Paula McLain - The Paris Wife

“I think I’m too old to fall in love sometimes,” I said to Ruth one afternoon. We sat in my room on the bed, a plate of tea biscuits between us, while outside it snowed like it might never stop.

“You’re too old-or he’s too young?”

“Both,” I said. “In a way he’s lived more than I have, and he’s certainly had more excitement. But he can be awfully romantic and naïve too. Like this business with Agnes. She did break his heart, I believe that full well, but he carries it around like a wounded child.”

“That’s not very fair, Hadley. You suffered over Harrison Williams, didn’t you?”

“I did. Oh, Ruth.” I put my head in my hands. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I think I’m just afraid.”

“Of course you are,” she said gently. “If you honestly think he’s too young for you, all right then, make your decision and stick to it.”

“Do you think I’ll stop worrying when I know he loves me for sure?”

“Just listen to yourself.”

“There’s so much to lose.”

“There always is,” she said.

I sighed and reached for another biscuit. “Are you always this wise, Ruth?”

“Only when it comes to other people’s lives.”

The next day there was no letter from Ernest, and the next day also none, and the next as well. It seemed clearer and clearer that he was either forgetting me or consciously pushing me to the side, choosing Rome and the hope of making a go with his writing instead. I was hurt, but also terribly jealous. He had something real to pin his hopes on, something to apply his life to. My dreams were plainer and, quite frankly, more and more tied to him. I wanted a simple house somewhere with Ernest coming up the walk whistling, his hat in his hand. Nothing he’d ever done or said suggested any such thing could ever happen. So just who was naïve and romantic?

“If it’s over, I can be brave,” I told Ruth and Bertha on the evening of the third day, feeling a heavy knot clench and dissolve at the back of my throat. “I’ll roll up my sleeves and find someone else.”

“Oh, kid,” Ruth said. “You’re down for the count, aren’t you?”

After we went to bed, I tossed and turned for hours before falling into a light sleep sometime after two. The next morning, still feeling foggy-headed and quite low, I checked the letter box. It was too early for the mail to have arrived, but I did it anyway-I couldn’t help myself. There, in the box, was not one letter but two, both of them fat and promising. Rationally, I knew the mail boy must have come by with them the evening before, catching me unawares, but part of me wanted to believe that I had conjured the letters there with my longing. Either way, Ernest’s silence had finally broken. I leaned against the doorjamb, my eyes blurring with tears of relief.

Back upstairs, I tore open the letters greedily. The first spilled the usual news of work and fun at Kenley’s place, lately referred to as “the Domicile.” There had been a boxing match in the living room the night before, with Ernest playing the role of John L. Sullivan, ducking and weaving in long underwear and a brown silk sash. I laughed to think of him this way and was still laughing when I began reading the second letter. Still thinking about Rome , it began, but what if you came along-as wife?

Wife . The word stopped me cold. I hadn’t met his mother or any of his family. He hadn’t even been to St. Louis to sit in the front parlor and bear Fonnie’s disapproving gaze. Still, he might be serious. It was just the way he’d propose, off the cuff, following a joke about boxing. I wrote back later that morning: If you’re ready to make the mad dash I’m game .

Rome. Together. It was an extraordinary thought. When I let myself fantasize about marrying Ernest, we lived in St. Louis or Chicago, in a place very like the Domicile, full of fun and good talk at any hour. Living with Ernest in Italy was a thrilling and terrifying and completely revolutionary idea. When I was seventeen, I took a trip to Florence and Rome with my mother and two sisters. The whole thing went miserably, and I remembered very little beauty-only heat and fainting spells and mosquitoes. Being in Rome with Ernest had to be different. I would be different there. How could I not be? I could see us walking the Tiber arm in arm, crossing all the bridges one by one. Let’s go , I wrote blithely, flushed with anticipation. I’m already packed .

Then I walked outside without coat or scarf. The sky was low and gray, spilling fat wide flakes. I looked up into it and opened my mouth, tasting the snow.

Two weeks after Ernest’s proposal, I made the necessary trip to Chicago to greet an entire contingent of Hemingways. I was so nervous I drank the better part of a bottle of wine first, pacing the living room at the Domicile, while Ernest tried to reassure me as best he could. It didn’t help that Kate had finally turned up that afternoon. Ernest was at work and she found me at Kenley’s alone.

“You’re not really going to marry Wem? That’s ridiculous.” Her voice was shrill. She had stomped in without taking off her hat and coat.

“Kate, please sit down and be reasonable.”

“You’re going to regret this. You know you will. He’s so young and impulsive.”

“And I’m what? A sedate little spinster?”

“No, just naïve. You give him too much credit.”

“Honestly, Kate. You’re supposed to be his friend. What did he do to turn you against him?”

She stopped ranting suddenly and sat down heavily on the davenport. “Nothing.”

“Then why all this?” I lowered my voice and moved to sit near her. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head slowly. Her eyes were clear and sad. “I don’t want things to get any uglier, and neither do you. I’ll be happy for you, I swear I will.”

I felt a roaring in my ears then that wouldn’t quiet for the rest of the afternoon. When Ernest came home from work, I was still so upset I nearly ambushed him at the door. “Is there anything you want to tell me about Kate? I think she’s quite in love with you.” I was surprised to hear myself say it out loud, but Ernest took it with a strange calmness.

“Maybe,” he said. “But it’s no fault of mine. I didn’t encourage her.”

“Didn’t you? I think she’s very hurt by something.”

“Listen. Kate is Kate. That’s all behind us now. Do you really want to know everything?”

“I do. I want to know all of it. Everyone you’ve ever kissed or imagined yourself in love with for even two minutes.”

“That’s crazy. Why?”

“So you can tell me how much they don’t matter and how you love me more.”

“That’s what I am telling you. Aren’t you listening at all?”

“How can we get married if there are secrets between us?”

“You don’t want to get married?”

“Do you?”

“Of course. You’re making much too much of this, Hash. Please be reasonable.”

“That’s what Kate said.”

He looked at me with such exasperation I couldn’t help bursting into tears.

“Oh, come here, little cat. Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

I nodded and dried my eyes. And then asked for a drink.

We borrowed Kenley’s car to drive out to the big family house in Oak Park. The closer we got to Kenilworth Avenue, the more agitated Ernest became.

“Don’t you think they’ll like me?” I asked.

“They’ll adore you. They’re not crazy about me is the thing.”

“They love you. They have to.”

“They love me like a pack of wolves,” he said bitterly. “Why do you suppose I board with Kenley when my family’s just fifteen miles away?”