The First Husband

“Sure, they’ve been good,” he said. “But it’s different recently.”

“Define different.”

“ ‘Partly or totally unlike in nature, form, or quality,’ ” he said. “ ‘Dissmiliar. Divergent’. . .”

I gave him a look. “In regards to me.”

“My love, you could probably write your fifteen hundred words in your sleep by now. You could visit new citie

s, and find their glory, in your sleep too. None of that is the problem. I know that.”

“What is?”

“Is that what you really want?” he said. “To keep writing this column indefinitely? ”

“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully.

“Well, I know that too,” he said. Then he paused. “Everything has a season, my love.”

I nodded. “But what does that mean I do now?”

I must have seemed like I was waiting on Peter for the answer. Only, I think we both knew, the question was more for myself than for him.

Then I thought of something. The moment that Nick told me I was priceless. It came rushing back to me. The actual moment. I had helped him rework that final scene in his movie and after he’d said, You’re priceless, he’d said something else, something about how visual I was. And I’d thought of the green canvas box under the bed, which housed the photographs I’d taken—the hundreds and hundreds of photographs I’d taken—during all the years I’d been writing “Checking Out.”

I had shown Nick some of the photographs on occasion, and he’d been mildly complimentary. Sometimes more than mildly. But in that moment, when Nick gave me that compliment, I felt brave enough to ask him what I hadn’t been brave enough to ask him before: what would he think of my trying to do something with them? The photographs. Of my trying to do something with how much I loved taking them. Only, by the time I asked the question, he was already focused on his script. He was already focused on what he was trying to fix, what he was trying to do next. And so I let it go. My question. Whatever answer he would have given me.

I looked at Peter. “Maybe this will all have a happy outcome,” I said. “Maybe they’ll want me to do something else here? At the paper? That’s always a possibility, right?”

Peter reached across the enormous impasse of the table and took my hand, squeezing it tight.

“Absolutely, but I don’t think we should count on that,” he said. “It’s a little like Steinbeck says, isn’t it? ‘We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.’ ”

As he let go, I closed my eyes.

“Peter, do you really think you still should be quoting Steinbeck?” I asked.

“No, my love,” he said. “Probably not.”

16

You discover this early on. Even the most upsetting, disappointing, and disheartening trips will have one great moment. Especially, in fact, on these terrible trips does the one great moment find its way to shine. The rental car breaks down in the middle of the night, the luxury hotel turns out to be a mold-infested nightmare, you get a debilitating case of the stomach flu the very moment the plane hits the ground in paradise. And yet, you go for one moonlit bike ride along the coast in Ireland, you take a hike in summertime Aspen, you wake up, healed, on the last morning in Anguilla, just in time to see the most brilliant sunrise you’ve ever laid your eyes on. And this rare moment of joy, especially when it is so hard-earned, feels like the entire truth. This moment of perfection makes the rest of the terrible trip worthwhile.

On the way back from New York City, the packed Amtrak train stalled twice. Once outside Stamford, Connecticut, for forty-five minutes. Then again, outside Bridgeport, for over an hour. When I finally got back to Williamsburg, it was late, almost 10:00 P.M., and the dark house made me think everyone was sleeping, or everyone but Griffin, who I assumed was still at the restaurant. I didn’t blame him for this. With only a little time left until the soft opening, I’d be there as much as possible too, if I were him. To do everything I could think of to make it go as smoothly as possible.

Besides, with how overwhelmed I was feeling about everything—my new house, my new life, and now my new lack of employment—I almost convinced myself I was grateful for the silence.

But then I turned on the living room light to find Griffin standing there, cupping one daffodil in his right palm—the entire room behind him filled with matching daffodils in jelly jars, candles lining the bay window.

I felt a smile start to form. “What is going on in here? ” I said.

He handed me my flower. “What do you mean? This is just how I plan to greet you from now on . . .” he said, a smile forming on his face. “A room full of flowers. Perhaps even a candlelight dinner of eggs and lobster.”

I looked up at him, still a little confused. “But where is Jesse?” I asked. “And the twins?”

“I sent them away to an all-you-can feast at Pizza Hut and a triple feature in Hadley,” he said. “They won’t be back until later. We have the place to ourselves. We have the place to ourselves for as long as we want it. . . .”

I threw my arms around him, holding there, against his chest, as he cradled my head. His strength, coming in, filling me up.