believe it. Not because I doubted you, or doubted us, but because I’m in awe. In awe of this tremendous, breathtaking good fortune of mine. It’s impudent, this luck. Impudent to have found a love like this, so young, and for it to have grown such deep and powerful roots in the unpromising soil of high school and college.
I stopped reading, laughter bubbling out of me like spring water. It was such a clean and welcome feeling to laugh without malice at something related to Adam. Because here was the thing: If I pointed out to him, even now in the midst of everything else, that he had used a metaphor concerning soil in two significant pieces of writing regarding me—this journal entry, and the letter he gave me after I discovered his affair—he would go maroon with embarrassment. Adam hated to reuse ideas, phrases, and so forth; his mind, according to him, should be a constantly rejuvenated thing, renewed by fresh turns of phrase never before assembled. The obsession could get tedious (Ruby teased him for it mercilessly), but it was
so Adam.
All of a sudden, I missed him so badly it felt like all the air had been vacuumed out of my chest.
“Sweetheart!” The naked relief in Adam’s voice when he picked up the phone made my eyes sting with tears, because I felt it too. “Talk to me,” he said. And I was ready to. I was so damn glad to hear his voice.
“So, I read your letter. The one you gave Jonathan.”
A pause. “You hadn’t read it before now?” Of course this offended him.
“I read it a while ago. I just didn’t feel like talking about it before now.”
“You…wow. Okay. And so?”
“You used another soil metaphor.”
There was a long lag, as he struggled to process the fact that I hadn’t directly addressed our situation. “What?”
“You compared your love to soil. And—” Helplessly, I started giggling, my shoulders twitching as I relished the sheer pleasure of laughing. “I was in the office just now, and I reread that letter you wrote in your notebook right before our wedding, and—you used soil as a metaphor then, too. Except that one was—”
“ ‘The unpromising soil of high school and college,’ ” he finished, voice rich with amusement. “Oh Christ, that’s embarrassing.”
“I knew it would kill you,” I laughed.
“Guilty,” he said. “Sweetheart, it’s so good to hear your voice. I miss you so goddamn much. We haven’t been apart this long since—”
“Since college. I know.”
“So…how are you feeling? I know this is going to take a long time to repair. It’s huge and complicated and awful. But can we please start trying? Let’s just try. Let me try. That’s all I’m asking for right now. Just try.”
It was a lot to ask for, but it was also the simplest thing. And it was at the core of everything I had promised, ten years before: Don’t give up without a fight. The fact that Adam had broken some of his own promises didn’t let me off the hook for mine. Including, for example, that same promise not to fool around with someone else, even out of pure emotional desperation. I wasn’t blameless myself.
This couldn’t be the end.
I closed my eyes and imagined hugging my husband, the lean structure of his precious body clasped tight in my arms, and I knew the answer then. I was going to have to find a way past this devastation, because I quite simply didn’t think I wanted to live without him.
“Okay,” I said, the word drifting away on a rush of pure relief.
“Yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “I will try.”
“Caro,” he said, voice impossibly tender. “Thank holy god. I can’t wait to come home and see your face.”
It was like hearing a note played out of tune in a beloved song. “Wait, hang on a second. I’m not ready for you to come home quite yet. I am
really fucking
upset,
Adam. This is not going to get better quickly.”
“Of course it’s not. I know that. But why don’t we meet? Just for a little while, so you can see
I stopped reading, laughter bubbling out of me like spring water. It was such a clean and welcome feeling to laugh without malice at something related to Adam. Because here was the thing: If I pointed out to him, even now in the midst of everything else, that he had used a metaphor concerning soil in two significant pieces of writing regarding me—this journal entry, and the letter he gave me after I discovered his affair—he would go maroon with embarrassment. Adam hated to reuse ideas, phrases, and so forth; his mind, according to him, should be a constantly rejuvenated thing, renewed by fresh turns of phrase never before assembled. The obsession could get tedious (Ruby teased him for it mercilessly), but it was
so Adam.
All of a sudden, I missed him so badly it felt like all the air had been vacuumed out of my chest.
“Sweetheart!” The naked relief in Adam’s voice when he picked up the phone made my eyes sting with tears, because I felt it too. “Talk to me,” he said. And I was ready to. I was so damn glad to hear his voice.
“So, I read your letter. The one you gave Jonathan.”
A pause. “You hadn’t read it before now?” Of course this offended him.
“I read it a while ago. I just didn’t feel like talking about it before now.”
“You…wow. Okay. And so?”
“You used another soil metaphor.”
There was a long lag, as he struggled to process the fact that I hadn’t directly addressed our situation. “What?”
“You compared your love to soil. And—” Helplessly, I started giggling, my shoulders twitching as I relished the sheer pleasure of laughing. “I was in the office just now, and I reread that letter you wrote in your notebook right before our wedding, and—you used soil as a metaphor then, too. Except that one was—”
“ ‘The unpromising soil of high school and college,’ ” he finished, voice rich with amusement. “Oh Christ, that’s embarrassing.”
“I knew it would kill you,” I laughed.
“Guilty,” he said. “Sweetheart, it’s so good to hear your voice. I miss you so goddamn much. We haven’t been apart this long since—”
“Since college. I know.”
“So…how are you feeling? I know this is going to take a long time to repair. It’s huge and complicated and awful. But can we please start trying? Let’s just try. Let me try. That’s all I’m asking for right now. Just try.”
It was a lot to ask for, but it was also the simplest thing. And it was at the core of everything I had promised, ten years before: Don’t give up without a fight. The fact that Adam had broken some of his own promises didn’t let me off the hook for mine. Including, for example, that same promise not to fool around with someone else, even out of pure emotional desperation. I wasn’t blameless myself.
This couldn’t be the end.
I closed my eyes and imagined hugging my husband, the lean structure of his precious body clasped tight in my arms, and I knew the answer then. I was going to have to find a way past this devastation, because I quite simply didn’t think I wanted to live without him.
“Okay,” I said, the word drifting away on a rush of pure relief.
“Yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “I will try.”
“Caro,” he said, voice impossibly tender. “Thank holy god. I can’t wait to come home and see your face.”
It was like hearing a note played out of tune in a beloved song. “Wait, hang on a second. I’m not ready for you to come home quite yet. I am
really fucking
upset,
Adam. This is not going to get better quickly.”
“Of course it’s not. I know that. But why don’t we meet? Just for a little while, so you can see
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