But good luck prevailed and the situation turned. We began speaking again. At first it was once every few weeks, and eventually we reverted to our habit of speaking a few times a day. Progress was slow. So slow I thought it might never happen. After I had been confiding in Maira about our progress for eight or ten months, she asked, “How long is this going to take?”
A full year after his first trip to New York, Arnold finally moved back in late October of 2005. I suppose the pull of New York, the pull of our love, was greater than his fascination with the Southwest. Also perhaps the job, which for the first few years had been exciting, became less so.
I helped him find a one-bedroom in a newly renovated building in the financial district, an early skyscraper that was designed by the same architect who designed the Dakota and the Plaza Hotel. It was on a very high floor and had the most glamourous views of the river and of downtown Manhattan, but it also looked directly into the pit of Ground Zero, something that put me off. I spent very little time in that apartment. At Christmas that year I helped him haul a tree up there. I was excited about decorating a tree but discovered after the first twenty minutes what incredibly hard, exhausting work it is and abandoned it, leaving him to finish it on his own.
We lived apart in the city most weekdays, but on weekends we lived together in the newly renovated house in Bridgehampton, inhabiting it in a kind of ecstasy, with Harry and Arnold’s new dog Dean, a beagle/Jack Russell mix. Since then we’ve spent most of our free time at that house together, and it often feels like a love nest out of an animated Disney movie, complete with bunnies and bluebirds. Since he returned to New York in 2005, we watched the subject of gay marriage evolve. Arnold and I entered into a dialogue about it and, as the country embraced the idea, we promised each other that the minute it was legal in New York, we would get married. In 2011, when it was announced, Arnold and I were watching the news. He turned to me and said, “Congratulations, Cutie, you’re engaged.”
Up to that point, whenever I’d bring the subject up to my mother she would say, “What do you want to get married for? If things are working so well between you, why upset the applecart?” She had a point. One thing I learned from experience was that if your life works, you have to be very careful about changes, because the tiniest little things can really wreak havoc. And this was no tiny thing; it was matrimony. But my mother’s advice not to get married only made me more intent on doing it. I saw her reticence around the subject as an admission of the kind of burden marriage represented to women of her generation. She was raised to serve a man, and now that she was single for these years, nothing was going to sell her on the idea of marriage again. “Why would I want to get married to someone this late in the game?” she’d say. “I’ve had enough taking care of people for one lifetime.” She spent the first thirty years living in her mother’s house, then being subservient to my dad—not only to his physical needs, but also to his ideas and political beliefs. Finally she was free. And determined to spare me that drudgery.
* * *
Arnold Germer and I got married at City Hall on November 30, 2011. There was no family present. We wore jeans and went directly to Bridgehampton afterwards. We drove around Sag Harbor that evening and came upon a small place we’d never been to, an old-fashioned Italian restaurant called Il Capuccino with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and Chianti bottles wrapped in wicker hanging from the ceiling, like a scene from Lady and the Tramp. Our courtship is full of these serendipitous romantic occurrences. It was a month before Christmas, and the next day we went to a tree nursery down the block from our house. This time I was fully committed to the rigors of decorating a tree. After all, this was our tree. Being Jewish, I never felt completely right about having one of my own, but now that I was married to a shiksa god it was my right. We got a beautiful Scotch pine and some plain white lights and decorated it with brown-paper bows I made.
A few days later I was on the phone with my mother, who seemed happy for us. One of the first things that came up was how I’d tell my sisters. I didn’t know how they would react and neither did my mother. It was obvious they knew, because there were items in the press. But there was something about confronting them with it that made me so uneasy, like I’d be admitting to some sort of sin. When I told them, they were gracious and reiterated again how much they loved Arnold. But still the subject of our marriage is slightly taboo. If things have evolved over the years—nowadays when I get invitations, they’re addressed to me and my husband—it doesn’t erase the past, knowing I’d been such a source of unease, even embarrassment, to them, and knowing it’s still not something to be spoken about in the company of their kids.
To my mother, it’s a tragedy that her children should be rent apart for any reason, and yet she supports her daughters’ beliefs with no pushback. And I understand that position. Although there’s no way to resolve it, she will never stop trying to get me to conform in whatever way I might have to in order to encourage a sibling closeness. She’s never asked me to compromise my lifestyle, but she’s baffled as to why I don’t want to be among them as much. It would seem she’d be willing to sacrifice anything, my personal integrity included, for the sake of not disturbing that world, to uphold the illusion that we’re still a close family. She’d like it if I could revert back to my teenage years, when I silently conformed to those family ways. In those days they didn’t need to know the whole truth, and as long as I was present on their terms, they accepted me. She still pushes for a little of that old don’t ask, don’t tell policy. When I’m with her, most of her conversational effort is spent making a case for those traditions, much the way a salesman makes a case for snake oil.
* * *
Being with Arnold harkens directly back to those early days in my childhood, even before I knew there was a word for what I was, when I’d fantasize about being in my bed with my dark-haired husband and our rag-doll children. Ironically, because of my sleep disorder, Arnold and I do not share a bedroom and very rarely sleep in the same bed together. But the security I feel being married to this most wonderful man adds so much to the balance of my life. Being married helps my outlook in a lot of ways. Even for someone whose personal worldview is so dark, I’m able to tap into the vast source of optimism which our union represents, and ultimately I see a silver lining.
In the summer of 2012 Arnold and I moved into the apartment that we envisioned from our earliest days of being together. We were able to convert the little Greenwich Village one bedroom into a large three-bedroom place after we purchased the apartment next door and combined it with the original one plus the studio I’d acquired at the other end. We’d dreamed about doing that from day one and finally some time in 2010 we got the call that the place in-between was becoming available. We’d looked at other places but Twelfth Street was our dream; perfect location, perfect situation, perfect views, a wraparound terrace that faces south and west. The remake was designed in tandem with David Bers, a wonderful architect who, on our first walk-through of the three properties, called it our “manifest destiny.” This time, moving in together went a lot smoother and Arnold, Harry, Dean, and I felt a kind of security, a sense of family, I didn’t think was possible.
And yet still I wake up in a state of panic, fear, and sadness every day. It’s tied into my difficulty sleeping. There’s something terrible about falling asleep, knowing you’re going to wake up, another day older, another night gone forever. Sometimes I wonder if this wee-hour bleakness began when I was a young child, tied to some memory of being alone in that hospital. No matter what time I wake up, whether it’s 2:00 A.M. or 5:00 A.M., all I see is a violent world that I can’t rationalize. My mood improves after random increments of time—anywhere from five to thirty minutes, sometimes longer. I’ve spoken about it with my various shrinks so many times, assuming everyone feels this dread upon waking, but I was told it’s not as common as I think.
Insomnia has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember; it’s one of the last
mysteries in my life. I’m superstitious—afraid that if I talk about it too much after all these years, after getting it to a point where I almost don’t notice it, I might upset the balance. People are often baffled by my disdain of travel; my need to extract myself from dinners or events that happen after a certain hour at night; anything I know will affect sleep adversely. But the ultimate truth is that sleep, or the lack of it, runs my life. In my youth I had terrible anger about being awake while everyone else seemed to be blissfully knocked out. But after all these years, and after having consulted with doctors and sleep clinics, I’ve grown accustomed to it and accept it as a big part of my identity. There’s something noble about sitting up. Something strangely peaceful about being tired all the time. By now I even prefer it. When I gave up smoking sixteen years ago, it was hard for me to stay awake, and it seemed like nicotine had been the problem all along. But after about six months my metabolism adjusted, and I stopped sleeping again. To be honest, I was relieved. Sleeping all those hours every night I got so much less done. No reading. No catching up on reality TV. I felt like less of a person. When my friends ask how I get so much done, I have two answers for them: I don’t have kids, and I don’t sleep.
As I mentioned, Arnold and I have separate bedrooms, so that my insomnia won’t disturb either one of us. (I think keeping separate bedrooms, where possible, is actually a great idea for any marriage.) Now when we’re in the same house I feel ensconced in a kind of joy and safety that I’ve never felt before, and sleep comes easier. When I got Harry eighteen years ago I noticed a slight adjustment for the better in my sleep habits. Every night for about twelve years, as long as Harry could, he would jump up on the bed and stay by my side till he intuited that I was asleep, at which point he’d retire to the couch opposite my bed. Being in Long Island, in closer proximity to the negative ions of the sea, helps. When Arnold adopted Dean, our family—our lives together—felt complete. Unlike Harry, Dean loves to sleep on the bed with me, and on the nights when Dean is by my side, his deep sleeping, rather than being annoying as it might if he were another human being, leads me by example.
Harry brought real joy into my life. Both directly and inadvertently; after all, it was walking with him that led me to Arnold. But the joy of knowing Harry also brought the knowledge that I’d outlive him. Without reason, I’d look over at him and give in to that sadness. And when he died on May 12, 2016, it was the hardest day of my life. In that moment, organically, I shifted from skeptic to pessimist. And it’s getting worse as I get older. But I think it’s a kind of breakthrough. A blessing. Harry’s death confirmed the sad natural order of things, which I had now lived through firsthand. Now that I’m certain how fucked-up the world is, the human condition is, I feel less personally responsible for any outcome. I don’t make it happen, so I no longer strive for any kind of perfection. More than that, I think perfection is beside the point. I let go of perfection and gave in to chaos. Now all that’s left is to try my best, try to relax, complain over a nice dinner with someone who will listen and complain, too.
* * *
In the middle of the summer of 2016 Arnold discovered a picture on Petfinder. A sweet-looking puppy who had the name Kita, a black Border collie mix who, though darker in color, looks and behaves exactly like Santa’s Little Helper from The Simpsons. She was being made available through a rescue agency in Brooklyn called Stray from the Heart that specializes in rescuing the street dogs of Puerto Rico, or “sato” dogs, who suffer terrible abuses there in a place called “Dead Dog Beach.” Every week, hundreds of dogs end up there, and they starve and die. The picture of Kita was compelling enough for Arnold to call the adoption agency and arrange a foster situation. Within two weeks she was flown over, and we met her plane at JFK and brought her home. We changed a few letters in her name and now she’s called Kitty, after Kitty Hawks, my friend who originally put me together with Harry. (Also Mrs. Kitty Carlisle Hart, whom she resembles.) She has long legs, and the personality of a bird, and more than a few traces of Harry in her. At first, Kitty was skittish and cold. But within a few short months she completely overcame her reserve. Now she interacts with Dean as part sister, part tongue-in-cheek young trophy wife, and she’s a mainstay of our family.
* * *
From the time they met, Arnold and my mother liked each other. He likes the idea of having a shrewd, erudite (read: Jewish) mother-in-law, and she likes him because he’s young and handsome and not lazy. Also I think she adores having a Puerto Rican son-in-law, if only for the brief respite it provides from the Syrian-Jewish nonassimilative environment that surrounds her. My marriage to Arnold might be exactly the justification she needs after a lifetime of trying to negotiate the racism she grew up with—including my father’s. “Don’t listen to him,” she used to say, changing the subject. She still lives among a kind of antique racism in the old neighborhood. I imagine that for all she puts up with to coexist peacefully there, she secretly takes pleasure in the fact that integration—my own personal assimilation as proof—seems to have won out in the educated culture at large.
Arnold found the way to my mother’s heart, completely by accident. Once, about nine years ago, she complained about the long waiting list at her local library for Philip Roth’s novel Nemesis. This is a woman who used her library card as a badge of honor her entire life and would never dream of buying a book. It’s just not done; one doesn’t buy books. For one thing it’s expensive, for another it’s a form of vulgarity that only “nonprofessional” readers indulge in. Also, books pile up. What happens to them when you’re finished? But at some point in recent years it became harder and harder for her to get to the library. And when Arnold heard about the Roth novel, he took the initiative, ordered it online, and sent it to her. When she reconciled herself to the occult overtones of books just appearing from the ether, I think she saw this as the greatest form of love one human being can bestow on another. When her guilt subsided about owning the book, having it all to herself, she was filled with joy. Another justification for this great luxury of book-owning was her discovery of a book repository in the basement of the building she lives in. You put the book there on the table in the basement, and someone else gets to read it. Now Arnold and my mother have a deep, abiding love for each other. Arnold checks in with her each week and finds out what books she wants, and he orders them online, and—like magic—they arrive within two days at her doorstep. I hear them on the phone once a week:
“Do you want the large type? Paperback or hardcover?”
* * *
We speak every day, my mother and I. Now she’s elderly, which is a big adjustment for me. She walks with a cane, sometimes even a walker, and forgets the thread of a conversation. Every time I speak to her I have to tell myself it isn’t the last time. There’s great love between us, and there’s a nagging feeling of guilt that I haven’t dropped everything in my life to be with her. A guilt she does nothing to assuage.
I went to dinner at her house last week.
“It’s so great to see you,” I said.
“I wish it could happen more often,” was her response. Then she added, “Wow. I really am the typical Jewish mother.” She chuckled, expecting me to challenge the remark, which I didn’t.
My love for her is unlimited, but my patience is not. Those comments that raise my hackles seem to come at me like darts instead of her intended paper airplanes. For the most part when we speak or visit she dominates the conversation with talk of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, which is what one would expect of a ninety-year-old lady who is lucky enough to have so many of them. Nonetheless, I can’t really relate to these stories because I barely have a relationship with these kids—it was always awkward trying to get to know them. Once when I was with my sister and her six-year-old son he asked, “Are you going to marry a girl? What’s taking you so long?” There was no appropriate answer to that question under the circumstances, and the room was thrown immediately into distress. I have no idea what my sister’s
reaction would have been if I had taken it upon myself at that time to say something about men loving other men and marrying them. I know for sure my brother-in-law would not have appreciated it. It would definitely have caused a chasm in the already delicate structure of our relationships.
It’s like there are two sides to my mother. One side is the little old lady who is cared for by her adoring daughters, with adoring grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all comfortably ensconced in a community with narrow ideas and provincial attitudes. The other side is the keenly intelligent city dweller, who is extremely well-read and who relates to my life and would gladly support me completely if not for the allegiance she’s sworn to the former.
The other night at dinner she said, “Isaac. I’m a woman of the world!” Then she added, “I’m also such a hypocrite,” which is something I hate to hear her say. I hate for her to take all the blame.
* * *
Arnold and I sit in Il Cantinori, our favorite restaurant, waiting nervously for my mother to meet us for dinner. She’s so fragile these days, and normally I can suppress thoughts of her vulnerability, being immobile, relying on her live-in aide to get her from place to place. But sitting there waiting has me imagining all kinds of bad scenarios. We do this regularly. She sees this as killing two birds with one stone, seeing her son and getting out for a night in her beloved New York City, which would not happen otherwise. And I love seeing her outside the context of her life in Brooklyn.
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