This Christmas

by Jane Green

  A colleague of mine—one of those unfortunate thirtysomethings living a protracted adolescence—said something that summed up this sense of detachment quite well. As her chandelier earring bobbed about, she said of her failed relationship, “I’m so over it.” Looking like somewhat of a wedding cake in her three-tiered lace miniskirt, Serena said she would never give her ex-boyfriend a second thought. Having Prudence at Reilly and my wedding was a way of saying to the world, We’re so over Reilly’s first marriage.

  Gwen said that if I were truly over it, I wouldn’t have ever even contemplated what her presence would or wouldn’t mean to others. “If you’re so ‘over it’ why are you even thinking about her?” she asked. At the time, I dismissed Gwen’s comments. I figured we didn’t see eye to eye on this one. We’d been friends since she moved to New York in our freshman year of high school. In the twenty years we’ve known each other, we’ve respectfully disagreed on many issues without it ever getting ugly. I nodded as she gave me her opinion and went about my merry way, knowing Gwen was utterly mistaken about my wedding invitation list.

  After I’d battled the snow and arrived home that evening, I knew I’d have about an hour to myself because Reilly had taken Hunter, my six-year-old, to Rockefeller Center to ice-skate. In less than a year, Reilly had become the ultimate hockey dad, sans the screaming fights with hairy, beer-drinking fathers. Frankly, I would have preferred that Hunter take up tennis, or even soccer, but after his and Reilly’s first Rangers game, Hunter insisted we find him a peewee team. Of course, tonight my boys wouldn’t chase each other around with sticks, but join a hundred or so New Yorkers and visitors as they enjoyed skating against the familiar backdrop of the enormous Christmas tree and golden statue of Prometheus.

  I plugged in the light cord behind our family Christmas tree, filling our home with the perfect holiday ambiance. Through the oversized living room window of our brownstone, I watched the streetlights illuminate the snow falling through the periwinkle sky. In this quiet moment, I thought about what Gwen had said last summer and realized she may have had a point. Six months after Reilly and my wedding, I was feeling anything but “over” Prudence Malone.

  Everything about our home suggested the season had changed. Our tree sparkled with tasteful white lights buried deep in the branches of our tall evergreen. I was thrilled when Reilly hung my familial hand-carved, painted, and blown glass ornaments a good four inches into the tree, instead of plunking them onto the branch ends, as my first husband did. I begged Rudy not to do this because it made the greenery look depressed. I told him repeatedly that hanging ornaments at the very tip of the branches made them sag—and showed the hook. As was the case in most of our marriage, Rudy didn’t really care all that much how I felt and proceeded to do it exactly as it served him. My insistence on inset placement of tree ornaments sounds highly anal, I know, but everyone deserves a few areas in life where things are done properly. And properly means her way. But I digress. Not only did everything inside our home indicate that six months had passed since our summer wedding but also outside: women wore wool coats with muffs to match the fur trim. Kids wrapped raspberry-colored wool hats around their heads and ears. On every corner, Santa Claus rang a bell and shouted, “You’re his wife now, Sarah!” Obviously, I stretch the truth for emphasis, but you get the point. Seasons had changed for everyone else but me. All of the Christmas decorations were just that—decoration. I wasn’t filled with my usual holiday spirit.

  Typically I loaded ten holiday CDs in the player and kept it going as our seasonal soundtrack. This year, I dragged myself to our music selection to find something tolerable. I dreaded going to Saks, one of my all-time favorite holiday spots. And the only party I planned to attend this season was the one I’d just been to at Hunter’s school.

  Though I’ve thought about her nearly every day this past month, I was especially preoccupied with Prudence because I just found out that one of her close friends is a mother at Hunter’s school. As luck would have it, this woman’s twins are in Hunter’s class. Miss Cantor was leading the children in a song about the happy little snowflake, and Reilly rushed in and parked himself in the small wooden chair beside me. He pecked my cheek, then did a double take when he saw the J. Lo-sexy mother standing near the window. She seemed to recognize him as well and gave him a friendly, but not overly enthusiastic, wave. After the happy little snowflake melted, the woman approached us. Reilly immediately greeted her as Sophie.

  “You must be Sarah!” Sophie said warmly. She wore a form-fitting cream cashmere top, a herringbone skirt with buttery leather boots, and a funky purse. Reaching a soft manicured hand toward me, she said she’s heard so many nice things about me. I smiled as we shook hands. “From Prudence,” Sophie finished.

  “Sophie and Prudence are friends,” Reilly filled me in. “She was a cohort in the whole, well you know,” he said.

  Sophie smiled her obnoxiously white teeth at us and said she hoped Reilly didn’t hold a grudge. “It all worked out for the best, didn’t it?” She smiled. “You know how Prudence is. Heart in the right place, head in the clouds.” Reilly smiled as if to say there were no hard feelings and placed his hand on my shoulder. A normal person would have taken some comfort in this gesture. The real me would have seen how clear it was that Reilly was with me 100 percent. I silently reminded myself that Prudence had never so much as phoned our home to ask Reilly about the heating system in their loft. Instead of finding peace in this and Reilly’s measured interaction with a woman who’d helped plan a find-a-new-wife theme party, I was unsettled by the way Prudence was creeping her way into my life. Now every blessed morning when I saw Sophie for school drop-off, I’d be reminded of Prudence.

  Something had to be done. At home that evening, I lit the fireplace, sank into the chaise, and called Gwen. She always knew what to do. And when she didn’t, she acted as if she did, which for me was deeply comforting, as it reminded me of my mother. “You need Paxil,” Gwen immediately shot when I told her about seeing Sophie at Hunter’s class holiday party.

  Rolling my eyes with my voice, I said, “You’re simply hilarious, Gwen.”

  “I’m quite serious. You’re creating undue anxiety for yourself, Sarah. Every day, you call me and ask if I think Reilly’s having an affair with his ex-wife, despite the fact that there’s not a shred of evidence to suggest he is.”

  “It’s a hunch,” I snapped. “Doesn’t women’s intuition count for anything anymore?”

  “It’s paranoia, Sarah. Reilly’s a model husband. I’ve seen the way the man is around you. He’s smitten. He adores Hunter. He’s a great guy. Why can’t you leave it at that and be happy?”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that Reilly never mentions Prudence?” I asked.

  “Um, let me think about it,” she said in a tone that let me know she was not thinking about it at all but, rather, mocking my suspicions. Without missing a beat, she finished, “No.” She didn’t find it one bit unusual, she said. “Why would he talk about his ex-wife?! He has a new life with you. A wonderful new life, if you’d just relax and enjoy it. I’d worry if he was talking about her, and I have a feeling you would too.”

  “It just seems like he’s hiding something,” I said, watching the flames dance behind our velvet stockings.

  “You’re hiding something, Sarah—your good sense,” Gwen said. “Listen, you’re my dearest friend in the world, and I’m sticking with you through this, but I have to say, I’m a little concerned. The obsessing, the worrying, the constant fear that your sweet and adoring new husband is cheating on you, it’s just not who you are. What happened to the self-assured Sarah I know?”

  I also wondered what had happened to that Sarah. I was no longer a cool customer, but an adult version of the high-strung kindergartner clinging to her mommy’s pant leg. “I don’t know,” was the hollow truth.

  I heard Gwen light a cigarette and inhale. “Look, if you’re really worried about her, why don’t you just find her a new guy to keep
her occupied?”

  “Find her a new husband?” I repeated.

  “Isn’t that what she did to Reilly?” Gwen laughed. “Payback’s a bitch, Sarah.”

  We laughed for a moment. It was the first time I felt truly at ease in a month. “Do you really think I should?”

  “No!” Gwen returned, as though the answer was obvious.

  “Really? Because this is the first laugh I’ve had in a while. I felt a huge weight off my shoulders just at the thought of Prudence busying herself with someone new.”

  “Sarah, she isn’t busying herself with Reilly and even if she wanted to, he’s in love with you! You, his wife of six months. The honeymoon isn’t even over yet and you’re already fast-forwarding to the jealous-wife-who-hires-a-private-investigator phase. Isn’t that supposed to be another ten years off?”

  “I’m not hiring a private investigator!” I defended.

  “No, you’re entertaining ideas of finding a new husband for your new husband’s ex-wife so she’ll break off their nonexistent affair. Do you realize how utterly Fox television this sounds?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said.

  “I always am,” she teased.

  I popped my favorite holiday CD in the player and smiled contently as I looked around my home. What was I so wound up about anyway? Life was good. Hunter was excelling in first grade. His show-and-tell coach said he was making excellent progress on his oral presentation skills. I was doing so well with my freelance reporting, I had to turn down assignments. And Reilly was exactly what I’d always wanted in a husband.

  Some may characterize Reilly as dull, but after three years married to an alcoholic I found his steady demeanor reassuring.

  What was I worried about? We had a beautiful new life and nothing threatened to take any of it away. The rug couldn’t be pulled out from under me because there was too much heavy furniture resting on it. It was time for me to take a few deep breaths, let the holiday music lift my spirits, and start enjoying my first Christmas with Reilly.

  With that thought, I heard the keys opening the door. Hunter burst in immediately before Reilly pulled him back out onto our front stairs and told him to shake the snow off his boots. “You know how your mother loves her wood floors,” he said. I smiled.

  “Hi, guys!” I said, to let them know I was in the living room.

  Still in his scarf and coat, Hunter ran to me and started his frenetic report. Reilly wiped out in the ice. He beat Reilly in a race. Reilly bought him some “awesome” gizmo that sounded like it might be a computer game. Reilly is the best. Reilly and he are going to go skiing this year. Reilly once went on a snowmobile. Before I could follow up on any of these statements, Hunter was onto the next. In the midst of Hunter’s account of the day, Reilly walked to me and leaned down to kiss me. “Good afternoon?” he asked. “Were you able to start your holiday shopping?” I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. You’ll get to it when you feel like it, and if you don’t, you’ll take care of it online.” Turning to Hunter, he shouted, “Stop right there, little man.” My son was my spitting image, right down to his quizzical facial expressions. “Hat off. Coat off. Hang ’em in the closet. You know the drill.”

  “Sounds like you two had a good time,” I said, as Reilly watched Hunter struggle to get his coat sleeves through the points of the hanger.

  “Yeah, it was great. Guess who we ran into?” Reilly asked. Hunter burst into the living room and told me that Daddy’s friend bought them a cup of hot chocolate at Rockefeller Center.

  “What friend?” I asked. “I thought you two went alone?”

  “We did,” he said. “We ran into Prudence. She was doing some shopping at Saks and said she came by to watch the skaters. Boy, was she was surprised to see us there.”

  I’ll bet she was. She just happened to be shopping at Saks and decided to stroll over to Rockefeller Center at the exact same time Reilly and Hunter were there. How likely is that? Okay, it’s not all that suspicious. Intellectually I understood that, but my heart raced like I’d just downed Excedrin with espresso. “Oh,” I said, feigning serenity. “How is Prudence?”

  “Seems happy,” Reilly answered.

  “How did she look?”

  “Pretty good,” he said. “She’s no Sarah Peterson, but she looked nice. Healthy. Clean.”

  Clean? She looked clean? What man describes a woman as clean, or healthy for that matter? What was he, her doctor? And how dare she buy hot chocolate for my son and my husband. Clearly, Prudence needed to get her own life and get out of mine. And I knew just how I’d do it.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning I opened the Manhattan Children’s School directory and found Sophie’s telephone number. I spent most of last night awake thinking about the best strategy to find Prudence a new husband. I decided I would need two things. The first was good intentions. Although it was amusing to imagine Prudence on a date with a Sumo wrestler or gold-toothed wannabe rapper, I soon realized that it wasn’t in me to be unkind to her.

  The second thing I’d need was a support system. That is, a little help from my friends. And hers. Of course, Reilly could know nothing of my plan. He wouldn’t understand. Even Gwen didn’t understand when I explained it to her that morning, but she also said that she’d try anything I thought would help me get back to my old self.

  To be perfectly honest, I didn’t understand what was driving me to find Prudence a new husband either. My head and my heart had parted company recently. Once a well-paved two-lane highway, logic and emotion had now split—one road darting north, the other heading south. The wiser version of my newly neurotic self scolded, Sarah, this is absurd. If there is something wrong with you or this marriage, focus on that—not a phantom ex-wife who poses absolutely no threat to you. That was the voice of the real me. God, I missed her. This new, lesser version of me couldn’t help myself. I was losing myself to an insane person who looked exactly like me.

  Years ago at an Al-Anon meeting, one of the other wives of an alcoholic said that at some point in everyone’s lives they lose their minds temporarily. I remember thinking she was being overly dramatic. Now, as I recalled her comment, I thought, My time has come.

  I started going to Al-Anon when I was pregnant with Hunter. My husband, Rudy, and I had been married for two years before it occurred to me that he had a drinking problem. I’d always imagined alcoholics as homeless guys on the Bowery who pass bottles in brown bags around a flaming city garbage can. Rudy was an attorney—a prominent one at a silk stockings firm, at that. He made an impressive salary, earned bonuses every year, and used cedar shoe trees. We had season tickets to the opera. Our names were engraved in benefactor plaques at the best charities in New York. Rudy was even once featured in Wired magazine for his work with emerging tech companies. This was not my image of an alcoholic. To me, Rudy was simply a charming, successful guy who enjoyed heavy drinking—daily.

  It was Gwen who suggested Rudy was more than just a social drinker. At first, I thought she was just on Oprah overdrive, but more and more as I watched Rudy, I realized Gwen was right. Rudy worked all the time. I mean all the time. Now, I know many attorneys work long hours, but they shouldn’t come home at four in the morning smelling like gin and soap. The gin could not be showered off, as thankfully everything else from his late nights at the office could. One night, Rudy would be the dynamic guy I fell in love with, erupting with ideas of all of the wonderful things we were going to do together. The next day, he practically ignored me. I wasn’t being oversensitive. It wasn’t as though he was just in a blue mood and needed some space. Rudy was withdrawn and hostile when I dared inquire about his state. One night we were at his firm’s Christmas party, and Rudy was regaling his colleagues with a story about his interaction with the guy at the deli around the corner. He seemed to be having the time of his life at the black-tie gala. He never missed a server passing with champagne, and after probably about three too many, his voice started getting far louder than anyon
e else’s. He wasn’t upset; he’d just lost control of his volume control. I elbowed him and said, “Rudy, keep it down.” Suffice it to say, this did not go over well.

  In the cab ride home, Rudy proved just how loud he was able to get as he shouted that I’d embarrassed him in front of his partners. I doubt anyone even heard me, but he was convinced they were all laughing about how “whipped” he was. (I’ll spare you the full verbiage.) Even the taxi driver asked if everything was “okay back there.”

  “Just fucking drive,” was Rudy’s reply.

  “Don’t tell me to fucking drive, mon. I don’t have to take that shit from fares. You can get out and walk.”

  “What’s your license number, you dumb fuck?” Rudy shouted at our driver.

  “See it for yourself,” the driver said, as he pulled over. “The lady can stay but you get out.”

  There was never any question in my mind that I’d get out of the taxi with Rudy and hail another for the rest of the trip back uptown, though sometimes I fantasized about what it would have been like to leave him behind that night. Of course, we all have to live in the real world, but I confess that on more than one occasion, I imagined what it would be like to leave Rudy on the curb permanently. I decided if things hadn’t improved with him by our fifth anniversary, I would definitely leave. At that point, no one would be able to say I hadn’t made a valiant effort to make it work.

  I got pregnant with Hunter during one of Rudy and my many honeymoon periods. These were weeks filled with apologies, promises, and earnest attempts by Rudy to control his temper and spend more time at home. But Rudy didn’t do moderation. We never had quiet nights with a movie rental and popcorn. It was either complete physical and emotional absence, or over-the-top gestures like expensive jewelry, five-star restaurants, and daily roses. I had only one rule with Reilly when we first started dating—no roses. Every time I see them, I quite unfairly ask of the bearer, What’s the louse done now?