The Half-Life of Everything

by Deborah Carol Gang

  Jane arrived back at the table just as Tom said, “What I really get nostalgic about is drugs. I miss drugs. Sort of.”

  Lucy looked surprised. “Would you really smoke pot again?”

  Tom considered Lucy’s question seriously. “I mostly miss it when I watch people in movies getting high. But I’m not sure that’s the same thing as wanting to do it myself. And then there’s our teenager and soon-to-be-teenagers.”

  “I miss feeling a little out of control.” It was Kate who said this, but they all had wistful expressions.

  “I’m sure you all did acid,” Jane said. “I feel really unhip, but I never did. It wasn’t like I was being careful or good. I don’t remember ever getting a chance to turn it down.” She sat up straighter and said with some pride, “I remember cocaine, though. That was everywhere. Twice was enough for me. Erroneously inflated self-esteem is not my thing.”

  “God, yes,” David said. “I mean, no thanks.” It had been everywhere. Every party. Movie plots. It practically came out of the faucet. “I think I still have insomnia from my long weekend.”

  He and Kate exchanged a quick look. Their cocaine-fueled three-day binge probably hadn’t even been a binge by coke standards, but afterwards they agreed they were done. “I don’t want to go down this road,” Kate had said, and he said he thought that he had been following her, and she said, “I know that’s true. Let’s make new friends.” And from then on, it was alcohol and nothing else.

  Lucy turned Tom’s wrist over to look at his watch and he said, “Can you take care of the bill, Lucy, while I go do some business with the busboys?”

  “We can’t afford drugs,” Lucy said. “We have to pay the sitter.”

  David paid for Jane’s meal; he stopped her demurral with one firm gesture and then walked Kate to her car.

  “I’d say that the fun part outweighed the weird part by a lot,” Kate said. “But what about you?”

  “It did,” he said, and he could hear the surprise in his voice. “We had too much to talk about. I didn’t have time to worry the thing to death.”

  She gave him a chaste kiss, then he drove to Jane’s, stopping for gas first. The door was locked—Jane must have locked it out of habit, so he got out his key, but she reached the door before he needed to use it. She was wearing a black slip or nightgown—it was hard to tell—and her skin looked beautifully pale in the light coming through the windows of the dark kitchen. He set down his briefcase, newspaper, and sports jacket before embracing her. “Hold on a second,” he said, breaking away. He pulled out his phone and rifled through a drawer to find a charger. “Why don’t you wait for me in bed? I have to brush my teeth. And floss. Did you have something stringy stuck in your teeth too?”

  “I can’t talk about floss right now.”

  A few minutes later, he called out from the bathroom, “Do I have time for a quick shower?”

  “No,” she said, her voice firm across the distance to the bedroom. “You do not.”

  One day, David and Kate had a squabble and briefly disliked each other. By bedtime, he couldn’t remember what they’d disagreed about, but it felt like a necessary milestone had been crossed. Claire didn’t come for Thanksgiving, which was so normal that David had never mentioned the possibility to the others.

  When he finally told his parents the good news about Kate, they were effusive with delight, and he held his mother’s interest for an entire conversation, and part of a second one. There was no reason to tell them about Jane—he didn’t crave their attention that much.

  After their first visit, Bill and Eve called several times a day. David answered the first few times and they interrogated him until Kate reached the phone. She waited as he answered their questions in monosyllables before saying, “You know, she’s standing right here.” Then he started making up Kate’s memory feats. “She just recited an entire old ‘Mad Men’ script verbatim. She can multiply four digits by three digits in her head.” Finally, they laughed, and he put Kate on. “You have to talk to me like I’m normal or I’m hanging up,” she said.

  Kate still researched any event someone mentioned from her lost years, but on one Sunday, David watched her pay six dollars for the Sunday Times and read nothing but the Style section. Kate and Jane came up with a low-maintenance plan for the backyard, and the boys came home for Mother’s Day and dug. Sporadically, one of the insurance companies spat out a check to the L and Kate would spend three hours undoing the mistake. “Do you not understand this is me talking to you?” he heard her say once in disbelief.

  David took Kate to a dance club he had learned about by asking around, embarrassed but determined. She taught him some moves before they left the house, and they learned a few more during the quick lessons the host taught every half-hour. He was glad to be told exactly what to do. Driving home happily exhausted, they decided to go once a month.

  “Would you mind if this is something just you and I do?” Kate asked tentatively. “Not all dancing but dancing like this?”

  “God, I love you,” he said, without any explanation, and when she added, “though we should tell her, of course,” he said it again.

  Jane ran a 10K but then stopped training and went back to the treadmill. Running was too public. Good, David thought, glad as always to be a man, and guiltily aware of how thoroughly he studied women runners. He didn’t want her unsafe, and he didn’t want men looking at her.

  Jane’s friend Winston (he had changed his name from Bob) joined the three of them occasionally for movies or dinner when his big pharma boyfriend was traveling. Winston had a crush on David, which David didn’t seem to notice, and Jane never mentioned, knowing that Winston’s crushes were like a virus that would run its fevered, harmless course. One afternoon, David arrived at Jane’s and they cooked dinner together, went for a walk, and didn’t make love that night. One of them was too tired or had a cold. They talked into the night about his research or her new contract or something in the news too vexing to go unexamined. The next morning, she said, “I didn’t think that would ever happen,” and he said, “It always happens.”

  David came into the kitchen one evening, laden with the usual devices and bags, plus a bouquet of flowers. Kate was wiping fingerprints from cupboard doors, and it took her a moment to hear him over the earnest tones of public radio. She turned the volume down and started when she saw the flowers.

  “Is there an occasion?” She went to take them. “They’re gorgeous. These must be from Phoebe’s stall.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And no occasion.” Kate seemed more excited than flowers could account for.

  “I thought maybe you could read my mind,” she said.

  “I know we’ve established how bad I am at that.”

  Without telling anyone, Kate had interviewed for a half-time position at the university, and the offer had come through that morning. “It’s in the Biology Department, the collaboration with the linguistics program that we read about.”

  “Animal communication.”

  “Yes, Randall Trevino. He’ll have to call me support staff of some kind to free up a little of the grant money. I offered to work for free. Do you know what he said?”

  “No,” David said, feeling some small alarm.

  “He said I’m too young for that. He said maybe he’ll cut my pay later, but for now I need to be paid.” Kate was idly swiping at smudges. “It was kind of a strange interview. I don’t think he’s even hired anyone before. He actually asked me to name my biggest weakness.”

  He laughed. “What did you choose?”

  “I said that I talk too much and I interrupt people but that I’m always working on that. And I’m too honest at times so I hurt people’s feelings. Also, I can be impatient—like most of the time.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He started laughing halfway through. Then he asked for my biggest strength and I said I can usually make people laugh.”

  He congratulated her and then added, “If you have any thoughts o
f reapplying for your license, I’ll do anything I can to help you.” He wished he hadn’t said that.

  Sounding both sad and resigned, she said, “I don’t think so. If I don’t trust myself, then I wouldn’t be very persuasive. At least I can’t kill anyone in the new job. I’m not even working with animals—just coding the video. The animals are in a sanctuary in Georgia.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and he was. She sounded determinedly cheerful, but he could guess how it felt to go from helping women with something as powerful as birth to observing other people’s work. His thoughts were also on Trevino. David was vaguely aware of the man, having seen him interviewed on “Nova” shows and local TV. He couldn’t remember how old he was or anything about his reputation with women. Without meaning to, he laughed out loud. “Are you making fun of me?” Kate asked.

  “Absolutely not. I’m ridiculing myself for thinking I can control or predict anything. Or anyone. And for never knowing what you’ll do next.” Maybe Kate’s boss, or an older student, would fall for her and complicate David’s happy life. In her previous life, she had worked almost entirely with women, and that had been more of a luxury for him than he realized. Did he even know if he remained his familiar jealous self? Maybe he was changed too.

  “Mine is more haphazard,” Kate said, speaking of their house—hers and David’s—though she used the pronoun mine to be polite. It was a Sunday afternoon and Jane had stopped by to go through the calendar.

  “But it has life to it, even with the kids gone. Mine may be more perfectly decorated”—Jane drew the words out as if it was a criticism—“but it sometimes feels like a stage set—waiting.”

  “Well, you haven’t had young people putting your silverware down the garbage disposal and shooting baskets in the house.”

  Jane smiled. Apparently, David had never mentioned repairing her garbage disposal. She knew Kate didn’t mean there was damage or scars, but that houses have an essence. Her house used to feel fully occupied even if she was the only person there. That had changed, and sometimes it was only after David arrived, looking a little guilty and then pleased, that the house truly came alive. Need follows love. It always does.

  She had thought that just not losing him would be enough. And it usually was enough. Well, it was enough to prevent terrible pain. Was it enough for a full life? She didn’t know yet. Are busy and full the same? Sometimes she couldn’t be with David when she wanted to, but that was true for a lot of spouses.

  On the other hand, there had been a few times recently when she surprised herself by wondering what Kate was up to—and might David want to wander on home because she, Jane, was all talked out from her week of hearing sad things. The second time she went quiet on him, he noticed and said, “I know that look,” and went into work for three hours. When he returned, they made love and then watched a movie. She could be married to a lot of people who wouldn’t know her that well. Still, the future lurked, with its less busy years and unromantic needs that would multiply with speed.

  David came in through the garage and heavily put down a bag of water softener salt. Both women jumped a little. He poured himself a cup of coffee and refilled theirs.

  “We were going through the Symphony schedule,” Kate explained. She pushed the brochure towards him. “Do you think someday we’ll all want to live together?” she asked no one in particular, her tone idle.

  “But whose house? I really like my house. Too, I mean,” Jane said.

  “I love your house. And I love my house,” Kate said.

  “Now this is just an observation,” David offered, “but it is interesting that you’re willing to share me but not a house.” It really was just an observation. He didn’t necessarily mean to promote the idea of living together.

  “Is that what you want?” Kate said.

  He wanted to choose his words carefully. He felt, too often, like a guest at Jane’s house. He had explained this to her recently and told her he wanted to paint her laundry room. She had never gotten around to covering up a bad shade of mauve. “I need to change something—make it mine too. She said fine and he should surprise her. They laughed at the idea of her not caring what color he chose. Still, he couldn’t imagine the three of them living in one house. He supposed the schedule and the decision-making could stay the same, but there was no part of his mind that could picture the three of them roaming the halls like a Peter Sellers movie. Maybe later.

  He didn’t know much about the sex lives of the elderly, but it was his impression that things wane significantly. Not that he would wish for it, but maybe then they could live in platonic happiness, like siblings—siblings who chose each other.

  “I don’t think I do, for now,” he said. “Except for one thing.” They looked at him curiously and he realized his next words would disappoint them. “I hope to get old someday and my appetite for cleaning gutters and maintaining snow blowers and turning over packed soil might diminish.” Seeing Kate begin to speak, he added, “I know, Kate, you were going to learn how to do all that stuff in case something happened to me.”

  “And for the sake of fairness.”

  “Okay, but it never happened. And I don’t want to do half of all the stuff you do anyway.”

  “Like remembering your parents’ birthdays?”

  “Exactly. And donating to every food drive. And gifts.” He shuddered. “And all of the paperwork. Organizing the recycling. I missed you, Kate—every recycling day. Really, I just threw most of it away.”

  Jane listened to David tease Kate and wondered if she could be alone in one bedroom with the two of them in the next. How could anyone know such a thing in advance? No, she knew. She knew that what they had worked only because of the distance and privacy. This unlikely equilibrium would be easily wrecked.

  David and Kate seemed to be waiting for her to say something, so she announced, “I think this went very well for a first discussion, and I believe we can table this topic for now. I’ll make a note on the calendar that we can talk about it in a year.” She spoke in an exaggeratedly businesslike voice as the others laughed. “Wait. I just thought of something: In my defense, I have a snow plow guy now. We just haven’t had any snow.”

  “I did not know that,” David said. “And I realize you don’t ask me to do these things. I just can’t not help when I’m there. Or maybe I’m not there, but I think you need help. You are good with a shovel, though. But a snowplow guy—thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t care if it makes me sound old—thank you.”

  They were making love—not something that happened more than every two weeks or so. Kate, who like him, rarely spoke, whispered, “It’s okay if you have thoughts of Jane…I mean, I don’t want you to feel guilty. It’s not like we really control our thoughts. So, if you think about her when we’re…” Uncharacteristically demure, she finished with “doing this.”

  “Doing this?” David teased, mostly to buy some time before reacting. After the first time he had questioned her, he had only asked Kate once more if it hurt her to picture him and Jane. She had brushed off the question with I haven’t changed my mind. She had never asked him to buy a new mattress or even which side of the bed Jane had slept on. Didn’t she care? Did she want to needle herself? Perhaps she only cared about now. For now, she was healthy. Now her husband was in their bed. Now she was loved, and while their history and children were part of the equation, it was still love and not duty or handcuffs.

  He knew Kate would have let him leave and wished him well, but how can you leave a woman who loves you that much, and who you have loved and now love again? He had the thought months earlier, and it occurred to him, again, that she even took some degree of pride in the fact that he had fallen in with Jane, that he had been able to sidestep the highest order of correctness—and then pride again later when he said yes to something outrageous. She liked this new version of him—this man who could tolerate making people he cared about angry, who could withstand gossip of an unknown flavor—a man who would acc
ept more than his share.

  He never asked Jane about any of this either. He was certain she experienced something ranging from simple awareness to pain at the thought of him and Kate, and he also believed that she felt his absence, though she never let on. He was sure she would say, It was my choice and it’s my responsibility to deal with. He knew that Jane might find someone else, though he never had the sense that she was looking. If that happened, he planned to behave well, but as Kate liked to remind him, no one ever knows what they’ll do.

  He thought sometimes that if he had loved Jane more or better, he would have kept Kate’s offer to himself. He’d been selfish—or—he had let Jane make her own decision. There were two ways to look at it. But it was done, and he mostly succeeded in not thinking about losing her. He couldn’t make himself dwell on menace like he used to—except the fear of Kate relapsing. That was with him and, he knew, with her. She didn’t talk about his retirement or grandchildren or old age.

  Now, before he had a chance to answer, Kate said, “I think about her sometimes. Not that I’m making love to her, but that I am her and you’re making love to me—as her. I guess I’m just saying that we don’t need to pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  She had explained to him long ago that women are so inundated with the sexualized female image that they can easily picture being someone else. So their fantasy isn’t that they’re making love to another woman, but that they are another woman—being made love to by their husband—or whichever male they’ve invited into the fantasy.