The Forever Marriage

by Ann Bauer

  Pathology would have to process the biopsy; he would then add these results to the others. Someone would call her within two days to schedule another appointment. Carmen nodded. She would have agreed to anything in that moment simply to be able to retrieve her clothes and leave.

  Walking into the house, Carmen felt as if days, or weeks, had passed since she’d last seen it. Objects appeared bold, as if each was at the center of a still life: the ceramic bowl in the hall where she dropped her keys, the staged portrait of their family from six years ago that hung in the living room, a pair of shoes that Michael had left—one toe crossed over the other—on the dining room floor. Each nearly pulsed with presence. Overwhelmed, Carmen wanted to hide.

  But when she entered the kitchen and saw Siena hunched over an enormous book, everything righted and Carmen nearly cried. “What’s up?” she said, struggling to keep her voice normal.

  Siena crossed her eyes and wrinkled her freckled nose. “Calculus.” She spit the word out like a curse. She was wearing her hair in two long braids, which made her look wholesome and about twelve. Carmen ached hard to go back in time and fix things. Five years would give her the chance to … what? Exercise more? Eat more broccoli? Remain faithful to Jobe?

  “Need help?” Carmen offered absently, still wondering what happened to the people that they were: to Luca, in high school, and Michael, only a small child.

  “Yeah sure, Mom. Pull up a seat. Tell me everything you know about derivatives of cubic polynomials.”

  Carmen stiffened. “I might know more than you think.”

  “Really?” Siena’s sarcasm cleared like a thundercloud shattered by sun. She looked at Carmen hopefully.

  “No, not really.” Carmen pulled out a chair anyway and sat. She stared at the paper in front of Siena and was bewildered that her daughter could make such foreign-looking hieroglyphs.

  “Something wrong?” asked Siena. “You look … funny.”

  “No, I’m just missing your father. He would have known how to help you with this.” She hadn’t planned to say that. She hadn’t even known she thought it. And the moment it was out of her mouth, Carmen was terrified that she’d made a terrible mistake. Reminding Siena of Jobe’s absence—looming as it already was—seemed cruel.

  But as she opened her mouth to apologize and met Siena’s eyes, Carmen saw that just the opposite was true. Her daughter was teary yet luminous, her young face filled not with horror but awe. “Yeah, he would have,” she said softly.

  There was a moment’s pause, and into it Carmen let out the breath it seemed she’d been holding all day.

  The call came precisely forty-eight hours later. It was a hot Friday afternoon filled with the hazy sound of insects. Carmen was pulling weeds, which had always before been Jobe’s job. She was on her knees. And as she dug into her pocket for the phone, she understood this was it. The answer had been screamed by her cancer cells into a pathologist’s face, noted on a form for the doctor, conveyed to the staff. Carmen’s feet, propped toe-first in the dirt, felt deadened, like stumps.

  “Doctor would like you to come in for a consultation right away next week,” the caller said.

  Carmen’s heart was shrinking, becoming—she was sure—the size and texture of an apricot pit. The cancer might be spreading there as well.

  “Glenda?” she said, remembering the voice and the name tag of the woman who had helped her with her paperwork. “Is this Glenda? Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, this is she. But I see so many women, you know.”

  “I’m the one whose husband just died.” Carmen made a brief silent apology to Jobe. “Do you remember? I’ve got three kids, Glenda. They just lost their dad. I need to prepare them. I have to know.”

  Why? That was the question. Why did she have to know? Why couldn’t she spend one weekend free of the truth, ignoring the problem, using some minuscule portion of her bankroll to take her family on some wacky, roller coaster tour of Memphis or St. Louis or Austin. She could bring Troy and Jeffrey along and buy everyone enormous cowboy hats. Why not just do it, forget this cancer thing and go?

  But before she could reverse herself and tell the woman she’d been too hasty, knowledge was not what she wanted at all—she’d been right back in that hotel room with Danny, before the comet was even discovered; what she really wanted was escape—Glenda spoke. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Garrett.”

  It was good Carmen was still kneeling because the whole world swooned brightly with these words.

  “You really need to come in as soon as possible. This is not the sort of thing you let go. For the sake of your children.”

  After the call was done, Carmen stayed where she was for a moment, staring at the houses in her neighborhood and then—tipping her head down—at the earth around her knees. It was dark and wet and busy. Microscopic creatures trundled over the soil. She lowered toward the ground. It was a whole world, apart from hers, filled with an infinite number of lives.

  She hadn’t made a decision about whom to tell first. But after watching ants and mites and spiders for a while, Carmen rose and went inside. Siena was at work, Luca at his day program, Michael at baseball practice—and it was Jeffrey’s parents’ turn to pick them up. The house was silent.

  Carmen changed her clothes and got in the car, driving to Jana’s café, the only business on a hickory-lined street near the university. It was 3:20, which was a perfect time to visit because Jana would be past the lunch rush and just pulling her second Amstel Light out of the refrigerator. Her mornings began at five, Jana always said, so her cocktail hour should rightfully start at three.

  But when Carmen pushed the door open and walked under the strings of dangling chili pepper lights, she was disappointed to see that Jana had a nearly full house. There was a party of seven at a table they’d made by pushing together two four-tops, a man sitting across from a little girl, two pairs of women chatting over steaming cups, and lone people with computers and plates at all the other tables. Only one of the three high stools in front of the coffee bar was free, so Carmen wedged herself onto it, trying to quell her irrational irritation that these strangers were obstructing her access.

  “Hey, bad timing,” said Jana, raising her multicolored, dread-locked head to wave a knife at Carmen. “I’m swamped and fucking Emily broke up with her boyfriend last night and couldn’t stop crying, so I sent her home.”

  “Can I get some coffee?” Carmen asked.

  “Help yourself.” Jana went back to chopping cilantro. “Now that you’re a wealthy widow, I figure you’re good for it.”

  What Carmen really wanted was a beer and for Jana to drop everything and sit down and talk to her, but she sipped the tepid French roast instead—wondering if she should let Jana know her hot pot was not doing the job even though that would only delay her friend more. “Can I help?” she finally asked as Jana put the last of seven plates on a tray and hoisted it on her shoulder.

  “Honestly, yes. You could clear a few tables. That would be tremendous.”

  This was a change: In a year and a half of visiting Jana at the café, Carmen had never crossed the line between the front of the house and the back. But the whole world had changed, so why not? She shouldered her way into the tiny kitchen and found an apron hanging on a coat tree, tied it over her T-shirt and jeans, and picked up an ugly gray bus tub. She was headed out into the dining room with it when Jana caught her elbow. “Huh, uh, use a tray. Looks better. Okay? Thanks, sweet.”

  Carmen nodded and headed back into the kitchen to trade the bus tub. No one else, not even Olive, could tell her what to do; but Jana somehow was different. Perhaps it was the fact that she was the only person on earth who knew about Danny, and about Jobe.

  Carmen had poured everything out one night shortly after meeting Jana, when she came into the agency to ask about having a web site done. In the end, Jana hadn’t been able to afford their quote but Carmen had felt immediately compelled—almost attracted—by her and worked out a deal with the creative
director to cut her a break: doing one static design for the home page and giving Jana templates she could use to program in her own information. Then Carmen had offered to go to the café a couple of times and sit with Jana, teach her how. It was like courting. She needed a friend who wasn’t attached to her through Jobe or his parents or the kids. During their third meeting, the one where Jana happened to ask if she was married, Carmen told her the whole story. She was shocked when Jana disapproved.

  “You’re not being honest.” Jana shook her head, dreads swinging. “He’s an okay guy, a good dad. You yourself admit that. This just isn’t right.”

  Carmen was piqued more than upset by what Jana said. This was interesting. Her new friend might be a lesbian, a woman who dyed her hair Easter egg colors, and a self-identified witch, but she had a strict moral code.

  “I was an impetuous kid,” Carmen told her. “I did stuff like this: You know, I’d take off for a road trip to California with three people I’d just met. I’d drop acid then go out sailing on Lake Huron in the middle of the night. So I met this guy and he was nice to me at a time when no one else was—probably for good reason. His parents were really good to me, too; they took me in, they paid for my last year of college. My mother had just died and I was kind of screwed up. Lonely.” Carmen shrugged. “So I mistook gratitude for love. It was a stupid, childish thing to do. But I married him totally on a whim, thinking I owed it to him and I could make it through. Then the reality of ‘forever’ kind of sank in. I mean it; I regretted it within days.”

  “So?” Jana was stolid and unmoved. “You could have told him you were sorry, you made a mistake, divorced him.”

  “I almost did, on our honeymoon.” Carmen felt a flicker of guilt. She would tell Jana about the night Jobe nearly died—and her understanding of what it would take to end their marriage—another time. “But we were in Italy and I didn’t speak a word of Italian. He had all the money because it came from his parents, his mother …”

  Jana raised her eyebrows.

  “Our wedding gift,” Carmen said. “I mean, one of them. Anyway, by the time we came back, I was pregnant. Another, uh, sign of carelessness, I guess. Jobe was thrilled. I was terrified. Then Luca was born and he had Down’s. It was just incomprehensible: I couldn’t take care of this kid on my own! He’d have medical bills and besides, Jobe loved him just the same as if he’d been, ah, normal.” She gazed off for a moment and when she refocused, Jana’s face had softened toward her for the first time since she began.

  “So you stayed.”

  “I stayed and I got pregnant again. Jesus, I was fertile. We hardly ever had sex and even when we did, it wasn’t … well, anyway. I thought about leaving again when the older kids were, I don’t know, five and eight. We’d been married long enough I knew Jobe would take care of them no matter what, be that weekend dad and give me enough alimony to survive. But it seemed so awful. Really, I was trying to do the right thing. And this man had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve being left. He was good to me; he was great to the kids. So we started talking about how it would be unfair to Siena when we were both gone, you know, having Luca to take care of all on her own.”

  “Ergo, Michael?”

  “Yeah.” Carmen shifted, feeling a little looser, like retelling the story was helping her, again, make sense of how this could have happened. “By then, we’d been together for more than ten years. We had the house; Jobe had tenure. I was what? Thirty-three. And I had this life. This forever marriage. So I adjusted.”

  “How many affairs?” Jana asked bluntly. And Carmen could tell it mattered: There was a number at which sympathy would no longer be possible.

  “Just two,” she said truthfully. “Danny’s the second. There was a guy back about three years ago. Someone from work. It seemed convenient for a while: You know, all we had to do was tell our spouses we were working late on the same project and we were covered. But he wasn’t …” Carmen shook her head, realizing something for the first time. “Honestly, the only exciting thing about him was the circumstance. When you really came down to it, he did even less for me than my husband, and I would go home feeling crazy, like I was juggling these two men, but for what? I still didn’t have what I was looking for.”

  “Which was?” Jana asked. “As someone who’s never had a taste for men, I’m really curious. What was it you were looking for?”

  Carmen paused. “The only thing I can come up with is freedom. I wanted someone who would make me forget about every dumb thing I’d done to tie myself down and destroy my life. The great thing about Danny is we have a great time but he doesn’t expect a single thing.”

  “Hmmm. Sounds like marriage really isn’t the best idea for you.”

  “No. And yet …” Carmen remembered now, as if she were outside of herself watching, the way she’d spread her arms as if to encompass the entire café, all of Baltimore, the world of traditional couples. “Here I am.”

  Jana had never approved, but she’d helped nonetheless, covering for Carmen when she wanted to leave with Danny at odd times of day, even bringing food to Jobe and the kids when Carmen was gone. “I do it for him,” she told Carmen. “I like your husband. He’s the only Maryland boy I’ve ever met who knows my name isn’t spelled with a Y. He says it’s because he’s spent a lifetime being called Jobey. He really cracks me up. You sure you can’t figure out how to love him?”

  After she’d finished clearing tables, Carmen emptied out the pot of lukewarm coffee and brewed another one. Someone came up to the counter asking for honey and she found a sticky bear on the spice shelf above the griddle. An elderly man wanted coffee but she didn’t know how to run the cash register so she made it and brought it to him and told him it was on the house. When Carmen glanced at the clock and saw that it was 4:30, two things ran through her mind. One was that she would have to leave soon in order to convert some leftovers into dinner for the kids. The other was that she’d actually forgotten for a whole blissful hour why she came in to talk to Jana in the first place.

  As if they could hear her thoughts, the remaining three customers rose and walked out the front door with its jangling bell, leaving her alone with Jana.

  “Beer, madam?” Jana walked out with two open bottles hooked between the fingers of her left hand, plucked one and held it out for Carmen with her right.

  She took it and drank a tiny sip that tasted almost fruity. She was thirsty. Carmen recalled the technician’s warning her she should drink plenty of water for a few days, to flush out the contrast.

  “Who’s coming in tonight?” Carmen asked, looking warily toward the door.

  “Uh, that would be me. Candy-ass employees with their non-stop personal problems. I don’t know why I do this.”

  “I do. That was actually fun.”

  Jana narrowed her eyes. “Okay, now I know something’s wrong. If Gloria Vanderbilt enjoys clearing dishes, there has to be a problem.”

  “I keep telling you, I’m just a girl from Detroit. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

  “Yeah, so was Madonna, way back.” Jana settled back, eyes glittering, and took a swig. “I assume you have something you want to talk about.”

  “I do.” Carmen checked her watch. It was ten minutes to five. “But I should probably get home and feed the kids.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jana said brusquely. “Just let ’em know you’ll be late and I’ll send a bunch of stuff: I have a great chicken-tortilla soup and some of those fudge bars the boys love. It’s the least I can do to pay you for your work. Here.” Jana gathered her own empty bottle and Carmen’s, which still had three inches in it that she chugged. “I’ll get us more beers.”

  Carmen texted Siena and Michael but called Luca, whose blunt fingers were too clumsy to text. “It’s okay, Mom,” Luca said. “I’m watching The Real World.”

  “How dreadful,” Carmen said, then laughed because she sounded exactly like her mother-in-law rather than that Detroit girl she’d once been. “Have a
good time.”

  Jana came back with two bottles. “There’s some food all ready to go for the kids.” She motioned with her head at a large paper bag on the counter then settled back in her chair. “You know what? I’m kind of surprised to see you. I thought maybe you and I were done.”

  Carmen took a long swallow of beer and thought again about how she really should be drinking water. Slowly, she placed the bottle on the table. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because now that Jobe is dead you don’t need anyone to keep your secret anymore, so my usefulness is pretty much gone.” Outside the window, a dirty-looking man hovered near the doorway of the café, acting as if he might come in. Both women watched until he walked away then returned their gaze to each other. Unblinking.

  It made sense, Carmen had to admit. She hadn’t seen or talked to Jana since the day of the funeral, hadn’t even thought about her until the call from the clinic came in. “That would have been a shitty thing to do to a friend,” she said, which was true yet fell short of admitting anything.

  “Yeah.” Jana leaned back and looked at Carmen with slitted eyes. “The whole situation was shitty. I had a job to do: I was supposed to keep your secret. But sometimes it’s dangerous to know too much.”

  “You were worried I might have you killed?”

  Jana laughed. “Nah, we’ve already established that’s not your style. But I did think you might decide you wanted to start fresh, pretend you just lost the love of your life, just …” She made a gentle shooing motion with her fingers. “Fade away.”

  Carmen sat perfectly still—as she had been inside the MRI machine earlier—staring at the rope bracelets looped around Jana’s thick wrist. She had a sudden urge to chew on one of them, feel the sinewy fibers in her mouth, taste Jana’s sweat. “Well, I guess I’m not done with you. Jobe’s dead. Now I have breast cancer. Maybe I need someone who’ll tell me this is divine retribution.”

  Jana sat up swiftly. “Are you serious?”

  Carmen nodded and there was a pause. When she looked up, she saw that Jana actually had tears in her eyes. This had never happened before that she could recall—not even when Jobe died.