CHAPTER 21
MAY 2007
Karen opened her eyes and slowly adjusted to her surroundings. She and Nick had moved into their new house three months ago, but she still expected to see her old bedroom, the one she shared with Bob before she shared it with Nick. She rolled over in bed and, for several seconds, watched Nick sleeping. Then, she kissed him on the cheek, got out of bed, and wrapped her bathrobe around her body. Rebecca would be up soon, and Karen needed a cup of coffee before she could balance the highs and lows her fourteen-year-old experienced hourly.
The kitchen was already light. The large windows and double-glass doors that led onto the deck coaxed the morning sun into the room. Karen started the coffeemaker, then walked to the doors and looked out. The sky was already clear, promising delivery on a sunny forecast. It had been an excruciatingly long, and at times, difficult winter, weather-wise and otherwise. Bright sunshine was the best cure Karen knew for the blues, for the days when doubt and frustration pulled at her. While she and Robert had soldiered through the toughest hours, Rebecca had been a wreck. Crying jags, sarcasm, painful words—even more than normal—indicated her vulnerabilities. Some of the things Rebecca said made sense, the talk about whether this new relationship was worth the destruction, the questions, the compromising, and the resentment. In the occasional moments when Karen saw Rebecca’s point of view, she, too, wondered if being with Nick was worth everything it took. Because on those days—when Rebecca was particularly emotional—it had taken more than Karen’s reservoir had to offer, temporarily depleting her optimism and her convictions.
The divorce, itself, had gone well, her lawyer said, as divorces go. Bob had been extremely generous, both with his time and his money. He and Denise agreed to having Rebecca and Robert every other weekend and on one night during the week when it worked out. This had taken some time to iron out, since Denise hadn’t talked to Bob for a full month after she found out he was married. She expected him to woo her all over again, which Karen had found amusing. Eventually, he did win her, as only Bob Parsons could. And when he did and announced their plans to marry, Karen had felt the squeeze of jealousy, even though she knew she had no right to such feelings.
Bob still traveled a great deal, so more often than not the kids spent their weeks with Karen and Nick. They were not yet ready—Rebecca had announced she would never be ready—to spend the night with just Denise and their stepsister, Melody, who was three months old.
Nick’s wife, too, had given Nick very little trouble. Trisha still worked constantly, meaning Nick had his girls most of the time. Karen had worked hard at establishing a warm relationship with Abby, ten, and Emily, eight, and they were usually receptive. However, she was sometimes surprised by their presence, as if they had been dropped off for a sleepover at the wrong house.
The strangest, hardest part for Karen had been the adjustment to living with and marrying a man who had been her lover. She realized how ludicrous that sounded—she had gone through the same process with Bob—but her marriage to Nick was different from her fantasies about their union. Before, when she had imagined them together, their common lives were like their romantic dates. Nick was showered and sweet smelling. He was cooking for her, feeding her, laughing with her, and telling her how much he adored her. They made passionate love, insatiable for each other’s nakedness. The best part of Karen’s dream world, however, was Nick’s constant attention. When he and Karen were in the same room, he was completely focused on her needs, powerless to pursue anything but that single goal.
Karen poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, knowing how foolish she had been. She had pictured her new life much like a teenage girl thinks of marriage rather than a thirty-eight-year-old woman who knows better. After all, she had been married for almost fourteen years to Bob. She knew what it was like to raise children and run a household. She knew how busy and tedious the days could be, and she knew how unappreciated she felt for steering everyone in the house through those days, those weeks, those years. After all, it was that lack of appreciation that had made Karen turn in another direction, wasn’t it? And here she was again. It wasn’t exactly the same. Nick was a caring and loving and wonderful man; that hadn’t changed. What had changed was this: Nick was now a father, a husband, and a constant presence rather than a secret lover.
Setting up house had been exhilarating. Karen loved having Nick’s clothes in their walk-in closet, his toiletries around the other sink in the master bathroom. They would look at each other in the morning and laugh, as if they’d gotten away with something while the rest of the world was looking the other way. The children, except for Rebecca, had been on their best behavior, not quite knowing what to say or how to act in the presence of someone new. Behind closed doors, Rebecca had screamed at her mother and cried until her red, swollen eyes could no longer expel water. But that was only at first. Six months into the new arrangement, Rebecca had grown to tolerate Nick, who had enough sense to give her the space she needed at the beginning. She complained to Karen about the difficulties of being a child of divorce, but Karen knew the divorce also had its benefits. Rebecca saw her father about as much as she used to, considering his travel schedule. And when she did see him, he lavished her with gifts—every teenager appreciated the latest technology gadget—and his attention. In fact, he paid more attention to Rebecca and Robert now than he had ever paid to them as their live-in father.
Robert sometimes missed Bob. He had always been the one to enthusiastically greet his father when Bob came home from work, especially after a business trip, and to eagerly listen at the dinner table to Bob’s stories while Rebecca begged to be excused and Karen’s brain had shut down. He loved his dad, and not for any obvious reason. Bob hadn’t paid extra attention to Robert. He hadn’t, even once that Karen could remember, sat down on the floor with him to build Lego houses and play with Robert’s large collection of toy cars. He hadn’t even talked much to his son. But Robert adored him. And so Robert, like his sister, sometimes cried at night. When he did, Karen went to him and lay down beside him until he fell back asleep. She had mentioned it to Bob several times, and he dutifully promised to spend more time with Robert. But as soon as another business trip surfaced, Bob was gone. Work still came first.
Yet, Bob was different, too. He seemed happier than he had before, and somehow more relaxed. When he picked up the children, he was pleasant and appeared to look forward to the weekend. He chatted with Karen in her kitchen while Rebecca and Robert, who were more eager to go with their father than Karen had predicted, packed their things in the colorful duffels Bob had bought for this purpose. On one occasion, Karen and Bob even split a beer, Karen keenly aware of the fact that both of them had drunk from the same bottle.
Karen sipped her coffee and smiled. And had he always been that good-looking? Nick was handsome, in a very youthful way. His fine, sandy-blond hair (that he had grown even longer during the divorce) took flight when he walked. His face looked clean-shaven, even after skipping a day. His cheeks had a little bit of color, as if he had just come in from outdoors. His soft brown eyes exuded compassion. And he was surrounded by an inexplicable aura of paternity. Most of the young reporters and editors in the newsroom considered Nick a father figure as well as a boss.
The opposite, Bob was rugged looking. He had thick brown hair that barely moved, even in a strong wind. He had a thick beard that he shaved every morning—even on the weekends—only to appear like he needed another shave by dinnertime. It was a manly look, Karen decided. Something she’d seen a thousand times on television commercials for razors and shaving cream. And his eyes were the same blue, with a touch of gray, as the sky sometimes looked after a rainstorm. Their bodies, too, were different, Nick’s and Bob’s. Nick was thin and toned, like a long-distance runner. For someone who loved food, Nick had no visible fat. There would be no paunch in the years to come. There would be no shopping trips for pants in bigger sizes. Bob was more solid and muscular. He ran three or fo
ur times a week, but looked more like a wrestler. He had a broad chest and thick thighs and a stomach that had the potential to hang over his belt in his fifties. He looked like he was made of rock, while Nick appeared to have been constructed of thick twigs.
That they were different, even physically, made sense to Karen. After all, she left Bob because of all the things she didn’t like about him. Nick was everything Bob was not: empathetic, sensitive, unselfish, and completely in love with his children. Bob was pigheaded, overly driven, obtuse when it came to family matters, and often unavailable to anyone other than his boss. However, since Karen was not living with Bob anymore, she didn’t see those characteristics as closely and consistently as she once had. The sharpness of his personality flaws had dulled, now that their relationship had changed from husband and wife to the separated parents of Rebecca and Robert. The bitterness of the months and years leading up to the divorce, too, had subsided in Karen’s mind, the bad taste gone. Once in a while—and it was usually just after she and Bob had talked and even laughed together while he waited for Rebecca and Robert to get their things ready for the weekend—she wondered what all the fighting had been about, wondered why they hadn’t been able to work it all out. She told herself such thoughts were misguided and unproductive. She was with Nick now. Bob was with Denise. They were happy in their new arrangements. It was her current happiness, Karen concluded, that enabled her to have charitable thoughts about her ex-husband. She started when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Earth to Mother,” said Rebecca, who walked to the fridge and opened it.
Karen smiled. “Good morning, honey. How did you sleep?”
Rebecca took the orange juice from the top shelf. “Why do you feel compelled to ask me that every morning?”
Karen shrugged. “Because my mother asked me, I guess. It’s a good question.” Rebecca poured herself some juice and sat down at the table with her mother. “What time is your rehearsal today?”
“Six to ten.” Rebecca took a tablet from the bottle of multivitamins on the table and swallowed it with the juice. “I can’t believe this is my last one. The play is this weekend you know.”
“No. Really?” asked Karen, kidding her daughter.
“Daddy and Denise are going Friday night.”
“And Nick, Robert, the girls, and I are going Saturday night. What a large fan club you have.”
“Not really,” said Rebecca, taking her juice glass to the sink. “All the CDs have the same arrangement.”
CD was Rebecca’s acronym for children of divorce. It was a term she coined just after the separation, and Karen had heard it dozens of times since. But it still bothered her. She walked into the mudroom, where Rebecca was slipping her feet into her shoes. She watched as Rebecca heaved her heavy pack onto her back. “What?” asked Rebecca, looking at Karen.
“Nothing. I’m just so excited for the play this weekend.”
Rebecca smiled for the first time that morning. “Yeah, me too. It’s going to be awesome.”
“You’re going to be awesome. I’m so proud of you.” Rebecca lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “I really am.” Rebecca tilted her face toward Karen, who kissed her cheek. While Rebecca didn’t kiss her mother, she allowed Karen to kiss her. “I’ll see you after school.” Facing forward, Rebecca offered her mother a limp-wristed wave as she walked out the door.
Bob hadn’t seen Billy more than in passing in months, so he eagerly accepted his old friend’s invitation to meet him for a beer after work. When Bob called home to tell Denise (a practice she had lovingly insisted on and Bob had agreed to), she offered to get a sitter for their baby and join them. “I haven’t been to Rascals in the longest time,” she said. “That’s where we met, honey.”
“I know, sweetheart. And I think we should spend an evening there soon. Tonight, I think it’s best if it’s just Billy and me. You know Billy. He’d love to see you, but he can be such a guy’s guy, too.”
Denise laughed. “Actually, he’s more of a ladies’ guy. But I know what you mean.”
“Two beers. I’ll be home by seven thirty.”
“I’ll wait to make dinner. I’ll put the baby to bed, and we can have some time together.”
“Sounds good,” said Bob, hoping Denise’s reference included some quiet time. She could talk and talk.
Rascals was crowded, as usual, which Bob attributed to the fact that it was the only decent bar in town. There was Harry’s, but that was mostly for the beer-guzzling, pool-playing crowd. And there was Moonlight, the bar in the Grand Hotel. But that was a typical first-date location: low lights, soft music, an extensive wine list, and soft-speaking servers. Bob and Karen had gone there a couple of times—just to do something different—but it was not a place where people had fun, which is what Bob was looking for when he went out. Rascals was the opposite. Walk through the door in a bad mood; twenty minutes later feel like a celebrity. It was the jovial atmosphere that made people genuinely feel good. Billy was standing with his back against the bar when Bob walked in. They waved at each other before Bob started his journey through and around the amiable mob to meet his friend, shaking his hand when he did. Billy patted Bob on the back. “I took the liberty of ordering you a pint of Samuel Adams,” said Billy, knowing Bob was always on time.
“You are a true friend. I’ll get the next one.”
Billy peeled a ten-dollar bill off the wad of money he kept in his front pocket and laid it on the bar. He lifted the glass of freshly poured ale from its coaster and handed it to Bob. “To men,” he said, lifting his half-empty glass. Bob laughed and touched his glass to Billy’s. They both took a long drink. “Ah,” he said. “There’s no finer ale in all the kingdom.”
“You are in fine form tonight.”
“Me?” asked Billy, looking surprised.
“Who is she?”
“Who’s who?”
“The woman who’s got your number.”
Billy took another drink. “Let me tell you,” he said with a grin. “She had a lot more than my number last night.”
Bob laughed. “Oh, here we go.”
“No, no, no,” said Billy, dismissive of Bob’s suggestion. “There’s nothing new to report. It’s the same old thing.”
Bob lifted his eyebrows. “Still resolved to remain a bachelor forever?”
“Until death do me part. But enough about me; let’s hear about you. I see you’re wearing your wedding ring this evening, which tells me everything is copacetic in the Parsons’ household.”
“Absolutely,” said Bob, more enthusiastically than was warranted.
“Happy as a pig in shit, are you?”
“Happier.” Bob shifted his eyes to his beer.
Billy leaned in close to his friend. “You wouldn’t lie to your Uncle Billy, would you?”
“You are such a pain in the ass.”
“Which is precisely why you’re here with me instead of home with the wife.”
“Denise. Her name is Denise.”
“Of course it is. And how is Denise? Everything you could ask for and more?”
“She is.”
“That’s good,” said Billy, again patting Bob on the back. “I hear the second time around is always better than the first.”
“It’s different. You go in with your eyes wide open.”
“There’s an innocence about the first one though, isn’t there? It’s the two of you against the world, especially when you’re young. I mean, I was twenty-two when I married Stacy, and you were about the same age when you married Karen, weren’t you?”
Bob’s heart thumped at his ex-wife’s name. On some mornings, he woke up thinking they were still together. “Twenty-three,” he said. “Karen was twenty-two.”
Both men finished their beers. Bob turned around and ordered two more drafts. This would be his last, he told himself. Billy would undoubtedly try to talk him into a third—after all, he had no one to go home to—but Bob would be firm in his resolve. Three beers always led to fo
ur. The bartender placed two brimming glasses down on the bar and took the twenty Bob had set down. Bob turned around and handed a beer to Billy. They nodded their heads at each other somberly, then took their first sips.
“I think the people who wait to get married have a better chance of making it,” said Billy, looking around the room. “Take that couple over there. They’re both in their early-to-mid-thirties with no wedding bands on their fingers. They’re talking and laughing with each other and looking like they’re having a good time. He’s not trying to grope her underneath the table, and she’s not trying to put her unshod foot in his crotch. There’s a dignity, a maturity about them that men and women in their twenties just don’t have.”
Bob laughed. “You’re in your early forties and still groping women every chance you get.”
Billy shook his head. “I’m a different sort of person. I’m not your typical Joe—simply because I don’t want to get married. But if I did want to get married, I sure as hell wouldn’t be standing here with you. In fact, I wouldn’t come to this trendy pick-up joint at all.”
“How can you say that about your second home?” said Bob, teasing his friend.
Billy made a face. “It’s a bar, Bob. Drunks like bars.” Bob sipped his beer. A moment later, Billy clapped him on the shoulder. “Enough of the doom and gloom.” He forced a smile.
“Look, you can get out of this place, this life, if you want to,” said Bob, seriously. “Just because you’ve told everyone you’re a confirmed bachelor doesn’t mean you have to be one.”
Billy shook off Bob’s remark. “I don’t have what it takes to make a good husband. I don’t have the commitment level. I don’t have the energy.”
“The energy for what?”
“The energy to sustain the level of care and concern that every marriage needs,” said Billy. “It’s easy in the beginning. The husband and wife are madly in love, as well as having great sex constantly. It’s very easy to be married at that point. Now, when the children come along, and the pressures of your job escalate, and your wife shuts down, and your next-door neighbor is looking pretty good in her short skirts and heels, and life closes in—these are the kinds of things that test wedding vows. An ordinary marriage can’t survive it. Because when the going gets tough, the tough usually aren’t as tough as they thought.”
A Changing Marriage Page 34