No matter. Cole and Marian said their goodbyes the day after their deserted wedding, and as far as I know, they have never spoken since. If Marian could have discovered her true feelings earlier, perhaps the two could have salvaged their friendship. At the very least she might not have torn out the poor guy’s heart. And at the altar of all places.
As unfortunate as Marian’s discovery might have been, however, I have never begrudged her decision. Many brides have finished their walk down the aisle not only questioning their choice, but with a voice screaming in their head not to finish that walk. Marian might have been the talk of the town and she might have broken Cole’s heart, even broken her own, but she was true to herself, and she was honest with Cole. It would have been selfish to marry Cole for the wrong reasons, to commit to a marriage that she viewed differently from him, to give only a part of herself when her entirety was needed.
As my father always says, the universe is filled with possibility, perhaps even infinite possibility. When a star dies, it explodes, creating a supernova that may burn only briefly but whose light is vibrant and travels far. When you think it’s over, it isn’t. Stars shoot out elements and debris, and from these form new stars, planets, moons. Possibilities are spread across the universe, new opportunities dotted left, right, and all across. It’s when you think that everything’s coming to a halt, that the world’s about to end, and when you feel incredibly conflicted, when an overwhelming ache of sadness fills you, that a world of opportunity is before you, brighter than ever. I may not be proficient in the sciences, but this analogy is an encouragement from my father that I have never forgotten and that I always call to mind when I’m in a hopeless kind of situation. It’s easier said than done, though, to pick up the pieces and stay optimistic when you’ve been through the wringer.
I’m brought out of my run down memory lane as I open a new tab on Marian’s computer, remembering I need to search for the Pacific Café. The menu looks delicious, so I send Adam a text that he should go ahead and reserve us a table for lunch on Tuesday.
After closing the tab of the restaurant’s website, I look at Cole’s profile photo again. Seeing it fills me, oddly enough, with a sense of hope. Given my lunch plans with Adam, I can’t help but wonder, as I look at Cole’s photo, if Marian and I are in the midst of what happens once stars explode. If worlds of opportunities are awaiting us—a reconciled marriage with Adam, perhaps a reconciliation with Cole, whatever that may mean. A found-again friendship, another stab at something more? Life’s a funny thing, and as life changing as an exploding star is, so too is the chase down one path, after one opportunity, one possibility.
Nine
Pacific Café is only three blocks from my office. I arrive on time, so as not to appear too eager with an early arrival or too insouciant by being late. I hardly believe Adam would read into my being early or late, but it’s something I would most likely read into with him. Adam is already there, standing by the restaurant’s double wooden doors. Just early? Or eager?
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Adam says when he sees me.
He gives me a quick kiss on my cheek. I kiss the air in return, lightly vexed at his immediate turn to the weather for a greeting. It’s the kind of comment one makes to a coworker or to a person one is meeting for the first time. Not one’s spouse.
Gaining my footing on optimistic ground, I point to Adam’s head. “It looks good,” I say, referring to his hair. I can tell it’s been cut within the past several days. The sides are thinner and shorter than usual, making the sometimes unwieldy thick growth on the top more pronounced. I like it. It’s got a youthful, hipster sort of vibe to it. “You look good.”
“You look beautiful, Halley,” he says. “As usual.” He points to my hair. “I always love when your hair is curled.”
It isn’t often I curl my hair. Usually I’ll straighten it, or if I’m feeling lazy I’ll pull it back into a neat ponytail or a high-set bun.
“Thanks.”
We’re seated at a small table for two near a back corner, where the wooden-framed windows to one side are opened wide, letting in the fresh October air. The restaurant is filled to capacity, with an even blend of tables for two and larger tables that are occupied for company lunches, judging by the business attire. The pink gerbera daisy in the vase in the center of our small table lends the right amount of romantic-meets-casual. Though the restaurant is filled, our corner table feels private. Adam’s picked a perfect place.
Well after we’ve placed our orders, I gather my nerves and get straight to the point of today’s lunch. “I’ve been thinking,” I say. “About a timeline, a plan.”
Adam’s eyebrows rise.
“I think we need one.” I take a nervous sip of my water. “A date we set that can serve as a guidance in this separation.”
“A plan,” Adam says with a crooked smile.
“Yeah. A plan.” I take another nervous drink, realizing that the most prep I’ve done for this conversation is deciding we need a plan. What that plan should be, I have no idea. “This weekend marks one month since we separated, Adam. Do we take another month? Two more?” I put out feelers, hoping he’ll bite.
He fingers the edge of his napkin, eyes cast down, and says, “Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that, too. I think”—he clears his throat—“I think that’s a good idea.”
“Good.” And?
“How about . . . after Thanksgiving?”
Our meals arrive—always impeccable timing, these kinds of things—and I don’t know what to say. We’re only halfway through October; Thanksgiving feels like a lifetime away. Do we need to stay separated for so long? Then again, is a couple of months even long enough? I’ve heard somewhere that you should give yourself an entire year—a full round of seasons—to come to terms with the loss of a loved one. Could it stand to reason that at least a full season in separation is a fair amount of time to figure out a marriage, a lifetime together?
“What about . . . our trip? Our Thanksgiving plans?” I ask gingerly.
“Halley, be honest. Do you see yourself vacationing with me right now?”
To be honest, as much as I hope to have our troubles figured out before we’ve got our boarding passes in hand, I can’t picture myself spending Thanksgiving all alone with Adam on some remote island. I don’t give myself a second more to consider this thought, because I know I’ll beat myself up over it. Your marriage is doomed, see! You two are a train wreck! You don’t even want to spend time with your husband in paradise!
“Right now, no.”
The fact of the matter is, I can’t picture spending a holiday in paradise with Adam because wounds haven’t been healed, questions haven’t been answered. We’re not ready. Will we be ready in one month? I don’t know. I suppose that’s why “after Thanksgiving” will be the plan.
Adam picks up his fork and knife and looks at me as he says, “I think we should spend a holiday apart, Hals. I don’t know how long this will take, but I’d rather give it more time than less and do it right. And maybe a holiday away will give us some introspection?” His expression says he wants to stick to this plan, that he believes it will bring the closest thing to a solution we can find.
I pick up my utensils and say, “Okay.”
Maybe that’s it. Not a season apart but a holiday. Or both. At the rate at which things are being planned now, it looks like we’ll have both.
“I’ll take care of the cancelations,” he says.
“Okay.” My voice is small, my disappointment apparent as I push a walnut about my plate. “Thanks,” I mumble.
“It’ll all work out, Halley.” He gives me a faint smile that doesn’t help to quell my heavy heart.
“Yeah,” I say, both in agreement and to instill confidence in our decision to cancel our holiday plans, to spend months, and Thanksgiving, separated. “You’re right.”
“Unless you have a better idea?”
“It’s not like I’ve ever done this before.” I ta
ke a bite of my salad.
“I know. There isn’t exactly a book on how to do this,” he says. “Actually, I’m sure there are plenty of books on saving marriages . . .”
The thought of Adam perusing Vroman’s shelves, looking for books on saving marriages, separation, and, god forbid, divorce, throws me off balance. I can’t shake from my mind the stack of books I can see piled on his nightstand. Would his collection grow so large he’d start setting some on my nightstand? Is he going to search for a podcast to listen to on his drives to and from the office? Some dry and obnoxious self-help nonsense about how you learn to move on, how you’ll find love again, how some marriages are beyond saving?
“Halley?” Adam tries to meet my eyes, bending his head low. “Halley?”
My eyes meet his, and, blinking several times, I say, “Sorry. What?”
“How does Christmas sound?”
“Christmas what? Where?”
He does a breathy, brief laugh thing. “We spend Thanksgiving apart but plan for Christmas together. How about that?”
“How about that.” I sniff. “And at Christmas we . . . what?”
Adam looks at his plate. “I’m hoping we resolve this before then. Either stay separated and keep working on it, or . . . I don’t know . . .”
I don’t know? I don’t know? This is code for divorce, the ultimate failure!
I clear my throat. “It sounds like we have a plan,” I say. I’m about to take a bite, even though I’ve lost my appetite, when I abruptly say, “What if we . . . I don’t know.” I’m grasping at straws. “What if we decide sooner?”
“Decide to get back together before Thanksgiving?”
“Yes.” I’m hopeful.
“Then perfect. Assuming things can change before then.” Adam takes a drink of his iced tea.
I turn my head to look out the window. Sunshine is falling in slivers across the grass of the adjacent park, where birds hop about and the occasional person saunters along.
“Will anything change?” I say, my voice low and soft. I keep my focus out the window, but in the periphery I can see Adam shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Have things changed yet?”
Adam and I look at each other. His face is covered with the same sadness that suddenly swells in my stomach. I have my answer. He has his.
I can’t help but wonder if things will ever change if they haven’t already. And if they do, just what will those changes be?
“I still don’t want a baby, Adam.”
“And I still do.”
The sadness is swiftly replaced by tension. There it is again. When Adam and I are together, sans baby talk, things are okay. Not easy or smooth, but given the fact that we’re separated, it isn’t all that bad, if I’m honest. As soon as babies are brought up, it’s as if we emerge from our corners of the ring, ready to duck, swing, and jab. Is this not telling enough? Is this not enough of a sign that a child is not what we need? That the tension exists because we are trying to force what was meant to be a family of two into becoming one of three?
“Let’s enjoy our meal, Adam.” I take a bite. “No baby talk.”
“Deal.”
“Until after Thanksgiving.”
“Exactly.”
“And if we want to see each other before then for a lunch like this, that’s still okay?” I say, hoping he’ll agree.
Adam smiles in a sympathetic way, the tension being exchanged for sadness. “Yeah, Halley. Me seeing you is always okay. I love you.”
“I love you.”
A weight lifts from my shoulders. I feel like sighing in relief and saying, I love you and miss you so much, Adam.
Before I even manage to exhale, Adam says, “I wish we wanted the same things, Halley. It’d sure make things a whole lot easier.”
Deflated, unsure of what to say, I can only nod. Because yes, if Adam had stuck to our plan, the original plan we both wanted, and hadn’t proposed some new arbitrary one that involved staying separated or getting back together, then yes, it’d sure make this a whole lot easier. But he didn’t. And now we’re here. And after Thanksgiving, what then? I’m beginning to wonder what the point of having a timeline is. Are we only delaying the inevitable breakup? Are we trying to get used to not having each other around so a breakup will somehow be easier? Is each of us honestly waiting for the other to change his or her mind?
It’s the same questions, over and over again, and the same nonanswers. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of it. So I decide here and now that I will not wait on a hope and a prayer for some earlier resolution. I will not expect Adam to come knocking on my door, saying he was wrong and we should head to Maui for the holiday after all. I will not expect him to change his mind or forget any of this ever happened, until we have to return to baby talk sometime after Thanksgiving.
I will not be pessimistic, but I will not cling desperately to hope and wonder day in and day out if what we have can survive this. If what we want out of life together is still possible. It may seem like limbo, but neither of us is prepared to make a decision right now, nor am I prepared to battle every waking moment, reeling over the possibilities that come after that star explodes. Now’s the time to, I suppose, float about. See what happens, take each day as it comes, surf along in the debris of an explosion until my next path presents itself.
It’s something I’m both proud and disheartened to admit: I’ve gotten used to doing things for one. It takes twice as long to fill up the hamper for a load of laundry and half the time to make the bed. I pull one pillowcase out of the dryer a week, not two. When Marian’s not home for dinner, it’s setting out one place mat and one wineglass. It’s making four cups of coffee instead of eight.
When I tell Marian this, she, ever the optimist, says, “Sleep with two pillows and hog the bed. Place mats? Who uses those, other than grandmas and event planners? As for the wineglass, ditch it and grab the bottle. Four cups of coffee? Time for a caffeine cutback?”
“Then you’d see a girl with real problems,” I say.
“Then switch to tea. Or take your coffee at Starbucks. Or get one of those French press thingies and make coffee for one. Change it up if it ain’t good for you, Hals.”
It isn’t every day a woman, after eleven years of marriage, realizes how capable she is of doing things on her own, for one, even despite the hurt.
It isn’t every day you find yourself having to.
It’s on Saturday morning, with a bright-blue sky, nary a cloud in sight, a temperature of that perfect autumn-crisp-warm seventy-five degrees, that I find myself on my way to Burbank to visit Charlotte. I called her yesterday, filling her in on my lunch with Adam. I mentioned that even though it was still a ways off, I’d be happy to help her plan Thanksgiving dinner, assuming she’d be hosting as she does each year. (She would be.)
When I asked how she was holding up, she insisted I come over this morning. Marco has a tee time with some buddies from work, Alice is at a friend’s for a sleepover, and George has a playdate. Charlotte and I will have the house to ourselves, with only little Leah to tend to. I detected the pleading and urgency in my sister’s voice when she said, “I could use some adult time.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Charlotte says as she leads me through the living room to her backyard. All the toys are in their buckets, the carpet free of even the tiniest toy car or block. “As soon as everyone was out of the house, I went into cleaning mode.” She proudly surveys the space.
“I’m impressed. Your first second of respite and you clean?” I say.
“Sad, huh?” She snickers. “It won’t stay like this for long, but you have no idea the sense of accomplishment one feels when they have a living room that doesn’t look like a twister tore through it.”
Despite the twisters that my nieces and nephew can be, Charlotte manages to keep quite an impeccable home. One would swear she had a housekeeper—the floors are vacuumed daily, kitchen spotless, bathrooms fresh. Spend five minutes with Charlotte and a full house and you’ll notice
it’s all her doing. One minute she’s handing out snacks, the next she’s vacuuming up the crumbs left behind. Juice duty, mop duty; toys out of the box, toys in the box. I don’t know how she does it.
Charlotte turns up the volume on the baby monitor and sets it on the patio table, ready to announce when Leah’s awake from her nap.
“How’s it going?” I ask my sister, who’s got one knee tucked into her chest. Despite the warm temperatures, she’s wearing a pair of purple leg warmers over her leggings. In addition to her cleaning, she’s spent part of her morning with the house practically to herself by getting in an in-home aerobic routine.
Charlotte looks at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
I get right to it, knowing that I’m here because she wants to talk, and that in the Miller house you take advantage of any silent moment. “Have you and Marco talked about . . . it . . . yet?”
Biting her bottom lip, Charlotte casts her gaze across the yard.
“Oh, Charlotte,” I say. “Omigod, you did, didn’t you? That’s why you wanted me over. You told him you know he cheated and—”
Charlotte’s shaking her head harshly.
“Oh. You didn’t tell him you know?”
“Halley—” Her face suddenly goes blank, the blood draining away. “Halley, it’s me. I’m the one who cheated.”
I can feel the blood drain from my face, all color lost to shock.
“You didn’t know?” Charlotte breathes. She brings a hand to her opened mouth.
“I just a-assumed,” I stammer. “I assumed it was Marco.”
“Because the man is usually the cheater.” She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, not in this case.” She tightly hugs both legs to her chest. “I’m the cheater. I’m the one who hurt my family. I’m the one who’s ruined everything.”
“Charlotte.”
Everything the Heart Wants Page 15