“I was going to make toast,” Jane said, “but somehow I have a compulsion to get one of those donuts my neighbor is yelling about.”
David sat with his back against the tree while Jane lay perpendicular, her head on his thighs, a thick cotton blanket beneath them—a blanket he’d warned couldn’t be very clean.
“It smells like sunshine. Sunshine and childhood picnics.”
David smiled at that idea and then said, “You do know that you need to finish the story about your marriage, right?”
“I know. I’m not really trying to dodge you. I’m just out of practice talking about it. Thankfully. Where did I leave off?”
“Imperiled.”
“Oh, yes. Twenty and stupid.” She was speaking in a sort of detached voice. “So we fell in love and it was insane. Those first few months, I hardly slept. Couldn’t eat. I did still study—he barely needed to study, but he always cooperated when I set limits.” She grimaced. “We graduated and got married on the same day.”
“Really?”
She shrugged. “Uh-huh.”
“What did your parents think?”
“They didn’t know anything about him from high school. I never confided in my parents. Did you?”
David smiled at the thought. “Never.”
“And mine split up right after I left for college,” she said. “They were completely wrapped up in themselves. It wasn’t like they even knew enough to warn me about anything. After college, Charlie and I were both working and, after about two years, I found out about two infidelities. Remember the old Star 69… before caller ID?”
David nodded.
“I was stunned and not stunned. Maybe I was most surprised at his carelessness. We went to therapy. He only vaguely blamed me. We got through it. People think they’ll leave at the first whiff of an affair. But they don’t. Maybe I understood who he was and expected to be tested. Then there were eight or nine years that seemed good—maybe he was even faithful. But technology intervened again. He was one of the first people I knew to get voice mail at work.”
“Where did he work?”
“I know you can guess.”
“Detail man for a pharmaceutical company?”
“Close. Keep going.”
“Successful salesman of expensive cars.”
“Close but not snazzy enough. He sold money. Or sold trust is more like it. He managed people’s investments. You’d think he would be too young, but he was great at it—honest, intuitive, could practically predict the future. We lived well, or at least we weren’t poor, and I was able to go to grad school.”
“Until voice mail?”
She sat up now, cross-legged and facing him, her expression more dogged than emotional. “Yes, voice mail and then a cell phone. And the internet—he got a laptop and never brought it home. They provided the perfect anonymous, private world for him. He thought he had a way to amuse himself without losing me. He wasn’t counting on the craziness of his women. Remember, everyone falls in love with him. Dumb narcissists keep all the attention on themselves. Smart ones turn the attention on you. Charlie is a very smart narcissist—and beautiful. He’s aged like George Clooney, I hear.”
David decided not to go out of his way to see photographs. “So, all this time, you’re happy and you think you’ve passed some kind of test after getting through the first infidelities.”
“It really sounds moronic, doesn’t it?” Her voice became more animated. “One day a woman knocked on the door, all dressed up and holding out his briefcase. She tried to pretend she was flustered to see me, but somehow I knew she knew I existed. I just took the briefcase and said, ‘You’re welcome to my husband—he’s available as of 11 p.m. tonight,’ and I shut the door.”
David thought he saw her blush and then she added, “I should probably tell you that after I found out the first time, I never had sex with him without a condom even though it made him really mad. I think somehow I never felt we were alone, just the two of us.” She paused. “But condoms only work for certain things.” She made full eye contact with him and gave him a smile. Maybe he had been wrong about her blushing.
“He was repentant—by that, I mean he was terrified, agonized. I was a ‘great wife—the love of his life,’ etc. etc. I got a list out of him, but I knew it was only partial. After a certain point, does the number matter? So back to therapy we went—but to a different therapist. I was worried a woman would fall for him like our first therapist did, though she hid it well. The new guy pretended to sympathize with me, but I could tell he envied Charlie.”
“Shouldn’t a therapist be able to not show it?”
“Go figure.”
“So when did you know you were done?”
“At the third session—the third session—the therapist asked how I was going to be able to start moving past this, and I stood up and said, ‘The only thing wrong with this marriage is that there aren’t three more of me: a redhead, a blonde, and a lesbian’—and I left, slamming the door. I couldn’t believe I had become one of those people that exits a therapy room slamming the door, but it did feel good. I knew a lawyer in the building and I found her office. They let me see her immediately, and I did that crying where you drench yourself, and between sobs, I told her what I knew, and she said, ‘I think this is your time: no kids, you’re not pregnant, do not let him near you, do not let him touch you.’ And I looked at her and said ‘I hate him—get me out fast and I want some money too.’ We shook hands and she hugged me and I stopped crying and she said, ‘Listen, no last fuck. Maybe he’s never wanted kids before, but he’ll want one now. And then you’ll be married forever.’ ”
Jane shrugged. “It took a few months for him to go through his bag of tricks, but then he gathered his dignity and we had a good divorce.” She gave a deep sigh. “Rookie mistake.”
David couldn’t think of anything to say. Her story was too beyond his experience.
“Then I moved here to join my friend Lucy and we started the business.”
He pulled her to him, made space against the big tree for her, and they sat, her head against his shoulder. An ant walked by carrying a heroic burden. They studied it, like children, and David said, “I can’t remember how they do that. I used to know.”
They lay down and soon slept. At five o’clock, he woke, startled, and when he woke her, she again seemed surprised she had trusted him enough to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On their fourth date, he brought Jane to the house. While he fiddled with the front door key, he said, “Remember the old standard—sex on the third date?”
“Too late for that bit of etiquette.”
“But for us, I think you coming to the house—that’s our milestone.” He unlocked the door. “It’s just us. The guys would never drop in. They’re hours away and they always call first.”
They went inside and she began studying the art on the walls, then every photo and object. She stopped at a built-in bookcase and read titles. “It’s lovely,” she said. “I expected more of a dusty mausoleum.”
“Kate told me early on, ‘I don’t need an oversized or expensive house. I just need to like everything—everywhere I look.’ Plus, I cleaned.”
“And bought flowers.”
“I know this is weird for you, but let me you take you on the full tour. Let’s get it over with and then you can run if you want.”
“Do you truly not see that this is weird for you too? How can I ever know you if I don’t know what you lost?”
“That’s easy. Just circle the answer that says ‘almost everything.’ ”
She paused at a row of albums, neatly labeled one through fourteen. He pulled out the latest half-filled book. “Once I saw how much time the boys spent paging through them, I’ve tried to keep them up. There’s two of you in this one.”
He put the album back. “We can look at those later if you want. Let’s finish the house.” They continued through the now unused dining room and then the kitchen. She walk
ed slowly, touching the fabrics.
“Is this where you lived when the kids were born?”
“Yes. Except for two years in our first ratty apartment, this was it.” He took her hand. “I should probably show you the part that’s not so great,” and he opened the back door to lead her to what used to be the garden.
“Oh,” Jane said.
“I’ve kept up the front for the neighbors’ sake, but I lost heart for this.”
“It is a little depressing.”
“I know. It’s weird what happens to a garden as soon as you turn your back.”
“Maybe I can help you figure out a lower-maintenance plan,” Jane said. “You might have to hire some jobs out. I’ve noticed you try to do everything yourself, but I realize that might be the result of the assisted-living and a son-in-college expenses.”
“I also help Dylan a little bit with grad school, though he tries to refuse it. He’s finishing his second year. Jack’s almost done with sophomore year. But I’m doing okay as far as money goes. We pretty much banked Kate’s paychecks, and she made decent money. Though I do have the need to have an ever-growing stash of emergency savings. I’m always waiting for emergencies.”
“Well, they do happen.”
They returned to the kitchen and each had a glass of wine. Afterward, as they climbed the stairs, she carefully looked at the framed photos. First he showed her the guest room and the boys’ rooms, which were now neat and orderly but not redecorated. Kate would have done that by their first full week in college, he thought, but didn’t say out loud. They went to his room. She walked around it slowly. He led her to an oversized, upholstered chair, pulled her onto his lap and kissed her.
“Are you sure? That this is where you want us to be?”
“I am. I want something good to happen here again.”
“Well,” she said. She stood and took off her clothes, then pressed herself against him. “Then this is what we’ll do unless you tell me to stop,” but he didn’t say anything then, or later that night, and neither did she, save for the one time she asked why he was grinning.
“Because I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, and then they were silent again.
In the morning, David woke to the sound of a barking dog and remembered it was Saturday. The dog probably barked every morning, but he only noticed it on weekends when he might have thought of sleeping in.
“What is that god-awful noise?” The question was muffled by the pillow Jane had placed over her head.
“It’s a beagle.” If she knew anything about dogs, that was explanation enough.
“You poor man. You really have been cursed, haven’t you?”
“It’s a sign we should get up.”
“Do you want me to leave? I would understand if it’s too strange for me to be here in the morning.”
“No, I don’t want you to leave. Don’t be silly. I just want us to get away from that goddamned dog!” He bellowed the last three words, standing naked at the window, and surprising himself by not caring if he looked old or ridiculous in front of her. He felt a familiar feeling and searched for the right word. Then he realized what it was—married.
Soon the dog quieted and, though they had brushed their teeth and gathered up some clothes, they stopped, looked at each other questioningly, and went back to bed instead.
Afterwards, lying there companionably, she said, “You know, you made me tell you about my horrific marriage and my spartan sex life before Charlie, but your unmarried years are a total blank to me.”
“Well, I was a guy. You get that part, don’t you?” She kicked him lightly. “There was the usual number of women before Kate—usual for those post-revolution amoral times. All of it was fun—some of it was great.”
“I missed most of that—connecting with Charlie so young—marrying so young. So it was fun, huh?”
“Oh, yes. But no sacrifice to give it up. The relationships weren’t so great. If she wasn’t nutty, then her ex-boyfriend was. Or her mom had moved in with her. It was always something. The few women that I thought were wonderful dumped me, of course. Anyway, all that variety is for the young and unattached.”
“It sounds like you’re fully prepared to get used to me—and then bored by me—but that it will be okay,” Jane said, showing no signs of being offended. “That seems like a pretty healthy attitude.”
He reached under the sheet and pulled her onto him. “It may take lots and lots of this to habituate to you, so I’m going to get to work on that now.”
“You talk like a professor.”
“Bad thing?”
She lowered herself to kiss him.
The dog barked twice and howled once. “Ignore, ignore, ignore,” Jane said as she ground her hips into him. He didn’t have many moments when he wished he were young. He’d like to stop getting old, but he didn’t long to be young. Still, right now he missed the young him. There was no way he could go again. Though he knew he could find some way to be useful to her.
David slept for a few minutes and woke to find Jane looking at him. He made a move to get up, but she touched his back and said, “No, wait. I want to ask you something. I’m not sure how to put it. Your marriage sounds so healthy, almost perfect. But you must have argued—everyone does. Well, except Charlie and me. We didn’t have enough closeness to warrant an argument, and all his energy went into making me think everything was good. He was so agreeable and adoring, what was there to argue about? But you and Kate had a real marriage. It couldn’t always be good.”
He knew he lived in a state somewhere between divorced and widowed, so perhaps he could answer without feeling disloyal. He had the thought that she might not want to be involved with someone who viewed his former marriage as perfect, without conflict or even irritability. “We probably argued a normal amount,” he said, “I mean normal for people who didn’t have a lot to argue about. She thought I was too lenient with the boys, and I thought sometimes she was too bossy with them, though she was usually right. In any given conflict, she didn’t care whether they liked her. I always wanted them to like me and wanted them to see my inherent, un-parent-like coolness.”
“I can see you doing that.”
“We only had one major fight. At a party, Kate drank too much, which normally never happened—it was a very boring university retirement party, so I understood. But she let this asshole flirt with her, and flirted back. And let him touch her. Not kiss her or anything but touch her the way aggressive guys find an excuse to do.” He shifted his weight and checked out Jane’s expression. She wanted to hear more. “I told her she should have known he was only doing it to get at me. He was the only one in my department who was openly resentful when my book got made into a play. I mean there was the most minor and fleeting flurry of attention on me, but he couldn’t stand even that. He was chair at the time and terrible at it—talk about the inmates in charge of the asylum.”
“Like what?”
“It’s all too subtle to describe and it would just make me sound paranoid.” He grimaced as he remembered how he had begun to think of uprooting the family to get away. “Eventually, he stepped down as chair. I always wondered if someone blackmailed him into it. They got an acting chair and added a little money and then I took it on. But that all came later. Back to this night. After I took the sitter home, I told Kate that she should have known he was only flirting with her to harass me. Using the word ‘only’ was a bad choice. You can’t tell your drunk wife that some asshole didn’t find her irresistible.”
“Bad marital etiquette.”
“She insisted I was jealous, which made me furious. I remember yelling, ‘I’m not jealous—I’m humiliated that you let yourself be used like that.’ Then she was insulted that I wasn’t jealous. All the yelling was very George and Martha. I threw a book. Can you imagine me defacing a book? The boys woke up and were scared, so we had to concoct a less awful explanation.” Jane looked curious. “Something about Dad thought someone was hurting Mom, so he was
rude to the man and Mom got mad at Dad because, in fact, the man wasn’t hurting her—just telling her a story.”
“And they bought it?”
“They were so grateful for a way to believe their lives weren’t coming apart.”
“When you think about children who constantly live through worse battles…” Jane said.
“It scared all of us. I have to say, it was our only truly nasty fight. Really, we’re both peacemakers.”
“Thank you for telling me. It sounds awful, but also like a normal kind of fight—fought honestly. It’s not the worst thing to show your sons that people can fight ugly on a rare occasion and still be really good together.”
“I believe that about other couples and other children, but all I know about us is that we frightened our kids.”
Jane kept silent.
“I like to think they don’t remember.”
Picking up Jack made the trip longer, but Dylan didn’t trust Jack’s car. When he’d repeated Jack’s description of the new rattle to their dad, he got only a vague response. Vague would be a good word to describe him lately. Better than depressed.
Jack was waiting for him on the porch or, “couch showroom,” as he liked to call it. Dylan got out of the car thinking he might use the bathroom, but when he looked in through the screen door, he saw two bodies prone and another sitting upright but asleep.
“Let’s leave now before any ambulances get called,” he said. “We’ll stop on the way.”
After they got on the highway, Jack nudged him and said, “So, fully grown-up big brother, are you seeing anybody?”
Dylan opened his mouth to answer but then stopped. This wasn’t a typical Jack question. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to tell Jack. Maybe it was too soon. The only girlfriend he’d introduced Jack to had left him not long after. He thought she had sort of flirted with Jack, who didn’t take the bait. And then it was over—though that was just after they’d had sex. Two weekends. Three times. He’d held onto the fact that she’d at least stayed with him one more weekend after the first time. He had liked her enough to picture them being together through his last year of high school.
The Half-Life of Everything Page 6