A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

by Jen Waite

  “Jenny,” she says, “you need to take care of yourself, too. Marco dumped a lot on you. Maybe he really is truly sick and you want to help him, but you just had a baby. You need to do what’s right for you and Louisa first.”

  “OK. Yes. You’re right,” I say, but all I can think is that Louisa and I need Marco to be OK.

  —

  I SPEND the next few days madly Googling “numb, no feelings, exhaustion, stress.” I finally tell my parents about our talk, but I leave out the part about the e-mail. My mom immediately joins me in trying to find an explanation for Marco’s symptoms; this is her specialty, and she quickly calls me with her theory. “Adrenal fatigue syndrome!” she says excitedly. “Everything I’ve read matches exactly what Marco is describing. When the human body becomes extremely overtired, the adrenal glands stop functioning, which produces feelings of numbness or loss of feelings.” I have no idea what adrenal glands are, but it sounds good.

  “Yes, yes, that must be it. Thank God. Mom, thank you, I’m going to start researching now and hopefully we can figure out how to treat it.” I hang up and start Googling “adrenal fatigue syndrome,” which leads to reading about “medical burnout.” By the time I am done reading, I am certain that I’ve figured out what’s wrong with my husband, and I am terrified. For something with a name as innocuous as “burnout,” the prognosis is extremely serious, with some individuals who have suffered from the disorder losing their jobs, families, or, even worse, their will to live.

  “But this is good,” pops into my brain. If it’s truly a physical problem, we can figure out the treatment and work through it together. He can get blood work done. Whatever is malfunctioning will show up in tests. According to these websites, it might take months and months of strict rest for him to get better, but what’s wrong with him now falls under the category of “something a doctor can fix.” The old Marco will come back, and we can be the family that we’re supposed to be.

  I am about to call Marco at work to tell him what I’ve found when my eyes travel to the History tab on the screen. I click “show history” and my brain screams, Stop. Stop. Stop. But it is too late. I am looking at our Internet history for the past few days. Uber pops up a couple of times; Marco frequently uses the car service to get to and from work, and it has been the subject of tense conversations lately. (“Babe, your boss should pay for you to take a car if he’s keeping you at work till four A.M. We’re spending a hundred-and-fifty dollars a week on car services; that’s ridiculous.” “I’ll talk to him, but there’s no way he’s going to pay, baby. It’s the restaurant industry; the hours are just really long and late.”) I log into our joint Uber account, not sure exactly what I am looking for and see a list of rides to and from work. I open up a ride from last week at 4:03 A.M. and look at the map that shows the exact route taken from Marco’s work in Tribeca to our apartment in Astoria. Except . . . what is that? There is a stop somewhere in Williamsburg. My heart races. I open up another ride, this one from two nights ago at 5:30 A.M. (Marco got home at 6:10 A.M.?), and again the map shows a stop in Williamsburg. I sit very still. Louisa has started to squawk in the bedroom. I get up from the couch and take a step toward her crying and then turn quickly back to the computer and lean down to the keyboard. My fingers fly across the keyboard, and the Croatian’s Facebook page appears. I click on the “About” section and my entire body floods with relief as I see “Lives in: Upper East Side, New York.” I am about to close the screen when I see the last picture she has posted. She is sitting cross-legged in a living room surrounded by boxes. The caption reads “Anyone wanna help me unpack?” And the tagged location is “Williamsburg, New York.”

  BEFORE

  MARCO proposed on December 22. Two months later, on February 22, we were married at New York City Hall surrounded by both sets of parents; my sister and her husband, Tim; and Holly and Mike. Seb stood off to the side clutching the rings tightly in his hand. I spent the two months in between the proposal and our civil ceremony frantically completing Marco’s green card application. We wanted to get our marriage certificate and complete the green card application in advance of our big reception in Maine so that we could go on a real honeymoon in a year’s time. We had a free consultation with an immigration attorney soon after we returned to New York, but I was determined to complete the application myself and save the $1,500 for our honeymoon.

  “Babe, are you sure we don’t need an attorney? I don’t want to mess around with something this important,” Marco said as we walked out of the consultation.

  “Sweets, I am positive I can do a better job than that attorney. This will be fun for me.”

  “OK, fiancée,” Marco said, draping his arm around my shoulder. “If I end up being shipped back to Argentina, I expect you to come with me and learn to tango.”

  “At the very least, I’ll totally write you a letter every day until I meet someone else,” I said, and Marco swatted my butt as we walked into a coffee shop to Google “marriage-based green card application.”

  The very next day I spent four hours reading each form we would need to fill out, every question we would need to answer, the instructions that went along with every question, and the list of fees associated with the application. By the end of the four hours, I had a detailed cover letter written that laid out every single page to be included in our application. I let out a satisfied sigh, printed the cover letter, laced up my snow boots, and trudged through the icy sleet that covered the streets to the Rite Aid a block from our apartment. I bought a black binder, a photo album, and alphabetical dividers and trudged back home.

  Over the next two months I spent hours working on the application. Calling and texting Marco throughout the day to ask “What are your parents’ full names?,” “Where is your passport?,” “Why didn’t you get an I-94 when you arrived in the States twelve years ago?” (“Well . . . the thing is, I kind of lost it when I moved a couple years ago.” “Marco. Ugh. OK, I’ll figure it out, gah!”) I made copies of our birth certificates, passports, bank statements, apartment lease, joint cell phone bill, and every other important document that existed; I printed out fifty pictures chronicling our relationship from the days at the burger restaurant up to the picture of us toasting our engagement with my parents and wrote a cute caption under each one (“First trip to Disney,” “Vacation to Lake Luzerne,” “Apple-picking with Sebastian”); I wrote affidavits that my parents and Holly signed, confirming their knowledge of our two-year relationship; I wrote addenda explaining each and every potential hiccup that could result in a delay or request for more information by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. (“Please note that Mr. Medina’s I-94 form was lost; however, please find a copy of Mr. Medina’s passport page showing valid entry into John F. Kennedy Airport on December 10, 1999.”) By February 21, 2013, I had Marco’s entire green card application neatly arranged in that black binder, organized exactly according to my cover letter, each document placed behind the corresponding alphabetical divider. The only dividers that contained empty space between them were A and B, and that afternoon, the afternoon before our civil ceremony, I opened the black binder and read aloud tab A one more time: Certificate of Marriage.

  “Baby, look, look at that beautiful binder,” I said, while packing up my overnight suitcase that I would be bringing to the hotel where I was staying that night. “I would like you to please admit that I was totally and completely correct about not needing a lawyer.”

  Marco opened the binder and flipped through the dividers. “This is amazing. You are so amazing. Should we celebrate your amazingness quickly before you leave?” he said, tugging at my belt loop as I zipped up my boots.

  “My parents just texted that they’re waiting for me at the hotel and then we’re going out to dinner and I’m all dressed and I haven’t put on makeup yet. . . .”

  “And our boring married life begins.” Marco kissed me softly. “You don’t need makeup. Act
ually you look even more beautiful without it.”

  I smiled. “How quick are we talking? Five minutes?”

  “Oh, I can get the job done in thirty seconds, max.”

  “How romantic.” I laughed and pulled him close.

  —

  MARCO’S handsome salt-and-peppered father muttered, “Muy rapido, no?” at City Hall the next day after the jubilant female judge married us in less than five minutes. My dad replied in Spanish, “The ceremony and reception in Maine will be much more traditional, don’t worry. Jenny and Marco wanted to get the green card application rolling so that they can go to France for their honeymoon next year.” I wore a simple white vintage wrap dress I had found on Etsy a few weeks before with white satin heels, and Marco stood across from me wearing a gray suit with a black skinny tie and a nervous, adoring smile, and I thought to myself, You lucky girl.

  We celebrated with our parents and my sister and Tim that night at Dos Caminos on Park Avenue South. Marco’s parents were on a forty-eight-hour layover from visiting his sister in Denmark and were flying back to Argentina the next day, one of the major reasons we had picked February 22 to get married. Our parents had met for the first time that afternoon at City Hall and were now sitting across from one another at the long, rectangular table while Marco and I sat huddled next to each other across from Stella and Tim. I heard my mom and Marco’s mom, Rosa, speaking loud, overpronounced words in English and Spanish back and forth, trying to decipher what the other meant and laughing. My dad and Marco’s dad, Oscar, were carrying on a rapid, serious conversation in Spanish, Marco’s dad waving his hands emphatically and my dad nodding and managing to keep up and insert a sentence now and then.

  “Our rings look really good,” I said, lining my left hand up with Marco’s.

  “I love our rings.” Marco laced his fingers through mine. “And I love you.”

  “I love you so.”

  Marco excused himself from the table to use the restroom, and a moment later the waitress appeared and signaled to his empty drink, asking, “Would you like another?”

  “Oh, that’s my . . . husband’s,” I said, and then looked at my sister and screamed. I turned back to the smiling waitress and said, “Yes, my husband would love another one.” My cheeks hurt so much that night that I had to suck my lips into a fish face on the sidewalk waiting for our cab to take us back to the Palace Hotel where we would spend our first night as a married couple (a present from my parents). I slipped into the cab beside Marco and rested my head on his shoulder.

  “Wife, wife, wife,” I heard from above.

  “Husband, husband, husband,” I said in return.

  “My wife, my wife, my wife,” he said.

  AFTER

  THE next day, Marco and I bring Louisa to meet Rosa and Oscar at a breakfast place around the corner from our apartment. When we walk inside, Rosa bolts up from her seat, half dancing, half running toward Louisa and me. Suddenly, tears are streaming down my face. “Please help me,” I want to whisper to her as she takes me in her arms.

  “Mi amor?” she asks, looking to Marco.

  “Hormones, Ma,” Marco explains in Spanish. “She’s been hormonal and crying for no reason since Louisa was born. Everything’s fine.”

  Rosa looks at me intently and then peers down at Louisa. “Sí?” she says uncertainly.

  “Sí.” I nod and force my lips upward. “Sí, sí.” I want to tell her everything is not fine. I want to explain what has been going on the past few days, but it’s clear Marco is not going to say anything and I don’t have the vocabulary. Rosa and Oscar glance at each other worriedly over breakfast as I push home fries around on my plate and Marco robotically eats his omelet. I pray that they will notice something is off and ask Marco what’s going on. I’ve felt close to Rosa and Oscar from the moment I met them three years ago, but we’ve always communicated in hand gestures and laughter. I can’t explain what has happened in English, so how am I going to do it in a language I barely speak? Please help me, I want to say. Help me get your son back. Instead, Louisa stirs in the stroller, and Rosa jumps up from her seat.

  “Preciosa,” she cries as Louisa opens her eyes and stretches tiny fists into the air. For the next twenty minutes, Louisa is passed joyously between Rosa and Oscar.

  When we get up to leave, Rosa hangs back to help me strap Louisa back into her stroller. I turn to her; I must find a way to tell her. Before I can get out any words, she wraps me in a hug. “Everything will be OK,” Rosa says to me, rubbing my back. “Everything will be OK, yo te prometo.” I try to find the Spanish words to tell her that Marco has morphed into a stranger overnight, but my mind is blank. We walk out the door in silence.

  —

  THAT night, I’m awake nursing Louisa when Marco comes home. I finally tell him about all the research I’ve done and describe the symptoms of burnout and adrenal fatigue.

  “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly how I feel,” he says.

  “See? You’re so overworked and overexhausted, babe. I knew it; I knew that’s what’s going on.”

  When I ask him about the Uber rides he sighs and says, “Babe. Like five of my employees live in Williamsburg. One of the bartenders and I share a cab all the time, and he lives right off Bedford Avenue. Please just stop.”

  The next time Louisa wakes up to nurse it is 5:00 A.M. and Marco snores beside me. I walk into the living room for a glass of water and see that Marco’s phone is charging on the couch. After a year or so of being together, Marco and I started sharing all our passwords. We never sat down and decided to do it, but at some point Marco yelled to me from the bathroom to check if his boss had e-mailed him back. I remember tossing my phone to him as I walked out the door to bring Seb to school, asking, “Can you please respond to my mom’s texts, babe? And try to sound like me!” Eventually we both knew the few passwords that the other used for everything.

  My pulse quickens as I illuminate the screen and quickly type in his pass code. I’ll check his texts, that’s all, I tell myself, to reassure myself what I already know. I scroll through his text messages. Nothing. The last person he has texted is Nat, and I click their conversation. I scroll to the beginning of the thread and start reading. He is telling her about his numbness, and she is gently prodding him to cut back on work and that maybe this isn’t the right time to stress me out with a mental breakdown. I smile. She has my back.

  Nat: Dude, anyone working from 2pm-4am. every day is going to have serious problems. You need to take a break. Spend more time with Jen and the baby. Sleep all day. Cuddle. Seriously.

  Marco: I guess. I don’t know. All I feel is numb.

  Nat: OK . . . but you still love Jen, right? I mean, if I could choose a person to spend the rest of my life with, I would definitely choose her hahaha.

  Marco: I don’t know. I’m afraid to lose the baby but not her.

  My blood turns to ice. Then fire. Then ice again. I stare at the screen.

  I have to get out of here.

  I move on autopilot into Seb’s bedroom, what is to eventually become Seb and Louisa’s room, and pull a suitcase out from under the bed. My dresser has been moved into his room to make space for Louisa’s crib in our bedroom, and I open the drawers quietly, stuffing clothes into my suitcase. There is a pile of clean laundry on Seb’s bed, and I grab handfuls of Louisa’s baby clothes and throw them on top of my clothes. I tiptoe back into our bedroom and unplug my phone from the wall. I bring up jetblue.com and find a one-way flight to Portland, Maine, for $250. It is too expensive and I have never flown with Louisa and I am terrified.

  I click purchase.

  I have an hour to get to the airport. I lift Louisa from the swing she is sleeping in and place her in the car seat in the living room. She stirs and then falls back asleep. I walk back to the bedroom.

  “Marco?” My voice is shaking. “Marco? I’m going to Maine with Louisa. I can’t be here righ
t now. I saw your conversation with Nat, and I can’t stay here with you.” This is your last chance, I want to scream. Please try, please choose us, time is running out.

  He opens his eyes slowly and sits up. “What the hell are you talking about, Jen?”

  “You said ‘I’m not afraid to lose her,’” I say, and start to cry again. “I have to go. I bought a flight to Maine. I can’t be here right now. I can’t take care of Louisa like this.”

  Marco is now out of bed, moving toward me swiftly, a wild look in his eyes. I walk backward down the hallway to the living room. He keeps coming. He is screaming. “You are the most selfish fucking person I have ever met in my entire life. What am I supposed to tell my parents? Did you think about that? They’re here to see you and the baby. This is going to kill them, and it will be your fault.”

  I am all the way in the kitchen now, and I look around. I have nowhere else to go. He is still screaming, and his eyes are bloodshot. He picks up Louisa’s car seat and walks quickly with her into Seb’s bedroom.

  “No,” I say with a moan, and run after him.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? I am going to say good-bye to my daughter. Can you allow me that?”

  I am seized with guilt as I imagine Marco’s parents heartbroken. I text Sofia quickly the situation. “Please tell your parents I am so sorry, but I can’t take care of Louisa here.”

  Her reply comes instantly: “Wait. Let me talk to them.”

  I shouldn’t have told her until I had reached the airport. I am not going to be able to escape now.

  “They’re getting dressed. They’re on their way over. Please don’t leave until they get there.”

  Shit, shit, shit.