marriage, always receiving the same answer. Lately, I have taken to repeating what the loveable loser says in response to the same offer in Nobody’s Fool —“Not now, not ever.” Ginny says, “More minipancakes, Jess?” Jessie looks at me with mirthful mischief in her eyes. “Mimi,” she says. “How many ways can I tell you no?”
Ginny’s view of life may not be as unremittingly sunny as it appears, but it prevails in matters such as tea and minipancakes. At her surprise birthday party last year, Wendy’s toast recalled the time when she and Ginny were in Amy’s kitchen at Thanksgiving, and Wendy had overheated a blueberry pie, charring the crust. Ginny told her not to worry. “It will taste just like crème brûlée ,” she said.
One Saturday night, Harris and I go out to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Bethesda. We have a couple of glasses of red wine, and talk about whatever comes to mind—the family, the Georgetown-Memphis basketball game we went to that afternoon, Amy, a little. There is no logic to the relationship of in-laws. The one you love chooses the one he or she loves, and the rest is up to you and that person. Ginny and I feel close to Wendy and Harris, not as parents, but not as friends either—people joined by the presence or absence of a third. Amy’s memory binds Harris and me more tightly than if she were alive.
Not a single moment of contention regarding the children has ever risen between us, except of the playful sort. Yet we are both adept at sparring with each other on other grounds. He reminds me of my every practical ineptitude. I remind him of his ongoing six-year-old misdiagnosis of my broken right thumb. Anyone can see it’s broken. And it hurts like hell. No matter how often I complain, he continues to dismiss my case as arthritis. It must be very easy to become a hand surgeon these days.
Last week, he surprised everyone by coming home with a new painting. He strode in and hung it in the TV room over the sectional. The painting is of a sunset on a wintry landscape. The trees are black and bare. A frozen stream between two hills leads toward a barren field. The red sky looks on fire. Another time recently, he brought home a large framed photograph of Muhammad Ali in a boxing crouch, admiring himself in a mirror in a gym, and bearing legends that read, “Champions are made from something deep inside them” and “The will must be stronger than the skill.” He hung that one in the hall. He has also turned the kitchen table around. It used to stand parallel to the counter that separates the kitchen from the TV room. Harris made it perpendicular. I think he is looking to make things different, or less static.
Yet he seems to want to balance what is changed with what is preserved. When he and Amy went to that medical benefit dinner, a caricaturist drew the two of them the way caricaturists do, with oversize heads and undersize bodies. They are in bathing suits, and Harris is carrying Amy in his arms, in a classic lifeguard pose. He had the picture framed the other day and hung it on the wall near the second-story landing, along with caricatures of the three children, which were done recently. Going up or down the stairs, you can see the family intact.
In some ways, I wish he and I could talk about emotional matters as effectively as we joke with each other. But his emphasis on the positive, which is useful to him, makes it difficult for him to shift gears, even if he wanted to. And I am no better in this. I think I tend to see the darker symbols more than he does. But I am not inclined to talk about my feelings with anyone but Ginny, and only rarely with her. Something about the momentum of our lives is good for us, keeps us from sinking. Given the choice between confessions of sorrow, however cathartic, and the simplest act of getting on with it, we’ll get on with it. I only hope that Harris is not wearing down from the pain of Amy’s loss. There are no signs of
Ginny’s view of life may not be as unremittingly sunny as it appears, but it prevails in matters such as tea and minipancakes. At her surprise birthday party last year, Wendy’s toast recalled the time when she and Ginny were in Amy’s kitchen at Thanksgiving, and Wendy had overheated a blueberry pie, charring the crust. Ginny told her not to worry. “It will taste just like crème brûlée ,” she said.
One Saturday night, Harris and I go out to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Bethesda. We have a couple of glasses of red wine, and talk about whatever comes to mind—the family, the Georgetown-Memphis basketball game we went to that afternoon, Amy, a little. There is no logic to the relationship of in-laws. The one you love chooses the one he or she loves, and the rest is up to you and that person. Ginny and I feel close to Wendy and Harris, not as parents, but not as friends either—people joined by the presence or absence of a third. Amy’s memory binds Harris and me more tightly than if she were alive.
Not a single moment of contention regarding the children has ever risen between us, except of the playful sort. Yet we are both adept at sparring with each other on other grounds. He reminds me of my every practical ineptitude. I remind him of his ongoing six-year-old misdiagnosis of my broken right thumb. Anyone can see it’s broken. And it hurts like hell. No matter how often I complain, he continues to dismiss my case as arthritis. It must be very easy to become a hand surgeon these days.
Last week, he surprised everyone by coming home with a new painting. He strode in and hung it in the TV room over the sectional. The painting is of a sunset on a wintry landscape. The trees are black and bare. A frozen stream between two hills leads toward a barren field. The red sky looks on fire. Another time recently, he brought home a large framed photograph of Muhammad Ali in a boxing crouch, admiring himself in a mirror in a gym, and bearing legends that read, “Champions are made from something deep inside them” and “The will must be stronger than the skill.” He hung that one in the hall. He has also turned the kitchen table around. It used to stand parallel to the counter that separates the kitchen from the TV room. Harris made it perpendicular. I think he is looking to make things different, or less static.
Yet he seems to want to balance what is changed with what is preserved. When he and Amy went to that medical benefit dinner, a caricaturist drew the two of them the way caricaturists do, with oversize heads and undersize bodies. They are in bathing suits, and Harris is carrying Amy in his arms, in a classic lifeguard pose. He had the picture framed the other day and hung it on the wall near the second-story landing, along with caricatures of the three children, which were done recently. Going up or down the stairs, you can see the family intact.
In some ways, I wish he and I could talk about emotional matters as effectively as we joke with each other. But his emphasis on the positive, which is useful to him, makes it difficult for him to shift gears, even if he wanted to. And I am no better in this. I think I tend to see the darker symbols more than he does. But I am not inclined to talk about my feelings with anyone but Ginny, and only rarely with her. Something about the momentum of our lives is good for us, keeps us from sinking. Given the choice between confessions of sorrow, however cathartic, and the simplest act of getting on with it, we’ll get on with it. I only hope that Harris is not wearing down from the pain of Amy’s loss. There are no signs of
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