As I carefully sit on it now, doing my best to enjoy the rare moment of peace, I can’t make myself feel anything other than lonesome, disturbed by the loud silence, grimly imagining what it would be like if Nick and I ever split up—all the blank space and empty moments to fill. I remember once joking to him, after a particularly trying day, that I would make a superb mother if I were only on duty on Mondays, Tuesdays, and every other weekend. He laughed, telling me not to be ridiculous, that being a single parent would be miserable, that he would be miserable without me. I hold on to this thought as I dial his cell.
“Hey there!” he shouts into the phone. I feel instant relief just hearing his voice, although I can’t shake the feeling that I’m in detective mode as I try to discern his background noise. It sounds like a mall, but the chances of Nick voluntarily going shopping are more unlikely than an affair.
“Hi,” I say. “Where are you?”
“The Children’s Museum,” he says.
“With the kids?”
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “It generally wouldn’t be a place I’d come without the kids.”
I smile at my silly question, feeling myself relax.
“How’s New York?” he says. “What are you up to?”
I take a deep breath and say, “I’m home, actually.”
“You’re home? Why?” he asks, sounding startled.
“Because I missed you,” I say, which isn’t entirely untrue.
He says nothing in response, which unnerves me enough that I begin to ramble. “I just need to see you,” I say. “I want to talk to you . . . about some things.”
“What things?” he asks, a dose of unease in his voice—which could be because he’s done something wrong. Or it could be that he’s done nothing wrong and therefore assumes that I am the one with an issue.
“Just things,” I say, feeling sheepish for my vagueness, suddenly questioning my judgment in coming home, initiating a conversation in this way. After all, I might have a legitimate reason to be worried, but was it really enough to cut my trip short by a night, without so much as giving Nick a heads-up before my arrival? It occurs to me that he could think this is a true emergency—a health crisis, an affair of my own, a foray into a deep depression—rather than what is likely going on here: April stirring the pot and me snooping through his text messages. Two paranoid housewives.
“Tessa,” he says, agitated. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes. I’m fine,” I say, feeling ashamed and more confused than ever. “I just want to talk. Tonight. Is Carolyn still coming? I was hoping we could go out . . . and talk.”
“Yeah. She’s still coming. At eight.”
“Oh. Great,” I say. “What . . . were your plans?”
“I didn’t have specific plans,” he replies quickly. “I was thinking of seeing a movie.”
“Oh,” I say again. “So . . . did you go out last night?”
“Uh . . . yeah,” he says. “I did. For a bit.”
I start to ask what he did, but stop myself. Instead I tell him I can’t wait to see him and silently vow that I will not beat around the bush when we finally sit down to talk. I must be direct, confront the hard topics: fidelity, sex, his career, my lack of one, the underlying dissatisfaction in our marriage. It won’t be easy, but if we can’t have a frank discussion, then we really are in trouble.
“Me too. . . . But I better go now. The kids are running in two separate directions. So we’ll just finish up here and be back by five or so? . . . Does that work for you?” he asks.
His words are innocuous but his tone is detached, with the slightest hint of condescension. It is the way he often talked to me when I was pregnant and, in his words, behaving irrationally—which I must confess was often the case, such as the time I actually cried over our Christmas tree, insisting that it was ugly, disturbingly asymmetrical, even suggesting that Nick unstring the lights and return it for a new one. In fact, I almost feel pregnant now—not physically, but emotionally, in a verging-on-tears, hormonal, utterly needy way.
“Sure. That works,” I tell him, clutching the arm of the couch, hoping that I sound less desperate than I feel. “I’ll be here.”
I spend the next hour rushing around, showering, dressing, and primping, as if I’m going on a first date, all the while vacillating between despair and calm, at one moment telling myself my intuition must be on track and then berating myself for being so insecure, having such little faith in Nick and the bedrock of our relationship.
But when my family returns home, there is no denying the chilliness in Nick’s hug, his kiss on my cheek. “Welcome home, Tess,” he says, an ironic suspicion in his voice.
“Thanks, honey,” I say, trying to remember how I interacted with him before all of this began, trying to pinpoint when all of this began. “It’s so good to see you guys.”
I kneel down to hug the kids, both of whom have clean faces and combed hair, Ruby even wearing a pink bow, a small triumph.
Frankie bursts into a mirthful laugh, clamoring for another hug. “Pick. You. Up. Mama!” he shouts.
I don’t bother to correct his pronoun, but instead scoop him up in my arms, kissing both cheeks and his sweaty little neck, warm from all the layers his daddy remembered to bundle him in.
He giggles as I put him down and unzip his coat. He is wearing a mismatched outfit—navy cords with a striped orange and red shirt, the lines and colors slightly clashing, the first sign that their father has been on duty. Once free of his coat, Frank begins to spin in circles, flapping his arms, dancing in his rhythmless, random way. I laugh, for one moment forgetting everything else, until I turn to Ruby, who is doing her best to look miffed, steadfastly maintaining her position that she should have been invited on the girls’ trip, although I know she secretly relishes time with her daddy.
She coolly regards me now and says, “What did you bring me?”
I panic, realizing that I never made it to the American Girl or Disney store as I promised. “I didn’t have a chance,” I say lamely. “I was going to do it today.”
“Oh, man,” Ruby says, her lip curling into a pout. “Daddy always gets us something when he goes away.”
I consider the trinkets that Nick has brought back from conferences, often cheap airport souvenirs, and feel guilty that I didn’t at least save her my pretzels from the plane.
“Rubes. Be kind to your mother,” Nick says, a mechanical reprimand. He then removes his own layers—a jacket, a fleece pullover, and a scarf—hanging everything on a hook by the door.
“She came home early,” he adds. “That’s your surprise. Our surprise.”
“And my surprise was a clean house,” I say, giving him a grateful look.
Nick smiles and winks, taking full credit, although something tells me that Carolyn did the laundry.
“Coming home early isn’t a surprise,” Ruby says.
“Maybe we’ll get you a treat tonight. Ice cream after dinner?” I offer. Ruby is not sold on this, her pout conveying both disappointment and disgust.
She crosses her arms and attempts to negotiate a better deal. “With hot fudge?”
I nod while Frankie chortles unintelligibly, oblivious to his malcontent sister and the unspoken tension between his parents. I watch him flap his arms and spin again, filled with affection, admiration, and envy for my simple, happy child. As he falls down, dizzy and giggling, I say a prayer that Nick and I can somehow return to that pure place, where we want to drop everything we’re doing, just be in the moment, and dance.
34
Valerie
Hi, Val. It’s me. Hope you guys are having a good day. We’re here at the Children’s Museum, in the Bubble Room. Good times . . . Anyway, I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to see you tonight, after all . . . Give me a call if you get this message soon. Otherwise . . . I . . . might not be able to talk . . . I’ll call when I can and explain . . . Anyway, I’m sorry. Truly . . . I miss you . . . Last night was
incredible. You’re incredible . . . All right. Bye for now.
Her heart sinks as she listens to the message in the parking lot of Whole Foods, having just gone shopping for tonight’s dinner. Charlie and three bags of groceries are in the backseat behind her.
“Mommy!” Charlie says impatiently.
“What, honey?” she says, glancing at her son in the rearview mirror, doing her best to look and sound upbeat, the opposite of how she feels.
“Why aren’t you driving? Why are we just sitting here?”
“Sorry . . . I was listening to a message,” she says, starting the car and slowly backing up.
“From Nick?” he asks.
Her heart skips a beat. “Yes. That was Nick,” she says, the risk of what she is doing further crystallizing in her mind, along with the realization that, already, Nick has become Charlie’s first guess, even before Jason or her mother, just as he was the first one Charlie called from school when he couldn’t reach her.
“What did he say?” Charlie asks. “Is he coming tonight?”
“No, sweetie,” she says, turning out of the lot.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she says, silently ticking through the possibilities. Maybe he couldn’t find a babysitter. Maybe his wife came home a day early. Maybe he changed his mind about her, about them. Whatever the explanation, she realizes with acute sadness that this is how it’s going to be, that these sorts of disappointments and messages and cancellations come with the territory. She can pretend and dream all she wants—and she certainly did last night—but there is no way around what they are doing. They are having an affair, and she is on the sidelines, along with Charlie. It will be her job to shield him from disappointment while hiding her own.
“Mommy?” Charlie asks, as she makes a turn onto a backstreet, taking the longer but more scenic route home.
“Yes, honey?” she says.
“Do you love Nick?”
Her mind races as she grips the steering wheel, searching for the right answer, any answer. “He’s a good friend. He’s been a great friend to us,” she says. “In addition to being a wonderful doctor.”
“But do you love him?” Charlie asks again, as if he knows exactly what is going on. “Like when you want to marry someone?”
“No,” Valerie lies, doing her best to protect him—since it is too late to protect herself. “Not like that, sweetie.”
“Oh,” he says, clearly disappointed by her answer.
With a measure of trepidation, she clears her throat and says, “How do you feel about Nick?”
He pauses, then says, “I like him. I wish . . . I wish he were my daddy.” His voice is wistful but apologetic, almost as if he’s making a confession.
Valerie takes a deep breath and nods, having no idea what to say in response.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” she finally says, wondering if her words now, and what she is doing generally, make her a good mother or a decidedly bad one. She feels sure it is one extreme or the other, and even more certain that only time will tell which camp she’s in.
35
Tessa
Thirty minutes before Carolyn is due to arrive, and just after I’ve put the kids to bed, I find Nick in the family room, sound asleep in a pair of old scrubs. I have a flashback to his residency, how he routinely fell asleep everywhere but our bed—on the couch, at the table, once even standing in the kitchen. He was making a cup of tea and nodded off in mid-sentence, awakening as his chin hit the counter. Despite more blood than I’d ever seen in real life, he refused to go back to the hospital where he had just completed a thirty-six-hour rotation. Instead, I took him to bed, holding a bandage to his chin for most of the night.
I sit on the edge of the couch now, listening to him snore for a moment before gently shaking him awake. “They wear you out, don’t they?” I ask as his eyes flutter open.
He yawns and says, “Yeah. Frankie got up before six this morning. And your daughter—” He shakes his head fondly.
“My daughter?”
“Yes, your daughter,” he says. “She’s too much.”
We both smile as he continues, “She is one particular little girl.”
“That’s a delicate way to put it,” I say.
He runs his hands through his hair and says, “She just about had a meltdown at the museum when her apple slices grazed her ketchup. And my God . . . to get that girl to wear socks. You’d think I was suggesting a straitjacket.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What does she have against socks, anyway?” he asks. “I don’t get it.”
“She says socks are for boys,” I say.
“So bizarre,” he mumbles. Then, through an exaggerated yawn, he says, “Would you be upset if we stayed in tonight?”
“You don’t want to go out?” I say, doing my best not to take his position as an affront, a difficult thing to do given that he went out last night, and had planned to go to a movie tonight, solo or otherwise.
“I want to . . . I’m just so damn tired,” he says.
Although I am also exhausted, and still have a residual headache, I believe that Nick will take the conversation more seriously if we are in a nice setting—or, at the very least, stay awake, which is only a fifty-fifty proposition if we stay in. But I resist making this inflammatory point, instead blaming Carolyn, telling him I don’t feel comfortable canceling on her last-minute.
“So give her fifty bucks for the opportunity cost,” Nick says, folding his hands on his chest. “I’d pay fifty bucks not to go out right now.”
I look at him, wondering how much he would pay to avoid our discussion altogether. He stares back up at me, unyielding.
“Okay. We’ll stay in,” I relent. “But can we eat in the dining room? Open a good bottle of wine? Maybe get dressed a bit?” I say, eyeing his scrubs again, once a turn-on, now a grim reminder of one of the possible suspects in our rough patch. If I’m lucky, that is.
He gives me a look that conveys both annoyance and amusement, and I can’t decide which offends me more. “Sure thing,” he says. “Would you like me to wear a suit and tie? Perhaps a sweater vest?”
“You don’t own a sweater vest,” I say.
“Okay. So I guess that’s out,” he says, slowly standing and stretching. I study the lines of his back, feeling the sudden urge to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his neck, and confess my every worry. But something keeps me at a distance. Wondering if it is fear, pride, or resentment, I remain in my most efficient mode, informing him that I’ll handle calling Carolyn and ordering dinner—and that he should go upstairs and change. “Relax a bit,” I add with a strategic, indulgent smile. “Get your second wind.”
He gives me a circumspect look, then turns toward the stairs.
“Sushi okay with you?” I call after him.
“That’s fine,” he says with a shrug. “Whatever you want.”
A short time later, our sushi has arrived and we have reconvened in the dining room. Nick, wearing gray flannel slacks and a black roll-neck sweater, appears to be in a good mood yet shows signs of nervousness, cracking his knuckles twice before opening a bottle of wine and pouring two glasses.
“So,” he says as he sits and gazes down in his miso soup. “Tell me about last night. Did you have fun?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Until I started to worry . . .”
With a trace of scorn, he says, “What are you worried about now?”
I take a deep breath and a sip of wine before saying, “Our relationship.”
“What about it?” he says.
I can feel my breathing grow shallow as I struggle to keep things nonaccusatory, strip any melodrama from my reply. “Look, Nick. I know life is hard. Life with little kids just beats you down and makes you weary. I know that the stage of life we’re in . . . can put strains on relationships . . . even the best marriages . . . but . . . I just don’t feel as close as we once were. And it makes me sad . . .”
As there
is nothing in my statement that he can refute, he nods a small, careful nod and says, “I’m sorry you’re sad . . .”
“How do you feel?” I ask.
He gives me a puzzled look.
“Are you happy?”
“What do you mean?”
I know he knows exactly what I mean, but I still spell it out for him. “Are you happy with your life? With our life?”
“I’m happy enough,” he says, his spoon frozen in midair, his smile rigid, reminding me of a game show contestant who knows the answer but is still second-guessing himself before the final buzzer.
“Happy enough?” I say, stung by his qualifier.
“Tessa,” he says, his spoon returning to his bowl, his mood noticeably darkening. “What’s this about?”
I swallow and say, “Something is wrong. You seem distant . . . like something’s bothering you. And I just don’t know if it’s work or life in general or the kids. Or me . . .”
He clears his throat and says, “I don’t really know how to answer that . . .”
I feel a rise of frustration and the first stirrings of anger as I say, “This isn’t a trap, Nick. I just want to talk. Will you talk to me? Please?”
I wait for his reply, staring at the space below his bottom lip and above his chin, wanting to kiss and slap him at once.
“I don’t know what you want here . . .” he starts. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.” He holds my gaze for several seconds, before looking down to prepare his sashimi. He carefully pours soy sauce into his saucer and adds a dab of wasabi before mixing the two with his chopsticks.
“I want you to tell me how you feel,” I say, now pleading.
He looks me directly in the eye and says, “I don’t know how I feel.”
Something inside me snaps as I unleash the first dose of sarcasm, nearly always lethal in a conversation between husband and wife. “Well then,” I say. “Let’s try an easier angle. How about telling me where you were yesterday afternoon?”