As I hit the top step, I heard Pam calling back to him on her way up, “Don’t you worry, Buddy. You’ll be with us forever.”
14
To all of those who say the United States has become little more than a nation of hardened skeptics and unwavering pessimists, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present to you the institution of marriage.
At least one out of two of them fails, and those failures result in shattered hearts, staggering legal bills, unwanted time apart from kids, forced moves, long nights alone wondering how it all came apart, and longer days alone wondering how some semblance of a life will be stitched back together. No one in their teens and twenties ever imagines themselves forty and divorced, the tang of failure all around them, cooking for one, awkwardly reentering the dating pool, yet that’s how it too often is.
But we keep getting married—young people, middle-aged people, old people, those who’ve never been married before and many who are wading in for a second or third try. It’s who we are. It’s what we do. Ours is always going to be the marriage that ends not in family court but in death, preferably not involving a weapon and hopefully a long way away, immortalized by our children and grandchildren, who will strive their whole lives to have the kind of relationship we had, or at least they believe we had.
Against this backdrop of hopes and dreams, there was me, carrying around so many fears and failures. Everything in my life seemed to be in flux, as if you could take all the disparate pieces that made up my identity, toss them into the air on a breezy day, and see how they might fall. The Globe, my employer for the better part of two decades and an institution I happened to love, was facing the darkest days in its long and storied history, though fortunately, it seemed to be emerging intact. The New York Times, our corporate overlord, had threatened to shutter us in April. A couple of months later, the Times threatened to sell us. Meanwhile, it was cutting the hell out of us. Besides that, I think it really liked us. Luckily, the closure or sale never came to be. The economy rebounded, advertising bounced back some, and we cut staff and raised the price of the paper. Suddenly we were profitable again, nowhere near what we had once been but enough to turn out a damned good report most days, and the Times, to its considerable credit, kept the resources in place for us to do it.
I made the decision to go from being a deputy managing editor overseeing our local news operation back to writing the metro column I had for nearly a decade before. Managing people was deeply satisfying and mostly fun because they were good people, talented people, hardworking people who made a vital difference in the communities we covered. But ultimately I missed searching for the story that wouldn’t otherwise be told, sharing an opinion that might occasionally have impact here in my native city, and having my own name on my own column. I also missed having some semblance of a life. The editing job required me to be in a glass-walled office in the Globe newsroom morning, noon, and night, which wasn’t really my style. And when I wasn’t there, I was on call and constantly being called. When I went into management, I struck a deal that I would try it for two years and ended up doing it closer to three. The editor of the paper, Marty Baron, whose calling card is his integrity, was kind enough to hold true to his promise and give me my old job back when I asked.
That was the professional side. The personal side was more daunting.
I had lived alone for so long that I didn’t even have to talk to myself anymore, I was that comfortable. It was me and Harry, and then me and Baker, constantly on the go, a perfect, seamless pair. But it was getting old, and so was I. By the time I was looking down the road at fifty, the routines and lifestyle that had had so much appeal when I was in my thirties and early forties were starting to seem just south of dysfunctional. The fun uncle who was jetting around the world chasing stories, staying at great hotels, always aware of the best restaurants—make sure you ask for Felix and tell him I sent you—suddenly looked as if he’d stayed at the party a couple of scotches too long. I’m sure there were more than a few conversations about whether I would ever change. Hell, I didn’t know the answer to that myself.
But in truth, that wasn’t the reason why I wanted to get married, just the backdrop. I wanted to get married because Pam, quite simply and honestly, was the most remarkable woman I had ever known. When she first expressed interest in the form of the tie, I was adamant about not getting involved. She had two daughters. She lived in the distant suburbs. She drove a big SUV. She had a scientist’s mind. She was a fully formed, responsible adult with people who depended on her every step of the way on every single day. I was a city-dwelling writer with a dog. It was never going to work. But one thing led to another and then another, and then it was, Holy shit, I can’t get this woman out of my mind. Next thing you know, I was out there nearly every evening, never quite sure of what I was going to get, happy girls who wanted to show me their newest drawings of horses named Misty or Snowflake or agitated girls who would stare silently at the television when I walked into the room or, worse, would sit in a corner until I left. What are you supposed to do with that? I didn’t have a good answer, so I kept plugging along, but through it all I kept my sanctuary apartment in Boston. It wasn’t always easy, not for me, not for Pam, but it’s never easy melding two established lives. At one point we even went our separate ways for no short period of time, convinced that it wasn’t meant to be. But eventually, slowly, we found our way back to each other, and when we did, neither of us ever wanted to let go again.
Which brings me to Christmas Eve 2009. I had bought a ring a few weeks earlier. Now, mind you, shopping for a diamond engagement ring might be the most profoundly unsatisfying mission any man will ever undertake. You are spending an obscene amount of money on a tiny object that is inherently imperfect from the moment you buy it—an SI1 in terms of clarity or an H as far as color. There are no straight As and number ones in the diamond business, not for the regular guys anyway. Beyond that, you can’t drive it, change the channel on it, inhabit it, or sit on it. But somehow, the Diamond Institute of America has successfully positioned it as the symbol of true and everlasting love and the initiation fee in terms of a life of happiness—or at least normalcy.
That day, Christmas Eve, I poked through my desk drawer in my small hunter green study and found the tiny rectangular scrap of paper saying “Thank you for making me smile.” A sentimentalist I am not, but something at the time told me to save it, even when I believed it wouldn’t add up to anything more than a distant memory. I put the cherry red ring box and the tiny scrap of paper with the note in my jacket pocket and only checked it three or four hundred times during the day to make sure they were still there. Pam arrived at my apartment a little after dark, a little harried from the typical last-minute rush of Christmas preparation for two kids. Her girls were with their father that night, arriving at Pam’s at midday on Christmas, and our plan was to spend the evening having a leisurely meal in a downtown restaurant. On the way, I would ask her to be my wife—Mrs. Pamela, well, Bendock.
It was cold out that night, and the charming streets of Back Bay were illuminated by the old-fashioned streetlights. It was strikingly quiet, prompting thoughts that my frozen fingers would drop the ring down a sewer drain at the critical moment or we would be robbed. I dismissed those as the irrational thoughts of someone about to embark on a barely rational journey. As we walked down the Commonwealth Avenue promenade, glowing with white holiday lights strung through the ancient trees, Pam slipped her arm into mine, and it didn’t seem cold or ominous anymore.
We took a right and found ourselves on Newbury Street, all exactly by design. We arrived on the same side of the same corner where she’d said she saw me patting Harry so many years earlier. I waited for the light even though there didn’t seem to be a car within five miles. She waited with me, and God only knows what must have been going through her head. I said, probably awkwardly, “Hey, isn’t this where you got the idea to send me that tie?”
She smiled and, without missing a be
at, said, “I was right over there, at the outdoor café. You two were right here, exactly where we’re standing now.”
My mind, surprisingly, or maybe not, flickered on Harry for a moment, Harry and the utter effortlessness of true love. And then it was back to Pam, whom Harry had led me to and with whom I was fumbling for the right words. I had been practicing this moment in my mind every day for the past several weeks, but everything just kind of left my head right when I needed it most—the witty entreaties, the smooth lead-ins, and definitely my meaningful and scripted narrative. It was as if someone took a bottle of Wite-Out to my simple little brain. Silently I fumbled for the piece of paper in my pocket and handed it to her, still all folded up. She looked at the paper, which closely resembled a gum wrapper or some minuscule piece of litter, then looked at me as though I were completely off the wall, out of my mind.
I nodded toward it. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I might have lost my ability to talk.
Say something, Brian, anything. For chrissakes, speak. Years from then, Pam’s children and grandchildren would retell the story of how I had proposed to their mother or grandmother, and they’d keep going back to the irrefutable fact that the slug with the ring couldn’t actually get any words out of his mouth.
Pam slowly unfolded the slip of paper, read the words “Thank you for making me smile,” and now was completely sure that I was, in fact, nuts. She looked at me a little confused, though, in typical Pam fashion, trying to mask the confusion until she figured out my play.
Again, there were lines I was supposed to recite here, lines about how it had ended up that it was she who had made me smile for all these years, millions of smiles that I otherwise never would have had, smiles I didn’t think I was capable of having, smiles when she was right in front of me, smiles over her kids, her rabbits, her dog, smiles at the mere thought of her when she wasn’t even there. But I didn’t have those lines anymore, because what I had was the ring in my hand and a lump in my throat, and I pulled it out of my pocket and croaked out the question “Would you marry me?”
She looked at the ring for a moment and took it, and before she even put it on she looked at me, her skin pink from the cold, her hair wispy from the winter breeze, her eyes suddenly shiny from the moment. She put her pretty face next to mine and kissed me. And then she said, simply, never one to dramatize things, “Yes.”
She said yes. And from there on in, it would be me and Pam. Well, me and Pam and her two kids. Actually, me and Pam and her two kids and their two rabbits and our two dogs and perhaps a couple of Maine coons that I didn’t realize were on the way and the frogs hidden in an upstairs bedroom and of course Buddy, who would never have found himself at a loss for words.
We were in the middle of one of those claustrophobic winter days between Christmas and New Year’s. The kids, Pam, and I had played a game of Monopoly. We watched some horse movie on TV. Pam and the girls baked brownies. I give them credit, because it took them until the late afternoon before the two kids started getting on each other’s nerves, which is when I quietly announced that I was going to take the dogs for a nice romp in a snowy field. Nobody, except for the dogs, really cared.
The wan sun had already dipped below the bare trees, and the breeze was a little more piercing than I would have liked, but still, the air, the openness, the aloneness, felt like a tonic, fresh, sweet, and invigorating. We walked a big loop around an open park and then another, until the dogs were looking at me as though they couldn’t take any more, so we headed back to Checkerberry Circle. I would have killed to be able to convince the kids to go out to dinner to a place filled with activity and humanity, or even just to a movie, but I had no doubt they’d want nothing more than to hunker down at home.
When we pulled back up to the house, Buddy was standing at the front stoop screaming bloody murder—sharp, long, urgent cock-a-doodle-doos, one after another after another. He should have been up on his shelf by now. When I climbed the first of the three steps, he made a move as if to charge me, as though he was protecting the house, and I quickly, literally backed down. “What the hell are you doing?” I blurted out, then, under my breath, “Bastard.” He squawked at me in return.
So I grabbed Baker by the collar and put him between me and the bird just to get to the door. Inside, the house was dark but for light I could see spilling out the door of an upstairs bedroom. The sound of sniffling drifted downward, and nothing else.
So we went up, the three of us, with the chicken peering in through the front door and occasionally pecking at the glass. Upstairs, in Pam’s bedroom, was Pam, sitting up in her bed, teardrops on her cheeks, staring straight ahead. When I’d left, less than an hour before, everyone had been as happy as you can be when you’re stuck in a house on a cold winter’s day. But I had learned long ago that when you get three females together, a mother and her two daughters, drama lurks around even the most innocent-looking corners. It’s everywhere, waiting to spring forth.
“What happened?” I asked calmly.
“Nothing. It’s fine,” Pam replied, wiping her cheeks.
“It’s not fine,” I said. As I spoke, the two dogs jumped on the bed with her, both of them trying to lick her face. Somewhere a rooster crowed. Actually, he was still right outside the front door, but it felt as if he were screeching in my ear.
Through the cock-a-doodle-doos and the anxious dogs and the sniffling fiancée, I could hear the muffled sound of crying—in stereo—drifting in from the upstairs hall. Before Pam could give an answer, I left the room and saw that the doors to Caroline’s and Abigail’s rooms were shut, light seeping through the cracks beneath.
I knocked softly on Abigail’s door and walked in. She was lying in bed face up with her favorite stuffed animal in a tight bear hug against her chest.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic, which wasn’t easy, because I didn’t know what I was sympathizing with.
“Nothing,” she replied sharply. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re crying.”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on, Abs, what happened?”
For the first time, she turned her head and looked at me with her piercing eyes. “She’s my mommy!”
That was more than I could get out of Caroline, who, when I went into her room, rolled herself into a tight little ball under her terry-cloth blanket, and when I playfully poked at her, screamed like she had just been shot. “Okay,” I told her, trying to mask my exasperation. “You win. I’ll leave you alone.”
Back in Pam’s room, I asked again, a little more clipped now, “What happened?”
The dogs were still in her bed. The rooster was still crowing downstairs. The kids were still in their rooms. And Pam still gave me a nonanswer. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s no big deal.”
“I’m not worried about it,” I said. “But I am in the information business, and I’d like to know. I left here an hour ago, and everyone was happy. I came back, and everyone’s in tears. What happened?”
She shifted her gaze away from wherever the hell it was trained, which didn’t seem to be on anything in particular, and looked me in the eye. She hesitated another couple of beats, then said, “I told them we were engaged and that we were going to get married.”
I smiled reflexively, not a happy smile, not even a sad smile, more like a helpless, holy-shit-what-do-I-do-now smile.
She’s my mommy!
What was I supposed to do? Storm out? Shout that almost every other kid I’ve ever met always liked me, why couldn’t they?
No. I couldn’t do any of that. It’s not easy being a young girl and even less so when your parents are divorced and you’re living in two houses and your father’s gotten remarried and your mother is about to do the same. What am I? I’m the guy who they think is going to take their mother from them, that’s who.
“It’s okay,” I said. “What are they supposed to do, jump up and down in joy because there’s still mor
e change? Because some guy might come between you and them? It’s fine. It’s just on me—and I guess you—to show them there’s nothing to worry about.”
Pam nodded. “They know there’s nothing to worry about,” she said, speaking louder to be heard above the din of the rooster. “They just need to process it all.”
We had a moment of silence until I said, “I had really hoped that our engagement would inspire tears in the female world, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
Pam laughed politely and went down the hall to convince her two daughters that life, as they knew and loved it, was not coming to an end. I went out and picked up Chinese food. When I returned, the four of us had a completely normal dinner around the kitchen table—though I’m not sure Pam was all that comfortable eating vegetable lettuce wraps with two kids sitting in her lap, arms draped over her shoulders.
15
I learned a great deal about life—the suburban version of it, anyway—in our hunt for a new house. I learned what a mudroom is, which doesn’t actually involve any mud but sometimes washing machines and dryers, sinks, and elaborate cubbyholes, such that the Boston Bruins could basically arrive unannounced and have a place to hang all their gear. I learned that suburbanites devote their basements to luxurious home theaters and tricked-out fitness rooms with exercise machines that look like there’s no possible way they could have fit through the door. In my cellar growing up, we had a Ping-Pong table that was covered with boxes, and I thought, Hey, we’ve got it pretty good.
“What is this?” I asked on a tour of yet another house I knew I didn’t want before we even walked inside. As I asked the question, I was pulling open a glass door that led to a tiled room with a bench.
“That’s the steam bath,” the nice showing agent said in a tone of voice that suggested I was an idiot. When I bought my eight-hundred-square-foot condo that I proceeded to live in for more than ten years, I felt as though I’d really made it in life because it had a dishwasher that worked most days, provided you slammed the door shut as hard as you possibly could and then turned the handle just so.
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