Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

They say that character is destiny. Perhaps - but timing plays one hell of a big role too. We were both thirty-six. He had just been evicted from a five-year relationship with an uber-ambitious CNN correspondent named Kate Brymer (she dumped him for some big network talking head) - so we both knew a thing or two about romantic car crashes. Like me, he hated that inane neurotic dance called dating. Like me, he dreaded the idea of flying solo into forty. He even wanted kids - which made his attractiveness increase one hundred fold, as I was beginning to hear predictably ominous ticking noises from my biological clock.

On paper, we must have looked great. An ideal meeting of worldly equals. The perfect New York professional couple.

There was just one problem: I wasn't in love with him. I knew that. But I convinced myself otherwise. Part of this self-deception was brought about by Matt's persistent entreaties to marry him. He was persuasive without being gauche - and I guess I eventually bought his flattery. Because, after the Peter business, I needed to be flattered, adulated, wanted. And because I was secretly scared of ending up alone and childless in middle age.

'A lovely young man', my mother said after first meeting Matt. 'I think he'd make you very happy'... which was her way of saying that she approved of his WASP credentials, his preppy sheen. Meg was a little less effusive.

'He's a very nice guy', she said.

'You don't exactly seem overwhelmed', I said.

'That's because you don't seem exactly overwhelmed'.

I paused, then said, 'I am very happy'.

'Yeah - and love is a wonderful thing. You are in love, aren't you?'

'Sure', I said tonelessly.

'You sound very convincing'.

Meg's sour comment returned to rattle around my head four months later. I was in a hotel room on the Caribbean island of Nevis. It was three in the morning. My husband of thirty-six hours was asleep beside me in bed. It was the night after our wedding. I found myself staring at the ceiling, thinking, what am I doing here?

Then my mind was flooded with thoughts of Peter. Tears started streaming down my face. And I castigated myself for being the most absurd idiot imaginable.

We usually mastermind our own predicament, don't we?

I tried to make it work. Matt seriously tried to make it work. We cohabited badly. Endless petty arguments about endless petty things. We instantly made up, then started squabbling again. Marriage, I discovered, doesn't coalesce unless the two parties involved figure out how to establish a domestic detente between themselves. The will needed is huge. We both lacked it.

Instead, we dodged the growing realization: we are a bad match. On the morning after fights, we bought each other expensive presents. Or flowers would arrive at my office, accompanied by a witty, conciliatory message:

They say the first ten years are the hardest.

I love you.

Matt

There were a couple of let's-rekindle-the-spark weekends away in the Berkshires, or Western Connecticut, or Montauk. During one of these, Matt drunkenly convinced me to dispense with my diaphragm for the night. I was seriously loaded too - so I agreed. And that is how Ethan came into our lives.

He was, without question, the best drunken accident imaginable. Love at first gasp. But after the initial post-natal euphoria, the usual domestic discontentment reappeared. Ethan didn't believe in the restorative virtues of sleep. For the first six months of his life, he refused to conk out for more than two hours at a time - which quickly rendered us both quasi-catatonic. Unless you have the disposition of Mary Poppins, exhaustion leads to excessive crankiness. Which - in the case of Matt and myself - turned into open warfare. As soon as Ethan was weaned, I wanted us to establish a rota for night feeds. Matt refused, saying that his high-pressure job demanded eight full hours of sleep. This was battle music to my ears - as I accused him of putting his own career above mine. Which, in turn, sparked further confrontations about parental responsibility, and acting like a grown-up, and why we always seemed to fight about everything.

Inevitably, when it comes to kids, it's the woman who ends up carrying the can - so when Matt arrived home one night and said that he'd just accepted a three-month transfer to PBS's Washington bureau, all I could say was:

'How convenient for you'.

He did promise to hire (and pay for) a full-time nanny - as I was now back at work. He did promise to come home every weekend. And he hoped that the time apart might do us some good - lessening the bellicose atmosphere between us.

So I was left holding the baby. Which actually pleased me hugely - not simply because I couldn't get enough of Ethan (especially as my time with him was limited to after-work late evenings), but also because I too was debilitated by all the constant bush-fighting with Matt.

Intriguingly enough, as soon as he moved to Washington, two things happened: (a) Ethan began to sleep through the night, and (b) Matt and I began to get along again. No - this wasn't an 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' situation; rather, a mutual lightening of tone. Freed from each other's constant presence, our ongoing antagonisms de-escalated. We actually started talking again - talking, as in: being able to have a conversation which did not eventually veer into angry exchanges. When he returned home at weekends, the fact that we only had forty-eight hours together kept us on good behavior. Gradually, a certain collegial rapport was reestablished - a sense that we could get along together; that we did enjoy each other's company; that there was a future for us.

Or, at least, that's what I thought. During the final month of Matt's Washington bureau stint, a breaking story (the early days of the Whitewater scandal) kept him in DC for three straight weeks. When he finally made it back to Manhattan, I sensed that something was seriously askew as soon as he walked through the door. Though he strived to act naturally in my presence, he became cagey and vague when I asked a couple of innocent questions about the long hours he was working in Washington. Then he nervously changed the subject. That's when I knew. Men always think they can mask these things - but, when it comes to infidelity, they're as transparent as Saran Wrap.

After we got Ethan to bed and collapsed in the living room with a bottle of wine, I decided to risk bluntness.

'What's her name?' I asked.

Matt turned the sort of chalky color I associate with Kaopektate.

'I'm not following you...' he said.

'Then I'll repeat the question slowly: What... is... her... name?'

'I really don't know what you're talking about'.

'Yes you do', I said, my tone still mild. 'I simply want to know the name of the woman you've been seeing'.

'Kate...'

'That's my name. I want to know her name. Please'.

He exhaled loudly.

'Blair Bentley'.

'Thank you', I said, sounding totally reasonable.

'Can I explain... ?'

'Explain what? That it was "just one of those things"? Or that you got drunk one night, and the next thing you knew, you tripped and found this woman on the end of your penis? Or maybe it's love...'

'It is love'.

That shut me up. It took me a moment or so to regain the power of speech. 'You're not serious?' I finally said.

'Completely serious', he said.

'You asshole'.

He left the apartment late that night. He never slept there again. And I became bitter. Maybe he wasn't the love of my life - but there was a child involved. He should have considered Ethan's stability. Just like he should have recognized that the separation had actually done us some good - that we had laid down our weapons of mass destruction and established an armistice with each other. An affectionate armistice - to the point where I had actually started to miss Matt. They always say the first year or two of marriage is hell. But, damn it, we'd turned the corner. We had started to become a common cause.