Chapter 16 #3
Rory agreed. “It flirts with ostentation but stays classy.”
“That was fast,” said Violet.
“I am in awe,” said Elizabeth.
“What about law school?” said Florencia.
Emily had gotten into Columbia. “I can be married and still go to law school. Jack says if I want to, I should. He supports whatever I choose.”
“Ugh, he is such a dream. Violet’s not wrong, though: it’s all happening pretty fast. No one we know is getting married . And you barely dated anyone before him.”
Elizabeth said, “Nothing wrong with a whirlwind romance.”
“You can always divorce him,” said Rory. “Just don’t sign a prenup.”
“Let her be happy, you killjoys!” Elizabeth shouted. To Emily, she said, “He’s the One, right?”
“Yes,” she said, and was sure.
Then, less sure. Years later, looking back, Emily could find no singular, obvious moment that created doubt.
During their first dinner with his parents in their Victorian townhome on the south slope of Beacon Hill, Jack behaved beautifully.
He interrupted his mother’s cold politeness by telling Emily about his favorite window seat as a child.
His father wasn’t unkind to Emily but kept directing the conversation toward Jack’s career.
Jack patiently steered the conversation away, asking Emily to tell his parents about her favorite Greek lyric poets.
Jack made sure to display Emily’s excellent education.
He dwelled on it, even. This gave the impression that Emily’s identity was her prestigious diploma.
But wasn’t it good to be proud of a partner’s accomplishments?
He had chosen Emily’s dress for that night—this, in hindsight, possibly foretold his domineering nature.
But hadn’t she asked what she should wear?
He assumed control of the wedding, spending hours on the phone with the planner. Emily’s friends said how lucky she was. Men never wanted to do their share of wedding planning. How incredible: all Emily had to do was show up and enjoy the best day of her life.
Would it be the best day?
Emily had moved into Jack’s Back Bay apartment after graduation, though this was a temporary arrangement; he would sell the place after the wedding and they would live full-time in New York.
Emily would go to Columbia. He had already had her things shipped to his New York City apartment.
Meanwhile, Jack commuted, coming to Boston on the weekends.
During the week, alone in the echoing white space of Jack’s living room, Emily joked on the phone with her friends about being a kept woman.
She joked because it felt a little true.
When she said the words out loud—laughing—it seemed less true.
Violet had rented an apartment in Somerville for the summer and Emily could have moved in with her instead, but Jack said, “We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.
I don’t want to miss one minute. Let me come home to you.
” When he arrived on Friday night, he told her everything he’d been thinking about her while on the train.
He always had a gift: Guerlain perfume, tickets to a performance.
“I will never take you for granted,” he promised. Emily believed him.
And yet: a wrinkle of doubt. After years of not communicating with Gen, Emily wrote a letter.
When she began writing, she believed that this was the correct thing to do.
She was informing Gen of something momentous in her life.
Gen should know about the engagement. Emily would want to know, if she were Gen.
But as she continued writing, she realized that she was, in fact, expressing uncertainty about marriage.
Jack was incredible. But was all this—as Violet and Florencia had suggested—happening too quickly?
She was twenty-one. Maybe that was too young.
Yet she had been younger with Gen…and still, even while in love with Jack, Emily couldn’t quite forget her. Emily mailed the letter.
Then came Gen’s reply: terse, congratulatory. Uninterested.
Maybe this had been what Emily had needed. Maybe her sense of doubt had been a need for closure that Gen’s reply had given.
There was, still inside her, a thistle of hurt that Gen had planted.
A burr. Emily plucked it out. She folded Gen’s note.
She ironed that wrinkle of doubt flat. She tidied the edges of herself.
She brushed away the thoughts and questions that marred this moment.
The best moment. Yes, her wedding would be the best day.
Of course it would, like people promised.
It was the day when she would become somebody.
Maybe her doubt had been distrust that Jack’s love was real, that she deserved what had happened: someone she had chosen had also chosen her.
Not long after the wedding, Emily discovered she was pregnant. She took a second test, then a third. Impossible. She was on the pill. But a doctor confirmed it.
Emily had just moved into Jack’s apartment in New York. She was at home—her classes at Columbia would start the following week—and he was at the office. She knew that she should tell Jack first. Instead, light-headed, she called her mother.
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” her mother said.
“I’m not ready. It’s so soon. Mom, I’m scared.”
“I thought you were going to become a lawyer. How long does that take?”
“Three years.” She was supposed to receive her JD in 2003.
“What’re you going to do, quit law school?”
Emily was silent. She didn’t know.
“Do you want an abortion?” The question was posed matter-of-factly.
“How can you say that?”
“I guess you don’t.”
“That’s not why I called.”
“I’m a nurse. I’ve seen it all. You could have been calling about that.”
“I wanted—” Emily had made the mistake of going to her mother as though she were still a child, but her mother had never acted like the mothers on TV or in the homes of Emily’s friends, even when Emily had been a child. “I want you to talk to me like I’m your daughter.”
“Obviously you’re my daughter.”
“Just tell me that everything’s going to be okay.”
“Sure it will. You’re twenty-one. Older than lots of your high school friends when they had babies. You’re married. You’re rich. But I guess it’s true that some people just don’t want children.”
“Like you?”
“You always get this way. Emotion doesn’t help a problem.”
“I’m not a problem.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
But that was how Emily had always felt: like her mother’s problem.
Her mother sighed. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
Though that was what she had asked for, Emily said, “Maybe you should tell me what you really think.”
“If I’m honest, I thought you’d make something of yourself.”
“Meaning?”
“You were never satisfied. Always wanted more. Another book. Another piece of cake. Didn’t want me to say good night.”
“That’s all children.”
“You were different. You know it. You wanted to leave Washford. You left Washford. You wanted to go to a fancy school. You got into one. You married up. You decided to become a lawyer. Well, okay. What happens now? Having a baby and going to school and working is hard. I should know. But that’s not my worry for you.
My worry is that you won’t do that. That you’ll give up your plan.
You’ll be just some man’s wife. Some baby’s mother. That’s not the Emily I know.”
The anxiety Emily had had at the start of the phone call worsened: a loud panic in her ears.
“I’m sick of this.” Emily had called home because she had been afraid and hoped for comfort.
In the course of the conversation, she had discovered that her fear over having a baby was a trapdoor to another, long-held fear: a question whose answer was now so clear that Emily stated it.
“You never wanted me,” she said, and hung up.
Emily was already her baby’s mother. There was nothing wrong with that, even if her mother thought otherwise.
It was a good thing. It was, Emily decided, the most important thing.
She wondered when she would feel the baby flicker inside her.
The phone call had, in the end, helped. It showed her who she wanted to be, and who she didn’t.
Jack was overjoyed. When he saw, however, that Emily was quiet, he sobered and asked what was wrong.
She mentioned law school. He didn’t think that was an issue.
Couldn’t she postpone a year? What would be so bad about graduating in ’04?
Anyway, did Emily want to become a lawyer?
That had been her plan to pay back loans and have a good income, not because she was passionate about law.
Maybe the pregnancy was a sign that she shouldn’t go.
They certainly didn’t need a second source of income.
But really, whatever she chose, he supported.
“That’s not all.” She told him about the phone call.
“Emily, you’re not going to be like her.”
He had just articulated another aspect of her fear. She wanted this baby, even if she wasn’t ready, but she worried that a baby might reveal that she couldn’t be a good mother. “How do you know?”
He held her hand between both of his. “You’re the sort of person who doesn’t hold back when you’re in love.
You’re going to love our child. And you will never be alone.
Not like your mother. The divorce probably made parenting hard.
It won’t be like that for you. I will always be by your side. I will never leave you.”
And it was true.