The First Husband

“So, I should’ve known something was going on when he started wearing those contact lenses. How did I miss it?” She shook her head. “It’s like he took his brain off when he took those glasses off. It’s all very Piggy in Lord of the Flies.”

I looked at her, confused. “Piggy’s glasses were broken, I think.”

She waved me off. “You’re missing the point,” she said.

“Which is what?”

“That Nick loves you. He loves you so much that I can guarantee nothing real is going to happen with Pearl. But men can forget. If too much time goes by, they can forget what they have. How much they want what they have. And you shouldn’t suffer while he remembers. I won’t allow it.” She paused. “Besides, the sooner you aren’t, the sooner he’ll be back. That’s the way it works.”

That part I couldn’t help but agree with. It seemed to me that the universe was tricky that way—as soon as you didn’t need something as badly, as soon as you hold onto the hope of it less tightly, you get a second shot at it.

I put my forehead against hers. “I love you,” I said. “In case you didn’t know.”

“So come to Venice with me. And, just this once, let someone be the one that takes care of you.”

“Your brother says he has been,” I said. “Too much.”

She sighed. “I really wish you’d stop referring to him that way.”

I smiled. “I’ll think about coming,” I said. “I really will.”

“No you won’t.”

“Maybe not.” I said. “But no more doomsday talking, okay? I promise you, I’ll be fine. Look at me. I am fine. And to prove it, this time tomorrow I begin again. What’s five years, anyway? Forget tomorrow. Tonight, I head outside and rejoin the world. I already have plans. Big ones. . . .”

She sat back in her chair. “My God, you’re a terrible liar,” she said. “It’s amazing to watch, actually.”

“Where did I lose you? The I-already-have-plans bit?”

She grabbed my pinky, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Yeah, that part could have used some work,” she said. “Plus, your purple tank top is inside out.”

3

After Jordan left that night, I cried myself to sleep.

This was what I was up against: five Christmases and five New Years, ten birthdays, and every Thanksgiving. Six cross-country trips, three half-country ones, three movie sets, one ten-year college reunion. Two trips to the hospital for food poisoning, one car accident in Mexico, three broken bones, one appendicitis. Five grandparents’ (and step-grandparents’) deaths. Valentine’s Day in Hong Kong, Valentine’s Day in New York City, Valentine’s Day barely speaking to each other in the same house. His sister’s wedding, two of my mother’s divorces, four mutual godchildren, one angel of a chocolate Labrador retriever. A shared language, a shared family, a shared future plan to travel the world together. Two weeks on a terrible houseboat near Lake Michigan, the last night when he gave me a locket anyway, four small words on the back, as if they made perfect sense: For you, for always. Not one day when we didn’t talk, even if it was to argue. Not one night when I didn’t say good nigh

t, even if I didn’t mean it. Not one morning when the first thing I didn’t think was, You.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering something else. I remembered a trip we took toward the beginning of our relationship, six months in, when we went to Utah for a long weekend. The first night we were there, we were staying at an old rustic cabin outside Moab, right outside town, and before we went to sleep, I said, “How is this so easy?”

“We should enjoy it while it lasts,” Nick said. “I’m guessing it won’t always be this easy . . .”

I must have looked distraught. He tried to rectify it immediately—moving closer to me, comforting me by saying he spoke glibly—that it would be this easy between us always, or close to this easy. Of course it would. But, the problem was, easy wasn’t the word that had caused me distress.

It was the always.

A small, inexplicable part of me was scared, right from the start—of counting on someone, of trusting that he’d always be there for me—as much it was exactly what another part of me wanted.

And I wondered how I had gotten here.

4

It wasn’t the next night, but the night after that when I decided I’d keep my promise to Jordan: I’d rejoin the land of the living. A little after five, I turned on the radio, took a piping-hot shower, and put on my makeup. Movement seemed key, so I didn’t stop to think about any of it too much. Hair drying and brushing, dangly earrings on. It felt a little like watching a video of myself when I caught a glance of my face in the mirror: Hello, aren’t you someone I used to know?

Picking out something to wear turned out to be easier than anticipated, because I hadn’t done laundry since Nick ’s exit and there were precisely two articles of clothing left hanging in our closet: a hot-pink kimono that I had gotten at a flea market in Camden Town, which, among its other problems—like the fact that it was a hot-pink kimono—was two sizes too small. And then there was my yellow dress. Wrapped in dry-cleaner’s plastic: protected, ready. I usually reserved it for weddings or black-tie events, as I lived in fear of ruining it. It was my magic dress, as Jordan called it. The kind of dress that makes you four inches taller and ten pounds lighter, and makes your boobs look bigger. In this lifetime, if we are lucky, we each get one.