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Print this storyThings I Would Do To Make Her Smile
I am introduced to Tia the way people usually are, through a friend of a friend. She is kneeling on her kitchen floor, scrubbing her refrigerator, with all the contents of the fridge around her in a rough semi-circle on the floor. Her husband Brad and our mutual friend sit in the other room in front of the TV. Brad has the remote control in hand, flipping channels.
After we exchange pleasantries, Tia turns her face up at me and says, "Do you know what I've always wanted to do? I've always wanted to crawl into an empty refrigerator and close the door behind me. You know, because everyone always said you shouldn't."
I look around at the sweating bottles and foil-wrapped leftovers. "Well, how often is your refrigerator empty?"
"Do you really think I should?"
"I dare you," I tell her. "I'm here to open the door if you start to suffocate or anything."
Tia proceeds to climb into her fridge. She gets situated and says, "Okay, close the door."
I laugh at her as I push to door closed. A grown woman with a child and a husband, excited by being shut in a fridge.
I wait for the door to open. After a few seconds, I realize I am holding my breath in anticipation. The door remains closed and quiet just long enough for me to begin to wonder if she is trapped. But a second later, the door swings open and Tia bursts from her fridge, laughing. I exhale and laugh along with her.
"What's so funny? What's going on in there?" Brad yells from the living room.
Tia's laughter quiets and she answers back, "Nothing."
We both jump a minute later when we hear his voice directly behind us. He is standing in the kitchen doorway. "No, seriously," he says. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing, Brad. Go watch TV," Tia says.
Brad shifts his weight from foot to foot. He puts his hand up to the doorframe as though he's going to lean there, but then seems to change his mind. As he lowers his hand, he fixes me with a glare, then retreats to the living room.
I don't want to give you the impression that my marriage was always terrible. I wouldn't have married someone who didn't love me. Sometimes, staying in love is an uphill battle. You have to protect love. You have to defend it from the world.
We decided to get married while we were lying in bed one morning. It was sweet. No cliché stuff like engagement rings hidden in desserts or him beseeching me on bended knee to be his wife. We had a rational conversation, debating the good and the bad of getting married.
We decided on a small ceremony, six weeks away. I started making plans. Or, more accurately, trying to make plans. I don't know if you've ever tried to plan a June wedding, even a very small one, on six weeks notice, but it's impossible. After fifteen straight nights of holding me while I cried about the latest plans gone awry, he suggested we just elope.
Why not? After all, I wanted to be married, not buy a dress.
So, we went to the Justice of the Peace to get our marriage license. We had asked Judge Black, a kindly man near retirement age, to perform the ceremony in his living room. We didn't understand how the whole marriage license thing worked and the clerk had no patience with us. Each time we asked a question, she'd answer sarcastically and follow it up with a snide "...of course." It was humiliating.
There was one other couple applying for a license. A middle-aged woman was marrying a very young man, having just that day obtained her divorce papers. Every time the rude clerk would insult us, the woman would giggle. My future husband, my hero, eventually turned to this woman and said, "Some people haven't done this before." I was waiting for my knight to put on shining armor and carry me into the sunset on the back of his white horse.
On our wedding day, we sat in an idling car outside Judge Black's house. He turned off the engine and said softly, "Last chance."
I sighed and smiled. We got out of the car. We held hands as we walked up the steps to Judge Black's front door. The ceremony was quick; we barely had time to absorb what was happening. Afterward, we ate fried chicken at a little restaurant and had an hour-long conversation about the five-minute ceremony.
When we arrived at my apartment, it was to find one of his friends passed out drunk on the front steps. Beside him on the stoop sat two empty six packs. I grimaced as my husband carried his drunken friend across the threshold.
I walk through Tia's door and she's dancing and hopping around her living room. Turns out, she bought a box of crackers and there's a contest on the label for a recipe contest. She's convinced that if we work together, we'll win. The prize is a dream kitchen, some money, and a trip to Los Angeles to make your recipe on camera for the viewing public.
Now, if it had been me, I would have bought the crackers, maybe noticed the contest and ignored it. But Tia's different. Tia believes that people win recipe contests that are announced on the backs of cracker boxes.
While Tia laughs and shouts and negotiates the best way to divide the dream kitchen between us, Brad stares blankly at the TV, rolling his eyes at Tia. He makes it very clear that he thinks Tia is being stupid and naïve, so I decide to go along with her. I would do anything to see that smile.
We go to the kitchen to get away from Brad and to decide what recipes we're going to invent. We decide to try tropical chicken. We'll each concoct two recipes. We brainstorm together for a few minutes and make a shopping list that includes mangos, coconut, bananas, pineapples and limes. We decide to head to the grocery store right away so we can start cooking.
We walk through the living room and Tia says to Brad, "We're running to the grocery store. We'll be right back."
Brad says, "You're taking Hannah, right?"
"No, I hadn't planned on it," says Tia.
"Tia, I'm busy. I can't watch her."
"Brad, you're just watching TV. Hannah can stay here so we can go to the store."
"I was going to mow the lawn. I can't mow the lawn if I have to watch Hannah."
"You weren't going to mow the lawn. And even if you were, you can do it in 15 minutes when we're back from the store."
"You'll take longer than that. Take Hannah with you so I can get my stuff done."
I want to yell at him, What about Tia? But instead I watch Tia, angry in defeat, as she grabs a clean outfit for Hannah from a nearby laundry basket, and begins changing Hannah's clothes. "You're supposed to be folding this laundry," she mutters.
She changes Hannah's diaper and neatly wraps the dirty diaper up into a ball. Tia gives Hannah to me and asks, "Are you ready?"
I nod, and Tia turns back to Brad. She hurtles the dirty diaper at him and says, "Throw that away for me," before turning abruptly to head out the door.
Tia stomps ahead of me to the car, but by the time she takes Hannah from me to put her in her car seat, she is calm, talking to Hannah in her silly baby voice.
We keep up this act for the whole trip, clowning around the grocery store, making Hannah laugh at our outrageous antics. We add animal crackers for Hannah to the cart.
When we get back to Tia's house, Brad is gone. He's left a note. Tia reads the note, summarizes its contents to me and throws it away. He's supposedly helping a friend work on his car.
Tia puts Hannah to bed after songs, dances and stories. We set to work chopping, marinating, stirring and baking. We spend the entire time we are working talking about what we are going to do with the prize when we win. An hour later, we have four tropical chicken dishes, seasoned and ready to be sampled.
We each take a bite and without even chewing, spit it back out in horror. The stuff tastes awful. We look at each other and laugh. We dare each other to try the two remaining dishes. Neither one of us is brave enough. Sheepishly, we call Tia's dog to the kitchen so we can feed her the evidence.
While we're cleaning the kitchen, Tia asks, "Do you think they have to taste-test every recipe that gets sent in?"
"I don't know. Probably most of them. Why?"
"I was thinking we should send in our recipes out of spite. Just for the perverse enjoyment of knowing someone else has to eat them."
We laugh and I help Tia write all four recipes neatly on recipe cards and address the envelopes. I take the envelopes, promising to mail them on my way home. When I leave it's late, but Brad hasn't come home yet.
When we were seventeen, he had already named our children: twin boys named Toby and Tyler followed three years later by a daughter named Morgan. I, on the other hand, had decided that the planet was over-burdened and over-populated and had decided never to have children.
One year out of high school, we were married and he immediately began asking when. "When are we going to have a baby?" Every night, he followed me into the bathroom to watch me swallow the little blue pills with a mournful expression. Sometimes he'd even go so far as to say, "Come on, stop taking those," as though he were trying to talk a drug addict our of her habit.
I held out for years, only occasionally asking myself if I was doing the right thing. Was it really fair of me to always put my wants ahead of his? No, I decided, it wasn't fair, but I didn't want to be a reluctant mother.
He devised elaborate schemes, which involved me quitting college for various amounts of time. One night we sat talking and he presented another one of his plans with yet another new twist. I would quite college and resume when the baby was two years old.
He can't be serious, I thought.
"You quit, well, you would finish this semester, then get pregnant. I'll work, you stay at home, be pregnant. Then have the baby, stay home, and take care of the baby until he's two. Then, you can go back to school, finish your degree, get a job, and I'll stay home with the baby.
I didn't even know what to say. Since we had met, I had been telling him about my dreams of traveling the world, having a successful career, finishing college and graduate school. I sat in silence, frantically trying to compose a response, when suddenly, it occurred to me: he was joking.
I laughed and said, "Oh right. Like I'd quit school to have a baby. Good plan."
"No, I'm serious," he insisted. "It would work and we'd both get what we want."
Still laughing, I said, "Oh, sure, it's perfect. It's so easy to go to college when you've been away from it for three years and you have a two-year-old at home. And you'll stay home with the baby when I graduate college and start working. Like a six-year-old is a baby. He'd be in school by then. Why stay home?"
I didn't stop laughing until I looked up at his face. He sat quietly with the saddest expression I'd ever seen on his face. I immediately fell silent. It occurred to me that he was serious.
"Oh my god. You weren't kidding. Oh, I'm so sorry." I was grasping for an adequate explanation of my behavior, and I was failing miserably.
After all, how do you apologize for laughing at someone's dream?
On a sunny afternoon, Tia and I decide to hit the flea markets and see how much junk we can get for $10 each. Tia adores flea markets and is an expert at discovering treasures. Hannah has countless Baby Gap and Osh Kosh outfits that Tia found, often with the tags still attached, for a dollar or two each.
We walk past the tables piled high with mismatched china, lamps that don't work and crazy souvenir ashtrays from places like Niagara Falls and Tijuana. We take turns pushing Hannah's stroller. Hannah is in a good mood, having slept late that morning.
We pass a table piled with children's books and I stop to browse, telling Tia to go on ahead. I search through the tattered books and find two Dr. Seuss books. I buy them for Hannah and jog to catch up with them. I present Tia with the book sand tell her I bought them for Hannah.
"Oh, thank you!" she says. "You didn't have to do that."
"Of course I didn't silly. If I had to do it, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun."
We laugh and show the books to Hannah, who smiles toothlessly and tries to eat one.
"Don't eat the book!" we both shout at the same time. Both of us laugh as Tia takes the books from Hannah and puts them in the diaper bag. It's then that I realize for the first time in my life what it's really like to raise a child with someone else, laughing together at the antics, sharing responsibilities, working together.
I start to pretend in my head that Tia and I are raising Hannah. I think that this is what will make me happy.
We stop to browse through some beautiful hand-made jewelry being sold by a very prim older woman. I can picture her wearing white gloves and a bonnet to church on Sundays, and imagine that she was given a debutante ball at the age of 16.
I stand with my hands on Hannah's stroller as Tia tries to choose a necklace. The jewelry woman walks around the table to coo at Hannah. Hannah answers her by drooling a trail of spittle down her chin and smiling. The woman compliments me on my beautiful baby. I laugh, not really sure how to handle this awkward moment, but Tia immediately speaks up and says, "Thank you! We like her." And then a minute later, "I'll take this one," as she holds up a necklace.
It's pretty clear from the look on the jewelry woman's face that she thinks we're a couple. Neither one of us corrects her assumption.
In one of the strange coincidences of life, his older sister got pregnant followed only two months later by his younger brother's wife. Baby fever hit his family big time. It seemed like his parents were calling us every day, asking when we would conceive. His answer was always the same: "As soon as she decides she's ready."
We planned a trip to visit his family after the babies were born. His entire family was convinced that seeing, smelling and holding babies would change my mind. They were all sure I'd return home ready to have a baby.
We saw his brother's baby son first, and I felt so big and clumsy and awkward that I refused to hold the baby. Then we traveled to his sister's house to see her new baby daughter. I refused to hold her, too. I was partly afraid that the Baby Fever would catch and partly afraid that they'd all see how weird I was with babies and encourage him to leave me on the grounds that I had no motherly instinct whatsoever.
His sister got angry that I wouldn't hold her baby and started yelling at me. I'm not exaggerating. Yelling. I took the baby, and sat rigid, afraid to move for 20 minutes before someone else finally declared that it was their turn to hold her. I collapsed into my chair with relief when she was lifted away from me.
But, to be honest, that trip did change my mind. I decided that on his birthday, with nine months left to college graduation, I would wrap up my pills and the refill prescriptions and present them to him for his birthday. I figured we'd be lucky if I was pregnant by graduation and then I could have the baby, leave it in his care, and find the career that would allow me to conquer the world.
It wasn't holding or seeing or smelling babies that changed my mind. It was seeing him with the babies. He was a natural. Loving and cooing as he held them easily. He didn't want to leave. I realized he was going to be a great father. The time had come to stop being selfish.
We are sitting on Tia's couch, watching Oprah. It's almost a tradition for us now. After work, I go to Tia's house, and hang out until Brad gets home.
Tia is breastfeeding Hannah. Hannah makes little contented suckling noises. Her eyes are closed, the lashes soft against her cheeks.
Today is a special episode, where Oprah is interviewing a big movie star. Tia and I like the days she talks about heartwarming little stories. We both cry and hand each other tissues. But today, we have to listen to a plug for an upcoming movie. They've packed the audience with fans, so every time the star speaks, there's screaming and applause. Tia and I grow impatient and start chatting over the noise.
"Do you know what I think my perfect job is?" Tia asks.
"Besides being a mom?" I wonder.
"A kindergarten teacher," she answers.
As soon as she says it, I can see that she's absolutely perfect for the job. She's so animated, she loves kids, she sings and dances. I would have loved having a kindergarten teacher like Tia.
"Tia! You should go for it!"
"No, I couldn't," she says, dismissing me.
"What? Yes, you can! You really should. It would be perfect."
"I don't think I could make it through college," she says.
"Tia, don't be crazy. I made it. You're smarter than me." I'm trying to be encouraging.
"I don't think so," she says. Then, "Could you hold Hannah for a minute? I have to go to the bathroom before I burst."
"Sure." I take her baby into my arms and before Tia even makes it out of the room, Hannah is screaming.
"I'll hurry!" calls Tia over her shoulder.
I bounce Hannah and sing to her the way Tia always does. Hannah quiets down a bit and I settle back into the couch, pulling her closer to me.
Her cheek brushes against my breast and she instinctively turns her head to nurse, even through my shirt. I giggle and tell Hannah that it's not going to work.
"What's not going to work?" asks Tia, walking back toward the couch.
"She's trying to nurse."
Tia laughs as she settles back into her place beside me on the couch. She takes Hannah and asks her, "Are you confused?" in her baby voice.
I stand up and stretch. I tell Tia I have to go, but that I'll see her tomorrow after work.
I walk down the front steps to my car in the driveway. As I pull the car onto the freeway, I notice that the wind feels cold on my chest. I look down and realize that I have a round wet spot over each of my breasts. I touch them in wonder. Maybe Hannah wasn't so confused after all.
The thing that was so funny about my marriage was the way I became obsessed with little things. I was absolutely opposed to having a TV in our bedroom. I was sure that having a TV in our bedroom would mean the end of our sex life. Never mind that the sex life had already ended. I stood vehemently opposed, refused to budge in argument after argument. The night he finally put the TV in the bedroom, I cried myself to sleep.
And the king-sized bed. I was absolutely against that too. I was convinced that it would mean no more snuggling up together during the night. And even though we hadn't slept cuddled up together for years, I threw a fit the day the mattress was delivered.
A lot of good all the screaming got me. I wasted my energy on all the wrong things. It wasn't a TV in the bedroom or a king-sized bed that made it all fall apart. But I had to fight because I had to do something. I was railing against my own powerlessness. I fought for silly things because all the fighting in the world wouldn't make him love me again.
Tia and Brad are having a barbeque. Brad and the guys are out back, standing around the grill, beers in hand. I am inside with Tia and Hannah and women and babies. I am the only one without a baby. I am trying to figure out how people find a whole new set of friends when they have a baby. It seems that suddenly, all their friends are married with babies.
Tia pokes her head out of the kitchen to say she needs more soda. Do we mind watching Hannah while she runs to the store?
I offer to go to the store for her.
Tia looks at me and says, "Why don't we both go to the store?"
Tia grabs her keys and pulls me out the door.
"Woohoo!" she shouts as she starts the car. "I never get to go anywhere without Hannah!"
She decides to unnecessarily visit a stor that's far away and as we pull onto the highway, we hear a clunk as something hits the trunk of Tia's car. We both look back, puzzled. Suddenly Tia yells "Oh no!" and hits the brakes. She pulls over. "That's our cell phone. I forgot I set it on top of the car when we were leaving."
I watch Tia walk back to where her phone lays, in the middle of the right lane. I watch as several cars pass, their tires straddling the phone. Tia waits for the last two cars to pass. The last car changes lanes at just the right time to crush Tia's phone. There's not even enough to pick up. When Tia gets back to the car, she is sobbing and nearly hysterical.
"I can't believe this happened! Brad's going to kill me!" she shouts through tears and sobs.
"Tia, it was just an accident."
"No, it wasn't an accident! It was me! I'm just stupid. This is such a Tia thing to do."
I've never seen her cry except at Oprah. I reach across the seats to put my arm around her and comfort her. She cries herself out and we continue to the store.
By the time we get there, she's back to her usual self, laughing and playing games. I play along with her, pretending to juggle fruit and putting adult diapers in her cart. But the whole time, I'm thinking of Brad. I get so angry with him for being so hard on Tia. It breaks my heart to see her tears. I would do anything to make her smile.
His friends and I planned a party to celebrate his birthday. The day before, I found out I was going to have to work. I couldn't get out of it. I was so disappointed. I could be home by midnight, so I made plans to head to the party after work.
I had two hours of free time the afternoon of the party. I spent them running around like a mad woman, shopping and then dashing home to bake and decorate the cake, blow up a mountain of balloons and hang paper streamers and Happy Birthday banners. I even put on music before I left, knowing that he would arrive home only ten minutes later. I left a note promising to leave work as soon as possible to go to his party.
Two hours later, my phone rang. "Why did you do all this at the house? I'm just going to leave. You did realize the party was at Vicky's house, right?"
"Happy birthday!" I shouted. It was too much to explain that all of that had been for him, not the party.
"You're crazy," he said.
"I'm sorry, but I have to go. I'm really busy. I'll get to your party as soon as I can," I assured him.
"You don't need to come."
"What? Of course I do! You're my husband. It's your birthday. I'll be there."
"I'd really prefer that you didn't come," he said.
I paused. "Are you kidding?"
"No. I'll celebrate with you tomorrow. Why don't you just go home after work, and get some sleep?"
I pictured our home, empty and quiet, me lying alone in the king-sized bed. "No way. I'm coming to the party."
We argued for a few minutes. He said it was his birthday; he should be able to say if I can come. I ask whoever heard of a wife not being invited to her husband's birthday party. I think the argument is absurd and ridiculous. Even as I hang up the phone, I decide to crash the party.
I rushed through things at work. I was determined to see him before midnight to wish him happy birthday.
I arrived at Vicky's house and it was like stepping into an 80's teen movie. People were laying all over the lawn and the inside of the house. Many had been sick.
I found him huddled in a ball on the back porch. He, too, had been sick. He was angry with me for coming. I swallowed my nasty comebacks and helped him shower and change his clothes. I led him to the master bedroom, thoughtfully vacated for us by the other party guests.
I didn't sleep. I laid in the dark beside him and cry. I couldn't figure out which one of us was wrong.
Tia is not the kind of girl who likes to be alone. She is too outgoing, too involved in other people to be able to enjoy time alone. Brad is sent out of town frequently for his job. This time he'll be gone for 2 days. Tia asks me if I would spend the night with her. We decide we're going to have the best slumber party either of us has been to since junior high.
I pack magazines, a manicure kit, fun pajamas, makeup, hair accessories and even hot rollers. I am determined to show Tia how wacky and fun I am. When I arrive and start unpacking, I worry that maybe I've gone too far, but as soon as Tia sees everything, she is thrilled. We spend the night doing makeovers and watching musicals, singing along at the top of our lungs.
When we are ready to go to bed, Tia leads the way upstairs as we joke and laugh, and try not to wake Hannah, who's been in bed for hours.
"If I snore, just smack me," she says as she turns on the bedroom light.
Suddenly, she turns around, and very seriously asks, "You don't think I'm gay, do you?"
"What?"
"Oh, if you don't want to sleep with me, you can sleep on the couch, or we can get a sleeping bag. I just thought it'd be like a slumber party..."
"Tia," I deadpan. "I know you're a lesbian and completely in love with me, so just cut it out and sleep with me already."
I can only hold out for a few seconds before I start laughing. Tia laughs too, and soon we hear Hannah from her bedroom. We've woken her up.
"I'll be right back," Tia whispers as she goes to settle Hannah.
I sit on the bed, ready for a long wait, but Tia is back in just a minute.
Tia crawls into bed and rubs my back. She says, "Okay, I'm ready now, lover."
We both hold our breaths to keep from laughing too loudly and Tia turns off the light. We talk for a long time, about nothing in particular. Tia drifts off to sleep, but I am awake most of the night listening to Tia's deep, even breathing.
Now that it's over, I look back and I see all the things I should have seen before. I see all the warning signs, everything I should have noticed, and everything I should have paid more attention to.
But how was I supposed to give any special significance to these things when there were really sweet and wonderful things in between?
There were a few times when we were forced to spend time apart. The first separation passed with daily phone calls and letters. The second with a few letters and several phone calls. The final time, he was on the West Coast, I was on the East Coast, for two weeks. The score: 0 letters, 0 postcards, 1 phone call. But what a phone call it was.
It was late at night, and the ringing phone woke me up.
"Get the cordless phone and go outside," he said as soon as I'd answered.
"What? I'm in bed. I was sleeping," I whined.
"I know, but I want you to go outside," he pleaded.
I whined and complained, but eventually, I stepped out onto our back porch wearing only my pajamas and holding the cordless phone to my ear.
"Okay, I'm outside," I said.
"Look up at the sky."
"I'm looking. It's beautiful," I said. "But not really worth getting out of bed in the middle of the night."
"Just look," he said patiently. "Do you see Orion?"
I stepped further out and turned, located the three bright stars of Orion's belt.
"Yeah, I see Orion," I said.
"Me too," he answered.
On a languid summer day, Tia and I take Hannah to a new fifties-style restaurant to eat. They have carhops on roller skates and speakers play bubble gum rock. It's too hot to sit in the car, so we take our food to a picnic table.
Hannah is growing fast. She's already beginning to talk. Tia has taught her animal sounds. After we eat, we make requests. "Hannah, what does a doggy say?"
Hannah responds with two yips.
Tia asks, ""What does a kitty-cat say?"
Hannah answers with her interpretation, "Now, now."
After Hannah's repertoire is exhausted I ask, "What does Mommy say?"
Hannah tips her head to the side for a minute. Then she shakes her index finger at us while sternly saying, "No, no, no!"
Tia and I laugh until our eyes water. Hannah laughs along with us, watching our faces, wondering what the joke is.
We order sundaes for dessert, and they arrive complete with stemmed maraschino cherries and whipped cream. I pick up my cherry by the stem and offer it to Tia. Rather than taking the cherry from me, she tips back her head and opens her mouth. She pulls the cherry from the stem with her lips. I try to catch her eye, but she focuses her attention on Hannah, wiping ice cream from her little mouth.
We'd been married three years when we ran out of things to talk about. I remember sitting across from him at a restaurant. I was staring at him eating and thinking that there wasn't a thing in the world I wanted to say to him at that moment. More and more frequently, our time together was quiet, both of us going about our business, oblivious to the other person.
Somehow, we discovered that taking walks together stimulated conversation between us. There was something about being in motion that brought us back to the long conversations about our hopes and fears and our philosophical discussions.
For several months, we made it a point to go for a walk together at least once a week. But after awhile, the walks tapered off. Our walks run together in our memory as happy, pleasant times. Only two stand out in my mind: the first and the last.
When we took the first walk, we were barely scraping by. We were sharing a tiny studio apartment and eating only generic pot pies. We must have decided to go for a walk to escape the claustrophobia.
We started talking about our dreams - all the things we wanted from our lives. He wanted family, a dog, and a house of his very own. I wanted a white house near the beach in California. I wanted a recreation room in the basement with thick, soft carpet, a wet bar, and a pool table. I wanted a kitchen with hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances and...
"That's impossible," he interrupted. "How do you expect to find anything that specific?"
"Why does it have to be believable? It's only my imagination," I said.
"We'll never be able to have a house like that."
"Why not?" I asked. "And what difference does it make?"
"You shouldn't waste your time dreaming about things you can never have."
Then there was the last walk we ever took. By that time, I felt like I barely knew him. I was taking a philosophy class and was eager to talk about our views of the universe.
I told him that I had decided that Heaven was a different place for everybody. I thought that each person had a unique idea of what eternal bliss would be like and that's what he or she got when they died. I said my Heaven would be an endless library of books to read, comfortable chairs to snuggle up in, and a small café that served cappuccinos and exquisite chocolates. Friends and family would gather to debate the essence of human beings and theories about time, space and existence.
Then I asked him what his Heaven was like.
"I don't think Heaven really exists, and if it does, then I think it's a sin to try and shape it to suit your own selfish wants."
We finished our final walk in silence.
Tia and I are watching a TV show about celebrity homes and taking turns painting each other's toenails.
A beautiful white house right on the beach is on the screen. A huge porch wraps around all four sides of the building. Rocking chairs sit in rows on the porch, and there's a café-style table and chairs on a second-floor balcony.
The camera moves inside the living room. The two walls that face the ocean are almost completely glass, all windows and French doors. Crisp white curtains billow with the sea breeze.
"I could live in a house like that," Tia says.
"Yeah, me too." I pause for a moment watching hardwood floors and simple, elegant furnishings pass across the screen.
"Tell you what, Tia," I say. "I'll get a really good job in Los Angeles and buy that house for you and me and Hannah to live in."
"Oh! Okay, thanks!" says Tia as though I'm being realistic.
You and Hannah can spend your days roaming the beach and picking wildflowers, talking to dolphins, and I would come home from my job that I loved and we would all make dinner together and eat at the table and chairs up on the balcony."
"What if it's rainy? Or cold?" she asks.
"Then we'd light a fire in the fireplace and cook our dinner in it, then eat it picnic-style on the living room floor," I answer.
"Cook dinner in the fireplace?"
"Sure. And everyday when I come home, I would bring a present for both of you."
"When are we moving?" she asks. "I have to give my landlord 30 days notice."
"Oh. How about in 30 days?"
"Sounds good to me. Can you hand me the phone? I need to call my landlord."
Instead, I reach for the remote and turn the TV volume down. I explain my idea of Heaven to Tia. I don't tell her about the café and library mostly because my Heaven is quickly becoming a large white California beach house with wraparound porch and rocking chairs. I do, however, as Tia what her Heaven is like.
Without hesitation, she answers, "You and me and Hannah, living in that house, wandering the beach and talking to dolphins."
I smile at her and hope that I'm right about Heaven.
I was so busy all the time, it seemed I didn't have time for a social life. I got pretty lonely. So, one Saturday, I convinced him to stay home, instead of going out with his friends. I invited two other married couples over. I thought being around married people instead of single guys would be good for him, good for us. I was so excited.
That evening, things fell apart. First one, then the other, of our guest couples called to cancel. So long as they weren't coming, he decided to go out with his buddies as usual.
My rage and frustration swallowed me whole. I sat on the floor of our spare bedroom, crying, screaming, and sobbing while he got ready to go out. Negative emotions were coming at me so quickly; I didn't know what to do with them.
Finally, he knocked on the door, and was soft and sweet. He eased me off the floor and on to the bed. He sat beside me and put on his best psychologist's voice.
"Tell me why you're crying."
"What's wrong with me?" I moaned.
"Nothing. Why?" he asked.
"Because there were supposed to be five other people here tonight. Five." I held up my fingers like a toddler. My face and body crumpled as I continued, "Now I'm going to be alone as usual."
I fell against him sobbing, his cheek felt cool against my hot angry forehead. He wrapped his arms around me to comfort me and there was a knock at the front door. It was his friend, picking him up for their night out.
I sighed, pulled myself into a ball and simpered.
A minute later, I jumped as I felt a hand on my back. I turned quickly. It was him.
"Goodbye. Have a fun night," I said flatly.
He smiled at me, grabbed both my hands and pulled me up, saying, "Come on, Lady. I'm not going anywhere."
The two of us sat on our living room floor until sunrise, playing board games and eating the food I'd made for the party.
See, I thought to myself. He still loves me like crazy.
Hannah is going to spend the week with her aunt. Tia was looking forward to the time off, but as it draws nearer, she gets sad and begins to doubt her decision.
Brad is mad at Tia. He doesn't approve of Tia's sister taking care of Hannah. But he's out of town, and Tia has decided to do what she wants.
So I'm sitting at Tia's house the night before, keeping her company while she sifts through huge piles of toys, clothes, and books, packing what she thinks Hannah will need. Over and over again she outlines her trip: 6 hours to her sister's house, there she will visit for an hour, then make the trip back home by herself. That last part is what she doesn't like.
Finally, I say, "Tia, what if I call in sick and just go with you tomorrow? I could help you drive if you needed me to, and I could keep you company."
"Would you really?"
"Yes, I would." I smile at her.
I rummage through Tia's drawers to find something I can wear tomorrow. It's already late and I don't feel like going home to pack.
Tia finds me a toothbrush. I lay awake deep into the night listening to Tia's deep breathing and Hannah's murmurs on the baby monitor.
We set out first thing the next morning. We entertain Hannah with puppet shows, songs and stories until she falls asleep, then we play silly car games until we get to Tia's sister's house.
I don't like Tia's sister. She is impatient and critical of Tia, but she absolutely adores Hannah. She worries Tia by making jokes about feeding Hannah candy and ice cream for breakfast. Tia grows more and more quiet. We eat a quick lunch of soup and sandwiches. As we leave after saying our goodbyes to Hannah and Tia's sister, Tia starts to cry. I hug her and remind her that we are free now. "We should stop at a strip club on the way home," I tell her.
Tia laughs and starts the car. We stop at a shopping mall in the first town we come to. Tia is giddy. "This is the first time I've been in a mall without a stroller since Hannah was born!" We run through stores, try on clothes, and rummage through clearance bins.
We stop a short while later to buy ourselves a nice dinner. "We don't need a high chair!" Tia announces to the bewildered hostess. We play checkers in a lounge after dinner. I begin to get a sense of who Tia was before she Brad, before Hannah.
In the car after dinner, Tia says we should play Truth or Dare to pass the time. We get through about four "Truths" before a serious conversation about the state of Tia and Brad's marriage begins. Tia tells me that she wishes she could leave Brad. "I know he doesn't love me," she says. "And really, he doesn't help me out with the house or with Hannah. I don't need him, I just need his money. And the court would give that to me if we got divorced."
I had always thought that it was sad that Tia was trapped in a loveless marriage and didn't even realize what she was giving up. Now I was sad to learn that she knew and lacked the courage to leave. I couldn't blame her. She did have Hannah to think about.
I always want to believe that things are more than they seem. I want to believe that there's something else beneath the surface that I can get to if I only look hard enough. I frequently have dreams that there are extra rooms in my house, more windows, or more closets. One time I even dreamed about a hidden staircase leading to a previously undiscovered floor. I refuse to recognize lack in my life and exaggerate what is there to fill the spaces.
This is probably the reason that the end of my marriage was such a shock to me. I'd been so busy looking for the couple that was closer, more romantic, more in love than we actually were. It took him a long time to make me see the truth.
In my own defense, in some ways we did stay romantic until the end. He quit bringing me flowers and writing poetry before we were even married, but we never called each other by our names. He always called me Lady and I always called him Mr. Man.
I was always telling him, "You should bring me flowers," or "You should write me a poem. You used to write me poetry and bring me flowers." I hated myself even as I said the words. I hated how they made me sound like a stereotypical housewife. I'd never imagined the hurt and frustration behind those theatrical clichés.
I'm standing on the balcony of my apartment, staring at the stars and moon reflected in the ocean's surface. I made it to California after all, though not to the big beautiful house Tia and I had dreamed about. The apartment is tiny, but it's on the beach and has a balcony that faces the water. That's all I care about.
I search the stars for Orion out of habit and once I find him, decide that I need to move on to something new. I decide on Cassiopeia. There's something comforting in that perfect "W." This will belong to Tia and I.
I tried to talk Tia into coming with me. I think I was actually pretty close to convincing her, but in the end she decided to stay with Brad. I made her promise that she wouldn't let him make her forget who she really was. He loved something that she was not, and I knew that it was tempting to become that thing, to earn love at the cost of self-respect.
I look out across the water and think about Tia and Brad, and about my own failed marriage. I think about all the times I disappointed him and how it weighed so heavily on me. I tried so hard to be the girl he loved. It's so easy to put the blame on him, but it wasn't his fault that I struggled to change. From the beginning, I should have stood up for myself, made no apologies for who I was. But it was so easy to let him define me.
I really thought Tia and I could have been happy. I saw her, knew everything she was and loved her for it. I hated seeing her spirit crushed. I imagined that we would treat each other so well, having both known what it was like to be loved as an ideal.
I sigh and pull myself back to the beautiful evening. Moon, stars, ocean. I blow a kiss to Cassiopeia and go back inside. I settle in bed and fall into sleep.
