The First Husband

From my seat in the back row, from my seat by the emergency exit, I watched as Gia jumped off the bus, and rushed over to give Emily a hug hello—her chin cupping Emily’s shoulder.

As Gia pulled back, they started talking to each other, hurriedly and happily, their faces still so close together I thought they might kiss.

I tried to make out what they were saying to each other, but I couldn’t. And truthfully, it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, I knew it didn’t began—or end—with either of them singing my praises.

“Fantastic,” I said, looking at them out the window, then looking up at the emergency exit and seriously considering pulling its firm red handle, willing it to carry me out of there.

And then, as proud as I am to admit this, while they were still busy talking, I slid off the bus—and I do mean slid: utilizing two three-foot-five-inch-tall girls as coverage, utilizing their matching Little Mermaid lunch boxes to cover my face, a Dora the Explorer backpack to block my side.

I knew I should have said hello. I should have tried to engage Emily, but I didn’t have it in me. Not right then. I was too overwhelmed. And too scared about what she might or might not say, too scared it would be something else that would make Griffin feel even more like a stranger.

Instead, I took the long way home—the back roads of the back roads—not feeling the cold wind, not feeling too much of anything. Which felt like a marker of many things. A good sign, sadly, wasn’t one of them.

And so I was a little out of it, and more than a little surprised to get back to the house and find someone sitting there. On the front steps. In a long, ridiculously white ski jacket—and a matching white hat, big pom-pom on top.

I walked closer to the steps, preparing to find another Putney waiting to surprise me—a Putney eager to offer another version of how I was an enormous invasion into a life that long proceeded me.

But I didn’t find another Putney there in the silly, all-white ensemble, puffing out from all angles.

I found Jordan there. My Jordan. Looking more than a little like a life-size snowball.

I stood in front of her.

“I’m going incognito,” she said. “I’m afraid to be spotted by anyone I don’t want to be spotted by.”

This, she said, instead of hello. Instead of “How are you?” This, as though it actually made any sort of sense.

“Is it really you?” I asked.

“It’s really me, and it’s really fucking freezing out here,” she said. “I’ve never been this cold in my life. On top of which, I’m thinking that you and I have had a slight misunderstanding.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, Go on a date with him. Not marry him.”

“Oh, is that what happened? I’ve been wondering.”

She was quiet for a minute, as we looked at each other. “I also thought you said you were in Williamstown,” she said. “Didn’t you? I’ve been driving through Massachusetts all day.”

“Everyone hears Williamstown,” I said.

Jordan looked around herself, taking in the cold, which felt colder in the unrelenting quiet.

“I can understand why,” she said.

It didn’t matter that I knew I was about to get badly yelled at for disappearing on her, for flat-out ignoring her phone calls, sending shoddy e-mails in response to hers, for acting as if that was something we’d ever historically done to each other.

None of that mattered. I sat down on the step beside her, resting my head against hers. She didn’t say anything, and I knew she was going to let me. She was going to let me rest there until I was ready to tell her where I’d been.

But just then, Sammy and Dexter came bounding down the road—both of them with enormous double-scoop chocolate ice-cream cones cupped in their mitten-covered hands—the matching treats dangerously close to toppling over. Emily was a good half block behind them.

Jordan looked at the boys. Then back at me. Then back at them again.

“Please,” she said, “tell me they’re not yours.”

20

I went upstairs to freshen up: put on some warm gloves, leave my wedding ring on the beside table, my fingers too thinned and red from the cold for me to wear it. Especially where we were going. We took Jordan’s rental car, and I drove us high up into the Berkshires—pointing out Griffin’s restaurant (without stopping) on the way out of town, pointing out the Montague Bookmill, a charming bookstore in Deerfield (as though I’d been inside, even once), and heading to a beautiful mountain trail in Ashley Falls that I’d driven by on my only “Checking Out” trip to the area, the year before—and that I now felt compelled to pretend I visited with some frequency.