Page 54 of Wild Ever After
Now, I am even more curious. Jade doesn’t strike me as someone who passes up an opportunity to share her work.
“Tell me,” I push gently.
Angling slightly toward me, she says, “I have this idea. Instead of writing articles about us or what it’s like to be married, I want to interview people who have been married for a long time. Couples at the five-year mark, ten, and so on, then write about what I learn.”
“Is that an article?”
“No.” Her shoulders slump forward. “It isn’t. Or maybe it could be, but it isn’t something I could churn out monthly. I want to really dig in and figure out what it is about two people that makes them compatible and happy for that long. How did they know that they’d found the right person? Is it fate, or do you just reach a point in your life where you’re tired of being alone and settle down with the next person that seems nice?”
“Just because two people get married, doesn’t mean they’re happy.”
“That’s true.” She laughs lightly. “Look at us.”
“I’m not unhappy.” And it’s true. I’m not. Just…frustrated.
She doesn’t give me the words back and I wonder if she regrets marrying me.
“I’m just so curious why some people seem to find their person and make it work for thirty years, while others spend a lifetime searching and come up empty.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I know, and I’m not looking to write some big, scientific study, but I want to hear what other people think and share it as inspiration or something. That sounds far more compelling than twelve articles about newlyweds. What the hell do we know about how to be married?” Jade picks up her seltzer and sips it, then turns the can in her hands.
“Maybe it’s a book. I’d read that.”
“You would?”
“If you wrote it, absolutely.”
Her smile widens. “What do you think makes two people right for each other?”
“Respect, understanding, love.”
“And what about fate?”
“Accepting fate as the reason for good things, means you have to accept that it’s responsible for the shitty things too. I think that lets people off the hook too easily for screwing up. I’m not saying bad shit doesn’t happen to good people, but believing it’s all part of some cosmic plan feels disingenuous.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but the idea of a magical intervention transforming you into the right person at the right time sounds pretty appealing too.”
Would I want that even if it were possible? Maybe. I don’t know.
“Do you think you’ll ever get married? Like for real, once this is all over.”
“Do you?” I ask, without replying.
“No. I don’t want to be like my mom, hopping from one great love to another.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
She looks down at her seltzer as she speaks. “My mom said something once when I was a teenager. Another guy had left us and taken our rent for the next two months with him. She said, ‘Jade, honey, there are women out there that get the happily ever after and then there’s us. We’re too much for any one man long-term.’”
My jaw clenches. What a shitty thing to say to someone, let alone your teenage daughter.
“You don’t really believe that, do you? That you’re too much? What does that even mean?”
She shrugs. “I am kind of a lot.” She lets out a brittle laugh. “I know that. I mean, look at the mess I got us into. We’remarried.”
“Everyone makes mistakes and finds themselves in tough situations.”
