Chapter 29 #2
I give her a tour, and the amount of space feels shameful.
It’s three times bigger than the little bungalow where I was raised.
Zoe remarks on the recent renovations, the abundant natural light, the convenient open-floor plan.
She doesn’t mention the lingering cat odor, although my pregnancy nose often can’t detect anything else.
We end up in the kitchen, and I make us coffees in the machine you bought last week.
It uses little plastic pods, and I feel guilty every time I toss the brewed ones into the trash, think of them sitting in a landfill for hundreds of years, like the one around the corner from the tiny bungalow in Florida where I grew up, its odor settling thickly into the sticky wetness the air always held.
This place, everything about it, couldn’t be more different from that house, that neighborhood, and that should be a comfort to me. More so than it is.
I make decaf for myself, as I’ve already had my allotted caffeine intake for the day, although it’s not nearly enough. My mind feels foggy, and I stand before the open fridge for at least fifteen seconds before Zoe reminds me gently, “Creamer?”
“I still can’t believe he bought you this house,” says Zoe as we settle onto barstools at the island.
“Me either.”
“He just brought you home from your honeymoon. Here, to this gorgeous house he’d bought all by himself. It’s so…romantic.”
I lean back, winded. The way she sees you—sometimes I wish I still saw you like that, too.
“I’m lucky if Garrett buys me a Starbucks on Saturday mornings,” she continues. “I get a latte sometimes. You get a house.”
“Well,” I say, “it’s not really my house, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not on the deed. He bought it, closed on it, on his own. So it’s really his house.”
“But you’re married.” Zoe’s eyes fall to my ringed hand.
“He bought it before we were married, so it’s a premarital asset.”
“Oh,” says Zoe, blinking questioningly. “But that only matters if you—if you get a divorce, right?”
“Right,” I tell her, and her brows are drawn low, the divot between them more pronounced than I’ve ever seen it.
I’ve only been married to you for three weeks. How could I even be considering such a thing?
“Are you…worrying about that?” It’s as though she can’t bring herself to say the word. Divorce.
“Of course not,” I tell her hurriedly. “It’s just my lawyer brain. I’ve told Troy I want to be added to the deed, and he agreed that I should.”
You did. “That was always my plan,” you told me. “After the surprise.” Yet each time I’ve brought it up since, you’ve sighed. “Sorry, Klara. I didn’t have time to get to it today.”
Something tells me you never will.
And in truth, the house ownership is far murkier than I’m making things seem to Zoe.
You will make the mortgage payments from our marital funds.
The house will soon become at least partly marital property.
But not completely. It will still always be more yours than mine.
It’s far away from the job I loved. Never mind that I didn’t make partner this year, that I didn’t excel at trials.
I know I’m a good lawyer—was a good lawyer.
Better than anyone at securing favorable settlements for my clients.
And that job was my purpose. You’ve never explained your plan, but I can see what you’re doing, as though you’re setting up plays on a chessboard.
You’ve pulled me away from the only home I’ve known for the last ten years, into this unfamiliar suburb that feels improbably remote, where I’ve got nothing else but you.
Your plan is growing clearer, while I’m too sick and too tired to come up with a plan of my own.
Besides, on paper it’s all so perfect. Why would I need a plan at all?
Why would I ever want to leave? What’s so wrong with me that sometimes leaving is all I can think about?
You want to be my purpose in life. You and our baby. You’re making that happen. I’m letting you.
“Anyway, how are you feeling?” Zoe asks. She blows across the top of her mug, and her gaze falls to my abdomen.
“Honestly, I feel like shit,” I admit. “I’m nauseated all the time, not just in the mornings. I throw up at least once a day. I can’t even think about eating a fruit or a vegetable.” I pause, cover my mouth with my palm. Just the words conjure almost unbearable sickness.
“God,” says Zoe. She looks horrified. “I never threw up. If only you’d known that would happen.” Her face flushes. “Sorry,” she adds quickly. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off. “You know that I wasn’t trying to get pregnant. I really don’t even know how it happened. I was on the pill.”
“I guess nothing is really foolproof,” Zoe says sagely. She possesses the luxury of distance when it comes to the subject of life not happening precisely as planned and on schedule.
“I guess.” I sigh, raise my mug. Knowing that there’s no caffeine, that it won’t set my blood buzzing, reduces the appeal. I lower it again.
“How far along are you now?”
“Ten weeks. It’s the size of a kumquat, according to the app on my phone. I have never seen a kumquat in my life.”
“‘It’?” repeats Zoe.
I nod bleakly. “Next week it’ll be the size of a fig.”
“Ah,” says Zoe, nodding. “Are you okay?” she adds tentatively after a beat of silence. “You seem—I don’t know. Off.”
It’s so similar to what she said when we went to dinner, after I’d left my wedding dress with the tailor. It feels like the moment during our Georgetown lunch, when I was so close to telling her everything.
And I want to tell her the truth. That I’m not okay at all.
That I am off. That I’m so off that I have no idea how I used to feel.
That I have no idea who I am. That when I look in the mirror, I’m scared—the fullness of my cheeks, the purplish half-moons beneath my eyes.
At night, I lie in bed and my thoughts race.
I’m so tired, always so tired, but I can’t sleep.
You breathe evenly and peacefully beside me, perfectly content.
You seem to think everything is perfect.
And why shouldn’t you? This was your masterpiece.
You envisioned it, you created it. I’m your subject, your beautiful unmoving muse.
My agency is hurtling away from me, barely a speck on the horizon.
I open my mouth.
On the counter between us, my phone begins to vibrate. Troy says the screen. Of course it’s you. Hush, now. Good girl. Keep it together. Like you knew what I was about to say.
Zoe’s eyes fall to the phone, then flick up to meet mine.
“You can get it,” she says. “I’m going to use your bathroom.”
“Okay,” I tell her, and I offer directions to the powder room, the one with the eggplant walls and black-and-white-tiled floor. The room you hate.
Once she disappears down the hall, I tap the red button, declining your call. It gives me the tiniest bit of satisfaction, and it’s so sad that this is all I have.