Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(14)

I lower forward, stacking my shoulders on top of hers, and we press our hips down flat on the bed and in another moment I’m no longer in her. The sweat between us feels slippery and good and I kiss the back of her neck but neither of us says anything. There’s no conversation topic at the ready. I don’t want to talk about my workday and I certainly don’t want to talk about that god-awful dinner plan. She’s already settled her victory there and won’t bring it up again. Why force a conversation? I roll off her and enjoy the silence.

We used to wake up late on a Saturday with nothing planned and decide to drive four hours to Maryland just for a crab dinner that night. Or out to the Hamptons to rent a boat so we could spend the day sailing naked, swimming, and sunbathing. It was a standing decision to be together that was binding like a country of citizenship. It was our relationship that we loved. We were committed to it, worked for it, took pride in it, would take up arms to defend it. We each brought energy to the other, and each evening or weekend was a mini adventure with my companion and confidant. We were two kids masquerading as adults.

When we met at twenty-seven, she loved her career working for an interior designer in the city. When we married at twenty-nine, she seemed to care much less about work. She still worked but seemed to want to focus on family and a great marriage. I was already making good money and she knew plenty about the lifestyle of my job, but everyone thinks they can change a person a little. Just enough to suit them. She has tried with me in the years since, less and less over time. The less she tries with me, the more she disappears into her design books or the gym.

I don’t believe in fate and I don’t believe there’s just one person out there for each of us. I also don’t believe there are very many. Maybe there are a few hundred in the whole world who can really be the person to find their way to our soul. How many opportunities, chances, encounters are we likely to have in our lifetimes to capture a moment with one of them? Maybe there are only five or six events in our lifetime when we have a glimpse of someone who could be that partner. I know Julia is one. Our chance for each other came early and I worry that we can’t sustain our bond as we have grown into adults.

I put her through more headache than she deserves. Not many thirty-five-year-old wives have husbands that routinely flop into bed drunk in the middle of the weekday night as a part of the job. And worse yet, I doubt many wives have husbands who experience the world so privately, not sharing any observations or conclusions or real feelings. She knows I don’t like my mother, and when she asks why, I say it’s because my mother’s a pain in the ass. I’m sure I can be frustrating to speak with.

I look over at her sweet face, eyes closed, lips slightly parted like a child sleeping. I still love her very much. I feel it in a swell, so strong that I discover I suddenly want to exclaim it to her, like a sailor first sighting land after long months at sea.

I reach down and squeeze her hand, hoping I can pass this swell to her in a current, like plugging in Christmas tree lights. She squeezes back. “I love you, Nick.” That felt good. Could this be so simple?

“I love you too.”

She rolls toward me, laying an arm and a leg across me, and angles her chin on my shoulder. “Your sister called. She needs to move the party back by an hour. Something to do with a soccer game with the kids.”

“Okay.” I had forgotten about her party and am now looking forward to it. My sister, Susan, is so much like me, only so much better. Mainly we have the same sense of humor. She’s two years younger but I always included her with my crowd of friends. Even among my closest friends it was she and I who were in on the silent joke. No one else in the room could speak our language of glances and nods and lips curled in a half smile. Speaking with her is like a window into a healthy me. One who hasn’t polluted himself. “It’ll be great to see them. Been too long.” She and her husband and kids live in Pelham. We rarely make the thirty-minute drive north out of the city to their house.

“She has a home and kids and a normal life.” Julia says this with her eyes still closed and the words come out as effortlessly as breathing. This doesn’t require deduction. She felt she was just stating the obvious reason why we hadn’t seen Susan for so long.

Julia and I haven’t talked about kids of our own in years. We’ve always brushed it aside, saying there’s time and we’re having too much fun living a city life in Manhattan. Actually I’m terrified I’ll be a complete bust as a father. I think she secretly thinks the same. If her comment is an invitation to talk about kids, I’m declining.

I give her hand another squeeze, then release and run my fingers through my hair, stopping with my hands behind my head. Fixing Julia’s dissatisfaction with our lifestyle will not be so simple. I realize this, truly realize this, for the first time. Panic is setting in and my eyelids are stretched wide open as though I’m trying to see more of the ceiling. I’ve always been able to count on at least one part of my life going well. If I was unhappy at work, I could come home to Julia to feel her healing. If Julia and I fought, I could go to work to forget and enjoy mindless therapy. Like the air of a balloon when one end is pressed down, I can escape to the other end. I can’t have both work and home turn bad at the same time. I know I’ll go to pieces.

“Let’s go out.” This suddenly seems like the thing to do together.

“What are you talking about?”