Chapter Thirty
Thirty
It happened exactly how I’d always heard it would.
After an extended absence, someone extremely important came back into my life. Years, decades, generations: we always love
a reunion episode.
It was fast. Making plans for tomorrow while at plans for today. Wrapping nostalgia and future together, the best kind of
trope.
And then suddenly, that familiar stranger became busy. After I told him about the biggest promotion of my life, he didn’t
reply for three days. Awesome, he wrote.
He made then broke plans twice, citing a work project that wouldn’t quit. I didn’t make plans a third time, an action that
broke my heart, lyrics to a country song I don’t listen to.
I did my best—my worst, which was sometimes also my best—to rationalize that I was also busy, but then I made excuses when
he went from busy to busier to busiest, the extra grammatically incorrect comparison-wise for emphasis, even though it was
just the two of us.
Days went by, as they’re supposed to do. I threw myself into other things to maintain my busier status. I started solo therapy. Not the HeartString one recommended via every podcast commercial, but a well-credentialed
someone who immediately destroyed my ego, which was a good thing.
My relationship re-progressed. The world felt a little duller, but a little realer, maybe.
When he brought the wedding back up, I didn’t say no.
Or yes. Neither of us mentioned the pending October payment, but he started staying over a couple nights a week.
He didn’t mention how small the kitchen was again, and neither did I, but he did replace the expandable table without telling me. I was touched.
And recognized. I was a Face. One even New Yorkers recognized. On certain streets, people lifted devices in my direction,
which I acclimated to faster than I would’ve thought. On other streets, I was a no one. I tried to stick to those. While out
one afternoon, I found a stationery store on one of those new streets. I purchased a large notebook, started recording everything
I could that was new in this life. Behind-the-scenes media life, a printout of my Soulmail Notes app folder.
And as it tended to do, the tide stopped carrying me and started pushing against me. Social media comments accused me of inventing
Soulmail for clout, which amused nearly everyone. I was deluged with remarks about my weight, life choices, the parentheses
around my mouth, which confused me until I examined my face in the mirror. The tiny cups I thought of as dimples. Smile lines.
First I made a mental note to start face yoga, or get injections, or research the right time to get a facelift, but instead,
I posted a video with no makeup and no filter, and the internet wilded out. Half of them praised me, a quarter offered advice,
fifteen percent talked about me like I wasn’t there. Men, or at least profiles appearing to be men, filled my DMs. One percent
stopped following me, zero percent of me cared.
My parents figured out how to send memes, which was all they did for days, which was how I realized: they’re aging. Everyone
was, but not everyone lived far away from their loved ones by choice. I sent quiet inquiries to find out their long-term care
plans, and set up a special account toward their future care. My therapist suggested a phone session with them to mediate
their Soulmail lie. I agreed. They agreed. Everyone cried.
September wound down. My favorite time of year.
When my period was late, I called Natalie, who was in Bali on a trip with her boarding school girlfriends. She coached me
on buying the test. Her internet connection punked out right when I was about to plunge the plastic stick into a cup of my
own pee, so I chickened out and went to bed to cry myself to sleep. I woke bathed in a night sweat. As a former story writer,
I knew night sweats can be dangerous, which would immediately spark a sleepless night of health anxiety, except I also had
a low backache, a classic period sign of mine. Sure enough, my period arrived in the morning.
The relief was indescribable. And then unease trickled in when I remembered I wanted kids in a way that was the deepest, realest,
truest thing about myself. This should not have been a potential crisis.
I tried reasoning that my relief was because I was at a weird career moment, but I knew that wasn’t true. I researched freezing
my eggs and learned freezing embryos—something a person must create with genetic material from someone else—has a higher success
rate.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.