At being together, at placing a higher value on success than on keeping your unit together.
An odd question, I thought then, but an insular and shortsighted one, I think now. Some bonds are so forged in fire, some experiences are so permeated with feeling, that it is impossible to not see them with love.
At the end of the driveway, we checked the mailbox. Then my mother did a perfect U-turn and drove us back to the main house.
* * *
—
SINCE LEAVING THE CITY, I hadn’t texted my cohost/neighbor about anything until he finally texted me.
Was I okay?
I am, I wrote. Was my apartment okay? The dining table taken out, all the extra chairs, everyone gone, the door locked and secure?
It is, he replied. And are the two of us okay? he asked. As neighbors and hopefully still friends, he hadn’t meant to overstep.
But you did, I said.
Not his intention, and he was sorry.
I said I appreciated the apology.
Then he asked why I hadn’t told him earlier that he was coming over too much and becoming a bother.
I would’ve stopped, he offered. Or at least toned it down. He’d assumed that I’d wanted him there, that I’d wanted the housewarming, I’d never mentioned otherwise.
Was never agreeing to something agreement? I wondered.
We should have communicated better, he said, and was upset at himself that we hadn’t. What do you think? he asked. He felt that he’d always been clear about his intentions but maybe aspects were lost. Could we try from now on to say what we mean? He saw this as a chance for growth.
The lobe of rage burst in my head like a polyp. I could feel a liquid temper seeping out of my pores.
My epiphany. Mark was just like Reese—well-meaning in some ways, clueless in others. Neither could imagine having wasted another person’s time or consuming every square inch of air in a room. Because Room People were full of themselves. They believed their own perspectives reigned supreme. And whereas I was taught to not stick out or aggravate your surroundings, to not cause any trouble and to be a good guest, someone like Mark was brought up with different rules—yes, push back, provoke, assert yourself, some trouble is good, since the rest of us will always go easy on you and, if anything, reward you for just being you. Not all of this was on him though. I shouldn’t have opened my door to him and accepted his gifts. The spare key was a mistake, and my fault for not having spoken up sooner. That I’d believed everything he had to offer was valuable. My fault. A hundred percent accurate that I had no knowledge of the books he liked, baseball, television shows, charcuterie, and home decor. My uncouth assumption that when the French spoke about eating bread and pain, they were speaking to something that I knew very well. But not being steeped in the same culture as he was did not make me someone who needed his help, and that he’d acted like it was his job to improve me was both presumptuous and wrong. Why did he never consider the vice versa? For all his worldly and conscientious thoughts, wasn’t I at least a person of two languages and two cultures? And to get to where I was today, didn’t I know a few things he didn’t?
I chose to not text him back or do what I wanted to do, which was call and lay into him until he could finally see where I was coming from. Expending more energy on him wasn’t the answer. Why try to explain yourself to someone who had no capacity to listen?
* * *
—
MY HAIR HAD GROWN long and stringy. I washed it every other day but I rarely brushed it, and since there was no need to keep it out of my face anymore, I left it down. One weekend morning, early before anyone else was up, Tami in a beige sweater jogger set found me in my brown turtleneck. I’d been browsing coffee table books in their living room when, passing me from behind, she lifted a strand of my hair by its end and we both watched it listlessly fall. Then she sat down across from me and offered to take me to her salon so I could get that limp mess trimmed, blown dry, and tousled with a nutrient-rich mousse.
I said I didn’t want my hair to look like a bird’s nest.
Why would it look like a bird’s nest? Does my hair look like that? No, so why would yours? I’m sitting here trying to help you. It was just a suggestion.
And like that we were arguing. From the sorry state of my hair to when I would be getting married and having my first child. He doesn’t have to have means, she said about this elusive husband. Or a title, she added. As long as he was good to me. I let out a laugh and got back a glare. Tami asked why wasn’t I more worried about these practical matters when people who never marry become outcasts, and a woman isn’t a real woman until she’s had a child.
Some words will take years to forgive. Or never. I, the childless non-woman and wife to zero senators, wished to reach out to my sister-in-law, but she also knew how to push me away. Has she forgiven her own parents for their dismay in her just becoming a mom? Hurt can be paid forward and often is, to make your own feel less.
Tami, these are my choices, not yours, I said. How you would handle a situation is not always mine.
Her head shrank a little back into her neck, and yet even so, she didn’t develop a double chin or look any less refined.
What she was trying to say, she clarified, was that to grow, a woman must be willing to take on many roles. You can do anything well, Joannie, so I have no doubt that if you set your mind to being a wife and mother, you’ll be fine, maybe even fantastic. Don’t force yourself to be alone. Feminists have kids too.
I had many thoughts at that moment but no good reply. So, I just let my turn to speak run out until Tami started to talk again.
And once you have kids, no one will harangue you, not us, not anyone. No one will see you as a child anymore or assume that you’ve deviated from the path or missed out. As a mother, you become legitimate, thus untouchable. Consider it an out.
Of motherhood Tami had once said that there was no other job and I’d replied of course there were other jobs. Funny to me now how motherhood could work. That having a child made you a real woman who was no longer a child, but then once your own children became adults, you reverted back to the child.
Sounds of bare feet down the stairs, of hushed talking, and of my nephews trying to be discreet but failing. The fridge door opened but did not close.
I asked Tami how having kids was considered an out. The more I had, the more I would have to do, the more places I would have to go. Pediatrician visits alone, the dentist, emergency room scares, then back to the grocery store to stock up on more food. My mother would need to see them. From China she would fly over, and then my many kids and I would have to fly over there to see her.
Your mother is going to be here.
I said I didn’t think so.
Tami’s cheeks flushed and so had mine.
Can I ask you something? she said, her voice like a blade, and without waiting for my reply, asked, Do you see yourself as better than the nonworking woman? Is motherhood somehow beneath you?
Absolutely not, I said. But since motherhood has been exalted to sainthood, I felt that the nonworking mother thought herself better than me.
No, not better, she said. Just different.
Oh, different, I said. I said I hated that word.
We stared at each other for a bit longer and then at the coffee table. She put a hand to her throat and started to rub it. I’m not sure that you know this, Joannie, but you can be very intimidating sometimes.
Intimidating? Me? I thought about all the things I’d been compared to. I told Tami no version of me was that fearsome.