Page 30 of Summer Romance

This is how it is, how it’s always been. The fact that I’m going to have to repeat this conversation to Ethan makes me cringe. My schedule/plans/wants are entirely dependent on Pete’s being satisfied first. My ability to repay my debt to Ethan and, more important, get my second date depends onwhether Pete decides he wants to go cycling. The worst part is that I’m uncomfortable asking him for this small courtesy.

Me: Let me know as soon as you decide

Not for the first time today, I try to retrace my steps to figure out how I got from being the girl Ethan remembers to being the woman sitting in this place right here. The most disturbing part of the balance of power in my relationship with Pete is that I was complicit, chipping off pieces of myself and offering them to him until all that was left is who I am now. Because when things first started feeling not-quite-right between us, I panicked. That wedding dress charm was firmly affixed to my bracelet, and we’d promised all those wedding guests that we’d stay married forever. I was determined to make it work.

I probably wouldn’t have married Pete if I hadn’t gotten pregnant with Greer. We’d only been together a year and we were both working so much that it still felt like date night whenever we were together. I had my own place in the West Village and my own money. I had work friends and a handbag that I bought at a sample sale downtown. I loved how Pete was all in on everything—his job, his bicycling, his weekend soccer league. I loved how he was sort of single-minded about where he wanted to go and how he wanted things to be. I loved the deliberate way he hung up his suit at the end of the day, first the pants folded along the crease, then the jacket fitted perfectly to the specially designed wooden hangar. Always hung up, always facing left. Pete was a person next to whom things made sense.

But then I was pregnant. I was terrified, and my mother was elated. She couldn’t get over my good luck, “getting”pregnant like it was something that happened to you rather than something you pursued with all of your life force. Once I got used to the idea, I was excited too. I hatched a new plan where I’d be married with a baby and still be great at my job. At home, Pete and I would wade through all that happy chaos you see on sitcoms, but with the ease and order of the couples inReal Simplemagazine. We got married, and it wasn’t until I was on bed rest and had to ask Pete for help that I realized he was all in on everything but me. It was as if he saw my needing him as a weakness or a breach of contract, and he was annoyed. When my maternity leave was over, Greer had only been out of the NICU one week, and I had a minor panic attack at my desk on my first day back at work. I knew that Pete was never going to step up when we needed him. I told myself I was lucky we could afford for me to quit my job, and I did. Pete took another step away.

My new plan was to be a great stay-at-home mom and wife. There is no shortage of chaos to be smoothed out in a household with a baby. I ironed onesies and stacked them in piles according to the rainbow. I strained vegetables and jarred them for the week. I consolidated our household finances into a spreadsheet that fed into tax software. I adopted Ferris for reasons I’ll never understand. It had something to do with Greer’s first word being “dog” and me feeling guilty for getting pregnant again so quickly. Things still weren’t right. Then Iris was born just sixteen months after Greer, and she came into the world in an easier way. I waited for him to notice how beautiful our family was. I waited for him to look at our daughters the way he looked at his new road bike.

My mother said come to Beechwood. She always said come to Beechwood. It was her dream to have me back home with my family. I resisted because moving home felt like giving up, and I knew it would be harder to go back to work once I’d left the city. But she was lonely, and eventually I warmed to the idea of the girls out here collecting crab shells in the Long Island Sound and drinking milkshakes at the counter at the Hogan Diner. I loved the idea that they’d know her in the intimate way you know a grandparent that you see every day. Maybe they’d even get to know my dad. I thought maybe I could find part-time work as a bookkeeper, just to make some money and feel like I was making sense of something. So we moved, and my mom brought me the little brick house charm as a housewarming gift.

Things still weren’t right.

The first time I saw my mom notice how bad things were in my marriage, there was actual fear on her face. My life with this man and these children was her dream come true. The opposite of this dream was her worst fear—me being alone. She was always hung up on my being an only child, but it never bothered me.

She helped with Greer and Iris, and I tried to set up our home. After living in the city, I couldn’t get over the size of my pantry—three feet wide with five shelves. My mom, the girls, and I went to the Container Store for the first time all together and ran our hands over the glass containers and beige shelf liners. I spent a hundred and fifty dollars on organizing gear for that pantry, all of which sat in two identical bags in my garage for years. Pete came home tired from the train, baffled by the noise and the mess and the fact thathe had to get back on that train again in the morning. What baffled him more was that I didn’t. I saw my work as keeping people alive. He saw my work as going to the playground and lounging through naptime, the work of a child. At some point Pete and I stopped talking other than in a transactional way. There was so much silence in all that noise.

Cliffy was our last shot at making it work. Maybe if we were outnumbered, we’d see this family as something bigger than ourselves. Something big enough to hold on to. But a third child pushed me more deeply into overwhelm, and Pete offered to take over the family finances. I was stunned by this offer of help, the first in years from what I remembered. I would have preferred that he take over the grocery shopping, but that wasn’t on offer. So he did, and I kept on with the kids and the house and the river of laundry that flows aggressively into my basement. And when my mom died, I went completely numb. It’s been an unexpectedly painful consequence of her death to realize that, in my home, my mother was the freshly painted shutters that kept anyone from noticing the foundation was rotten.

Greer laughs at something on her phone. Iris has gotten up and is dribbling the soccer ball down by the creek. Cliffy’s head is heavy on my shoulder. It’s so peaceful here without Pete. I wonder how my mom would react to knowing her worst fears have been realized, and that it’s absolutely fine.

Pete shows upto get the kids at one on Saturday without texting beforehand. It’s an act of aggression, and I know this because I’ve known Pete for fifteen years. Pete’s selfish,but he likes to announce himself.I’m on the 5:26 train. Leaving the gym now. Home in 20.This always felt like an act of self-importance, like he wanted to be preceded by some guy with a horn to herald his arrival. Greer and Iris scramble to get ready, and Cliffy tosses some markers and a watercolor set in his backpack. I ask Pete when they’ll be back.

“Not sure, I’ll text you.” He nods to the kitchen island, where my broken laundry basket rests on the mountain of unopened mail. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

I hold his gaze for a second. There’s a whole marriage’s worth of things to say, but I say, “Come on, guys, let’s go.”

When the kids are in the car, I stand between Pete and the driver’s door. It’s like my body knows I have something to say, and it wants to force the issue.

“I need to know when they’ll be back, because I have things to do today.”

He responds as if I’m hard of hearing. “Got it. I’ll text you when we’re on our way.”

“What if I’m not home?”

“Where would you be?” he asks. Fresh rage simmers. It doesn’t boil, but it’s a strong simmer. I sort of like the way it courses through my veins and turns my chest into a hot, beating molten burst of fire.

“I’d be working.” Or with a friend. I’d be swimming or drunk at a bar or lying on a massage table or serving soup to the homeless. Maybe I’d be riding my goddamn bike all over kingdom come. “I’d be out, as in not here.” My voice is shaky and betrays just how seldom I’ve spoken up for myself in the past few years.

“Jeez, Ali. Relax. I’ll text you.”

18

With shaky fingers, I text Ethan that I have a few hours. He tells me to come over. I don’t want him to see me like this. I want him to flirt with me through a fence and say something about my being the one. I want him to give me a look that tells me we’re in on the same joke. But maybe now that he’s seen me around Pete, that’s too much to ask. I’m not the Ali Morris he remembers.

I find him seated on a box in the middle of the living room surrounded by other boxes. “I literally can’t start,” he says.

“It’s a lot,” I say, as I do to every client when they shut down. I acknowledge their feelings and then inspire them to move forward. I saw this in a YouTube video on personal coaching.

“Are you okay?” he asks, getting up and walking toward me. I have the sense that he’s going to reach out for me and then doesn’t.

“I’m fine. Pete’s an ass.”

“Didn’t he take the kids?”

“He did, but he also did this thing. It’s this dismissive thing. It’s hard to explain.” He narrows his eyes at me, like he’s concerned. His face is so open, like he’s ready to take in whatever I have to tell him. It’s almost hypnotic, the way that draws me in. But I don’t want to be this Ali right now, the one who was just told to relax in front of her children. I straighten my shoulders. “We’re going to make four piles—one to keep, one to throw out, one to donate, and one to sell.” I still feel the adrenal rush of wanting to murder Pete with my bare hands, and saying these words that I’ve said a million times in my calming voice is settling me.

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