I'm Fine and Neither Are You(32)

My expression must have betrayed me, because Russ did a double take. “Whoa—wait a second. Is that what happened to your friend?”

I blinked several times to pull myself together. In less than two minutes I would be discussing a several-million-dollar endowment with the dean who had the power to make or break my career, and it would not behoove me to walk in on the verge of tears. Also, I had just revealed a major secret to a coworker with whom I had an uneven relationship. “Please don’t say anything to anyone,” I said.

We had just reached the dean’s assistant’s desk, and Russ reminded her we had an appointment. Then he turned back to me. “I won’t,” he said quietly. “But for the record, I don’t think addiction should be a secret.”



Later that day, when only the janitor and I were left in the office, I sat at my desk and thought about the word Russ had used.

Addiction .

Matt hadn’t used that word, but the facts spoke for themselves.

How long had Jenny been hooked? How had I not noticed something was amiss?

Pen, how long did you overlook what was wrong in your marriage? I heard Jenny ask. You’ve had your head buried in the sand for years now.

“Your point,” I muttered.

As my imaginary friend had just reminded me, I needed to focus on my marriage. But what did I really want from Sanjay? And what did I want for us?

I could ask him to put his damn phone down once in a while, but would that really be enough to ease the underlying irritation I felt toward him?

No. But him doing more around the house and with the kids—without being asked to—would. So that would be my first request.

What else?

There was no question that he needed to begin bringing in more than a few hundred dollars here and there as well as the occasional check from his parents. I was grateful I had the ability to keep our family financially solvent, even if I did sometimes worry about what would happen if I, say, fell through an unsecured manhole cover and suffered a devastating brain injury. But our financial arrangement was looking permanent, and that kept me awake at night nearly as much as Miles’ bedwetting. I had been telling Sanjay it was fine—he would be making more money soon enough.

Well, he still wasn’t, and though I was loath to point this out, it wasn’t fine. I had bitten my tongue because I was worried the truth would crush his self-esteem and stifle his ambition. When he had first sat me down one morning and told me he was dropping out of medical school—“Today, Penny. I literally can’t do this for one more day”—I had mostly been relieved; he had been so damn miserable. “What are you going to do?” I had asked, and then he had confessed what I already knew to be true—he wanted to go back to writing.

I was so happy I could have danced. I imagined him fulfilled and even financially successful—after all, we knew plenty of writers who made a good living. Our friend Alex, for example, had left editing to pursue freelance writing and was now making six figures.

But then Sanjay said he wanted to write a book about jazz. I didn’t remember exactly how the conversation went down, but at some point, I had pushed him to be realistic and think about more immediate and lucrative streams of income.

He never mentioned the book again.

Lesson learned. After Miles began full-day preschool, Sanjay turned his attention to freelancing, and I waved my invisible pom-poms in the air and cheered on any idea he mentioned, breathing a secret sigh of relief when none of them involved anything longer than a few thousand words.

In retrospect, maybe the cheerleading had been a mistake. Because over the past three years, he had published some—a couple of stories in an obscure music magazine, a few reviews in our local paper, and one feature, thrillingly, in the Chicago Tribune —but not nearly often enough for our bank account or his ego. And sometimes when I saw him bent over his computer, it seemed to me that so many hours with so little to show for it had frayed the best parts of the man I had married.

“It’s time for Sanjay to get a job,” Jenny had remarked when I confessed I was concerned about our family’s finances. “Like, a regular nine-to-five job.”

I had raised an eyebrow at her—this was amusing advice from someone who ran her own business. Then again, she and Sanjay were cut from different cloth.

“Maybe,” I had said, knowing I would not demand this of him. At the time, the convenience of having one parent at home who could run to school to pick up a sick kid at the drop of a hat seemed invaluable. And I had done what I always said I would and avoided marrying the type of workaholic my father had been.

But now I understood Jenny had been right. It was time. We needed to contribute more to our meager retirement account and the kids’ insufficient college funds. And wouldn’t it be nice to do some of the umpteen things we had been putting off, like taking another family vacation this century or replacing the dishwasher, which no longer deserved its name? Most important, I needed to know that at some point soon I would not be shouldering my family’s financial burden alone.

Then him making money would be request number two. Even a part-time job would be a start.

Sanjay had suggested we keep our lists short, and just as well—for all my dissatisfaction, I couldn’t think of a third change to ask him for. I shut off my computer and told myself it was enough.



Later that night, I coaxed Stevie and Miles to tell me about their days. Stevie had just finished describing all the naughty things Miles had done at camp when I glanced over at my husband, who was chomping on a fish stick and staring into the living room. At once, I was hit with an unsettling realization.