Being Known

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “My usual.”

  He stood by the door with a blank look on his unshaven face.

  “Lemon chicken and brown rice.” I didn’t mind refreshing his memory; the poor guy still looked wiped out.

  “Okay. I’m going to call it in now so we can eat early tonight.”

  After Joel went inside and Alex was squirming to get off my lap, it did strike me as odd that Joel didn’t remember my usual. Every time we had ordered from China Palace for the last half-decade, I’d always gotten the same thing.

  How did he not know that about me?

  Alex kept reaching for the chaise lounge chair next to mine. I picked him up and stretched awkwardly to plop him on the cushion. He put his little hands on the armrests and stretched out his legs like a child prince, ready to rule from his cushy throne.

  With my young rajah content to sit by himself and kick his heels on the cushion, I reached for my phone and debated whether I should open the word-game app I had loaded earlier that week. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Joel was inside and then stopped myself and put my phone down.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I tried to understand the round of conflicting emotions sparring inside. The boxing match began last Friday when I chose to “accept” GAREBEAR’s message.

  It had been such a simple tap of the finger and yet what a rush of unexpected memories and rogue emotions had run through me as a result of that one decision.

  Even though I accepted Garrett’s invitation to connect, I didn’t look at his note right away. I thought all that afternoon and evening about what I should do. It wasn’t until late that night when everyone was asleep that curiosity got the best of me.

  His message was, If having me there is uncomfortable for you, I can enroll Violet in a different class.

  I didn’t reply. I kept thinking about the conversation we’d had at the last DOE gathering and how Tess was trying to figure out what to do about “Guy.” Her situation was different. Very different.

  However, to be on the safe side, I maintained the boundary of not responding to Garrett. My thinking was that he didn’t know I had seen his note, and since he would probably be at the class on Monday, I could make it clear that his presence didn’t affect me one way or the other. He didn’t need to take any heroic actions to ensure my comfort.

  That was the end of it. Or so I thought.

  When Monday came, Eden stayed home from ballet class because she was still sneezing and coughing. I noticed that night that Garrett had messaged me again right after class. Apparently, he could tell that I had accepted his invitation and that I had read his first message. He wrote that he was concerned because we weren’t there and wondered if I had gone ahead and enrolled Eden in a different class. He said he was willing to pull Violet out and put her in another class, but now he wanted to make sure he didn’t put her in the same one I might have moved Eden to.

  Oh, brother.

  That’s all I could think about for the next four or five hours. Right before I went to bed, I was tired of thinking about his message, so I finally typed back, No need to change classes. My kids were sick this week.

  I was surprised at how normal it felt to reply. Why had I made such a big deal of this? It was like sending a text to my brother or giving one of Joel’s sisters a quick update.

  Garrett came back right away with a message that said, Kids??? More than one?

  I typed back that we also had a son who was almost fourteen months old. I added a line that I often included when I told anyone about Alex and said that he had been an “unexpected home birth baby.”

  Garrett replied with three question marks.

  I immediately wished I hadn’t added that last part. I closed the app and decided I didn’t need to answer his question marks. If he was at the next class and if it felt natural and not weird, I could explain then how Alex was born.

  Better yet, if his wife was there and if the topic came up, she and I could swap birthing stories. It would all be as normal as with any old family friend I happened to connect with after a long absence.

  That plan made sense for a while. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that the most natural way to ensure that things didn’t feel weird the next time I saw him was to answer the question marks and not ghost him. It’s what I would have done if any other high school pal reached out to me and we were catching up on our lives.

  So late Wednesday night, while my ailing family was sleeping, I pulled out my phone and typed, I slipped in the kitchen and sprained my ankle. Paramedics delivered our son.

  I was alone downstairs on the couch. I had set it up as my bed for the second night in a row. Joel preferred it that way when he was sick. By his own admission he was a terrible patient. He was rarely sick, but when he was, he wanted everyone to go away so he could hibernate.

  I felt resolved after sending the message to Garrett and was about to put away my phone and turn out the light. I noticed, though, that Garrett had quickly replied, which surprised me.

  Why does that remind me of the time you took a digger on the dock at Lake Tahoe? No paramedics involved but plenty of drama.

  His words lit off a string of firecracker memories of the shared family vacation that had ignited our teenage attraction to each other when I was fifteen. I vividly remembered how Garrett had grabbed me by the shoulders and was teasing that he was going to push me into the lake. I pulled away, lost my footing, and tumbled into an awkward heap on the splintered wooden dock.

  He helped me up and kept his arm around my waist all the way back to the condo, where our parents combined their first aid skills and made sure I was comfortable on the couch.

  That was the first time Garrett kissed me. When no one else was in the room, he bent his tall frame over me and brushed his lips across my forehead as a sort of apology for being the initiator of my pain. Then he found Scrabble, the only board game in the vacation rental, and challenged me to a game. We played for hours.

  I realized I was smiling when I typed back, How could I forget? Scrabble saved that vacation.

  He responded with one word: Rematch.

  His next message was a link to the Word Wiz app. I downloaded it, and lying on the couch in the stillness of the night, I played an innocent first round and won. He initiated another rematch, and we started a second game. A green dot appeared by my name. When I clicked on it, I saw that he had messaged me through the comment feature on the game.

  I let you win that first round.

  Oh really? My quick reply felt quite natural.

  Between Tuesday and Friday I had won four games. I also had typed out several long replies to questions he asked in the comment section, where only the two of us could see. I told him how I had met Joel at a church event and how my husband had worked hard to get to where he was in his career.

  Garrett told me about the three miscarriages Tiffany had experienced and how Violet had been premature and had to stay in the hospital for the first two weeks. He told me that he and Tiffany had decided to move to Irvine so that she could pursue the career she had put on hold when they married.

  I knew how much Garrett always wanted a large family. “At least four boys,” he had said more than once when our conversations in high school had cautiously approached the edge of dreaming together about our future. I could almost hear the sadness when he typed out the words, Violet will be our one and only.

  Yesterday, through the private messaging feature, Garrett asked me about my love of painting. He said he hoped I hadn’t put it aside because I had too much talent not to keep it up. I told him art was only a hobby for me. He suggested it should become more than a hobby.

  I wondered if he had told his wife the same thing and that was why they had moved, for her to pursue her dream.

  Then he wrote a line that tore at my heart. Your mom would have wanted you to develop your
gift to the fullest. I hope you think about doing more.

  I responded with a thumbs-up emoji and put away my phone. My family was starting to feel better, so I knew this silent escape from my real life needed to come to a close. It was time to step away from the conversation. That’s when the sparring of my emotions began.

  Did I give Garrett too much information? Too much access to my life? What would Joel say if I showed him the messages and told him Garrett and I were playing an ongoing word game?

  After so many days of being the nurse, cleaning woman, cook, and comforter to Joel and the kids, I told myself that the communication and the game had been little more than two old friends catching up on each other’s lives. I was sure this was as far as our touching base would go. It had been a boon, really, because now when we saw each other again at Eden’s ballet class, all the uneasiness would be gone. We could simply be two parents saying hello without any uncomfortable conversations.

  I held to those conclusions and hadn’t checked the game app since last night.

  But now that I was here on the deck, relaxed and watching my son on the lounge chair next to me, I felt the emotional sparring come back. I liked playing the word game. I liked feeling that I was winning at something. I wanted to keep the Word Wiz game going. It didn’t matter if it was with Garrett or someone else. It would feel relaxing to play it right now, on this lovely evening, as I stretched out on the chaise lounge on our deck.

  Maybe later.

  I put my phone away and turned all my focus to my son, who had grown tired of being an infant Grand Pooh-Bah on his throne. He was on his belly, wiggling his way off the lounge chair with his chubby legs dangling over the side.

  “You can do it,” I told him. “Come on, clever boy. You’re almost there.”

  Alex finally committed to the descent, landed both feet on the deck, and turned to me with a victorious grin. He patted my leg, drooling and stealing my heart the way he was so good at doing.

  “Come here.” I scooped up my darling boy and covered him with kisses. Kisses on his cheeks, his ears, his tummy, the top of his dimpled hands. My efforts were rewarded with the world’s best belly laugh. My son could laugh himself to tears in seconds. It was the most delightful sound in the universe.

  The sliding door opened again, and Eden hopped over to us, adding her sweet little tickles to keep her brother giggling.

  I love my children so much. I love our little family and felt full of gratitude for all the ways that God had blessed us.

  I don’t need to develop my art to the fullest right now. Garrett was wrong. My mom would have wanted me to have this—to focus on my little ones while they’re young. I’m not missing out on anything.

  I glanced through the sliding door and could see that Joel was nearby. I tried to get his attention because I wanted him to come outside and join us. I wanted us to feel like a complete family. We had been living such separate lives for the past year. Something needed to change.

  He saw me. I motioned for him to come be with us. He shook his head. I told myself there could be a dozen reasons he wanted to stay inside. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to let it stop me from enjoying the adorableness of our two happy and now healthy children.

  Even though I tried not to fall into a funk because Joel wasn’t part of this moment, my joy felt cut in half. I rationalized that if he could choose to stay inside, I could choose to mentally return to my cave at night. I could keep sleeping on the couch and play word games all night if I wanted.

  When our Chinese food arrived, Joel readied the plates and put Alex in his high chair. I pulled all the boxes of delicious smelling food from the two bags and opened them on the counter.

  “Joel, I don’t see any lemon chicken.”

  “Lemon? No. I ordered orange chicken for you. Isn’t that what you asked for?”

  “I asked for lemon.”

  “Sorry.”

  I let it go. It didn’t matter. Not really. But as I ate, I realized how often I brushed aside little things for the sake of peace in our home. There was nothing wrong with the orange chicken. Everything I had ever tried from China Palace was good.

  What kept rolling through my thoughts that night when I was giving Alex his bath was that Joel wasn’t listening to me. Our communication wasn’t great. We knew that. But did he realize how often my words, my requests, were running past him like white noise?

  Would Joel ever tell me that he believes I have a gift with the art I create? Would he want me to develop it to the fullest?

  It was a painful question to ask, so I put it out of my thoughts and drew inward, as was becoming my habit.

  Joel went to bed early. I decided to go downstairs and start a playlist that I usually didn’t listen to. It included all the top hits from my high school years.

  I easily moved around in my beautiful kitchen since I didn’t have two little ones or their toys underfoot. I hummed along to the music and mixed the ingredients for sugar cookies that I planned to take to Tess’s. When the double batch of dough was ready, I rolled it into several small lumps and covered them with parchment paper the way my mom used to do before putting them in the refrigerator. The dough could chill through the night and would be ready in the morning for Eden to help me turn into oodles of heart-shaped cookies.

  I knew the DOEs would be talking about our words for the year since we didn’t get to them at our January gathering. I thought about how, if my word was love, was my verse the one from Zephaniah? I felt a little unsettled about having the verse from my mother’s gravestone as my word for the year. I reached for my Bible and journal. With a couple of taps, I changed the high school nostalgia music to some relaxing classical guitar music.

  After opening my journal, I wrote 1 Corinthians 13 across from where I had written the Zephaniah verse. Some of the verses from 1 Corinthians 13 had been read at our wedding. I looked them up in my Bible and wrote them down.

  Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous…

  The familiar sound of Alex crying came through the baby monitor. I checked and saw that he was thrashing around in his crib, so I hurried upstairs. When I opened the door, I could smell the reason for his trauma.

  “It’s okay, sweet baby boy. It’s okay.” I took care of the especially awful diaper and realized I had been pumping the poor little guy with extra juice for a week to help battle the cold. Now that he was better, I needed to cut back on the fruit.

  Once Alex was settled, I closed his bedroom door softly and stood in the dark hallway. I felt a familiar tug to go back downstairs and check my phone to see if Garrett had made another move on the word game. It struck me in an eerie way that this was where I had been standing a week ago when I tapped to accept his invitation.

  What if I hadn’t?

  I decided that all the communication with Garrett had been innocent. It was no big deal. But it was over. I needed to reenter my normal life now.

  Instead of sleeping on the couch and checking the word game, I returned to my bed and slipped in next to my peacefully sleeping husband.

  I knew that Joel planned to make an early exit in the morning to get to the restaurant and oversee the prep for the weekend. But I longed to curl up next to him and pull his arms around me. I wanted to be warmed by his bare chest and feel his even breath against my neck. I wanted to kiss him. It felt like it had been so long since he had kissed me. Now that his cold had rescinded, I wished we could be the way we were when we were first married and fell asleep tangled in each other’s arms.

  Once I was under the covers, though, I knew that if I made any movements toward him, he would wake. Joel needed to sleep. I told myself I could wait to feel fully known and loved once again by this man I had married.

  After all, love is patient.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning I got up at the same time Joel did. He was running late an
d gave me a rushed kiss.

  “I’ll have time off soon,” he said. “I promise.”

  “I know. I’m patient,” I said.

  He glanced at me for a moment and grinned. “Yes, you are.”

  It wasn’t exactly a declaration of his love, but I accepted his affirmation like a tasty bread crumb. He noticed. At least, when I reminded him, he saw me and realized that I was really trying my best.

  It was a good day. The kids were back to their energetic selves, and that made our morning cookie-making session a bigger mess than usual. Eden especially loved squeezing the frosting tubes and decorating her own special heart cookies. She decorated one for me, for her daddy, for her brother, and then moved on to one for GiGi and one for Poppy. When those were done, she reached for one more.

  “I think that’s all, Eden,” I said.

  “No! I have to make one for By-let.”

  I felt a pinch in my gut. How could I tell her it would be best if she didn’t get too close to her new friend?

  She reached for a second and a third cookie and added, “And for Hana and Cole.”

  I was glad her list of friends wasn’t limited to only Violet. I smoothed back her dark hair and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “You’re a good friend, Eden. It’s sweet of you to think of your friends and decorate cookies for them.”

  She turned her face to me and beamed. “I love my friends.”

  “I know you do, honey. I love my friends too.”

  I selected the best of the best sugar cookies that remained and smothered them with pink icing. When Eden was done, I used what was left of the accent frosting and added white dots and squiggles. In keeping with Sierra’s contribution of the initial mugs, I made sure there was at least one cookie with the first initial of all the DOEs.

  The finished cookies looked so cute on my floral-rimmed serving plate, a jolly little tea party waiting to happen at Tess’s nest that evening. I covered the plate with clear plastic wrap and had them ready to go when Christy arrived to pick me up. She texted that she was in our driveway with Gussie’s engine running. Sierra and Emily already were in the van. Joel was at work, and his parents had come over to watch the kids.