We held each other on the couch for a long time afterward without saying anything. I wanted to tell Ally what this meant to me, but I didn’t have those words. I simply pulled her more tightly against me and hoped that this would speak for me.
Eventually we made our way into my bed. I held her close and stroked her hair while her fingernails played across the small of my back. Occasionally we kissed some more, but we barely spoke. Conversation truly didn’t seem necessary.
At some point, we fell asleep in each other’s arms and were still together that way around 3:30 when Reese woke us up with his crying. I don’t know what awoke him, but he seemed unusually rattled by it. I knew that kids began to have nightmares around this age and I assumed that’s what was happening. I walked with him, sang him a song, and allowed him to rest his head on my shoulder while he calmed down. But when I put him back in his crib, he cried again before I even left the room. I knew there was only one way he was truly going to settle.
I carried him into the bedroom. Ally was propped up on her pillow.
“Is he okay?”
“I think something spooked him while he was sleeping.”
“Poor guy. Is he up for good?”
“No, he’ll get back to sleep. But only if I let him lie next to me. Is that too weird for you?”
She sat up in bed as I put Reese down on the mattress. “Do you want me to go home?”
“No, not at all. I mean, I would completely understand if you wanted to, but I’m certainly not asking you to leave.”
“Let’s just see if we can get him back to sleep then.”
I put Reese between us and slowly, as he always did, he worked his body next to mine. Predictably, he was asleep within minutes. I reached over for Ally and saw that she was sleeping as well.
I tried to get back to sleep myself, but the minutes and then the hours stretched in front of me. At some point, I realized that I wasn’t going to get another wink.
I used the time instead to try to make some sense of everything that had happened and everything that was happening.
FIFTEEN
Subversive Thoughts
“What would you do if I ever died?” Maureen had said to me several years ago, sitting on the couch. I guess most married couples have this conversation at some point in their relationship.
“I’d regret the fact that we didn’t increase your life insurance.”
She punched me on the arm and I kissed her on the top of the head. “After that.”
“I’d probably spend most days wandering around looking for you.”
“Would you mumble anything while you were doing this?”
“I’d just call your name over and over again. Eventually the police would come.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Seriously? I don’t have any idea what I would do if you died. I’m not entirely sure that I’d survive it. It would be like those stories you hear where one spouse goes and the other follows a few days later.”
She looked up at me and held my gaze for several long moments.
“Really,” I said.
“I don’t want you to talk like that.”
“We’ve been together since we were nineteen. I’m not sure I could even walk correctly if you were gone.”
“But you’d eventually figure it out, wouldn’t you?”
“I might need a cane.”
“Don’t walk around with a cane if I die.Maybe just a black headband or something.” She kissed me surprisingly passionately at that moment and then sat back.
“You wouldn’t feel the same way?” I said.
“Maybe for a week or so, but jeez, you gotta move on.” She looked up at me and smiled. “Of course I would.”
I held her tighter. “Because I’d want you to. I mean, I know the thing I’m supposed to say is that I’d want you to be happy and all of that, and I’m not saying that I’d want you to be miserable for the rest of your life. But to be honest, I’d like my loss to be a big gaping hole for you.”
She squeezed my arm and didn’t say anything for a minute or so.
“I could still enjoy chocolate, right?”
“As long as you thought about me while you ate it.”
• • •
When Ally left late the next morning, I attempted to distract myself by playing on the floor with Reese. But I was kidding myself.Of course, I thought about what happened between us the night before. To say the least, these were not simple emotions. Almost simultaneously, I felt giddy and melancholy, liberated and guilty.Making love with Ally had been a joyous experience made all the more joyous by the fact that it was entirely unexpected. The only problem was that I was also completely convinced that it should-n’t have happened.
It wasn’t just about feeling like I cheated on my late wife. I felt that I became smaller in my own eyes by allowing myself to do this. I’d never considered for a second that something like this might happen a mere five months after Maureen was so suddenly taken from me. I wasn’t that kind of person and we didn’t have that kind of marriage. I knew that for an absolute fact.
But at the same time, it would have been absurd to try to hide my feelings for Ally from myself. I liked being with her, I liked talking to her, I liked touching her. When Reese responded so well to her, it tickled me, and I loved the fact that I felt instantly better when she was around. I didn’t ask her to come into my life. In fact, at the point at which she did, I was entirely incapable of inviting anyone in. And yet she still managed to reach me. That had to mean something.
And she had reached me in a profound way. I spent much of that Sunday imagining her there with Reese and me.When we went out in the car, I imagined myself talking to her in the passenger seat. When we stopped at the park, I saw her pushing Reese on the swings and making him giggle. As I made dinner that night, I wondered what she would think of the meal I’d made and what she was eating. And when I went to bed, I still felt her next to me. Ally moved me. Where she moved me was something I was more than a little confused about. But she unquestionably moved me.
For the last five months, the strong embrace of grief confined me. It wasn’t a comfortable or comforting place by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it was a specific place. The hold loosened ever so slightly Saturday night. It certainly wasn’t that I felt any less pain over losing Maureen, but I allowed myself to feel emotions that had been gone so long they might as well be new ones. I felt passion, desire, and even a brief bit of exultation. And because of this, I didn’t particularly know my place any longer. Could I be the grieving widow if I wanted another woman the way I wanted Ally? Could I be the guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders if I had so recently felt so good? I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to move forward with Ally, that I would feel doubt and recrimination every step of the way, that I was quite possibly doing it solely because I couldn’t stand being miserable any longer. But I also felt a very real urge to move forward with her, at least a few steps. This was baffling and downright scary.
After putting Reese to bed, I turned to Tanya’s journal. Last night was the first time I didn’t write a word in it since I started, and the realization of that set off yet another wave of guilt. I didn’t write in the journal I created for my daughter because I was too busy sleeping with a woman who wasn’t my wife.
Something surprising happened last night. You know, at this point I probably should have figured out that life doesn’t come with a script, but if someone told me a year ago that I would be writing in this journal because you disappeared from my life and that while doing this I faced the consequences of having a girlfriend, I would have told that person to seek professional help.
Yes, I said having a girlfriend. I’m not even sure that guys my age are allowed to use that term. The last time I had one, your mother might have been referred to as a “girl” in some circles. Ally’s not a girl. She’s 36 and she’s smart and attractive and she makes me think subversive thoughts – like that
I don’t need to feel awful for the rest of my life. When we became friends at work, I just felt comfortable talking to her. When we went out on an ill-advised date about a month ago, I had a great time and then got scared to death and retreated. But then we spent the day together yesterday and that surprising thing happened. And I’m seriously thinking about continuing it.
I’ve tried to imagine what you would think of this if you knew. I’ve tried to imagine your face when you read this, assuming that you ever do. I’m worried that this would be the final straw for you, the ultimate confirmation that your dad was a pretender who never really cared for the people he said he loved. And I’m worried that I wouldn’t know how to defend myself. What would I say? That I love your mother? That she occupies a huge place in my heart and always will? Of course I do and of course she will, but what can I say to you to convince you that these sentiments aren’t diminished by my involvement with Ally?
And what can I say to myself?
That Tuesday, Reese and I went out for pizza with Tate, Zak, and Sara. While formal restaurants were out of the question for a while with my impatient son, I wanted him to get accustomed to the rhythms of eating in public places. I loved going to restaurants and I wanted to pass this along to him.
This was Tate’s night during the week with the kids. Gail had insisted on it. They argued back and forth about whether Zak and Sara would sleep at Tate’s during the week and finally settled on his bringing them back at bedtime. Tate was still too furious and too wounded to give me any clear sense of what exploded in his marriage, but what was obvious at this point was that Gail wanted things from him that he either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. I still didn’t know whether she tried to make him understand her needs along the way or if she just let her frustration build until she couldn’t take it anymore.
I couldn’t help but notice the kids differently, especially after taking care of them that afternoon a few weeks back. The breakup changed their lives dramatically and they would feel the effect of this for the foreseeable future. This made them realer to me, less accessories of Tate’s and more individuals with delicate and tattered psyches. Zak’s reaction was to try to act older than his age, though he remained fascinated with Reese’s baby food.When they all wanted different things on their pizza and Tate fumbled over how to negotiate this, Zak worked it out with the waitress. Later, when Sara grew frustrated over how long it took the food to come, he produced a coloring book and crayons and played with her. Meanwhile, Sara seemed to be going in the opposite direction, talking in baby talk and seeming unusually captivated by Reese’s toys.
Tate was as befuddled and oblivious as ever. I never knew him to fluster easily, but he was getting progressively worse in this regard. He didn’t even seem to have much of an appetite, which was entirely out of character, though at the same time I noticed that he’d put on a few pounds.
We always could talk easily. This was one of the tent poles of our friendship. No subject was off limits between us and I sometimes found myself telling him things that I didn’t realize I felt strongly about until we started talking. I told him about the date I had a month ago with Ally, but I hadn’t mentioned her since. But now it seemed necessary to do so and I really wanted to talk to someone about this.
“Ally spent the night on Saturday,” I said after the pizza arrived.
“Ally?”
“The woman at work I went out with that one time.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Jeez, really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“And?”
I looked at him crossly. “You want details?”
“Yes, and please be as graphic as possible, especially in front of Sara. What did it feel like, you moron?”
I cut a piece of my pizza crust to give to Reese. “It felt like seventeen things at once.”
“Name five.”
I shut my eyes for a moment to search for a way to convey what I felt. “It was exciting and fulfilling and mind-blowing in a very real way.”
He snickered. “If you have seventeen things like that, you’re a lucky man.”
“It also felt insanely confusing, bittersweet, and more than a little frightening.”
“Not as good.”
“No, not as good.”
Tate’s eyes narrowed. “You think it’s too soon, right?”
“The thought has crossed my mind several thousand times.”
“But you also think you want to keep doing this.” “More than I ever thought I would.”
He shrugged. “Sounds like you gotta play it out.” “You don’t think less of me because of this?”
He frowned. “First of all – huh? And second, what the hell difference does it make what I think?”
“I rely on you for honesty.”
“I’m giving you honesty.”
“Okay, so here’s the other thing I wonder. Of course, I feel guilty over getting buzzed about a new relationship so soon. But what if I’ve blown my feelings for Ally entirely out of proportion out of some desperate need for companionship?”
“You need to stop thinking so much.”
“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”
“It has to happen. You can’t resolve this by thinking. Just play it out. If I remember correctly – and forgive me if I haven’t memorized every detail of your personal life these days – Ally is a very nice person. She’s also, I assume, a consenting adult. In other words, she might be great for you and she can take care of herself. There are no rules about this stuff.”
I waved a hand at him. “Ah, what the hell do you know about it?”
“Nothing.What do you know about it?”
“Exactly the same.”
“So I recommend that you stop asking my opinion and you stop asking your opinion.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“No kidding.”
We settled into the pizza and then Sara asked Tate to take her to the bathroom. Zak and I talked about his soccer team while he repeatedly picked up the pizza crust that Reese repeatedly threw on the floor. Throwing things on the floor was a big thing for Reese at this point.
When Tate returned, I said to him, “Any new lunch dates?” He had told me that the woman he spent the afternoon with while I watched his kids had come and gone. As did a few others.
“Nothing on the calendar this week. I have a couple penciled in for next week, though.”
“There’s no chance I could do what you’re doing.” “Why?What I’m doing is easy.What you’re doing is way, way harder, my friend.”
“I don’t think I could trot out my story for a continuing procession of women.”
“Trust me, I don’t trot out much. Before it gets to the story stage, I usually move on to the next one in line.”
“What’s the point?”
“You didn’t do a lot of dating when you were single, did you?”
“You know all about the people I dated.”
He shook his head sadly. “I was convinced you were holding out on me. Let’s just say there’s a certain recreational value to playing around that you might have missed.”
“Are you telling me to sow my wild oats?”
“The truth? I’m not telling you anything. Just giving you the view from my side of the fence.”
At this point, Sara whined that Zak didn’t allow her to play with Reese. It seemed like a very good time to ask for our check.
As we left the restaurant, Tate put his arm around my shoulder and drew me closer to him. He never did that before. I smiled over in his direction.
“You can call me later with the graphic details if you want,” he said.
“Yeah, wait by the phone.”
He laughed and pushed me away.
• • •
I called Ally that night after putting Reese to bed. We talked for more than a half hour. I brought her up to date on Tate and his situation and she told me about dinner with another member of our team. She said my name came up and it took everything in her
power to avoid giving away details about our new relationship.
I never liked talking on the telephone for any length of time. I saw telephones as a medium for conveying essential information. Anything more than that was unnatural. But I really liked talking on the phone with Ally. The conversations weren’t forced or artificial; I didn’t struggle to come up with things to say. And when we talked, it really felt like she was in the room with me, something else I never experienced before. Still, it couldn’t replace having her next to me, holding me. Toward the end of our conversation, I told her that I missed her. She told me that she missed me as well and said she could come over if I wanted her to. I wanted her to, but I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for it. That would necessitate introducing her to Lisa in the morning and that stopped me cold. I told Ally I was tired, which was certainly true, and that I was going to crash early. She seemed a little disappointed – I think the idea of an unplanned evening rendezvous was exciting to her – but she said she understood.
I felt miserable after I hung up. Like I’d missed out on something. Like I said the wrong thing. Like I was letting her down.
This was yet another set of emotions I’d put in deep storage. And I wasn’t nearly so happy about bringing these out again. I hadn’t worked on a relationship in a long time. But still, I knew I could.
SIXTEEN
Visiting with Royalty
Ally slipped into the side door of my life and made herself at home without moving any of the furniture. Whether we played with Reese (or attempted to stay just slightly ahead of him on his mission to pull everything onto the floor), read to each other from my new subscription to Food and Wine (or snickered at the hopelessly inept new restaurant reviewer for Newsday), brainstormed catalog ideas (or cajoled each other over preposterous concepts), or tossed epithets at the television screen during Yankee games (or celebrated a frustratingly rare victory), Ally quickly wove herself into the fabric of my life. She spent a number of weeknights at my house and most of every weekend. She and Lisa became fast friends, and Lisa even stayed for dinner on a couple of occasions. We even made plans for a vacation together in the late fall.
When You Went Away Page 17
