Page 53 of Two Friends in Marriage
He shakes his head.“Who are you?”
“I’m Jane.”After handing the wine bottle to Isobel—who murmurs her thanks—I bend down, both to get closer to Nolan’s height and to take off my shoes.
“Remember we went to a wedding earlier this summer?”Isobel says.“That was Uncle Evan and Auntie Jane’s wedding.”
Nolan twists his lips.“I remember,” he says to me.“But you looked different then.”
“Yes, I was wearing a white dress.”
“Like a princess.”He pauses and tilts his head.“You don’t look like a princess now.”
I shouldn’t be insulted that a four-year-old is telling me I don’t look like a princess, yet I feel a smidgen of irrational disappointment.
“I think she looks very pretty,” Evan says as I stand up.He puts a hand on my lower back, which, weirdly enough, has started to itch.
“She is pretty.”Nolan nods solemnly.“But she doesn’t look like a princess.”
“What do I look like?”I ask.“A stegosaurus?”
I hope I’m doing okay at this.I haven’t spent much time around children.Even when my half-siblings were this age—and that was over a decade ago—I didn’t see them often.Yet despite my lack of experience, I want to have kids of my own.
“No!”He laughs.“Stegosauruses don’t wear jeans.”
Well, then.That sounds pretty definitive.
Nolan proudly shows us his Hot Wheels and spends ten minutes lining up the cars while making loud zoom noises.When he and Evan are busy adjusting the track, I itch my back before taking a sip of wine and helping myself to some baby carrots.
Isobel’s wife, Daisy, announces that dinner is ready a few minutes later, and we crowd around the table and eat spaghetti and meatballs and the most delicious garlic bread I’ve ever had.When I ask Daisy for the recipe, I feel extremely domestic.But my skin is still itchy, and even homemade pie isn’t enough to make me forget about it.
Once dinner is finished, Nolan wants to play at the park.After making sure he’s gone to the washroom so he—hopefully—doesn’t have to go while he’s out, Isobel asks if Evan and I would mind taking him by ourselves.Evan looks at me, and when I don’t have any objections, he nods.
Nolan assures us that he knows the way and we “don’t have to look at our phones” to get there.As we take the elevator, I think about how different the world is from the one I grew up in, how different our children’s childhood would be from our own.
When we have to cross the “big street,” Nolan reaches for Evan’s hand without being asked, and for some reason, that makes my eyes water.If I saw a random person holding a kid’s hand, it wouldn’t affect me, but the fact that it’s Evan—and a child whom I’ll watch grow up, presuming I don’t fuck up this marriage…
“Look at me, Auntie Jane!”Nolan calls, rushing up a slide.A smaller child watches avidly, perhaps trying to figure out whether she, too, can use slides in that way.
But it’s those words, so easily spoken, that stop me in my tracks.Sure, his mother introduced me as that, but now he’s calling me “auntie” without any prompting.
“Oh wow!”I say, unable to come up with any more words.
Evan also looks toward me, and something catches in my throat.How did I not realize before that he’s incredibly good-looking?I know this is how things work for me, but it seems impossible now, given how much I’m affected by him.There’s something about him that just makes me…itch.
At the top of the slide, Nolan turns around.He’s about to slide back down when the smaller child puts her foot onto the slide and tries to climb.An adult whisks her away just as Nolan releases his grasp on the edge of the slide.
“Did you see me?”He runs up to me.
“I did.Is that one of yours?”I point to a toy car on the ground near the slide.
“Benny!”he cries, running toward it.He grabs the car and runs back to me.
“How many other cars do you have in your pockets?”I ask.
He holds out two.
“Do you want me to keep them safe while you play?”
He nods vigorously, hands them over, and goes back to the playground, this time deciding to tackle the swings while I sit on the bench.He can get himself moving a little, but not too well, and he asks Evan to give him pushes so he can go higher.
