Love and Other Natural Disasters (15 page)

I was tired of being jealous of
Laney. There, I'd admitted it to myself. I had two children by this man; I
shouldn't have had to feel jealous of anyone. I should have had a secure place
in the world. I shouldn't have had to wonder why he'd stopped writing that
e-mail, if he planned to finish it later, or if he'd just gone ahead and called
her instead.

I don't know how long Jon and I
would have continued in our state of suspended animation if it hadn't been for that
draft, and for Olivia herself. I thought that if what she'd absorbed in the
womb had been bona fide sadness, what she was absorbing now was forced
happiness. I didn't want her to grow up thinking that life is about just
pushing on and pretending it's good enough. It seemed like Jacob was learning
that. At first, he would say things like, "Daddy, hug Mommy!" because
he noticed that we didn't spontaneously touch each other anymore, but now he
accepted things as they were. No wonder Olivia didn't feel like smiling.

I'd seen a flyer for a postpartum
support group and on a whim decided to go. I thought a group of sympathetic,
impartial strangers with their own set of problems might be good for me. But
the women gathered in the meeting room at the community center weren't exactly
what I had in mind. I don't even remember any of their names, except for
Alix
—"
Alix
, with an '
i
,'" she said, with a tight little smile that didn't
reach her pale blue eyes. Everyone seemed to have gotten the memo to dress
up—by which I mean wearing pants with hems and shoes that didn't have rubber
soles—except for me. I was wearing yoga pants and my snazziest Pumas, the
green-and-white ones that Jacob nicknamed Broccoli.

There were three other women
besides
Alix
, all brunettes with low-slung ponytails.
One was significantly heavier than the rest; everyone else seemed to have shed
their baby weight at the speed of Hollywood. The facilitator was less
well-maintained, though younger. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and I
wasn't sure if her complexion was always so shiny or if it was nerves. I was
getting the impression this was her first job since getting her license by the
way she announced pertly, "I'm Geri, MFT. That's a licensed marriage and
family therapist."

The room was small and overheated,
decorated with what I thought of as office-park art, framed pictures of flowers
that neither offended nor inspired. The skinny women kept their sweaters on as
the heavier brunette and I were shucking off layers. Everyone wore vague smiles
that asked what was to come, except for
Alix
. It was
her self-possession that rankled. She looked like she'd never had a moment of
uncertainty. I found myself hoping that her husband was fucking someone else,
and that she'd find out about it on a national holiday.

It was quickly clear that I wasn't
going to get the vulnerability and honesty I'd been looking for in that room. I
blamed
Alix
. Who'd admit to fear and self-doubt with
her there? It wasn't that she was nasty, or even particularly dismissive. She
nodded just as much as the rest of us. But somehow, she dominated the room.
When she spoke, it was with authority. She knew the best way to do everything,
it seemed. While Geri, MFT, tried to get the conversation to go deeper
("Has anyone worried about how having a baby will change her
marriage?" "Where did you get your ideas of what it meant to be a
good mother?"), the group mostly stayed determinedly on the surface,
exchanging practical information and product recommendations.

At some point, it came to me that
we were all really asking the same question: "Am I going to fuck my kid up
if I do [x, y, or z]?" For Skinny Brunette #2, for example, it was
formulated in terms of whether her failure to play classical music (she hated
the stuff) would harm her child (i.e., make him stupid), and underpinning that
was the question of how much we should sacrifice of ourselves, our own
preferences, our own nature, for the betterment of our kids. Only in my case,
the questions were in a whole different league: Was I going to fuck my kid up
more by keeping Jon out or by letting him in halfheartedly? By going back to
work after three months of maternity leave instead of figuring out a way to
extend it? By being the kind of mother who
wanted
to keep her husband
out, who
wanted
to go back to work after three months? Would I hurt
Olivia by simply being me? As the discussion around me meandered from
breast-feeding to formula to nap time to nappies, I felt incredibly alone
because I had the distinct feeling that I was the only one wondering that.

I didn't think the group helped,
except that
Alix
gave me the names of some day care
providers, and I was sure they were the best. But maybe fully formulating those
questions in my mind gave me some clarity, because later that afternoon, as Olivia
was breast-feeding (with Jon's e-mail open on the screen in front of me), I
came to a decision. This couldn't go on any longer.

Jon was coming over after work, so
I set Jacob up with a video, put Liv down for a nap, and waited. I was working
out my nervous energy in the kitchen, scrubbing the counters, and I didn't hear
him come in. "Hello?" he called tentatively from the doorway.

"Hello," I said, my tone
opaque. I did one final swipe, rinsed the sponge, and then turned to him.

He hovered, waiting for a cue, as
he always did when it was just the two of us. He didn't know what to do with
his body, or with his eyes. When the children were present, he made a beeline
for them. I couldn't blame him for hungering for a love that was uncomplicated,
unsullied. I felt it, too. How could we feel so many of the same things and be
so separate?

I sat down at the kitchen table.
There was a plastic place mat in front of me with the whole world on it. I ran
my hand along it, feeling the finest of crumbs, like silt.

Jon sat across from me. "How
was your day?" he asked.

I nearly winced. It used to be the
rarest of questions between us. It used to be that he would come in and launch
into a story, or ask me something specific like, "How was your meeting
with the ESL student?" But hearing him, I knew I was doing the right
thing. I felt sturdy in my conviction.

"I want the separation to be
official. I want to stop this," I said.

Jon looked stunned. "What did
I do?"

"Nothing. You've done
nothing."

"Meaning, I haven't done enough
to make things right?"

"No. I mean, you've done
nothing wrong." But that was just ridiculous. "Nothing new, I
mean."

"I thought we were working on
things. I've been spending a lot of time here. As a family."

"And it's not working. You can
tell that, can't you?"

"It's going to take
time."

"But it's not getting easier.
Just look at us. Doesn't it make you sad, standing in the doorway like you do,
waiting? For what? What are you even waiting for?"

He closed his eyes, and rubbed his
forehead. It took him a long time to answer. "I'm waiting for you to look
happy to see me."

I felt the tears. "I've been
waiting for that, too. We're waiting to be what we were."

"Well, how do we get there?
There's got to be a way." He was looking at me intently now.

"I've been thinking a lot
today about that Doris Less-
ing
quote I used to love.
Do you remember it? I came across it in my Twentieth-century Women Writers
class, and I thought it was the greatest thing."

He shook his head. "I remember
you used to highlight novels. I never knew anyone else who did that."

We both almost smiled, remembering.
Then I continued. "The quote went, 'What's terrible is to pretend that the
second-rate is first-rate.'"

"You think we're
second-rate?"

"If you're honest, you do,
too. And it seems like as long as we don't name it, we can keep living this
way, with second-rate. But I can't pretend anymore."

"How do we get back to
first-rate?"

"I don't know. But we can't
get there from here."

"Let's start therapy,
then."

"I knew you'd say that,"
I burst out in sudden frustration. "I'm so tired of that being your
mantra. You're barely doing one therapy, now you want to do two?"

"How do you know what I'm
doing in therapy?"

"I know the bits you tell me.
We need to be apart, Jon."

He was staring past me, to nothing.
"What about Jacob and Liv? Have you thought about what this will mean to
them?"

"Of course. I think they're
better off seeing us first-rate, even if it's apart."

"We can get back there,
together. You just need to give us more time." He reached for my hand, and
I let him hold it. "See? The way you're touching me, that's the
problem."

"I'm the problem?"

"You're not open to me at all.
Do you see that?"

"I've tried. Laney did damage.
You
did damage. Do you see that?"

He released my hand, and looked
away, obviously trying to reel in his emotions. "I see that. Do you see
anything but that?"

"Maybe I can't."

With a sigh, he said, "Well,
then, I'm going to get an apartment. Much longer with my mother and I'm going
to—I don't even know what I'd do."

I shouldn't have, but I felt stung.
He must have been thinking already about getting an apartment. And what could I
do but agree? I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"Month to month," he
added. "I'm not giving up on us." The declaration was so dramatic
that I remained speechless for a second. "Good" was all I came up
with. What I didn't say was Maybe
we never were first-rate. Maybe
you
never
were first-rate. Or maybe I never was.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Making the separation official
kicked off a fresh round of grief. I mourned for what Jacob was losing, for
what Olivia might never know. My insomnia rivaled the first month after I'd
found out about Laney.

Jacob hated the visitation schedule
even more this time around, and while Jon and I presented a united front like
the parenting books advised, Jacob's sense of betrayal centered on me. I
thought about reversing my position, but in my heart, I didn't believe that was
best for anyone. If Jon and I ever got back together, it needed to be real. But
when Jacob would barely look at me over the breakfast table or threw a tantrum
at night, I questioned myself all over again. I tried not to show it, though.
That would only scare him more.

I found myself wishing Thanksgiving
had never happened. I liked to think Jon would have come to his senses after
Olivia was born and ended things with Laney on his own. If he had, I would
never have been the wiser. I would never have had to rethink my entire
relationship with him. I wouldn't have lost my best friend, my family.

But once you know there's no Santa
Claus, you can never convince yourself otherwise.

Lil said that a trip to the
Japanese baths would do me a world of good, and she seemed so certain that I
gave in. She firmly believed that happy mothers are better mothers, which
allowed her to have all sorts of me-time and me-procedures. After years working
in the ER, now she worked at a medical spa, where she got cosmetic procedures
at a deep discount. As a result, Lil looked like she was in her late twenties,
tops. She was definitely sexy, though her features were several notches away
from pretty. She had the slightest gap between her front teeth and had flirted
with veneers before deciding, once and for all, that the space added character.

I'd grown to rely on her more and
more. She was non-judgmental and optimistic, qualities that took her from being
a casual friend to my closest in record time. After making the rounds to tell
people Jon and I were officially separated and seeing face after face full of
compassion (with just the slightest tinge of disapproval, the unspoken
"But can't you just suck it up for your children?"), there was
nothing more winning than the way Lil simply nodded and said, "Well, you
never know where life's going to take you," as if I were going on an
adventure.

Meanwhile, the distance between
Tamara and me had only increased. It came out that she was the reason Jon
showed up in the delivery room. She'd apparently cracked and confessed to
Clayton, who immediately called Jon. At her weepy apology, I forgave her. I understood
why she'd been conflicted, and besides, I was glad I didn't have Jon's missing
the birth on my conscience forever. The real issue with Tamara and me was that
when I was with her, I could tell she thought the problem with my marriage was
me. She—like so many people who've never been profoundly betrayed—seemed to
think that once someone expressed contrition, the onus was on the other person
to forgive and forget; if I couldn't do that, I was in the wrong, not Jon. She
never said it directly, but it was always there between us.

So it turned out Lil was right: the
spa was a revelation. We'd split up for massages (mine Swedish, hers Shiatsu),
and an hour of lying facedown in a darkened room while a tiny but eerily strong
Japanese woman kneaded my body had left me nearly dazed with calm. The whole
place was a serenity shrine: Dimly lit with sconces throughout, there was a
subdued color palette of grays and greens and the occasional pop of orange or
red, strategically placed bonsai trees, and the faintest scent of sandalwood.
(Or was it jasmine? Lavender? Like I said, it was faint.) Lil and I met up in
plush robes to drink cucumber water in the lounge.