Laura Caldwell - The Night I got Lucky

Once we each had a glass of wine, and I’d set out the food, there was nothing else to busy our hands.

“Chris,” I said, and again my voice sounded formal, even ominous.

He looked at me. There was something sad in his eyes.

I couldn’t think of how to start. There were too many things to say, none of them the right jumping-off point.

Chris saved me. “Tell me about the rest of your time with your dad.”

I smiled gratefully. He gave me a small lift of his mouth in return.

“Well, it was interesting,” I said. I told Chris everything about the night with my dad and Lillian and Kenny. I told him how I’d been cruel to my father, and how it had felt both good and horrible. I told him how kind and wise I thought Lillian was. I told him about my conversation with Dustin, and how, despite my sister’s warnings, I was glad I’d found our father.

“And I came to some realizations while I was out there,” I said.

“Like what?”

“I realized that I don’t know what a great marriage looks like. I was only around my mom and Jan for a year before I went to college, and obviously my mom and dad didn’t help me out. In some ways, in my mind, I think I set us up to fail. I was afraid you’d do the same thing as my dad.”

I’d been playing with my glass, but now I looked up at Chris.

He nodded at me to continue.

“We may not have a perfect marriage, Chris, but we have so much. We have money and our health and an amazing home and families who love us.”

Chris watched me, his eyes intent on mine.

I took a gulp of air. “But more importantly,” I said, “we have something special between you and me. It’s love. I don’t just mean that I love you like I love my mom. I am in love with you, Chris. And I think that’s a big distinction. I nearly forgot that after we first got married. I forgot it recently with the whole…” I couldn’t bring myself to say Evan’s name.

Chris winced a little. “Go on.”

“What I’m trying to say is we can’t blow this. We can’t take this gift for granted.” I got a catch in my throat. I willed myself to plow forward. “Look, I know what happened at the beginning, from my point of view anyway. I expected you to run, and in a way you did, but I need to know why. You said something the other night about how during the wedding I cared more about place settings than I did about us. And you said that afterward I cared more about work. Then you shut down. Is that really what you felt?”

Chris took a sip of his wine and looked across the park. A pack of joggers ran by. A lone biker rode past. But on the patch of lawn, we were alone. Now it was my turn to stay silent.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” Chris said, “and this is going to sound, well…silly. But I felt left out during the wedding. You and your mom were the fearsome twosome. You were planning that event for the whole year, and I rarely got consulted. I started to wonder whether you wanted to marry me, or whether you just wanted to get married.”

“That’s crazy. I’ve never been one of those girls who was just looking for a ring.”

“I know, I know. But I started to wonder. I felt so isolated from you during that time.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to be that involved. I had no idea you felt left out. Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged. “What guy wants to get all worked up about flowers and tablecloths? I can see now that I should have talked to you, but I thought I’d wait it out. I just wanted to be married so things could get back to the way they were before.”

“But they never did get back that way. You stayed distant.”

He took a bite of cheese, his jaws moved sharply as he chewed. “Not always.”

“No, you’re right, not always, but…”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I was…what’s the word? Removed. A lot of the time. It was kind of easy to be that way. You were working your butt off to make VP.”

“And you were working your butt off to make partner.”

“I know. We didn’t put our marriage first.”

I looked down at my glass. I thought of my mother’s words about lack of blame. “No, I guess we didn’t.”

“I held myself back from you more and more,” Chris said. “I hated it, but I didn’t know how to change it. And I missed you, Billy. I mean I really missed you, even though you were right there.”

I nodded. I knew what he meant.

“The days slipped by,” he said. “It’s such a lame excuse, but I got used to acting that way.”

“We should have talked about this before,” I said, mastering the world of understatement.

He nodded.

“Do you think it’s too late?” I had to ask.

Chris stared at Lake Michigan, then turned toward me. “Do you?”

In his brown eyes, I saw memories. The blind date when we met, with Tess and her husband smiling proudly across the table. The walk home down Sheffield Avenue, when Chris loosened his yellow tie and stopped me on the sidewalk, saying, “Can I please, please kiss you?” Chris with his shirtsleeves rolled up, making me sea bass and salad in our condo. The times when we’d lie nose to nose in bed, talking about our day.

“No,” I said. “I want to try.”

His hand slid across the blanket and touched mine. “Me, too.”

“Would you go to therapy?” I said this quietly. I’d brought up the topic before, but he was always reluctant.

“Yes,” Chris said without hesitation.

I gripped his hand. “You would?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “You’re my wife.”

Those words-my wife-sent me soaring to the sky.

Chris and I had enjoyed the picnic in the park, but now we had to clean up. Literally and emotionally, there were dishes to be scraped, food to be thrown away, the blanket to be folded and stowed. And none of it was neat. Crumbs were everywhere, the blanket had grass sticking to it, and spilt wine made it all sticky.

The rest of Friday evening was beautiful, as if Chris and I were lit by candlelight. Saturday morning, however, brought harsh sunlight.

“Why can’t you put this stuff away?” Chris said through the open door of the bathroom. I was still in bed, stretching like a cat and ready for our pasts to be over, for the rest of our life to start.

I blinked at the irritated tone of his words and pushed myself up on my elbows. The first thing I noticed was the frog, still on my nightstand. I looked past the frog to Chris and saw that he was holding a white bottle of face cleanser I’d left near my side of the vanity. “I always leave that out,” I said.

“I know. And it bugs me.” He made a big show of opening the maple medicine chest and placing the bottle firmly on a shelf. He closed the cabinet with something nearing a slam.

I flipped the covers back and went into the bathroom, slipping my arm around his waist. “What’s up?”

His body was tense. “Nothing.”

“C’mon.”

“Nothing.”

I turned him to face me. “Chris, we decided yesterday that we wouldn’t say nothing’s wrong if it is, and I know it’s not my face soap. So tell me.”

His eyes roamed my face. “It really is nothing. Nothing specific. I just think it’s going to take some time to get over everything.”

I felt a sinking of my spirits, then the familiar desire to hide. Or run from what we had right in front of us. Instead, I paused and thought about the concept of time and what Chris had said. “I get it, okay? You need to trust me again, and that’ll take time. In some ways, I feel the same. It’s going to take me a little while to accept the fact that you withdrew from me years ago and didn’t tell me why. And I have to get over that I didn’t do anything about it.”

His face was impassive.