by Kate Hilton
But at four o’clock, having reviewed a proposal from the Pedestrians’ Coalition to close three major roads every Friday afternoon so that citizens can share the public space and walk freely; and from the Parks Department to eliminate all play structures built prior to 1985 (representing 75 percent of the city playgrounds) to avoid liability for injury; and from the university, sharing an extensive peer-reviewed study on the subject of how every other city in the civilized world does everything better than we do, I close my computer and trudge down to meeting room 2.
Doris and her long-suffering sidekicks Glynis and Charis are waiting. When I enter, Doris’s eyes are closed, and her arms are folded with her palms pressed together at the middle of her chest. I recognize this as prayer position, and I understand the sentiment, although I feel that it would be more appropriate coming from me. Doris’s breathing is slow and heavy.
“Is Doris all right?” I ask.
Glynis nods. “She’s centring.”
Charis adds, “She is breathing in strength and breathing out anger.”
“Take your time, Doris,” I say, and I sit.
Doris takes one more inhale and opens her eyes on the exhale. “Avery,” she says, “thank you for your patience.”
“No problem,” I say. “What can I do for you today?”
“We had hoped, of course, that the mayor would be here as a signal of his commitment to women’s issues,” says Doris. Her cheeks redden, and she breathes in and out, twice.
“He would have, certainly,” I say, “but he is in the west end of the city at his annual constituency picnic. There were several hundred people counting on him being there.”
“I see,” says Doris, with suspicion.
“Why don’t we four start the conversation, and if the mayor is required, we can schedule a follow-up with him in the next few days?”
Glynis pats Doris’s arm. “That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it, Doris?”
“I suppose,” says Doris. The lines around her mouth deepen.
“So,” I say, “we are tremendously excited about the plans for the waterfront development, and in particular the safe housing for women. I can tell you that the drawings are coming along nicely, the funding is in place, and everything is on schedule.”
“We read the paper, Avery,” says Doris. “The Wozniaks are trying to kill the project. I’ve also heard, on very good authority, that there is a specific threat to the shelter from the other proposed tenants.”
“This is all normal tinkering,” I say. “There is no major threat here. The project will go ahead and the shelter will be built.”
“Stop treating us like silly old women who don’t know what is really going on here,” say Doris loudly. She pauses, takes a breath, folds her hands in front of her, and says, “Namaste.”
Charis says, “What Doris means is that we’ve been informed that the shelter is moving to less desirable space because the artists hate children.”
“Children,” says Doris, “are the future. The way to measure the health and sustainability of a society is to consider how that society treats its children—its weakest and its most precious members. And to hear that the children are being moved in order to cater to the narcissism and egotism . . .” Doris closes her eyes and breathes in and out while the rest of us wait.
Doris opens her eyes. “What I mean to say is that WAFADASS stands in solidarity with the abused women of this city, and in doing so, we stand with their children. We will not allow them to be revictimized by a project that is supposed to offer them security.”
“Why don’t we all take a breath here,” I suggest. We do. “Let’s deal with the facts,” I say. “The artists were unaware that children would be living in the shelter. They are concerned about noise.” Doris snorts loudly. I continue. “We are proposing that the women’s shelter be moved to Building Two, which will put it in the same location as the daycare. Since most of the children will be using the daycare, it will be a convenient cluster of services. We think this is a solution that will satisfy everyone.”
“Well, it will definitely satisfy that arrogant son of a bitch Jim Crawford,” says Doris, pounding the table. “It’s all about him, all the time. Now he and his cronies have the best location on the waterfront, on the taxpayer dollar, with no messy reality to disturb their precious creativity. Fuckers.” She pauses. “Namaste.”
“Surely you don’t want to have a situation where the upstairs tenants are complaining constantly. That would be stressful for the shelter staff,” I say.
“Obviously, we aren’t suggesting that,” says Doris. “What we are saying is that the artists should be the ones to move to Building Two. The daycare can come to Building One with the shelter. Give the children direct access to the park. Set an example. Let children be given pride of place on the new waterfront. Show the world that this city believes in its children.”
“Namaste,” say Glynis and Charis. I do not think that word means what you think it means, I say, in my private thought-bubble.
“I hear you,” I say. “I’ll sit down with the mayor and the architects and the developers and use all of this great information to refine the plan. As always, your feedback is extremely useful and we appreciate it.”
My phone rings. It is exactly five o’clock. “I’m outside,” says Matt. “You’d better hurry. The parking officer is looking hungry.”
“I’m on my way,” I say. I stand up from the meeting table. “I’m very sorry, everyone,” I say. “I’d love to stay and chat further, but I’m late for another meeting. My door is always open. Let’s all reflect on today’s conversation and reconvene next week, shall we?”
“I’ll hold you to that,” says Doris.
I run to the elevator, jabbing the button with my thumb. I watch four elevators open and close, all jammed with city staff heading for the hills. Am I the only person in this building who doesn’t leave at five? I head for the stairs, race down and out the door, past the Sad Smoker, and find Matt’s SUV idling in the lane. I glance around to make sure that none of my friendly neighbourhood environmental activists are watching before I hop in.
“Hi,” I say. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem,” says Matt. “I’m so glad we’re getting out of the city.”
“How was your day?” I ask. “You seem a little wired. Everything okay?”
“Of course,” says Matt. “Everything’s great. How was your day?”
“The usual,” I say. “A few steps forward, a few steps back. I had a lovely meeting with WAFADASS this afternoon.”
“Let me guess,” says Matt. “They’re offended.”
“You must be psychic,” I say. This is one of my favourite things about Matt; he’s always willing to listen to me go on about the nonsense that happens in my office. And he always takes my side. It is an excellent quality in a partner. “Did I tell you we have an intern?” I ask.
“No. Who is it?”
“Melanie. She’s a law student. Peter met her at a constituency event and hired her. I wish he wouldn’t do stuff like that without talking to me.”
“Pretty, is she?”
“I guess,” I say. “But that’s not the issue.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” I say. “The issue is that I don’t have time to babysit a law student, especially one who has a tendency to freelance to get Peter’s attention.”
“Because you should have all of Peter’s attention?”
“Is this about this morning?”
“No,” says Matt. “It’s about a lot more than that.”
I can’t seem to get my bearings in this conversation, so I open the window and let the warm air crash in. I close my eyes and hear nothing but the sound of the wind, and feel nothing but my hair tugging and flapping.
And then the sensation is gone. I open my eyes. Matt has put the windows back up. Resentfully, I think of the old crank windows in our station wagon when I was a kid. Technology isn’t always a bo
on, and it doesn’t always offer individual freedom. This is one of those times.
“I’ve got the AC on,” says Matt. “And anyway, I want to talk to you about something.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I say. The words are out of my mouth before I even realize I’m thinking them. I register the shock on Matt’s face, and realize that it mirrors my own.
“What?” says Matt, and at the same time, I say, “I don’t know where that came from.”
“Jesus,” says Matt. “No, Avery. What the fuck? Why would I break up with you? I love you.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That’s good.” I’m trying to identify and catalogue the flurry of physical sensations and their corresponding emotions: hunched shoulders = anxiety; increased heart rate = annoyance; prickling in nose = impending tears = relief; and then clenched hands = anxiety again. I want to turn this car around and go back to the office.
“Let’s start again here,” says Matt, merging onto the highway. “I think we should get married.”
“Married?” I say. “I’m not good at being married.”
“You weren’t good at being married to the wrong person in your twenties,” says Matt. “I don’t think we should be drawing any broader conclusions from that experience.”
“But we’re married in every way that matters,” I say. “We share a life together. What difference would a piece of paper make?”
“If you thought it was only a piece of paper, you wouldn’t be hyperventilating right now,” says Matt.
I swallow hard, fighting panic. “Why now?” I say.
“Because I want a family,” says Matt.
“A family?” I say. “As in children?”
“Yes, Avery, as in children,” says Matt. “You act as if I’ve never raised this with you before.”
“But we both love our jobs,” I say. “Why would we have a child now?”
“Many people who love their jobs also manage to get married and have children,” says Matt. “But as it happens, I don’t love my job, and I’m ready to make some changes. I don’t like being away all the time. I want to feel more settled. I want to build something lasting.”
“I’m forty-two,” I say.
“I’m forty-three,” says Matt. “Which is why I’m not letting you derail this discussion the way I usually do.”
“I thought you were doing relationship maintenance before,” I say. “You know, covering the bases, taking the temperature, checking in. I thought you were on the fence about kids too.” I hate the way I mix my metaphors when I’m flustered.
“You got the wrong read on that,” says Matt.
“I don’t know if I can have children at my age.”
“That is a different question entirely, and one that we will deal with after we address the threshold question of commitment.”
“Matt,” I say. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I know,” he says. “So let’s start with a hypothetical. If I proposed, what would you say?”
“I’d say that I need to think about it,” I tell him.
Matt nods once, his jaw tight. But when he speaks, his voice is calm and even. “Fair enough,” he says. “I’ll sleep in the spare room while you do.”
{CHAPTER 10}
September 2001
I married Hugh at city hall in September 2000 in New York City. It was a casual, and very small, ceremony—my mother, Ethan, Tara, and Tara’s parents. I’d invited Jenny, but she sent her regrets. Tara was my bridesmaid. Tara’s dad was Hugh’s best man. I wore a vintage gown from the 1950s, made of pink tulle. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant near Hugh’s apartment, Rosalia’s, which had been one of the few places we’d felt comfortable dining in our secret phase; we had a genuine fondness for it, even if the food was unexciting. It was an anti-wedding, as simultaneously hip and low-key as you could imagine, which was the point. I was trying to convince myself that getting married was something young, cool people could do on a millennial Saturday afternoon, without altering the course of their lives.
I hadn’t wanted to get married. Hugh had wanted to, desperately, and he’d had to persuade me. I’d wanted a few years to get my bearings as a young intellectual with a more established partner. I’d wanted to go to openings and meet sparkling, witty people, and make plans to see them again for dinner, in public. I’d wanted some time to be a normal couple.
And I didn’t want to be a dependent wife. I’d run through all my insurance money, and I had a minuscule income from a writing fellowship I’d won at graduation. I wanted to find my feet financially. I’d grown up surrounded by stay-at-home wives, all with various creative hobbies and “outlets,” and I had no wish to emulate them. I was worried that marriage would alleviate the pressure I felt to figure out my career. Hugh, on the other hand, was encouraging me to write full time. He continued to believe in my talent in a way that I never had, and suspected I never would.
Hugh was committed to his own narrative about our relationship. In his version of events, he’d been felled by a once-in-a-lifetime freak accident of love that had swept through his life with the force of a hurricane, bending his generally upstanding nature in uncharacteristic ways. He thought of himself as a decent, dependable, responsible man—and he was—but our relationship had stained his reputation. There were people in his department, former friends, who wouldn’t sit with him at faculty meetings any longer.
“I want to make an honest woman of you,” he’d say.
“What does that even mean?” I’d say. It was at moments like these that I felt the age gap most strongly.
“It means that I want to show the world how much I love you,” he’d say. “I don’t want to live in sin.”
“Sin?” I’d say. “I remind you that neither of us is remotely religious. Let’s keep it secular.”
“Sorry,” he’d say. But then he’d be back at it the following weekend. I hadn’t realized how persistent he could be, how stubborn. Eventually, I gave in. My own arguments defeated me. If marriage was only a piece of paper, why was I denying him? I loved him, didn’t I?
And for most of the first year of our marriage, not much changed. Hugh taught, and I wrote, and we continued to cohabit as we had before. But the summer after the wedding, once classes ended, Hugh was home most days. He was supposed to be researching his next book-length project, but he was restless. He’d written an article earlier in the year to test some of his ideas for the book, and the critical response from his peers had been mixed. Now he was rethinking the entire premise, which he couldn’t do at the library, apparently. He was reorganizing the pantry shelves, dusting off his old cookbooks, testing recipes. He made me breakfast every morning before I left for the café to write, and told me what he had planned for dinner. I dreaded the weekends, with no easy escape from Hugh’s oppressive domesticity.
“I think we should have a baby,” said Hugh, one Sunday morning. We were sitting on the couch together. Hugh was reading the New York Times. I was reading a romance novel. I’d told Hugh that the novel I was writing was a conscious deconstruction of the romance form, and that I was doing research. I was doing no such thing, but Hugh approved of research, if not of experimental deconstructionism in fiction. In fact, I was fantasizing about Matt.
Matt and I had been spending time together. On Wednesdays we’d meet at a subway station and go on an adventure. It had begun the day I’d taken Matt to the bookstore. We hadn’t gone far—the bookstore I’d selected was in the Village—but we’d gone for lunch afterwards and it was the most fun I’d had in weeks. He was so funny, and so familiar. He could quote long passages from Wayne’s World. He’d stood in line for six hours to buy a new Tragically Hip album. He’d been to summer camp in Temagami and been sent home for sneaking onto the girls’ island with his buddies. We knew enough people in common that we’d probably been at the same bars on the same nights.
So it seemed neighbourly to show him the sights of New York. We took turns planning the day. I took him to the Frick
and the MOMA. He took me to the Statue of Liberty and the Central Park Zoo. We pursued the perfect cannoli in Little Italy. We dipped our toes in the ocean at Brighton Beach. We cheered for the Blue Jays at an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium. We couldn’t believe we hadn’t met before.
I didn’t lead him on. I told him about Hugh on our second Wednesday excursion. We were on the subway platform, about to board. I said, “I’m married.”
He stepped back from the subway car, and waited until it had left the station before he said, “I wondered. I didn’t think you were married, but I wondered if you lived with someone.”
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,” I said. “I really like spending time with you.”
Matt didn’t respond for a moment. Then he said, “I’m fine with this if you are.”
And I was, until that Sunday.
“A baby?” I said. “I’m way too young to have a baby. I’m only twenty-six.”
“Physically, darling, you’re a perfect age to have a baby. And I’m turning forty soon. I don’t want to be mistaken for the grandparent at parent-teacher interviews.”
“Parent-teacher interviews?” I said. I felt wobbly and weak, and a little sick.
This was so far beyond what I’d signed up for that I didn’t know what to say. I’d agreed to constancy and stability, yes, but regular-sexual-partner-with-fixed-address constancy, and access-to-laundry-machines-that-didn’t-require-coins stability. Parent-teacher interviews had never been in the shared existence I envisaged for us. But what had I expected? I was realizing, far too late, that Hugh, while a fully formed adult when we met, hadn’t been a finished product. He was evolving, to my dismay, into a family man. And I was evolving too, into a woman who recognized that she was in way over her head.
I leaned forward and kissed Hugh’s cheek, carefully, a peck, so he didn’t get the idea that I was angling for more. I’d started faking orgasms with him, something that I’d sworn I would never do, and worse, looked down on other women for doing.
“Listen to you,” I said. “You’re adorable. I’ve got to run down to the drugstore. Do you need anything?”
