a few pounds since our wedding.
“I haven’t had time to go for a few weeks. I told you things at work have been pretty busy lately.”
“Why don’t you quit then?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s a little early for me to quit.”
“What do you mean early?”
“I mean I’m not even pregnant yet.”
“Yeah, but didn’t your doctor say that the pressure you are under at work may be making it harder to get pregnant?”
“He did.” Totally didn’t but Nate had bought that story without question. “But what if I don’t like it? What if I get bored?”
“Bored with what? Doing whatever you want?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh, I’m so tired of this. It’s exhausting. Can’t you just make up your mind already?” he said.
“Sorry. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Haven’t you been going to therapy? Isn’t that supposed to help you decide?”
“I have, but it’s not that easy.”
“Seems like you’re starting to lose it. You always seemed so sure of what you wanted before. This indecisiveness isn’t like you. I don’t know what’s going on, but please figure it out. I don’t want to be married to one of those crazy women.”
I nodded. Crazy like marrying your rapist for revenge?
“Oh, did you ask Jack about our marriage certificate?” I asked.
“No, sorry, I forgot.”
“Could you give me his phone number so I can call him?”
“I’ll call him today. I promise,” he said.
“I really need it to get things sorted out.”
“Sure.”
Liar! What are you hiding? What games are you playing?
After yoga I had brunch with Jenna, another young woman who was a regular and had been unusually friendly after the first couple of classes I attended. She and her husband had moved to the area about a year before after she had her second child. According to her LinkedIn profile she was “President of Domestic Affairs at The Holloway Residence”.
We ate at a small café near the yoga studio. She spent the majority of the time talking about her baby, but did ask me a few questions about how I was settling in and how I liked the area.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “My commute is much longer than it was before though.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m lucky that I don’t have to deal with that.”
“Yeah, my husband thinks I should quit my job.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asked.
To have some security and independence…then again, alimony is usually easier to get if you’re not working, especially in a state like Connecticut that still considers fault during divorce proceedings. “I’m not sure. My mom and my sister don’t think I should quit,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They think I should be financially independent, just in case.”
“Just in case, what?”
“You know, I end up alone for any reason.”
“Why would you end up alone? Your husband has life insurance, right?”
“Yeah, of course. I think they are just really cautious, that’s all.”
“You can always go back to work if you have to.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“And you want to have a family, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll probably be pregnant again in the next six months. It would be so fun to be pregnant together!”
“It would!” I tried to match her enthusiasm.
Nate was gone when I got home. I grabbed my laptop and began to do some research. Nate’s hesitation to get our marriage certificate from Jack was starting to worry me. It hadn’t occurred to me before the wedding that he might stage the whole marriage, but I was starting to wonder. Hadn’t I read about some famous British rock star who had done just that to his wife? They’d had a big wedding, were married by someone he recommended and then he conspired to have the required steps avoided so that they weren’t really married? Would Nate really try to pull something like that? I guess he is a bit of a commitment-phobe, but that seems pretty extreme, even for him. Still, I need to cover all my bases if this thing is going to work.
I searched the web for marriage law in Connecticut. I found a few helpful summaries with hyperlinks to various case law. I began clicking the links and skimming: Dennis v. Dennis, 68 Conn. 186 (1896); Catalano v. Catalano, 148 Conn. 288 - Conn: Supreme Court 1961; Carabetta v. Carabetta, 182 Conn. 344 - Conn: Supreme Court 1980. They all dealt with marriage but weren’t exactly what I was looking for. After more digging, I stumbled upon Perlstein v. Perlstein, 152 Conn. 152, decided by the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1964, which said, “A marriage ceremony, especially if apparently legally performed, gives rise to a presumptively valid status of marriage which persists unless and until it is overthrown by evidence in an appropriate judicial proceeding.” Hmmm, what does “a presumptively valid status of marriage” mean? And what does an appropriate judicial proceeding mean?
I clicked a link within the case law brief: Hames v. Hames, 163 Conn. 588, decided by the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1972. I skimmed the summary: “The policy of the law is strongly opposed to regarding an attempted marriage...entered into in good faith, believed by one or both of the parties to be legal, and followed by cohabitation, to be void.” Bingo! So we are married in the eyes of the law! Hah! He thinks he’s so smart, but for my purposes, it doesn’t matter whether he or Jack ever sent in the paperwork! No need to worry about getting the certificate or changing my surname after all!
The Breakdown
Friday, September 28, 2017
Manhattan
Friday morning I got to work early. I hadn’t checked my email since I’d left the night before, so there were a bunch of unread messages in my inbox. I quickly deleted about seven system-generated emails notifying me of new workflows. I responded to a couple of the easiest messages and ignored a couple more that I knew would be trouble.
At a quarter to nine, I heard the familiar sound of a key in the lock of my boss Ethan’s office door. “Wyn, coffee!” came at the usual time.
At first it had been small requests, like ‘Hey, Wyn. Could you grab that document
off the printer for me?’ when I was already going in that direction. They were reasonable asks, the kind of thing a good employee does without hesitation, but the next thing I knew, it was coffee first thing every morning, scheduling meetings that I wasn’t asked to attend, maintaining the staff contact list. I knew I was young, relatively early in my career, but I also felt like a caricature of an overqualified, underappreciated secretary, and that wasn’t even my job description. In the past, every time I’d had that thought I cringed, worrying that I was turning into Vi or Ali. At first, I actively resisted what I thought was just an ingrained cranky Feminist view of the world that Vi had instilled in me, but with every act of humble subservience I became more irritated, and overtime my resentment built.
I spent the hour before lunch prepping for a one o’clock meeting of the senior leadership team. I’d been asked to set-up and take notes. I settled in with my laptop at the end of the long table, out of the way but close enough to hear the discussion. The VPs and Senior VPs began to file in and make small talk about the weather, sports, and other mundane topics. Just a moment before the meeting started, Ethan and his boss, Alan, came in discussing the timing of a new product launch. As they sat down, I sat up a little straighter in my chair and rested my fingers lightly on the home keys.
The Chief Operating Officer commenced the meeting. “Thanks everyone for joining us today.”
As they were still settling in I heard Alan say, “Cup of coffee.”
I looked up. He was looking directly at me, expecting me to fetch his beverage of choice. The coffee station was in the corner across the room.
“Alan?” the C.O.O. said.
“I would like a cup of coffee, please,” Alan said, still looking at me.
“It’s in the corner as always,” I said, meeting his gaze.
“May I please have a cup? Two sugars, no cream,” he instructed.
“You may,” I said and didn’t move a finger.
He didn’t look away.
The silence in the room was deafening.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” an older woman mumbled as she got up to get Alan his coffee. Nancy was the only woman on the senior leadership team, head of Human Resources. As she fetched his coffee I wondered how many calls she’d had about him over the years, and if perhaps, despite her best efforts she knew he would never change. He did at least mumble “Thank you” when she handed him the cup, but it was hardly consolation. He’d had his way.
I took extremely detailed, diligent notes, almost word for word to distract myself. As the meeting began to wind down and the conversation devolved to tangential topics, I made sure to save my notes and then opened my email to see if anything important had come in. There was an email chain with initial thoughts about a marketing campaign that I’d been keen to get involved in. I was so absorbed catching up on the emails that I hadn’t noticed that most of the meeting attendees had packed up and either left or were nearly out the door.
“I’d like to see you in my office,” Alan said.
Am I going to be fired over the coffee thing?
I was startled by the heaviness of his hand on my shoulder. I looked around the room. Why is he touching me? We are alone. His hand lingered longer than it should have. He wasn’t actively massaging my shoulder, but he squeezed it in a way that was more than paternal. My skin began to crawl under his hand. Then, as I searched for the appropriate response, he turned and left the room.
The feeling that I’d just been a party to something wrong, something dishonest, swept over me. All of the things I could have said, should have said, played in my head. Get your hands off me. Don’t touch me. Do you know what sexual harassment is? They all seemed so extreme for what, I reminded myself, he might have thought was a harmless gesture.
I got back to my desk and tried to work but my mind wandered. Did he think it was okay because I hadn’t said anything? Does he know how uncomfortable that made me? If I tell H.R. what will he say? Will he just deny it or say that he didn’t mean anything by it? Maybe he’d say that it was just a harmless gesture from an old man? That when he was coming up at the company that kind of thing was completely normal, and he just couldn’t understand why Millennials were so sensitive?
Regardless, I couldn’t focus and there was no way I was willingly submitting to a one-on-one in Alan’s office, so I told my direct boss, Ethan, that I had a headache and went home early.
I walked into the house and found Nate sitting on a bar stool at the oversized kitchen island. He was leaning slightly forward, his tanned forearms resting on the counter in front of him. A glass of scotch on the rocks in his favorite Waterford crystal glass sat inches in front of his right hand. Across the island, Julia was leaning against the counter in a low-cut t-shirt with a glass of white wine.
“What’re you doing home so early?” I said.
“We were having a business meeting of sorts. I asked Julia to come over to discuss whether or not she would be willing to promote our new line of women’s skin care products that I told you about.”
There was a small bag with Nate’s company logo sitting on the counter in front of Julia.
“I’m just picking pick up some samples to see if the products are up to my standards for promotion,” she said.
“Oh, how do you select what you’ll sponsor or promote?” I asked.
“Well, it’s all about the product,” she said. “Whether I like the scent, the design of the packaging, the way the products make me feel when I use them.”
“So, not whether or not they actually work?”
“Well, of course that should be important, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. You know?”
I nodded.
“If I think other women will like a product, then I promote it,” she said.
“You’re home early,” Nate said.
“Yeah, I had a bad day at work,” I said.
“Did you quit?”
“No, but maybe I should have.” I circled around the island behind Nate, putting my hands on his muscular shoulders, like an adolescent laying stake publicly to a new crush.
He turned his head and gave me an obligatory peck on the cheek.
“Anyhow, I’ll let you get back to your meeting,” I said.
I headed up to my office and settled into the large brown leather armchair in the corner, which gave me a lovely view of a few treetops and, in the distance, a glimpse of the horizon where the dark water of the Sound met the stone grey sky.
My mind began to wander. Is he in love with her? Are they having an affair? Does Adam know?
I spotted Vi’s diary on the side table and picked it up, needing a distraction.
October 11, 1988
Shreveport, Louisiana. He almost blew it! I was downtown with Mom running some errands and he smiled at me across the Brookshire’s parking lot. She looked at me sternly and asked me how I knew him. I said that I didn’t and maybe he was just being friendly. She said that he is white trash and I shouldn’t be nice to him. I knew that dating him would upset her, but I didn’t realize how much!
October 21, 1988
Shreveport, Louisiana. We met up after school as usual and he handed me his helmet. I’ve been on the motorcycle once or twice before but not for long rides, mostly just around the block. I get a little scared when I’m on it because Dad said that his best friend from school died in a motorcycle crash, but it’s thrilling too! I understand now why people like to ride them so much. We drove to a little park out of town. It has a babbling brook running through it and he put his leather jacket on the ground for me to lay down. He laid next to me in the shade of a big willow tree. It started to get cold as the sun went down. He wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm. We talked about life and we kissed. He slipped his hand up under my bra and felt my boobs. I was worried that he would think they are too small but he didn’t seem to care. I think he really likes me! I told Ruth and Elizabeth and they said that he probably wants to have sex. They said that sex before marriage is a sin. T
hat’s exactly what Mom would say. I think it sounds exciting!
Jeez, this is getting interesting! I felt a little guilty reading about my mom’s first real crush, but couldn’t help myself.
November 10, 1988
Shreveport, Louisiana. I can’t believe Dad’s gone. He was here yesterday, sitting in that big worn armchair of his, and now he’s gone, just like that. And he was only fifty-one. Mom says that God works in mysterious ways and that even this tragedy will teach us something, but I hate it when she says things like that. It’s so unfair! If there’s a God, why do bad things happened? Why would good people die? He was the best dad ever! They were fighting more and more lately. Maybe she killed him! I don’t mean that. I mean, maybe all their fighting killed him. He loved her so much. Maybe the fighting broke his heart. Maybe he died of a broken heart. The doctor who came to the house said it was probably a heart attack.
The wake was today. The funeral will be on Saturday. I’ve already cried so much, I don’t think I can cry anymore. I would do anything to stop the pain, the aching inside. What will I do without him? Who will take me fishing? Mom and I are so different. She’s only interested in cooking and shopping.
It went on but I couldn’t read it. It made me sad to think about the grandfather I never met, leaving a middle-aged wife and a young daughter alone. Maybe that’s why Vi never married. Maybe she was scared of being left alone again. I guess I knew that her dad had died relatively young and I knew they’d been close, but his death must have been so hard for her.