If You Only Knew. Kristan Higgins
my nose, didn’t I?
I told myself that it was good, keeping things in perspective. In order to have interesting things to talk about with my husband, the heroic saver of faces, the smiter of deformities, the changer of lives, I’d listen to TED Talks on my computer while I worked. I’d read important novels. Listen to NPR in order to have interesting things to contribute to our dinner conversations.
But I never let myself have regular feelings when I was with Owen. I was almost afraid to bitch about Marie, the mean and less-talented designer who trashed me to our coworkers after Vera told me my work was “glorious.” When a homeless man peed himself on the subway, and I only noticed because it leaked into my own seat, it was such a sad and horrifying occurrence that I wept as I gave him all the money in my wallet to the disapproving stares of my fellow riders. I cried all the way home and took a forty-five-minute shower. Threw that skirt in the trash and triple bagged it. It was one of my favorites.
But I didn’t tell Owen. He’d just returned from Sri Lanka, fixing faces marred by war, after all. My brush with the homeless man…pah. It was nothing compared to what Owen had seen. So I kept that, and all the other little vagaries and irritations of life, to myself.
There’s that saying—true love makes you a better person. I thought at the time that this was my evolution into a better person. What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t better; I was just less me. I wanted to vent about Marie and her petty little pecks. I wanted to be consoled about sitting in someone else’s urine.
But it was nothing compared to what Owen dealt with every day.
And so Owen and I had a very happy marriage, a seamless relationship of mutual affection, love, interesting conversations and enjoyable trips. When I felt the need to be human, I faked a mild virus, and Owen would attend to me as he might a patient, and I felt more special and loved than at any other time in our years together.
We were happy.
Except I saw it, that slow erosion of love. Of interest. Of that delight that Owen used to feel toward me, from the very first day we met, that incredibly flattering sense that Owen believed I was the most charming, adorable person he’d ever encountered. For a year, maybe two, I saw Owen’s love flickering, like electricity during a thunderstorm. He was never cruel, never impatient. He was simply leaving me, a surgical centimeter at a time.
I don’t think he was consciously aware of it, but I saw it, and I fought it, believe me. Tried to rock his world in bed, though sex had always been lovely and comfortable and intimate. After reading an article in Cosmo, I talked dirty to him one night as we were making love—dropped the f-bomb, as instructed. He pulled back and said, “What did you just say?” looking as stunned as if I’d just slit his throat.
I invited our friends over more frequently to show Owen that we were the couple to be, that we had this great life, of course we did, we were having a wine-tasting dinner! See? I tried to book a vacation, but Owen said he couldn’t take the time. I booked a weekend in Maine instead, so we could walk on the stony beaches and take a boat ride to the Cranberry Islands, so we could get sloppy eating lobster and laugh and hold hands and sleep late. But Owen had an emergency surgery that day—a little girl shot in the face—and he had to stay the entire weekend at the hospital.
So, in all honesty, I wasn’t all that surprised when he came home that fateful night and told me he wasn’t living the life he felt he was meant for. That though he loved me, he couldn’t help feeling a little…empty…lately. It wasn’t my fault, of course. It was just a feeling that his destiny lay elsewhere.
I knew it was coming. It didn’t make it any easier.
Is there anything more humiliating than begging someone to stay with you? To keep loving you? The answer is no. I begged anyway. For five solid hours, I begged and sobbed and shouted. He couldn’t leave me. He was everything to me. Please, everything should just go back to how it was when we were happy.
But he was resolute. “You’re my best friend,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Jenny, I’m so, so sorry. I hate doing this, but I feel like I have to. The same way I knew I had to go to medical school, even though my dad wanted so much for me to be a lawyer. It’s not you. It’s just… I have to.”
It’s not you. The stupidest line in the history of lines.
I moved out the next day. Of course it was me.
Three months later, Owen proved that fact by meeting Ana-Sofia. We were having our weekly lunch, and he hadn’t said anything. I just knew. I could tell, because I recognized the look on his face; he used to look at me that way. “So you’ve met someone,” I said.
He hesitated.
“Please be honest, Owen.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think I have.”
A month later, he introduced me to Ana-Sofia, whose first words to me were, “Owen has sung your praises for so long! I’ve been dying to meet you.” She hugged me. I hugged her back.
And that’s how it’s been. I want to get away from them. I want to be close to them. I love them. I hate them. I feel hateful that I have to love them, and I guiltily love that I hate them. I vow to be busy the next time they call.
My phone rings as I pull up onto Magnolia Avenue. “Hi, it’s Ana-Sofia! Jenny, I’m so distracted, I completely forgot to ask you. I have tickets for the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and you were the first person I thought of! Would you like to go?”
That exhibit has been sold out for months. Of course she has tickets.
“Yeah, I’d love to,” I say. “Thanks, Ana!”
“Wonderful! I’ll email you details. Bye!”
I take a deep breath and get out of the car.
Leo is once again in the lounge chair. He seems sound asleep. I can tell he got up at some point, though, because he’s wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, a striped tie. His arms are folded tight across his chest, and there’s a slight frown on his face. The wind, which has gotten nearly cold, ruffles his hair. Beside him is a bouquet of flowers.
He looks…sad. No, not sad. Lost, as if he forgot he was supposed to go to a party and just gave up, found this chair and hunkered down for the night. A well-dressed homeless man and his mangy dog.
I wonder if I should wake him.
Instead, I go inside, lugging Kendall’s dress with me. A second later, I come out again with the red plaid blanket Andreas gave me for Christmas—cashmere…it pays to have friends with exquisite taste—and open the gate.
Loki growls. I ignore him; he’s not terribly big, and he doesn’t look as if he could spring to his master’s defense without a trampoline. Indeed, his lip curls back, but the rest of him remains lying on his pillow bed.
Trying not to indulge in too much gooey tenderness—after all, I’ve known Leo for all of twenty-seven hours—I spread the blanket over him, then go back up the steps to my new home, put Pandora on Kelly Clarkson and start unpacking.
* * *
A FEW HOURS later, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Leo, holding my blanket in one hand, the bouquet of flowers in the other. “Is this yours?” he asks, lifting the blanket.
“Yes. You looked cold.”
“I was fine.”
“You’re welcome.” I give him a pointed look and take the blanket.
“Thank you.”
We look at each other for a minute. “Come on in,” I offer, and he does. “I was going to ask you to come up anyway. The living room light doesn’t work.” It’s a gorgeous fixture, authentic Victorian, I think, ivory with a leaf pattern embossed into it.
“What the hell are you listening to?”
“This? This is Toby Keith.” Leo stares at me like I’m an exhibit at the zoo.