Life After Yes

by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

  Yes, he’s a sucker.

  My sucker.

  Sometimes, he probably wishes he had fallen in love with someone a bit sweeter. Someone more like his mother.

  So Beatrice comes once a week and we pay her a hefty one hundred dollars to vacuum cat hair and fold underwear. It’s a luxury we can technically afford, but Sage insists we can’t justify. But it’s one that I, like so many of my breed, have decided—like triweekly sessions with a trainer—is absolutely essential. (Yes, I’m almost as spoiled as I am messy. At least I own it.)

  “I have a question, and be honest,” I say.

  And, playfully, Sage rolls his eyes, presumably waiting for the latest no-win situation to materialize.

  “Do my breasts look fake?”

  “What? Where is this coming from?” he says.

  “Nowhere. I’m just asking.”

  “Your breasts are beautiful,” he says. Smart man. “I wouldn’t marry a girl with ugly ones.” Okay, not quite as smart.

  “Oh, so are you going to divorce me when they stretch and sag, then? Perky isn’t forever.”

  The coffee machine beeps and Sage pours two cups and hands me one. We sit together.

  “One day, I am going to get my act together, I promise. I’m going to be so clean, it will annoy you. I’m going to be more Martha Stewart than either of our mothers.”

  This is a lie. At best, a weakling of a promise.

  There is no way I will ever surpass his mother, a woman, perpetually primped and perfect, who practically tidies in her sleep.

  And Mom, a retired law professor and odd breed of feminist, preaches that cleaning is both a mindless escape from a stressful existence and a rudimentary form of female empowerment. One time I made the grave mistake of breaking out some Betty Friedan from my college days, telling Mom that domestic life was like a “comfortable concentration camp,” that I didn’t want to morph into an “anonymous biological robot in a docile mass,” but I should’ve figured that quoting a vanguard out of context would get me nowhere. You don’t have to be a Betty to be a feminist, Prue. Betty wouldn’t want blind allegiance to her ideas; that’s exactly the kind of thing she fought so hard against.

  Sage laughs hard, nearly spitting his coffee. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Too bad I wasn’t born a generation ago; I could have given that ring to the other O’Malley woman, the one who knows how to replace a vacuum bag.”

  “You would’ve had to fight Dad for her. We both know how that would’ve turned out,” I say. Tears find me as I squeeze Sage’s thin arm. I’ve seen pictures of Sage from college when he played shortstop at Duke, and he was definitely bigger, a brawnier version of his current self.

  Dad was six-four. He was a walk-on on Michigan’s football team who spent four years on the bench. Unlike Sage, Dad never lost his bulk. The first time Sage met Dad, fear overtook Sage’s big blue eyes. But when Dad opened his mouth, Sage’s face relaxed. Dad was a barbless critter, a “brilliant teddy bear,” as Mom liked to call him. Dad was always a big fan of Phelps and thus prepared to hate Sage. But when Dad learned I had reeled in another angler, everything was okay. These two men—Dad and Sage—separated for mere moments by a generation, an estranged almost-son, and the formality of a first meeting, were in no time united, talking shop about wet and dry fishing flies, antique reels, and future fishing trips. For better or worse, and lucky for Sage, Dad had an immediate and implicit trust of a true angler.

  “We should probably call Mom. Let her know we’re getting hitched,” I say. We had decided to keep Paris for us and call everyone when we got home.

  “She knows everything. I asked them for your hand last summer in Wisconsin.”

  “Last summer?” When Dad was alive. He knew about this.

  After everything happened, Mom abandoned her teaching post at the law school and packed up my childhood home, an old Manhattan brownstone. Michael and I not-so-jokingly begged her to give us the brownstone and if not, to stay here, to stay close, but she wasn’t up for the grief and pity game. She moved to the private cabin where we spent summers on Bird Lake.

  “It was June. I was so scared. Your parents and I sat on the big porch overlooking the lake. I think your dad could sense I was nervous or wanted to punish me for what I was about to do because he mixed me the stiffest Irish Delight. You were just back from a run, showering in the cabin. When I asked, their eyes lit up. They hugged me. Your father nearly crushed me.”

  “Good call asking Mom too,” I say.

  When Sage describes this moment, this pivotal moment in his short life and mine, I smile, fighting tears and losing. The image is striking and simple and beautiful. I have to imagine any glee in their eyes was mixed with equal parts sadness. This was the very first step in the process by which they would lose me.

  “Were they sad?” I say.

  “A little,” he says. Maybe because it is true, or maybe because he knows this is the right answer. The kind answer. “I think they were a little sad.”

  “I can’t believe neither of them slipped,” I say. Keeping secrets does not run in my family.

  Sage nods. “Unlike you, your parents can keep a secret. I thought your mom would let it out though. I’m impressed. Even Michael kept his big mouth shut.”

  “Michael knows too?” My older brother, Michael, is a seasoned gossip—even worse than I am. He reads Page Six like it’s the Bible and speaks of celebrities as if they are close comrades, drinking buddies who just happen to grace the cover of weekly magazines.

  “Well, let’s call then. Mom’s probably worried that you’ve come to your senses and are having second thoughts. It’s been six months.”

  I call. The phone barely rings once before Mom answers. For a moment, I think I hear Dad’s gravelly voice on the line too, which of course I don’t because he’s gone and because Dad hated the telephone and almost every other breed of technology. I tell Mom what she already knows and hear what I predicted I would hear: repetitions of that one easy word—“congratulations”—that fits most every kind of good news. While we’re still on the phone, Michael calls and demands to be patched in, which I don’t know how to do. He cannot fathom how I’m a big-time lawyer at a fat Manhattan firm and I don’t know how to use the conference function on a phone. I tell him I’ve inherited the Luddite genes of our dear father and I confirm what he too already knows: He’s finally getting the brother he’s always wanted. He asks about the ring, and I tell him it’s beautiful. I leave out the part about how my nemesis picked it since said nemesis’s darling son is standing by. At the end of our short call, Mom asks to talk to the “man of the moment.”

  I figure she must mean Sage.

  I hand him the phone.

  I can’t make out what they say, just voices weaving in and out of each other and periodic rumbles of potentially authentic laughter.

  “I know. Thanks, Mrs. O’Malley.” Mom and Dad urged Sage to lose the formality, but Sage insisted he was a Southern boy, and addressing them like that was nothing but pure instinct.

  “Well, we haven’t gotten that far. Bird Lake is definitely in the running, though,” he says.

  “Bird Lake?” I whisper.

  “This summer? That seems soon, but maybe. We’ll see,” Sage says, fiddling with his coffee spoon.

  “Well, here’s your daughter again,” he says, playing it safe like always. He’s careful not to refer to me as Quinn because he knows how it would upset her. And he’s careful not to refer to me as Prudence because he knows how this will upset me.

  For whatever reason, this is not how I envisioned things. Truth is, I haven’t envisioned things. These things. But this college athlete and banker with a penchant for fishing and hunting and beer and wings and all things male shouldn’t be the one making the prize-winning suggestion about locale and picking our wedding date. I am the girl.

  Sage mutters a quick good-bye, yet another thank-you to probably yet another congratulations, and hangs up.

  Sage won’t look at me. He
fiddles with the milk carton, staring at the grainy face of a missing little girl on the back. Where is this girl? Is she alive? Will she grow up and find a man to pester and love? Will she too enjoy this coveted form of permanent and lovely torture?

  “Last time I checked you were my fiancé and not some brown-nosing wedding planner.” (My words are swords, harsher than even I intend.)

  “Simmer down. Your parents mentioned it to me last summer and I just thought it was a good idea, one you would love,” he says. It is a good idea. And one that I’m already starting to love.

  “Well, I would’ve liked for you to run it by me first before getting the parents all hot and bothered.”

  “I didn’t think. I’m sorry,” he says. His words are soft and childlike, his apology the mea culpa of a little boy who has shattered his mother’s favorite vase. “Anyway, the ideas were theirs.”

  And, again, he’s right. I have a way of doing this, twisting his words into my own self-serving pretzels. Blame it on the legal training.

  Usually, our mornings are far simpler, far more charming than this. Usually, we sit side by side swallowing Starbucks, too tired for conversation. The silence is sweet; the calm before the inevitable swell of storms, delicious.

  But this morning, I’m shaking. And I hope it’s the coffee, but I know better. Sage is quiet. He slowly slurps the milk from his bowl of Cheerios. His steely confidence is missing, like that poor little girl on the back of the milk carton.

  And suddenly I remember his face in the dream, his eyes distant and misty, brimming with salty sadness, that overwhelming sadness at being in the midst of many on the one day he’s supposed to stand alone.

  “No, I’m sorry. You’re right. Bird Lake would be perfect. And you and your groomsmen could go a few days early and fish the streams. It could be like a bonus bachelor party,” I say, and think of Phelps, our old rowboat, the sweet smell of his bug repellent, our long talks on the cabin porch swing.

  “Now you’re talking,” he says quietly, surprise in his tired eyes, and takes my hand. It is not like me to apologize so quickly. Usually, I stew for some time, let him suffer a little, before embracing that little thing called reason.

  His smile returns, wide and bright. His eyes drop once again to his newspaper. Sunlight streams through our kitchen window, and he squints to fight the brightness, and glides his index finger down a slim column of stock quotes.

  Yes, ring or no ring, the world goes on. The stock market will do its thing, creeping up and down. Dishes will pile up. For a fleeting moment, everything is okay, more than okay, and I wish that I could press pause.

  But I can’t.

  A familiar buzz kills that good moment and ends the temporary silence. Then I do it. I reach for the dreaded object which sits cradled in quiet subversion. My BlackBerry. When I first got it, I thought it was so cool. It made me feel important and adult. It was Sage, with his three years of life and wisdom on me, who helped me understand just what it was: a curiously shaped leash. It took him more than a month to convince me that I didn’t need to sleep with it inches away from my ear on the bedside table. A couple years into my litigation career, that little black devil still harbors the power to panic me.

  “Do you think if Dad had one of these things, things would be different? Most cellular connections were down that day, but I think BlackBerrys worked.”

  “He would never have carried one of those things,” he says. “And no, I don’t think things would be different.”

  I nod. And look down at the little screen, the tiny buttons. I scroll through my messages.

  “Bug, don’t do it,” Sage pleads. But I fumble with it anyway, escaping, my fingers dancing deftly across those miniature buttons.

  “What, is this going to cause cancer too?” I ask, waving my BlackBerry.

  “Probably,” he says.

  “I just have to check and then I will have some coffee with you. I will deal with everything when I get to the office, but I just need to see what I missed,” I say, eyes fixed on the tiny screen, knowing it’s never this simple.

  Thirty-seven unread messages linger in my inbox.

  “Fuck,” I say. “Fuck.”

  “My favorite word. And notice how I didn’t hear it all weekend. I thought you had forgotten all about that dandy four-letter gem.” Southern Sage hates profanity; I love this about him.

  There’s an e-mail from Fisher. Ask any associate—e-mails from partners are scary. The e-mail is short and cryptic and asks me (unapologetically of course—“This is a seven-day-a-week-job,” we were told on day one) to complete a research assignment by Monday, as in this, afternoon. Fisher sent it on Friday afternoon about the time Sage and I were giggling like overcaffeinated teens fondling each other in the Air France security line. Fuck.

  “Fuck,” I say again, this time for effect. I hop up from the table, leaving a shallow pool of tepid coffee at the bottom of my cracked mug. Sage barely looks up from his newspaper.

  For no good reason, I take another shower. And then bundle up in my old bathrobe. A college send-off gift from Mom, once pristine and fluffy, it’s now dull and ragged.

  In my bottom drawer, I reach for a pair of wool socks and pull out Phelps’s flannel. Hula watches me disapprovingly as I hold it up to my face and inhale deeply, that old familiar fishy smell, and put it back where it was.

  Antique heating pipes whimper and moan in valiant but failed efforts to keep us warm. Sage, a half-full kind of guy, admits he has come to crave those crackling sounds. Those, and the sirens and car alarms that break the nighttime silences. He assures me that this city symphony has replaced the soothing songs of crickets he fell asleep to as a boy. But I worry I am the reason he has abandoned the utopia of his childhood days for this wonderful and callous concrete jungle.

  Sage is still there in the same chair at the small round mosaic table in our kitchen, putting off the inevitable start to another inevitable day. I return to my mug of Guatemalan or Costa Rican or Mexican coffee more cringe-worthy than Robitussin, so bitter that last Equal wasn’t even worth it. Grains float on the ebony surface, mocking me. But I swallow anyway, and wait for that familiar buzz to pump through my flagging veins.

  I sit across from Sage, sipping and cringing, getting new wrinkles, finally adding a third Equal to the sludgy mix.

  “What am I going to do when I’m pregnant?” I ask.

  “Breast implants and now a baby? What’s going on with you this morning? Is there something you need to tell me?”

  “It’s just that I depend on this,” I do say, pointing to my mug. “I need it to function. What am I going to do when I’m pregnant and some lady in a white coat who spends her days looking at vaginas tells me I can’t have it anymore?”

  “Isn’t this a little premature?” he asks. “We’ll cross that road when we come to it.” Another cliché. Of course. It takes time to wean someone off truisms. Thankfully, I have forever to do it.

  “You think I am just going to get pregnant, give up the coffee, give up the alcohol, and sit still for nine months as your baby grows perfect, don’t you? How am I going to do my job?”

  Sage looks at me like I’m crazy—which, apparently, I am. We have been engaged for all of five minutes and I am talking babies and boobs, spouting feminist rhetoric more warped than Mom’s.

  “I didn’t even say anything. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just stressed. I missed an e-mail from a partner about an assignment that is due today.”

  Sage’s face spells defeat. There will always be other men in my life. Living and gone. Men with more wisdom, more money, more power.

  “Well, I guess that’s my fault too. Sorry for taking you to Europe and asking you to be my wife. I should have timed it better,” he says, and stands up. His hair is spiky and adorable, a mini morning Mohawk. He pours himself the rest of the pot of coffee—which he would usually offer me—and escapes to our bedroom. Little Hula picks a side and trails behind Sage. Both are careful not to tr
ip on my high heel that lies in the middle of the doorway.

  Shrouded in the heavy silence I have created, I watch him go. I don’t know what to say. My body twitches. I feel my heartbeat in my fingers. I can’t move. I don’t go after him.

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  What I do know is that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I should be deliriously happy. I should be calling all my friends, even though it’s still early. I do love him. But right now, that ring is the only thing that sparkles.

  Chapter 4

  I met Sage on Halloween. In 1999. It was a random encounter in a smoky bar downtown. He was dressed as a fisherman, and I wore all black and American flag–print wings.

  He was surrounded by banker buddies, a herd of tall and cocky creatures sporting the same belts and button-downs and hearty laughs.

  But even from a distance, I could tell he was different. Wounded. Exuding confidence shaded by struggle, by real life. Lugging a secret or two.

  He stood at the bar funneling Hershey’s Kisses into the pockets of his neoprene waders when I approached.

  “Kiss?” he asked, smiling, offering me a candy.

  “I’m not that easy,” I said. “Stocking up for Y2K?”

  “My mother didn’t let me eat the candy on Halloween,” he said, smiling, grabbing another fistful, unwrapping one and popping it into his mouth.

  “Ah,” I said. “Making up for lost time?”

  He smiled again. Ordered me a drink.

  “Well, I was allowed to eat the candy,” I said. “But I never got much of it. Mom would follow me around and I’d grab as many candies as I could and she’d make me put them all back. And she’d say, ‘Take just one. All you need is one.’ Only then would I take the one I really wanted. Usually it was a Tootsie Pop. In case you were interested.”

  “I am.”