You Love Me(You #3)(102)

When you stand up to get more milk, you squeeze my shoulder and your touch is different now. Better. You love me openly, right in front of your daughter, and it’s the first surprise party of my life and it’s the best surprise party there ever was.

“Okay,” Nomi says. “Can we please talk about something that’s actually important?”

You nod. I nod. Such great fucking parents!

“Joe,” she says. “I know I’m supposed to say it was nice of you to let us move into your guesthouse, but it’s also kind of not nice of you because I mean… have you been in there? It’s so freaking musty and it smells like old people!”

“Nomi, it smells fine,” you say.

“Oh come on,” I say, looking at you, looking at your daughter. “Why do you think I stopped working on the renovations? Part of me thinks we’re just gonna have to burn the thing down.”

It’s our first collective plural and you laugh and Nomi clamps her hands together. “Okay so can we please, please, please stop this stupid charade and just move in here already? I mean if Mom and I stay in there, I feel like we’re gonna die of some fast-acting lung cancer or whatever. Please, you guys. Please.”

We laugh like a family and Nomi gives us space to talk and you are the future cofounder of the Empathy Bordello. “She’s being dramatic, Joe. It’s not that bad and please don’t feel like you have to say yes.”

I too am the future cofounder of the Empathy Bordello. “Well, I was more concerned about you,” I say. “I won’t be hurt if you’re not ready to live with me just yet.”

You punch me. Gentle fox. “Oh, please, Buster. You know I’m ready.”

We call the Meerkat back inside—she gets the Whisper Room—and we pack boxes like a family and our first family hug happens naturally. It feels right. This is the story of life. People move on. After we move your things, we cook together and we eat together—burritos and salad!—and the Meerkat puts my cats on her Instagram—our cats, our house—and then the two of you hang out in the Whisper Room—women need to talk, about this, about me—and I’m not your codependent husband. I tidy up the house and I deal with the litter box and I turn off the light and get into bed to wait for you, hoping that you and Nomi aren’t sinking into some mother-daughter slumber party. And we really are in sync because I’m not in bed five minutes before I hear the door close downstairs and it’s real. That’s you on the stairs. This is you in my bedroom, our bedroom.

“Well,” I say. “How’s she doing with all of it?”

“I mean… she’s great. I don’t know why I was so worried.”

“I do,” I say. “Because you care.”

“Yeah,” you say. You stroke my hair. “I liked it when you looked at me at the table, when you wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just bravado on her part, that she really was okay about us being together.”

I take your hand. “Well, I like it when you read my mind.”

You air-kiss me and pick up a jar of face cream and rub cream on your neck as if you think we’re going to sleep and you gaze at my empty red wall. “I mean… can you believe this day? Can you believe we’re actually here?”

“You really had me going there for a second, so I’m doubly happy we’re here.”

You rub some of that cream on my face and that’s more like it, Mary Kay. “Oh come on,” you tease. “We had you going for a full minute. You were scared.”

I take that jar of antifucking cream and put it on the nightstand and I take your wrists in my hands. “If you must know, yeah, I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

After we make love—this is our life now!—you wash your face and reapply your night cream and you are a woman, so you feel the need to rationalize your decisions. You tell me things I already know, that Patton Oswalt got remarried only a few months after his wife passed away, that he has a daughter, that no one gets to tell anyone how long the grieving process goes on. You take a picture of us and you crop the picture—we don’t need people to know we’re in bed—but we are Red Bed official and we are Instagram official and the Meerkat is the first one to like it and more likes are pouring in, so much love, and you like those likes and it’s our first night as a couple and the Meerkat texts you. She wants to know if she can take the blanket off my sofa and I tell you that she doesn’t have to ask.

“This is our house, Mary Kay. My stuff is all of our stuff and you can both do as you please.”

You kiss me on the cheek. “You’re my mind reader, Joe. I love you.”

And you do. You do.





39





Yesterday I preordered two copies of a new Murakami because this is our life now. You’ve lived here with me for twenty-two sleeps in our house, where we make the rules and your books are all mixed up with mine. Your Murakami kisses mine and your Yates leans into my Yates and you are there, on the steps to the sunken living room, our sunken living room.

“I don’t know if you know this, but we do have access to a library.”

“No shit?”

“You’re funny, Buster.”

“Well, someone moving in… blending the books. It’s new to me.”