I'm Fine and Neither Are You(28)

He regarded me warily. “And what’s that?”

“We’ve been pretending everything’s fine in our marriage. At the very least, I have been.”

“Hey,” he said. “I know things between us have been a little tense lately—”

“If by lately you mean at least the past three years, then yes.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry I haven’t been as attentive as I could be, but are you sure this isn’t your grief talking?”

Then I wasn’t the only one who was aware he found his phone at least 70 percent more interesting than me. Instead of relief, I felt even more irritated—because if he knew this, why didn’t he do something about it? Or had I gone the way of many a wife before me, fading into the scenery while other more riveting pursuits moved to the foreground?

“I don’t think it’s a good time to be making big decisions,” he said. “And for the record, our problems are ripples compared to the tidal wave that wiped out Jenny and Matt’s marriage.”

“I don’t agree at all,” I said firmly. “I think this is the exact right time to be addressing our issues. Things aren’t great between us, and we need to be honest about it instead of sweeping it under the rug. We need to get real with each other. Jenny’s death was the wake-up call I never wanted, but now it’s happened and I can’t pretend otherwise.”

He glanced at the alarm clock. “Speaking of wake-up calls, you have to be up in less than five hours. Can’t we discuss this in the morning?”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about!”

He pulled his head back with surprise. “What did I do?”

“I have to be up in less than five hours? What about you?”

“Sheesh! I wasn’t saying I didn’t plan to get up! I was trying to be helpful. You’re always worried about being late to work.” His voice trailed off, and his eyes had moved south.

“What?” I glanced down and realized one of my nipples had decided to flee the confines of my tank top, which had been stretched beyond its limits by our decrepit washing machine. “You’re such a child,” I said, tugging my top back in place. I would go shopping for new sleepwear this week. Maybe next week. Soon.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” he said with a shrug. Then he put his hand on my knee, and I immediately felt myself soften. “Hey, same team, remember?” he said. It was something he’d picked up from Stevie’s preschool soccer coach, who had hollered it at the girls when they stole the ball from each other.

“I know,” I said quietly. “It’s just . . . I want our marriage to be healthier. I know we’re not Jenny and Matt, but we’re not ourselves anymore, either.”

“People change, Penny,” he said. “We’re not young and childless anymore. Are you really unhappy?”

Unhappy? Yes—at least more often than I wanted to be.

The bigger issue was that I was afraid. Because I had been spending way too much time thinking about how nice it would be to escape the ever-mounting pressures of our life. Before Jenny’s death I told myself this was a normal fantasy for a woman under duress. But now the stakes had been revealed, and they were much higher than I had ever imagined. I could no longer pretend I was a normal woman. I was one whose mother had taken a permanent leave of absence from her family. And I didn’t want to follow her lead—or Jenny’s, for that matter.

If my father were to be believed, my mother had not suffered from mental illness. “She was selfish,” he said by way of an explanation when I had been old enough to press him for a real answer about why she left. “End of story.”

In truth, it was just a fraction of the story. In one of my clearest childhood memories, I am standing in our small kitchen shortly after my mother left, deeply unnerved by the silence. Where are my parents’ yelling voices? Where are the sounds of slamming doors, stomping on stairs, screeching tires? As long as I had been conscious, I had been aware my parents disliked each other. I wasn’t even sure they had ever loved each other—though at some point her wild-child soul must have been attracted to his workaholic ways, as they had chosen to marry and have two children.

Yet as bad as it had been when they were together, it was worse after my mother left. I had sworn to myself that if I ever had a family, things would be different for us. No one would be yelling. And no one—no one —would be leaving.

For all my thoughts of running away, I would never abandon my children (though it occurred to me that Jenny must have told herself that very thing). And Sanjay and I weren’t my parents. We did love each other, even if we struggled at times to like each other, and we weren’t yellers or prone to dramatics. Our arguments were more like a series of fissures.

But even a solid foundation could crumble from one too many cracks. I was willing to bet Jenny had not gone into her marriage thinking it would end up the way it did. Or that the first pill would lead to her last breath.

There were things that weren’t right between me and Sanjay. And it was time to admit that before something terrible happened.

We sat in silence. The plan that had seemed so crisp and clear just a few minutes earlier was already shapeless. Was it really smart to tell Sanjay the truth? To ask—and expect—more of him? How would I do that, and what did I want, anyway?