We talked about the food. We agreed it was very good.
We talked about how Hawaii was different from San Diego. How it was America but also another country. A country where people were in a better mood. An island mood. I told Chuck how chipper the baristas were at Starbucks. They offered me samples and said “Aloha” at the end. Chuck said the people at this Costco were more laid-back. “In an island mood, like you said. I hope it doesn’t mean they’re lazy.”
We talked about the boys. We agreed they were adjusting normally. They’d made the varsity team—no surprise to either of us. Chuck thought they had a good chance at getting scholarships as long as they kept their grades up, and he couldn’t help but recite his own history here as if I didn’t know it. Chuck had gotten a water polo scholarship. He wouldn’t have gone to a good college like USD without that scholarship because he was a B minus student. I could have said: I know, Chuck, I met you at USD, remember? But I didn’t. I just looked at him across the table and let him talk. I let the sound of the waves drown him out. I might have been studying his face again, trying to find signs that I did or didn’t still love him.
I was also looking at that face thinking what I had thought so many times since it had happened: how could you have done this to me? You, Chuck, of all the husbands I could have chosen—how could you have done this? I had chosen Chuck because I’d thought he was a safe choice. He was the opposite of my turbulent childhood and that’s what I had wanted. I wanted no violence and no neglect, and I had gotten those things. Chuck was never violent or neglectful. He was a good dad. But I also wanted fidelity. Obviously, everyone wanted that. And yes, eighteen years of marriage was a long time and people strayed, but I never expected Chuck to stray. I never expected him to start drinking the way he did either. When the drinking got worse, I thought, Wow, you can make every single choice in life with the intention of not repeating your past, and it repeats itself anyway.
Finally, Chuck had stopped talking. It took me a second to notice. The waitress was standing there with a dessert menu. “Do you want anything?” Chuck asked.
I want to go back in time. Start over, make different choices. Maybe choose a different husband.
“No thanks,” I said.
We gave the menus back to the waitress, and then Chuck got a look on his face like he’d just remembered something. With his head bowed lower than his new usual way, he asked, “Is it okay if Brad and Marcy come for dinner on Saturday?”
“Did you already tell them yes?”
Chuck scratched his neck. “I can tell them to come another time.”
“It’s fine. We need friends here.” And then, in my new emotionless tone, I said, “All I have right now is you.”
Chuck looked up at me. “I love you, Nancy.” Several waves crashed in the pause. “You don’t have to say it back. I just want you to know.” Several more waves crashed. The waitress took his credit card. “The way you look at me.” Another wave. “I think you still love me, too.”
?
Brad and Marcy on the lanai, taking off their shoes. They looked like they belonged together. Thick necks, small eyes, sandy hair. Their doughy bodies were almost cartoonlike. He wore a too-tight polo shirt and a thick gold watch that was either very expensive or very cheap. She wore a floral tunic and was holding a pie. I wore a pink tunic and khaki shorts—my daily uniform, though the color of the tunic changed—and I’d put on a little makeup for our guests. The house wasn’t messy at all, so I don’t know why the first thing I did was apologize for the mess.
“Noooo,” Brad said, like he was falling into a well.
Marcy made a swatting we-don’t-mind motion with her hand. She handed me the pie. “Mulberry,” she said. “It’s fan-tas-tic.”
“Drove down south to pick it up this morning,” Brad said.
Marcy and I chatted in the kitchen while the boys set the table and Chuck mixed Brad a vodka drink. “Where’s yours?” Brad asked Chuck. “I’m sticking with soda,” Chuck said too loud. He looked at me for approval and I ignored him. I was trying to pay attention to what Marcy was saying about her lei-making class. Maybe that was something I wanted to do. It sounded a little tedious, but no, maybe it would be fun. Maybe I’d become the type of woman who did crafts now.
“And afterwards, we can do a power walk,” Marcy said. “That’s what I usually do.”
The shepherd’s pie looked done enough. I took it out of the oven. Marcy took it upon herself to make the announcement for me. “Dinner’s ready!” she called out like a siren.
We learned more about our new friends as we ate. Their daughter Elizabeth was a sophomore at UC Santa Cruz. She was “a great kid,” Brad said. “Who dyes her hair such fun colors,” Marcy added. Marcy, like me, had never worked after she got pregnant. “And I love it,” she whispered to me loud enough for everyone to hear. Marcy had been a teacher. “Absolutely not my calling,” she said. “What about you?” she asked me. I told her I’d worked at a clinic. I didn’t tell her it was an abortion clinic, and I didn’t tell her it was absolutely not my calling either. I’d studied sociology in college. I thought I wanted to help people, but I was wrong. The desperation of those women—I think I was scared it would rub off on me.
We talked about San Diego and how much it had changed since we were kids. The freeways! The traffic! The inferior beaches with their muddy sand and too-cold water. “And kelp vomit,” Jed chimed in.
“Everything is better here.” Brad looked at his wife. “And we are never leaving.”
Marcy shrugged. “Kona, who knew?”
The boys cleared the plates and Marcy helped me with the pie. She had tons of people to introduce me to, she said. She knew how hard it was to start over and make new friends, and she wanted to help in any way she could. Marcy reminded me of the water polo moms back in San Diego. She was a little overbearing and a little insecure and very, very sweet.
The pie was also very sweet. It was delicious. I ate too much. We all ate too much because we finished it.
On their way out, Marcy said, “Thank you, dinner was fantastic,” and she promised to be in touch soon. Brad hit Chuck’s arm. “See you at work, my man!”
And the four of us stood on the lanai like a happy little family, waving at them as they drove away.
3
I unpacked. Slowly and carefully and indecisively. I hadn’t moved in eighteen years. And all this furniture was new. I wasn’t used to it. But that was good; we needed new. I would arrange things in a new way.
I put the mugs in the cabinets facing up instead of down. I arranged the clothes in the closets by color instead of by style. I hung a photo of the four of us above the dining room table. I took it down. In its place I hung a picture of the boys after a game. I took it down.
I went to the store for nails.