I Liked My Life(82)

After dinner I walk Rory to her car. “Thank you for all your help this summer. Not just calculus, but everything. Really.”

“You have no idea how nice it is to have a young woman I can offer random advice to.”

“And you have no idea how nice it is to get it.”

She grins. “I’ll never take responsibility for the tattoo, though. Fifteen years from now, when you have an inquiring child and you’re trying to pin that decision on someone, I’ll still declare my innocence.” We laugh at her joke, but I’m more excited by the implication that our friendship won’t end when I leave.

I replay the conversation to Dr. Jahns the next day, but he says I shouldn’t count on the relationship continuing. “As you grow up, Eve, you’ll see that sometimes adults make commitments because they don’t want to let young people down. Rory might not realize she’s doing it, but in the fall, when school starts back up, it’ll be hard for her to keep in touch. I don’t want you to be devastated if that happens.”

I sit there and think about what it would take, now, to devastate me. After losing my mother, anything less than death is bearable.

This realization is still with me when I sneak in a journal entry before my dad gets home from work. I somehow pick one where my mom seems to be agreeing.

November 11, 2014

It’s midterms for the Wellesley girls this week, so the library is packed. Their pure panic brings their immaturity to the front stage. With all I know now it’s hard to believe the difference between an A and B ever seemed significant. I want to put a sign on the checkout desk that reads, “A year after you graduate, this will mean nothing to you.”

Real things will happen to these ladies. Great things. Atrocious things. They will be faced with tests of character bearing much higher stakes than tests of intelligence. They’ll look back at this finals-induced hysteria with perspective and have a good laugh at their own expense. Or the lucky ones will. The unlucky ones will never learn.

What I wish for my daughter more than anything is the gift of perspective at a young age. Perspective makes you asshole-proof. The two are mutually exclusive. And as long as you’re not an asshole, you can find people to love you, and as long as you’re loved, you can be happy.

Which means I should be happy. I need to get out of my current funk. I wish I could connect my sudden self-doubt to early menopause or thyroid changes, but I know my core is infected with regret. I am, right now, living the life I stole from my mother. The one I taught her to be ashamed of wanting.

Maybe I need to see a shrink.

I tear up at the idea of her hidden sadness. I was still catty and stuck-up at the time she wrote that, but I gained perspective with her death. It’s hard to be arrogant when your mom decides that a terrifying death is more appealing than returning home to finish raising you. I might’ve been a disappointment to her when she was alive, but I’ll do right by her wish now. I’ll be strong and open and kind and, above all, not an asshole.

Brady

Seven minutes short. I failed to qualify. I ran twenty-six-point-two goddamn miles to come up seven minutes short. I look around for a ledge or a curb, anything to sit on.

A lady standing next to me flails a finger at a friend. “No. I’m telling you, your qualifying time is based on the age you’ll be at the Boston Marathon. You’re a September birthday, right?”

In my depleted state, it takes a second to process that I’ll also be a year older by then, which means three hours and twenty-seven minutes is good enough. I do a little fist pump that does not go unnoticed. “I’m glad I sat here,” I explain when the women look my way. “I didn’t think I’d made it.”

The runner smiles. “Me neither. And I would have been pissed.” Her words are more aggressive than you’d expect given her petite frame. “Pamela,” she says.

“Brady.” We exchange basic pleasantries as the crowd ebbs. It’s refreshing to converse with someone who assumes your life is normal. She owns her own commercial real-estate business in Boston. This was her first marathon. She’s a Patriots fan too.

I don’t know if it’s delirium from the run or if I’m just up for celebrating, but I ask Pamela to dinner. Her friend giggles and politely looks the other way, pretending to be distracted by someone in the crowd.

Pamela scowls at my wedding ring. “I don’t think so,” she says coldly, wiping a new layer of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Your wife deserves a little more respect, don’t you think?”

I clam up, unable to respond, as though I’ve been justly busted. I look around for an exit strategy, but people are everywhere. Pamela continues her lecture. “I’ve been on the receiving end of a husband like you before. Worst decision I ever made.” She mutters something with the word asshole in it and turns back to her friend.

I look to the pavement, ashamed. Suddenly, the sounds of the city and crowd merge together into an unintelligible din that clouds my ability to think. As if there’s an earthquake, my footing becomes unstable. My heart pounds more than it did during the race. I can’t make sense of what’s happening, but this-this force that has taken me hostage shouts at Pamela’s back, “Maddy is gone. Dead. She died. And I wasn’t there to stop her.” My legs buckle beneath me and I fall to the ground. I look ridiculous, and I know it, but I’m not in control. All the tears I replaced with temper tantrums and expensive bourbon pour out now, a sprung leak.