Crush

Chapter Thirty-Six The River

Thirty-Six

The River

A few days after our night out, Martin and I went swimming in the icy forest stream near the castle. I’d never swum in cold water. I suspected it was not for me, but who knew anymore what one liked. And if I was going to try it, why not in a Scottish forest?

As we walked along the narrow path through the woods I explained the concept of sandbags, of trying to stack flirtations around oneself as protection from…what exactly? That was what I thought perhaps I would find out in this time of aloneness. I talked about trying not to put monsters in drawers, and how I was trying to feel secure enough not to feel jealous. After talking for a while, willfully mixing metaphors of streetlamps, sandbags, and monsters, I became suddenly horrified that Martin would think I was presuming something.

“I hope you know I’m not saying I thought you were interested!” I said. “I’m just rambling.”

He smiled cryptically. “Ready?” he said, pointing at the stream.

“Probably not,” I said.

We took off our coats and waded into the water. He was wearing a swimsuit. I was wearing pajamas because I hadn’t thought to bring a bathing suit to Scotland. The water was so cold it felt like something else, something hard and sharp. As I submerged myself up to my neck I felt all the air rush out of my lungs. I was empty of air and standing in a box of nails. I wondered if this was what death felt like.

I tried to call out to Martin, to ask him why we had done this, but I couldn’t speak. I forced my legs to move again and made my way to shore, where I found that I could not feel my body at all. I wrapped myself in towels and sat on the bank of the river, feeling like I’d just drunk eighteen cups of coffee. I started laughing hysterically.

“Right?” he said, smiling and striding calmly out of the water to pick up his own towel.

When I got back to my cell after the first and last cold plunge of my life, I saw a text from him: “For the record, to return to our forest conversation, I certainly was interested. But for as drunk as I was the other night and as good as it would have felt to have you in my bed, I went back to my room after that hug and thought, ‘I’ve never done that before.’ And it seemed to me the perfect end to a lovely night.”

If redemption is being presented with an identical situation and making a different choice, that was what I’d done. The kiss with Ryan erased our easy camaraderie. Perhaps by rejecting fleeting pleasures with Martin I’d receive something richer in return. Soon after, almost like a signpost on a hiking trail, Ryan, who I’d been out of touch with for ages, sent me a mixtape with songs about having and not holding or perhaps holding and not having, and it was very good.

In writer jail, I listened to that playlist over and over as I thought of how I’d had things and not had them. I’d been living so much of my life partially. I’d been married but because of lies and sandbags I didn’t have what I thought I did. With the mystical experience I’d had the ineffable—the unholdable—for a moment, and then it had gone away. By entertaining the possibility of a pregnancy I’d had the dream of a baby but not the reality. In loving David from afar, we were together and not together at the same time.

As Martin and I sat in the drawing room with our peated whiskey, I told him what I was thinking about, which was how to reconcile what happened with David and the distance I now felt.

“You are dealing with the aftermath of a Mystical Sexual Incident!” said Martin. “If this was Grey’s Anatomy , at the end of the episode Meredith would say, ‘You lose yourself in love and you find yourself in love—’?”

“You watch Grey’s Anatomy ?” I said. To my knowledge he only read massive books in translation.

“The point is: theoretically, yes, love should be infinite and multiple partners should be possible, but how many people can you welcome home at night? Love saves and ruins you. You’re all shaken up and unintegrated. That’s a great place to be. Only the boring are certain.”

From that moment on, Martin and I were inseparable. We spent the remaining evenings of our residency cowriting an absurd—and to us, extremely funny—mystery novel set in the castle. In the drawing room over tea and at dinner over wine we talked about relationships and writing and death. We stoked the flames of our new friendship not with the kindling of stolen glances but with a long-burning log—our shared belief that at least one character in our mystery novel should be thrown into a ravine by the administrator for not properly appreciating the genius of Alexander Pope.

Toward the end of the stay, he and I went into Edinburgh for dinner at an “elevated Scottish food” restaurant, one of the best meals of my entire life. Before our dinner, while he got a haircut, I went to a vintage store and found a kilt to bring back for Nate. Then Martin and I went to bookstores and a liquor store to get thank-you gifts for the castle staff. When we returned, we wrapped the gifts while enjoying a nightcap of sherry.

“Do you think we’ll ever come back to the castle?” I said as we set the festive packages out on the hall table like it was Christmas eve and we were Santa.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “What is the recidivism rate for Scottish castles?”

Sometimes with Martin and sometimes by myself, I walked an hour from the castle to services at the closest church, where the Scottish liturgy demanded that we drive out fear with love. I felt my heart grow lighter. Reading through the stack of notebooks, I came to understand better why things had gone the way they did, and what the point of it all was. As the residency came to an end, I felt ready to reenter the world, no longer a wife or a daughter but rather a woman who believed in love and work and the need to pursue both.

After all the questions I’d asked since I’d started talking to David, I found that only one remained: What will help me love myself best? Depending on the moment, the answer might involve action or inaction, expansion or contraction. But it would always be within my power. Only by accepting this responsibility could I become brave enough to do what love demanded.

Rosslyn Chapel, where I sat in a pew praying for love to drive out fear, is where I had this epiphany. It is also where Tom Hanks filmed The Da Vinci Code . During the coffee hour after the service, locals dropped his name. They said he was just as nice as everyone says.