Forever is the Worst Long Time: A Novel

by Camille Pagán

  “Thank you. Wanna get some food, Emerson?” Nora asked, and you nodded.

  “No cookies!” Lou called after the two of you. “Too much sugar and she turns into a monster.”

  Nora swiveled. “Got it. No cookies.” She pressed the tip of your nose with her finger, and the two of you laughed like you were sharing a private joke.

  Lou didn’t love Nora. She wasn’t rude, but neither was she her usual effusive self around her. Nora knew it and made it clear that while she would be cordial to Lou, she wasn’t about to expend an iota of mental energy devoted to Lou’s opinion of her. I worried that this forecasted future problems for our household, even as I envied Nora; I myself had never quite managed to not care what other people thought of me. As I watched the two of them exchange stale niceties over drinks, I wondered if they would ever come to actually enjoy each other’s company. Then I wondered why this mattered to me. If they were fine with it, shouldn’t I be, too?

  Dinner went as well as anyone could have hoped. Your uncle Dan drank enough that I looked sober in comparison, and my uncle José and aunt Marie left as soon as the meal was over, which was longer than we had expected them to stay. When I showed my father our Christmas tree—it was the first I had ever put up in my house, and the first tree of my life that wasn’t fabricated from petroleum—he responded by saying we had too many presents stashed beneath. Not only was it a fire hazard, he explained, it was a sure sign you would grow up spoiled, and that would be our fault—never mind that when it came to you, he was the most egregious gift-giver of all. Nora managed to defuse the situation by saying that her parents had spoiled her rotten, and yet she had turned out to be a minimalist (true: she didn’t own a single thing she didn’t use on a regular basis).

  After dinner, everyone but Lou decamped to the living room. I found her in the kitchen, washing a platter.

  “I thought we were going to do the dishes later on?” I asked.

  “I just needed a minute.”

  Outside, snow was falling in thick, wet flakes, which had begun to form peaks on the windowsill. I touched her shoulder. “You okay? Is this about Nora?”

  “Not at all.”

  “My father, then?” I pressed. “I know he can be difficult sometimes.”

  “If that’s your idea of difficult, let’s trade lives,” she said, placing the platter on a towel.

  Right—her family, I thought. The holidays had always been hard for her. I was about to ask if she had spoken with her uncle, who had recently gotten sober and had been making an effort to connect with her, when she turned off the faucet and said, “I heard from Rob this morning.”

  “You did? When were you going to tell me?”

  “Now,” she said plainly.

  “What did he say?” I asked, my tone betraying my fear. “What did you say?”

  She shrugged. “Merry Christmas.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “When’s the last time you heard from him?”

  “Do we have to go into it right now?”

  “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “You asked if everything was okay. I figured you’d want to know that it has nothing to do with your girlfriend. Who, for the record, is lovely.”

  Nothing to do with my girlfriend, and everything to do with Rob. I should have been happy for her; if he had emailed, then he didn’t despise her. But there was no rationalizing away my racing pulse and the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Email now—but what next? She still loved him. He probably still loved her. I understood this; really, I envied it. But if they reunited, would she move back to New York with you—leaving me here alone or requiring me to move and leave Nora behind?

  “Thanks,” I said weakly.

  Lou dried her hands on the dish towel. “Don’t even give it another thought, Jim. Let’s go join the others and try to enjoy ourselves, okay?”

  But I did think about it. A lot—and even after Lou told me that aside from the Christmas email, her correspondence with Rob had been limited to brief exchanges regarding alimony and attorney fees.

  Tension had been building between Lou and me, subtly but surely since right after Nora and I began dating. Lou used to tease me when I forgot things; now, if I didn’t bring milk home after work, you’d think I had just sentenced you to a week without food. This drove me mad, since she herself was incapable of following a basic grocery list. And I couldn’t understand why she insisted on getting up at six in the morning even after she’d gone to bed late—after all, she was the worst sort of grouch when she skimped on sleep.

  Bigger fish went unfried. For example, we couldn’t agree on whether or not you would start preschool the following summer. You were doing great with Lauren, the sitter who watched you a few hours a day, Lou argued, whereas I felt that a part-time preschool program was the best way to tap into your full genius.

  Rob added yet another layer of tension. What did his reaching out to Lou mean for her—and for all of us?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Spring–Summer 2011

  Months went by, and nothing and everything changed. You turned two, and we threw you another party, this time with a few children from the neighborhood as well as our extended family. You began to use the tiny plastic toilet we bought you and speak in increasingly complex sentences (“Daddy, that’s your pen!” “Mommy, I don’t like that cereal!”).

  Lou didn’t mention Rob, and I didn’t ask. I met Nora’s parents in February; in April, she and I went to Paris for five glorious days. We had coq au vin with a bottle of Bordeaux on Rue Balzac in the Eighth Arrondissement. We toured the modern art gallery at Centre Pompidou, and saw Picasso’s collection of West African masks at his eponymous museum. We hung a lock on the Pont des Arts, even though the bridge was crumbling beneath the weight of so much love.

  When we returned, Nora sat me down and told me that as much as she adored you, she never wanted children of her own. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to get married anytime soon, either. “Neither has anything to do with you, James,” she told me, squeezing my hand.

  “Of course they do,” I argued. I’ll confess, I had spent a good part of our Parisian vacation thinking about how nice it would be to give you a sibling and have a child with Nora.

  “No,” she insisted. “I’ve always felt this way.”

  “And I’m not enough to change it,” I said, dejected.

  “That’s not fair, James, and you know it.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  We argued for the better part of an hour. Nora, skilled litigator that she was, was ready to go at it with me until we reached an accord. I wanted to go to bed—and I did.

  As I tossed and turned on Nora’s sofa, I recalled how I had said no to Kathryn when she had asked me to have a child with her. At the time, I thought something was missing between us. Lo and behold, all these years later I knew that what was missing was my ability to fully buy into our relationship.

  This wasn’t the same—Nora was far more mature than I had been when I said no to Kathryn. Even so, it was enough to help me see that I should accept Nora’s decision and stay with her rather than jeopardize what we had together. Around midnight, I climbed back into bed with her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I whispered.

  Nora, who had been asleep on her stomach, turned over and draped her arm over my chest. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I don’t want this to be a deal breaker, but I don’t want to lie to you, either.”

  “You shouldn’t have to,” I said, and wrapped my arms around her. “I want to be with you, and that’s all that matters.”

  One blazing day in July, I had just returned from the grocery store when Lou announced she had good news.

  Gone were the days of one-bag shopping; four hauls from the car to the kitchen had left me doused in sweat. “Tell me more,” I said as I wiped my forehead with a paper towel.

  “Yvonne just offered to let us use her house in Grand Marais for a week next month!” she ex
claimed as she pulled a sack of potatoes from one of the bags I had set on the counter.

  I eyed her skeptically. “You do know that’s where I used to go on vacation with Rob and his family, yes?”

  “I’ve been to his aunt’s cottage. This would be a totally different week than when Nancy and Bob usually go up.”

  The Logans always vacationed the week of July Fourth, which had already passed. I knew this because I had joined them every summer from the time I was twelve to the year I graduated from college. His aunt’s cottage was a postcard sort of place perched on a sandy hill overlooking Lake Superior, with miles of woods directly behind it. I had spent hundreds of hours of my life beachcombing and hiking there—with the man who had once been my closest friend.

  “I don’t know, Lou,” I said. “Couldn’t we go anywhere else?”

  “Another place would cost thousands of dollars. This is free, and it would be so good for Em. Sun, fresh air, a chance to experience a piece of her father’s childhood.” She had opened the fridge to put something away and called back to me. “You can bring Nora.”

  I was feeling winded, and I pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. “I don’t know if I have vacation time left after Paris. Maybe Jennifer could go with you? Or what about Cassie and Ben?” I said, referring to our neighbor and her son, with whom Lou had become close. “Then you would have company, and Em would have someone to play with.”

  “I don’t really know Cassie well enough to travel with her. Anyway, I was hoping we could take a family vacation.”

  I wiped my brow again, this time with the back of my arm, and stood. “Can I give it a little thought before I say yes?”

  “Of course.”

  But I already knew that I would be able to get the time off. The real issue was that I was fairly convinced that revisiting the vacation spot I had shared with Rob would inevitably be traumatic.

  Or perhaps it would be healthy, I thought. Our friendship was over, but that didn’t mean the memories we had were of no value. And as Lou had said, it would be an opportunity to share part of my childhood with you—the good part.

  “Don’t overthink it,” said Nora, who couldn’t join us because of a trial she was working on, when she kissed me good-bye. “Just go and try to enjoy yourself.” I kissed her back and promised I would at least try.

  You know how sometimes you picture something in your mind a particular way, but when you see it again, you’re disappointed to discover that what you thought was blue is in fact green, and what should be left side was on the right all along? As we drove down the steep road leading into Grand Marais, I felt a curious mix of anticipation and trepidation.

  Nearly everything about my life had changed since I had last visited with Rob. Yet the town was almost exactly the same. Sure, the tavern where Rob and I used to down baskets of battered whitefish and chips had been updated with a fresh coat of paint and a new name. But the post office was untouched, as were the bait and tackle and the old gas station. I blinked, remembering how Rob had run out of gas just half a mile from the station. Instead of walking to buy a canister of gas, we had the harebrained idea to put the car in neutral and let it roll down the hill. We almost ended up in the lake, and that was after we narrowly missed a collision with a pickup truck.

  My throat tightened as the enormous bay the town was built around came into view. And just beyond the bay was Lake Superior, so vast you could mistake it for the sea—and indeed, when Bobby had told me that it was the Atlantic the first summer I came with them, I had actually believed him until Rob laughed and told me he was pulling my leg.

  The town felt like the grave of an old friend who was still alive. It had been nearly three years since Rob and I had last spoken; it may as well have been three decades. There was so much that had happened and so much I had wanted to tell him.

  “Turn right,” Lou instructed, reading from the directions she had printed out (hard to believe that in a few short years, we would both own cell phones that served as both map and navigator). “Then left, and . . . keep going . . . and here we are!”

  I pulled onto the dirt drive leading to a single-story cottage with white cedar shakes. It had a large wraparound porch and a yard adorned with all sorts of shrubs and flowering plants. A handful of tiny fairy houses were nestled in the garden, which you immediately spotted and ran to examine.

  The cottage was standard-issue charming: white walls with unpainted wooden beams spanning the ceiling, a slip-covered sofa and rattan chairs, watercolor paintings of the lake and seashells. Here and there were items that made the house so clearly Yvonne’s: a giant dream catcher hanging from one of the beams, a large chunk of purple quartz in the center of the dining room table, and books everywhere—beside the sofa, stacked at the end of the kitchen island, piled beneath the beds.

  The kitchen and living room were connected, and the back of the house was made almost entirely of windows, save for a pair of French doors. Lou unlatched them, and we walked out onto the deck. There was a hammock strung between two pines in the small backyard. Ten feet beyond the yard was the beach, which was on the bay. It was impossible to see another house unless you walked to the water’s edge.

  As Lou and I stood with our bare feet in the lake, she turned to me triumphantly. “See? I told you this would be perfect.”

  To my left, you were twirling in circles to a chorus of gulls and the rhythm of the early evening surf. To my right, an invisible Rob stood beside me, but I would have to do my best not to let him overshadow this vacation. I smiled at Lou. “And you were right.”

  Old haunts conjure up familiar ghosts, and I spent the first few days glancing over my shoulder, like Rob or one of the Logans would appear at any moment. After all, here was the bay where Rob had caught a twenty-inch bass. There was the diner where Bobby went every single day for a chocolate malted. And just over the way was the trail where Rob and Wisnewski rode four-wheelers, even though Nancy said they would kill themselves, if a bear didn’t beat them to it. Every turn held another memory, but no sooner did I remember the good than the bad came rushing back.

  I knew our sunny, schedule-free days would be over as soon as they began, so I worked hard to focus my attention on you and Lou. The minute I was alone, my thoughts returned to Rob. I hadn’t tried to reach out to him since the email that he shot down with a single no. I suspected that extra effort would not lead him to forgive me. But there was more than a simple apology that remained to be said.

  “I like to see you looking like this,” said Lou. We were lying on the seemingly endless stretch of beach on Lake Superior’s southern side. Rocks of all sizes, some glittering, others flat and gray, all ancient, were scattered across the sand. We had cleared a batch for our towels and a large beach umbrella, which you were asleep beneath.

  “Looking like what?” I said.

  “You know,” she said, her face barely visible under her floppy straw hat. “You look like . . . yourself.”

  “And what’s that, exactly? Nerdish? Flabby? Incompetent?”

  “Stop it.”

  I grinned. “I’m just getting started.”

  “You look relaxed, Jim. Have you thought about your next book? This would be a good place to get started, don’t you think?”

  I had been propped up on my elbows, and I could feel my chest beginning to burn. This far north, the weather could become chilly without warning, even in August. But we had been sweating off our sunscreen for days and had yet to see a cloud. I sighed and flipped onto my stomach, then turned my head toward her. “The thing is, I’m not writing anymore.”

  Even behind her hat and sunglasses, Lou’s disapproval was evident. “Since when?”

  Should I try to put a bow on the ugly truth? And for what? I had stopped trying to impress Lou some time ago. I had stopped trying to impress anyone, really, unless me trying to wow you with my Elmo impression counted. “I don’t know. It’s been a few years now,” I admitted.

  “You haven’t written for that
long?” she said, making it sound far worse than it really was.

  “Yes, but I don’t really care,” I said. “Writing feels like a younger man’s game. At this juncture in life, with Emerson to think about, and my relationship with Nora, and work—well, I don’t see how I can manage it. And just as well; I’ve lost my drive. I mean, I’ve been keeping a journal, and that’s been enjoyable.”

  She pursed her lips, examined me for a minute, then said, “But that’s your lifelong dream, Jim. You don’t just lose that.”

  “Sure you do,” I scoffed. “I’m living proof it’s possible.”

  She eyed me skeptically. “Are you sure you’re not just hung up on your own performance? You could have finished any one of the novels you were working on. Or written another in the meantime. I just wonder if you let fear hold you back.”

  “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Lou,” I warned.

  “I’m not. I just want you to be happy and healthy. Have you been feeling okay?”

  “Never better.”

  “Really? You barely touched your burger last night, and you’ve been losing weight.”

  Was this true? I supposed the burger bit was, but I had been tired. I was down a few pounds, but that was almost always the case in the summer. My appetite was perfectly normal.

  “You’ve been slouching around a bit, too,” she added.

  “Slouching around? I’m not exactly known for my good posture, nor my radiant positivity.” I shaded my eyes with a hand. “Listen, Lou, I appreciate your concern. I really do. But believe me—I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.”

  “Okay . . . ,” she said, tilting her head quizzically. “But what occurs to me just now is that maybe I’m making you a little unhappy. After all, I dragged you here when you wanted to be home with Nora.”

  “She told me to go, and it turned out to be a great idea,” I pointed out.

  “I’m glad. Still, what I’m getting at is that maybe it would be better if you and Nora lived together.”