Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

Dr. Silvers had urged him simply to be present, to sit with his pain (rather than send it back), and to resist the desire for certain outcomes. But Jacob felt the situation would call for some very un-Eastern responsiveness. He would have to avoid saying things that could be used against him at any future point, as everything would be entered into the permanent record. He would have to appear to yield (with gentle affirmations, and declared reversals to positions he already secretly held), without giving an inch. He would have to have the cunning of someone too cunning to read a book about the cunning of samurai.

But as the conversation took shape, Jacob felt no need for control. There was nothing to win; there was only losing to protect against.

“‘There are many different kinds of families,’” Julia said. “Doesn’t that seem like a good way to go?”

“It does.”

“‘Some families have two dads. Some have two moms.’”

“‘Some families live in two houses’?”

“At which point Max will infer we’re buying a vacation house, and get excited.”

“A vacation house?”

“A house on the ocean. ‘Some families live in two houses: one in the city, one by the ocean.’”

A vacation house , Julia thought, willfully confusing herself as completely as Max would. She and Jacob had talked about it — not a house on the ocean, they could never afford that, but something cozy and elsewhere. It was the big news she was going to mention to Mark that day, before he reminded her how newsless her life was. A vacation house would be nice. Maybe even nice enough to make things work for a while, or to simulate a functioning family until the next temporary solution could be found. The appearance of happiness . If they could sustain the appearance — not to others, but how life appeared to themselves — it might be a close-enough approximation of the experience of actual happiness to make things work.

They could travel more. The planning of a trip, the trip, the decompression: that would buy them some time.

They could go to couples therapy, but Jacob had implied a bizarre loyalty to Dr. Silvers, which would have made seeing someone else a transgression (a greater transgression, apparently, than requesting a shot of fecal cum from a woman who was not his wife); and when Julia faced the prospect of opening everything up, the time and expense of twice-a-week visits that would end in either painful silence or endless talking, she couldn’t rouse herself to the necessary hopefulness.

They could have done exactly what she’d spent her professional life facilitating and her personal life condemning: a renovation. There was so much that could be improved in their house: revamp the kitchen (new hardware, at minimum, but why not new countertops, new appliances, ideally a reconfiguration for better flow and lines of sight); new master bath; new closets; open up the back of the house to the garden; punch in a couple of skylights above the top-floor showers; finish the basement.

“‘One house where Mom will live, and one house where Dad will live.’”

“OK,” Jacob said, “let me be Sam for a minute.”

“OK.”

“You’re going to move at the same time?”

“We’re going to try to, yes.”

“And I’m going to have to carry my stuff back and forth every day?”

“We’re going to live within walking distance of each other,” Julia said, “and it won’t be every day.”

“Is that really something you can promise? I’m being me now.”

“I think it’s an OK promise for the situation.”

“And how will we divide time?”

“I don’t know,” Julia said, “but not every day.”

“And who’s going to live here? I’m being Sam again.”

“Hopefully a nice family.”

“We’re a nice family.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Did one of you have an affair?”

“Jacob.”

“What?”

“He’s not going to ask that.”

“First of all, of course he might. Second, it’s one of those things that, however unlikely, we absolutely need to have a prepared answer for.”

“OK,” Julia said, “so I’ll be Sam.”

“OK.”

“Did one of you have an affair?”

“Who am I?” Jacob asked. “Me? Or you?”

“You.”

“No. That’s not what’s going on here.”

“But I saw your phone.”

“Wait, did he ?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so? Or he didn’t?”

“I don’t believe that he did.”

“So why are you saying it?”

“Because the kids know things that we don’t think they know. And when he helped me to unlock it—”

“He helped you unlock it?”

“I didn’t know whose it was.”

“And he saw—?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him—”

“Of course not.”

Jacob got back into the character of himself.

“What you saw was an exchange with one of the other writers on my show. We were sending lines back and forth for a scene in which, well, two people say some pretty inappropriate things to each other.”

“Convincing,” Julia said, herself.

“And you, Mom?” Jacob asked. “Did you have an affair?”

“No.”

“Not with Mark Adelson?”

“No.”

“You didn’t kiss him at Model UN?”

“Is this really productive, Jacob?”

“Here, I’ll be you.”

“You’ll be me?”

“Yes, Sam, I did kiss Mark at Model UN. It wasn’t premeditated—”

“Not a word I would ever use.”

“It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even enjoyable. It simply happened. I am sorry that it happened. I have asked your father to accept my apology, and he has. Your father is a very good man—”

“We get the picture.”

“Really, though,” Jacob said, “how are we going to explain our reasoning?”

“Reasoning?”

They never used the word divorce . Jacob could bring himself to say it, because it wasn’t going to happen. But he didn’t want it aboveground. Julia couldn’t say it, because she wasn’t so sure. She didn’t know where to put it.

If Julia were to be fully honest, she couldn’t easily say her reasons for doing what they couldn’t say. She was unhappy, although unconvinced that her unhappiness wouldn’t be someone else’s happiness. She felt unfulfilled desire — profound amounts of it — but presumably so did every other married and unmarried person. She wanted more, but didn’t know if there was more to be found. Not knowing used to feel inspiring. It felt like faith. Now it felt agnostic. Like not knowing.

“What if they want to know if we’re going to get remarried?” Julia asked.

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“Definitely not,” she said. “No chance.”

“You’re awfully sure.”

“There is nothing I’m more sure of.”

“You used to be so unsure of everything, in the best way.”

“I suppose I used to have less evidence.”

“The only thing you have evidence of is that our specific way of doing things didn’t work for the specific person you are.”

“I’m ready for the next chapter.”

“Spinsterhood?”

“Maybe.”

“What about Mark?”

“What about him?”

“He’s nice. Handsome. Why not give that a try?”

“How can you be so ready to give me away?”

“No. No, it’s just you seem to have a connection with him, and—”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Jacob. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not worried about you.”

That didn’t sound right.

He tried again: “I’m not any more worried about you than you are about me.”

Also not right.

“Mark is a mensch,” Billie said at the edge of the room. Do they spontaneously generate from the upholstery, like maggots from rotting meat?