Page 45 of Atlas
“She’s an immigrant with no support system. I actually saw her once.”
“How does she look?”
“She’s small and frail-looking with pale skin. I suppose some might call her pretty because she has large doe-eyes and delicate features. Her husband isn’t very tall either, but stocky. She told me today that he used to be a boxer, and that explains his crooked nose. When I met him, he was shouting at me with anger, but I remember he had deep-set eyes and thin lips. Not an attractive man if you ask me.”
“Because of his anger or his looks?”
“Both.”
Atlas chewed on a bite of his food and swallowed before getting up for a glass of apple juice like me. On his way back to the table, he asked in a casual tone of voice, “Jo, how long have you been single?”
“My last real relationship ended a little over a year ago. After that, I dated a few guys back in California, but it never got serious.” I didn’t feel like talking about it, so I changed the question back to him. “What about you? Are you single?”
“Yes.”
“When was your last committed relationship?”
“That depends on how you define committed.”
“When you agree to be exclusive.”
“Hmm… I'm not a relationship kind of guy.”
“As in you’ve never lived with a woman.”
“Not unless you count family.”
“You never proposed to a woman?”
His brow rose. “No.”
“Why not?”
“To bind another person like that is not for me.”
“Interesting. Most men that I meet have commitment issues and don’t want to be tied down, but your concern is for your partner. Maybe you just haven’t met the right woman yet.”
He shrugged. “You know my past and that my father ran a cult. I don’t want anyone to feel controlled by me.”
“A cult is not comparable to a marriage, Atlas. If a woman falls in love with you and chooses to spend her life with you, it’s a good thing. You would support each other. Marriage goes both ways, and you and your spouse are supposed to stand back-to-back against the world. That’s the beauty of it. You would be her best friend, and she would be yours.”
“Yes, in an ideal world, but not every marriage is a happy one. Just ask Velna.”
“You think you’d be a poor husband, is that it?”
Atlas finished his first portion of food and went for a small second round of the pot-pie before he answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “I didn’t exactly have the best role model. My mother adored my father, and in return, he used her. When she met him, she was a sixteen-year-old runaway from Northern Ireland who’d made it to London with no money or connections. Conor was twenty-three and made her feel indebted to him for taking her in. He was seven years older than her and saw a use for her. My mother cooked, cleaned, and took care of all his physical needs. Before she turned seventeen, she was pregnant with me and begging him to marry her, but he never did.
“But you’re not him.”
“No, if I got a woman pregnant, I’d do the right thing.”
I tried to lighten the conversation. “Then, you’d better be sure to always carry protection on you.”
He smiled a little. “I do.”
There was a moment of silence before he asked, “The men with commitment issues that you talked about; tell me about them.”
“There’s not much to tell. I grew up with a plan to marry by the time I was twenty-five, and have kids right after. According to my plan, I was supposed to have two kids by now and host amazing pool parties with my husband on the weekends.”
