Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

“He isn’t?”

Peter gave a weak, sad laugh. “No. Though he fits into the bigger picture of what I wanted to say.”

“Just say it. I’m listening.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. She heard the faint wheeze and her heart trembled. On some gut level, she knew what was coming.

“I met someone on the trail.”

Around her, the mild June night turned wintry. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

“ Met someone?”

“I told you that Eric and Dalton left the trail before I did. And that I kept going with other hikers I’d met at one of the supply points. You never asked for any details, because you weren’t interested—”

“That’s not fair. I was occupied. At any other time in my life, I would have asked. But Seahorse was consuming me.” Now Tessa couldn’t stop shivering.

Peter pulled off his sweatshirt. “Here. Put this on.”

She waved it away.

“So you had an affair on the Pacific Crest Trail? With someone you met while restocking your granola bars?”

“I didn’t have an affair,” he said evenly. “I wouldn’t do that to you. But the problem is…” He paused, his voice unsteady. “I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“I love you, Tessa, but love isn’t enough anymore. I need… dailiness. I don’t just want to admire and respect each other and have these parallel lives. I want to do stuff together. I want you to hike a long wilderness trail with me. I want to adore our dog together. I want you to take pleasure in food instead of thinking how inefficient mealtimes are. Because isn’t that what it comes down to? The hours of the day? I’m lonely in this marriage. Aren’t you?”

She seriously considered the question.

“No,” she said finally. “I’m not.”

“That’s because you have your work. And your work people. The people you spend exponentially more time with than me. I used to tell myself, quality over quantity , but now I think actions are what count.”

He gazed at the blacked-out horizon.

“It’s temporary,” said Tessa. “Now that the Trial is wrapping, I won’t be so immersed in—”

“That’s not true,” said Peter. “You’ll write your next book, you’ll be lauded for your courage and activism, you’ll stir up controversy, and then you’ll be on to your next thing. Back to working nine hundred hours a week with”—he paused, as if steeling himself for the words that would follow—“Luke Zimmerman.”

“Luke is my colleague.”

“He’s your other husband.”

Tessa felt genuinely queasy. “That is not true.” Her teeth chattered.

“It’s not Luke, per se,” he said. “It’s your priorities.”

The night felt like it was pressing down on her. Closing in. “I thought you loved our life together,” she said. “I’ve never been anything but up-front about my priorities. About who I am.”

“I know that. It’s not your fault. But I’m just not okay with it anymore. It hit me on the trail. The purpose of Seahorse is to prevent a pregnancy and baby from disrupting your life and your work. To keep it all seamless somehow. But having children is supposed to be disruptive. All the clichés formed for a reason, didn’t they? There’s nothing like it and you’ll never be the same and all that? I know you spin Seahorse as this feminist breakthrough, but now I’m seeing it as a way to keep women far from their maternal instincts. I’m sorry if that offends you.” His voice was tight, tamping down emotion.

“Don’t blame this on Seahorse. Don’t make it loftier than it is. You met someone . That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

Peter sighed. “Chicken or the egg.”

Anger cut through her incredulousness. “Does the baby have anything to do with this? Did my lack of fertility let you down, Peter?”

“Tessa, God! How could you say that? No. Not at all.”

“How old is she, Peter? The hiker?”

“Your fertility had nothing to do with it.”

“Thirty-two? Thirty-four?”

“Your lack of enthusiasm for a baby might have had something to do with it. But it’s just one factor.”

Tessa felt herself begin to deflate, steadily, like a punctured tire. She wanted to punch him and to collapse into him. Then a line from Pushing Through flashed to mind:

In the throes of opposition, validating one’s opponent is critical to success.

She gathered herself.

“Peter. Okay. I hear you. And you’re absolutely right. I’ve been absent. I’ve taken you for granted. I’ve put my work first when you should be first. You have every right to consider another person.”

“I’m not considering another person ,” he said. “I’m in love with her.”

The words slashed through Tessa. In love with her. But she pushed on, keeping her voice low and calm.

“I understand your impulse, Peter. But I’m asking you, as your wife of four years, not to give up so quickly. We can work through this. I think if you let yourself find meaningful work, it would—”

“See?” he snapped. “There you go.”

“There I go what?”

“Pushing your value system onto me. I don’t want to find meaningful work. I just want my life to feel meaningful. I want to do whatever it takes to get by and then spend as much time as I possibly can—wait for it, Tessa— enjoying myself .”

“When have I ever judged you for enjoying yourself?” She felt genuinely wounded.

“Since about day one, when you foisted ZSY on me. You knew I wasn’t the entrepreneurial type. You knew the store would fail. But you just couldn’t accept that I might be happy and unambitious at the same time.”

“That’s outrageous. I only wanted to help. You were dissatisfied.”

“Correction. You made me think I should be dissatisfied. And I went along with it. Which was a failure on my part.”

Impulsively, Tessa pressed her head to his chest, so that she could feel his heart thumping beneath his shirt, and stayed there until he finally lifted his arm from his side onto her back, lightly, not reciprocating her embrace, but responding to her at least. She closed her eyes and heard him sigh. Rational conversation was out of the question.

Tessa straightened to face him, putting her arms around his neck. “Peter,” she said. “Please give me another chance to show you.”

In the darkness, he met her eyes. Overhead, a gust of wind rustled the cypress branches, making their conversation suddenly feel less private.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, turning back to the invisible sea. “But I can’t.”

Tessa’s stomach lurched and she bolted up from the bench, back toward the footpath. She began to run back toward the Center, its domes arched like the backs of angry cats in the weak moonlight.

2021

When she woke the next day, marigold morning light was already illuminating her bedroom. She’d fallen asleep without closing the shades, curled at the far edge of the queen mattress, still wearing her jeans and beige linen top from yesterday. The room was too sunny; she covered her eyes with her forearm and lay still, breathing, her mind bleary, her body wobbly with a low-grade, unlocated nausea. Not just in her gut, but everywhere.

With effort, she shifted to face the other side of the bed, hoping for an illogical second that Peter might have followed her back to the Center and stayed. But the white comforter was smooth and blank, folded once at the top beneath two plump pillows.

No one had been there.

She groped for her phone on the nightstand and was startled at the time: 9:06 a.m.

Impossible. She couldn’t remember when she’d last slept so late.