The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (28 page)

“No, I just—I'm just not sure what you mean.”

“Well.” Bea considers her hand. Maybe she's gauging the mood ring too. “Why did you get divorced?”

Charlotte is deluged with familiar images, possible responses: Joe tapping his finger on her temple. Joe naked, splashed with moonlight, grabbing at his clothes. Joe romping with Emily in the backyard, flushed and laughing. For a moment, the progression actually seems that easy: from trying to get inside her to leaping out from inside her to being as far away from inside her as he could.

“Was there a big fight?” Bea asks.

“No.” Of this she is sure. “We never fought.”

“Never? Not even when you were breaking up?”

“Not really.”

“Let me guess.” Bea peers at her closely. “Not much sex either, right?”

“Not really,” Charlotte admits, feeling her cheeks turn warm.

But Bea is unfazed. “Figures. The two usually go hand in hand. It's all passion—just thrown in different directions.”

As embarrassing as it is, hearing her sex life described as in any way recognizable is such a relief to Charlotte that it inspires her to say more. “We almost never did it—” she confides. “After I had Emily.”

“He got grossed out by the birth stuff?”

“Actually, no. Just the opposite. He was, kind of, fascinated.” In fact, it was one of their happiest times. Joe treated Charlotte like a fragile new species, granting her privacy, acting as if she were surrounded by an invisible moat. They no longer had sex—it never occurred to her that they would—but Joe saw Charlotte as a mystery again. She contained one: literally. As her belly grew big, his eyes grew wider. “He was amazed by the process. The birth process.”

“Academics.” Bea reaches for her Smirnoff. “So, okay. You have a baby, you stop having sex basically. Then what happened?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Come on.”

“Really,” Charlotte says, “it was just an ordinary night.” In fact, she's tucked it so far out of reach, she wonders how much she'll even remember. But it's like an old injury: prod it once, and the pain comes flooding back. Haltingly, she says, “It was Emily's last day of first grade.”

Bea sets her bottle down, listening.

“Her class trip to the Amish country. We were eating dinner—Joe and Emily and me. I remember Emily loved it, she was begging us to move somewhere where horses walked with cars on the streets.” She looks at Bea. “She's always loved animals.”

Bea smiles. “Cute.”

“She was talking all about the Amish kids-how they rode in the backs of buggies and they weren't allowed to smile. And they didn't have TVs.” She pauses. “The strange thing is, I hardly remember Joe being there.”

“Maybe he wasn't?”

“No, no, he was. I remember because we had macaroni and cheese. And I made him a separate plate with ham in it.”

Bea's eyebrows arch. “Because he had a thing for ham?”

“Because Emily was a vegetarian.”

“In first grade? You weren't kidding about the animals.” She leans back and fishes a crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights from her pocket. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” Charlotte says. At this point, it's the least of her worries.

Bea lights up, as if fortifying herself for the rest of the story. “Okay,” she says. “Go on.”

Charlotte's not sure if she can, or wants to. “Well-” She pauses. “After dinner I cleaned up. Joe and Emily watched
The Muppet Show.
Then Emily fell asleep on the couch, Joe carried her up and tucked her in.” She looks at Bea, as if anticipating her skepticism. “Like I said, it was just an ordinary night.”

Bea just exhales. “It always is.”

Charlotte looks out into the backyard, feels a knot forming in her stomach. “Then I went to check on Emily—I did it every night, to make sure she was breathing.” She glances at Bea. “Does that sound crazy?”

“I've heard crazier.”

That was the comforting thing about Bea: there was never any surprise, never any judgment. Everything was absorbed as if it were a story she'd heard a thousand times.

“Then I came back down.” Charlotte starts to feel queasy, her mouth dry. She can see the staircase stretching below her as she places one foot tentatively on the top. “The living room was dark, and Joe was sitting on the couch. He had his back facing me, so I couldn't see his face. And he couldn't see mine.” The knot is tightening as she nears the bottom, hand gripping the cool metal rail. “When I stepped on the last step, he said: ‘I'm not happy, Charlotte. There's nothing in this for me.'”

Bea skips a beat, as if giving the moment its due respect. Then she says, “What'd you do? Scream? Cry? Beat the shit out of him?”

Charlotte shakes her head. “I said, ‘What about Emily?'”

“Of course you did.” Bea sucks on her cigarette. “You're a good mom.” Then she lets one flip-flop drop to the ground and tucks her bare foot beneath her, gazing thoughtfully through the smoke. “Sounds like you weren't all that surprised, Char.”

“I guess not,” Charlotte says, realizing it's true. “It didn't feel surprising as much as just … inevitable. It was sad, but it was also a relief. Like when someone's been sick for a long time and finally dies.”

Bea gives this analogy a nod of approval, as if adding it to her arsenal. “So what did he say? When you asked about Em?”

“He started to cry.” The images are rushing forward now, words coming back verbatim even after all these years. “He put his head in his hands, and his voice kept breaking, and he said, ‘It's better, in the long run, for her not to live with parents who don't love each other.'” She turns to Bea, her eyes hard, glassy. “And the worst part was—I never knew.”

“Never knew what?” Bea asks softly.

“That he didn't love me.”

“Oh, Char.” Bea reaches out and takes her hand. “What a prick.”

“I mean—I knew we didn't say it, but I never imagined—” She takes a gulp of air. “I just assumed he loved me.”

“Well, sure you did. Why wouldn't he?” She gives Charlotte's hand a squeeze. “But more importantly, did you love him?”

Charlotte thinks for a minute, then answers honestly, “I don't know.” At the time, she had assumed what she felt for Joe was love. But was it? How did she know? How did he know he didn't love her? What did that feel like: to love, or not to love? “I guess I thought I did. But I'm not sure.”

Bea sits back and takes a final drag. Then she crushes the cigarette out in her bottle cap and fixes Charlotte with a firm look. “I'm no Dr. Phil,” she says, “but Char, if all you remember about the night is that the man ate ham, well.” She raises her eyebrows. “In my experience, when you love someone, you know it. You can't help it. Like my friend at work, Patty. Ever since I've known her—that's six years—she's been looking for an Irish Catholic cop. Her father was an Irish Catholic cop, brothers, uncles. Textbook. Anyway, one night she's moaning as usual about her bad luck, and in walks Raul.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Hispanic bus driver, two kids from a previous marriage, blind in one eye.” She shrugs, picking up her bottle. “Next thing you know she's madly in love. Some things are just out of our control.” Then she raises the bottle high over her head, as if toasting the sky.

C
harlotte had thought the highway would be empty. She'd imagined anyone else would already be installed in front of football games or chilly parades or day-long dinners. It was part of the reason she'd chosen today to travel: to have the roads to herself. But the highway is crowded. They must all be people, people like Charlotte, trying to get to their families on Thanksgiving.

She glances at the cassette hanging from her dashboard. It's a Books on Tape recording called
Embracing the Now
that Emily sent her for the drive. Feeling guilty, Charlotte gives the tape a nudge until it's slurped into the car radio.

It is easy to let our minds be our enemies, to let our thoughts imprison us, like jail cells. On this journey, friends, we will work together not to worry, not to think … but simply be.

The voice on the tape—a man named Vu Khan—speaks with a soft lisp probably designed to be relaxing. Probably it's supposed to make his listeners trust him, to put them at ease with their own impediments and idiosyncrasies. But, like the Dream Machine, the lisp makes Charlotte more anxious. Which makes
her distracted. When she was in southern Connecticut, Vu Khan lisping in her ears, she'd accidentally turned onto a local highway, then had to ask for help at Dunkin Donuts to get back on track. She'd turned Vu off then and has kept him off ever since. But now, the nearer she gets to New Hampshire, the more pressure she feels to keep him turned on. It's as if Emily, if in close enough range, might be able to sense she's not listening.

We must live every moment with our own minds, so why not get along? Why not be allies with our minds? Why not be friends?

From behind her Charlotte sees a long truck approaching, its silver grill filling her rearview mirror. It's the type of truck that's actually made of stacks of cars arranged on top of each other at precarious angles. The truck swerves into the left lane, the last third of its car pile swinging from side to side. Charlotte taps her brake. She has a vision of one of the shiny cars slipping from its foothold, crashing onto her hood, and flattening her inside. When a nut of gravel strikes her windshield, she flinches and slows down. She waits until the truck is well ahead of her, then reaches for the bag of Canada Mints on the passenger seat: Emily's recommendation for staying alert.

Be aware of the movement of your breath going in and out. Feel it moving through you like a tide. Imagine your breath as an ocean, constantly receding and replenishing, receding and replenishing. Imagine your body is the shore upon which it renews itself every day.

Charlotte pops a mint in her mouth. She is trying to remember the last time she took a road trip this long. There was Wesleyan, of course, though that drive is at least two hours shorter. Mini-vacations when Emily was little—Philadelphia, Ocean City, Hershey Park—but they were day trips only; Charlotte never liked being too far from home. There was the Virginia Beach honeymoon, but that drive was no more than four hours.
This is probably the longest road trip she's ever taken. Certainly the longest she's taken alone.

Without warning, she finds herself merging onto a narrow bridge. The car begins to shake and shiver. The rattle of her tires is deafening. The bridge is made of some sort of chain-link metal, like a fence, except supporting the weight of four lanes of traffic. Charlotte clenches her teeth and grips the wheel to keep the car from slipping. From behind her, she hears something shift in the trunk, thudding as it collides with the felt wall. She keeps her eyes fixed on the spot where the bridge ends, and when it does—metal yielding to smooth pavement—lets her breath escape. It seemed very New England, she thinks, that brief patch of roughness. As if providing a courtesy test run for the more difficult terrain ahead.

Her mint has disappeared. She must have swallowed it in the heat of the moment. It doesn't matter; the bridge was more than enough to keep her awake. As she nears the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border, Charlotte hears the contents of the trunk realigning. She hadn't known what Emily and Walter were cooking tonight but wanted to help out with the meal, at least a little. In truth, she enjoyed it. Thanksgiving was always “Joe's holiday,” so Charlotte hadn't prepared a real meal in years. She was secretly thrilled when Emily decided to spend this Thanksgiving in New Hampshire, having seen Joe just weeks before. Charlotte was careful what she cooked, though, not wanting to make anything too traditional and risk doubling Emily's menu. She'd decided on two simple, mobile, meatless side dishes: candied yams and a cheese potato casserole. For Walter, she consulted the Internet (typed:
pie coconut chocolate,
clicked:
find)
and found a recipe for something called Amazing Choconut Pie. It was the closest thing to a pie-sized Needham she could come
up with. And for Emily, strawberry pretzel salad. She hadn't unearthed that recipe in years—it was popular at barbecues and birthday parties, back when Charlotte was an elementary school mom—and was always Emily's favorite. Charlotte smiles to herself, imagining the gelatin wiggling behind her. She'd packed all the dishes in Tupperware, then cushioned them in a nest of pillows.

Remember to pause each day and thank the things that carry you on your journey. Your legs, for holding you up. Your lungs, for making a home for your breath. Your heart, for always beating, whether you notice it or not.

Charlotte tries to locate her heartbeat to say a quick thanks, though really, she can't be accused of neglecting it. She is all too aware of her heart's inner workings. Her mind wanders to one of her lesser road trips, one of the home-by-ten excursions when Emily was a child. Charlotte had taken her to the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia filled with games and gadgets, wireless telephones, electricity that made your hair stand on end. But the main attraction was The Giant Heart: an enormous, pumping, walk-through replica. “You Are Now Entering the Inside of the Heart,” said the rather benign sign at the entrance. But once she was inside it, the heart was a warm, low-ceilinged maze of dark hallways and cramped stairwells, valves and chambers. The walls looked smooth, damp to the touch, and the sound of
th-thump
was so loud it could have been coming from inside her own skin.