Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

“It helps,” I say. Then: “I missed you too.”

He rests the chocolate pudding on his tray and winces. “This is so complicated.”

“Why does it have to be?” I ask. Not because I haven’t found some sense of happiness during our break, but because I’ll take uncomplicated over happy. I am Switzerland, for God’s sake! Didn’t he and I agree to that on our Match.com profile way back when? That complication and conflict weren’t in our nature? We like easy people! We like things to be gentle and calm and soft as a bunny rabbit’s ears! Why is this suddenly so hard?

“I don’t know why it has to be so complicated,” he sighs, then unconsciously touches my hair. “It just is.”

Cilla Zuckerberg has a dog named Beast. Did you know that? I googled her again last night and joined her Facebook fan page. If I had a dog, I’d never have the guts to get an animal that lived up to the name “Beast.” I’d have, like, a Teacup or a Princess or maybe Max if I got crazy. But Beast implies ferocity, and I’ve never been ferocious. I wish I were. I wish I could be.

For all the reasons my future dog would be named Cinderella, I don’t say any more to Shawn now. I don’t say: we’re married, for God’s sake! You don’t take breaks from that ! Or: Whatever happened to Shilla? To Sundays on the couch? To foot massages? To Chinese food? To baby-making? To our plan?

I should have said these things four weeks ago, and I should say them now. I vowed to myself that I would. But I am so damn tired, and Shawn seems uncertain, and besides (and Vanessa would be so mad at me for this, but no one is perfect, and I’m still a work in progress), it’s easier to just say: “Well, even if we stick to your rules, maybe we could go to a baseball game sometime.”

And he considers it. He takes forever to consider it. And I think: do you not see the leap I just took? It might not be exactly what I need to say but it is something! It is more than I ever could have said before!

Finally, he says, “Sure. I’m leaving town again, but maybe when I’m back. We’ll see. Let’s not promise.”

And I think: what are promises anyway? Just another thing, in a world full of broken things, to be broken.

Because Shawn and I are now homeless — a side effect of your superstar yogi master brother who also grows his own pot in your closet — I decamp to Raina’s apartment on the Upper East Side. Shawn tells me that Wired2Go is putting him up at some super-hip hotel in the Meatpacking District that I pretend to have heard of. Nicky comes with me because kids under sixteen aren’t allowed.

“Don’t worry,” Nicky says to me in the cab from the hospital. “The Jews have been tested for millions of years. This is just but another test.”

I screw up my face like he’s a lunatic.

“What? Haven’t you read the story of Passover? Of the Dead Sea parting?”

“I think you mean the Red Sea,” I say.

“Hmmm,” he considers. “Whatever.”

We fall silent.

“Has Uncle Shawn been in touch with your mom?”

“Why? Because it’s such a sin to have found God? I’m a Jew, Aunt Willa, and I won’t be shamed for it.” He wiggles his finger at me, and I wonder if he’s been watching the 700 Club . Or something. The 700 Club for Jews. Do they have that?

“No. Not because you are a Jew.” I sigh. “Because I thought someone should let her know what’s going on with Shawn and me. And with my dad. This wasn’t exactly the plan when she left you with us for the summer.”

“Oh,” he says, with that perfectly pubescent realization that the world does not at all times revolve around his problems.

“Though it might not be a bad idea to tell her that you’ve found God, too,” I add.

He takes my good hand and gazes soulfully into my eyes.

“It’s not to late for you, Aunt Willa. It’s never too late to find your calling.”

The cab whizzes forward toward Raina’s, toward the epicenter of the Chandler family dysfunction. He’s not exactly right. But he’s not wrong either.

My mom and Nancy make a grand entrance a few hours later when we’ve all retreated home for dinner and showers before heading back to sit vigil (is it a vigil if you know that he’ll live?) for my dad. Oliver has just wrapped a guided meditation in Raina’s library — (“I don’t know why my students should suffer just because the government has launched this oppressive witch hunt! Also, after all of this stress with Dad, I really needed some inner-Zen time,” he declares, right before powering up the blender for a wheatgrass smoothie), and his fresh-faced, uber-calm, Lululemon-wearing flock is filing out the door when I see my mother waiting in the foyer.

“Mom!” I cry, grateful for her presence.

“Mama Bear!” Oliver says.

“Hello, Mother,” Raina states.

We move single-file to hug her, and we’re all a little surprised when I tear up. I flap my hand in front of my nose, willing myself to stop.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say. “You know I’m not a crier.”

“Oh, honey,” my mom answers. “You’re like a butterfly getting her wings.”

And I’m not really sure how to reply to that, since I sort of feel like it’s something I’d write for a tampon client back at the ad agency. So my mom wipes away my leaky eyes and says, “I get it, sweetheart. Your father’s in the hospital and your husband turned out to be a dick.”

Before I can protest, she steps past me, tugging her companion alongside. My mom flourishes her arm and says, “This is Nancy! ”

Nancy blushes and bows her head, as if she doesn’t deserve such adulation, though she strikes me as the type of woman who knows exactly what she deserves. She looks vaguely familiar, like perhaps I do remember her from my childhood, from that vacation at The Breakers. Or it could simply be that I just recognize her from the society pages. She is pretty, with luminescent skin that is well taken care of, and a chestnut bob that is entirely appropriate for her age. She’s wearing chic white capris, and a scarf fancifully wrapped around her neck, and frankly, I can see why she’s a bit of a catch. She’s not the type of woman who seems like she needs to rewrite her master plan or find a way to swim upstream. She just knows her Point North and doesn’t misjudge it as disastrously as I seem to have and moves toward it with certainty.

“Nancy!” I say, clapping my hands together.

“Fancy Nancy!” Oliver says.

“Hello, Nancy,” Raina offers, then says to our mom: “I didn’t know if you were coming up. It was hard to reach you.”

“I’ve been living a life that doesn’t revolve around your father.” Mom sets down her bag on a console table and fluffs her hair. She looks healthy, vibrant, pink and shiny. “Forgive me if I wasn’t on speed dial.”

“Mom,” Raina says. “It’s complicated. We know. But…he almost died . ”

“Your dad is well aware that death is part of life. He wouldn’t want us to make a big to-do. It’s part of ‘God’s plan’.” Now she’s the one to hold up air quotes, and in that moment, she looks so very much like Raina.

“Did someone mention God?” Nicky says, wandering in eating a Go-Gurt.

“Are you wearing a yarmulke?” Nancy asks, speaking for the first time.

“I am, ma’am.”

She lifts her eyebrows like she’s impressed, and since no one has anything much more to say, we head to the kitchen where Gloria is preparing pork chops, which Nicky has renounced eating because they are trayf.

“I heard about your marital troubles,” Nancy says to me later as we gather around the kitchen island and fill our plates. Raina leans over and slices my pork chop since I can’t maneuver a knife and a fork.