I Am Having So Much Fun Without You (10 page)

“From here?” I said.

“That's right, from London. It doesn't matter where you are; luminous radiation has a tremendous range.”

“Although you might want to tell us if you travel
very
far away,” added Dave. “Or somewhere that is too populated, like China.”

“So I need to tell you when I'm going on vacation?”

“You don't
need
to do anything,” said Dave, shaking his head. “We just need to know if you feel open to the possibility of being tapped into. You know, from time to time.”

“Will I know it's happening?” I asked.

“Some people get headaches.” Dan shrugged. “But that's actually a good sign. A higher-order type of thing.”

I felt exhausted, depleted, and entirely spaced out. The fact that I couldn't call Anne to laugh about the fact that this emotionally loaded painting had ended up with a couple of triple-level vegans made me feel almost incapable of meeting the world outdoors.

“Would you like a baby as a parting gift?”

I gaped at Dave, confounded. He held up his glass at an angle as a response. “A culture starter? So that you can make your own kombucha?”

“That's very kind of you,” I managed, “but I have to take a ferry back. It might, uh, spill.”

They mumbled in agreement that a boat would be no good.
We all hugged again, and I found my shoes. Before I put them on, I cast a final glance at
The Blue Bear
in the corner.

“Excuse us,” Dan said, following my gaze. “You must want to say good-bye.”

I was surprised to realize I did. At the threshold between still owning it and never seeing it again, I felt flush with a deep sense of loss and sadness.

I walked across their living room toward the sentimental assembly of light and shade and color that captured an emotion that I didn't know how to get back. I stared at the painting for quite a while, hoping for an answer. But the only thing that came was the numbing disappointment of having nothing happen.

“Thank you for having me,” I said, turning toward them. “I hope that you enjoy it.”

And with that, I tied my shoes back on, slipped into my coat, and walked out into a world with no snake god holding it together, where everything I'd needed to help me find my place had come suddenly undone.

10

WHEN I
got home, my parents were both out. In the kitchen, a hot pot of yellow curry was stinking up the house. I checked my cell phone: nothing. Or nothing that I wanted. I had a text message from Julien asking how the delivery went. It was going to take me a while to come up with an answer.

It was gone. It felt like everything was. With
The Blue Bear
delivered, sitting however many hundred miles from the endangered species of my family, I had to fight not to sink into a despondent bog. If I never came home again—if Anne didn't let me back—what, really, would she miss? She would miss the convenience of me, surely, she'd need to get a nanny, there would be a lot of logistics things like that. She wouldn't miss the comfort of me because I hadn't been comforting for a long time. It had been ages since I'd made her laugh.

And she certainly wouldn't miss the sex. We'd had a great sex life, even after Camille's birth. But after a while I began to feel self-conscious about our acts. At some point, I started
making Anne ashamed of her desires, and she, accordingly, started having fewer of them. It began to feel wrong somehow, letting a mouth—one that had asked you to leave the chicken thighs out to thaw an hour earlier—open and close around your dick.

I think there were a lot of times when I turned sexual opportunities into outcomes I could resent. There was this one time at a highway gas station during a little getaway to Cinque Terre—we'd had a fight because I'd tossed Anne's Andrea Bocelli CD out while she'd been asleep and the fight turned into witty banter which turned into something else. I remember her cupping her hands around my face, how I fumbled for the seat belt buckle so that we could get closer. The heat of her palms moving down my pants, her breath warm against my neck, and her twisting in her seat, about to move her right leg over to crouch on top of me. And I remember her expression when I pulled her hand up to my lips, and asked if she wanted anything from inside.

Anne would have had sex with me in that Italian parking lot, but I didn't let things get there because I assumed she couldn't possibly want to do it in a public place, and I walked into the convenience store with my half-mast erection thinking it was a shame that she wasn't more adventurous. And I think I've kept doing that. Assumed my way through years of similar moments—chosen inertness over spontaneity, and blamed my wife when I was disappointed. I assumed and blamed and displaced my way into another women's arms.

As the curry odor began to overpower the house, I sat there bemoaning the brute physicality that we'd once shared. I mean, Jesus:
kissing
. Kissing with tongue. I literally cannot remember the last time I snogged my beautiful, lost wife. I hate that things
have gotten so familiar between us. And yet, five hundred miles away from her, I want familiar back.

 • • •

My parents came home around 6 p.m., all apologies and red cheeks because they'd gone to Gadebridge.

“Your mum was just so excited when it didn't rain,” said my dad. “How did the dropping-off go?”

“It was nuts,” I answered, rising from the couch. “They're nuts. They're ‘Continuists.' They complete circles. They have to meet the maker of everything in their house.”

“Well, isn't that a nice way of doing things,” said my mum, pecking my cheek on her way to the kitchen. “Did you stir this while we were out?”

“No,” I replied.

“That's okay,” my mum said. “It doesn't need to be stirred.”

I shook my head. My dad sat down in front of me on the recliner.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

His face darkened. “You want to go to the local?” he asked.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “Green Acres? That place is the worst.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it's close.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I'm tired. There was a lot of traffic, and these people—they were exhausting.”

“I'm sure.” He flicked something off his trousers. “You know when you're heading back, then?”

I shook my head. “No . . . I thought I'd spend a bit more time. You know, I'm here so rarely. Alone.”

My dad was squinting at me.

“Richy,” he said, leaning closer. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I felt my eyes water. “No, Dad. I fucked up.”

His eyes didn't move from me. He sat back in his chair.

“Dammit.” He sighed. He crossed his arms and remained silent for some time. “Is she going to forgive you?”

I shook my head.

“Was it a friend?”

“No,” I said, reddening. “It wasn't anyone we knew, it wasn't—”

“You boys want some crackers?” my mother yelled from the kitchen.

“No, love,” my dad called back. “We're fine!”

“I'm actually really hungry,” I mumbled.

“Scratch that,” he yelled out. “Cheese and crackers would be grand.”

He leaned forward in his chair again. “Do you want to talk about this?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I can't.”

“We can talk about it,” he said. “I won't hold it against you.”

My brow furrowed. “I didn't think you would.”

“Well, we really love her, is the thing,” he said. “You kids need to find a way to make it work.”

“It's felt like nothing
but
that,” I said.

He took a throw pillow from behind his back and turned it over in his hands, troubling the tassels at each corner with his fingers. “You still don't get it, do you?” he said, frowning. “You know what? I don't think I want to talk about this either. I'm going to help your mother with the snacks.” Right before he reached the doorway to the kitchen, he turned around. “If you've already made a mess of it, don't make it worse by being disappointing. She doesn't deserve it.”

I watched him disappear into the kitchen. From the couch
where I was sitting, I saw him greet the woman who had been away from his side for only three minutes with a kiss.

 • • •

Before dinner, I called my in-laws' landline again. Inès picked up and told me Anne was out, having a cocktail with a friend.

“A friend?” I said. “In the off-season?”

“Hmm-mm,” she said, distractedly. “Pierre.”

“Oh,” I said, running through the shortlist of our Breton acquaintances for such a name. “And how was your day?”

“My day? My day was fine, Richard. When are you coming back? The Martis are coming over on Tuesday. We're doing paella. I know,” she huffed. “It takes all day. But they're just back from Spain, so you know, it's a gesture. I've got a soufflé dropping here, I have to run.”

“Wait, can I talk with Camille?”

“She's with Alain,” she answered. “On the beach.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, if they can call me, after dinner?”

“Of course,” she said. And hung up.

I had no way of knowing what was going on in Saint-Briac, whether Anne had come clean about our situation or if Inès was distracted because she was busy in the kitchen and didn't really care to talk to me because there wasn't any question around whether or not I was coming back.

I walked back into the dining room having no more clarification around my new family than the one that I was born into, these parents of mine waiting patiently in front of the same type of supper they'd been sharing for forty years.

At the table, I picked up my fork and slammed it into a potato.

“Darling, let's say something first,” she said. “It's nice to have you here.”

I put my fork back down. The more time I spent at my parents', the more selfish I became.

“Isn't it a treat for us all to be together
?
” began my mother, now holding my hand.

I waited for the rest. There wasn't any.

“That was lovely.” My father smiled. “Shall we?” He winked in my direction, thus giving me permission to go at my potatoes again.

Over dinner, I watched their gentle ministrations in a state of disbelief. I'd always seen their kindness toward each other as proof that they hadn't traveled far enough or often enough, that they had uncomplicated brains. But now, as I watched my mother trim off a choice piece of fat from a lamb hunk for my father, when he transferred some of his potatoes to her plate when she ran out, when he got up, unasked, to fill up our glasses with more water, all I saw was love.

“How long have you two been married, again?” I asked, my mouth full of lamb curry.

“Richard.” My mother laughed. “Count back!” She patted at her lips with her napkin. “You were born in 1968, and I had you when I was twenty-three, no, twenty-four—”

“Almost forty years,” my dad said, putting his hand on hers. “Isn't that something!”

My mum turned to him and beamed.

“In this house the whole time,” I said.

“In this house the whole time!”

“Amazing.” I raised my glass in their direction.

“Don't be mean,” said my dad.

“I'm not being mean,” I said. “I'm astounded. Jealous. Or I'm not. I dunno.”

“You sound a bit drunk, actually,” said my mum. “Are you feeling all right?”

In the living room, the phone rang.

“I'll get it,” I said, jumping up. “That'll be the girls.”

I skidded into the living room and got it on the third ring.

“Hello?” I panted.

“Oui,”
said Anne.
“C'est moi.”

“I'm so glad you called me back,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why not?”

“Anne,” I said, trying to still my heart. “I delivered the painting.”

“I don't want to hear about it.”

“No, listen. It was totally surreal. They made me take my shoes off and . . . we held
hands
, honey. They made me drink fermented tea.”

On the other end, silence.

“They're
Continuists.
You ever heard of that? They think everything has a cycle. That was the thing behind it, they have to meet the people that make their art.”

Another pause. “I'm just calling to tell you that I'm going to take Camille overnight to Mont Saint-Michel. Pierre and Marie have a house there.”

“Who's Pierre?”

She sighed. “You've met them. They're in town. Anyway, it might be one day, it might be two.”

“You sure I know them?”

“Richard, I'm just telling you so you don't call the house.”

I slumped down on the fold-up chair in the kitchen.

“Anne,” I said. “Please. Have you . . . told your parents?”

“Nothing,” she said. “No.”

“We need to talk. We need to talk in person. I want to come back to Brittany.”

“Well, that's not an option right now.”

“I can stay in a hotel.”

“We'll talk after we get back from the Mont.
Camille
?!” she called. “Wait, here's Cam.”

Before I could protest, the phone went to my daughter.

“Hi, Dad!” I could hear the healthy sleepiness pumped into her voice from a day spent by the ocean.

“Hi, pumpkin. Are you guys having fun?”

“Yes, we flew some kites today. Mine was, like, a turtle?”

“A flying turtle! And what are you all having for dinner?”

I could almost hear her shrug. “Chicken?” I heard someone yell something in the background. “Chicken and soufflé. Oh, and Grandma says she made an apple tart.”

My mouth watered. For my family. For our normal. For my mother-in-law's food.

“Well, I hear you're going to Mont Saint-Michel tomorrow, sweetie. You let me know about these Pierre and Marie people, okay? You let me know if they're nice?”

“When're you coming home?”

“You have to ask your mom.” I did it. It was cruel. I allowed my little girl to think that the decision was her mother's. But I wasn't about to sit there on shame-induced house arrest while my wife went gallivanting around a tidal island with some tosser named Pierre.

 • • •

After dinner, my parents and I agreed to watch some telly. I sat on the couch while my mother made chamomile tea and brought out a platter of assorted biscuits on top of a flowered paper towel. My father sat in his recliner. He kept staring at me.

“If you want to take some of these home for Camille, let me know,” said my mum, putting down the platter. “It's bake-sale time again.”

In short order, she returned with three cups of tea. Handing a saucer to my father, she said, “I put some honey in there for you, love.”

“Perfect.” He kissed the air in front of him.

“Don't you two ever get annoyed with one another?”

My mum sat beside me on the couch.

“You're certainly in a mood!”

“Well,” I said, “
don't
you?”

My mother shrugged, picked up her cup of tea. “Well, I used to hate the way he ate eggs. Remember, love, you had this really specific way of dragging the knife across the plate? And he's not much of a teeth brusher.”

Everyone went silent.

“Is that it?”

“Richard,” went my father. “Don't.”

“Well,” said my mum, “you stop noticing it, don't you? You'd go batty if you didn't.”

“Let's get on with the television, shall we?” my father said, reaching for the remote.

“Dad, come on. Consider it research. There must be something that drives you mad.”

He sighed. Looked at his wife. “Well, sometimes Edna wears too many scarves.”

My mother burst out laughing.

“Like, she'll wear a scarf over a scarf. She looks a little . . . homeless.”

“He doesn't know the difference between a shawl and a scarf!” said my mum, still giggling. “I like to think I'm like those Indian women who—”