One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  Jonathan explained this story to me and I think he sensed my displeasure with the gift because the voice he used became increasingly soft and soothing as he told it. There’s another version of the story, Meg (Jonathan always did like to rewrite history).

  In the version I like, he’d said, what got released weren’t really evils at all, but gifts if only you’d look at them as such. And once they were gone, what was left in the box was hope.

  That was the gift he’d wanted to give me—a legacy of hope.

  After he left me, I threw the box in a garbage Dumpster along with all our wedding photos. Just recently, I did a little searching on the Internet and good old Wikipedia said this about Jonathan’s version: It’s meant to signify that “life is not hopeless, but each of us is hopelessly human.”

  I wish I’d saved the box. It would help me remember that what we consider bad in a relationship might in fact not be bad at all. Things like lust and fear and deceit might be invitations for us to go deeper—to see the one we love as he is instead of as we’d like him to be. Men aren’t simpletons. They’re very, very complex, and their souls are screaming for poetry.

  For story time the next day, Meg chose Jim’s Lion by Russell Hoban. “Listen carefully, now,” the story says. “ . . . This is not kid stuff. . . . You’ve got all kinds of things in your head, everything you’ve ever seen or thought about, all in your head.”

  It was the story of Jim, a boy who was in the hospital and frightened. A nurse told him to close his eyes and think of a place he loved and an animal would appear there who would find him and then lead him back from danger. Jim imagined a spot at the ocean he’d gone to with his family where they’d all been happy, and he imagined a lion, which he was afraid of at first and unsure if it was real. His nurse assured him it was. “The real thing is always more than you’re ready for,” she said.

  To help Jim face his fears, the nurse gave him a painted pebble—a don’t-run stone—and after Jim clutched the don’t-run stone in his hand and bravely held his ground with the lion, he grew strong enough for the operation he needed to live.

  The ending was not And they all lived happily ever after. But things did get better for Jim. Meg had chosen the story especially for Marita, who was back in class and sat on Meg’s right. An uncharacteristically somber Lucas was on Marita’s other side and pressed his cross-legged knee into hers.

  After story time, Meg gave her students smooth rocks the size of sand dollars to paint and keep as their own don’t-run stones. At recess, she sat on a bench with Marita and shared a bunch of grapes. Marita swung her legs back and forth, which Meg took as a positive sign.

  “How do you like staying with your aunt?” she said.

  Marita stopped swinging her legs and leaned her head against the side of Meg’s arm and sighed more wearily than a five-year-old should know how to.

  “You’ve been asked a lot of questions by a lot of people in the last few days, haven’t you?” Meg said. “I bet you’re getting sick of them.”

  Marita nodded and silently watched as Antonio chased Lucas through the play structure. When he saw her watching him, Lucas darted over. “I’m the fastest runner in the class,” he boasted.

  Meg laughed. “And the most confident.”

  “I’m the most everything.” He snapped his fingers in front of Marita’s face. “Look at that,” he said. “Can you do that? I could do it a million times if I wanted to, which I don’t, because that would get boring.” He snapped in her face a few more times until Meg playfully knocked his hand away.

  “You try,” he told Marita.

  Marita attempted to snap but had a hard time coordinating her fingers.

  “You’ve got to practice,” Lucas said. “I practiced all day yesterday.” He snapped a few more times. “Keep trying, and then one day you’ll be able to do it, too.”

  “What did you two think of our story today?” Meg asked them.

  “I liked it!” Lucas said. “If I had a finder, it would be a cheetah and I’d climb on his back and he’d run away from anything bad.” He snapped in Meg’s face. “What would your finder be?”

  Meg brushed his hand away and thought of her father. “Mine would be a lion, like in the book. Quietly powerful, on the prowl to protect me. Just knowing he was out there somewhere nearby would make me feel safe, even if I still had to face the bad stuff on my own.”

  “You do, you know,” Lucas said, just before he ran off. “That’s what the story was about.”

  When Meg asked Marita what animal she’d choose for her finder, Marita closed her eyes and disappeared into her imagination for a long minute.

  “My finder wouldn’t be an animal,” she said when she finally opened her eyes, which were the same color brown as Ahmed’s. “My finder would be a Lucas. And my good place is here with you, Miss Meg. With you and with Lucas, too.”

  “I love that,” Meg said.

  Marita smiled shyly. “And I love you.”

  Meg’s father had never steered her wrong before. That was what she kept coming back to, again and again. And even though keeping a secret from Ahmed didn’t sit well with her, Meg finally accepted that her father might be right. She wasn’t hiding a crime, after all, just a three-minute phone call.

  Yet as she and Henry crossed the park to get to soccer practice, Meg was nervous, because even if keeping quiet about Jonathan’s potential reappearance was in her best interests, it inherently went against what she wanted their relationship to be, which was one hundred percent honest in every respect. She kept trying to tell herself that a ninety-nine-percent honesty rate was still pretty darn good.

  Ahmed greeted them both with a big smile and a buoyant hello. Henry said hi back and ran off to join the other boys, leaving the two of them alone.

  “My dad wants to take us to lunch at the Arizona Inn sometime over the holiday weekend,” Meg said. “Is there a particular day that works best for you?”

  “Friday’s bad, because I’m golfing in the morning. By the way, does your dad golf? We need a fourth.”

  “Why don’t you invite me?” Meg asked. “What makes you think I’m not a golfer?”

  “Do you golf, Meg?” Ahmed looked amused by the very idea of it.

  “Why does that seem so funny to you?”

  He stepped closer and tucked her hair behind her ear. She tingled from his touch. “Do you?”

  “To be honest, the very thought of golf puts me to sleep,” she said.

  He laughed. “I thought that was probably the case. You don’t seem like the golfing type. But it can be very calming, I’ll have you know. Therapeutic. Contemplative. Life slows down on the golf course.”

  “I always thought people just went out on the golf course and got drunk,” Meg said.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I hang out with my friends, enjoy the landscape, smell the grass. . . .”

  Meg beckoned him closer, then put her hand on his shoulder and whispered to him, “Do people ever have sex on golf courses?” She inhaled his exceptionally subtle aftershave and fell into the Pied Piper appeal of him: she’d follow this guy anywhere.

  “People have sex everywhere,” he whispered back. “Except us. I never realized how tricky it would be, plotting to have sex with a single mom.”

  She pulled back to look into his twinkling brown eyes. “Am I more than you bargained for?”

  “You’re worth every complication.” Ahmed bestowed on her a kiss that was overly passionate for the setting—it was just this side of appropriate.

  “I like outdoor sex,” Meg offered. “Golf-course sex would be fine with me.”

  Ahmed laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind, although there’s always the getting caught factor to consider.”

  Meg shrugged flirtatiously. “The risk is part of the fun, right?”

  “It’d make the papers if I got arrested for public indecency,” Ahmed said.

  “But there’s nothing indecent about you,” Meg teased. “You’re a fine specimen.”


  “Why, thank you.”

  Just then Catherine approached. “Look at you two love-birds,” she said. “You two are just the cutest.”

  Meg had been called cute and perky her entire life and thought the descriptions not only reduced her, but also completely lacked originality. Besides, Catherine had interrupted their wooing, so Meg narrowed her eyes and then did her best to ignore her.

  “Anyway, my dad doesn’t golf, either,” she told Ahmed. “But if you ever want to teach Henry how to play, go for it.”

  Ahmed, who’d said a pleasant hello to Catherine, brightened at the idea. “I’ll see if he’s interested. Thanks.”

  “Calm and contemplative are two traits I’d love for him to work on,” Meg said.

  Ahmed grinned. “I can see where that might be beneficial.”

  He kissed her cheek, turned and headed onto the field, blowing his whistle to round up the boys. Meg sighed happily and for the remainder of practice tried to imagine how things would play out between them in bed. She’d bet there would be a lot of laughing. The first time, though, would have to be fast—wham, bam—because she had a lot to get out of her system—eight weeks’ worth of built-up lust. She wasn’t a prude and didn’t quite understand how they’d been together this long with so little sexual satisfaction to show for it.

  In the middle of Meg’s quite pleasant daydreaming, Catherine sidled up. “Bradley has just not stopped talking about Henry,” she said. “He talks about him nonstop! We really should arrange that playdate for the boys.”

  “We should.” Meg smiled weakly, thinking, We shouldn’t. She had enough stressors in her life at the moment without adding Catherine to the mix.

  “Today’s great for us,” Catherine said. “How about after soccer? Henry could come home with us for dinner.”

  “On a school night?”

  “This week?” Catherine waved off Meg’s question. “Please. Teachers never really teach anything right before vacation.”

  “Um, yes, they do. You do know that I’m a teacher, don’t you?” Meg was about to refuse on principle after the way Catherine had just insulted her profession, but then Ahmed ran by and flashed her that sexy smile of his and the contour of his thigh muscles was so very ripe for further exploration, and . . . “Having said that, I think Henry would love to spend some time with Bradley,” she said. “I’ll check with him after practice.”

  “Great!” Catherine beamed. “That would give you and the coach some much-appreciated time alone, I’m sure.” She gave a sexually meaningful look in Ahmed’s direction. “I know what I’d do if I got that man alone for any length of time.”

  Hey, Catherine, did you hear the one about thou shalt not covet thy fellow soccer mom’s boyfriend? This woman was seriously inappropriate. Meg couldn’t stand her, actually.

  “Do you keep any guns in the house?” she asked out of spite.

  “Of course not!” Catherine recoiled at the suggestion.

  “Any rottweilers for pets?”

  “Goodness, no!”

  “Let your kids play Grand Theft Auto?”

  “No, of course—”

  “Watch R-rated movies? Associate with convicted felons? Suspected child molesters? Any no-good uncles wandering around in their boxer shorts?”

  At that, Catherine narrowed her eyes, and Meg realized she’d gone too far. “Kidding,” she said meekly. Just wanted to get your mind off my boyfriend’s sex life.

  At the end of soccer practice, Meg checked with Henry, who very much wanted to go to Bradley’s, and then approached Ahmed. “Guess what. Henry’s going to Bradley’s house for dinner. He’ll be there for several hours.”

  Ahmed’s eyes sparked. “Whatever shall we do?”

  Meg beamed X-rated thoughts in his direction and struck a blatantly transparent breast-swelling pose. “I have no idea.”

  Laughing at her, Ahmed glanced at his watch. “I do,” he said. “Be at my house in an hour.”

  Forty minutes later, a freshly showered Meg stood naked in front of her closet with a glass of wine in her hand and considered her options. There weren’t many, unfortunately. She was a single mom and a kindergarten teacher, not a seductress, and she’d already worn her sole little black dress on her first date with Ahmed.

  Did she even have a decent-enough matching bra and panties? She had enough black underwear to outfit a widow’s convention, but none of it was lacy or particularly lust-provoking, and while she didn’t think Ahmed would mind, it struck her as pathetic that she had nothing worthy of true seduction. She suspected that each and every one of Jonathan’s conquests while he’d been married to her had worn something other than all-cotton, not-even-push-up paraphernalia.

  Meg sighed, and then it came to her. She’d go commando. It was most efficient, always a turn-on and perfectly solved the nothing-to-wear problem. As for outer garments, her lady-in-red dress with the built-in shelf bra would do just fine.

  When Ahmed opened his front door, Meg almost lost her breath at the sight of him. He had on black jeans and wore a tucked-in rust-colored silky shirt, sleeves rolled up to three-quarters’ length. Glancing at his forearms, Meg realized what it was about them that so turned her on. It was, first, the light tan color of his skin, a shade she’d envied her entire pale-skinned life. More than that, it was how, even at rest, the tendons on his forearms flexed, hinting that his entire body would be similarly muscled and efficient, with no wasteful flesh, only solid muscle and bone to press against. Please let this happen tonight, she thought. Let me see if my forearm theory holds true.

  But as she stepped in and slipped off her sweater, Meg immediately noted the lack of romantic setup. Nothing looked any different than usual. The lights were bright, not a candle in sight. Ahmed even had a TIME magazine lying opened to an article about the bird flu—what kind of foreplay was this?

  Meg scratched her head as she moved to take a seat on the couch. She made sure the hem of her dress, under which she wore nothing, was pulled down as far as possible. Two could play at this lack-of-foreplay game.

  Ahmed sat two cushions over and casually stretched his arm over the back of the couch. “So, what’s new?”

  Meg was confused by his lackadaisical attitude—she would have thought him the romantic type (he hadn’t even put on any blues music!)—until it occurred to her that maybe he’d somehow found out about Jonathan’s phone call and was about to bust her for not telling him. “Nothing,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just making conversation.” He said it lightly, but Meg sensed something more was going on.

  “Are you mad at me about something?” Her heart pounded fearfully.

  “I have yet to get mad at you,” he said. “In fact, I can’t imagine ever getting mad at you.”

  “Oh, come on,” Meg said. “What if I stole money from you?”

  He laughed. “I’d assume you needed it.”

  “What if I borrowed your nice Mercedes and wrecked it?”

  He laughed again. “I’d assume it was an accident, and I’d be far more concerned about you than the car.”

  “You’re so sweet,” Meg said. “What if I lied to you?” She kept her voice light, but Ahmed’s eyes lost their laughter.

  “Lying would be bad,” he conceded. “I’ve dated women who’ve lied, and it’s pretty much a deal breaker for me.”

  Meg’s mood deflated instantly. Ahmed peered at her and saw how her swallow came hard. “Is there something you should tell me, Meg?”

  She thought of her father’s advice not to tell him about Jonathan’s call.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I have something I don’t want to tell you, but it’s something I don’t want to not tell you, either, if that makes any sense.”

  Looking pained, he exhaled. “You should probably tell me.”

  “My ex-husband called me.” She blurted it out and then squeezed her eyes shut. Ahmed waited to speak until she opened them.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “And
nothing.” Meg’s heart pounded as if she were lying. But she wasn’t! “He’s coming to town and wants to get together, but I told him no. I’ve got absolutely no interest in seeing him.”

  “Okay, then,” Ahmed said smoothly. There was just the slightest bit of edge in his jaw. “Is that all? Was there anything else?”

  Wasn’t that bad enough?

  “That’s all,” Meg said. “Are you mad?”

  “I don’t see anything to be mad about, Meg,” he said. “First off, honesty’s good. It means you trust me. Second, he called you, not the other way around. And third, you don’t want to see him. That’s all good, as far as I’m concerned.”

  There was a tiny hint of unhappiness in his eyes, just enough to prove he was human and just enough to make Meg decide not to mention it had actually been Henry, not Jonathan, who’d initiated the contact.

  He studied her intently. “Why does he want to see you?”

  “I’ve got no idea.” Meg’s heart raced. “I don’t even want to know, because it doesn’t matter. I’m with you. These past months with you have been magical,” she said. “My whole world’s lighter and brighter and sparklier. I’ve had this new confidence ever since you came into our lives. I’ve stopped being so protective of my heart—I’m just putting it out there in a way I haven’t in a long, long time. But that leaves me exposed. Does that make sense? I’m always waiting for something bad to happen to cancel out my happiness, as if I’m not entitled to it.”

  Ahmed took her hand. “I know that feeling, first from when my mom died and then from when I was sent away.”

  “So are we okay?” she asked.

  “We’re okay.” But his eyes conveyed that maybe he wasn’t, and his smile, meant to assure her, was heartbreakingly sad.

  “Hey.” Meg scooted over to get close to him and softly stroked his cheek. “This is why I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to worry you.”