Judith
It sounds so old-school now, but I left all the important communication to Nate back when we first started dating. The first I love you. The first conversation about being exclusive. The first mention of marriage, even though I was already planning our wedding in my head.
I thought we were going on an adventure together, and in a way I guess we were. There was the first pregnancy. Our move out to the swim and tennis neighborhood in the suburbs, where the public schools were better and where we were surrounded by other couples starting families and raising children.
Like all the neighborhoods around it, River Forge was a place where the first day of school required a moms’ brunch hosted by a mother sending off a child for the first time, and Halloween meant a pre-trick-or-treating party at the clubhouse that had been turned into a haunted house. Easter included a neighborhood-wide Easter egg hunt, and the Christmas holidays featured a cookie exchange and an adults-only party at somebody’s house. The entire neighborhood resembled a ghost town over spring break.
When we first moved to River Forge, there were a few older neighbors whose kids were grown and who seemed vaguely out of place. It never occurred to me that I might become one of them someday, but the school schedule no longer means anything to me, and I’m often surprised when I hear the school bus rumbling down the hill toward our cul-de-sac. When the neighborhood kids show up selling Girl Scout Cookies, or pine straw, or wrapping paper, I often don’t know or recognize them.
Nathan believes your home is your castle and there’s no reason to ever move, but most of the neighbors who moved into River Forge around the time we did have already left and downsized like Meena and Stan did. Even the holdouts have their houses on the market or are thinking about it.
Which is why we are now the old farts, the sick and dying animals left behind when the herd moves on.
Today this old fart is making meringues to take to the neighborhood cookie exchange. I’m known for my meringues—what my kids used to refer to as “cloud” cookies because of their free-form shapes and sugary airiness. Ethan liked them stuffed with chocolate bits. Ansley considered the chocolate bits intruders, so I always made her a separate batch unsullied with chocolate. Out of habit, I continue to make them both ways and will put some of each kind on the tray I’ll take to the exchange and into the gift tins that I’ll fill for Nate’s key employees, as well as the lawn guy and the mailman. I’ll make fresh batches just before the kids come home for Christmas. Can it really be just two weeks away?
I whip up the meringue and mix the chocolate bits into the batter. As I drop rounded spoonfuls onto the baking sheets, I think about Meena and her move ITP (Inside the Perimeter). How vastly her life has changed. How much mine has stayed the same. At least on the surface.
Once the trays are in the oven and the timer is set, I go down to the basement, where I wrestle the Christmas decorations out of storage and drag the artificial tree toward the stairs. When I hear the lawn mower start up and see Gabe mow past the basement windows, I run out and ask him if he can help me carry up the tree.
“Sure, Miz Aimes, no problem.”
At my direction, he carries it upstairs and places it in a corner of the family room not far from the fireplace. While he goes back down for the decorations, I place some still-warm meringues in an open tin and give it to him along with the envelope with the holiday card and the cash we give him every year.
“Have a happy holiday.”
“Thanks, Miz Aimes. You, too.”
The last of the cookies are cooling on their racks and the holiday tins are open and laid out all over the kitchen counter and island when my phone rings. I know it’s Nate because I hear Frank Sinatra belting out “My Way”: a newly assigned ringtone that is not intended as a compliment.
Given how little I’ve heard from him this trip, I consider not answering. But just before it goes to voice mail, I do. “Hello?”
All I hear is ambient sound. The hum of conversation. Cutlery on china. Nate’s voice and another that is heavily accented.
“Nate? Helloooo??”
Being butt-dialed is so insulting. Especially given his lack of communication. I’ve been the recipient of the occasional text, a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Another of the Colosseum. Not a single “Wish you were here.”
“Damn it, Nathan. Are you there or not?” I’m about to hang up when his voice rises above the ambient background noise.
“Congratulations on your anniversary.” Nate’s voice is hearty.
The clink of glassware follows.
“Grazie.” The voice is male and Italian. “Grazie mille.”
Glasses clink again.
“How long have you been married?”
“Otto anni,” the Italian replies. “Eight years.”
“That’s nice,” Nate says, and I know what’s coming. Sure enough, he adds, “Before I got married, my father told me that the first forty years are the most difficult.” Nate has shared this tidbit a million times. It always gets a laugh, and today is no exception.
“And how long have you been married?” the Italian asks once he stops chuckling. “Was he correct?”
“Thirty years,” Nate says with the cadence I know is leading to his punch line. “Only ten more years to go.”
There is more laughter.
“At this moment, thirty years sounds like a . . . very long time,” the Italian says. “A . . . how is it called in your country? A life sentence, I think?”
Nate guffaws.
“And has your marriage been a . . . happy one?” the other man asks.
A silence follows. Suddenly, I’m afraid that the unintended call will disconnect before Nate answers and equally afraid that it won’t. We’ve never actually discussed our relative degrees of happiness. More and more I find myself feeling irritated or put-upon, and like any other couple, we occasionally snap at each other and argue. But it has never really occurred to me that he might have complaints of his own.
“Sure. I’d say we’ve been pretty happy.”
I would relax now except Nate’s answer is off-puttingly offhand. “My Judith’s a good egg.”
“Che cosa?” His companion has apparently never heard this expression.
“You know, a good sport,” Nate explains. “I don’t think I could have picked a better helpmate and mother.”
I blink back tears. The compliment is for himself and the choice he made. It’s all about the things I do for him, the role I play, not who I am or how he feels about me.
“I mean you can’t really expect passion to last forever, right?” my husband continues. “At first it’s all about being in . . . love. Then you have children and it starts to change. Your wife’s exhausted. Short-tempered. Pissed off that she can’t lose the baby weight. Everybody’s on a hamster wheel, working, running, juggling.”