TWENTY-FOUR
TOBIAS WENT TO STAY WITH MATTY as soon as we got back from Great Barrington. I didn’t want to think about him, about us, about what this break would mean—so I focused on our past. I replayed our relationship like a YouTube montage of a television show’s greatest moments. Us on the beach, the towering canvases around us. Our stopped subway car. Eating pasta in bed. Memories stacked and stacked and stacked so high they threatened to topple.
Tobias and I didn’t speak much in the two weeks that followed. A few calls here and there. He checked in on me but I didn’t know how to respond. Good, thanks, just lying at the bottom of the ocean. We texted about functional things—money, shared items. Sometimes we said “I miss you.” Most important, we didn’t see each other.
I don’t think either one of us knew what we were doing. Breaking up for good seemed impossible, but the more time we spent apart, the more deciding to be together seemed equally unlikely. How would we go back to our life, our relationship, our apartment after this? How would we move forward? We were stuck, and we had been for a long time.
When Matty came over to pick up a box of his stuff, I answered the door in a bathrobe. That had been my routine—come home from work, change into bathrobe, watch How I Met Your Mother until my eyes stung and I passed out.
“You look like shit,” he told me.
“It’s in the bedroom,” I said. I walked over and picked up the box from the floor. It was filled mostly with clothes and a few kitchen supplies Tobias had asked if he could “borrow.” I shoved it at Matty.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked me.
I shook my head.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m taking you out.”
We didn’t go far. A ramen place in my neighborhood the three of us had been to many times together. But it was enough for me to put on jeans, a sweater, and lip gloss.
“You’re a vision,” Matty said when I emerged.
“Sarcasm was never your strong suit,” I told him.
“Who says I’m being sarcastic?”
We ordered bowls at the counter and a bottle of wine. They had a cheap white that always did the trick. Matty poured as I slurped noodles.
“Good?” he asked.
“Better,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real meal. My jeans, when I put them on, hung sloppily on my hips.
“He’s still with you?” I asked. Tobias hadn’t said, but I’d assumed.
Matty nodded. “Yeah. But I have room.” He had bought a two-bedroom in Brooklyn Heights. It was far less showy than the Midtown loft had been. It was a second-floor walk-up with crown molding in an above-average prewar building, and I loved it. Big floor-to-ceiling bay windows on a tree-lined street.
“He’s never going to change,” I said. I downed my wine. Matty refilled.
“He will,” he said. “Everyone does. But, you know, maybe it’s wrong to think you guys have to change for each other.”
I looked over at him. He had grown up in the time I’d known him. His personality—updated from excited puppy to passionate man—had affected his exterior. He dressed like a grown-up. He was successful. It made me happy for him.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said. I was reminded again of the last dinner we’d had just the two of us. I didn’t wonder whether he thought I told you so. I knew he did.
Matty walked me home and took the small box and loaded it into his car. He gave me a hug. “Be well,” he said. “Call me if you need anything.”
I went upstairs and dialed Jessica. I hadn’t wanted to tell her. In fact, I’d been ducking her calls since Great Barrington. I knew eventually I’d have to. If Tobias hadn’t told her already—although I didn’t think he would. She’d have tried him when she couldn’t reach me, but I didn’t think in the current state he’d take her call. I was surprised, in fact, that she was so persistently trying to get ahold of me. She’d been the one doing all the calling.
I pulled a pillow onto my lap and called from the old club chair that used to be ours, and then mine and Tobias’s, and I guess was just mine now.
“Hi,” she said. “Finally. I thought you were dead.”
“No,” I said. “I’m here.”
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” she said.
“I know, I’m sorry. Jess—”
“Wait. I have some news. I wanted to tell you in person, but I’m starting to show, so … I’m pregnant.”
I flashed on a moment in our first apartment, huddled over the sink, trying to read a pregnancy test. Hers. She had been with Sumir for years at that point, but we were still only twenty-two, hardly ready for a baby. It was negative, and we squealed, jumping up and down.
Change is the only true constant.
“Amazing!” I said. “I’m happy for you.” And I was. I knew she wanted it, as much as I knew anything about Jessica then. Her life in Connecticut eluded me. So much of who she was seemed to have dissipated over time. I felt she still knew me, but only because I was who I had always been—maybe that was unfair, too. “How far along are you?” I asked.
“Four months,” she said.
Four months. She had been pregnant the entire fall. August, too.
“How are you?” she asked.
I could have told her then, but I didn’t. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to tamp down her joy, but it wasn’t, at least not entirely. It was because I didn’t trust her with this grief. And that made me sad—sadder, possibly, than I even was about Tobias.
“Fine,” I said. “You know, work.”
“Come out soon,” she said. “I’m gonna be so fat in like a second. My pants already don’t fit.” There was a note of something in her voice … was it some kind of longing? Nostalgia? I wanted to believe the tone in her words. I miss you.
“I’m sure you’re glowing,” I said. “And I’d love to come.”
“Sab?” Jessica said. She hadn’t used my nickname in a long time. “I hope it’s not a boy.”
I laughed. So did she. It felt good, even over the phone.
“Let’s do something next weekend,” she said. “Or the one after.”
“You got it.”
We hung up. Later, after she’d asked me why I hadn’t said anything, I’d told her the truth: I was afraid you’d tell me it was for the best.
11:32 P.M.
IN RESPONSE TO MY SUGGESTION of good-bye, Tobias pushes back his chair and stands up. He doesn’t say anything, just walks over to the window. Conrad raises his eyebrow at me, but Jessica is already up. She follows Tobias over to the window and they stand next to each other. I find Audrey’s eyes across the table. They tell me to stay put, and so I do.
I don’t much feel like talking. The others linger in silence now. The waiter is clearing our last remaining plates. Audrey is asking for some more water. He hands me the check, and despite Conrad’s protestations I give my credit card. I want to pay. It’s my dinner party, after all.
I look up at the clock. The second hand ticks steadily, like a soldier marching into war. I have a memory, like the flash of a camera, of my father singing to me when I was a baby, stomping around the kitchen.
I left my wife and forty-eight children alone in the kitchen in starving condition with nothing to eat but gingerbread. Left. Left. Left, right, left.
It’s not until I hear my father that I realize I’m singing out loud. He starts in with me. Left. Left. Left, right, left.
Then Conrad joins in. His big, bellowing voice fills the restaurant, and I’m glad we’re alone at this point, save the dish washers and our waiter. Audrey pipes in, too, and the four of us chant on together.
“This is an awful nursery rhyme when you think about it,” Audrey says, breaking out of rhythm.
“Particularly for me,” Robert says. “Although I do fondly remember teaching it to you.”
“They all are,” Conrad says. “‘Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’ is about the homicidal nature of Queen Mary.”
“And the one with the well,” Audrey says.