He hadn’t actually come out and said that he was considering staying on the West Coast for good, but I got the hint.
But thanks to my pushing, he had arranged these interviews in Manhattan. I had my heart set on living happily ever after with Mike, à la Michael and Hope on my favorite show, thirtysomething, and I was determined to do it right here in New York.
I figured that while he was in town this week, when he wasn’t busy interviewing or spending time with his parents, he and I could do some preliminary apartment hunting. He’d have a job lined up before he flew back West; I’d go with him; we’d load up his car with all his belongings and drive back here together. He could stay with his parents—or, better yet, with me—until our new place was ready. I was sure Valerie wouldn’t protest.
Never mind that our place was almost too small for us two women, and I hadn’t actually checked with her. Never mind that I had already used up my first year’s allotment of one week’s vacation. And never mind that Mike and I hadn’t yet discussed the prospect of living together.
I figured everything would fall into place the second I fell into Mike’s arms. Which, I saw, glancing at my new Keith Haring Swatch—was less than twenty-four hours from now. If the plane was on time.
I felt a ripple of anticipation. After all, Mike was the love of my life. We had met at summer camp in the Catskills during high school and fallen madly in love over roasted marshmallows and color war. We reconnected every summer, first as campers, then as CITs, and finally as counselors. We went to separate state universities but managed to keep up a long-distance relationship all through college.
This last year had been the hardest, though, by far. Instead of sixty-some miles of New York State Thruway between us, there was an entire continent.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
That was what my cliché-spouting Grandma Alice always said. She was—and still is—a big believer in true love triumphing over the odds. After all, she and Grandpa Herman started dating before he was shipped overseas to the Battle of the Bulge. Their relationship survived a world war.
My parents’ relationship survived the Vietnam War—not that my dad was sent to Southeast Asia or anything. But he did serve in the military back then, stationed in Alabama for more than a year when my sister and I were really young.
I couldn’t imagine that Mike and I would ever live through a war in this day and age, but I honestly believed, in my young and foolish heart, that we could make it through anything the future was going to throw at us.
three
The present
Splat.
“Shit!”
No, not literally shit. That would have been even more disgusting, but this is pretty vile. I have just been sprayed with Earth’s Best Organic First Sweet Potatoes.
“Beau! Watch your mouth!”
Startled by the voice, I turn to glower at my husband, who is standing in the kitchen doorway, fresh from his shower and wearing a crisp white button-down and maroon tie unmarred by pureed orange root vegetables.
“Well, I wish he’d watch his mouth,” I snap, gesturing at my squirming five-month-old, whose chubby cheeks are ominously puffed again. “He does this spitting thing because you taught him.”
“I didn’t teach him to spit food. I taught him to do this. Didn’t I, Tyler?” Mike leans over the high chair and blows a vibrating raspberry into our son’s face.
Tyler squeals with glee.
“Stop it, Mike. You think it’s cute, but lately he does that whenever he has a mouthful, and I’m the one who ends up wearing his breakfast, not you.” I reach for a cloth diaper from the basket of clean, unfolded laundry on the table and mop the mess from my face.
“Yeah, well, I’d trade feeding him his breakfast for getting on the train,” Mike says darkly.
Tyler does another loud raspberry.
“No, Tyler, that’s bad, bad.”
“No, don’t say bad like that—he’ll think you’re saying he’s bad,” I reprimand Mike for the millionth time since I read that parenting magazine article that claimed telling your children they’re bad will create self-esteem issues they’ll carry for a lifetime.
“Oh, right. What am I supposed to say again?” Mike doesn’t roll his eyes at me, but I can tell that he wants to.
“Tell him ‘that’s naughty.’”
“That’s naughty, Tyler,” Mike says, even as he strides over to the polished granite counter and peers at the coffeemaker.
A moment goes by. I pretend to be oblivious, focusing on circling the rubber-tipped spoon just below the rim of the jar until it’s coated with orange goo.
“Oh…no coffee?” Mike lifts the empty glass carafe, as if to be absolutely certain that steaming black brew isn’t somehow concealed inside.
I swallow a snarl as Tyler swallows the spoonful of sweet potatoes I’ve cautiously slipped past his drooly pink gums.
“No coffee,” I inform my husband curtly. “I haven’t had a chance to make it yet. I’ve been busy with the laundry and the baby.”
“Mmm,” he says, or maybe it’s “hmm.” Either way, the message is clear. He, the commuting husband, is feeling neglected by me, the stay-at-home wife.
“You can stop at Starbucks on the way to the station,” I inform him.
“You know I don’t like their coffee.”
I do know that. He thinks it tastes burnt, making him the only grown human in the tristate area who doesn’t patronize the place.
“Go to Dunkin’ Donuts, then,” I tell him. “You like their coffee.”
“It’s too out of the way. I’ll miss my train.”
I shrug. What the hell does he want me to say?
I clear my throat. “Sorry.”
That, I know, is what he wants me to say.
But now that I’ve obliged, he merely shrugs and strides to the sink, where he reaches for the orange prescription bottle on the windowsill.
You’d think he’d tell me that it’s okay. That, for once, he can live without his caffeine fix for the hour it will take him to get to his office in midtown. You’d even think he’d offer to get up five minutes earlier from now on and make his own goddamn coffee.
Nope, nope and nope.
He swallows the small white pill he’s been taking for his high cholesterol ever since the doctor prescribed the medication last winter.
You’d think he’d be grateful to me, his loving wife, for caring enough about him to insist that he get a physical after years of neglecting to do so.
Nope again.
If I’m in the vicinity when he takes his daily dose, as I am most mornings, he makes a big show of making a face as he swallows. Sometimes—like today—he throws in a heavy sigh for good measure, as if to illustrate how tragic it is that his very life depends on modern medicine.
Not that it does. His cholesterol wasn’t that high. But early heart attacks run in his family, and I don’t want to be a young widow.
Really, I don’t.
Shoving aside a twinge of guilt, I spoon more baby food into Tyler’s gaping mouth.
The fact that I have found myself fantasizing lately about being single again has nothing to do with wishing my husband dead.
I love Mike. I’ve loved Mike for almost half of my life.
It’s