by Laura Zigman
It takes just seconds between telling myself I can’t afford the seminar to justifying and rationalizing the expenditure beyond all measure—the $895 fee for the retreat itself (room and board for two nights at a plush nearby inn sold separately, and there is a link to a list of friendlier-priced Airbnbs and local hotels, too) isn’t exorbitant, it’s actually a bargain. What price could you possibly put on reconnecting with your creativity? I fill out the online registration form on my phone, find the one Visa card that hasn’t expired yet and that I’ve been saving for an emergency like this. Well, not quite like this—more like a dental emergency or, god forbid, a medical emergency—most likely some kind of mental health emergency outside the bounds of normal coverage—but why not a creative emergency? I pull the card out from the back of my nightstand drawer, where I keep it hidden, and fill in the payment information. Then, in the “additional information box,” I identify myself with my published-author credentials so that Sari Epstein will treat me with published-author respect when I get there. When I hit “send,” I think: Yes, this is why we’re broke, but what the fuck.
With the online purchase completed, I take a screenshot of the receipt and text it to Glenn:
Come with me on my Noble Journey. I’ll drive.
The idea of it as a spontaneous and fun girls’ weekend appears in my head like a fizzy bubble—but the fantasy of it pops and disappears when she declines with a single word:
Can’t.
I know she doesn’t have the energy to stay in a room and sleep while I’m out trying to cure my writer’s block. Part of me wants to stop right there—if Glenn’s too sick to go, then I don’t want to go, either—but I know that’s not an option. I have to start preparing myself for what’s coming, even though I also know that’s impossible. You can’t ever prepare yourself for that.
In the morning, after drop-off, I tell Gary about the workshop—and how the timing of it actually provides the perfect opportunity for us to take a short break from each other. “Given last night’s awkward revelation,” I spell out, “it’ll be good for both of us to have some time to think.”
“To think about what?”
“About what we’re doing.”
“And what are we doing?”
“Well.” I snort. “You’re having an affair.” I realize I don’t entirely believe his story about it being just a kiss. What sexually deprived husband who’s officially separated and has permission from his wife to have sex with other women would stop at just a kiss?
He snorts back. “I’m not having an affair! It was just a kiss, I swear!” He sits down at the table. “Look, nothing’s changed. We’re still separated. And we can’t actually separate. Except for that one thing, our situation is pretty much the same as it was before. Let’s not get crazy.”
But something has changed. He’s made a break for it. He’s done us each a favor by taking that first step. Is it possible that I feel relieved?
“It’ll be a quick road trip for Teddy and me, something we haven’t done in years,” I say, explaining that since Sari Epstein’s farm is only two hours from Boston and a few towns over from Gary’s mother’s house, which is right near Dartmouth College and on the Vermont/New Hampshire line, I’ll figure out an Airbnb or a cheap last-minute hotel, then drop Teddy there for two nights while I’m busy writing and drawing and coloring and meditating. “It’ll give us a chance to have time together in the car and go to all his favorite diners on the way there and back.”
It’ll also give me a chance to be without the dog for a weekend—now that the People Puppets can act as part-time dog-sitters, I can practice being slingless for when Lucy comes to live with us. I’ll tell Teddy after dinner. I know he’ll be as excited as I am.
* * *
“No, Mom.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I’m not going.”
“But you love our road trips!”
“I used to, but I don’t anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m different now. I just want some time alone!”
“But you’re always alone!”
“I’m not! I’m always in school! And when I’m not in school, I’ve got homework! I haven’t even started the outline of my yearlong Immersion Project, and the last thing I want is to be trapped in a car for a million hours.”
“Three hours. At the most.”
“No!”
“I’m tired of ‘no’!” I’m starting to understand how frustrating it must be for Gary to deal with me.
“And then there’s everything else.”
“Like what?”
“Like the Secret Pooper.”
“Has he pooped again?” I ask, then wonder about my use of the male pronoun—my assumption that the Pooper is a he.
“No, but everyone’s waiting for it. Every time you leave the classroom you have to sign out, and then they watch you walk down the hallway to see where you’re going. If you say you have to go to the bathroom, they check the bathroom after you come back. I feel like they’re always watching me. Like they think I’m guilty. Like they think I’m the Pooper. But I’m not!”
“Of course you’re not! But this is all the more reason why you should come with me. Get away! Take a break from everything! You’ll get to miss a whole day of school!”
Teddy shakes his head vehemently. “No, Mom! I don’t want to be stuck at Grandma’s for a whole entire weekend! She never has any food and she’s always trying to get me to hike and I hate hiking! Remember that time she lost me?”
Which time? When she walked so far ahead of him on a birding trail because she was in hot pursuit of a stupid blue heron that it took him fifteen minutes to catch up to her and he almost didn’t because he was six? Or the time she came to Boston to visit and lost him near the swan boats in the Public Garden because someone asked for directions to Beacon Hill and she decided just to walk them there, without saying more to him than “Wait here—I’ll be right back”? (Which he didn’t, because she wasn’t. And because he was eight.) “Please. Don’t remind me.”
So maybe he’s safer if he doesn’t come. But hearing his refusal, seeing his face contort in misery at the thought of spending an extended amount of time with me—“a whole entire weekend?!”—is too much for me. Remembering the road trips we’d taken over the years—to the tip of Cape Cod, throughout New England, down to New York—and how many hours we used to spend together so peacefully and without conflict in hotel rooms and diners, over pancakes and chicken fingers, makes my throat seize and the tears start. When Teddy goes upstairs I duck into the bathroom, forgetting to turn on the overhead fan before the trumpet of nose-blowing starts.
Not that it matters: the People Puppets aren’t stupid. They’re witnessing their first family fight, and there’s nowhere for any of us to hide. Whose idea was it to have complete strangers in the house?
Back in the living room, with the dog in the sling in my lap and a fistful of Kleenex, I pretend to be hard at work on a new Well/er piece (“Is communal living good for the soul?” “Why long-term houseguests can be good for your marriage [no really!]”), when I’m actually checking Sari Epstein’s feed. Sari in child’s pose. Sari painting with watercolors. Sari deep in an evening gratitude meditation by candlelight. Sari drinking tea and journaling before bed. Sari with her palms together, head bowed, telling everyone to sign up for the Noble Journey creativity workshop this weekend because space is limited. I creep on all the photos, watch the short videos, spy the expensive couches, rugs, the diffuse light from the vast high ceilings in her home yoga and art studio, the foot-high bed with super-fluffy down duvet and far too many throw pillows. Except for the ridiculous throw pillows and the stupid journaling, she is perfect. I would trade my life for hers in a second.
I’m still sniffling when Nick sits down on the couch across from me. For once he’s not in full costume, but he’s still wearing his hoof-shoes and hoof-hands, which he taps, like a drummer, on his legs. I think of S
ari Epstein in her perfect yoga pants in her perfect house with her perfect steady-creativity-seminar-income lifestyle, which does not require her to house hoof-wearing People Puppets to pay the bills, and I want to die all over again. I can tell that he means well, that he wants to try to make me feel better—to tell me about how, when he was Teddy’s age, he didn’t want to spend time with his parents, either—how it’s normal to separate and differentiate.
But I don’t want to hear any of that. My son doesn’t want to go away with me. My husband has a girlfriend. My best friend is dying. I’ll never be Sari Epstein. Haven’t I suffered enough for one day?
“So,” Nick says with a percussive tap of his hooves. “What’s with the dog?”
I stare at him, then down into the sling. “What do you mean?”
More tapping. “I’m just curious about it. It’s pretty unusual. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone wear a dog.”
“No one’s ever accused me of being unoriginal!”
“Exactly! I’m just really curious about how it started and why you do it. And like, if it bothers Gary. Does it bother Gary?” He’s sitting on the edge of the sofa, as if it’s children’s story time at the public library. Isn’t that why he has taken his hoof-hands off and has a sketchbook out and is starting to draw me with a big soft pencil, making smudges to the lead with his thumb?
“So many questions!” I lob back, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not just a little bit flattered to be asked. Not to mention giddy at the opportunity to talk about it. No one ever wants to talk about it. No one ever wants to talk about anything to do with me, I’ve found, now that I’m fifty and invisible. The fact that Nick does makes me almost teary with gratitude—especially after I misjudged his curiosity for nosiness. I start at the beginning: the day I found the sling, the red cabbage and the bath towel and the cans of tomatoes, and the sudden epiphany about wanting to carry something around because I missed carrying around a baby and because it somehow made me feel better after so much loss and sadness.
Nick nods. “Wow. I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, watching both your parents get sick and die within two years of each other really kind of takes it out of you.” I clear my throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so grim.”
By the time Phoebe sidles into the room and onto the couch, tilting her head and sizing me up, as if she’s trying to figure out how much I weigh and what shape my body actually is under my sweater and T-shirt and sling—I’m telling them about Grace barring me from bringing the dog into the school.
“Unless I register the dog as an official support animal and show her the paperwork.”
Nick shakes his head. “What. A. Bitch.”
“Seriously,” Phoebe adds.
“I know, right?” I’m so grateful for their support that I find myself holding my pose of outrage—mouth open, hands in the air—while Nick flips to a fresh page in his sketchbook.
“I’ve never liked her,” he says, still sketching.
“You know her?”
He looks up. “She’s my dad’s girlfriend.”
“Noah is Nick’s dad,” Phoebe explains. “And Noah and Grace are a couple.”
I feel like my head is going to explode. “Wait, what?”
Nick puts his sketchbook down and puts his hoof-hands back on. “That’s why we got the job. My dad put a good word in for us and the teachers all voted us in. I like to think we would have had a chance without the nepotism, but I’m not stupid. People Puppets are a hard sell without someone on the inside.”
I’m still trying to absorb all the connections I hadn’t known about when I take that as an opening to keep the conversation going. “So, speaking of ‘hard sell,’ what’s with the costumes?”
Nick seems confused by the question.
“You asked me why I wear my dog. So now I’m asking you: Why do you wear . . . that?” I’m not sure what animal he’s dressed as, or is becoming through dress, but it’s a symptom of something larger. “Clearly there’s a story behind the need to cover oneself up and the desire to become something else.”
“Sure there is,” he says, matter-of-factly. “My dad. It’s all his fault.”
I nod slowly. “Oh, okay.” I hadn’t expected an actual answer.
“No seriously. He’s ruined everything for me.”
I look at Phoebe. She makes a sad face, then rolls her eyes. “Everything.”
“Everything I’ve done—dropping out of law school, starting this puppet company—has all been because of him. It’s all his fault.”
I feel like the ground underneath me has shifted the way it does when total validation appears for long-held seemingly insane opinions. Like thinking the soft and fuzzy man-bunned teacher was a phony. I feel like calling Teddy back downstairs to prove that I’m not actually crazy: Mr. Noah is not who he pretends to be.
“I’m sorry to hear you have such a troubled relationship,” I say, my voice dripping with empathy. “That can’t have been easy for you.”
Suddenly, they both fold over with laughter. “My dad?” Nick says. “I’m kidding! He’s the best guy ever. Obviously!”
Phoebe nods her confirmation, then taps her heart with her paws. “A total sweetheart.”
I’m so confused. I pull away from both of them, leaning as far back on the couch as I can, hugging the dog in front of me like a protective shield. Who are these awful people? How could I have been so stupid to invite them into my home?
“I love my dad,” Nick says. Suddenly there are tears in his eyes. His voice cracks. “He’s basically my best friend. He ruined everything for me because he made me think the world would be as accepting and loving as he is, and it’s not. It’s been a long, slow, rude awakening.” Phoebe puts her hoof-paw over his until he clears his throat and regains his composure. “So to answer your question,” he says with his hooves in the air as a signal that everything’s fine, “I pursued this art form because I was looking for a way to hide for a while. I was miserable after my parents’ divorce. I never felt like I fit in with other kids because no one else had a dad who was such a free spirit. And, I may have gone through a slight chubby phase.”
Phoebe’s sad face returns, as do the paws to her heart. “He was so cute. But so chubby.” Then she laughs, blushing. “But not anymore.”
“Nope. Underneath the costume I’m rock-solid.”
They fold over laughing again.
Oh. “Guys,” I say. “Let’s have this conversation another time. Like when you’re both not so high.”
* * *
Upstairs, I slip into bed, making sure to carefully stay on my side. In the dark, once my eyes adjust, our two separate figures under the blankets, peaks and valleys, look like one of those special sectioned plates where all the food is separated so that it can’t touch.
“Teddy won’t go with me on the trip.”
Gary turns toward me, leans up on an elbow.
“I thought it would be fun,” I say. “The old Teddy would have jumped at the chance to have an adventure and miss a day of school, to eat out at diners along the way, but he refused. I’m kind of devastated.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“I miss the old Teddy.”
“So do I.” In the dark I know we’re both thinking about how perfect he was then—the skinny skater jeans he used to wear, the long hair that always covered one eye and almost reached his shoulders; the willingness to do anything to make us laugh, including running around with his pants off.
I sigh. I’m so lonely I think I might die. I could reach out to Gary, but the divide between the past and the present feels too far, too deep, too wide. It is too late for us. It’s been too late for a long time. And besides, the dog is there, sprawled between us. I pull the blanket to slide her closer to me, then put my arm around her, tucking my hand under her paws and chin and bringing my knees up around her until we’re spooning. I instantly feel better. Which isn’t surprising, given what I’ve learned since starting to
wear the sling. (“Newsflash: new study shows that women who interact with their dog for twenty-five minutes have a 58 percent increase in oxytocin, also known as the ‘hug hormone.’” “‘An Examination of Adult Women’s Sleep Quality and Sleep Routines in Relation to Pet Ownership and Bedsharing’ is the study we’ve been waiting for, proving that women have higher-quality sleep when they share their bed with at least one dog.”) But I don’t really need scientific studies to tell me what is already so obvious and intuitive, like the fact that women who sleep with their dogs may actually be disturbed as often by the dog as they are by the human they sleep with, but they self-report being less bothered or less aware of the dog-disturbances than the human disturbances. Though sometimes I do wonder what all this forced human affection feels like to the dog. If Charlotte were interviewed and could talk, what would she self-report about sleeping or slinging with me? Does she also get a boost of oxytocin and higher-quality sleep or does the dog-human closeness make her feel more claustrophobic than comforted?
“I’ll go with you,” Gary says.
I look at him over Charlotte’s ears. “To the workshop?”
“I’ll drive with you. You can drop me at my mother’s—I’ll get points for visiting her and raking some leaves—and then you can pick me up when you’re done with the seminar. The Puppets can watch the dog and Teddy.”
“Maybe I’ll stay at your mother’s the first night to save money, then find a cheap hotel for the second night.”
“Good. It’ll give us time to talk.”
“Time to talk about what?”
He flops onto the pillows, then rolls over and away, back to his side of the bed. “Oh Judy. I give up.”
Off to See the Forehead
Two days later, on a chilly, bright blue morning, we’re packed and ready for the weekend—we’ve done a huge food shop for us and a smaller one for Glenn, including making sure she has all her meds and that friends are coming to check on her while we’re away; left Gary’s mother a voicemail about our last-minute visit; let the school know that the People Puppets would be driving Teddy to and from school today; taped a list of our cell phone numbers and emergency contact numbers—pediatrician, veterinarian, and take-out vegetarian—to the refrigerator. Gary takes our bags out to the car while I throw a notebook and a bunch of Sharpies into my bag just in case inspiration strikes early and I start writing or drawing before the workshop. Then I wave at Phoebe, who’s lurking just outside the kitchen, to come in. I have things—important things—to show and tell her before we go.