I interrupted with the question that changed our lives. “Madeline, will you please marry me?”
She tucked her hair neatly behind her ears, nodded, and said, “This won’t change anything really, right? Except I get to wear a beautiful diamond ring?”
The only distinction between her words and a joke is that we didn’t realize it was funny. We were na?ve enough to believe that marriage wouldn’t change things that much. But it changed everything. We loved harder, and in the beginning, we fought harder. We both contrived every concession into a lifetime concession. You couldn’t simply share your dessert without inadvertently agreeing to only eat half until death. Now I look back and think, would that be so bad? I’d gladly eat half of every dessert and make a million more sacrifices for one more day with my wife. What I can’t get over is this: she didn’t feel the same way.
So our marriage wasn’t perfect. Whose marriage is perfect?
I pull out her journal and flip to the next page, dated June 16, 2013. The day Eve turned fifteen. I’m thankful for the reminder of her impending birthday until the words sink in.
How DARE he miss it. How can someone so bright not be capable of prioritizing something so obvious? “I know it’s shitty, Maddy,” he said. That’s it—shitty. No, you incredibly shortsighted ass, shitty is when you go on vacation and get the runs. It’s something bad that happens that you have no control over.
My heart dropped when the phone rang at six-thirty. Eve rushed to pick it up and, with a smile on her face, asked how far out he was. The limo was already out front.
He didn’t have the guts to tell her. The phone was passed to me.
Eve wanted to cancel. I recited my speech about practicing love, compassion, and forgiveness, inwardly thinking how great it’d be if I didn’t have to practice quite so often on my husband. We went and made the best of it. I assume Lindsey will look back on the night as awkward and Eve will look back on it as miserable or, to use her teenage terminology, a fail.
What could possibly be happening in the software world that trumps your daughter’s birthday, you number-crunching, tunnel-vision, selfish, selfish man?
That’s it. Each word was penned with such ferocity that it dented several subsequent pages. Maddy never said a word about it after the fact. Or had she and I disregarded it? It’s disconcerting how little I recall from our daily conversations. I search my laptop to see what meeting I chose over this extra memory. All I had on the evening of June 16, 2013, is a chunk of time reserved to catch up on Q2 numbers for an eight a.m. board meeting, with a note from Paula that I might be asked to present. That’s it. That’s what I did instead. The possibility of speaking at a board meeting felt bigger than my daughter’s actual birthday dinner. I was a new CFO. Work felt so important. I felt so important. And now look at me. I’m the guy whose wife offed herself.
I should have gone shopping with Eve for a prom dress yesterday. I’m still a number-crunching, tunnel-vision, selfish, selfish man.
CHAPTER THREE
Madeline
Seems silly to pray given the mounting evidence I’m stuck here for eternity, but please God, if I haven’t been forgotten already, let today be the day I do more than just comfort them. Let today be the day I sway their future.
Brady’s boss, Jack, is an active Exeter alum who pulled strings to get Eve accepted even though they don’t usually take senior applicants. Jack knows all the right people. Looking for a good price on a luxury car? Want to rent an oceanfront house in Nantucket during the height of the season or get your hands on a rare black truffle? Jack is the man who can make it happen. He could arrange to have a word added to the dictionary while it was his turn at Scrabble.
I was disappointed at first—Exeter’s rejection would keep Eve home—but then reality checked in. Brady and Eve are at war. Distance will at least make it harder for the damage to be permanent. Exeter’s acceptance came with the condition that Eve complete precalculus this summer, and, lucky me, Rory’s name showed up on the list of eleven local math tutors. A first grade teacher helping with calculus might not be in Eve’s best academic interest, but her emotional well-being is more important. If Eve picks Rory, the two of them will be together on a weekly basis for the entire summer.
In past attempts, I’ve padded my guidance with reasoning and related emotions. My intent was to be compelling, but perhaps it’s too much to transmit. Catchy songs and laughter get through; simple equals successful. I knead Eve’s subconscious, repeating Rory’s last name. Murray. Murray. Murray. There’s no evidence it’s working. She moves through her day like a puppet, every action forced. At lunch, John, Kara, and Lindsey surround Eve at the table farthest from the smelly lunch line, a coveted spot. Kara doesn’t acknowledge Eve, her remorse won’t allow it, but John and Lindsey study my daughter as if she’s a research project. Their hovering drives Eve batty.
Murray. Murray. Murray.
My daughter never struggled to fit in the way I did. High school didn’t interest me. I spent all four years buried in novels. Sal Paradise, Holden Caulfield, Jay Gatsby—these were my people. My mom never understood. “You’re gorgeous,” she’d say, not as a compliment. “Why don’t you have friends?” Once, when I was a junior and she was on a bender, she asked if I was a lesbian. “Nope,” I said to the relief of the Catholic still in her. “I want to kiss boys; I just don’t want to kiss any of these boys.” What I wanted was hot sex with Jack Kerouac, but Mom didn’t fish for details. I was prepared to support Eve through the isolation I associate with that time in life, but there was no need. Even now, in her grief-stricken funk, people seek her out like a front-row seat.