An American Marriage

by Tayari Jones

  “Maybe that’s it for you,” I said.

  “Baby,” she said. “Can’t you see? Whatever I do to you, I am doing to myself.”

  “Then don’t do it. You don’t have to.”

  She shook her and said, “You didn’t see him. If you had seen him, I know you would agree with everything I’m saying.”

  “I need you, Celestial,” I whispered. “All my life.”

  She shifted so that we were touching again. When she closed her eyes, I felt the tickle of her lashes.

  “I have to do this,” she said.

  Celestial owed me nothing. A few months ago, this was the beauty of what we had. No debts. No trespasses. She said that love can change its shape, but for me at least, this is a lie. I kept my arms around her, my body aching and cramped. But I held her until muscles failed, because when I released her, she would be gone.

  Roy

  I woke up at a quarter past eleven and the clean air smelled like trees. Except for her hair, Celestial was my Georgia girl again. I stood up and she embraced me, spreading her fingers across my shoulders. Her skin was warm like a cup of cocoa.

  “Merry Christmas, baby,” I said, just like Otis Redding.

  “Merry Christmas,” she replied with a smile.

  “With everything, I almost forgot about the holidays,” I said, wishing, too late, that I had used some of Olive’s money to buy Celestial a perfect gift, a big thing in a small package.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’re safe. In one piece.”

  She knew this wasn’t completely true. I was embarrassed remembering Christmas Eve, not the violence but my desperate confessions as she kept me awake to save my life. When I told her about the pear, she soothed me with a hymn, the same one she sang for Olive. I had forgotten the power of her voice, the way she scuffed you in order to buff you smooth. It made me think of Davina and her means of restoring a man. What would Celestial think if she knew how I had readied myself for this homecoming by breaking a gentle woman’s heart? It costs you to hurt people. But I supposed that Celestial knew that already.

  “You know what I want for Christmas?” I said. “My two front teeth. Really just that bottom one.”

  She wiggled away and went to the dresser wearing a slip that made her seem like a virgin. The first time I saw her wear white was our wedding day, and the last time had been the night when the door was kicked open.

  On her dresser rested a jewelry case that was a replica of the dresser itself. She opened it and retrieved a little box. She handed it to me; I shook it and was rewarded with the hard rattle of a fragment of lost bone.

  “Remember that night? You had me out here trying to be Superman.”

  “You rose to the occasion,” she said. “More than rose—soared.”

  “I hope this doesn’t come off wrong. I know you’re an independent woman and everything. You got your own money and your daddy’s money, too. But I liked being able to save you. Chasing that kid down the street, I was a hero. Even when he kicked my tooth right out of my head.”

  “He could have killed you,” she said. “I didn’t think about that until you caught up with him.”

  “He could have, but he didn’t. No sense worrying about things that didn’t happen.” I took her hand. “I’m not even worried about what did happen. This is a fresh day. A fresh start.”

  We cooked a late breakfast in our nightclothes. I volunteered to make salmon croquettes. She put herself in charge of grits. As she stirred the pan, a ruby shimmered dark and hot on her right hand.

  The phone rang and Celestial answered it “Happy Holidays” like it was the name of a business. From her side, I could tell she was talking to her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport, eccentric genius daddy and schoolteacher mama, safe in their haunted house. I missed them, all that comfort and security. I held out my hand, hoping she would pass me the phone, but she shook her head, mouthing, Shhh.

  “Are we going over there for dinner?” I asked after she hung up.

  “We’re kind of not getting along,” she said. “Besides, I’m not ready to bring the world into this yet.”

  “Christmas is my favorite holiday,” I said, remembering. “Ever since I had teeth, Big Roy would slice up an apple and we’d share it. When he was growing up, all he would get under the tree was the one apple. He didn’t know other kids were getting toy cars, school clothes, and stuff. He was excited for what he got—a piece of fruit all to himself.”

  “You never told me that,” said Celestial.

  “I guess I didn’t want you feeling sorry for us, because really, it’s one of my happiest memories. After we got married, I slipped down here on Christmas morning to have my apple.”

  She looked the way you do when you figure something out. “You could have told me. I’m not how you think I am.”

  “Georgia,” I said. “I know that now. Don’t be upset. All that was so long ago. I made mistakes. You made mistakes. It’s all right. Nobody is holding anything against anyone.”

  Seeming to think it over, she pulled open the oven, taking out a pan of toast cooked the way Olive used to make it, soft on the bottom, crispy on the top except for five dots of butter. She held the bread out for my inspection. Her face said, I’m trying. I am trying so hard.

  I rummaged in the fridge until I found a big red teacher-apple. The knife I pulled from the block was small but sharp. I cut away a thick slice and handed it to her before carving one for myself. “Merry Christmas.”

  She held the fruit aloft. “Cheers. Bon appétit.”

  That was the first moment when it felt right, when true reconciliation seemed possible.

  The taste of the apple, sweet chased by twinge of tart, reminded me of Big Roy. I pictured him all alone on this holiday. Wickliffe would be off with his daughter and grands, and Big Roy didn’t much truck with anybody else.

  “Celestial,” I said. “I know I said we weren’t going to get stuck in the past. But I have one more thing I need to talk about.”

  Chewing her apple, she nodded, but her eyes were afraid.

  “I’m not trying to fight,” I said. “I swear I’m not. This isn’t about Andre, and it’s not about having kids. It’s about my mother.”

  She nodded and covered my hand with her own, sticky with apple juice.

  I took a breath. “Celestial, Big Roy told me that you told Olive about Walter. He said it killed her. Actually killed her. He said she was getting better, but when you told her about Walter, she gave up. She couldn’t see the point anymore.”

  “No,” she said as I pulled my hands from hers. “No, no, no. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then what was it like?” I promised her that I wasn’t mad, but maybe I was. The apple in my mouth tasted like dirt.

  “I did go see her at the end. She wasn’t dying soft, Roy. It was bad. The hospice nurse tried, but Olive wouldn’t take the pain medicine because she thought it would kill her faster, and she was trying to live for you. When I went there, her lungs were so full of cancer that I could hear the clogging in her chest like when you blow bubbles in a glass of milk. She was fighting it hard, but she couldn’t win; her fingers were tinted blue and her lips, too. I asked your father to leave the room, and I told her everything.”

  “Why? How could you do that? She didn’t last another day.” Olive died alone while Big Roy was off to the 7-Eleven to get her some applesauce. I missed her, he told me. I got back and she was already gone. “My mama didn’t deserve that.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You can blame me for a lot but not for that. When I told her, she shook her head, looked up at the ceiling, and said, ‘God sure is funny. Sending Othaniel to the rescue.’ Your daddy thinks she gave up, but that’s not what it was. When she knew you weren’t by yourself, she could finally let go.”

  Celestial crossed her arms over her chest like she was holding herself together. “I know you said not to. But if you had been there . . .”

  And now I held myself with the same posture, ar
ms crossed and gripping my sides. “It wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t there. I would have been there if they had let me.”

  We sat at that table, neither able to comfort the other, her remembering being a bystander to my mother’s suffering and me suffering because I was denied the experience.

  She composed herself first, took the apple from the table, and sliced off another piece for herself and one for me. “Eat,” she said.

  Night followed day, as it always does, and each night promised a day soon to come. This is something I took comfort in these last bad years. While Celestial showered, I called Big Roy, and I could hear the melancholy in the way he spoke our mutual name.

  “You okay, Daddy?”

  “Yes, Roy. I’m okay. Got a little indigestion. Sister Franklin brought me a plate, but I ate too much of it, too fast maybe. She’s not a cook like your mama but not half-bad.”

  “It’s okay to enjoy it, Daddy. Go ahead and like her.”

  He laughed, but he didn’t sound like himself. “You trying to marry me off so you don’t have to come home and take care of me?”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “You’re free, son. That makes me happy enough for the rest of my days.”

  Next, I rang Davina as the steam from Celestial’s shower wafted into the bedroom.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said to her. In the background was music and laughing. “Is this a bad time?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Let me take the phone outside.” As I waited, I imagined her with a tuft of tinsel glinting in her hair, her hand on her hip. When she came back, I tried to sound casual.

  “I just want to say Merry Christmas.” I held the phone with both hands like I was worried that somebody was going to snatch it from me.

  “Roy Hamilton, I have one question for you. You ready? Here it is: something or nothing. This could be the eggnog talking, but I need to know. What happened with us, was it something or nothing?”

  This is how it was with women, pop quizzes with no right answer. “Something?” I said with a little question curling up like a tail on a pig.

  “You’re not sure? Listen, for me, Roy Hamilton, it’s something. It’s something to me.”

  “Davina, don’t make me lie. I’m married. I found out that I’m still married.”

  She cut me off. “I didn’t ask you all that. All I asked is something or nothing.”

  Twisting the phone cord, I recalled our time together. Could it have been only two nights? But those two nights were the start of the rest of my life. I crawled to her door, but I walked away on my own two feet. “Something,” I said, leaning in. “Definitely something. I wish I could say what.”

  I hung up as Celestial emerged, looking herself like a Christmas present, dressed in a little lace-nightie thing that I recognized as something that I’d bought for her. She had complained that it looked itchy, meaning that it looked cheap. I had paid good money for it, but now that she wore it, I could see her point. She twirled. “Like it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I do. For real.”

  She lay back on the pillows like a goddess on her day off, her chest dusted with fine flecks of gold. “C’mere,” she said, sounding like someone on television, not like a real person in real life.

  I went to her, but I didn’t hit the light.

  “One more thing,” I said. “One more thing to clear the air. Okay? Before we do this, okay?”

  “You don’t have to. Didn’t you say we’re starting fresh?”

  I smarted at the word fresh. Back in Eloe, it meant not getting ahead of yourself. But I knew how she intended it. Fresh was this fantasy of entering a clean, uncluttered room and shutting the door behind you. “I don’t want to start fresh. I want to start real.”

  “Tell me then.”

  “Okay,” I began. “When I was in Eloe for those few days, I was in a hard place. It was a lot to deal with. There’s a girl. Someone from high school. She invited me to her place for dinner, and one thing led to another.” Strange as this may seem, my confession felt familiar, like a favorite pair of jeans. This dynamic was a holdover from before, when we quarreled as only lovers do. This time, Celestial had no right to be jealous, but since when do you need a right to feel the way you felt? I smiled a little, remembering the time that she threw away my slice of wedding cake and drank the rest of the champagne by herself. Maybe I missed the fighting as much as the loving, because with Celestial, I had never known one without the other. Our passion was powerful and dangerous as an unstable atom. I’ll never forget our kiss-and-make-up when she bit my chest, leaving a purple ring that gave me a good hurt for a day and a half. With a woman like that, you knew you were in something.

  Celestial said, “How could I be mad at you? I’m not a hypocrite.”

  I studied her face, which reflected only weariness. She may as well have shrugged. I had been gone a long time, but I still knew her a little bit. There are things in a core of a person that didn’t change. Celestial was an intense person. Yesterday under the tree, she fought to maintain her composure, to keep her fire in check, but I could feel her burning. “Georgia, do you know what I’m trying to say?”

  “I know,” she went on. “You had been through a lot. I know it didn’t mean anything. That’s what you’re about to say, right?”

  “Celestial,” I said, catching her up in my arms. I was wearing my trousers and socks, while she was nearly nude. She smelled of glitter powder and soap. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “It’s not that I don’t care. I’m trying to be an adult about it.”

  “I called her a second ago while you were in the shower.” I slowed my delivery, letting each word land hard. I didn’t enjoy unspooling the details. I swear, I didn’t want to hurt Celestial, but I did need to know if I could. I had to know if I still had that kind of power, that kind of sway. “When I was with her, she showed me how to be myself again, or maybe she introduced me to my new self, the person I have to be from here on out. It wasn’t purely sexual. I can’t lie and tell you that it’s nothing. She treated me like a man, or maybe just a human being.”

  Celestial’s look was as blank as an egg. “Well, what’s her name?”

  “Davina Hardrick. She asked what was up with the two of us. I mean me and her, not me and you.”

  “What did you say?” Celestial sounded merely curious.

  “I told her I was married.”

  Celestial nodded as she killed the light and pulled me to the bed. “Yes, you are a married man.”

  I lay in the dark, feeling unsure, as if I had forgotten my own name.

  Davina said that the only question is something or nothing, but that’s as much a fantasy as a fresh start. For the rest of our lives there would be something between me and Celestial. Neither of us would ever enjoy the perfect peace of nothing. After the clock by the bed flashed midnight and Christmas was over, I felt my wife nibbling kisses across my shoulders. I smelled unhappiness on her breath, but she continued caressing me, saying my name in a mournful whisper. I turned to face her; Celestial’s head in my hand was as fragile as a lightbulb. “You don’t have to, Georgia.”

  She shushed me with a kiss I wasn’t sure I wanted. In the light of the night table clock, I made out her taut brow and quivering eyelids. “We don’t have to,” I said. “We could just go to sleep.”

  Her skin was hot against my thigh as I fingered the lace trim of her nightie. My hands, on their own, sought the rest of her, but her muscles tensed in the wake of my fingers. It was as though I were turning her to stone, cell by cell.

  “This is how I love you,” she said, lying herself on the bank of pillows. Even in the dark, I could make out the rapid rise and fall of her chest, her bird-in-the-hand breaths. “Please, Roy. Please let me make this right.”

  When I was in prison, Olive visited me every weekend until she was no longer able. I was always glad to see her but always humiliated for her to see me. One Sunday, she was different, but I couldn’t quite say how. She
must have known about the cancer, but she didn’t tell me. What I noticed was her breathing; Olive was aware of it and her attention was catching. She took in air then like Celestial did now, up tempo and afraid.

  “Little Roy,” Olive said. “There is no doubt in my mind. I just need to hear from your own lips that you didn’t do it.”

  I leaned back, flinching as though she’d spit in my face. Olive reached for me the way you would lunge for a glass tumbling from the table. “I know you didn’t,” she cooed. “I know you didn’t. Please let me hear you say it.”

  “I was with Celestial the whole time. You can ask her.”

  “I don’t want to ask her,” my mother said. “I want it from you.”

  I can’t remember this day without hearing the air around her words, without imagining the tumors multiplying, consuming her body. Olive was dying and I spoke to her with bitterness in my mouth. That I didn’t know makes no difference.

  “Mama,” I said, talking to her like she was slow or didn’t speak English. “I am not a rapist.”

  “Little Roy,” she began, but I cut her off.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  When she left, she said, “I believe you.”

  As I watched her walk away, I made note of everything about her that I didn’t admire. I ignored the devotion that she wore like a cape, I paid no heed of her strength or hardworking beauty. I sat there thinking of all I didn’t love about her, too angry to even say good-bye.

  In the quiet room, my wife lifted her lovely arms, encircling my neck, pulling me to her with a power I didn’t know she had. “I want you to be okay.” Her voice was brave and determined.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “I never touched that lady. She thought it was me. You couldn’t tell her that I didn’t break into her room and hold her down. When she was on the stand, I couldn’t even look in her face, because in her eyes, I was a barbarian, worse than a dog. When I looked at her looking at me, I became what she thought I was. There’s nothing worse that you can say about a man.”

  “Shhh,” Celestial said. “All that’s over.”