Long earlier I settled successful this portion of the world, I was a guest, and everything was truthful unfamiliar to maine that I had to beryllium led: present is however to bargain the Metro-North ticket, and to find your train. Here is wherever to beryllium if you privation to spot the river. My person Claire convinced maine that we should sojourn her parents, mostly due to the fact that we were sick of the field crockery bar. I was unprepared for however overmuch I would covet the location I was astir to enter, wherever immoderate of the windows were stained solid and determination was a fireplace, snapping with flames, successful the eating room. The household served Pernod earlier meal and played charades aft dessert, which was a vessel of walnuts and clementines, the shells and peels near each implicit the table, due to the fact that the cleaning woman was owed astatine 8 the pursuing day.
When I came downstairs successful the greeting the woman was there, Claire’s parent beside her, 1 washing, 1 drying, NPR connected the radio. A cigaret burned successful a pinkish saucer connected the windowsill. Hip-to-hip, the 2 women chatted similar friends. “This is Zuzu,” Claire’s parent said, introducing me. I didn’t privation to get excessively adjacent to their maid. I saw that we utilized the aforesaid benignant of bobby pins, though hers were astatine her temples, wherever her curls were gray, and excavation were anchoring a escaped twist. Instead of a handshake, I offered a motion and took my java outside, wherever I picked ivy retired of the birdbath portion I waited for Claire to aftermath up.
When I deliberation of that evening – the tumbler glazed with Pernod, the sting of clementine foodstuff connected my chapped fingers, the mode Claire and I cheated astatine charades – I callback feeling a smug certainty that I could person that life, inhabit a location similar that one, with wainscoting successful the room and parents who delighted successful their children. I believed that beingness was casual capable to find.
I believed this until we skipped Friday classes and took different train, this clip to the city. We sat crossed from Claire’s father, who bought america buttered bialys earlier helium unfolded The New York Times. I’d ne'er had a bialy before, and I devoured excavation portion Claire was inspecting hers for “too overmuch onion.” Until that constituent her begetter had near nary meaningful content connected me, different than his wide tidiness: he’d had his shoes polished portion we waited for the train, and I could odor his aftershave. When helium enactment connected his glasses I saw that the lawsuit was old, its gilded letters mostly rubbed away.
As we approached Grand Central, helium told america he’d person to tally to his archetypal meeting, respective blocks from the terminal. He stood, briefcase successful hand, and Claire tilted her caput back. I did the same; I thought we were looking for something. In fact, she was waiting for her begetter to buss her forehead, which helium did, aft which helium kissed mine, a motion of fairness and kindness, a bully man’s goodbye.
The buss was chaste, dry-lipped, paternal, and brief; it had thing of lust successful it. It had thing of my begetter successful it, either. The buss promised maine nothing, nothing, astatine a clip erstwhile I wanted everything. The buss said, you tin ever visit, and I did not privation to beryllium a visitor. When I opened my eyes I recovered my person loathsome and spoiled. I saw that a comfy beingness awaited her, that she would rhythm retired of this signifier and into the next, that soon she would basal hip-to-hip with her cleaning woman portion her hubby rode the train. Everything she needed had already been gathered for her similar a handbasket of kindling.
Claire and I mislaid interaction decades ago, and her household moved away. If I ran into her present – say, astatine Grand Central, bialy successful manus – it mightiness astonishment her to larn that I spent years successful the municipality of her youth, that I chose it arsenic the spot to rise my son. I uncertainty she’d callback that infinitesimal connected the bid – that buss she was utilized to receiving, a buss she was blessed to share. She couldn’t cognize however it followed me; how, for immoderate reason, each clip I passed a shoeshine stand, I felt a lukewarm blooming of my ain potential; how, adjacent aft I joined Agnes Blair, portion of maine wanted to cognize however it felt to person a hubby who work the insubstantial connected the commuter rail.
*
I did cognize what it was similar to person a woman who took the day’s archetypal bid into the city. I knew what it was similar to assemble the nonstop crockery she’d asked for – to boil the eggs and portion the tomatoes, to fry and crumble the bacon, to whisk the olive lipid into the citrus juice, to lavation and rotation the lettuce; to perceive her accidental “I’m excessively bushed to devour that, I’ll conscionable person toast”; to ticker her permission the container of breadstuff unfastened connected the antagonistic overnight, crumbs everywhere, twist-tie lost.
I knew what it was similar to go idiosyncratic who cared, possibly excessively much, astir the mislaid twist-tie connected the container of sourdough.
It turned retired that adjacent though I had chosen the house, and the peculiar greenish of its recently painted shutters, I could inactive gait wrong it, wondering wherefore I was the lone joined pistillate connected the artifact who ate unsocial each night. Agnes routinely texted from Grand Central arsenic she ran to drawback the 8:33. The steadfast reimbursed her for car work astatine that hour, but she preferred the train, which was agleam and acold and amended for enactment than a warm, backstage car, which would person allowed her to sleep.
A just question mightiness beryllium what I was doing with the clip Agnes spent connected the train.
She ne'er asked me, and I ne'er had to accidental that aft the things I was arrogant of – quizzing Gideon connected his beloved dinosaur facts implicit spaghetti; heating towels successful the dryer for him portion helium was successful the tub; lying successful the apical bunk, arsenic helium liked maine to do, portion helium fell dormant beneath – that I spent the remaining hours of the nighttime tending to habits she seldom saw. At thirty-seven years old, I’d established an evening routine. I ate cinnamon toast and drank cocoa beverage with tons of crystal successful the glass; I watched Sex and the City episodes I had afloat memorized; I texted backmost and distant with James Cashel, my person from college, who went by Cash, and whose woman was astir arsenic engaged arsenic mine.
*
It turned retired I could number the days since Agnes and I had touched each other. When I reached sixty I saw it was amended not to count. To retrieve what it felt similar to prevarication adjacent to idiosyncratic who wanted me, I passed implicit Agnes entirely, adjacent the archetypal fewer years successful New York. I resorted to earlier parts of my life, to the pre-Agnes window: the feline who stole limes from his neighbour to marque maine a gin and tonic; the 1 who hid my shoes successful the descend erstwhile helium wanted maine to enactment longer.
Cash, the archetypal clip and the 2nd time.
I hap to cognize that I was reasoning astir this somewhat compulsively successful the archetypal week of February 2019. The texts are inactive connected my phone. I initiated them aft months of soundlessness betwixt us, attributable to being busy, and to not having overmuch to say. I texted him aft 3 glasses of Riesling and a blistery shower. Agnes was moving successful our bedroom. Gideon was asleep.
ZUZU: however overmuch bash you miss me, standard of 1-10
CASH: who is this
ZUZU: precise funny, what are you doing
CASH: emptying the dishwasher
CASH: for the archetypal clip successful six years
CASH: according to Molly
CASH: who is sitting connected the couch
CASH: besides for the archetypal clip successful six years
ZUZU: feeling bittersweet for Molly
CASH: calm down I’m kidding
It was the archetypal clip he’d ever hinted astatine thing different than joyousness betwixt them. I took a screenshot and tried not to work excessively profoundly into it. I tried not to imagine, for instance, Molly hauling cardboard boxes afloat of her belongings down their constrictive Colonial staircase. I tried not to ideate him mounting his wedding band, alternatively precariously, connected the windowsill implicit the room sink.
In the pursuing weeks, I tried to get much retired of him. I texted how are you and Molly, which was perfectly innocuous, but I besides texted you’d amended load that dishwasher and are you successful occupation today. On February 5, 2019, I sent a message: bored bored bored bored bored. Only Cash would recognize it, not due to the fact that it was clever, but due to the fact that it was the implicit substance of the archetypal email I’d ever written him, 20 years before.
That night, helium had ousted maine from his country due to the fact that helium was trying to focus. I had a insubstantial to manus in, too, astatine 3 the pursuing day. I told him I was determined not to “waste time” grappling with deconstruction erstwhile I could bash conscionable arsenic good if I wrote my effort 5 hours earlier it was due. I urged him to constitute his ain effort tomorrow; I told him it would travel retired the aforesaid either way. “I don’t deliberation you recognize however clip works, Zuzu,” he’d said.
Upstairs, successful my country supra his, I sent the email – bored bored bored bored bored – and an hr aboriginal helium slid a premix nether my door, a benignant of apology. We had already established, by October, that helium was perpetually successful indebtedness to me. At the clip I recovered it flattering.
*
On February 5, 2019, helium was possibly not arsenic charmed by my claims of boredom, and helium didn’t respond. I was cutting up a squash to roast for soup. I didn’t privation to decorativeness cutting it, didn’t privation to expanse up the glistening seeds each implicit the board, didn’t privation to excavation the immersion blender retired of the cabinet. It was nine-thirty, and Gideon was inactive awake upstairs, occasionally kicking the partition arsenic helium shifted successful bed. I work a substance from Agnes – still astatine lawsuit meal – and acceptable down the weapon and the squash and laic connected the room floor.
I thought, I hatred this, past waited for guilt. I was bully astatine guilt. Lying connected a hardwood level I owned, nether the glow of integrated squash, was not a tableau that near country for overmuch sympathy. I felt self-pity anyway, soiled and sweet. I felt it portion I scraped the butternut squash seeds into my unfastened palm. I felt it portion I tried to retrieve the past clip I’d had sex. The representation was of haste and quiet, not retired of urgency, but retired of obligation.
Upstairs, I checked connected Gideon – yet asleep, greenish stars of airy wheeling crossed his ceiling – and went into our country and sat connected the borderline of our bed. Agnes’ nightstand held 4 bare h2o glasses and a stack of sealed envelopes, addressed lone to her, that I had been adding to for weeks. She had precocious claimed she didn’t person clip to “handle” her mail. I kept way of the bills and made the payments, but to negociate her correspondence from barroom associations and alumni groups, the occasional commencement announcement, catalogues from stores she liked – this I refused to do.
I flipped backmost the duvet and settled against the pillows. I reread my past substance to Cash – my “bored” series – and wondered if I was the lone 1 who remembered that evening. I tried again: By the way, I wholly recognize however clip works. He didn’t respond to that either, astatine slightest not close away.
Dennis Braeburn Visits the Vegetarian House
January 26, 2002
My begetter visited maine astatine assemblage once, my sophomore year. I decided to big a meal enactment successful his honor, mostly to amusement him that I ate things similar quinoa and hummus, and that I had managed to cod a fistful of good-looking friends. I mopped the room level twice. Molly brought maine flowers successful an bare beverage jug and Cash came to the array with comb-tracks successful his bedewed hair. He called my begetter sir. Everyone shook my father’s hand.
“Quite a ceremonial pack we have, here,” helium said, arsenic if manners amazed him. He was the 1 who had taught maine however to shingle a hand.
I placed, conscionable northbound of his plate, the caller transcript of the pupil insubstantial that featured thing I’d written: a illustration of a visiting writer. I’d utilized words I was arrogant of knowing – dichotomy, peripatetic.
“Well, idiosyncratic likes to spot her sanction successful print, doesn’t she?” helium said, moving the insubstantial retired of the mode to marque country for his solid of wine. Cash looked astatine maine the mode helium sometimes did, to corroborate I was okay.
My begetter winked astatine maine – to instrumentality the sting out, I thought – but it didn’t work. I looked astatine the candles I had lit for him successful each of my eager, anserine hope. The speech shifted to television, and my begetter told the lone communicative astir maine helium shared that evening: however I had campaigned ceaselessly for cable, however I had claimed to “need” MTV, starting successful 2nd grade. Molly made an impassioned declaration of emotion for PBS, adjacent erstwhile it was boring, and this led to my father’s exhausting statement of a quality bid he’d watched.
Dessert was out-of-season strawberries and a container of canelé. My begetter made his lone gag of the evening – “I’m definite nary of you person ever tasted rum before” – and everyone laughed excessively hard, excessively long, to propulsion america person to the evening we’d wanted, the evening I’d wanted.
*
After dinner, I walked my begetter implicit to the field creation museum. I should person known better; it was late, and helium had a two-hour thrust up of him. He held the solid doors unfastened for maine with quiescent forbearance, and I realized that I had mapped 1 of Molly Pierce’s stories onto my mediocre father’s body. Molly Pierce’s begetter had brought pinkish champagne, adjacent though she was nineteen, and macarons, due to the fact that she loved them, and they had a picnic connected the quad, conscionable the 2 of them, and past they walked arm-in-arm done the depository galleries, and they had a codification connection for “overrated,” which they whispered frequently, and which caused them some to laughter .
I hurried america done the rooms. I couldn’t retrieve what I’d thought would impressment him.
“You don’t person to run,” my begetter said.
I did person to run. We were backmost extracurricular successful 15 minutes, lasting by his car, which had 1 of those anti-theft locking bars connected its steering wheel. He asked maine wherever to halt for a java connected the mode backmost to the Taconic. I named a state presumption and watched him buckle his spot loop and set his eyeglasses earlier helium rolled the model down.
“Congratulations, Susan,” helium said. It was the archetypal clip I’d heard the connection and felt sorrow.
The Rupture
December 9, 2003
The archetypal clip my receptor drum ruptured my inferior year, I didn’t cognize what it was. All time I was alert of a dilatory gathering unit that burst arsenic I crossed the quad. At the field infirmary I received a medicine for antibiotics, foaming receptor drops, and thing for the pain. It wounded excessively overmuch to drive, and I called Cash from 1 of the nurse’s phones and asked him to prime maine up. Waiting for him connected the sidewalk, I beheld our aged home, the vegetarian house, crossed the street. The shingled look hid down a web of operation material. The schoolhouse had concluded that it was excessively unsafe to let students to unrecorded determination until, among different items, the extortion had been repaired. Molly lived off-campus, but Cash and I had some retreated to the dorms.
In his Jeep, connected the mode to the pharmacy, Cash reached crossed maine to unfastened the mitt box, wadded up a napkin, and held it against my ear, steering with his near hand.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“It’s dripping.”
The lone different radical I could deliberation of who mightiness person done that for maine were my parent oregon sister. He loves me, I thought. Really, helium does.
He mightiness person loved me, but helium was spending the 2nd fractional of the twelvemonth abroad, a information I was inactive struggling to absorb.
“When you’re successful London, who’s going to grip my assorted emergencies?” I said. “What if person appendicitis?”
He made a clucking sound.
“I’m not your lone friend. Also not an ambulance service.”
“You benignant of are, though,” I said.
At the counter, the pharmacist confirmed that I was connected the pill, past delivered a lecture astir however my prescriptions would compromise the pill’s efficacy. “You’ve got to usage a backup method portion you’re connected these. “
“Okay,” I said.
“You should some beryllium alert that a backup method’s a must.” The pharmacist nodded astatine Cash, who was looking astatine h2o bottles.
“Okay. I’ll archer him.”
“Tell maine what?” Cash said, glancing up.
“It tin wait,” I said, knowing helium would hide to ask.
There were sheets of stick-on earrings adjacent the register, and I bought them. I wanted to screen my assemblage successful tiny small hearts. I wanted to screen Cash’s assemblage successful tiny small hearts. That feline thinks we’re together, I wanted to say. Also, wherefore aren’t we, I wanted to say.
*
The amended happening would person been to instrumentality the antibiotics and eardrops and gone to bed. Instead, I joined Cash astatine Molly’s twenty-first day party. She answered the doorway successful an apron, pointing to 2 pans of brownies: cookware connected the left, nary cookware connected the right. A fewer minutes later, she stood connected a seat to region her apron and to contented an apology – it was nary cookware connected the left, pot connected the right. Everyone laughed. I couldn’t retrieve which 1 I’d eaten from anyway. I felt arsenic if determination were pieces of breached solid successful my ear, but I didn’t privation to miss out, truthful I sipped a brew connected the sofa and watched radical dance.
Molly had a French bulldog, Cornelia – this was 1 of the reasons she lived off-campus – and everyone other was truthful successful emotion with Cornelia that I besides enactment connected a amusement astir wanting to provender her treats from a jar. After a while, Cornelia settled by my feet, and I understood it, however bully it felt to person that lukewarm and loyal weight. I rubbed her ears and fto her lick murphy spot brackish from my fingers. When I scanned the country to spot if Molly were watching me, I saw that she was, erstwhile again, lasting connected a chair, but this clip her hands were connected Cash’s shoulders, and she was talking portion helium nodded, his look serious.
I already had an excuse – my receptor burned, and the fabric shot I’d stuffed into it was progressively wet. I gave Cornelia a parting hitch and stood up. I stepped implicit idiosyncratic who muttered that I was interrupting his nap, and waved distant the chunk of brownie idiosyncratic other stuck successful my face. By the clip I was connected the beforehand steps I could perceive Cash pursuing me. I moved faster, to springiness the content that I wasn’t waiting for him. He had taken a beer, and helium swigged from it with exaggerated pleasance arsenic we walked down the mediate of the road.
“You could get a summons for that unfastened container,” I said.
“From who? You?” Cash slowed to a stop, gesturing astatine the houses astir us, duplexes with shallow beforehand porches and 2 beforehand doors. Molly’s was the lone 1 afloat of sound and light; her neighbors astir apt wanted to sleep. The thoroughfare itself was empty, and I kicked a pebble successful beforehand of me. He walked maine each the mode backmost to my dorm and watched maine unlock the main door.
“What’s going connected with you and Molly?” I said.
“Nothing,” helium said. “How’s the ear?”
“It hurts.”
He hadn’t bothered to zip his vest, and it hung open.
“Don’t you ever get cold,” I said.
“Nope.”
I held the dense doorway open. He was inactive lasting there.
“Are you coming up?”
“Just for a minute,” helium said.
*
How this was antithetic than the different countless times he’d been successful my room, I couldn’t
say. The mode helium closed the doorway and took his shoes disconnected had a benignant of finality to it. I enactment connected Yo La Tengo and turned connected my lamp, past debated what would hap if I brushed my teeth. I feared that helium would permission if I near the room, truthful I squeezed toothpaste straight into my mouth. It seemed that the lone logical happening I could bash was connection the conduit to him, which I did. He rolled the paste astir successful his mouth, scowling.
“What benignant is this?” helium said.
“Spearmint.”
“Well, it burns.” He tightened the headdress and acceptable it down connected my desk.
I was acrophobic of frightening him. I sat connected my furniture with my hands down my back. When helium said “Move over,” I pulled my garment disconnected and slid acold nether the sheet. He laic parallel to me, looking astatine my bare shoulder. We listened to fractional of a song.
“You slumber with a skirt on?” helium said.
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
“Ha.” He got retired of furniture and finished undressing, swift, matter-of-fact, without looking astatine me.
Having built up the thought of enactment with Cash for years, I recovered that I was scrambling excessively hard to retrieve it arsenic it happened. I had excessively galore questions – did helium buss each girl’s eyelids, oregon conscionable mine? He moved truthful rapidly that I struggled to support up. It crossed my caput that helium conscionable wanted to get done it, to scope the different side. He had a condom, which meant that helium ever had condoms, which meant that I conscionable happened to beryllium the idiosyncratic beneath him. At 1 constituent the fabric shot fell from my receptor and helium enactment it backmost in.
“Is this excessively gross,” I said.
He shook his head.
He asked if helium were hurting me, a modular question that struck maine arsenic an immense kindness, and I felt my eyes welling, and I shook my caput no. I kept reasoning of thing I’d overheard astatine a enactment our sophomore year, a drunk feline talking to Cash astir me. Zuzu’s vibe, the feline had said, is missionary with her eyes closed. Cash said, “Wouldn’t know.” I’d pretended not to hear.
The feline mightiness person been right. I feared that I was disappointing Cash somehow. Then I disquieted that the fearfulness itself would beryllium disappointing, and I made immoderate theatrical sounds to convey however blessed I was. The information that I was blessed seemed astir irrelevant.
I wanted to perceive my sanction travel retired of his mouth; instead, I got 1 heavy suspiration from him, past helium fto his assemblage driblet onto mine. I rubbed his back. His caput was connected my chest, and I was an businesslike and quiescent crier, but helium indispensable person known. He asked if I was okay, and I said yes. He asked again if helium had wounded me, and I said, emphatically, no.
*
I woke astatine the dependable of him pulling his garment implicit his caput astir 4 successful the morning. He was cautious with the door, trying not to disturb me. In the hallway, I heard him exhale. He was leaving for London successful 2 weeks.
His presence, I discovered arsenic the entity began to turn light, had kept maine from noticing the ruptured receptor drum. The symptom was blistery and sharp, and I took 2 painkillers without water, adjacent though their bitterness stayed connected my tongue.
__________________________________
From The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy. Used with support of the publisher, Riverhead Books. Copyright © 2025 by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy.
