CHAPTER 29
WHAT SERENA WOULD ASK FOR
On Saturday morning, Serena made a list.
Miles found her at the kitchen table with coffee, a pen, and three columns on a sheet of printer paper. The headings read Want, Fear, Rule. It was so thoroughly Serena that he fell a little more in love with her before he even sat down.
'This looks official,' he said.
'It is extremely official. There may be a subcommittee.'
'Do I get representation?'
'You are the subcommittee.'
He poured coffee and joined her. The Want column had three entries. Return to a private room. Speak more openly in front of him. Let Miles choose the next boundary first.
Miles read the third one twice.
'That is in the Want column?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
Serena set the pen down. 'Because I do not want this to become me asking and you enduring. I want to see what you want when you are not only responding to mine.'
The sentence found a tender place in him. Miles had spent so much time trying to be generous that he had nearly disguised himself as a spectator in his own marriage.
'I do not know if I can answer quickly,' he said.
'Good. I do not want quick.'
He looked at the Fear column. There were more entries there.
That I will enjoy being seen too much. That Miles will someday stop seeing me as his wife and only as the woman other men want.
That Julian will know how to guide us better than we know how to guide ourselves.
That I will confuse intensity with truth.
Miles swallowed. 'This is a very honest subcommittee.'
'The chair believes in transparency.'
'The chair is sweating.'
She smiled, but her eyes were serious.
He touched the second fear with one finger. 'I will not stop seeing you as my wife.'
'You cannot promise never to change how you see me.'
'No. I can promise to tell you when my seeing changes, and to keep looking for the whole of you.'
That answer seemed to matter more than the impossible one.
Serena handed him the pen. 'Your turn.'
'I was afraid of that.'
'I know.'
He stared at the Want column. Writing desire made it less slippery and more accountable. He could not hide behind a reaction once ink touched paper.
He wrote: Watch Serena ask for what she wants without apologizing.
Serena read it, and the color rose gently in her face.
He wrote a second line before he could retreat: Choose where I sit before someone else offers the chair.
Her eyes lifted to his.
'That one,' she said softly.
'Yes.'
'You want to choose the chair?'
'I want to know whether I am brave enough to choose it without being led there.'
She reached for his hand. 'That is different.'
'It feels different.'
For the Fear column, Miles wrote: That my wanting will make me less respectable to myself. That I will mistake jealousy for proof of love. That I will need reassurance and be ashamed of needing it.
Serena's thumb moved over his knuckles. 'Needing reassurance is not a failure.'
'I know that for you.'
'Learn it for yourself.'
They spent the rest of the morning adding rules. Desire must be spoken before it is staged. The person watching gets care before and after. Serena is not a prize, Miles is not a prop, Julian is not a substitute for honesty. No one gets to be braver than the marriage can hold.
At the bottom of the page, Serena wrote one more line under Want: Open the bottle when we decide about the salon.
Miles looked toward the shelf. 'That makes sense.'
'It scares me.'
'That also makes sense.'
She folded the paper once and placed it with the other cards beneath the wrapped bottle.
The shelf was becoming crowded. Maybe all marriages had shelves like that, Miles thought, only most were invisible: receipts, fears, vows, invitations, the little artifacts of choices made and postponed.
Serena stood beside him, shoulder touching his.
'What would you ask for first?' she said.
Miles knew she meant at the salon, in the next room, wherever the road led. He also knew his answer was not ready.
'Time,' he said.
She nodded. 'Then that is what we ask for.'
It was the least dramatic answer and the most necessary one.