She goes to our bedroom and returns in jeans and a sweater, her puffy coat. Outside, she scans the street. So do I. We turn left, our usual path down to Ocean Beach. Alice walks quickly and with purpose. Neither of us says anything. When we finally get onto the sand, she relaxes a bit. We walk side by side toward the waterline. “You know,” she says, “I’m very happy that I married you, Jake. I wouldn’t change it for anything. And this will sound strange, but I’ve been thinking about that moment when we were all in the conference room, after Finnegan’s victory. The partners called me in. The room was packed, and all of a sudden I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with Finnegan himself. When Frankel mentions I’m getting married, Finnegan puts his arm around me so tenderly and says, ‘I love weddings.’ And I reply, ‘Would you like to come to mine?’
“I didn’t even know that I was going to invite him until the words were out of my mouth. I wasn’t entirely serious. Everyone in the room laughed. When he said, ‘I would be honored,’ there was a weird hush. Everyone had been working their asses off to get his attention, to be noticed by the Amazing Finnegan, this legend who always seemed to hold himself apart, and it was as if they were all stunned at what had just transpired, by the generosity of his comment to me, although, of course, I’m sure no one thought he meant it. I didn’t. Afterward, when he was leaving, he stepped inside my cubicle. The wedding invitations had just been delivered, and the box was sitting on top of my desk, and when Finnegan said, ‘Where are the nuptials to take place, my dear?’ I just pulled one off the top and handed it to him. It all seemed so natural. Like an extension of a joke neither of us was willing to admit was a joke. Or at least that’s what I thought. It wasn’t until after he left that I realized that it hadn’t been a joke to him. And, Jake, here’s the weird part: It was as if he knew it was going to happen, as if he willed it.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“Are you sure?”
We’re standing by the water’s edge now. Alice takes off her shoes and tosses them behind us, into the sand, and I do the same. I take her hand, and we step into the surf together. The water is freezing.
“Here’s the thing, Jake. Our wedding was such a magical day that I don’t regret any of it. I don’t regret meeting Finnegan, and believe it or not, I don’t regret The Pact.”
I’m struggling to process this, and I think I understand what she’s saying. It’s like when Isobel told me that her existence depended upon her father’s unhappiness. Sometimes, two things cannot be separated. Once they’re enmeshed, they just are. Turning back the clock wouldn’t only unravel the bad but the good too.
“You’ve been so good to me, Jake, and I just want to be worthy.”
“You’re more than worthy.”
A few yards away, a surfer is zipping up his wet suit, attaching his ankle strap. His dog stands beside him, panting. Alice and I watch as the surfer pats his dog on the head and wades out into the water. The dog follows him a little way, and then the surfer says, “Go back, Marianne,” pointing to the shore. The dog obeys and swims back. Marianne, what a strange name for a dog.
“When I was a child,” Alice says, “I was so independent and strong-willed, my mother used to say that she pitied the man I married one day. As I got older, she started saying that she didn’t think I ever would marry. Once, she told me that even though she enjoyed being married to my father, that didn’t necessarily mean marriage was for me. I needed to find my own way, she told me. I needed to create my own happiness. But I also remember reading between the lines, thinking that she meant I would disappoint anyone who married me. Until quite some time after you and I met—probably longer after we met than you might want to hear—I still knew in my heart I would never marry.”
Her confession comes as a shock. The surfer is paddling out now, his strong arms stroking against the current. The dog is barking on the shore as the fog swallows her master.
“But, here’s the funny part,” Alice continues. “When you asked me, it seemed right. I wanted to marry you, but I was worried I would let you down.”
“Alice, you haven’t. You won’t—”
“Let me finish,” Alice says, tugging me deeper into the surf. The frigid water sloshes up my ankles, soaking my jeans. “When Vivian came that first day and gave us those papers to sign, I was happy. What she described sounded like a cult, or a secret society, or something that normally would have scared the shit out of me and made me run in the opposite direction. But I didn’t want to run. Her whole speech about The Pact, the box, the papers, Orla—all of it made me think, ‘This is a sign. This is meant to be. This is the tool that will help me succeed at marriage. It’s exactly what I need.’ As we got dragged deeper into The Pact, I still appreciated the gift. Even the bracelet, the afternoons with Dave, didn’t bother me the way they would have bothered you. I found some sort of purpose in it. Those two weeks when I wore the bracelet were so mind-blowingly intense. I know it sounds odd, but I felt such a strong connection to you, deeper than anything I’d ever felt with anyone. That’s why, despite everything, I can’t truthfully say that I wish The Pact had never happened. What we’re going through seems like a test we need to pass, Jake—not for The Pact, not for Vivian or Finnegan, but for us.”
The surfer has completely disappeared now. Marianne has stopped barking and is whimpering pathetically. I think about something I read about toddlers, too young to process the idea that a person or thing that is not in front of them still exists. When a very young child’s mother leaves the room, and the child cries, it’s because he doesn’t know that his mother will come back. All of his experience with her, all of the hundreds of times that she has left his side and returned, mean nothing to him at that moment. All he understands is that his mother is gone. He is quite literally hopeless, because he cannot fathom a future in which he is with his mother again.
A wave comes crashing up, soaking my calves and Alice’s thighs, and we turn and run from the surf, laughing. I pull her close and feel her slender body beneath her big, puffy coat. I feel tears sting my eyes—tears of gratitude. In the past few minutes, Alice has revealed more to me about our relationship, about what it means to her, than she has in all the years I’ve known her. It occurs to me that right now, despite the threats hanging over us, the uncertainty, the dark chasm of the unknown looming before us, I am as happy as I have ever been.
“I guess what I’m saying, Jake, is that I’m happy I’m on this road with you.”
“Me too. I love you so much.”
Back home, at the bottom of our steps, Alice kisses me. Lost in the moment, I close my eyes for just long enough that I don’t see the black Lexus SUV pull into our driveway. When I open my eyes, it is there. I put my mouth against her ear and whisper, “Please—just tell them it was all my fault.”
36
Subtracting sleep, the average married American couple spends barely four minutes a day alone together.
The word bride comes from the root of an old German word meaning “to cook.”
More than half of all marriages end in divorce by the seventh year.
Three hundred couples get married in Las Vegas every day.
The average wedding costs the same as the average divorce: twenty thousand dollars.
The arrival of children decreases happiness in over 65 percent of marriages. Oddly enough, children also substantially reduce the likelihood of divorce.