by Kate Meader
He’s not smiling anymore. He’s braced his body, hands on the desk at his sides, ready to defend himself—or maybe ready to not defend himself. He expects me to hit him. I think he wouldn’t raise a hand if I did.
I go over to the sofa and sit down, purely so I won’t be tempted to treat him like Bob the Torso.
“How did you know I wouldn’t give Cujo away? Put him in a shelter?”
“Because you’re a romantic, Maxie. A soft heart underneath that tough skin, with your obsession with old movies and Hitchcock and those loser Cubs. You’re a fucking rom-com looking for a script. A cute dog and the right woman—that’s all you needed.”
Really? This sounds far too simple, but sometimes the most complex problems have simple solutions.
I rub my eyes. “She blames me for her parents’ breakup. She thinks I encouraged her dad to think about divorce.” The dad who’s still staying with me, by the way.
Grant takes a seat beside me. “Did you?”
“No. Maybe. I was trying to be a realist, but they’re her parents and she can’t be objective about it. About them.” I put my face in my hands. “I love her, but she doesn’t believe me.”
“You told her?” asks Lucas.
“I didn’t get a chance to. I knew it would come off as a play. She thinks our worldviews are fundamentally opposed, but with her…”
“You could believe,” Grant says.
With her, I could believe.
* * *
—
I meant what I said to Charlie: I haven’t given up on getting Sully back where he belongs. Which will involve me donning my other hat—that of marriage counselor.
People think that we lawyer types are all about the billable hours and the joy of screwing over the opposition, and sure, money is nice and winning is nicer. But we’re not complete slimeballs (nah nah nah, I can’t hear you!). I’ve never been so desperate to dissolve a union that I’ll ignore signs a reconciliation might be the better route. Sometimes, a wife will just want to scare the bejesus out of her husband, or more often, she thinks her marriage is over but I can see that the love is still there and these crazy kids need to work on it.
You might be wondering why I haven’t kicked Sully’s ass to the curb. I have one word for you: guilt. I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty that this is my fault, but it feels like my fault. Whether it was my casual attitude to his marital problems or my own deep-seated fear of commitment seeping into our conversations, I sense that this is my problem to fix.
Four days after the event and prior to my morning run, I walk into the kitchen to find Sully standing in front of the open fridge, staring into it like it holds the mysteries of the universe. I’ve been keeping myself busy at work so we haven’t spent that much time together, and this is the first time I’ve seen him in roughly thirty-six hours.
“Morning,” I say.
Nothing.
“Sully.”
He blinks in my direction, shakes his head, and pronounces, “Mustard.”
“What about it?”
“You don’t have any.”
“Sure I do,” I say, not wholly clear why we are discussing mustard at 6:12 a.m. I pluck a jar out of the fridge’s door shelf and hold it up. Cujo watches us both expectantly.
Sully squints, his mouth curving into a sneer as he reads it off. “Italian fig mouse turd.”
Hilarious. “It’s gourmet.”
“It’s shit.”
I pop the jar back into its spot and close the door, in no doubt that this is about something other than my poor mustard selection. My recollection is that several varieties were on offer back at Chez Sullivan. Could the man be using condiments to convey a message?
I lean back against the kitchen island and fold my arms, determined to decode it. “What’s going on, Sully?”
He rubs his white-stubbled jaw. “You ever think about biting the big one?”
Ah, it’s going to be one of those days. “I try not to, but it’s only human to think of it on occasion, usually when you hear of someone dying in some senseless and random way. There but for the grace of God and all that.”
He nods. “Donna’s better off without me.”
I consider how his last two statements might be related, but I need more information. “Do you think you’re going to be checking out anytime soon, Frank?”
“We’ve all got to go sometime. And I already punched the ticket on one of my lives last year.”
Okay, okay, okay…Jesus fucking Christ, it hits me. This is what I mean about how marriage turns once sane people into nutjobs. “Do you actually think you’re making things easier on Donna? Is this one of those ‘kindness divorces’?”
His expression says he doesn’t appreciate my sarcasm. “She’s had a helluva year, looking after me. I put her through the wringer and now I’m under her feet all day. I don’t make it easy on her!” He points at me violently as if his orneriness is my fault. “If I get out now, she can adapt while she’s still got some energy left in her.
“Maybe find a newer model?”
“Yeah—well, no!” He looks alarmed. “But I—” He hesitates, his expression overcome with a sadness that tugs at a spot inside my chest. “Now I’m wondering if the cure is worse than the illness.”
God save me from idiots in love. “You’re miserable since your heart attack and your retirement, but your biggest concern is whether you’re making Donna unhappy while she cares for the husband she loves. That’s what she signed on for. In sickness and in health, my friend. Give her the respect of letting her make up her own mind on whether that’s too much for her.”
“Well, she’d still be better off,” he mutters, then grabs the leash for Cujo and heads out the door.
I look down at the little beast, who’s looking mighty confused at being left behind.
“Yeah, yeah,” Frank calls out from the doorway, then gives a short, sharp whistle that has Cujo running as fast as his little legs will carry him.
Inside my heart does a touchdown celebration dance. I want to laugh my head off.
Frank “Sully” Sullivan might be starting to crack.
* * *
—
The morning of the wedding dawns bright and sunny, a veritable picture postcard. And no, it’s not weird to be hanging out in James’s old bedroom while he gets ready. Hell and damn, posters of Sammy Sosa are still plastered to his wall. Remember that guy and the magical season in ‘98 when he went up against Mark McGwire for the season home run record? James and I were obsessed with Sosa, this crazy player who gave the Cubs hope for that one moment in time.
“Help me with this, will you?” He gestures to his undone cravat.
“Nervous?”
“Not at all.”
Bully for him. Meanwhile in Maxlandia, the king is a wreck about the toast he has to give. I shouldn’t be as I can usually talk the hind legs off a herd of mules, but the notion of facing people who are present to celebrate my brother’s future terrifies me. I want to do right by him and not come off as a cynical, walking cliché with my too-small divorce attorney’s heart.
“Gina’s as calm as you are,” I say.
He gives me a look.
“Okay, she’s swearing like a prep school teacher. Something about her garter being stretched to capacity because she’s already putting on baby weight?” I shudder, remembering my recent visit to one of the guest rooms where Gina was “under construction” as she called it. Her sister and mom were there, the sister attentive, the mom not so much.
This reminds me of Charlie, who’s been a champion for Gina all this time. Who went above and beyond to keep her calm during all these life changes. But then that’s Charlie Love. The woman gets shit done.
Finished helping James get handsome
, I wander to the window of his room, which overlooks the lawn. The tent was set up yesterday by carnies, I assume. The chairs—all two hundred of them—are positioned in perfect rows on either side of an aisle that terminates at a floral-bedecked bower. Apparently, you can rent these things.
Charlie is standing under the bower now, her flaxen hair in waves about her shoulders, and all I can think of is those freckles I once had the privilege of mapping with my tongue. She’s wearing that same blouse she wore the night of the infamous Cubs game, but this time with a pink skirt that flutters around her shapely legs. She’s on the phone, but someone at work dispensing ceremony agendas to each chair catches her eye—and she’s off to give an order. No detail will be left to chance in Ms. Love’s world.
James puts a hand on my shoulder. “Ready to do this?”
“That’s what I should be asking you.”
He shrugs. “I’ve been ready since the day I met Gina. Only societal mores kept me from asking her to spend the rest of her life with me that first night. Worried I’d come off as crazy.”
I was there, standing in line with James at the Goose Island beer station before a Blackhawks game. Gina didn’t even give me a second glance because the minute she saw James, she was a goner.
“You were that sure?”
“I was.”
When I first met Charlie, I fell in lust but it took much longer for love to sneak up on me. And sneak it did, nowhere near the definition of a sure thing. I’ve spent the last three months pinballing between desire, doubt, nausea, and need.
“I want to get it right.”
James squeezes my shoulder. “There’s no blueprint for this, Maxie. Your approach is always going to be different, but that doesn’t make what you have with Charlie any less real. You’re more cautious—you’ve had to be since Becca, and it’s also your nature—and maybe you’re having a hard time trusting your instincts. Just think of it like this. It’s doesn’t have to be perfect to start with”—his grin is the smile of a man in love—“it just has to be perfect in the end.”
* * *
—
I had a speech prepared. It included a slide show with Jim-Jam and his broken leg at the age of twelve, when I put ants down his cast. Fucking hilarious. People were going to laugh, and then I’d swoop in at the end and say a few kind words about Gina and her unstinting love for the Penguins which makes no sense for a girl from Nebraska. Applause would fill my ears and I would bask in the glow of a job well done.
I stand up, and I’m back in junior high debate club. Courtney Ellison is out there (figuratively), and I’ve gone six months with barely a stutter. I used to record each setback in a notebook—my F Book, I called it, where F stood for “failure” before it stood for something else. (Wink.)
I smile at James, but it’s tight. He gives an imperceptible nod back, telling me I’ve got this. I don’t. I really don’t.
I need to see her, but I’m guessing she’s off doing her thing, making the trains run on time. Mussolini in heels.
The natives are growing restless.
“Love is work,” I say.
Not a terribly auspicious start nor would anyone stitch that nugget on a pillow. Somebody coughs into the silence, a lung-extracting hack that sounds like a death rattle. But I’m the one dying here. Over to the side, a flash of pink in the sun outside one of the open tent flaps catches my eye. I blink, and it’s gone.
“I see it every day in my job, how much work love takes and how people decide the compensation for that work isn’t adequate. And I don’t mean money. I mean when people feel they aren’t being remunerated properly, getting out of a marriage what they’ve put in. A kind word, a kiss out the door, a foot rub at the end of a long day. It’s the little things that hold it together.” I smile at my baby brother, then take in his beautiful wife. The ceremony was perfect and even I got a little choked up. “Don’t forget the little things, you two. When it’s tough, because it will get tough, they might just keep you afloat while you trudge through the hard stuff. While you work on the trials that are sent to break you, remember the reason why you started this crazy roller-coaster ride and take care of each other.” I raise a glass so it’s clear I’m all out of toasting material. “To James and Gina.”
Gina’s wiping tears and mouthing “bastard” while James looks shell-shocked. I take a seat while everyone applauds. I hear Mom sobbing, “My boys!” which tells me I must have knocked it out of the park because my mother’s Britishness keeps her emotion levels on a par with the Terminator.
“I think they expected something else,” I murmur to James.
“I think we all did.” He grips my forearm. “Thank you, Maxie.”
Chapter 24
“A great marriage is not when the perfect couple comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”
—Dave Meurer
Charlie
“Charlie!” Mrs. Henderson snags my arm on one of my check-in circuits near the edges of the tented ballroom.
“Hey, Mrs. H.”
“It’s Susanne, love,” she chides. “Marvelous job. I don’t think anyone but you could have pulled this off.”
“Thanks.” I scan the room with pride. “It turned out well.”
Another woman, equally elegant and dripping in diamonds, stops on seeing Susanne. “Suzy! What a great do!”
Susanne hugs her, then remembers I’m still here. “Elizabeth, this is Charlie Love. She created this whole party and she…” Susanne squeezes my hand, her eyes shining at me. “She’s a lovely girl to boot. Now, tell me, who was that delicious man I saw as your plus one earlier?”
Elizabeth smiles serenely. “I took up capoeira. It’s like Brazilian kickboxing, but more creative. All Max’s doing, of course. Gustavo is my personal trainer. A little young for me, but I’m on the rebound.” She raises her shoulder in a half-shrug. “It can’t be helped.”
“Max helped Elizabeth through her divorce,” Susanne explains to me.
“I don’t know what I’d have done without him. Who would have thought it after he once peed in my pool?”
Okay. A very suave man half Elizabeth’s age dances over and dramatically pronounces, “Elisabetta, this dance is mine!”
The woman’s face colors, but her grin is infectious. “Okay, Gustavo, let’s show them how it’s done.”
“Mmm, real subtle,” I murmur as Gustavo whisks her away.
I catch Max’s mom’s smile out of the corner of my eye. “I just want my son to be happy.”
“Mrs. Hend—”
“Susanne.”
“Susanne. I think I know what you’re trying to do here, but in the end, Max and I are too different. We see life from different angles.”
“Maybe, but different doesn’t have to be a deal breaker. You know, I used to worry about Max’s work, the type of law he chose to practice. I thought it would make him cynical. Would harden his heart.”
“And it has,” I say, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, I’m struck by the wrongness of them. He might be cynical, but is his heart so hard?
She looks out over the dancers and waves at Lucas, who is leading a conga line like it’s 1975. “You might think that you’re putting people together and he’s ripping them apart, but really there’s so much more to it. All this—” She waves a hand around. “Is just spectacle. A wonderful way to kick off a future, but now the real work begins. Most couples come together in a rush of passion, but not all of them learn the art of conflict resolution. We want to think we can retain the giddy joy of our wedding day and stretch it to cover all the cracks. But really, it’s when a couple learns how to fight properly—how to argue effectively and work through problems productively—well, that’s the recipe for everlasting love.”
Her words slay me
.
“I’m not good with conflict,” I say, though I’ve been touting its benefits as a marriage-fixing tool for the last week. “I tend to get too emotional about things, and I suspect Max can run rings around me in an argument. I’d always feel as though he has the upper hand. He’s had so much experience, watching couples at their worst.” I’m not sure I can be with someone who can crush my arguments so effectively.
She smiles, her eyes soft and shiny. “He does, but he’s also the kind of man who likes to fix things. With his job, he’s giving people closure. He’s creating a means for them to move on. Max is lawyer, priest, counselor, shoulder to all his clients. They’re a mess when they come to see him, less of one by the time the process is finished. He’s freeing them up to fall in love again, which is really quite special and gets not nearly enough credit. His experiences have colored his perception as far as his own personal life goes, but I don’t think he’s ever not believed in the power of hope for his clients. I just wish he could believe in that for himself.”
“I can’t change him, Susanne.”
“You already have. You heard his toast. The Max of three months ago would not have said that.”
I stood outside the tent during the speeches, not wanting to intrude, but Max’s words had filtered through the flaps and filled me up. Remember the reason why you started this crazy roller-coaster ride and take care of each other. That’s all we want, someone to have a care.
Simple, yet heart-wrenching, but it doesn’t mean he believes it, does he? Yet I find myself wanting to believe, maybe enough for both of us.
* * *
—
The music is faint where I’m standing out by the bower. All the chairs have been folded up and stowed away in trucks, ready to be gussied up for someone else’s big day.
