A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

by Jen Waite

  “Jen? Jen, are you OK?” my mom calls after me.

  “Yes. I’m fine,” I say as I walk rapidly into the living room, up the stairs, into my bedroom, and shut the door.

  “You piece of shit,” I scream into the phone as soon as Marco picks up. “How could you? How could you?” I can’t get any more words out. I am sobbing now. Gasping and choking on air that doesn’t seem to be entering my lungs.

  “Jen, Jen, calm down. What are you talking about?” My husband’s voice is thick with sleep and he sounds . . . irritated.

  “I looked at our cell phone plan online. You call her every day. You called her when you went to the grocery store last Sunday? On your day off?” My voice is somewhere between furious and pleading with him to give me an answer that will somehow make this new information mean something other than what I know it means.

  “OK. Jesus Christ. Yes. I like to talk to the person. OK? I haven’t touched her, I haven’t kissed her, I haven’t fucked her. But I do like to talk to her.” Now he is screaming at me. “Do you want me to fuck her? Do you?” I hang up the phone, shaking. I power off my phone as a call comes in from my husband. The part of my brain that knew all along now tells the rest of me, definitively: Marco has a girlfriend.

  I run back downstairs and sit down at the computer again. I bring up the call log. I force myself to scroll back, back, back, and then I find the date I am looking for. The day Louisa was born. My eyes scan the numbers quickly and then I see it. 2:03 A.M., outgoing call for forty-three minutes.

  Forty-three minutes.

  I remember Marco kissing my forehead. “I’m going to get some fresh air, baby, and maybe grab a bite. Do you need anything?” I shook my head no and smiled groggily at him through my epidural. A few hours later, I was pushing out Louisa, my eyes wild, Marco pushing my knee toward my chest, and I looked at him and said, “I can’t do this.” The doctor said very calmly to the nurse, “The baby’s heart rate is dropping. I need an oxygen mask and please get the vacuum ready.” I looked around the room, thrashing my head from side to side as the nurse strapped on the oxygen mask until I heard Marco say, “Babe. Jen. Babe. Look at me.” I met his eyes, and he held me there. “Look at me. You can do this. You got this, babe. You got this.” And then one more push and I felt my body rip open, but I didn’t care because Marco was right, and I gripped his hand and screamed and I heard him say, “She’s here.”

  Forty-three minutes.

  A few hours before Louisa was born.

  I stand up and I feel the ground come toward me and the world is black.

  BEFORE

  SEB, Marco, and I arrived in Buenos Aires the night of March 9, 2014. The next day, Marco and I woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows of the immaculate guest room in Marco’s parents’ house. March 10, 2014. Marco’s thirty-fifth birthday. I had been secretly corresponding with Marco’s sister for months before our visit. Sofia and her parents were planning a surprise party for Marco the night of his thirty-fifth birthday. She flew in from Denmark with Domenico, now a bilingual three-year-old, a week before us, determined to witness her brother’s first time home in twelve years.

  “I will get everything ready for the party with my parents. Don’t say a word to Marco. Erase this now!” Sofia had texted me a few weeks before our arrival. We hadn’t spoken about it since, but I woke up that morning with flutters of excitement in my stomach. Marco didn’t know a thing. I had made a point of asking him if there was a special restaurant he wanted to go to for his birthday dinner. He shook his head and said that this trip to Argentina was the best thirty-fifth birthday present he could have dreamed of, and he was looking forward to spending it quietly in his parent’s home surrounded by his family.

  “Happy birthday!” I squealed as soon as I detected movement beside me in bed. “Thirty-five. How does it feel?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbow.

  “Tired. And old,” Marco mumbled, and pulled the thin, white blanket over both our heads.

  “Oh, stop,” I said, snuggling into his armpit and peering through the tiny pinpricks in the blanket. “You’re not that old. I mean, not compared to, like, a ninety-five-year-old.”

  “Oh, OK. You’re going to get it now.” The sleepy growl came from above my head as I tried to wriggle free from his fingers already digging into my sides.

  “Babe, stop,” I cried. “Babe, stop, I will scream and wake your parents.”

  “My parents are already awake,” Marco said as the tickling grew more intense.

  “I . . . will . . . scream,” I gasped between laughter and yelps.

  “You’re lucky I’m so old,” Marco said, pulling me back toward him from the middle of the bed where I’d managed to half escape to. “Much too old for you now.”

  “Oh, much. Much, much too old,” I agreed.

  —

  THAT afternoon at lunch, I asked Marco again if he was sure about not going out for dinner and then shot a sly, meaningful glance at Sofia.

  “Absolutely. I will be the happiest clam in the pond just being home,” he said through bites of empanada.

  As it grew closer to the start of the party, I began to worry. How would we get Marco out of the house unsuspecting? Did his family have a plan? Marco and I were in the living room chatting with Sofia. I thought about using the bathroom and finding Marco’s parents to ask but then realized I didn’t have the vocabulary. At 7:59 P.M. I decided I must have misunderstood the plan. Perhaps the party was canceled. Or I had gotten the night wrong. With a sinking feeling, I picked up a magazine from the glass coffee table and settled into the couch.

  Seb trotted over to me and whispered, “What’s going on?” I had let him in on the surprise party weeks ago, and he was just as excited as I was (and very proud that he hadn’t slipped and mentioned it to his dad).

  “I have no idea,” I whispered back behind the magazine. “I think maybe I got the night wrong.”

  Suddenly, Oscar burst into the living room. “Vamos, vamos,” he cried, followed by a string of Spanish words.

  I tried to keep my face blank and asked Marco casually, “What did your dad just say?”

  Marco frowned. “He says we have to go to the grocery store to get food for tomorrow. My parents are so crazy. They go shopping at the weirdest times. I’ll tell him we’re not coming.”

  “Oh!” I said, and then backed off the ledge of excitement into neutral territory. “I think it would actually be cool to see an Argentinian grocery store.”

  We piled into two tiny cars. Marco, me, and Seb with his dad. Sofia, Dom, and Rosa in the other vehicle. A few minutes into the drive, Oscar’s cell phone rang. He chirped into the phone and then hung up and fired rapid Spanish at Marco, to which Marco answered back at a similar speed and with obvious frustration.

  “Umm . . . what’s going on?” I asked.

  “I told you we shouldn’t have come.” Marco groaned. “That was my mom. She wants us all to stop and say hi to an old friend on the way. This is going to take forever.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine!” I said brightly, and squeezed Seb’s hand in the backseat.

  We pulled up to a large stone building. Seb and I exited the back of the car, and I sidled up next to Marco.

  “I’m sure my parents wanted to stop by and say hi because this woman is super wealthy,” he said with a laugh, and grabbed my hand. “They’re trying to impress you.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said, and winked at Seb.

  Sofia, her parents, and Dom trotted ahead of us. We passed through two large wrought iron doors into a large lobby. Oscar had already talked to the security guard, and we continued down a long hallway. Up ahead of us, Oscar suddenly opened a door on the right side of the hallway and Sofia, Dom, and Rosa disappeared inside.

  “Pa?” Marco started to say, and Oscar waved us toward him, “Vamos, vamos.”

  I practically pran
ced with glee through the door, into the pitch black that greeted us. All at once, the lights came on, illuminating a huge room set with a dozen or so large tables, fifty to sixty people lined the walls, and in the middle of the room a mariachi band sprang to life, spilling joyous, frantic music in the air.

  Holy. Shit. I glanced at Marco. He stood stock still, momentarily paralyzed. He turned to me with wide eyes. “Did you know about this?” he yelled over the music. Now people were yelling and whistling. My eyes traveled to a banner that read “BIENVENIDOS MARCO, JEN Y SEBASTIAN.” A fully stocked bar sat to the left of the band.

  “I mean . . .” I started as waitstaff trickled into the room, passing out glasses of champagne. “Your sister said they were throwing you a surprise party but . . .” I looked around the room at the fifty smiling faces staring back at us, their bodies moving and hands clapping to the music of the mariachi band.

  “Tonight,” Marco yelled back to me, grinning from ear to ear and starting to embrace various relatives who were making their way over to us, “you learn to tango.”

  AFTER

  MARCO and I spend the next few days on the phone screaming at each other. He sends dozens of texts a day that he is not having an affair, that if he wanted to cheat he would have done so a long time ago and with someone he actually found attractive, and that he has never even touched the “trashy kid,” as he now calls her.

  I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I look at Louisa and all I see is my own fear reflected back at me. I am now on my own with a colicky newborn baby. I wanted a baby with Marco, but, before I met him, I had never longed to be a mother. The only thing that made motherhood less terrifying in the months leading up to Louisa’s birth was “We’re in this together.” The thought of raising a child on my own never even crossed my mind. I am desperate to believe Marco so that I don’t have to face this new reality, but how can I?

  After I put Louisa to bed, I join the Single Moms forum in my What to Expect pregnancy app on my phone. I quickly scroll through the discussions. “Taking my ex to court for child support,” “Baby’s first overnight with the new girlfriend,” and “I can’t do this—please help,” flash across my screen. I click Leave Group with trembling fingers.

  I pick up my phone and call Marco’s best friend, Aaron. Marco and Aaron used to be neighbors; they lived in the same apartment building for a couple of years. Even though their friendship is relatively new, Aaron is Marco’s closest, and really only, male friend. “Aaron, it’s Jen,” I say when he picks up. I have never called him before, and I rush to explain. “I know this is out of the blue, but things have been really fucked up with Marco lately—”

  Aaron cuts me off. “He called me,” he says with a small laugh. “Guys actually do talk when it’s this important.”

  “He did?” I ask. “What did he say?”

  “He told me everything. He told me about the e-mail and his physical problems, his loss of feelings, his numbness.”

  “Did he tell you about the phone calls?” I ask sharply.

  “Yes, he did,” Aaron says with a sigh. “Look I’m going to give you my opinion and then the two of you really need to work this out yourselves. It sounds to me like he stopped feeling like he could talk to you because you react pretty intensely to anything stressful, like about work and finances. He told me he got into a bad habit of talking to this girl about his anxiety about the Thirsty Owl and your finances because he didn’t want to stress you out during your pregnancy but also because you tend to freak out about those kinds of things.”

  “But those are the kinds of things that married couples have to talk about,” I start in.

  “Look, I’m just telling you what he told me. In my opinion, at this point, it’s much more important to figure out why Marco felt he couldn’t talk to you, rather than focusing on what he’s already done, if you want to save the marriage.”

  Maybe Aaron has a point. I do tend to get extremely stressed out, sometimes over everyday things. I am seized with panic for a moment as I imagine Marco feeling as though he couldn’t talk to me about something so serious.

  “Also,” he says, and clears his throat, “I asked him man-to-man if he’s cheated with this girl, and he told me no. I was like, ‘Bro-code, man, did you hook up with this girl?’ and he said they haven’t even touched. Maybe it’s breaking bro-code to tell you that, but I wanted you to know.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I say slowly. “Thank you, Aaron.”

  After I get off the phone, I pace around my parents’ kitchen. If what Aaron said is true, that Marco has never touched the girl, then is it all in my head? Have I invented an elaborate story? Maybe Marco is truly just burned out. But the phone calls. I try to put my thoughts in an order that makes sense, but they race around in circles, crashing into one another. My phone lights up in my hand. I run into the living room and close the door.

  I pick up and say, “I spoke to Aaron.”

  “OK, that’s good, I’m glad,” Marco says. His voice is warmer than it has been in weeks. “I want to be completely honest with you, Jen. I’ve kept a lot from you the past few months.” My heart pounds. He is going to tell me he had sex with the girl. “I didn’t want to stress you out during your pregnancy, and I ended up talking to someone else about things I should only have been discussing with you. I want to be completely honest. I started to get addicted to the attention I was getting from that person.” I shut my eyes tightly. Here it comes. “I think I became involved in an emotional affair.”

  I open my eyes. “OK.” I am shaking. “You called her while I was in labor.” My voice cracks. “The morning Louisa was born.”

  “Huh?” Marco says. There is silence. “No, no, no, baby. I barely even knew her at that point. She started working as a server in November and then in December, right around when Louisa was born, she took over all the social media for the restaurant. Babe, do you remember right after Louisa was born, and I was on the phone in the room with someone about all the upcoming holiday parties?”

  I think very hard through the tangles in my head. Yes. I remember my parents coming in to meet Louisa after we were settled in our recovery room. Marco took a work phone call and talked in the corner of the room for about ten minutes while my parents held Louisa for the first time.

  “I remember you talking to someone in the room for ten minutes. But this phone call was for forty-three minutes and it was when you left to get food while I was sleeping.”

  “Right, but the call in the hospital room was a follow-up call from her. The previous call, I was going through her new job description as social media manager because I knew I wouldn’t be able to in the upcoming days.” His voice is steady and sincere. “After she became the social media manager, we started talking more and more, and I don’t know how to explain it. I got addicted to the attention. But I never touched her, baby. I swear on Sebastian’s and Louisa’s lives.” My heart rate slows, and I start to breathe normally.

  “Marco, how on Earth did you let this happen? An emotional affair right when we’re having our first baby together? Do you know how traumatic this has been? I don’t even know how to process the past few weeks.” I start to cry, but I feel relieved. We can work through this, maybe even get counseling. We can still be a family.

  “I don’t know, baby. I’m telling you this would have never, ever happened if I was in my right mind. I’ve been feeling so numb and . . . off. . . . It didn’t even seem like I was doing anything wrong until now. Something really bad has happened to me. I haven’t felt anything since the end of October. My insides are like a flat line.”

  We talk for a few more minutes about his physical condition and make plans to get him in for a full physical and blood work. He says his parents have left for Denmark to see his sister, and he has bought a plane ticket and booked a hotel in Portland. He’ll be here in five days. “I’m going to fight for you,” he says before we hang up. “I’m going to
show you that all of this happened because I was very, very sick, and I’m going to bring back the man you married.”

  I walk around the living room trying to process everything. I hear the door creak open and my mom slips inside. She is carrying two glasses of rosé.

  “I probably shouldn’t be bringing you wine considering you’ve barely eaten anything in the past few days, but I figured you could use it,” she says, handing me a glass.

  “Thank you,” I say. We sit side by side on the white couch, and I tell her about my conversation with Marco. My mom takes a sip of rosé and says, “So either he’s a complete liar and he’s having a full-fledged affair, or he’s having some kind of emotional affair and also suffering from medical burnout.”

  I laugh. It sounds so ridiculous. “Yes, basically.” I rub my temple and drain the last of my wine.

  “Here’s the reason I am actually inclined to believe that he hasn’t physically cheated,” my mom says, and my heart leaps in joy. “Is he really willing to risk everything for a twenty-two-year-old, selfie-obsessed girl? His green card, the restaurant, his marriage, his brand-new baby? He’s been madly in love with you for five years. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know, Mom, I know.”

  “What he’s already done is enough to end a marriage,” my mom says, looking me in the eyes. “Normally, I would say it’s time to walk away because an emotional affair, if that’s what it is, is devastating, and he has broken your trust. But you guys just had a baby, so there is a large part of me that wants to believe this can be fixed.” She looks into her glass, and when she looks back up her eyes are filled with tears. “I don’t want you to lose the family and future you thought you would have. Not like this.”

  “I know,” I say slowly. “I’m so confused.”

  My dad comes into the library. His face is unreadable. “What happened?”