Still Life with Husband Read online

  Meg snorts at this, and drops a tiny bit of her kung pao chicken onto the front of her shirt in the process, causing a mother and her three kids to turn to us simultaneously and stare. After the woman and two of her children return to the business of eating their lunches, the littlest kid, wearing army fatigues—why do they make them that small?—whispers to Meg, “You’re crazy.” Meg crosses her eyes at him and lets her tongue loll out of the corner of her mouth, pretending to gag. The boy glares at her and turns back to his McNuggets.

  “Nice,” I say. “Good example to set for your future child.”

  “Good thing my future child is the size of a Rice Krispie and can’t see me. Are you going to finish that pizza?”

  Writing an e-mail to a man on whom you might have a small crush, which would be not only forbidden, but would also be disloyal to your marvelous husband, does wonders for weight loss. I haven’t been able to eat since I hit “send” two days ago. I slide my nibbled-on slice of cheese pizza across the table to Meg. I want to share this dieting insight with Meg, but I can’t. I haven’t told her about the e-mail.

  I have, however, checked my e-mail once an hour over the past three days. I’ve received another chirpy message from Sara, one from an old high school friend who lives in Syracuse, several solicitations for MIRACLE BREAKTHROUGHS IN BREAST ENHANCEMENT and/or PENIS ENLARGEMENT, but nothing from David Keller.

  I want to tell Meg. I feel guilty, and can’t bring myself to admit what I’ve done. Which is nothing.

  “Do you remember what it was like, getting together with Steve?” I ask.

  Meg pauses at my non sequitur, wipes her mouth with a napkin, and dabs at the front of her shirt. “Of course I do,” she answers, puzzled. She and Steve met at a dinner party four years ago, and I was privy to every detail of their courtship. She’d call me after their dates, and we’d scrutinize each moment. We figured out together what it meant when Steve spent an hour on their second date talking about his ex-girlfriend: misguided confession on his part, but not fatal. We discussed whether or not she could call him, and the optimal time to do so: yes, and two days after their first date, if he hadn’t called her by then. We analyzed why, after their first kiss, Steve backed away and didn’t call for a few days, and we celebrated when their relationship began to take off. I recall practically as well as she does what it was like, Meg and Steve getting together.

  “I mean, do you remember the feeling of it, of knowing that you were falling for him?” I ask, my voice quiet under the echoey rumble of the mall. “That time when you’re all sparky and flushed, and everybody tells you how pretty you look and asks you if you got your hair cut?”

  “Well,” Meg says, beginning to get into it, “I absolutely remember the exact moment when Steve first took my hand. We were walking down Farwell toward the movie theater, and he just sort of grabbed it, mid-arm swing, and I remember thinking, ‘This is the happiest I’ve ever been,’ and then I remember simultaneously stuffing that thought away, because it seemed so melodramatic, but so true at the same time, and I was scared of it, scared of feeling that good.” She folds her napkin, absently arranges the plastic fork and paper detritus of her meal into a pile on the tray. “And then I remember thinking that I would tell you about it later.” She stops fidgeting and rests her hands in her lap. “Did I?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, I don’t remember that particular detail.” I notice that the food court is beginning to empty. The throng of diners is down to a medium-sized mob, and the tables around us are littered with food. I’m suddenly aware of how nasty it smells in here, as if every molecule has been dipped in grease and batter fried. The midday sunlight streams in through the skylights, illuminating the disgusting details of our surroundings. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way about Kevin again,” I admit. “Or anything close to it.” And then I start to cry.

  Meg is looking at me with such surprise and sweet concern that I start to cry harder, and before I know it I’m blowing my nose into a napkin and swatting at my tears and trying to make sure that nobody notices me, which is probably not working since I’m flapping around like a bat. I’m just starting to get myself under control when Meg says, “Sweetie, what is it?” and then I’m crying even harder.

  When I can finally speak, I say, “It’s nothing. It’s PMS.” I blow my nose one more time and then I smile at Meg and say, “Now let’s go get you some maternity clothes.” I stand up and take my tray over to the garbage can. Meg follows me, and when I turn back to her, I can see that she doesn’t believe me for a second.

  That night, the e-mail comes in. It’s short and sweet and it makes my heart thump in a sick and irregular way.

  Emily,

  I was glad to get your e-mail. Want to have coffee with me? I was thinking Friday, 10:00, at White’s. Does that work for you?

  —David

  Of course it does.

  Later, in bed, it occurs to me that maybe a lie is composed not of the substance of what you tell someone, and not even of its intention, but of the amount of stress it causes you to tell it.

  I’m lying awake, thumbing through a magazine, waiting for Kevin to join me. Lately he’s been staying up reading, sometimes until one or two in the morning; I’m half-hoping he’ll come to bed long after I’ve fallen asleep, half-hoping he’ll slip in next to me in five minutes.

  I didn’t tell him about the e-mail. I never found the right moment. Now I want to tell him that I have set up a meeting with an editor at The Weekly. I want to mention idly that I met this person at a coffee shop. I want everything I say to float out of my mouth like cartoon musical notes, like the way a comic-book bird would whistle. I want to tell Kevin, casual as can be, but I’m nervous; I feel like what I’m about to tell my husband has the portent of a life-changing moment, a choice I am making to tell a lie to the man to whom I’ve pledged my honesty, to mislead him, if only about the directions of my emotions. This doesn’t feel casual. I flick through the pages, but I can’t concentrate. I reach over to turn out the light, and then I just wait in the dark for Kevin.

  After a while, as I’m beginning to doze off, I hear him come in. He’s trying not to make noise, so I say softly, “I’m awake.”

  “Good,” he whispers, climbing in next to me. He fidgets for a while, settling his body under the covers, making the mattress jiggle. He clears his throat and takes a sip from the water bottle he keeps on his night table. I hear the gurgle of the water moving down his throat. “Um,” he says softly, “I don’t know if I mentioned, Doug Wetzel and his wife had a baby yesterday.” Doug Wetzel is one of Kevin’s gregariously cheerful, endlessly procreating colleagues, always inviting us to attend another Sunday cook-out where the men grill meat and talk about golf and the women discuss the sleep habits of their children while doing the dishes. I spend my time at these events drifting between the two crowds, reminding myself to breathe, carrying around a handful of pretzels or nuts and nervously shoving some in my mouth every time someone is about to ask me a question. I like Kevin’s coworkers; they’re kind and generous and they always try to make me feel like I belong. But they are an exotic species of toad to me.

  “That’s nice. By the way, I have an appointment the day after tomorrow with an editor at The Weekly. I met him at White’s the other day with Meg,” I say, deliberately using the word “appointment” and including the safe fact that I was accompanied by my girlfriend. “We started talking, and he probably wants me to write something for the paper.”

  “Hey, that’s great,” Kevin says, his voice thin with tiredness. “Do you know what he wants you to write?”

  “No, not yet. That’s what we’re meeting to talk about.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Actually, I don’t remember,” I lie. And there it is, the first one.

  “So, you have a date on Friday!” Kevin laughs. “With a nameless editor. Very mysterious. Is he cute?”

  “Please,” I mutter. “I’m a married woman.”


  We’re silent for a long time, and then Kevin rolls away from me and says, very softly, “Doug and Wendy had a girl,” probably thinking that I’m already asleep.

  KEVIN AND I BROKE UP ONCE. WE HAD BEEN TOGETHER for almost three years, and for the last two months of it, a particularly bleak and cold winter, things between us had been wilting. Gradually, we had both been backing off, calling less frequently, spending a Friday or Saturday night doing other things, just because other things seemed more interesting. Sometimes, during those weeks before we called it quits, the phone would ring, and I would think, “I hope it’s not Kevin,” and then I’d brush that thought away and answer the phone. But we both knew what was happening. We were sliding away from each other like melting slush.

  What surprises me now about the breakup is how civil it was, how lacking in drama and emotional strife. One Sunday morning in January, we met for breakfast. It was unseasonably warm that day, and raining. We hadn’t seen each other for several days; the night before, I had told Kevin I was busy, and then I’d rented Terms of Endearment and watched it by myself, moistening my popcorn with satisfying tears. I dressed carefully that Sunday morning, in a dark maroon turtleneck sweater and new jeans. I spent some time on my hair. I had a hunch, as I was getting ready, that a certain protocol was necessary, but I didn’t quite know why. We met at Nellie’s Deli near my apartment and ordered two large stacks of pancakes. While we waited for our breakfast, neither of us spoke. We just watched the rain stream down. It was bound to make a person melancholy, the warm weeping of the gray January sky, after such a bitter few months. That night, a freeze would descend on Milwaukee and it wouldn’t lift until March. The huge puddles that were just then in the process of forming would turn the entire city into one gigantic, treacherous skating rink. Every day for weeks, cars would slam into each other; people would slip and break their ankles on their way to work; old ladies would refuse to leave their homes. Of course, we didn’t know that then. We just watched the water fall and fall, streaking the glass, blurring the lights.

  We ate in silence. Against character, Kevin was the one who finally spoke. Halfway through his stack of pancakes, he took off his glasses and slowly cleaned them, then took a gulp of water, wiped his mouth, and said, “Emily, I think maybe we should see other people. I think maybe we should. I think we should take a little break.”

  Since my very first boyfriend, I had not responded well to those words. I had been dumped three times before, and each time I had wept copiously, had tumbled into pits of despair twice, had once embarrassed myself in a restaurant by throwing a glass of ice water at my ex and storming out, had once begged the boyfriend in question to reconsider, had once, briefly, turned into a stalker. This time, with Kevin, with the man I would later marry, I felt very little: a twinge in the stomach, maybe, but that could have been the pancakes; perhaps a small palpitation, a skipped beat of my intact heart. I smiled at him, not because I was trying to prove that I didn’t care and that I was in control of my emotions, but because I didn’t, and I was. “Oh, I think you’re probably right,” I said, nodding, spearing a couple layers of pancakes and dunking them in syrup. I sniffed the dripping forkful, then stuffed it in my mouth. My appetite was unspoiled. “I’m really glad to know you, though,” I said, reaching for more syrup. We finished our breakfast in companionable silence, then split the bill and hugged good-bye.

  “Can I call you?” I asked, meaning it. “Can we still hang out?” Kevin nodded and hugged me again. It was sad. But not in an irrevocable, Debra Winger’s character dying and leaving her children behind kind of way: more like in a Hallmark Hall of Fame Sunday night movie presentation kind of way, more like in a Sarah, Plain and Tall kind of way. Our years together were coming to a close as the skies wept in fond commiseration. We said good-bye in the rain. I bought a pint of Triple Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Truffle ice cream on the way home and ate it that night for dinner.

  Two weeks later, Kevin called me. I was so happy to hear his voice, I had to sit down. But I had recently moved the overstuffed chair I kept next to the phone, so I ended up falling on the floor and dropping the phone. When I picked it up, I heard Kevin saying, “…and you have to understand, Emily, that I’m not the world’s most passionate man.”

  The Kinks song immediately started playing in my brain. “What? Sorry, what?” I had spent the last two weeks sleeping and eating ice cream, missing Kevin, shocked that I missed him so much, trying to pretend that I didn’t miss him; I had passed the nights lonely, the days wandering around my apartment with various utensils in my hand, a fork, a pair of pliers, wondering why I had picked them up in the first place. I knew as soon as I heard his voice that we would get back together.

  “I said I miss you. I miss you so much. I know I can be boring, but I’ll really try to be more spontaneous, if there’s any way you would consider getting back together with me, Emily.”

  “Kevin,” I said, “I love you just the way you are,” as long as we were quoting songs from the oldies station. And I meant it. I really did.

  WHEN THE PHONE RINGS BEFORE 8:00 A.M., IT’S NEVER good news.

  “Emily,” someone says on the other end, in a voice I don’t recognize. I glance blearily at the clock. It’s 7:46.

  “Yes, this is Emily,” I say. I have been jolted awake, but I quickly activate my customary I’m-a-professional-and-I’ve-been-up-since-six-thirty voice.

  There’s sniffling and then silence, and I’m about to hang up when a soft, hoarse voice says, “It’s Meg.” And I’m suddenly wide awake and alert.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Another long pause. “I’m—I’m bleeding,” she whispers.

  At first I think she means she’s cut herself, and I imagine her bathroom spattered bright red with her blood. I picture a sliced artery, an arc of blood pulsing like a geyser, Meg drifting into unconsciousness on the tile floor. “Bleeding? What—where are you? What happened?”

  “I just got up and Steve’s already left for work and I…” More sniffling. “I went to the bathroom and there’s blood. I’m bleeding. I just got back into bed and I’m not…I think I’m having a miscarriage.”

  As usual, I’m a mess under pressure. My stomach goes tight and my mind lurches to a full stop, and I can’t think of what to say or what to ask her, or what I should do. I close my eyes, try to think, but it’s like someone has pushed the pause button on my brain.

  “Emily, are you there?”

  “I think we need to get you to the emergency room,” I finally say. Is this the kind of thing you call an ambulance for? I don’t know. I can’t even quite remember my name. “I’ll be right over, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  When I get to Meg’s, fifteen minutes later, she’s sitting on her front step waiting for me. From the car, she looks fine, normal; it looks like I’m picking her up for a movie, like she’s ready for a fun outing. I park the car and run over to her. She doesn’t move. She’s waiting for me to help her stand up. As I approach, I see that she’s wearing a sweatshirt over her pajamas, and her face is as pale as I’ve ever seen it. She looks bloodless. There are dark, yellowish circles under her eyes, and her skin has an ash gray undertone that scares me. And as I reach my friend, I know that she has lost her baby, or the Sea Monkey–sized bundle of cells that would have become her baby. Now it won’t be. In a flash, I know this, and I also know that I will reassure her, tell her that everything will be okay, that probably lots of women bleed a little during their pregnancies, that it doesn’t even necessarily mean anything. I’ll say this, as I wrap my arm around her and help her to the car; I’ll tell her to be hopeful, as we speed toward St. Joseph’s Hospital. But I know. It’s already gone.

  I have fond memories of hospitals. The particular sensory combo platter of glaring fluorescent lights and disinfectant that evokes, for almost everyone else on the planet, sickness and fear and bad memories, for me has a comforting effect. When I was a junior in high school, my grandfather had a stroke. He spent five
weeks recuperating in the rehab wing of St. Mary’s Hospital, and I used to visit him after school. I would drive over to the hospital, grab a snack in the cafeteria, and then I’d take the elevator up to the fifth floor to hang out with him. We usually watched reruns of Little House on the Prairie, or afternoon game shows. Wheel of Fortune was our favorite. They were happy times, and the whoosh-whoosh of soft-soled shoes down hospital corridors reminds me of them. He died when I was in college.

  Meg and I are sitting on mushroom-colored plastic chairs in the waiting room, surrounded by people who are either coughing or bleeding. The lady at the admissions desk gave Meg a sympathetic smile and then handed her a thick volume of insurance forms to fill out, and told us that it would be at least an hour before a doctor could see her. Steve is on his way over. In the bustle of everyday life, I never think about the fact that awful things happen to people all the time: teenagers die in car crashes; regular people get cancer; pregnant women have miscarriages. Looking around at this waiting room full of people in the throes of illness and the aftermath of accidents, I want to say this to Meg. But of course I don’t.

  I never know whether to touch people who are having emotions that have nothing to do with me. I’m never sure whether to hug friends who are crying about their boyfriends or their breakups. I don’t know if I should hold their hands or keep my distance and let them at least retain the dignity of their personal space while their suffering spills messily out of them. I contemplate this for a while, then drape my arm over Meg’s shoulders. She doesn’t pull away, but seems to relax into me a little bit. We don’t talk, just stare at the television that is mounted high above us and is blaring a big, bad Jerry Springer fight, as if to remind us, the sick and the wretched in the ER waiting room, that there are people sicker and more wretched than we are.