“I won’t,” I said, and she laughed.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“The worst,” I agreed. “Hey, Lou?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think we should keep living together?”
Now she opened the door and stuck her head in. “Why do you ask?”
I had been reading, and put my book down on the pillow beside me. “I was just thinking about Em.”
“I’m not sure. She seems so happy but . . .”
“. . . if she gets too used to it as she gets older, it will be a harder transition for her when we have two houses,” I said.
“Yeah.” Lou opened her mouth to say something else, then shook her head.
“What is it?”
“I don’t even know, really. But let’s think about it some more, yes? Then maybe we can compare notes and figure out what’s best.”
“Good idea,” I said.
But we didn’t speak the next day or even the next month. We just kept on as we were, like everything would work out with no intervention on our part.
One June afternoon, I opened my email and found this at the top:
James,
It’s been years; I hope you remember me. I looked you up online and saw that you’re still living in Ann Arbor. I’ll be in town for a job interview in two days. Any interest in grabbing a drink? Either way, I hope you’re well.
All my best,
Nora
Nora Roderick. Of course I remembered her. I had even looked her up a few years ago; her digital résumé informed me that she had graduated at the top of her class at Loyola Law and was working at a big firm in Chicago.
I wrote back and suggested we grab drinks at a Mexican restaurant downtown, to which she responded, “Perfect,” and listed her phone number.
“You don’t mind if I go?” I asked Lou that evening over dinner.
You had started doing a rocking-lurching trick to attempt to catapult yourself out of your high chair and onto the floor, unaware that if you went down, the chair was going with you. As such, you were sitting in Lou’s lap for safety’s sake. She stopped passing you peas to eat and looked at me. “On your date? Of course not. You know I’m not working that night.”
“It’s not a date, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it,” I said.
Lou smiled. “Isn’t it?”
“She’s my ex-student.”
“That was a million years ago. She’s in her thirties now, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Go enjoy yourself,” she insisted, bouncing you on her knee. “We want Daddy to have fun, don’t we?” she cooed at you, to which you slapped the table with a pea-coated hand and said, “Fun!”
“This is so weird sometimes,” I said.
Lou looked at you again, then back up at me. “Rich life experiences, remember, Jim? Rich life experiences.”
Nora was fifteen minutes late. My father felt tardiness was a character flaw, and though I didn’t agree, I still hated when someone failed to show up on time. But when I saw Nora striding through the door in a purple dress and boots that brought to mind the pair she used to wear to class, I forgot I was irritated.
“Well, well, well,” she said, making no effort to hide the fact that she was giving me the once-over. “James Hernandez. How is it that I’ve had to start injecting myself with Botox and you haven’t aged a day?”
I was flustered, but in an oddly enjoyable way. “You have not.”
She grinned at me. “No, I haven’t. But really, you look good, James. It’s great to see you.”
“You, too, Nora.”
The hostess led us to a cavernous booth.
“I feel like we’re on opposite sides of the restaurant,” said Nora after we slid into our respective sides.
“Hellooooo,” I said, mock-echoing.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Want to go sit at the bar?” she echoed back.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
We snagged a couple of bar stools and ordered margaritas. Then Nora swiveled toward me. “This is so much better.”
I nodded. “It’s good to see you. What made you think of reaching out after all this time?”
“The firm that’s trying to recruit me is based in Detroit, and if I get the job, I’d be working in the Ann Arbor office. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to reconnect with some of the people I know here, and I Googled you and saw that you were still at the university. Though I can’t believe you’re not teaching anymore. What’s up with that?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t particularly good at it.”
“No, you weren’t,” she said with another grin. “But at least you cared. Remember how you gave me another chance?”
“Who could forget?”
“So you didn’t do that for all the students?” she said.
“I flunked everyone else.”
“Sure you did.”
I laughed heartily. “No, I didn’t.” I was feeling loose in the way that tequila can make a person, and I leaned in toward her. “I still remember reading your story. It was good, just like I thought it would be. Did you ever write anything else?”
“I appreciate the compliment, but I don’t love fiction. Turns out that what I actually enjoy writing is legal briefs. I’m that rare lawyer who loves the law.”
“Lucky. Though if you don’t like fiction, I’m not sure we can be friends,” I teased.
Her eyes twinkled. “Are you sure about that, James?” (I was not.) “Enough about me, though; tell me about you. What have you been up to for the past ten years?”
Interestingly—and maybe this was not just because of the tequila, but because Nora lit me up even as she put me at ease—I felt no urge to act like someone else around her.
So I gave her the warts-and-all update of my disappointments and unexpected success at the business school, my failed relationships and complicated family situation. She didn’t seem put off that I had a child with a woman who was not my partner. In fact, she barely blinked when I explained that Lou and I were living together. I had just begun explaining that things in our house were humming along nicely when Nora leaned forward, put her hand on my knee, and kissed me.
Her lips were electric on mine, and as she leaned onto my leg, I felt a tug of something—passion, yes, but possibility, too—that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Do you have anywhere to be?” she asked when we parted.
“Yes,” I said, and leaned forward to kiss her again. “With you.”
TWENTY-TWO
Summer–Fall 2010
Nora got the job and moved into a condo on the west side of town that July. Almost immediately, we began seeing each other most days. During the workweek, I went to her place after putting you to bed. Since Nora logged long hours at the office, this proved to be an ideal arrangement. Weekends were more complicated, both logistically and emotionally. Lou was often scheduled to be at the bookstore, where she had recently been promoted to manager, and I didn’t want to leave you with a sitter during that time. Moreover, you, Lou, and I were in the habit of spending most of our free time together. We continued to do so, but increasingly I found myself wishing that Nora was with us. Yet when I was with her, I missed you—and yes, Lou. My heart was in perpetual limbo.
One evening in early August, Nora and I were unpacking the last of the boxes in her bedroom when she turned to me and said, “I don’t want to ask you to be exclusive, because that might freak you out, but can we please not see other people?”
I laughed, put down the hangers I was holding, and embraced her. “I don’t know when I’d see other people, given that I’m spending all my free time with you. But yes, for me, there’s only you. Though my inner pessimist is telling me that it can’t possibly be this simple.”
Nora pulled back and made a face at me. “And why not? Is this about Lou?”
I had already told Nora everything: how I had loved Lou all those years, even when I should not ha
ve; how I had let that love take over so much of my life; how I had struggled with what I had done to Rob, whose angry face often surfaced in my dreams, and whom I thought about every single day. With a different woman, it might have been too early in the relationship for such confessions. But with Nora, it felt natural—necessary, even, in order for us to be intimate.
“No, I don’t think so,” I told her. “I think it’s about me not trusting fate or maybe my subconscious.”
“Okay, then trust me,” she said. “This is simple because it’s good, and good because it’s simple.”
Maybe she was right, but I suspected that it was actually good because it was complicated. Nora was both the spark and the warmth of the fire; she was the passion and the humdrum. As I put my lips to the back of her neck and felt her prickle with pleasure, it occurred to me that there was no comparing her to the two women I had loved before her. Because without Lou or Kathryn and what they had taught me about love—at great cost, yes, but all the same—there would have been no Nora.
“I’m thrilled for you, Jim,” said Lou when I told her Nora and I were serious. “This is the best possible thing that could have happened to you.”
“But is it the best thing to happen to you? And what about Emerson? There are three of us to consider now,” I pointed out.
“Don’t worry about us, right, baby love?” Lou cooed at you.
You clapped your hands together and said, “Worry about us!” and Lou and I looked at each other and laughed. (You were so funny; when, we asked ourselves in the way that new parents often do, had there ever before been a child so bright and wonderful?)
I did worry, though. Lou had come so far, but she still had dark days. And when she did, I was there to help pull her through.
When I told her I was worried about her leaving, she acted as though I were nuts. “My therapist thinks moving is a terrible idea,” she said, waving a hand at me. “Things are stable now, which is what’s most important.”
I was glad that her psychologist thought a move was ill-advised, even if I suspected that my spending a few nights a week at Nora’s house wasn’t adding to Lou’s sense of stability.
Clever empath that she was, Nora sensed my anxiety. “You know, you don’t have to stay over so often if it makes you feel bad,” she said one Saturday evening when I arrived with my overnight bag in tow. “We can take it slow.”
“I don’t want to take it slow.” I dropped my bag and pulled her close to me. “Ah, Nora, how do I love thee?”
I was referencing the Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem, but before I could add “Let me count the ways,” Nora met my eyes and said, “It’s easy to do, James. Love me when I’m at my worst. Love me when you don’t agree with me, and when this no longer feels new and surprising. Love me through it all.”
It took me a few minutes to find my voice. When I could finally speak, I said quietly, “I love you, Nora. I really do. And I’m going to do my absolute best to keep loving you through it all.”
She kissed me but did not say it back—that would come the following weekend, while we were eating pancakes in bed. It didn’t matter; I already knew.
Remember the photo your grandfather took on your first birthday? It’s the one that’s on the mantel. He had emailed it to me the day after your party, but it wasn’t until the following September that I finally had it printed and framed. I had planned to give it to Lou for her birthday, but she caught me bringing it in the house.
“Ooh, let me see!” she said, and held her hands out.
I reluctantly handed it to her. “You’ve seen it already. I was going to give you this framed version for your birthday.”
“You still can,” she said. She sat on the sofa, staring at the picture.
“What is it?” I asked. “You don’t like it?” I looked kind of goofy, but it was one of the best photos of Lou I’d ever seen. And you, a smear of frosting on your cheek, that wild hair of yours in every direction: you were practically an advertisement for having children.
“We . . . look like a happy family.”
I was about to make a joke about all happy families being the same until I caught her expression.
“I’ve never had a happy family before,” she said quietly.
“I know,” I said softly. “I’m not so sure I have, either.” My upbringing had not been as traumatic as Lou’s, but nonetheless, the unpleasant memories outnumbered the pleasant, at least where my parents were involved.
Really, all of my best moments from growing up included Rob, and more often than not, his parents. There was the time when our softball team won the citywide championship, and the four of us went out to an old-fashioned ice cream shop to celebrate. “Order anything on the menu, you two,” Bobby had told us. Rob’s pitching was the reason our team had claimed the title, but they made me feel the victory was mine, too.
When I won a young author’s contest in sixth grade, Nancy saw the certificate on top of my homework on their counter and ran out and bought a frame for it. “That’s a big deal, James. Be sure to hang it somewhere where you can see it,” she said solemnly, and in doing so gave me permission to be proud rather than chagrined because it was not the right kind of award, as I had been telling myself.
Then there were the summer weeks at Rob’s aunt’s cabin, which gave me a chance to be a boy without constantly second-guessing myself for fear I was doing everything all wrong. For once, I wasn’t flooded with shame when I thought about Rob and what we had shared. I only felt loss.
Lou’s eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up at me. “God, Jim. I’ve really ruined everything, haven’t I?”
I smiled sadly. “Isn’t that my line?”
“No, you screwball. It’s definitely mine.” She wiped her eyes with a corner of her sweater. “We could have been good together, Jim.”
“We are good together, Lou.”
“You loved me for so long,” she insisted. “Maybe that meant something.”
“Maybe it meant I hurt both you and Rob terribly,” I remarked. “Whoever said all’s fair in love and war was not a student of history.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I am glad you’ve found love. You deserve it.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know if I deserved it—it seemed to me that I still owed Karma a point or three—but it was wonderful to want to run off to some far-flung location with Nora rather than Lou. Heck, it was wonderful just to be able to confide in her at the end of the day.
Would we last? It was impossible to say. We had our troubles. She worked long hours and often continued to obsess about her cases during what should have been her downtime. She refused to change her mind over trivial issues, such as whether quilted toilet paper was superior to single-ply, to say nothing of the political squabbles we got into.
But I loved her in spite of these issues, and maybe even more because of them. For the first time, Nora had demonstrated to me that a strong relationship didn’t require an absence of strife, that two people could hold opposing viewpoints (whether on toilet paper or public policy) and still be deeply in love and committed to their partnership.
“Can I ask you something?” I said to Lou.
“Sure,” she said.
“Do you still love Rob?”
She froze, and for a split second I thought I had offended her. Then she walked to the mantel, set the picture on it, and turned back to me. “Don’t you, Jim? Once you love someone all the way, you love them forever. That’s just how it goes.”
TWENTY-THREE
Winter 2010
That Christmas Eve, Lou and I decided to host dinner. Nora had never spent any extended amount of time with you and Lou, and I was—let’s just say a bit apprehensive. In response, I may or may not have had a few too many eggnogs, each containing more bourbon than egg, and might have been a bit tipsy when Nora arrived.
She was wearing a sweaterdress, a delicate gold necklace, and another pair of tall boots. “Don’t you look amazing,�
� I said, kissing her hello.
She kissed me back, then looked at me with amusement. “That’s some breath you’ve got going on. Trying to drink away the jitters?”
I grinned like a fool. “Me? Never.”
“Introduce me to everyone,” she said, putting her hand on the back of my arm to direct me into my own house, “then go find some rolls and eat as many as you can so I don’t find you passed out under the Christmas tree an hour from now.”
When I had told my father about Nora, he declared that the only person I should be having a relationship with was Lou, whom he was quite fond of. “You have a child together, for cripes’ sake,” he muttered, throwing his hands up in the air. “Is this how you kids do it these days? What’s next? You all go live together on a commune and start adding more wives? If that’s your plan, you’re going to need another job. Even an engineer couldn’t afford more than one woman.”
But Nora cornered my father, who was sitting by the fireplace—“Javier? So nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so many great things about you from James”—and suddenly he was singing a sweeter tune. I could all but see him thinking, Well she’s fantastic. What on God’s green earth is she doing with my son?
And when you saw Nora, you lifted your arms for her to hold you. She hoisted you onto her hip and the two of you followed me into the kitchen, where we found Lou desecrating an innocent pan of yams with mini marshmallows. “Hello, hello!” she said to Nora, waving with fluff-covered fingers. “Welcome!”
“Thank you so much for having me,” said Nora. “How can I help?”
“We’ve got it!” chirped Lou, like the oven timer wasn’t going off in the background and the green beans weren’t smoking on the stove. She was more nervous than I was, even after I turned off the timer and pulled the beans from the burner, and she kept looking at Nora as though she were about to drop you.
“Please, sit, make yourself comfortable,” she said, her voice an octave too high. “There’s a bar set up in the three-season room, and appetizers in the dining room.”
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