Love and Other Natural Disasters (8 page)

"Well, no matter what happens
with Jon and me, I know he'll stay involved with Jacob and the baby."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he's Jon."

"Hey, men leave, go on and
have second wives and hew families. Third wives and new families. It happens
ill the time."

I didn't know how to explain that
no matter what Jon had done with Laney, he wouldn't abandon his kids. Charlie
was still living in Orange County—not the OC of soapy prime-time TV with its
beautiful homogenized people and oceanfront property, but a small,
working-class town inland. When I went away to college and lived among the
other half, Charlie stayed put, barely finishing high school. He didn't know
people like Jon, who might have affairs, but they don't leave their kids
behind. While I believed Jon loved Jacob profoundly and couldn't imagine him
not wanting to love the new baby the same way, I couldn't help thinking that
one of the reasons he wouldn't sever ties was because he couldn't Stand the
world knowing he was that kind of man. A man like my dad, and like Charlie's.
Deadbeat dads. I'd never thought before about that word: "deadbeat."
I guess It was reserved for men whose hearts were so dead that they could fail
to love their own children. My mother had managed to get pregnant by two men
with dead hearts.

My silence must have thrown
Charlie, because he said, "I'm sorry, Eve. I didn't mean to upset you.
Forgive him if you want."

"I do want to, I just don't
know if I can."

"If it were me, I'd call the
bitch. I'd tell her she doesn't know who she's messing with."

I laughed. "Yeah, I'm a real
threat to her in Chicago. I'm so pregnant I can't even get on a plane."
His comment made me realize that I hadn't even gotten mad at Laney. Maybe I
should work myself up. Maybe that was one of the steps to healing. Try it, call
her a bitch. No, it just felt forced. Silly. This wasn't high school.

"What's she doing in
Chicago?"

"Living there. She works at
the Chicago office of Jon's company."

"So he's been flying off to
see her? You should get all that plane fare back in the divorce
settlement."

"Hopefully, there won't be a
divorce. And no, I don't think he's flown to see her. I mean, I'm pretty sure
he hasn't. He hasn't been anywhere this past year."

"So she flies in to visit
him?"

"I don't want to think about
it." Thinking about it conjured the image of Laney's hand on Jon's crotch.

"Well, when does he—you
know—do the deed?"

"I don't think he has."

"What am I missing here?"

"He e-mails her all the time,
and talks to her a couple of times a week. He's been hiding her from me for the
past year."

"So she's his friend,"

"That's more intimate than
friendship."

"But it's a whole lot less
intimate than sex."

"Charlie, you don't know
anything about this."

"That's why I'm asking
questions."

"Betrayal is betrayal."
It sounded like I was part of a crime family, like Jon was about to get
whacked.

"If you say so."

"I do."

"I'm just trying to
help."

I knew he was. I knew he'd stand by
me no matter what, and even if sometimes he didn't say the right things and he
surely didn't do the right things (drinking too much, quitting or getting fired
from jobs, mooching off my mother), loyalty was about all I was prepared to ask
of anyone right then. "You are helping."

"So there's that," he
said. "What else have you got?"

After hanging up with Charlie, the
desire to get into the e-mails intensified until it was like a physical
craving. I'd never been a smoker, but I imagined this was what it was like when
people first quit, when nicotine seems like air. I needed a hit, just a little
something to get me through Until morning. So I bargained with myself. I was
allowed to check only the recent e-mails to see if he'd written to Laney and
told her it was over. Much as I wanted more—to see a picture of her, for
example—that was all I could have.

I was antsy for the rest of the
night, waiting for my mother to take her Ambien. I didn't want to risk going
into Jon's e-mail while she was awake.
That's because you shouldn't be going
into it at all,
I scolded myself. It was
supposed to be a onetime thing.

The baby was moving again. She'd
been moving almost constantly—I remembered that from late in my pregnancy with
Jacob—but it was so frenetic right then that I wondered if it was in support or
reproach.

Finally, after an episode of
Law
& Order
that seemed as long as
Gone with the Wind,
my mother
gave me a hug and said she was going to bed. I followed her down the hall and
went into my bedroom. From there, I could hear her nightly bathroom ritual. Why
did she have to be such a dedicated
flosser
? It was
cruel, what she was doing to me.

Ten minutes later, she was out of
the bathroom and settled on the futon. I waited five minutes, then tiptoed to
her doorway. When her breathing became even and regular, I pounced on the
computer.

Remember, just the Sent folder. That's
all you get.

But I wasn't prepared for what I
found. Which was nothing. It appeared he hadn't responded at all to her
Thanksgiving e-mail. Did that mean he'd called her instead? Or was it possible
that he realized what I was doing and wasn't using this account anymore? Had I
driven him underground? Or had he decided to have absolutely no communication
with her, not even to tell her it was over?

Of all the possibilities, the last
one (my favorite) seemed the least likely. It was just too mean. Not Jon's
style. Besides, if he had done that, there probably would have been e-mails
from Laney asking what had happened to him.

That meant he'd called her, which
was just plain out of my jurisdiction. I couldn't know if he'd told her they
were through, or to lay low for a while, or that they'd have to keep it to the
phone from now on. Well, I couldn't know that night. If I kept checking the
e-mail, I might find out something in a few days or a week. He might write an e-mail
to someone else saying what had happened, for example.

Unless he suspected me.

No, he wouldn't suspect me. I
wouldn't do anything
like
this.
I wasn't this kind of person. Jon knew that.

I hurriedly shut off the computer.
I'd done all I was permitted to do that night. There was no sense sitting there
and inviting more temptation. Anything else would have to wait for another day.
My mother was leaving tomorrow, and I'd have the room all to myself.

There was a red terror alert at the
airport, which meant We'd slowed to an absolute crawl. My mother was departing
from the farthest terminal.

"I can just get out and
walk," she offered, reading the tension in my face.

"No, don't do that," I
said. "I'm. sure it'll clear up soon." I was not at all sure of that,
but Jacob was with Jon for the day, so I had nowhere to be. "Is Charlie
picking you up at the airport?"

"He's supposed to. But you
know Charlie."

"I know Charlie."

"Are you working
tomorrow?" she asked. She was digging in her purse, finally producing a
pack of Juicy Fruit. She thrust it toward me; I shook my head no.

"I work every weekday. I just
work shorter hours. You know, Jacob's school hours." I'd worked the same
job with the same hours for two years now. She'd always been bad with details.

"That's nice."

We had actually stopped moving
completely. I put the car into park.

"My casserole didn't come out
right this year," my mother said. "People left a lot on their
plates."

"It tasted fine to me."

"If I come up next year, maybe
I should make something else. But that casserole used to be your favorite thing
when you were little. I think Tony was the first one to make it for us."

Ah, yes. Tony, the drunken
philanderer. But he did like to cook for us, which was a greater kindness than
any of her other boyfriends ever paid her. "Why did you and Tony break up
again?"

"He went back to his ex-wife.
I just came home one day and he'd left me a note. 'Gone fishing,' it said.
'With Meredith.' And I knew."

"How?"

"Because he'd never been
fishing in his life."

Thankfully, I didn't have to come
up with a reply because traffic started up again. I shifted into drive and
lurched several feet.

"Jonathon called me," my
mother said.

It wasn't surprising. He had to get
his side of the story out. Couldn't have all those people thinking he was like
Tony.

"I told him I'm staying out of
it," she added.

"I appreciate that."

"But did you know he didn't
sleep with her?"

"Yes, Mom." So much for
Switzerland.

"I just wanted to make sure
you knew."

"I knew."

We had almost reached the
pedestrian walkway. Some people dashed across, their rolling suitcases
clattering behind them, while others sauntered with duffel bags thrown over
their shoulders. Fully half of them were talking on cell phones, with varying
degrees of excitement and animation. We were trapped, unmoving, while their
lives were rushing on. My legs felt itchy. I'd barely walked all weekend.
Except for my time at Costco, I'd either been home in a state of torment or
driving somewhere in a state of aggravation.

"This is the last thing I'm
going to say," my mother said, "but I believe Jon loves you very much
and would never do anything like this again."

As if my mother were any judge of
trustworthy men.

"Sometimes men do stupid
things. It doesn't mean they don't love us," she continued.

I realized I was in the same boat
my mother had been In time and time again. That was one boat I'd never wanted
to board.

I didn't say anything, and she
didn't know where to go in the face of my silence. Finally I pulled up in front
of the terminal.

"They only let ticketed
passengers go to the gates," I said. "Security. Otherwise, I'd come
in with you."

She nodded. "Just because I
never seem to say the right thing, it doesn't mean I don't love you. I'd do
anything to make you hurt less."

Unhooking my seat belt, I reached
across the divide and hugged her. "I know that. I love you, too."

She gave me a hard, quick squeeze,
then released. I was surprised to find myself wishing that she'd held on
longer, and tighter.

When I got home from the airport, I
put my pajamas back on and crawled into bed. Not long after, there was
persistent knocking on my door. No one I wanted to see would come by without
calling. I don't mean just because of the current state of my life; I've never
had one of those houses where friends can drop by anytime. I like to know when
things are going to happen.

There was a pause; then the
knocking started again. Since it was Sunday, it wouldn't be the UPS guy (not
that he'd have enough invested in my signature to knock that long anyway). The
religion peddlers would have already left what they euphemistically called
"literature" and gone on their way. Jon wasn't due back with Jacob
for hours. If that was Jon, changing the plan without calling, he'd better be
wearing body armor.

I stormed down the hall and yanked
the door open to find Lil and her son, Luke, waiting there. Shit. I'd forgotten
to cancel Jacob's play date.

Lil was the unflappable type, so
her smile never wavered despite seeing me in my pajamas at one in the
afternoon, my puffy face transforming rapidly from fury to embarrassment. She
was, as always, dressed in form-fitting designer clothes, long blond hair in
gleaming waves down her back. She never looked thirty-eight.

"Where's Jacob?" Luke
asked impatiently, through his slight lisp. "We've got things to do."
He's a ballsy kid, like his mom.

"He's not here," I said.
I looked at Lil apologetically. "I'm so sorry I didn't call. I got mixed
up on the day. He's out with his father."

I don't know if it was my
appearance, that I said "his father" instead of "Jon," or
the fact that I never mixed up days, but Lil gave a brisk nod and said to Luke
(who was loudly broadcasting his disappointment), "I don't think Jacob's
mom needs that right now, Luke. I think she needs you to take this like an
adult. Now try. Try right now." I watched in amazement as Luke screwed up
his little face in concentration, trying to summon his inner resources. Then to
me, "Maybe Luke could play in Jacob's room and you and I could talk
awhile?"

Lil used to be an ER nurse. What
was happening with Jon and me wasn't even close to a crisis for her, something
I simultaneously appreciated and resented. "Let's give that a try," I
said.

Lil and I were friends, but not
what I'd call close. I met her through Jacob. Luke and Jacob were, mostly, best
friends. They could both be headstrong, and every now and again, Jacob would
march into the kitchen—with Luke trailing behind—hollering that he didn't want
Luke coming over anymore, while Luke shouted that he didn't want to come over
anyway. According to Lil, this routine
was repeated at her house, only Luke was out in front. Lil and I had become
masters at mediation, and that was the common ground on which we'd forged a
friendship.

But Lil and I were hardly kindred
spirits. She's the type of person who tells you the first time you're having
coffee I that her marriage ended because she was too sexually audacious,
someone who'd detail her latest conquest in whispered tones during a PTA
meeting. She was the only woman I knew who dabbled in the "Casual
Encounters" section of the Craigslist personals, the only woman who had
STD testing at least three times a year ("Whether I need it or not!"
she said cheerfully) despite buying her condoms in bulk at Costco. I
appreciated Lil's fearlessness, and that she was so completely herself in every
setting. But she wasn't my first choice of confidante.

We sat down at the kitchen table.
It was funny, that we went to the kitchen instead of sitting on the living-room
couch, which was closer. It was like we just knew that women had been having
these sorts of conversations in I the kitchen since time immemorial.

"Where's Jon?" she asked.
The directness of that opening was vintage Lil.

"He's out with Jacob."
She continued to look at me, saying nothing. "He's staying with his
mother."

"What did he do?" There
was nothing accusatory in her tone. She barely knew Jon, and she wouldn't have
been shocked if she knew him better; nothing men did surprised her. What I
admired about her was that she was matter-of-fact rather than bitter. She
thought women had to be prepared for certain realities when it came to men, and
the sooner they learned it, the better. "I wish I had a little girl,"
she'd said once. "Luke's great, but he's going to turn into a man no
matter what I tell him. But my daughter would turn into a woman who never, ever
let her self-esteem rest on a man."

"He's been involved with this
woman Laney for a little over a year." Her name was like instant
indigestion. "She lives in Chicago. No sex, but he tells her everything.
Lots of e-mails and phone calls."

Lil nodded. Without inflection, she
said, "That's bad."

I felt a tsunami of gratitude. That
was all I'd wanted, someone to get that it wasn't a question of relativity. It
wasn't about whether sex would have been worse. This was just bad.

"That's worse than sex,"
Lil said. "He's attached to her."

I stared. I didn't want it to
actually be worse. "What do you mean?"

"Well, sex can warp the mind.
And let's face it, sex with the same person can get boring. Sex after marriage
and a kid?" She waved a hand. "If he was having sex with this woman,
you could chalk the whole thing up to novelty. It could be that he was so
overcome by lust that he lost his mind for a while. You could even say he was
so hot for her that he mistook it for love, and once they go thinking it's
love, well, everything's fair game. But a year of e-mails and phone
calls—that's about his mind and his heart, not just his dick. Call me crazy,
but I always think the dick's preferable."

I was dumbfounded. Finally I
stammered, "You really think it's worse?"

"Oh, exponentially. Look, I
know sex. And I'd rather Have my man fucking someone else any day than telling
her everything." She leaned in. "I'm not saying this to be harsh. I'm
saying it because I think the best thing one Woman can do for another is not
bullshit her. Leave the bullshitting to the men."

"What do you think I should
do, then?" "Well, what are you doing now?" "I told him to
go to therapy and figure out who he really is and what he wants."

Lil nodded approvingly. "And
you take this time to figure out who you are and what you want. If you wind Up
wanting each other, you can try to fix this. But maybe this is your
opportunity. Maybe you never thought you'd get a second chance and now you have
one." "But I didn't want a second chance." "If you knew
then what you know now about him, maybe you would have."

"What about my kids? Don't I
owe it to them... ?" I trailed off.

"To sacrifice your happiness?
To live with a man you can't trust?" She shook her head. "My ex and I
split up when Luke was barely two. I knew it was right, and that's all Luke
ever saw from me. If you show your kids you're doing what's best, they believe
you." "I don't know what's best." "Look, you're still
young, you're cute—" "I'm pregnant," I cut in.

"Unless you're planning on
carrying that baby around for another twenty years, you could be back in the
game like that." She snapped her fingers. "If that's what you
want."

I was dubious, but at least I
wasn't crying.

I should probably mention that
Jon's the only man I've ever been in love with. He wasn't my first boyfriend,
or my first sex, but I never fully understood the point of either boyfriends or
sex until Jon.

We were introduced at a "Take
Back the Night" rally. It wasn't a fix-up; he just fell in step beside my
friend Jennifer as we marched through the streets, decrying violence against
women. We called it marching, but it was really just walking. He shook my hand;
then he and Jennifer started talking. I couldn't hear him all that well, given
the chanting around us, and I wasn't trying hard. I wasn't particularly struck
by his appearance: dark hair, slightly big nose, oversized polo shirt on a thin
frame. He was cute enough, but innocuous. He was an everyman.

I was surprised when Jennifer later
said he'd asked about me. She said he "liked my energy." I didn't
know what he meant, but I was flattered in spite of myself. I wasn't the surly
adolescent I once was, but I never thought of myself as the kind of girl with
good energy. I also didn't really see myself dating the kind of guy who'd use
the phrase "good energy," but Jennifer vouched for him and I hadn't
had a date in months. Sometimes you just need to exercise the muscle.

Jon picked a Vietnamese restaurant
near campus for our first date, and when I walked in and saw him, my heart went
into free fall. I was suddenly sure no good could come of this meeting. Jon's
hair was sticky with gel and he was wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans. I
was no style icon, but at least I understood that first-date clothing was a chance
to say something about yourself. I wasn't impressed with Jon's blank-canvas
look.

The food was greasy, the lighting
was too bright, and our table featured a glass overlay and a single red
carnation wilting in a blue ceramic vase. And Jon was a business major, for
heaven's sake, which Jennifer had neglected to mention.

Slowly but surely, though, he won
me over. He seemed to sense that initially I wanted out of there, and he was
prepared to wait me out. I didn't know what in his life had imbued him with the
confidence to believe that I'd come around—or why he seemed so certain I was
worth waiting for, I wasn't sure of that myself—but somehow the combination of
dogged and sweet worked for me. He didn't try to
dazzle;
he was just
curious and interested and, eventually, funny. I was charmed in spite of
myself.

I'd spent a lot of time in and out
of depression in my life, and with Jon, I found an easy happiness that I'd
never experienced before. Around him, I felt lighter. I hadn't realized that I
carried this tension inside me all the time until it disappeared. I don't know
if Jon loved me first, but of the two of us, he was the one to throw himself
into it. He was the one to name the experience "love."

I was skittish where love was
concerned (I'd never-seen good love in operation), but once I let myself love
Jon, I felt the most incredible joy. We became That Couple. You know the one:
talking in restaurants until the floors are being mopped, always touching each
other as if magnetized. Of course, now, so many years later, I realize that
pretty much everyone has a stint as That Couple. For ten years, I thought of
Jon and me as That Couple, the one worth envying, the one worth emulating.
Maybe I'd ignored all evidence to the contrary. I mean, obviously, I'd missed something.
But I never saw things change. I never saw him fall out of love with me. We
still held hands at the movies; we could still talk until closing. It wasn't
like I'd been in a state of continuous bliss, but I'd been happy and assumed he
was, too. How could he appear to love me so much, and be so invested in another
woman? How could he have broken down all my defenses, gotten completely inside
of me, only to give himself to Laney?

We were That Couple, all right, the
one where the husband's cheating and the wife's saying, "But just last
week, he was kissing my belly and telling me he loved me." I wanted to
forgive him, I wanted us to get back what we had, but how could we? It suddenly
seemed like a figment of my imagination.

"Just wanted to let you know we're
on our way back. With no traffic, Jacob should be home in a half hour."
There was a slight crackle on the line, but Jon's voice seemed almost normal.
It was too early for normal. Unless normal was the new abnormal.

"Fine," I said. Brusque
was the new polite, as far as I was concerned.

"How do you want to handle the
drop-off? I'd love to
gee
you,
but I understand if you just want Jacob to knock and then you'll let him
in."

"It's been a long day. Let
Jacob do the knocking."

I was about to hang up, when he
said, "Eve? I booked my first therapy appointment." He continued,
seemingly unfazed by my silence. "Also, I had an idea for a system. If I
really need to talk to you about something—say, about Jacob, or finances, or
the baby—I could call you on your cell phone, but the rest of the time, I'll
call on the home phone and you can screen me."

"You want me to screen
you?" I said flatly.

"That way, I could call, say
what's on my mind, and then you could listen and decide if you want to pick up
or not. If you don't, that's okay. That way, you get your space, but I'm not in
Siberia. What do you think?"

"We can try it." I did
miss Jon's voice.

"Great!" he enthused.
"Well, bye!"

"Bye."

As I hung up, I realized: Jon had
gone to Plan B. He was big on Plan B's. And C's, if necessary. He was
strategic, I'd give him that.

Forty minutes later, I heard Jacob
knocking at the door. I opened it, and even though he'd been gone only for the
day, it was a thrill to see him standing there, zipped up in his puffy blue
jacket, cheeks flushed with happiness or cold or both. He was holding a
rolled-up tube of paper.

After I'd hugged him, I looked
outside. Jon was parked along the curb, his window rolled down, watching us. He
lifted his arm in a wave; I waved back. As his car pulled away, I wished I'd
let him come in. Then I shut the door.