When I arrived home, Ethan was passed out on our living room couch with the plastic bucket we used to hold cleaning supplies on the floor next to him. It was barely 7:30 p.m.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Ethan like this. Some nights, he’d forgo alcohol completely—but when he drank, the taste of alcohol overrode the internal shutoff valve most people possess, the one that makes them stop after two or three or four.
My mother told me Ethan had shown up shortly after she’d arrived home from work, saying he’d forgotten his phone here the night before.
When my mom excused herself to go take a shower, he’d helped himself to a drink. Mom and I generally only kept beer in the house, but that night we happened to have a bottle of good Russian vodka. One of my mother’s longtime customers, who was from Moscow, had given it to her as a gift before he moved back to Russia.
Ethan liked tequila, bourbon, and beer. I’d even seen him drink a wine spritzer once, when there were no other options. But his favorite was vodka.
He was drunk before I even headed to the restaurant.
It wasn’t the first time Ethan had disappointed me. But I vowed it would be the last.
When we broke up, I blocked him. But I never deleted his number from my contacts.
Now I pull out my phone and scroll to his name. A touch of a button is all it takes to unblock someone.
I hesitate, thinking of the empty weeks following our breakup, when it felt like all the sunlight had drained out of my days. I would not have gotten through them if it hadn’t been for my mother. She sat beside me on the couch, promising me I’d forget Ethan and find someone even better.
Ethan isn’t the kind of guy I want my daughter to end up with, she’d told me, and she’d sounded so certain that it cemented my resolve.
Without my mother’s voice in my ear, I probably would have gone back to Ethan and had my heart broken all over again a few more times before I got out for good.
I was so focused on my mother’s dislike of Ethan that I never paid much attention to his dislike of her. My mother had my best interests at heart. I took that for granted.
But now I find myself thinking about something Ethan said shortly before we broke up. I hated acknowledging the tension between the two people I cared about most, so I denied it.
She never even gave me a chance, he’d said.
I could stay home tonight and try to talk to my mother again.
But I no longer trust that she’s the best source of information about herself.
I press the button to unblock Ethan. All these months later, I’m desperate to know what he meant.
I slowly type out a new text. Hey, it’s Catherine. Long time … so I have something to ask you. Let me know if you have a few minutes to talk.
I send it before I lose my nerve.
If someone blocks you, your text message to them won’t ever be delivered. It’ll linger in the ether, in that wispy, gray area of cyberspace between transmission and landing.
My message reaches Ethan. I know because when we were dating, we set our phones to notify each other whenever we’d read the messages we sent.
Ethan never changed that setting. He reads my message about thirty seconds after I send it.
It takes him only a moment to reply.
I’m working tonight if you want to come by.
* * *
Ethan has a new tattoo on the inside of his forearm—an intricately etched compass—and his hair is now long enough to draw into a short ponytail.
He looks good.
The bar won’t get crowded until 8 or 9 p.m., but a handful of people have arrived for happy hour. I slide onto a stool, watching Ethan laugh and chat with two women while he makes them lemon martinis. He’s great with customers. It’s one reason why he earns so much in tips.
I’ve spent a lot of hours perched on a stool here, waiting for Ethan to get off work. This bar has always seemed festive to me, with its strings of milk-glass globe lights running across the ceiling and classic rock playing.
Ever since my mother’s diagnosis, though, it’s like I’m wearing glasses that reveal the darker underside of the world. Now I notice the grime on the floor; the sour smell of old beer; and the bald guy sitting alone in the corner, frowning at his phone. He’s close to my mother’s age, and he’s rail thin. Maybe his genes have turned against him, too. Maybe his hair loss and lack of body fat are due to chemotherapy.
At the sound of my name, I turn my head.
The wide wooden bar between us saves me from having to offer an awkward hug. Ethan leans down and rests on his elbows, so we’re eye to eye. There’s nothing but casual warmth in his expression. It’s the same face he wears to greet loyal customers. That, more than anything he could say, tells me he has moved on.
I’m the one who broke up with him, yet I feel a tinge of regret. Maybe it’s because I haven’t met anyone else, and I’m confident Ethan has. Women seem to love him, in part because he’s masculine without being the slightest bit domineering.
“You look great,” he tells me.
For a moment, I’m grateful I dabbed on lip gloss and outlined my eyes with a coppery brown pencil before I came in.
Then I remind myself I’m here to get information, not flirt with my ex.
Ethan offers me a drink, and I tell him I’ll take a Blue Moon on tap. We chat for another few moments, with Ethan breaking away now and then to mix a gin and tonic or uncap a beer.
I’m in no rush. I sent my mother a text telling her I was seeing a movie with a friend, so she won’t be expecting me home for dinner.
The question I have for Ethan isn’t one I want to casually throw out. I need to study his face while he answers.
But I also want to linger because being around Ethan, back in this old familiar setting, is loosening memories for me. Like this one: When Ethan first met my mom, I thought it went well. He was polite and friendly. He took off his shoes when he came into the apartment without being asked, and he held open the door for me to walk through when we left.
My mother seemed to approve of him. When did that shift?
Ethan and I grew serious quickly. We were opposites in many ways, which made us feel like we fit together well.
Our schedules were opposites, too, and that prevented us from seeing each other more than twice a week or so. But we texted throughout the day and talked on the phone every night, usually when Ethan had a slow moment at work.
My mom asked how I felt about him one morning after I came home from spending the night at his place. She was getting ready for work, and before she walked out the door she paused and asked if Ethan was the kind of guy I could see myself ending up with.
I’d taken it as a sincere inquiry. She wanted to know how much I liked him. My answer was in that spirit, too: It’s too soon to know.
But now it feels like she stuck a splinter under my skin with that question. It made me more attuned to Ethan’s drinking and lack of ambition. It took me out of the present and into the future, when the very qualities I loved in him could turn into liabilities.
My mother had already answered the question for herself. She’d told me so when I broke up with Ethan: Ethan isn’t the kind of guy I want my daughter to end up with.
I know how she viewed Ethan.
It’s finally time for me to glimpse the picture he held of my mother.
A few minutes later, I get my chance. Ethan walks around the bar and slides onto the stool next to mine.