I'm Fine and Neither Are You

It felt, finally, like the start of something new. Or maybe not new at all—just better.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The next day, Sanjay set off for meetings. Alex had connected him with a few literary agents, and he was having lunch with a college friend who was now an editor at a publishing house. While he was out, I decided to take the opportunity to roam around the city, which had once been my favorite way to spend an afternoon.

How nice it was to be alone for a change, I thought as I sat at a coffee shop reading the paper. As I strolled through Gramercy Park and headed into Union Square, I felt almost like the woman I had been before having Stevie and Miles. I was no longer so young, but the world again seemed brimming with possibilities. I had not felt that way in a very long time.

But as I watched a woman roughly my age push an elderly man down the street in a wheelchair, my thoughts turned to my father. Our last conversation had begun to close the distance between us, but already I felt it widening again. I had said my piece; it was entirely possible that the only thing I could do now was to accept our relationship for what it was. I wondered if I could manage that. That was the thing about being honest—once you began, it was hard to go back to sanitizing life with white lies.

Sanjay, too, was on my mind as I window-shopped. Our lovemaking could be nothing but a one-time thing. The minute we got home, we might return to our staid, sexless routine.

I hoped not. Because in spite of the brevity of our encounter, something was stirring in me, and damned if it didn’t feel at least a little like desire. I’d forgotten how enlivening it was to make love, to want and be wanted. Because yes—lights on, my husband’s eyes locked with my own, I knew that just as I hadn’t been thinking about Christina, he hadn’t been, either.

Sanjay was still on my mind as I walked to a park a few blocks from Malcolm and Jon’s apartment. It was just after five, and he was waiting for me on a weathered wood bench. He was dressed up, and as I dodged running toddlers and school-age kids on scooters to make my way across the park to him, I felt a rush of longing. Of course Christina had been attracted to him. When he wasn’t wearing the demands of everyday life all over his face, he was incredibly attractive.

When he saw me, he stood and waved. I smiled and waved back.

“Does this mean it went well?” I said as I approached.

He leaned forward and kissed me. “It went great .”

“That’s wonderful,” I said, sitting next to him. “What happened?”

“Well, I have an agent.”

I scooted over to him and hugged him. “You are amazing! Is it Josh?” I said, referring to someone Alex had put him in touch with.

“Josh said my proposal was promising but he wasn’t sure he had the right editors to pitch the book to. But you remember Naomi Goldberg, who I had queried cold?”

“Yes,” I said, and for once I meant it—I had truly been paying attention when he told me about her.

“She’s taking me on. She loves the proposal and wants to give a first look to an editor at Yale University Press.”

“Oh my gosh! That’s a big deal, right?” I said. I was a little jealous—he had found a way to do what I had never managed to. But my pride and delight were far greater than any envy I was feeling.

He smiled. “Sounds like a big deal to me. And there are several other editors she thinks might be interested.”

“That’s wonderful. We should celebrate,” I said.

“Really? Even though it’s just the first step?”

“No, the first step was you deciding you wanted to write a book. This is a milestone,” I said.

As we strolled over to a restaurant not far from the park, I reached for my phone. But as I stuck my hand in my purse, I remembered yet again that I couldn’t text Jenny to share Sanjay’s good news. And maybe, just this one time, that was for the best. Because instead of diverting my attention to my phone, I linked my arm through Sanjay’s. “I am so happy for you,” I told him.

He glanced over at me. “That means the world to me. I hope you know that.”

I thought of the way I had discouraged him the last time he’d wanted to write a book. How easy it was to accidentally go off course and stay there instead of getting back on track. But we were on the right path now; I felt it in my gut. “I do now,” I said.

That night, as I raised a glass of champagne to my husband’s success, it felt almost like old times—except unlike when I cheered his acceptance into medical school, this time his enthusiasm wasn’t feigned, and neither was mine.

One round of drinks became two as he chatted animatedly about the book and his new agent. Though I was content to listen to him, he asked me about my writing, and I told him about dinner with Alex and Harue. I was in the middle of telling him about what Russ and I had discussed about possibly reducing my schedule when it occurred to me we were finally having the kind of conversation I had been longing for.

Then it hit me—it was the kind of conversation I would have normally had with Jenny. It was impossible not to wonder if her absence had created a vacuum that Sanjay had wanted to fill long before she was gone.

Once again, I was faced with the very real possibility that I’d had far more to do with the issues in our marriage than I had ever considered.

“We need to call Stevie and Miles,” I said a few hours later as we let ourselves into Malcolm and Jon’s apartment.

“You mean check in on my mother,” said Sanjay.

I laughed. “And that.”

“I’m still impressed you convinced her to watch the kids for four whole days.”

“It’s amazing how easy it is to be persuasive when you threaten not to show up for Christmas.”

Now he laughed and pulled out his phone as I locked the door behind us. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “Yes. Yes. Okay.” He passed me the phone. “Here, talk to your children.”

“Hi, Mommy,” said Miles as I pressed my ear to the receiver. He sounded so grown-up. “When are you coming home?”

“In two days, sweetheart. Which will be here sooner than you can imagine. How’s it going with Cookie?”

He giggled, which I interpreted as “We’re having candy for breakfast and cake for lunch.” “Are you and Daddy having fun?” he asked.

I glanced over at Sanjay, who was stretched out on the sofa. “We are, but I miss you guys.”

“I miss you, too.”

“How’s—”

“Here’s Stevie the booger-face!” interrupted Miles.

There was a fumbling. Then Stevie’s voice came through the receiver. “Mommy, Miles is being a big jerk!”

“Watch your language, love, and hi to you, too. I hear that your brother’s having a hard time, but hopefully he’ll go to bed soon. Are you being good for Cookie?”

“She’s been wonderful!” called Riya, who I now knew was listening in.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “Stevie? You still there?”

“Yes,” said my daughter. “Mommy, where are you again?”

“New York, remember?”

“Yeah. But where are you staying?”

“At our friends’ apartment in Brooklyn. Not too far from where we lived when you were a baby.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Are we moving back?”

I laughed. “To New York? Not unless Mommy wins the lottery.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“No need to be sorry.”

I sat beside Sanjay on the sofa. I had just started to tuck my feet under me when it occurred to me that I might have dirt on my soles, which would end up on the white upholstery. The coffee table’s glass top was pristine and I didn’t want to get toe smudges all over it, either, so I let my feet dangle off the edge of the sofa, which was quite stiff, really. It made me miss my comfy living room, with its marker-scribbled but welcoming sofa and a coffee table that could withstand far more than a pair of feet.

“But you said you miss it,” said Stevie. “If we moved back, we could live like Eloise.”

Through the loft windows before me, downtown Brooklyn was twinkling. At another time in my life, every one of those lights would have looked like an opportunity.

Now they were just lights. “We couldn’t even live like Eloise’s nanny, sweetheart, but that’s fine with me. I don’t want to live in a hotel.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to live in our home.” I stood from the sofa and walked over to the windows. It had just begun to rain, and the city’s blinking lights were blurring in the glass. “That’s where you and Daddy and Miles live. That’s where my life is.”

After we’d hung up, I looked at Sanjay. “I’m going to shower.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Why don’t you join me?” I said.

He didn’t try to disguise his surprise. “Is this about the list?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s about you and me and some tough-to-clean places I need help with.”

He grinned. “Okay, then.”

Once again, I made love to my husband—in the shower with the lights on, no less. This time it wasn’t over nearly as soon as it began. In fact, it was so languorous and lovely that we did it again the next morning.

As the city disappeared behind me as Sanjay and I began our drive home, a sense of anticipatory loss came over me. It had been such a wonderful few days—almost like early in our marriage—that I wished we could have stayed longer, if only to hold on to that magic.

“Things feel different now, don’t they?” I said as we crossed the border from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

“They do,” he said.

“Do you think it will last?”

It was beginning to rain, and he kept his eyes on the road as he responded. “I don’t know. I hope so. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, either. Are we still doing the list project? You haven’t given me your third item yet. Are you planning to?”