All I could think to do was simply hug her. I lay down next to her on top of the blankets and took her in my arms. She cried. Her body shook. She sobbed. Tears drenched her gown and my shirt. I rocked her back and forth until she fell asleep. We said nothing.
20
getting to know me
Danielle
It’s been two months since we got the apartment. Things have been getting better every day with Alex and the boys. It’s not uncomfortable doing the swap or seeing him at the kids’ functions. He’s been respectful, leaving the apartment clean and organized. I trust that he’s no longer using it as a bachelor pad, so we stopped insisting the sheets be washed every five minutes.
I threw myself into work. Now I go into the offices nearly every moment I’m not with the boys. Lars declined my offer to write for the show this season, but he promised he’ll come on board for the second season. He said he had too much on his plate, planning his wedding and honeymoon. I don’t buy it. I think he’s cowering out of guilt for not putting all the rumors to rest.
He did finally come out to me over the phone in a very nonchalant way, sort of implying that he thought I always knew. I wish Ihadknown. It could have extinguished many of the fires in our house, with both Alex and with my mother. I know it wasjust one catalyst, but had it not all been for Lars, the rumor, Beth…would Alex and I be divorced?
I’ve seen Jacob for the last several Sundays. I go to the Westside and stay at his condo with him. It’s easy and familiar. He’s energetic…happy. We cook dinners or swim in the ocean, paddleboard, go for bike rides. It’s freeing to be with someone who doesn’t talk to me about finances, or college funds, parent duties, household chores, or neglected needs.
At first, I was nervous about being vulnerable and physically close with Jacob, but then I remembered what sex had felt like with him when we were young. I could tell he remembered me too. I hadn’t felt sexy in a long time, almost like that part of me had gone dormant. Now it’s alive and my skin looks better, my hair is thicker and healthier, and I’ve lost the flab around my stomach, which I thought would never go away.
I haven’t told anyone about Jacob, but I think Alicia has suspicions because she’s basically clairvoyant when it comes to me.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but things feelgoodright now. I’m finding our stride. Eli fast-tracked the show. They’ve already started shooting the pilot episode. The cast and crew are amazing, everything I could have dreamed for and more.
When we were married, Alex and I had a rhythm. As a team, we were effective, especially in the beginning. He was building his career; I was building mine. We shared all of the household responsibilities. When we had the boys, it felt like I was shouldering more as far as domestic and parenting duties, but Alex had the consistent income that offset the monetary fluctuation of my volatile profession. So it still never felt unequal.
We prided ourselves on how productive we were together, but when things started going downhill, all of that energy was transferred to fighting. Each of our focus was on winning theargument, no matter what it was about. And my mother dying in the other room only exacerbated the turbulence.
Now I feel that camaraderie coming back, but in a different form. Alex and I are compromising. We’re communicating, “You do this, I’ll do that. Okay, great! Let’s get it done.” It’s not a competition and it’s not adversarial. The house and apartment are running smoothly, the boys are happy and no one is fighting. All of this had felt impossible before the divorce.
It’s Sunday morning and I’ve just gotten to the apartment. I haven’t made concrete plans with Jacob tonight, but I’ve been seeing him on Sundays, so I assume we’ll get in touch later today.
Flipping through my records, I come across another one of Alex’s Bruce Springsteen albums,Devils & Dust.He must have missed this one when he was taking his albums out. Of course I never played this record or wrote anything in it, but I heard it enough in the car. He was obsessed with the song “Devils & Dust.” He overplayed it, and as a result, I have so many memories attached to it. Alex once told me that he had listened to it on his way home from work every day for a solid year. He said it calmed him. He felt like Bruce was his friend telling him a story. Personally, I thought the song was a downer.
I put it on just for kicks. As far as I can tell, Alex hasn’t played my records or snooped through my things since he’s been here. He’s always been respectful in that way, though sometimes that respect could feel like indifference. Maybe I wanted him to be curious enough to snoop, to read what I had written inside the covers? It doesn’t matter now.
The music comes on and the first memory tied to it begins floating through my mind. We were driving through Cape Cod, on our way to Provincetown. It was the year before we hadNoah, so it felt like a last-hoorah vacation. I had gone off birth control. We were actively trying to get pregnant. There is something innately sexy about knowing you might be getting pregnant when you’re having sex. Well, I guess maybe only if youwantto be pregnant, and if you haven’t experienced infertility or tragedy.
Everything felt new and exciting. We were headed to a quaint bed-and-breakfast we had been to a few years before. Alex was driving our rental car, a generic gray sedan of some kind, with black faux-leather seats. The air conditioner wasn’t working properly. The heat was radiating off the seats, our legs were sticking and sweating, but we were still laughing…still having fun. Alex was teasing me about how I had spent two hours on the phone with the rental car company trying to get a better deal. He used to flirtatiously pick on me for being practical. Now he calls me “cheap.” I call it “pragmatic.” The windows were down, I had my seat laid back. It was the middle of June, but the Atlantic Coast air was warmer than usual. Lying down, I was marveling at how angular and perfect his jawline was. He didn’t know I was staring at him.
He was wearing black Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and bobbing his head to the music. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while so his hair was what I liked to call “messy hot.” He never lets it get that way now. He books his haircuts months in advance, and it’s always the same, clean-cut style. He thinks it looks professional, I think it’s boring. I guess we’re pragmatic in different ways now.
A Flock of Seagulls song was playing as we were driving down the Cape. Then “Devils & Dust” came on. I wasn’t yet sick of the song.
The windows were down; the crisp, delicious wind was rushing through the car. Alex looked youthful. He was so transparentthen…in the best way possible. I could tell he was happy and at peace.
At one point during the song, he looked at me. I had taken my shirt off and was wearing a bikini top, shorts, hair up in a chaotic topknot, and that kind of serene smile that would take effort to turn to a frown.
“You’re so beautiful, Dani,” he had said.
“Oh yeah? Like this? All disheveled?”
“Especially like that.” He put his eyes back on the road and said, “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m married to you. I look at you and think, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe I get to spend the rest of my life with a hot, funny, smart wife. I’m so lucky.’ ”
I started to get choked-up then. “Thank you,” I said, voice trembling.
“I mean, Dani, you have to know, you’re a grand piano in a room with a bunch of toy pianos.”
I laughed and cried simultaneously. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything; just know I know how lucky I am.”
