“Fish sauce? A sauce made of fish or a sauce for fish?”
“No, it’s made of fermented fish. It’s delicious.”
“Why don’t we just stick to Mexican?” she says as we get off the elevator.
I nod my head. It’s that simple. Why didn’t Ryan ever just say, Why don’t we stick to Mexican? Why sit through all of those foods he didn’t like? I would have gone out for a burrito instead. I wouldn’t have even minded. Why didn’t he know that?
“You know,” Mila says. She’s walking a bit ahead of me and trying to find her keys in her purse. “If you think Ryan will be happy with you reading his e-mails and spying on his most vulnerable moments, then it’s only fair that you subject yourself to the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“What scares you? What do you want?”
“I don’t know. I guess I—”
“Don’t tell me,” she says. “Put it in an e-mail.”
That night, I check his e-mail drafts one more time before going to bed.
• • •
October 15
Dear Lauren,
It’s sex. Honestly, it’s sex. It’s the one thing that, I think, I couldn’t tolerate being broken and the one thing that just completely broke down. That’s what this is all about for me. I think I could have had more patience with you in other areas if you’d just been a little bit more interested in actually having sex. I think I could have been more thoughtful toward you. I think I could have been happier to spend time with you. I think I could have been better at listening to you. If I hadn’t been so pissed at you for never, ever, EVER WANTING TO HAVE SEX.
What the fuck? It’s not even that difficult, Lauren. I wasn’t asking you to become some sort of sex queen. It just would have been nice to have sex twice a week. Twice a month? It would have been nice to have you initiate it maybe once a year.
It always felt like you were doing me a favor. As if I was asking you to do the dishes.
And I don’t know why I never screamed at you about it. Because I screamed at you in my head. Sometimes I’d get so pissed off after you said “Not tonight” for the twentieth night in a row that I would go and take a cold shower and scream at you in my mind. I would actually have a full-on fight with you in my head, anticipating the things you would say and screaming my responses to myself. And then I’d towel off and get into bed next to you and never say any of it out loud. You would just sit there with your fucking book in your hand, acting like everything was fine.
Why didn’t I just tell you that nothing was fine?
I can’t be a husband to you if you treat me like a friend.
I need to HAVE SEX, LAUREN. I NEED TO HAVE SEX WITH MY WIFE FROM TIME TO TIME. I NEED TO FEEL LIKE SHE LIKES HAVING SEX WITH ME.
I can’t spend months of the year masturbating quietly in the bathroom because you “aren’t up to it tonight.”
Ryan
• • •
I want to scream at him. I want to tell him that if he wanted me to like having sex with him, then he probably should have tried a bit harder to make it good for me. I want to tell him that it’s a two-way street. That he wasn’t the only one who was going to bed unsatisfied. I want to tell him that the only difference between him and me was that at least I gave him an orgasm every couple of months. But then there’s another, huge, big, aching part of me that wants to say, Come home, come home. We can fix everything now that I know this.
I get into bed and try to get some sleep. I toss and turn. I stare are the ceiling, but sometime in the night, my brain finally shuts down, and I fall asleep.
When I wake up, I have so much I am dying to say.
• • •
October 16
Dear Ryan,
Here are some things I think you should know:
The couch no longer smells faintly of sweat, because no one goes running and then doesn’t take a shower before they lie on it.
I have really been enjoying the act of throwing away my receipts. I no longer have to account for every single penny that goes in and out of the bank account. Sometimes I go to the store, realize I forgot my coupon, and then just buy the thing anyway. Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.
I tip twenty percent every time. Every. Time. I no longer care that you think eighteen is standard.
I am really looking forward to an entire Dodgers season going by without a single trip to the clusterfuck that is Dodger Stadium.
Do you understand how a broom works?
I have always hated eating at that stupid Chinese restaurant on Beverly Boulevard that you love so much. It’s not that good. And while we are at it, yes, I did think that the hair I found in my chow mein was disgusting, and I was not able to just “get over it.”
That joke you tell about the nuns washing their hands at the Pearly Gates is totally gross, not funny at all, and fucking embarrassing.
Men who have beards are supposed to trim them. You can’t just let it grow and think it looks nice. It takes upkeep, otherwise you look homeless.
And speaking of hair, you need to learn to trim your pubic hair. I don’t know how much clearer I could possibly make this. Apparently, buying you a beard trimmer and saying, “Ha ha ha, I think this also works on pubes,” was not clear enough.
If you’re looking for reasons why our sex life was an unmitigated disaster, maybe you should consider the fact that you haven’t put in a modicum of effort since, I don’t know, senior year of college. Do you even understand how women experience pleasure? Because it’s not through relentless, rhythm-less pounding.
I stop typing and look at what I’ve written. I want so badly to delete those last parts. It’s all so embarrassing and uncomfortable. What if he really read this? What if he really saw it?
I delete it. I have to delete it. I can’t say that stuff.
But then I remember that I told Mila that I want to be honest. I told her that the reason I thought I should read Ryan’s e-mails was that I needed to hear his honesty. I needed him to be unfiltered. How can I justify reading his honest thoughts if I delete my own?
So I press control-Z. It reappears on the screen.
It has to stay there. I have to do this right. He’s probably not ever going to read this. So really, I’m typing to myself. Maybe that’s the problem; maybe I’m nervous to admit some of this stuff, even to myself.
That’s why I have to do it.
I hit save and get redirected to my in-box. Where I now see I have one new e-mail.
From Ryan. He actually sent me an email. He pressed send on one of them.
• • •
October 16
Dear Lauren,
I’m not going to take Thumper. I think it’s best he stay there.
Take care,
Ryan
Before I can take a breath, hit the reply button, and type “Fine,” I think better of it. I type “OK.” I hit send.
So that’s it, then. The training wheels are off. I have no firm plans to see my husband again. I probably won’t see him for almost a year.
I stand up. I get into the shower. I get dressed. I feed Thumper. I go to work. I go through the motions of my day. When I get home, before I feed Thumper or take my shoes off, I sign in to his e-mail again.
There’s a new draft I haven’t read before.
• • •
October 16
Dear Lauren,
I’ve met someone.
Ryan
The sound that comes out of my mouth, it’s not a cry or a sob.
It’s not a scream, either.
It’s a whimper.
I print it out. I go into the hallway closet. I get the step stool. I go to the bedroom closet. I grab the shoebox. I open it and put the letter in.
I let the paper sit there in the box of memories. It sit
s on top of the ticket stub from when we took the train to San Diego and spent the weekend lying on the beach. It sits on top of the photo of us at the Crab Shack in Long Beach, where we went with my family for his twenty-third birthday. It sits on top of Thumper’s first collar, the bright pink one we bought him on the way home because Ryan said he refused to “cater to gender norms for dogs, and this one is on sale.” It sits on top of the dried flower petals from my wedding bouquet.
It sits on top of all of that. Because I can’t pretend this isn’t happening anymore. I can’t pretend this isn’t part of our story.
I take off my wedding ring and put it in the box. It is, for now, better kept with the other mementos.
After that, Ryan stops writing to me altogether.
For a week or two, I check his drafts folder every day, hoping to see something. But he never writes.
Halloween comes, and I buy a big variety pack of candy for trick-or-treaters, but when I get home, I find myself wondering if Ryan and his mystery girl are dressing up together, doing a couple’s costume. I distract myself by turning my front light out and eating the candy myself. I give the nonchocolate ones to Thumper.
After a few weeks of sulking, I resolve to just check his e-mail every once in a while. I take up hobbies to distract me. Thumper and I start going for hikes in Runyon Canyon. We walk up the mountain until we can barely move, until we think we can’t go one more step, and then we keep going. We never let the mountain win.
After a while, Rachel starts coming with us. She also encourages me to start running. So I do. I run every other day. As the weeks go by, the temperature starts to get cold in Los Angeles, so I buy a tight-fitting fleece. My shins start to hurt, so I buy proper shoes. I push myself farther and farther down the street. I run longer. I run faster. I run until one day, my face looks thinner and my stomach feels tighter. And then I keep running. It quiets the voices in my head. It calms my nerves. It forces me to think of no one, nothing, but the sound of my breath, the banging of my heart inside my chest, and the fact that I must keep going.
Eventually, I don’t check Ryan’s e-mail at all.
part three
THAT’S THE WAY LOVE GOES
It’s a Sunday morning in late November, and even though it was only sixty degrees yesterday, it is eighty-five today.
“This weather makes no sense to me,” Mila says. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to me.”
Christina is watching the kids. Mila’s only request for the morning was, “I don’t care where we go. Just get me away from children and moms.” So I figured the Rose Bowl flea market would be fun. She seemed to be in a pretty bad mood when I picked her up, but she perked up once we got on the road. Now that we’re here, she seems much more like herself. The only issue is that neither of us is really shopping for anything in particular, so we are just aimlessly wandering through the aisles.
A booth of dream catchers draws Mila in, and she starts looking. “What do dream catchers even do?” she asks.
“I’m going to avoid the obvious answer of ‘catch dreams,’” I say.
“Yeah, but what does that actually mean? Catch dreams?”
“No idea,” I say. I don’t want to talk loudly enough that the booth owner hears us and insists on giving us a ten-minute lesson. I made this mistake once with a guy selling antique chamber pots. As I see the owner coming over, I aim to change the subject by saying, “Let’s change the subject.”
Mila walks away from the dream catchers and heads further in. “OK,” she says. “How about we discuss me setting you up on a blind date?” She turns to me and makes an overly excited face, as if her abundance of excitement about this idea might sway me at all.
“That’s a no. That’s actually an ‘absolutely not,’” I say.
“Oh, stop,” she says. “You need to meet somebody! Have a good time!”
Do I think it would be nice to meet somebody? Sure, yeah. Sometimes I do. But a blind date? No. “It’s just not my style.”
“What is your style? Meeting people in study hall?”
I open my mouth wide to indicate that I am insulted. “It was the dining hall, for your information.”
“Look, you haven’t been in the dating world for a long time, so I think it’s important that you understand that people don’t meet people standing in line at the pharmacy or when they go to reach for the same magazine at the bookstore.”
“Then how do they meet them?”
“Blind dates!” she says. “Well, also online, but you’re not ready for that. It’s all about blind dates.”
That’s absurd. Obviously, people meet people other ways. Although the truth is, I don’t really know how anybody meets anybody outside of college. And I don’t know that I want to find out just yet. “I’m just not sure if I’m ready,” I say. I head toward a booth selling silver jewelry and start trying on rings.
“Suit yourself,” she says. “Christina says he’s cute, though.”
“You have someone in mind already? What, do the two of you sit at home snuggled up in your matching pajamas talking about my sad life?”
Mila joins me at the ring booth. “First of all, we have never worn matching pajamas. We’re lesbians, not twins,” she says. “And second of all, no, we do not snuggle and talk about your sad life. We do, however, sometimes get bored and try to meddle where we don’t belong. I see it as a public service.”
“A public service?”
“You think you’re the first person I set up on a blind date? My sister and her husband? Me. Christina’s boss and her boyfriend? Me.”
“Didn’t you also set up Samuel in admissions with Samantha in the housing office?”
Mila waves it off. “That one was a mistake. I thought the Sam/Sam thing was adorable, and it clouded my vision. But Christina says this guy is really cute. He’s recently divorced. Mid-thirties. Eighth-grade social studies teacher, so you know he’s probably a sweetheart.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It sounds complicated. I’m not looking for anything serious. I don’t know. I just . . . I don’t think so.”
“OK,” she says, falsely resigned. “I’ll just have Christina tell him it’s a no go.”
I put down the ring I was looking at. “She already talked to him?”
“Yeah,” Mila says, shrugging. “It’s a shame, too, because he was excited about it. She showed him your picture, and he said you were beautiful.”
I look up at her, skeptical. “You’re not making this up?”
She puts her hand up as if swearing an oath. “Hand to God.”
I smile at her, despite myself.
Mila smiles back at me. She got further than she thought she would.
I walk past her to the booth next to us. It’s a man selling hats. Half of them are Dodgers caps. It’s enough to make me wonder where my husband is at this very moment. He stopped writing me long ago. I have no idea what his life is like. He could be in bed with a blond woman. He could be making her breakfast. He could be in love. He could be having sex with her this very minute. That man who stood on the steps of Vernal Fall and told me he couldn’t live without me . . . I wonder what he’s doing right now, living without me.
“You OK?” Mila asks me, when she finally gets my attention. “You look distracted.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.” It’s not the full truth, exactly. But it’s much less of a lie than it used to be.
After work on Monday, I’m at the Farmers Market at the Grove when my phone starts to ring. I put down the gourmet jam I’m looking at and dig into my purse to try to find my phone.
It’s Charlie.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey, do you have a minute?”
I walk away from the stand and find a place to sit. “I’ve got nothing but time,” I say. I say this to be kind, but also, I actually have
nothing but time. Being single leaves you a lot of time to spare. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to come home for Christmas,” he says.
“That’s great! We are all going to Mom’s, and I think there is talk of Bill joining us. And Grandma is coming. Not sure about Uncle Fletcher, but I would assume so. So it will be nice to have it with—”
Charlie cuts me off. “Listen, I need your help with something.”
“OK . . .”
“I have some news to tell everyone, and I’m not sure how to do it. And so I was wondering what you thought first.”
“OK,” I say. This is a novel feeling, Charlie caring what I think. But I’m also cautiously terrified. If Charlie is seeking out my advice, if he doesn’t think he can handle it himself, then this has got to be big, right? It’s got to be bad.
“You’re sitting down? Or I mean, you have time to talk?”
“Oh, my God, Charlie, what is it?”
He breathes in, and then he says it. “I’m going to be a dad.”
“You’re going to see Dad?” How does he even know where Dad is? Did Dad call him?
“No, Lauren. I’m having a baby. I’m going to be a dad.”
There are people walking past me, shoppers haggling over tomatoes and avocados, kids calling for their mothers. There are cars whizzing by in the distance. Butchers selling various cuts of meat to women on their way home from work. But I can’t hear any of that. I just hear my own breathing. All I can hear is my own deafening silence. What do I say? I decide to go with, “OK, and how do you feel about that?”
Charlie’s voice starts to brighten. “I think it’s great, honestly. I think it’s the best news I’ve gotten in my entire life.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I’m twenty-five years old. I have a job I don’t care about. I live across the country from my family. My friends are . . . whatever. But what am I doing? What have I done that’s so great? I keep moving from place to place, thinking I’m going on these adventures, and nothing ever comes of it. And then I happen to meet Natalie, and two months later, I get a call saying that I’m . . . This is good. I really think this is good. I can be a father to someone.”
After I Do Page 14