Page 117 of Pick-Up
“Yeah, so. He just seemed really blue. Depressed. Way less gungho. You know how Jamie usually is. Or was. He’s always been the parent with boundless energy!”
“Did he acknowledge the change or say why?”
“Not at first. He just seemed grumpy and was grumbling about my work hours, which he’s never done before. So, I started trying to pick up more slack, cut back on client dinners and that kind of thing. But then it seemed like the more I did, the angrier and more disengaged he became. Like, by helping out, I was upsetting his system.”
I am truly surprised by this story. It doesn’t match with the Jamie I have known up until now. But then again, that’s outward-facing Jamie.
“Ugh. I’m so sorry.” My heart aches for my friend.
“Yeah.” She nods, rubbing a hand over her eyes, maybe to change the view. “Thanks. Anyway, Henry started to ask questions, so I confronted Jamie about everything, and he just exploded. He said he was ‘sick of being married to Wonder Woman.’ ”
My mouth dropped open. “Wonder Woman?”
“I always thought of myself as more of a Catwoman type.”
“I totally agree.”
“He said he feels invisible! That I saddle him with all the grunt work and take him for granted, while everyone fawns over me.” Celeste weaves through the crowd toward a grandmotherly woman in a Raggedy Ann wig, holding a basket of Starburst, and sticks out her hand. “Trick-or-treat.”
The woman gives her an odd look, being that our children are nowhere nearby, but drops a few candies in her palm. My friend is beyond giving a fuck. She unwraps a red, pink and yellow and pops them all in her mouth at once. Like she is a squirrel.
“Imagine! A middle-aged man saying that to a middle-aged woman with no sense of irony!” she says around the lump of candy. “Like I’m not literally disappearing before his eyes! And so he announces that he needs time to figure out who he is. Without us. To figure out what he has to contribute.”
I knew Jamie wasn’t acting like himself, but I am in shock, though I’m trying not to register it. You never know what’s going on in other people’s houses. In other people’s heads.
“You know, I never asked for this!” Celeste is saying, her gestures growing more emphatic with each passing word. “I didn’t ask him to be a stay-at-home dad, if it didn’t feel good to him. In fact, I asked if he was sure he wanted that job about three million times! But he argued it would be good for our family.” She throws her elegant hands up in the air like an umpire calling a foul ball. “Oh, yeah? How’s that going, dude? How’sthatgoing?”
Celeste is usually so chill. She’s careful about what she shares. I’m the one who is the basket case. So, I have literally never seen her like this. I feel terrible that she has to go through this. But I am also kind of loving this less controlled version of her.
“So, now he’s in the woods?”
“Yup! Now he has Airbnb-ed a log cabin. Apparently, he’s working the fucking land.”
“Oy.”
“Oy, indeed. And you want to know the worst part?”
“What?” I say.
She stops abruptly, turns to face me, eyes now brimming. She parts her lips twice before she speaks. “He’s right.”
A tear tracks down her cheek.
“Celeste. I’m sure he’s not—”
“No,” she rasps. “He is. I have been taking him for granted. I’ve started treating him more like my assistant than my partner. I think I was trying so hard not to turn into my mom that I turned into my dad. And now I’m scared that I can’t salvage things.”
With Celeste, I am ride-or-die. What she says goes. I will not contradict her. Instead, I take her hand and squeeze.
We are nearing the bottom of the block. I can see our kids up ahead, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk and comparing their spoils in the middle of pedestrian traffic, oblivious to the logjam they’re causing.
“Celeste. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” she sighs. “I miss him. We’ve been together for so long. Why couldn’t we melt down together?”
I don’t say it, but I wonder if maybe that’s the problem. I have been on my own for long enough that I live on the other end of the spectrum. I protect my solitude. But maybe there is a point at which you need to prove that you can still function autonomously, even when you have a serviceable partner in crime. That you are someone, alone. That you exist without your appendages—your spouse or even your kids. Outside your well-behaved grown-up life. Your routine. That you can still come back to yourself.
There is nothing good to say. I want to tell Celeste they’ll work it out. That if anyone can make it, it’s them. But I know too much to know if that’s true. So I just stop Celeste and give her a giant hug. We hang on extra long. I ignore the bun in my face.
