Chapter 22
Evan
O n the way to visit Max, I stop at a bakery in Scarborough to buy mooncakes. The Mid-Autumn Festival is earlier this year than last year. My older brother prefers slightly different ones than I do, but I don’t know what Kim likes.
Max’s girlfriend isn’t home when I get there.
“She’s shopping,” he says.
They’ve lived together for a few months, and I’ve only been here once before. It’s not as perfectly neat as Max’s place was when he lived alone, but it’s still tidy.
In silence, he makes tea and cuts the lotus mooncake into wedges. He gives me one with more egg, which is what I like. He doesn’t comment on it, though. Just does it.
As I sit with him at the kitchen table, the words I’d planned to say stick in my throat. I’d decided to tell him the truth about my marriage. Jane told Claudia, and she said it was okay if I told Max. But what I plan to tell my brother is probably a little different from what she told her friend earlier this year.
“Jane and I had a marriage pact,” I say. “In 2020, when we were both lonely, we agreed…that if we were both still single by her thirty-third birthday…we would get engaged.” I’m usually more fluent, but not today. Not about this.
Max arches an eyebrow, but he doesn’t look as surprised as he ought to be. I guess he continued to have more suspicions about my marriage than I’d assumed
“I didn’t think those pacts were ever serious,” he says. “You could have broken it, but you didn’t, even though I doubt you were secretly in love with her. Because…?”
“Because I was tired of getting dumped, and I couldn’t keep doing it. I just couldn’t.”
“But you wanted to get married and buy a house?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence, and I busy myself with my mooncake, which doesn’t taste as good as it should; I can barely swallow.
“You didn’t tell any of us,” Max says. “So, why are you telling me now?”
I shut my eyes. “People don’t respond well when you tell them that you’ve given up. This sort of marriage? It’s just not…” I gesture feebly. I don’t know what to say.
Max doesn’t speak.
I open my eyes. It looks like he’s waiting for me to continue.
“I know the engagement came out of nowhere,” I say, “and you were hurt that I kept a big secret from you.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
Now it’s my turn to arch an eyebrow—or at least try to do so. He’s much better at it than I am. “I know you were, but you didn’t refuse to act as a witness.”
We lapse into silence once more.
“You’re right,” he says at last. “I would have told you not to give up. I would have told you that it took me a long time to find the right person, but eventually, I did.”
“But I didn’t want love. Well, in theory I did, but I’d started associating it with heartbreak. Going through that again…it didn’t feel safe.” I don’t mention the issues that my depression—and the side effects of treatment—had on my relationships.
“Is this where you tell me that you’ve since fallen in love with her?” Max asks.
Ugh. Why does he have to be so smart?
“Unfortunately, yes.” I drop my head into my hands. “Why do I keep doing this? I just can’t learn. I should have realized that being in close proximity to someone else—someone I already liked as a friend—would make me more likely to fall for them.”
“You’re speaking as though this is a personality flaw.”
“Because it is! There are probably tons of people I could fall in love with, if we got married and lived together.”
“Do you really think that’s true?” he asks.
“Are you trying to say she’s special?”
“Maybe she is.”
Against my will, I’m filled with hope. I swallow a mouthful of hot tea, as though that will dissolve my optimism.
“I don’t think it’s easy to fall in love with someone just because you live together,” Max says. “Many relationships fall apart at that point. When you live with someone, they can get on your nerves in ways they never did before. You realize you’re incompatible in one respect or another.”
I glance around the apartment. Max said, just a few minutes ago, that he’d found the right person, but I can’t help wondering…
“Kim and I are fine,” he says, “but I’ve seen it happen to other people. Including you.”
He’s not wrong, though that was a while ago now.
Maybe this is different. But I’ve thought that many times before, haven’t I?
“Are you sleeping together?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I assume you haven’t told her how you feel?”
I shake my head. “I’m afraid it’ll fuck everything up.”
“You don’t think she feels the same way?”
“I’m not sure, and even if she does…” I make some kind of gesture, meant to encompass all my failed relationships, though maybe I shouldn’t think of them as “failed.” Some of them might have been what I needed at the time. But they do have something in common: they all ended, and that ending hurt.
I can’t bear to think of that happening with Jane.
“I still think you should tell her,” Max says, his voice strangely gentle.
“Maybe if I wait long enough, this will go away.”
“Perhaps.” He sounds doubtful, and I don’t blame him.
When he stands up to boil more water, he sets a hand on my shoulder.
“Not all hope is misplaced,” he says.
When I get home, Jane comes downstairs to greet me. I catalogue it as one of the many things I like about being married that I would hate to lose. I hand her two red-bean mooncakes—that’s what she prefers, and our tastes are in alignment.
“Thank you,” she says. “How’s Max?”
“Good.”
“I asked Lana if she’d like to hang out next weekend, and she invited us for dinner on Saturday. What do you think? You up for that?”
“Sure.” It’s nice not to be the one making plans, and it feels like somehow, she knew that’s what I needed.
I pull her close and press a kiss to her cheek.
When we visit Lana and Camila, I can’t help thinking of the last time we saw them. So much has changed in the past several weeks. When they came to our house and brought us the charcuterie board, Jane had yet to spend a night in my bed. I wasn’t afraid that confessing my feelings—like my brother thinks I should do—would fuck up my marriage.
Ah, a simpler time.
Yet as I watch Jane demurely sip her wine, I don’t wish I could go back.
Instead, I want the impossible.