“It’s a nice group,” I said, confused. “Certainly nothing to apologize for.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and seemed about to say something, but then she just sighed. “You better get back to the others.”
The day after the party, I arrive home from work to find a heavy box on our front porch. Inside, there’s a case of Hungarian wine and a white card. Welcome, Friends, it reads in gold cursive letters. Looking forward to seeing you again.
18
Although we were deep into the Christmas season, Alice was still seriously busy at work. Impressed with the way she attacked the new intellectual property case, the partners had given her additional responsibilities.
I dove headlong into my own work. Through a contact at his church, Ian had started funneling more marriage counseling clients my way. Most were struggling with the usual things—the arrival of children, an affair, a downturn in financial fortunes.
It ran about seventy-thirty in terms of those who were headed for divorce, but I was determined to flip the ratio. It had gotten to the point where I could predict the couple’s prospects of marital survival within the first ten minutes. Not to boast, but I’m good at reading people. It’s a gift I have—a natural talent honed by years of practice. Sometimes, I could tell before we even got ourselves situated in my office. The couples who sat on the couch together were still trying to make it work, while those who went for the chairs had already—at least subconsciously—accepted an eventual divorce or separation. Of course, there were other telltale signs: the way they sat, feet turned toward or away from each other, arms open or folded, coats on or off. Each couple sent a hundred little signals about the direction their marriage was headed.
Winston and Bella—both Asian and in their thirties—were my favorite couple. He was in biopharmaceuticals, and she was an IT professional. They had a good sense of humor about their issues, and for the most part they were mature enough to rise above the petty back-and-forth that had begun to bother me with some of the others. That said, Bella’s breakup with her previous boyfriend, Anders, had bled a little too far into the beginning of her relationship with Winston. This had all happened nearly ten years earlier, but it remained a regular obstacle to their progress. If it weren’t for Winston’s jealousy and insecurities, Bella insisted, she wouldn’t have even thought of Anders at all during the intervening years. Unfortunately, Winston seemed unable to get over the details of their messy start.
That Thursday, while Bella was in the restroom, Winston asked me if I thought a relationship could overcome a rocky beginning. “Of course,” I said.
But then Winston asked me, “Didn’t you tell us during our first meeting that the seed of a relationship’s end can always be found in its beginning?”
“True.”
“My fear is that the seed was planted during our first month together, when she was still secretly seeing Anders, and now the tree has grown too large to eradicate.”
“The fact that you’re here means there’s a strong chance of a positive outcome.” I wanted it to be true, but I also knew that Winston, whether he realized it or not, was still nurturing that seed, watering it, allowing the tree to thrive despite his best intentions. I told him as much.
“But how do I get past it?” he pleaded. I could tell his heart was breaking. “She still sees Anders for lunch, you know. And she never tells me. I always find out secondhand, from some friend of a friend, and when I ask her about it she gets so defensive. How can I ever trust her, when she proves, every time she meets him in secret, that her past with him is so important it’s worth risking our future?”
When Bella came back into the room, I decided to confront head-on the seed that had grown into a tree. “Bella,” I said, “why do you think you still maintain a friendship with Anders?”
“Because I shouldn’t have to give up my friends.”
“Okay, I see where you’re coming from. But knowing that this continued relationship is having a negative effect on your marriage, would you consider being more open with Winston about it? For example, could you tell Winston when you’re going to have lunch with Anders? Maybe you could even invite him along.”
“It’s not that simple. If I told him, it would turn into a fight.”
“When you keep it a secret, that too turns into a fight, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Often, if one spouse feels compelled to keep something from the other spouse, there is an underlying reason that goes beyond the deceived spouse’s likely reaction. Can you think of an underlying reason?”
“There’s just a lot of history,” she conceded. “A lot of baggage. That’s why I don’t tell Winston.”
I saw Winston’s shoulders drop, I saw Bella’s feet turn away from him, toward the wall, saw her arms cross over her chest—and I realized this was going to be more difficult than I had imagined.
19
“Did Vivian call you?” Alice asked over the phone. It was morning, the day before Christmas.
“No,” I said, distracted. I was at work, going over a patient’s folder, preparing for what promised to be a difficult session. The patient, Dylan, was a bright, often funny fourteen-year-old who’d been struggling with depression. His sadness, and my inability to cure it, weighed heavily on me.
“She wants to see me for lunch.” Alice sounded agitated. “I told her I’m swamped, but she said it was important, and I didn’t know how to say no, after she was so nice to us at the party and I never sent her a proper thank-you note.”
I closed the folder, using my index finger to mark the page. “What do you think she wants?”
“I don’t know. We have reservations for noon at Fog City.”
“I was hoping you’d be home early.”
“Doubtful. But I’ll try.”
When I got home at two, the house was cold, so I made a fire and started wrapping Alice’s Christmas gifts. It was mostly books and albums she’d mentioned over the past few months, and a couple of shirts from her favorite store. Still, I wanted to make them look good. The main item was a silver necklace with a pendant crafted of a single, beautiful black pearl.