One True Theory of Love

by Laura Fitzgerald

  “I really don’t care.” Clarabelle caressed the car’s steering wheel, in no hurry to get out from behind it. “I worked hard for thirty years. I should have a new car once in my life. I deserve one.”

  Meg and Amy exchanged looks.

  “Does Dad know?” Meg said.

  Clarabelle smiled. “He will soon enough.”

  “Ooh,” Meg said. “Ouch.”

  “He hasn’t even called since he left,” Clarabelle said. “Does he really think I’m going to sit home waiting around for him to come back? If he does, he’s got another think coming. This girl’s gone shopping!”

  “Very responsible, Mom,” Amy said. “Not.”

  Support them the best way possible.

  “She can afford it,” Meg said. Clarabelle had a decent pension and their house was long since paid off. Phillip might be cheap, but he was good with money. A new car wouldn’t hurt anybody and it just might help her mother heal. “But, Mom—he rented a condo. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  Clarabelle lowered her sunglasses and smiled coquettishly. “Does the color of the car match my eyes?”

  “It does.” Meg was glad to see her mother’s eyes were no longer bloodshot. No tears today, at least not yet. “It’s a very sexy car.”

  “I am woman. Hear me roar.” Clarabelle handed a plate of brownies to Amy and finally got out of the car. “He wants to talk about second acts? Ha! Just wait till he sees mine!”

  “Shit, the girls!” Amy briskly headed for the backyard. “They’ve been too quiet.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Meg called after her. “Henry’s with them.”

  “No, he’s not. He was out here, remember? Then he went inside.”

  “I need to pay more attention to that boy,” Meg said.

  “Pshaw.” Clarabelle stood in the driveway and admired her car. She lingered to show it off to David, who was pulling up, back from his grocery run. “How much trouble can he get in?”

  “That’s exactly my point.” Meg went inside and quirked an ear, listening for Henry. Hearing nothing, she slipped off her clogs and made her way quietly to the TV room, thinking he’d be there, playing with the Wii. When he wasn’t, she went to the spare bedroom that David and Amy used as an office and found him behind Amy’s desk, in the midst of dialing the phone.

  “Henry.” He jumped and hung up. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who were you calling?”

  “No one.”

  “I saw you dialing, Henry.”

  “I was calling Ahmed.” Meg’s hackles went up when she saw the liar’s blush explode across her son’s neck and face. She walked toward him fast, her heart racing.

  “I didn’t know you had his number memorized,” she said. “What is it?”

  “It’s . . . um . . .”

  Meg held out her hand. “Give me the phone.”

  Reluctantly, he did. When Meg hit star 69, the partial number that came up had a 212 area code. He’d been calling Jonathan.

  “Please don’t be mad at me.” Henry’s lower lip quivered, and Meg was glad to see it. She wanted him to cry. Had she not just expressly asked him less than twenty-four hours ago not to go to Jonathan for any reason? She knew what he’d say: I never promised.

  “Where are you getting his number from?” she said. “Tell me that, and I might just let you keep playing soccer for the rest of the season.”

  He dropped his gaze to the address book lying open on Amy’s desk. Meg gasped and picked it up. There it was. Jonathan’s name, address, cell and office numbers. The two address slots above it contained his outdated contact information, now crossed out.

  Firecrackers exploded in Meg’s brain and nothing made sense. No one from her family had been in touch with Jonathan since he left. No one. She peered at the entries. They were in Amy’s handwriting, all right. But why? Why would her sister work against her like this?

  Meg carried the address book to the kitchen and stood in the doorway as her mother regaled Amy with stories of her car-shopping experience. Amy listened gamely as she wiped off the counter.

  “Excuse me.” Meg held up the address book so Jonathan’s contact information showed and made dagger eyes at her sister. “You want to tell me why you’ve got my ex-husband’s contact information?”

  Openmouthed, Amy looked from Meg to Clarabelle, then back to Meg. “I . . . I . . . I don’t know. Just to keep track of him, I guess.”

  “Why, Amy? The man nearly destroyed me.” Henry appeared beside Meg and tried to rest his forehead against her, but Meg sent him outside. When he walked away with his head hung low, Meg didn’t feel remotely sorry for him.

  Amy’s eyes glistened. “I’m sorry. I just . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Sorry’s not good enough! I don’t know’s not good enough! Henry called him, Amy! Do you have any idea of the damage this could do to my relationship with Ahmed? Or do you just not care? Can you not stand to see me happy when you’re so miserable?”

  “I’m not miserable!” Amy said.

  “You act like you are!” Meg yelled and faced Clarabelle. “Are you in touch with him, too? Is my whole family going behind my back and maintaining friendly relations with the man who tried his very best to ruin my life?”

  Clarabelle raised her palms in self-defense. “I hate the man,” she said. “I wouldn’t speak to him if he was on his deathbed.”

  “Well, thank you,” Meg said. “It’s nice to hear you say that.”

  “He was like a brother to me.” Amy’s tone was pleading. “He was the brother I never had and always wanted.”

  Meg’s laugh was incredulous and spiteful. “And he was the husband I always wanted, and he couldn’t keep his dick inside his pants! My own sister—my best friend! How could you do this to me? He’s a cheater, Amy! When somebody cheats on someone you love and abandons her when she’s pregnant, you don’t forgive that. You don’t speak to that person ever again.”

  “Ho, ho,” Clarabelle said. “You’re in for a rude awakening.”

  Meg glared at her mother. “What exactly the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You can watch your language, missy,” Clarabelle said.

  “I will not watch my language,” Meg snapped. “Not today.”

  “It’s not like I’m in regular contact with him,” Amy said. “It’s just the occasional . . . you know . . . like, I sent him a condolence card last year when his mom died. That sort of thing.”

  Meg wanted to do physical harm. To the address book. To the salad Amy had so nicely tossed. Or to Amy herself. She could take the address book, and—“When’s the last time you spoke to him?” she demanded.

  Tears came to Amy’s eyes. “Please don’t ask me that.”

  “I’m asking, Amy.”

  Leaning against the counter, Amy’s eyes sank closed. She gave an I’m-so-screwed laugh and shook her head from side to side like an idiotic metronome.

  Finally, she looked directly at Meg, ready to accept her wrath. “Today,” she said. “He called me this morning.”

  “So when you asked me if I was okay, you already knew I wasn’t, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Amy said. “He told me you sort of freaked out on him.”

  She’d freaked out on him? That was priceless.

  “You suck,” Meg said. “You people all suck.”

  “What did I do?” Clarabelle asked.

  “You gave birth to her.”

  Meg left Henry in her mother’s care and drove off. She had no destination in mind, nothing she could think to do. Her fury was all-consuming and she didn’t want to be where anyone could find her. At the first stoplight, she turned the ringer off her phone and wondered how far she could drive before anyone really began to worry. It was noon-ish—she could make it to San Diego by six, or to Los Angeles by eight, or if she headed east she could be in Santa Fe before midnight.

  She wouldn’t really run away, of course. I
t was wishful thinking. Driving was therapeutic, just the act of motion, of owning your time. You could talk out loud to yourself for hours and no one would think you were crazy because no one would know. Your car was private, even as you drove in public.

  The next best thing to hitting the open road was to drive the streets of Tucson. And so Meg did. She took Houghton Road north as far as she could, then Tanque Verde down to Grant, then Grant west to Sixth Avenue, Sixth over to Twenty-second, Twenty-second east to Swan and then back over to Grant, ending up at her father’s new place.

  He wasn’t there, which confirmed the sort of day she was having. The condo he’d rented was in a newer complex of about a hundred units. Rather than call him to let him know she was there, Meg went to the pool area and pulled a lounge chair into the friendly November sun, keeping her father’s front door in view. After so much driving, the lack of motion was welcome. Except for what looked to be a content old couple in the hot tub, Meg was alone. She stared at them and wondered how they’d managed to get it right, and then she flipped in her chair so she couldn’t see them anymore, because who wanted to watch successful people when you were such a failure? But you’re not, her inner voice whispered. As of this moment, you haven’t failed with Ahmed.

  But she would. Meg had an uncontrollable, physiological reaction every time she thought of seeing Jonathan: she experienced a choking anger. A yearning ache. A gaping shame. A heart-dropping fear. Had she clawed her way back from his betrayal only to have to face it all again? She was afraid, as well, of what he could do to her if he were so inclined. He could confuse her. Tempt her. Worst of all, he could want her.

  Meg indulged in a downward spiral of self-pity, berating herself for the entire half hour it took her father to arrive. When he approached his condo, arms full of Target shopping bags, Meg rushed over, relieved.

  “Magpie!” Phillip’s great-to-see-you smile was the best part of Meg’s day thus far. “Where’s Henry?”

  “With Mom.”

  “I feel like I’m off to college for the first time, buying all this stuff,” Phillip said. “Come on in and see my new pad.”

  Meg felt a weird trepidation when she stepped inside his new place and looked around. She’d only ever known him to live at 2463 East Copper Trail, in the house she’d grown up in, with the faded furniture and yard-sale oil paintings. But he’d gone all out furnishing this place—or at least he’d gone all Crate & Barreled out, which to Meg amounted to the same thing. Besides the well-chosen furniture, he had prints on the wall, faux plants on the tables and framed photos of his daughters and grandchildren. It didn’t look like he was just moving in. It looked like he’d had this place for a while.

  Meg wondered if her father had the decorating skills to pull off such a look on his own. She suspected not, although he must have been planning his move for ages. Then again, it didn’t require much effort to walk up and down the aisles at Crate & Barrel and say, “I’ll take one of that and two of those and that print off the wall? I’ll take that, too.” All it took was money, which he had. Or a girlfriend to do it for him.

  “Has Sandi been here yet?” she asked, careful to keep her tone casual.

  “I’m sure she’ll pop over this week sometime.” Phillip set his bags on his black rectangular four-person dining table and sat for a moment, exhausted from his shopping trip. “I’m only just up the road from the office. I thought about inviting you, Henry and Ahmed over for dinner this week, too, but I’m not ready to entertain quite yet. So can I treat you all to a nice lunch at the Arizona Inn sometime over the weekend?”

  “Of course,” Meg said. “You know that’s my favorite place in town.” He’d been taking her to the Arizona Inn for a fancy birthday lunch ever since she’d been a child. “How about on Thanksgiving itself?”

  “I doubt we can get reservations anymore,” he said. “Besides, you’ve got Amy’s. I’m excused since I’m the black sheep of the family this year, but she’d be quite upset if you skipped her shindig. You know how she is about holidays.”

  He pulled himself up, rest break over. Meg watched as he tried to decide where things belonged—cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, bath towels straight to the hallway washing machine, small throw rug immediately inside the front door.

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving, Dad?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “The residents here are having a potluck. I might join in on that.”

  Maybe he’d find his own little Loop Group. “I’m not exactly speaking to Amy at the moment,” Meg said. “I sort of left a little while ago in a bit of a huff.”

  Her dad looked at her and frowned. “You two never fight.”

  “She’s a traitor,” Meg said. “Did you know she’s been in touch with Jonathan all these years?”

  Phillip’s look was quizzical. “With your Jonathan?”

  Meg’s eyes filled with tears. “He’s not my Jonathan. He’s my ex.”

  He was her ex-Jonathan.

  “Come sit on my new couch and tell your old man what’s going on,” Phillip said. Meg followed him to the couch and sat beside him, both of them putting their feet up on his new dark wood coffee table.

  “Did you ever have to break bad news to someone and were tempted to delay it as long as you could because you knew the other person was going to be absolutely crushed by what you needed to say?” Meg asked.

  Her father visibly paled. Then he cleared his throat. “This is all harder than I imagined it was going to be, and, Meg, I didn’t want you to—Well, I wish you’d have—” He stopped himself with a jolt. “Wait. What were you going to say?”

  “Jonathan called.” Meg cringed. It felt like blasphemy to say the words out loud, and her dad looked as if he’d been sucker punched.

  “Tell me he didn’t.”

  “I wish I could,” Meg said. “He’s going to be in town for Thanksgiving this week and he wants to see me.”

  “You can’t let him near Henry,” Phillip said.

  “He hasn’t asked to see him,” Meg said. “And of course I wouldn’t let him. Henry’s just too . . . well, he needs to be taken seriously, even though he’s such a goof. Jonathan would mess with his head. He’d make Henry love him, you know? And then he’d leave him.” She looked at her father in desperation. “I’m not a bad mom for wanting to keep him away from his father, am I?”

  “You absolutely can’t let him near Henry.” Phillip searched her face. “And I don’t think you should let him near you, either.”

  “Do you have any chocolate?” Meg asked. “I’m in desperate need of some.”

  Phillip pushed up from the couch, went to the cabinet next to the refrigerator, pulled out a handful of Hershey’s dark chocolate Kisses and tossed a few to her. He unwrapped one for himself as he began to pace. “That man needs to be shot through his law-school-educated brain,” he said.

  “I wish.” Meg felt a tiny bit better as soon as the chocolate was in her mouth. “Since when are you a fan of dark chocolate?”

  “A little bit’s good for you,” he said. “I drink red wine now, too.”

  “I didn’t even tell you the worst part,” Meg said glumly. “Henry was the one who initiated contact. Henry called him, if you can believe that. He got the number from Amy’s address book.”

  Phillip stood dumbfounded. “Why would he do something so stupid? Doesn’t he know how this could ruin things for the two of you and Ahmed?”

  “Oh, Dad.” Meg banged her head on the back of the couch a few times, welcoming the pain. “Please don’t say that.”

  “Well, it could,” he said. “Middle Eastern men are known to be jealous. They’re like Latin men as far as their women are concerned.”

  “Ahmed’s not your typical Middle Eastern guy,” Meg said.

  “That’s what you keep saying, but you haven’t actually tested him on something like this, have you? What does he know so far?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good,” her dad said. “Don’t tell
him anything. I’m sure Jonathan went and sowed his wild oats for ten years and now has finally realized that the grass was not, in fact, greener anywhere else. He’s going to come here and try to win back the girl of his dreams. Just you watch. Don’t fall for it, Meg. And don’t let Ahmed get a whiff of what’s going on. I guarantee he will not react well.”

  “I don’t see how I can lie to my boyfriend,” Meg said. “That’s just fundamentally wrong.”

  “I’m not saying lie to him. I’m saying don’t tell him.”

  “It’s the same thing,” Meg said.

  Phillip shook his head in disagreement. “It’s protecting yourself.”

  “It’s keeping secrets.”

  “People have a right to their secrets,” he insisted.

  “I’m shocked you’re suggesting this,” Meg said. “I didn’t think not telling him was even an option.”

  “It’s the best option,” her father said. “Besides, there’s nothing to tell. You had a three-minute phone call with the guy and that’s that. A three-minute phone call means nothing. It means less than nothing.”

  But Henry calling Jonathan did not mean nothing. It meant something huge—only Meg didn’t know what.

  My wedding gift to Jonathan was a Rolex watch that cost nearly as much as our wedding reception. At the time, I thought we’d agreed that he’d go into corporate law, and so the watch seemed like something he should have. (The watch makes the man, right?)

  For my wedding present, Jonathan got me a box.

  I used to tell my girlfriends this as if it explained everything, as if from his gift alone I should have known it would never work out between us.

  But the thing is, the box Jonathan gave me had meaning. I just didn’t pay attention to it at the time.

  The box was ornate. It had been designed in the early part of the twentieth century in a well-known artisan’s shop in London. It was about eight square inches and on the top was an engraving of Pandora opening a box. In Greek mythology, Pandora is the world’s first woman, sent by the gods to earth with a box containing all sorts of evils. According to the myth, Pandora opened the box out of curiosity, thereby releasing greed and lust and pettiness and deceit and ego and scorn and a thirst for vengeance into the world. (Women always get the blame, don’t they?)