The Heart of Henry Quantum

by Pepper Harding

  She wondered what Henry was doing right then. It was almost three in the afternoon. The days were short this time of year and the sun was already beginning to sink in the sky, but he was probably as oblivious to that as he was to everything else—he was in some meeting, she guessed, or sitting at his desk writing a report, or probably just taking a nap or playing one of his stupid video games. Why did he have to daydream so much? Why couldn’t he be more like Peter?

  Peter stepped over to the picture window to draw the blinds but stopped for a moment to view the beach. She could see beyond him the edge of the water, gray and a bit foreboding, as it broke upon the shore in raucous waves, leaving fine trails of bubbles that sank into the sand or retreated back into the sea. It was almost silent because of the thickness of the glass, but here and there the call of the seagulls broke through, and then the sound of children romping in the surf.

  “Kids,” Peter mused. “They don’t feel a damned thing.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s freezing. The water’s freezing. They’re in up to their waists.”

  “Their parents shouldn’t let them.”

  “Oh, why not? They’re made of iron. They’ll be fine.”

  He snapped the blinds shut and turned around to face her.

  He was the right kind of man to be a father, strong, easygoing, decisive, and kids are made of iron. He would know exactly what to do. A good father. Although it was obvious he had already put the children out of his mind—if they had made any impression in the first place. Things came into Peter’s line of sight and then were gone. No residue. This was an amazing, beautiful thing, because for her, the children’s giggles were still hovering in the space between them.

  Bones was always going on about having kids. He probably thought she hated kids. She didn’t. She just—she always thought she wasn’t ready. And now—she was forty-two!

  A lot of their crowd had them—one, two, even three little things running around like wild animals. She liked the babies, though. It was fun holding them and doing the coo-coo thing, placing the bottle in their mouths, swaying to comfort them. The way their little lips formed a perfect O and their hands squeezed and kneaded her fingers as they drank. It was when they got older that they were intimidating. She didn’t quite get kids, had no idea what they wanted or what to say to them, and not a few times caused a four-year-old to break into monumental sobs. Which of course mortified her. Everyone told her if she had her own it would come naturally, not to worry. She decided they wanted her to have children to validate what they were doing with their own thwarted lives. But a part of her did believe they were right. She would have made a fine mother. And yet she kept saying no to Henry.

  It was really only in the last few years she understood.

  It was when she landed the job at Regency.

  Henry was clearly going nowhere in his job. Whatever had held him back in Chicago was holding him back now and would hold him back forever. But Margaret was filled with hunger, a hunger that had been growing inside her for years but that she’d refused to acknowledge. She had thought of it merely as her “work ethic.” You go for broke no matter what. Hadn’t her father told her a million times there were no halfways? No matter how small or stupid the job. You always give 100 percent. That was her mantra: you can’t live in a half-built house. But she came to see there was something else roiling that heart of hers, and one day it burst out into the open and she had to embrace it even if it embarrassed her to say it—she was after greatness. Yes, greatness. She didn’t want to just succeed. She wanted success on the grand scale. She wanted money, freedom, power—she wanted, well, it was the whole world she wanted. When she admitted that this was who she really was, she had that same floating feeling she’d had when she first met Henry, only this time it was real. It was coming from within; it had nothing to do with anyone but herself. Was it selfish? Maybe it was. But when they took her on at Regency and told her they expected great things from her, great things, it all suddenly became real. The path was laid out before her. It was almost sexual, her excitement; her body was in flames, her very pores exploded with vitality, her skin glowed, her eyes sparkled, her thighs shivered. She took Henry out to a nightclub and they actually danced (well, she did; he talked).

  And a few weeks later she realized she was pregnant.

  Jesus! It was the first time they’d done it in, like, five months! And it wasn’t as if she was really having sex with him—she barely felt his presence—she wanted, rather, to share her mastery, her triumph—not with him, but over him.

  But there it was, and she was terrified. This terror was quite unlike anything else she had faced, a terror mixed with joy, a joy she was flabbergasted to feel.

  She went into the closet of her bedroom to study herself in the full-length mirror. She was thirty-eight years old. Still ripe. Still decent-looking. Nice boobs. She tried to imagine herself with a fat belly, a huge, round, bulbous, outrageous belly with a giant belly button and whatever else goes along with it—that strange dark line running down the middle. It was crazy, but she found it somehow pleasant, even wonderful. Everyone says being pregnant is beautiful. She never thought so, but maybe she’d been wrong. Ever since she took the test she’d been touching her stomach every two minutes, half to see if it was getting any bigger, but half to see—it blew her mind even to think it—if she could feel the life growing within her. In the mirror, she was still just Margaret. In a couple of weeks, who would she be? She’d already gone online to Rosie Pope and Séraphine to check out the maternity clothes and then over to Tory Burch and Prada because she read that a lot of their stuff works just as well.

  All the really successful women had kids. Arianna Huffington had kids. Margaret loved Arianna Huffington. So what was the problem? What was the problem?

  And then, as if the mirror into which she had been looking suddenly shattered into a thousand shards of sunshine, she saw what she so long had refused to see.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want kids. It was that she didn’t want them with Henry.

  * * *

  The next few weeks were beyond horrible. At least three times she decided to tell Henry, but something always rose up in her and screamed NO. She called Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Options Center at UCSF. They were immensely kind and nonjudgmental and incredibly delicate and spoke in soft, consoling voices, all of which sent shivers down her spine. She found herself pacing the hallway of her house or wandering up and down Market Street, talking to herself like a madwoman. She should have been at work, she scolded herself, she should have been able to handle it. But she spent hours in front of the computer reading everything she could about babies and how to raise them, and also everything about abortions and how to deal with one, and also everything about couples therapy and how to have a happy marriage, and also everything about the stages of pregnancy and about Lamaze and about preschool and about divorce.

  In the end though, none of it mattered.

  About eight weeks in, cramps. She was in the office and tried to hide the fact that she couldn’t stand straight as she made her way to the ladies’ room. She was hoping it was diarrhea—but it was blood, dark and thick, and some other viscous something that filled the bowl. The intense pain dissipated enough so that she could breathe normally. What does one do when this happens, she asked herself? Miscarriage was the one thing she hadn’t read about. In a panic, she wadded some paper towels between her legs and got herself to the elevator. She took a cab to the hospital, the paper towels growing wetter and wetter between her legs. They did a D and C and sent her home.

  When Henry arrived that evening he saw she was in bed.

  “Why didn’t you call?” he said.

  “It’s just a flu.”

  “Jesus, Margaret, you look like shit. You should have called. I would have come home earlier.”

  “Why? I’m fine. I’m fine on my own. I’m always fine on my own.”

  Margaret never did tell him the truth. Instead, she
spent a day or two in bed with the flu, never complaining, though Henry perhaps did not understand why a flu would make her weep so uncontrollably. Especially as he had never seen her cry before in their entire married life.

  * * *

  So when exactly had she begun to despise her husband? She really couldn’t say anymore. She knew she felt it that time he left the bathroom door open. She felt it when he touched his tongue to his upper lip when he was thinking one of his long-winded thoughts. She felt it every time he touched her or even brushed up against her, every time he flipped the pages of a magazine from back to front instead of from front to back, every time she noticed some of his hairs in the sink or socks on the floor or crumbs from his toast adhering to the front of his shirt. But all this was so silly, so superficial and priggish. And yet these moments did happen. These flashes of repulsion. Not always. Just sometimes. But each was a kind of awakening. A warning. Despised was too strong a word. She didn’t despise him. The word contempt sometimes came into her head, and she tried very hard to dispel it, because she knew what that meant—when couples had contempt for their partners it meant the marriage was over.

  But now, at this very moment—in this faraway hotel room with the closed blinds and shut door, and the salty, damp air, and the surf rolling somewhere in the distance, and the tinkling laughter of children in the waves, and the blond man standing by the window—the sad truth dawned on her. She could no longer suppress words like “contempt” or hide from other words like “despair,” or put her hopes into some lockbox and make believe there were no regrets. Her face revealed nothing and her voice was the same as before, but it really wasn’t until this very second she admitted she was ready to end her marriage to Henry.

  Peter let go of the blinds. He stepped toward her and took her hands in his, roughly, like he was crushing two walnuts. When Henry took her hands it was more like he was holding two wafers at Communion. She could see that Peter was pleased that she was trembling, and he drew her to him so forcefully her breasts smashed upon his chest, and when he pinned her hands behind her back their bodies were touching from head to toe and there was no space between them, no space at all, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe, but then he released her hands and slid his palms down onto her hips, her thighs.

  To be taken by such a man as this! So alive, so vital. His eyes were so blue, so full of steel, and his hair so blond, like a laurel of gold.

  She wanted to be inside this man, inside this moment.

  But she couldn’t help pulling back just a little.

  She knew he was going through a nasty divorce and that he was currently living in a rented apartment with hardly any furniture in it, and that his wife had the house, and that she wasn’t quite sure what he did for a living, and that somewhere he had two children, but he hardly mentioned them. This concerned her: the fact that she’d never met his children, because why was he shielding them from her?

  Of course she was being absurd—how would he introduce her to his children? Kids, this is my lover, Margaret, who is also married, by the way, and, no, your mother and I are never getting back together because as you can see, I prefer Margaret to her by a long shot, so go ahead, give her a big hug!

  Crazy.

  But it was all about the children, wasn’t it? All about the children.

  His lips were but a millimeter from her own, and his hands were cupping her buttocks and his fingers were groping the space between them and she felt him ratchet up the hem of her skirt and then the galvanizing roughness of his right hand on her left thigh sent a pulse through her entire body, and she cried out, “Peter, I have to meet your kids!”

  “What?” he said.

  “What?” she replied.

  “What did you say?”

  “Did I say something?”

  “You asked about my kids.”

  “I did?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Margaret, what’s with you today?”

  “No, no!” she said. “Don’t move away! Stay. Keep doing what you were doing.”

  “Margaret, sit down. We need to talk.”

  “No, no, I don’t want to talk!”

  “Well, I do,” he said. “You sound so—”

  “I’m not neurotic!” she cried. “I’m the least neurotic person I know!”

  “I didn’t say you were neurotic. For Christ’s sake, just sit down!”

  She collapsed beside him on the edge of the bed. Immediately she noticed the mattress was too firm for her, but she ordered herself not to say anything about it, to let it go.

  “Margaret,” he said, “what’s going on with you?”

  “This bed is too hard,” she said.

  “It’s not the bed that’s too hard for you. You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you? ”

  “No, it’s just the bed.”

  “It’s all this subterfuge. Maybe you just can’t do this anymore.”

  She noticed her fists had hardened into little balls, and she snarled, “Are you talking about me or are you talking about you?”

  “Why must you deflect everything?”

  “I’m not deflecting anything. Did I say I’m having second thoughts? Did I say it’s too hard for me?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “So why are you attacking me?”

  “I’m not attacking you, Margaret.”

  “Then why do I feel attacked? The fucking bed is too hard. It’s bad for your back.”

  Peter sighed and looked away.

  “Oh Jesus, Peter, come back,” she cried. “I’m just, I don’t know. It was the bridge. It was that woman, or girl, or whatever she was. Can’t you understand it upset me? Wouldn’t you be upset, seeing someone jump off the Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “She didn’t jump,” said Peter.

  Margaret slapped herself. “Oh shit!” she cried. “I forgot completely. I left it in the fucking car.”

  “What did you leave? I’ll get it for you.”

  “No,” she said, “in the MINI Cooper. My Christmas present for you. I have this present I want to give you.” Suddenly she was weeping, just weeping, and it was crazy because what was the big deal? “From Tiffany’s,” she cried.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Honestly. I don’t need a gift. I have you.” And she knew at that moment that he hadn’t bought her anything for Christmas. She felt a little ridiculous, because, of course, presents are superfluous if you have love.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone jump. But I could imagine it. I could feel what it was like. You know what I mean?”

  “Not really.”

  Only now did he stand up and, without a word, pulled her into his arms. His face loomed above her, the mop of blond hair framing his pale blue eyes, the tan skin glowing even in winter, the slight pudginess of his cheeks and neck bespeaking health and the kind of imperviousness that comes with being one of the owners of the world, and not, like Henry, a mere observer. She glanced down at his hands and at his school ring and on his other hand the mark where his wedding band used to be, and then up to the tie he was wearing—a tie even on a day of trysting—as usual it hung slightly askew from his collar. She took note of his lips, which she always thought of as sweet but in fact were firm and hard, and then she dared to stare back into his eyes, which were so intensely focused on the pleasure he was about to experience.

  “You don’t think about all that much, do you?” she said.

  “I guess not,” he said.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I really am.”

  And with that he began to methodically unbutton her blouse with his practiced hand, one button and then another and another, and she knew with absolute certainty that each button opened was a step she was taking off the edge of her own Golden Gate Bridge, and that when no buttons were left and her breasts were exposed to his callused hands, she would have already leapt beyond the railings, and in her falling she would be filled with regret, but also exultation, and for once in her life she would be fly
ing without ropes, without a net, and without ever again having the chance to go home.

  PART THREE

  DAISY

  CHAPTER 9

  * * *

  December 23rd, 2:24–2:35 p.m.

  What exactly was in Daisy’s mind we don’t know, only that she uttered aloud, “Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, you ninny, you idiot.” No doubt she wished she could compress herself into the size of an atom or a molecule like one of her retinal neurons and disappear into the glop of some cosmic eyeball, but in fact she waited (and waited) for Henry in front of SlinkyBlink thinking, or hoping at least, that he would follow her, and when after an interminable five minutes he hadn’t, she felt herself grow slightly hysterical and had to remind herself that he needed to pay the bill and that takes time, but after another five minutes and then another, that battle was lost: she burst into tears. People on the street began staring at her, and one young woman even came up to her and offered to call a cab. This was so humiliating she couldn’t even manage a thank-you and instead ran off in the direction of the garage, up the Sutter Street hill. Get it together, she scolded herself. But the tears still burned in her eyes and the stifled sobs constricted her throat and made it hard to breathe. She was standing at the pay station when out of the corner of her eye she saw him—Henry passing the entrance to the garage—and by some perverse instinct hid herself behind the ticket machine. Only when she was sure he had gone did she step out onto the street to watch him disappear past the Starbucks on the corner. She didn’t call out, didn’t run after him. She did take out her hanky and blow her nose. Then she went back inside, put her money in the ticket machine, and made her way to her car.

  Daisy had moved all the way out to Fairfax in Marin County several years before, so she had a long drive, which would at least give her time to think, but it was not thought that filled her, it was desire: not carnal desire, but desire of the soul—she wanted what she had once possessed but had discarded like old wrapping paper. She wanted her companion; she wanted peace; she wanted laughter in her bed and passion in her veins. She wanted Bones—her dear, beautiful Bones, her funny, silly, brilliant, impossibly possible Bones. When you lose something, she thought, you can’t have it back just because you want it. You have to accept loss. That’s what Bones was always telling her about Buddha. You can’t hold on. You can’t become attached. But all these years had passed and she had not accepted.