“Are you happy?” she asked him once. Long before San Francisco. Before they stopped trying for a baby but after it was clear that it was not likely to end happily for them. Before he gave her a firm no to donor eggs, to adoption, but after she sensed he was backing away, recalibrating what he imagined their life would look like.
When she asked whether he was happy, he acted as if he didn’t understand the question, like he didn’t even know how being happy or unhappy was relevant to a life like theirs. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, you always seem upbeat but are you really? Do you ever want something else?”
“Something else?” he asked. “What are my choices?” She saw that he’d never asked himself that question, or if he had, he’d refused to answer. She saw him wondering if what she was really asking was whether she was happy.
“You mean go somewhere else? To live? Do something else for a living? Or do you mean someone else?”
“Somewhere else. For a start.”
“Where?” And then he looked around their little house as if to ask where could be better. “And what do you mean ‘for a start’?”
She told herself to respond to Neil’s texts more slowly going forward. She began setting a timer each time one came in. She told herself she was not allowed to respond within two hours. Anything after two hours was okay. But then sometimes he’d send a second, and she didn’t know if she should start the timer over again with each new one.
One morning on the old rail trail, she recognized him running toward her, finishing his loop. Couldn’t women and men be friends? Wasn’t she still close with her guy friends from high school, and God knew there was nothing going on between them? It was nearly Christmas, and they were texting enough by then that she stopped herself from polling her girlfriends to find out whether Patrick’s friend from college was texting them all the time, in case the answer was no (in case the answer was yes). Her breathing quickened when she saw him. She decided the best thing was to say something friendly, something forgettable, but to not break her stride. All runners understand not stopping. And it was so cold. They were both wearing knit hats, gloves. But once he reached her, he turned around and ran alongside her without saying a word. He was not as tall as Malcolm. His build was leaner. He had large eyes the color of a faded penny, thick lashes, high cheekbones, full lips. She kept glancing at him and then away, and he kept doing the same. His running watch beeped. Even in the dead of winter his skin had a gold tone and didn’t turn ruddy and pink like hers did, like Malcolm’s did, too. His hair was buzzed to the scalp, and she imagined if he took his hat off right then, the cold would feel like a slap.
That morning on the trail, after they’d panted side by side for maybe a quarter mile, he said he was glad he ran into her. His younger daughter needed a haircut but he wasn’t sure which of the local salons would be okay with him bringing in a little girl. He couldn’t exactly take her to the barbershop. Jess imagined him walking into a salon and every woman looking up. She imagined them catching each other’s eyes in the mirrors without betraying a single thought. The older daughter had curly hair and didn’t need it cut so often, he said. But the little one’s hair was long and fine and was always slipping out of the barrette.
Jess pictured him fixing his daughters’ hair in the mornings, helping them pick out their outfits. The fathers Jess knew, the fathers Jess and Malcolm had, they weren’t even the same species as this sort of man. Jess tried to imagine her father saying the word “barrette.” She tried to imagine him watching a video that would teach him how to braid her hair.
“Her mom doesn’t—?” Jess began, not knowing quite how to put it.
“She said she’d take care of it. But she hasn’t yet.” He paused.
They were nearly at the first mile marker, their rhythms matched exactly.
“We only communicate through lawyers.” He turned to smirk at her. “They love us.” A lawyer joke. The fighting was so bad that they were keeping two firms afloat.
“God,” Jess said. She couldn’t help it. It was shocking to think two people could love each other enough to get married, and then be rendered incapable of having a conversation about trimming a girl’s hair.
And then he said, “Fuck her,” like it was nothing, like he was making an observation about the weather. Jess’s pace slowed. She moved a little farther away from him on the path. For the rest of the day she kept hearing him say it: his tone, the anger that bubbled there. Fuck her. She decided to keep her distance. He was Patrick’s friend. No need to be hers.
* * *
And then, more than a year after they met in the Hills’ backyard, he texted late. Malcolm was at the bar.
I’m watching that new movie about the plane crash and the actress reminds me of you
It wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t suggestive. She knew the movie. There was some resemblance on her absolute best day. But reading it made her feel like she’d accidently tugged a trip wire.
What was the problem, she asked herself in her silent bedroom. That he’d noticed what she looked like? That he was thinking about her? Hadn’t she noticed him? Weren’t they all checking each other out almost all the time? Just a few weeks ago didn’t Jess say to Phil Colombo, whom she’d known since middle school, that she noticed he’d lost weight and that he looked really great—younger and even more handsome than he’d been at twenty? Didn’t she say something to Phil like “go get ’em, tiger,” and didn’t he growl at her before lifting her off the ground in a bear hug? And didn’t all of this happen in front of everyone going about their business in the bread aisle of Food King and not one person felt an antenna rise?
So why was there nothing wrong with that, but something a little wrong with Neil’s text?
She deleted their whole history.
The problem was her response, an immediate drumbeat of desire that started in her belly. Even as she told herself not to text back, she knew she’d text back. She knew whatever this thing was, she wanted to keep it going.
But she decided to go to sleep instead. She’d let it fade away and when they saw each other next, she’d make sure to keep the conversation cordial. A few days later, she drove up to Patrick and Siobhán’s and he was there, helping Patrick dig out a tree stump. It was the end of summer. His kids were heading into their second school year in Gillam. Jess was dropping off a selection of shoes for Siobhán to choose from for a wedding they had coming up. Neil was in an undershirt, his dress shirt draped over a bush, and so Jess imagined he stopped by straight from work for some other reason—maybe Siobhán was minding his kids—and then Patrick had roped him into helping. Siobhán was making fun of them a little, the veins in their foreheads protruding, struggling to pry the root up with their spades, but Jess found it hard to laugh or speak. She found it hard to follow what her friend was saying, as surprised as she was to see Neil. He seemed startled, too. Patrick called out hello but Neil didn’t. He looked over at her but stayed across the yard. Jess told herself it would be insane to feel hurt by that. They were sweating, streaked with dirt. She barely knew him.
But there was something in that moment, a mutual recognition, maybe. If a judge were to catalog the grand total of the exchanges between them, it would read as completely bland, except for the fact of their existence in the first place, why there’d been exchanges at all. Later, Jess knew that was the moment something shifted. She recognized him and he recognized her across the space of maybe forty feet. There were no drinks to sip. No phones to hide behind.