One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “I’m seeing someone,” she said. “You should know we’re very happy.”

  Jonathan chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I’m serious,” Meg said.

  “So am I,” he said. “I’m not here to make trouble for you, Meg. I have no intention of disrupting your life, or Henry’s. I know I don’t have that right. I just . . .” His emotion was palpable as he stopped to take a deep breath. “You were a very important person in my life for a very long time, and I was horrible to you. I regret my behavior, and I’ll regret it to my dying day, and I’m sorry. And that’s why I keep calling. To tell you that.”

  Meg had fantasized about a moment like this, about Jonathan begging for a forgiveness she’d never, ever grant. She’d imagined all sorts of mercilessly clever responses, none of which suited what she was feeling at the moment, because what she was feeling was sad.

  Inexorably,

  gapingly,

  weepingly,

  convulsively

  sad.

  This was Jonathan. After all this time. Her Jonathan, calling for her.

  Meg had to get off the phone. She had to hang up and crumple into a ball and hug her pillow and cry for the innocent, good-hearted girl she’d been. She knew she couldn’t hold her tears back for very long. She’d say anything—anything—to get off the phone. So when Jonathan said he had something to give her and suggested they get together the next day, Meg said yes.

  To Jonathan, she’d always said yes.

  Meg sat on top of a picnic table at Himmel Park while she waited for Jonathan. She filled her lungs, held her breath to the count of eight and then released it. She did it again, and again, and again as she tried to talk herself into being calm.

  But it was hard being calm while sitting in a park she’d been bringing Henry to since his birth, being in sight of the greatly feared-by-all-moms long slide, from which he’d once fallen and had to be rushed to the emergency room in fear of a concussion.

  She’d been alone that day in her worry. Her fear of something bad happening to Henry never abated, never for one moment, and she knew part of it was pure motherhood—to be a mother was to be afraid—but part of it was also the abject knowledge that if something horrible did happen to Henry, no one would share the exact depth of her pain. It was the converse of how she felt sometimes as her heart filled with glory as she watched Henry run down a soccer field in this very same park and longed to have someone to turn to and say, Look at our boy. Just look at him!

  Ahmed was there for her now, but Jonathan should have been there all along. He shouldn’t have left her like he had, without even trying to work things out. Who knew? Maybe Meg would have stayed with him. Maybe she would have forgiven his infidelity, and maybe they would have gone on to have a happy marriage and more babies. Maybe it would have all worked out.

  But he’d never even wanted to try.

  When Jonathan emerged from the parking lot, sighted her and headed her way, Meg held herself absolutely still as she processed the sight of him. He now carried himself like his father, who’d died when they were in college. It was in the shoulders, mostly, how they curved forward just slightly, barely enough to cancel out the military-straight bearing their personalities likely would have preferred. Back in high school, the only time Meg had caught that posture on Jonathan was when he was weary after long runs. But now it seemed to have become part of him, this folding in on himself. He wore khaki pants and kept his hands in the pockets of a red jacket. He’d always looked good in red.

  To reach her, he had to pass the long slide, plus the climbing tree, plus about a hundred yards of open space. Meg remained on top of the picnic table. She would not climb down, would not meet him halfway. She wouldn’t put herself in a position where she might be easily reached for, easily hugged. This was the man who’d broken her heart and she wouldn’t let herself forget it. This was the man who’d abandoned his son, who’d never even stuck around long enough to know what it was he was walking away from.

  When Jonathan was a few feet from her, he stopped. As their eyes bridged the distance and the years, Meg realized how much she’d missed him. Hated him, yes—that, too, but he’d been such a big part of her life for so long.

  Jonathan gave her his trademark smart-ass grin, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of Watermelon Bubble Yum.

  “Here.” He tossed it to her. “I remember how you used to like it.”

  “This is what you wanted to give me? A pack of gum?” Meg laughed, both delighted and confused. “And here I thought you were going to hand me a check for all the back child support you owe me.”

  “You wouldn’t really prefer that over a pack of gum, now, would you?” he asked.

  Meg laughed again. She had to. This was Jonathan, after all, who was as familiar to her as her own reflection. But as seriousness took over, Meg looked for what about him was still there and what wasn’t. He still had his face-defining cheekbones, and his eyes were still whip-snap blue like Henry’s. But his hair wasn’t as impressively thick as it used to be and his face had a smoggy, big-city pallor. He took her in similarly.

  “You look like life’s been treating you well,” he said.

  “I’d forgotten what your voice sounded like,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?”

  “I’d forgotten yours, too,” he said. “But it all came back in an instant. I have to tell you, my mind’s been racing the past few weeks. So many memories, you know?”

  “Oh, I know.” Meg looked away from him for a moment, setting her gaze on the omnipresent military jets circling overhead. “Are you married?”

  He shook his head. “I was, but that one didn’t last long, either. I don’t know how my parents managed to pull it off. I always thought I’d do it so much better than them.”

  “My parents are divorcing,” she said. “That’s my big news.”

  “Wow,” Jonathan said. “That is big.”

  “It’s long overdue,” Meg said. “I’m sorry to hear about your mom’s passing.”

  “Thank you.” He gestured to the table. “May I?” When she nodded, Jonathan climbed up, keeping a respectful distance. He seemed to live inside himself now, and in his eyes there was a familiar loneliness that she’d completely forgotten. Even in their marriage, she’d often considered him lonely. He had things going on deep inside that he’d hoarded, a place inside himself where he used to go, leaving her behind and confused. It happened in an instant, sometimes. He’d left her even while he remained right beside her. How had she forgotten this, and where had he gone all those times?

  “It must be strange, being an orphan,” she said. “No safety net.”

  Jonathan looked past her to a group of kids about Henry’s age who were playing kickball. “It sucks in so very many ways.”

  “Being a grown-up is shockingly hard sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Jonathan’s smile was pained. Grim, almost. “You’ve just got to keep throwing your whole self in, right?”

  “I can’t believe you remember that!” He’d called it corny when she first started doing it with her kindergarten class.

  “I remember everything, Meg.”

  His eyes hurt, they were so blue.

  “Do you remember how you broke my heart?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “So here we are,” she said. “Ten years later. What was it like hearing from Henry?”

  “Bizarre.” Jonathan shook his head at the memory, still incredulous. “I cried for probably an hour afterward. Just wept. It hit me like a ton of bricks, that there’s this kid out there, affiliated with me, and I don’t know the first thing about him. He was so funny.”

  “I can’t let you see him,” Meg said. “You know that, right?”

  “I understand,” Jonathan said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me why he called you,” Meg said. “He said if I wanted to know, I had to ask you myself.”

  Jonathan laughed. “You’ve got
yourself a lively boy.”

  “I don’t think I’d want him any other way,” Meg said, smiling. “But calling him lively is putting it mildly.”

  They’d been sitting next to each other, looking out as much as at each other, but now Jonathan faced her directly. His eyes twinkled and he came alive. “So he calls me, and he goes, ‘Hi, I’m Henry. Your son. And I’ve got a question for you.’ Very businesslike. As if he had three minutes for me and not a second more.” Meg laughed as he talked. Yep, that was her boy. “And I’m just standing there in the middle of my living room thinking, Holy shit, is this for real? Is this really him? Is this really happening? It was crazy weird.”

  “I bet,” Meg said. “Like a bolt of lightning.”

  “Exactly.” Jonathan nodded. “You know, you always sort of imagine something like this happening—some ghost from your past showing up, but—wow. That’s all I can say. And his spunk just blew me away.”

  “Stop stalling and tell me what he wanted from you,” she pressed him.

  “Ah.” Jonathan nodded and refocused his attention on the moment rather than the memory. His voice lowered, became more solemn. “He’d like you to marry the guy you’re seeing.”

  His name’s Ahmed, Meg thought. But she didn’t want to get into all the explanations with Jonathan.

  “He needs to mind his own business,” she said. “I can’t believe he’d call you and tell you that.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “The way he sees it, it is his business. In effect, if he convinces you to marry the guy, he gets to pick his own dad—a specific, chosen father, as opposed to the lunk who happened to sire him.”

  But Ahmed hasn’t even asked me, Meg thought. Of course I’d say yes.

  “Why would Henry involve you?” Meg asked.

  “Apparently you told him you weren’t very good at being a wife,” Jonathan said.

  “Ah, yes.” Meg remembered the conversation well. It was part of the what-would-happen-if-you-died talk they’d had. “I did tell him that.”

  “ ‘What does my mom need to do different so she can get it right this time?’” Jonathan said. “That was his question.”

  Of course.

  Of course that was why he’d called Jonathan. Meg felt the familiar ache, the hole in her heart she couldn’t fill, the question she couldn’t quite answer. Why is it so hard for you to get it right? The question of a lifetime: what was wrong with her? Only Henry had the guts to go straight to the source.

  “And?” Meg’s voice wavered. “What’d you tell him?”

  “He didn’t want me to tell him anything,” Jonathan said. “He was in a hurry to get off the phone. He asked me to promise I’d call you and tell you directly. And that’s really why I’m here. I made him that promise, and I wanted to tell you in person.”

  Meg was glad she was sitting or her knees would have buckled. “Go ahead.”

  Jonathan smiled. “You say it like you’re facing an executioner.” He elbowed her. “You were a great wife, Meg. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was the jerk.”

  You didn’t do anything wrong. They were words she’d longed to hear, but upon hearing them she did not believe him.

  “I must have done something wrong to make you want to hurt me so much.”

  He shook his head no.

  “Come on,” she said. “One thing.”

  Meg could see his chest pounding even through his jacket. Finally, he said, “I just . . . I couldn’t breathe around you anymore.”

  “Funny.” Meg felt sick to her stomach. “I couldn’t breathe without you.”

  “I swear it wasn’t you,” he said again. “It was a physiological thing. Don’t you remember that time I woke up in terror, having night sweats?”

  “I remember.” He’d dreamt he was being crushed by a massive slab of concrete after a building had collapsed on him, and people he’d known his whole life walked past on the sidewalk, noticing him and smiling and waving, willfully ignoring the fact that he needed help. He’d sobbed upon waking, so relieved his nightmare had ended.

  “You had our lives all planned out,” Jonathan said. “And you just assumed I’d go along, because, well, who wouldn’t want a house in Sam Hughes and two-point-five kids and PTA meetings and brunch with your family on Sundays? I didn’t even want kids—they never crossed my mind, except when you brought them up. I wanted adventure. Surprise. Some grittiness to my life, some New York City walking down a street, anything can happen feeling. The life you planned for us was too neat. Too perfect. Too Good Housekeeping magazine.”

  “But you knew that’s what I wanted before you ever married me,” she said.

  “I loved you,” Jonathan said, point of fact. “I fell in love with you before I even had my driver’s license, and I thought love trumped everything. But it doesn’t. Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

  Meg sighed. “Oh, Jonathan.”

  “I’m sorry, Meg,” he said. “I wish like hell I could’ve been the person you needed me to be.”

  Meg gave him a rueful smile. It was a funny thing about a voice. When it was a voice you knew well and it spoke the truth, you knew it.

  As Meg drove away from the park, her head was jammed so full of competing emotions that her brain couldn’t decide where to focus first. Jonathan wasn’t the golden boy anymore, glowing with health and youthful invincibility.

  He was alone.

  He was going through life completely alone—no wife, no kids, no parents, no siblings. How could that possibly be a preferable way to live? Even if you did have a ton of friends and a fascinating career, how could that not be lonely sometimes, at least in the dead of night?

  That was Ahmed’s life, too, she thought. Until you and Henry came along.

  They’d talked on, for nearly two hours. Jonathan had been a public defender for several years and he had some hilarious—and yes, gritty—stories to tell. She’d caught him up on the news surrounding her family and her job, and toward the end of their time together, she had finally offered some stories about Henry: how he loved the ocean. And soccer. And Violet, and Harry Potter. It had gone without saying that he loved Ahmed, too.

  As they were saying goodbye, Jonathan had asked how serious her relationship was with Ahmed. Pretty serious, she’d replied.

  Jonathan had looked at her as if he wished that wasn’t the case. Lucky guy, he’d said. He’d kissed her goodbye on the cheek and it was so familiar, his kiss, his smell, the way he said, Okay, then, afterward, as if now that he’d kissed her, he could face whatever came next.

  In a way, seeing him had been anticlimactic—how could it not be, when she’d spent a decade anticipating it? There were no zingers tossed, no eyes flamed. There’d been just—them. Like it had always been when it was good between them. She’d been in no hurry. She would have been perfectly content to sit in the park with him for hours, saying nothing, just being with him.

  Minutes away from the park, Meg got the shakes. Nervous, emotional shakes. Where had the ten lost years gone? How could it feel like it was just yesterday that they’d been together, but with the benefit of today’s wisdom and experience? Life had knocked Jonathan down a few pegs. It had humbled him, and he came off as better for it. And what was she doing thinking nice thoughts about him after what he’d done to her?

  She’d forgiven him, she realized, and with that realization Meg felt newly unburdened. And she had Henry to thank for it.

  Henry, who’d made the call.

  Henry, the coolest boy in the world.

  What he’d done by contacting Jonathan was give her the ability to live their life motto: onward. Always onward.

  And all she’d given him for it was grief.

  Henry was playing a game on Sandi’s computer when Meg arrived at her father’s office to pick him up. Behind him, Sandi filed. “I can’t believe my dad has you working the day after Thanksgiving,” Meg said.

  “Oh, I’m not officially working,” Sandi said. “I just love days in the office when the phones are off. I ge
t so much more done.”

  “Mom, I got to the highest level in Cube!” Henry said.

  Meg leaned over Sandi’s desk and kissed him. “Ga!” he said. “You made me mess up!”

  Laughing, Meg held a Target bag out to him across the desk. “Maybe you’ll forgive me once you see this.”

  Henry peeked in the bag and looked up at her. “No way.”

  “Yes, way.”

  “Is this for my birthday?”

  Meg shook her head. “It’s a just-because gift. Just because you’re awesome. Just because you’re exactly you.”

  “This is so cool! You’re the best!” He pulled out the silver iPod, gawked at it, then ran around the desk and almost knocked Meg over with the force of his hug. Then he ran into Phillip’s inner office. “Mom got me an iPod and it’s not even for my birthday!”

  Phillip came to his doorway and eyed her. “Your mom’s day must have gone well.”

  “His mom’s day went great.” Meg couldn’t say more, not with Henry around. “His mom is feeling like the world is hers for the taking. And the first thing I’m going to take is my son to dinner at his favorite restaurant.”

  Henry’s mouth dropped open. “Chuck E. Cheese!”

  Meg cringed. “I was thinking Macaroni Grill.”

  “Yes!” Henry said. “I love Macaroni Grill!”

  “Then that’s where I’m taking you.”

  First, she’d take Henry to dinner and later, after he’d fallen asleep, maybe she’d call Ahmed and invite him over. Sneak him in. Take him, too.

  Once upon a time over a Thanksgiving weekend, a handsome Iranian-American man named Ahmed and a blond, blue-eyed boy named Henry went to lunch at the Arizona Inn with Meg and Phillip.

  The boy wore his best dress clothes and his high-top sneakers and sat at the table like a big kid. All of a sudden, he was a big kid—a player, just like us, a player in the game of life. When the grown-ups had tea after lunch, he did, too, sipping in rhythm with you, Ahmed sticking his pinky out, like you, setting his fragile porcelain teacup in its saucer with the softest of clinks. Like you, like you, like you.