I’m puzzled by this. My voice loses its heat. “Have I?”
“You’ve been pretty damn scornful of these women. You find something at fault in each of their . . . marital arrangements. Well, if there’s a perfect model for marriage, some ideal standard that none of these relationships meet, I’d like to know what it is.”
I have to think about this.
“I don’t think I’ve been scornful of Helen,” I say. “I even admire her for carving out happiness under such extraordinary circumstances.”
“Oh, great,” says Peter. “You admire the woman who saw her husband once a month for two days.”
“That was twice a month, for three days,” I say.
“Whatever.”
“And it isn’t the time aspect of their marriage that interests me,” I say. “It’s the intensity of the emotional engagement.”
“The passion thing again,” Peter says.
“Yes! The passion thing. Which has nothing to do with sex, by the way,” I say.
“So you’ve said.”
“Peter, what do you want from me?” I bend down and start picking up the shards of glass. As I should have predicted, the sharp edge from one piece slices into my finger. Great. Bloody hands just as I need to start prepping dinner.
“Sam, the question is what do you want from me? I’m apparently incapable of rousing passion.”
I stand there, my hands filled with broken glass. “Don’t step in your bare feet until I get it,” I say and go inside, discard the glass in the garbage, wrap a bandage around my hand, and return with the handheld vacuum cleaner.
Peter is again playing with his phone. He’s already over dealing with me. I stare off at the creek, at the manzanita trees that are darkening as the sun dips toward the horizon.
“Why don’t we get married?” Peter asks suddenly. I see that he’s sitting up straight. “Most of our friends have, and we’ve been together much longer than any of them. Last year, we went to so many weddings that rice got into the seams of my suit.”
“It was the approach of the dreaded thirty. Everyone thought they needed to get serious.”
“And don’t you?”
“Not really,” I say. “So much is still unknown. You have to finish your PhD. And find an academic job in a lousy hiring market. You know how that goes, Peter. You could be moving to Arkansas or Florida or Alaska. If you’re lucky enough to even snag one of those.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t come with me? To Arkansas or Florida or wherever?”
“Definitely not Arkansas,” I say, “And Florida is plain weird.” I’m trying to make a joke out of it, but I can see that makes Peter angry. “Look, Peter, I just can’t commit to saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow wherever you lead.’”
“Your commitment problem. I know.” His voice is deeply sarcastic.
“Hey, dude, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to not commit to being a barnacle on your ship when I don’t even know if it won’t sink.” I surpass myself: a quadruple negative in one sentence. And as soon as I say this, I regret it. I’m well aware of Peter’s anxiety over his dissertation, over the job market for PhDs—the last thing I want to do is exacerbate it.
His face tightens.
“Sam,” he says, in a low voice, not looking at me. “What you don’t understand is that we’ve got what people hope to have after the passion and initial excitement have burned out. We’re best friends. It’s what you want when you’re fifty, sixty, and beyond. The marriages that last get here. After all the other stuff is finished. Where we were lucky enough to start.”
“So you’re saying we’re already done with that . . . stuff,” I say. “Shit, Peter!” I’m speechless for a moment, which is good, because bad things are coming, terrible things. “Do you think I want to go through life missing one of the most profound human experiences there is?”
“And what’s that, may I ask?” Peter says. I hate it when he gets sarcastic. It doesn’t suit him, and it just about sends me to the moon in rage.
“Falling in love,” I say. The cicadas have come out with the darkening sky, and now sound loudly in the silence that greets my words. I slap at a mosquito. More blood on my hands.
“Well!” Peter says, and stops. He seems too choked up to continue, but eventually manages to say, “That’s a pretty damning statement.”
I panic. “Peter, no, wait. Don’t take it the wrong way.”
“I don’t think I possibly could,” he says. “You were extraordinarily clear.”
50
Samantha
WHEN I GET TO THE station house this morning, I can tell something has happened. Grady is sitting at my desk, talking to Mollie, who seems terribly excited. Susan is standing next to her, the inevitable Diet Coke in hand. She’s nodding and smiling.
“Way to go,” says Grady when he catches sight of me. “Good police work.”