I'd Give Anything(10)

I sighed and began to count on my fingers. “One, telling Avery. Two, worrying about worrying for the next who knows how many years about how it might be affecting her. Like, if she doesn’t date in high school or college, is that because she can’t trust men? Or if she never gets married, is that because she doesn’t think marriage ever works out? Or if she does get married but decides not to ever have kids, is that because her father let her down so profoundly? These are just a few examples.”

“Worrying about worrying,” said Mag, with awe. “I don’t think I knew people did that.”

“Pre-worrying,” I said. “Laying the groundwork for other worrying. One of my specialties.”

“Three?” said Daniel.

I lifted a third finger. “Pity. The pitying looks I’ll get. I hate and despise pitying looks, even when they’re sincere.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” said Daniel, nodding.

I remembered then that his wife had died two and a half years earlier.

“Oh God, of course you know.”

Reflexively, I scooped up Walt and handed him to Daniel, who, reflexively, kissed the top of my dog’s head, right at the spot where his hair parted in the middle.

“So—fourth?” said Mag. “The betrayal is fourth?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe? I did ask him to sleep, for the foreseeable future, in this little guest suite we have that’s over the garage, which I guess means I’m upset about the cheating or the potential cheating or the flirtation or obsession or dalliance or whatever it was, right?”

“Well, that’s an interesting question,” said Mag, scratching her head.

“Dalliance,” said Daniel. “I like it. I mean, I don’t like that he dallied, obviously, but since you’ll need a word to call this, uh, turn of events, that seems like a good choice.”

“Thanks. I just thought of it. Here’s the thing. More than once over the years, and this started not that long after we were married, I’ve thought that my marriage wouldn’t last forever.”

“Oh,” said Mag. “Wow.”

“I can’t believe I just said that,” I said.

“Why?” said Daniel. He looked truly puzzled, a line appearing between his dark, straight eyebrows.

“You’re right. I can absolutely believe I just said that.”

“You should say what you want,” said Daniel.

“Well, in that case.”

“Uh-oh,” said Mag, laughing. “Here we go!”

“It hasn’t been so much an active desire for our marriage to end as it’s been a failure of my imagination to envision us being together forever. Maybe it should have been an active desire for it to end, but we had Avery not long after we got married, and she never slept, ever, and, for years, I was so tired all the time.”

“Too tired to want your marriage to end,” said Mag. “That’s tired.”

“How old were you when you got married?” asked Daniel.

“Twenty-three.”

“Shotgun wedding?” Mag asked.

Daniel winced. “Sheesh. Do people still call it that?”

“Yep,” said Mag.

“I guess what I mean is do people still call it that when they’re talking to a person who might have actually had what might technically qualify as that kind of wedding? Especially when that person is in kind of a shaky emotional state?”

“Nope,” said Mag. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “My mother didn’t threaten anyone with a shotgun, but possibly only because she didn’t have to. The pregnancy just kind of decided it for us. Or something. It’s all a bit of a blur. We’d been dating since I was nineteen, dating in this day-to-day kind of way. Not really a cumulative way, if that makes sense. For instance, until I found out I was pregnant, I never thought I’d marry him. Not actively thought anyway.”

“I’m sensing a certain lack of urgency in your relationship with Harris,” said Daniel, deadpan.

I laughed. “I think that’s what I used to like about it, actually.”

“Calm seas,” said Mag. “There are worse things.”

“Avery was a terrible sleeper, always. No naps, except by accident or out of sheer screaming exhaustion. God-awful night sleeping, wakeups every two hours. She still struggles with insomnia, which is painful to watch. Anyway, I honestly think that Harris and I spent so many years so sleep deprived that we didn’t notice just how lacking in luster our lackluster marriage was.”

“And now I guess you’re noticing,” said Mag. “Which, if you don’t mind my saying, is maybe not the worst thing to happen.”

“Maybe not. But what the hell, Harris? Calm seas! Calm seas was the whole point of Harris. That’s what I wanted for Avery. Stability. A home she could have faith in.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” said Daniel, with a weariness that made me want to hand him another dog, even though he still had his hands full of Walt and Mose had come back from his adventuring to rest his butter-yellow chin on Daniel’s knee.

“It does, doesn’t it? And Ave’s insomnia, it makes her fragile. Anxious, even in the daytime. And you know what else? If my marriage is going to end, I do want it to be out of urgency on my part. Or even Harris’s. I want it to be a decision, and this feels random, like a meteor striking. I hate it.”