Day Thirty-Seven #2
They settled into their game with a bottle of wine, Roberta Flack singing contemplative lyrics in her warm voice through the speakers as they assembled their bird habitats.
It was nice for a time, like they were immersed in their old lives.
When there were only two turns left in this round, and Norman was taking forever to plot his next move, Jesse blurted, “How do you not know what you’re going to do?
” He was frustrated, he always knew his next four.
Norman understood Jesse was talking about the game, but his own concern was much bigger.
He didn’t know what Jesse’s next move was going to be.
Forgive him, leave him, punish him, ignore him—the options were overwhelming.
One move he did know: Forcing Jesse to decide just because Norman hated living in limbo was not a winning strategy.
Jesse eventually stood from the table and wandered to the bookshelf to study its sparse collection. He pulled a copy of Rabbit, Run off the shelf. “John Updike once wrote that every marriage tends to have an aristocrat and a peasant. Do you think that’s true?”
“A pheasant?” Norman asked, lost in his bird cards.
Jesse didn’t respond; instead Norman observed him deep in the sentiment.
Jesse was behaving like the aristocrat now, Norman the peasant, flailing trying to please his overlord.
He even felt a little pathetic, hunched over the table as he was, pretending to decide whether to use his turn to get food or lay eggs, whether to play hard or to throw the game, which would result in a more pleasing weekend.
Maybe that was the appeal with Orson, with someone younger.
Jesse squarely fit in the aristocrat role he had grown into.
Updike didn’t say so explicitly, but maybe two aristocrats as a pair were disastrous.
“Your turn,” Norman called, summoning him back to the table after securing two eggs and laying them on a bird with a stick nest.
“Ah, the old stick nest strategy,” Jesse said like it was some sort of master chess move. He clung to the Updike book, like he might read it later in the hammock instead of using the time, as Norman hoped, to reconnect.
Roberta was singing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” Norman’s favorite. Norman sang along. “The first time ever I kissed your mouth, the earth moved in my hand.”
Jesse bit his tongue, but it didn’t stop him from speaking. “The last time you kissed me I felt resentment you didn’t take out the garbage. But Roberta Flack doesn’t sing about that.”
Norman shook his head sadly. That had just been the previous night.
“Stop,” Jesse instructed.
“Stop what?” Norman asked, trying his best to sound innocent.
“Looking so forlorn.” Norman couldn’t, and so Jesse lost his patience. “I’m still allowed to make jokes.” He grabbed his wine and hit the button to lower the stairs.
Outside the sun was setting. Norman followed at a safe distance, like a puppy that had just been kicked. Jesse led him to the covered outdoor kitchen, where they sat on a bench facing the mountains. They sat for a time, not saying anything, until Jesse had finished his wine.
“I actually understand why you left.”
Norman wanted to say he didn’t leave, or rather he didn’t know what he was doing was leaving, but thought better than to protest.
“You wanted more. The purpose of life is discovery. Exploration. It’s why we’re all here. To find meaning. To understand. In some ways you made the morally defendable choice.”
“Thank you,” Norman said, because it felt like an olive branch.
The heavens had been a dream of humankind ever since the first cave dwellers looked up, dazzled by stars.
He couldn’t be faulted for that. That wasn’t really why Norman went, that wasn’t what attracted him to the light.
But he knew enough not to say that on what could be the verge of reconciliation.
“But I actually liked all the mundane routines of our marriage. Making coffee. Going for walks. Laughing at movies we both enjoyed. Playing Wingspan. You know, life. Wanting that to continue, that’s a valid choice, too.”
Norman felt defensive and sat forward in his chair, nervously rubbing his wrists as if he’d just been freed of handcuffs. “I know, and that’s what I want.”
Jesse dipped his head. Norman always treated life like a sprint through each day, excited for the exhaustion of evening. Jesse was more tortoise than hare, stopping to enjoy life’s pleasures. They would arrive together at the dinner table, often with little of interest to say. “So you say now.”
Abruptly, Jesse stood and removed his shirt. He fired up the gas grill in the outdoor kitchen before unbuttoning his pants. He kicked them free of his feet and stepped off the platform where they had been sitting.
“Where are you going?” Norman asked. It looked like he was going to burn his clothes and walk into the desert, never to return.
“To cool off,” Jesse replied, wandering in the direction of the outdoor shower. “You can explore something to make us for dinner.” Norman watched him the whole way, unable to peel his eyes from Jesse’s naked body.
Norman made two steaks and a balsamic reduction in a little pan, and asparagus he cooked on the grill in a foil pouch.
They ate outdoors by candlelight as the sun set.
Norman cranked up the speakers from inside the house, Nina Simone this time, no silent disco required—there was no one around for miles.
Stars appeared in the sky one after the other in rapid succession; it was like watching celestial popcorn kernels explode.
The steak was cooked exactly as Jesse liked, just a hair shy of medium.
If he was looking for another reason to be mad at Norman, Norman took some pleasure in knowing he had come through.
And eating outdoors always made food somehow taste better.
Jesse was famished, that much was obvious; he was nearly done before Norman had cut his third bite.
“Good?” Norman asked, and Jesse nodded.
“Good.” In that moment, he might have even been speaking of them.
Norman refilled Jesse’s glass with the Spanish wine, a Tempranillo he’d selected. “It feels good to be present.”
Jesse looked at him as he sipped his wine. “Interesting choice of words.”
“You know what I mean.” Lally was at home with Mafalda. It was just the two of them. No chores, no to-do list, no bills, no outside world. Just the two of them under the sky.
“Yeah, I do,” Jesse agreed. For years in their relationship Jesse had failed to fully share his thoughts and curiosities.
It was his work, Jesse would try to explain.
“When you’re writing a book you’re living two lives.
” That made it difficult to be fully present in one. “That’s the tragedy of love, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“That it always devolves into two people both wanting more than another person could reasonably give.”
Norman sat with those words for a quiet moment. “Is that John Updike?”
“No,” Jesse said. “That’s me.” He gently set his fork down on his plate. “Look. I know you want things to go back to how they were.”
“But I don’t,” Norman protested. “I want to move forward someplace better.”
“But maybe that’s not together. Thirty years is a good run. Remember when we first came out? We didn’t even know if we would live to be thirty, let alone be with someone for that long. We accomplished so much together. Perhaps it’s time to see what we can do apart.”
“Is that how you really feel?” Norman asked, trying to mask his heartbreak.
“I don’t know how I feel,” Jesse said, finishing his glass of wine. This time Norman didn’t refill it. Jesse stared into his empty glass and asked, “Do you regret stepping into that light?”
Norman waited until he was certain he had Jesse’s full attention. “I do not, because the light is what brought me back to you.”
They sat in the uncomfortable sincerity until a coyote howled in the distance and Norman finally understood. This was not a choice between Norman and Orson, or Norman and someone new. For Jesse, this was a choice between Norman and himself.
Norman gathered the plates just as Jesse grabbed the rest of Norman’s filet with a fork, nearly stabbing his hand in the process. Norman glared at him.
“Well, the coyotes can’t have this.”
Norman pointed to the wineglasses for Jesse to carry, and the bottle, which was not yet empty; the coyotes could not have that, either. “Are we going to finish this game?” he asked, referring to the Wingspan boards set up inside; they still had two more rounds.
A more loaded question had never been asked.