April 18
Dear Ryan,
I’m considering writing to one of those advice columnists about us. That’s how confused I still am.
When we started this, I thought that I just needed some time away from you. I just needed time to breathe. I needed a chance to live on my own and appreciate you again by missing you.
Those first few months were torture. I felt so lonely. I felt exactly what I wanted myself to feel, which was that I couldn’t live without you. I felt it all day. I felt it when I slept in an empty bed. I felt it when I came home to an empty house. But somehow, one day, it just sort of became OK. I don’t know when that happened.
I thought at one point that maybe if I learned who you truly are, then I could love you again. Then I thought maybe if I learn who I really am, what I really want, then I could love you again. I have been grasping at things for months, trying to learn a lesson big enough, important enough, all-encompassing enough that it would bring us back together. But mostly, I’m just learning lessons about how to live my life. I’m learning how to be a better sister. I’m learning just how strong my mother has always been. That I should take my grandmother’s advice more often. That sex can be healing. That Charlie isn’t such a little kid anymore.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve started focusing on other things. I don’t feel all that desperate to figure us out and fix this. I feel sort of OK that it’s not fixed.
That’s not the direction this is supposed to go, is it?
Love,
Lauren
• • •
I read the letter over and over. I change a word here and there. I add commas and spaces. On some level, I think maybe I’m delaying the moment when I hit save, trying to make sure I want my words taking up space somewhere out there in the ether of the Internet. But I’m not willing to delete them. So eventually, I stop preening, and I hit the button. Save.
I get up and decide to go for a run. I put on my shorts. My sports bra. My T-shirt. My running shoes. I say good-bye to Thumper. I hide my keys under the doormat. I take off.
As my heels round the pavement, as my heart starts to pump faster, as my body wants to slow down and I push it forward, all I can do is think about what I wrote. Is it true? Do I not feel any closer to knowing how to fix my marriage? Am I not sure I want to?
I go home and take a shower. And I think about my letter. I make myself dinner, and I think about my letter.
If I mean what I wrote, then doesn’t that mean that I have to face the idea of the end? Could this be the beginning of the end of us?
What would I do with my life?
I’m not sure what possesses me. It’s almost an instinct rather than an action. I grab my computer and log into Ryan’s e-mail. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find. I guess I’m expecting to find that he has forgotten me. That he has moved on. That he doesn’t think about me. But I look at the number next to his drafts folder. There are three more letters.
I open the folder. They are all to me. All from within the past three weeks. Ryan has started writing to me again.
• • •
March 31
Dear Lauren,
I had to get away from you. I had to stop writing to you. I had to stop telling you everything that was going on. I noticed how I was talking to you throughout the day, in my head, even when I was mad at you, even when I wanted nothing to do with you. I had to stop doing that. I had to stop seeing you as someone to talk to.
So I stopped writing.
And writing to no one, talking to no one, felt lonely. So I had to stop being lonely.
At first, there was Noelle. Noelle is a perfectly nice woman, and she was very sweet to me and very patient with my reservations about everything, but I just wasn’t that into her.
And then there was Brianna, and that was fine.
And then I met Emily. And Emily is somehow different enough from you that she doesn’t remind me of you but not so different that I feel like I’m dating the opposite of you on purpose. And because of that, I think I was able to stop thinking about you so much. I just started thinking about Emily. I don’t mean to hurt you when I say this, but I looked forward to seeing Emily as much as possible, and I forgot about you. As much as a person can forget about his wife, I guess. I really felt like I was able to be present and engaged with her. We’ve even gone away together a few times, and each time, I’ve felt like Emily’s boyfriend, as opposed to your husband.
And I just really needed that.
And then yesterday was her birthday. And I thought that maybe I should make her something, you know? So I made her Ryan’s Magic Shrimp Pasta. Which didn’t even feel weird. I know it was our thing, but I don’t know. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
And I made it, and she ate it, and she said thank you, and then we went out to a bar with some of her friends. And that should have been enough. That should have been fine.
But I just kept thinking about the first time I made it for you, the way you gushed over it. The way you ate so much more than you should have and you almost made yourself sick. I kept thinking about the way your eyes lit up every year when I said I would make it. I don’t think Ryan’s Magic Shrimp Pasta was about you, I realized. I think it was about me. I think I thrived on your approval. It was like a battery that kept me going. I looked forward to your birthday as much as you did. And it was because I knew that on your birthday, I was the one who made the day worthwhile. It made me feel like I mattered. It made me feel like I was doing something right.
But Emily just ate the Ryan’s Magic Shrimp Pasta and said thank you and wiped her mouth and asked if I was ready to go. She didn’t get it. And this feels so silly to put into words, but it really felt like in not getting Ryan’s Magic Shrimp Pasta, she didn’t get me.
And it made me miss you. Not you, my wife. Or you, the woman who has been with me since I was nineteen years old. You. Lauren Maureen Spencer Cooper. I missed you.
And it wasn’t a passing feeling. It was real. I truly felt there was a hole in my life and the only thing that could fill it was you.
I think this is working, Lauren. I think we’re gonna be OK.
Love,
Ryan
• • •
April 3
Dear Lauren,
I drove by the house this evening. I didn’t mean to. I had a dinner I had to go to in downtown, and I took Olympic back across town. I was listening to the radio. They were doing a piece about this serial killer in Colombia, and I was so fascinated I think I stopped paying attention to my driving. When I got to the corner of Olympic and Rimpau, I should have gone straight, but my hand flicked on my turn signal, and I took a right, leading me to the wrong home. It was muscle memory. You make a right turn day after day after day for years, and . . . you know how it is.
I realized I had made a mistake just as I hit the stop sign on Rimpau and 9th, but it was too late. I was going to have to drive by if only to turn around.
When my car got up to our driveway, I admit, I slowed down. I saw the light was on. And then I noticed another car parked in the driveway. I heard Thumper bark. I swear I heard him. I came to a complete stop, I’m embarrassed to say, and I looked into the window a few seconds. I don’t know what I was hoping to see. You and Thumper, probably. But what I saw was you and someone else. Someone, I’m assuming, you’re dating.
I turned off the car. I actually turned the key and pulled it out of the ignition. I undid my seat belt, and I had my hand on the door handle. That’s how close I came to walking into my own house and punching that guy in the fucking face.
But two things stopped me. The first was that I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I knew, as I sat there with my hand on the handle, that it was wrong and I shouldn’t do it. That it would jeopardize everything. That it would make you feel spied on. I didn’t want you to feel that way.
And the second thing was that I was supposed to be at Emily’s in twenty minutes. And how could I explain to her where I was? How could I have explained to you why I had to leave?
I put my seat belt back on, I put the key back in the ignition, and I high-tailed it out of there. I ran through the stop sign. I almost slammed into someone when I hit the red light onto Wilshire. I was ten minutes late to Emily’s, and when she asked, I told her I hit traffic.
So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m a hypocrite. And when I come home, we need curtains for the front window.
Love,
Ryan
• • •
April 17
Dear Lauren,
Charlie just called me and told me that he’s having a baby? With some woman named Natalie? And he lives in Los Angeles now? And they are getting married?
I’m going to be an uncle, and I didn’t know. I understand why you didn’t tell me. I understand why you didn’t call. I told you not to. I brought that on myself.
But I wish we could talk about this. I wish we could have talked about this. There’s a lot to say, and you’re the only one to say it to. Part of me thinks if I saw you today, I’d fall in love with you all over again. And another part of me thinks that I would feel something entirely different. Better, even. Because you’re not just the girl I’m infatuated with, you’re not the girl I just met. You’re you. You’re me.
This year has been a success, for me. I know it’s not over. I know the hard part, getting back to a good place together, finding ways to make it work again, I know all of that is still ahead. But I am bursting with the energy to do whatever it takes. Does that make sense?
I’m ready to tackle this marriage. I was missing the energy before. And I have the energy now.
Love,
Ryan
• • •
I crumble to the floor.
In all of the possible scenarios, I always assumed the question was whether or not I would end up brokenhearted.
It never even occurred to me that I might end up breaking a heart.