No Happy Endings

by Nora McInerny

  I didn’t want to compare Matthew to Aaron, but the timelines of each romance aligned in a way that made it impossible not to. A year before, I’d been sitting in bed with Aaron writing his obituary, and now twelve months later, I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for a man who was at least ten minutes late for dinner.

  Aaron would never be late. Minus ten points.

  Matthew arrived, twelve minutes late* and completely soaked. Last year, I’d given Aaron a piggyback over a snowbank to our favorite diner for what we didn’t know would be his last meal out. This year, it was pouring rain.

  Stop. I told myself. Be here.

  The first year of widowhood is a year of firsts: 365 days where you can say “last year, we were . . .” The blank is filled in with everything from the monumental to the mundane: we were at the oncologist for an MRI, we were picking apples at the orchard and pretending he wasn’t dying, we were looking at the price of flights to Arizona for a Christmas he would never celebrate. It’s an entire calendar year of emotional landmines, every single day loaded with meaning. I’d wanted to propose a different day for our first date, but which one? If every day was reserved for living in my past, when would I have time for the present?

  Two hours after Matthew finally arrived, our dinner was over and the staff at Pizza Nea was ready to go home. Around the time our appetizers arrived, I’d stopped cataloging the differences between Matthew and Aaron, and slipped into the present moment. It was not an intentional shift; it was an imperceptible magnetic pull into the present moment, probably emanating from Matthew’s unbelievably blue eyes. They were crinkled at the edges, and lined with jet black lashes that only men are born with because the world is unfair. His eyes said, I’m listening. And also, Make out with the man attached to these eyeballs.

  My first date with Aaron had lasted for hours. We’d gone from a dinner to a concert to sitting outside on the curb after the coffee shop closed, to texting one another until I fell asleep next to my phone. My time with Matthew felt like catching up with an old friend, and I didn’t want the night to be over.

  To be around Aaron was to feel like you were a part of something special, even if the something special was just a two a.m. trip to a shitty diner.

  I knew after a few hours with Matthew that he had never once been the life of the party. He had been at parties, probably, but was the quiet guy in the corner you assumed was probably a snobby jerk because he wasn’t talking to anyone, when in reality he was just trying to will his body to teleport him back to his apartment. He was built for one-on-one conversations, or a small group setting. It was adorable. He was adorable. Those Girl Scouts moms didn’t call him Sophie’s Hot Dad for nothing.

  When dinner was over, we had stepped outside into an unseasonable downpour. What should have been snow was a deluge of rain that neither of us were dressed for. I pretended to look for a taxi when Matthew gestured toward his car, parked just up the street. Maybe the date wasn’t over?

  And then we got to his car. I don’t know or care about cars, so I’m not judging the kind of car he drives. I’m also a person whose car is littered with stale McDonald’s fries, so I’m not judging his cleanliness, either. I’m judging how quickly he destroyed my fantasies about him.

  “Oh my God,” I screamed the moment I closed the car door, “you smoke?!”

  Wrapped up in my disappointment was also a little relief. It didn’t matter that I’d just spent two hours absorbed in conversation with a pair of eyeballs. It didn’t matter that we had sped through two hours of dinner with ease, the conversation pausing only long enough for us to shove some food in our mouths while we jumped from topic to topic like we were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for eons, and not strangers just starting to get to know one another. Here was my out: a cancer wife like me could not possibly fall in love with a man who thumbed his nose at good sense, who was so flagrantly careless with his own health, who engaged in something so filthy. That’s what I told him, too. I would never date a smoker.

  Matthew gave me a guilty look.

  “I hardly ever smoke,” he lied.

  “I don’t care,” I shrugged. “I won’t date a smoker.”

  He sighed heavily, and I expected I’d be getting a Lyft home. Instead, he started the car and flicked on his signal, eyeing his mirror for an opening in traffic.

  “Well,” he said, easing onto Hennepin Avenue, “then I guess I don’t smoke anymore.”

  WHY TO DATE A DAD

  Or a mom. A parent in general, really, but the title was better with alliteration.

  I’ve been a mom since 2013. Matthew has been a dad since 2001 (yes, I am a younger woman. No, not by much. He was basically a teen dad). I don’t think I ever would have found Matthew online, for a few reasons:

  He is five-ten but insists he is five-eleven. This is a very common practice for men, and since I’ve been six feet tall since eighth grade, I know that most men overestimate their height by at least an inch. As such, I’ve always set my parameters to a six-two minimum, knowing I’ll get a guy around my height. This is not important to me because I need to feel small and dainty next to my man, but because the closer a guy is to my size, the more likely it is for his clothes to fit me. This is purely an economical preference.

  I would have never seen “father of a teen and a tween” and swiped whatever direction means yes.

  The loss would have been entirely mine, obviously, because Matthew’s dadness is what makes him such a good partner for me. If it were ethical, I would just loan him out to every single and searching woman I could so she could see what she’s missing by taking dads out of the equation. Instead, I’ll just implore you all to open your eyes, search criteria, and hearts to include parents . . . for these enticing reasons.

  THEY’RE NOT GOING TO WASTE YOUR TIME. They don’t have any time to waste. Because soccer pickup is at 7:30 p.m. and there’s an orchestra concert on Saturday and school pictures are coming up and the lunches need to be packed. If it’s not going to work, you’re gonna know real quick.

  THEY’LL (GENTLY) CHECK YOUR EGO. If you have come of age in the era of Taylor Swift, you may believe that falling in love is all dancing in the rain. I came of age in the era of Céline Dion, and my expectations were that near or far my heart would go on. For me, love was a ghost driving a motorcycle into my bedroom? For many generations, the idea of romantic love has been that your worlds revolve around one another. It’s not love unless this person is everything to you, and you to them. Well, nothing helps you chill like realizing you will never be the most important person in your new partner’s life. Aiming for a silver medal at best takes so much pressure off the situation for both of you. You don’t need to be this person’s everything because they already have a rich, full life outside of you. They have other people in their life—small people who may not yet know how to wipe their own butts—and those small people will always come before you. This is good for you! Because you’ll realize that having a relationship doesn’t mean sacrificing everything you enjoy at the altar of love. It means adding something great to your already awesome life. Rich and full seems like a way to describe coffee, or wine, so imagine your life as a cup of wine or coffee. When you’re one hundred percent obsessed with your romantic partner, you become like a cup of hotel coffee: lukewarm, bitter, and a waste of time and resources. Is that extreme? Good!

  THEY’RE LOOKING OUT FOR EVERYONE. Is this milk okay? Do you smell gas? Do you think I need a helmet? Don’t worry, a parent has already poured out the expired milk, called the gas company to come out and inspect just in case, and buckled a helmet under your chin with the exact amount of slack needed to keep you comfortable and secure. Oh, and your AAA membership has been renewed ahead of the expiration deadline.

  THEY’LL FEED YOU. Anyone who has been responsible for a small person knows that snacks are key. They will always have a snack available on their person, be thinking about your next snack, or prepared to stop the car for a snack. Dinner is at a regular tim
e every day. The fridge is perpetually stocked. If they know where to get the cheapest gallon of milk and where the closest Costco is, cue the violins. This is real romance.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Gift

  I keep a fork in my jewelry box.

  It’s not a fancy fork, either. It’s the kind of fork a guy buys in the cheapest set of cutlery money can buy. The kind of fork that bends under any kind of resistance.

  I’ve had it since 2010. My first date with Aaron. He’d handed it to me in a jewelry box, sliding it across the table like a guy from a commercial for a jewelry store chain trying to surprise his wife of ten years with a diamond tennis bracelet.

  “Just a little something,” he shrugged, “to make up for my mistake.”

  A few days earlier, I had been working on a Sunday morning, at an ad agency in downtown Minneapolis. I was there to finish everything I should have from Monday to Friday, when I was too busy chatting online with my friends and procrastinating. Aaron and I had been exchanging text messages all morning, and I walked through downtown Minneapolis to my office, listening to music and waiting to feel my phone buzz. He was at brunch with friends. He asked me what I liked to eat on weekends.

  Coffee cake with lots of sugar, I replied, sitting at my desk fiddling around with a PowerPoint, and dark roast coffee with cream, the color of a paper bag.

  One hour later, the doorbell rang at the office. The building was a huge converted warehouse that had been renovated over the course of a few decades, and the result was somewhere between a nineties McMansion and an M. C. Escher drawing. The doorbell rang again, which meant that nobody on the first floor was in, or that they refused to get the door. Annoyed, I started my journey to the main entrance.

  Aaron was wearing his Ray-Ban’s, a button up, and a cardigan. His four-door VW Golf idled at the curb.

  “Hello, my high-powered businesswoman,” he called out as I opened the door, “I brought you some brunch.”

  I opened the lid of the coffee. It was the exact color of a paper bag.

  “Perfect,” I said, and took a sip.

  “Can we go out on a date this week?” he asked me, and I nodded.

  “Great. Go get your work done, slacker.”

  He got back in his car and left.

  Had I even said thank you?

  I was all the way back at my desk when I realized that no, I hadn’t thanked him, only walked into my office as if I was routinely surprised at work on a Sunday by a handsome, thoughtful man. Back at my desk, I opened the box he’d handed me to find a perfect piece of sugary coffee cake.

  Hey, I texted him, you forgot to get me a fork.

  Sorry, he replied, it won’t happen again.

  I was so unaccustomed to men being wholeheartedly kind to me that I didn’t know how to react other than with sarcasm.

  Aaron taught me to expect kindness, and how to accept it. He was funny and often sarcastic, but also genuine and earnest. When Aaron died, I found a file he kept on his computer desktop of things he thought I would like. There were gift ideas and albums to send me, and stupid photos and memes that would make me laugh. Aaron was the kind of person who made coffee without being asked, who played with the ends of my hair while we watched movies, who kept every text message we had ever exchanged, including the embarrassing ones from when I was wasted at my friend’s wedding asking things like “Do you wants to get married soon?!” Love is in these little things, in small acts of kindness, in the simple consideration of another person. Aaron was always considering me, keeping me top of mind. Our big love grew from a million tiny considerations of one another: How he slept with a hand on me, because he was too claustrophobic for my brand of snuggling. How he laid in bed with me until I fell asleep—even when he wasn’t tired—because he knew I couldn’t fall asleep without him. How we started and ended any day apart with a phone call.

  He spent the last four years of his life finding ways to make me smile.

  And so would Matthew, I could tell. I could tell because he had been through some stuff. And the way he had managed it . . . showed me who he was. On our first date, we talked about our marriages, and how they’d changed us. I loved being married to Aaron. I gave him a five-star Yelp review and two thumbs-up. Matthew’s crumbling marriage had destroyed him and transformed him. He’d left that marriage and become Super Matthew. Each hour of the past five years of his life had revolved around his children and his job. He was a man of strict routine, dedicated to making sure the children were never picked up or dropped off late, that they always had snacks and balanced meals. (I often fed Ralph a bowl of cereal while we sat in bed together, but I left that detail out.) Even when his life was falling apart, he’d gotten to work early and stayed late, had gotten a promotion each year and managed to hide the ugly truth from all of his coworkers and from his children. He’d done all of this alone, just like I had. And he wasn’t bitter, or angry. He was the kind of person who genuinely liked doing nice things for other people. Who spent weekends helping his parents clean their gutters, or helping his daughter with a craft project she found on YouTube. He was the kind of guy who would spend his life being nice to me, if I let him.

  I just . . . really didn’t want to let him.

  I had never been an independent person. Since age fifteen, I’d spent maybe six months of my life without a serious boyfriend, stepping from one relationship to another like singlehood was lava. Sure, I’d bought a bigger house than I needed, and made up bedrooms for kids who didn’t exist. But dreaming of growth, of expanding our team of two, was different from actually growing. I knew how to set up my own Apple TV now (you just . . . plug it in). In the immortal words of the prophets Simon & Garfunkel, I was a rock, I was an island. It had taken me a year to become this self-sufficient machine, handling daycare drop-off and pick-up, work, mortgage payments, and dinner duty all on my own. I didn’t want to let this kind-eyed man into my heart and my home, where he would most certainly fill the dishwasher without being asked, or shovel my walk when it snowed. I didn’t want to accept any kindness, or owe any kindness.

  Except, I kind of did, because the morning after my first date with Matthew, I did something very chill.

  I went to a bookstore and bought a Moleskine notebook. And I wrote Matthew a card.

  I told him that I’d woken up thinking about him, and everything he had been through in the past five years. I told him that I could see what he didn’t: that he had kept his broken world together for his children, and that it was harder than it looked. I told him I was sorry he had been betrayed and broken, and that I was happy to be a person who benefited from his pain. Here is a notebook, I explained, I think you should write it all down, so you can look back and see what I see.

  I had these items couriered to his office in downtown Minneapolis.

  And then, I waited.

  Hours passed between the delivery and the text message I received, which I was sure would read:

  You’re very nice. Also, I think we should never see each other again.

  I opened the message.

  I just got your package. I don’t know what to say.

  Cue: heart sinking.

  But wait! Another message arrives.

  You already understand me more than anyone I know. My head is spinning. I really like you.

  I liked him, too. I liked him too much. I liked the dumb little space between his front teeth, and the way he fought the curl in his hair, always pushing it to the side as he talked. I liked his smile and I liked his voice. I liked that he had suffered and survived. I hated how much I liked him. I didn’t want to get used to him, or love him, or need him. Because here is one thing that all human men have in common: stupid mortal bodies that will definitely die. I knew Matthew had smoked, so, obviously, there were already pre-cancerous cells floating around in his body, just waiting to gather together and take over, turning him from dark and handsome to ashen and dead. I knew Matthew had a car, so, obviously, it was only a matter of time before he crash
ed it, maybe even with me inside, leaving Ralph an orphan. I knew Matthew was alive, and it was only a matter of time until he was not. I also knew that all of this was so cliché I could barely stand to think about it. Really, Nora? You’re so afraid of losing again that you can’t love? This is exactly the plot of every terrible made-for-TV movie. You’re better than this! Be afraid of something more sensible! Like an invisible hand grabbing your ankle while you walk up the basement stairs!

  Matthew and his stupid, mortal body came over that night, after Ralph fell asleep.

  “Can I read you a poem?” I asked as I handed him a glass of wine.

  The correct answer to this question is “please do not,” but Matthew said “sure,” and sat on the couch while I sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace and cracked open Mary Oliver’s book of poetry about her dead wife.

  Love still as once you loved, deeply

  and without patience. Let God and the world

  know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.

  I choked out those words from Mary’s poem “The Gift,” and stared at Matthew like, “do you fully get how weird and damaged I am?” His eyes betrayed no signs of terror, so I kept going. More Mary Oliver poems, coming right up!

  I read and wept, and Matthew, who by this point should have definitely slipped quietly out my front door and blocked me from his contacts, stayed. Relax, he didn’t stay the night. It was the second date. Is it a date if you just read a man poetry and weep while he sits on your couch? It is to me! Date or not, Matthew stayed until I fell asleep, driving clear across town and texting me “Home. Thank you for tonight. I can’t wait to see you again.”

  He did wait, because we are adults with responsibilities. He came back the next week. And I let him.