A Beautiful, Terrible Thing Read online

  “That’s not true at all.” My voice comes out weird and high and cheerful again.

  After Marco leaves for work, I nurse Louisa and she falls asleep. I pace around the apartment, picking up tiny clothes and blankets, washing bottles with burning-hot water and sweeping the floors. I open the fridge and peer inside. When was the last time I ate something? I have had no appetite since January 20. I close the fridge and pour myself a glass of water from the filter, squeezing my boobs as I drink. I haven’t leaked in six days, and in the back of my mind I wonder if I am still making enough milk. I remember back to the lactation course that Marco and I took in October. What did the instructor say? Something about how in third world countries malnourished women still produce enough milk to breastfeed exclusively for six months. “The human body is incredible,” our instructor said, and I whispered to Marco, “That’s crazy,” and he whispered back, “What, baby? Sorry I’m texting with your dad about the Patriots,” and I rolled my eyes and smiled. That means that my body can make milk even if I’m not eating, right? There is too much to worry about, and I push this thought from my mind and pour myself another glass of water.

  Louisa wakes up with an abrupt scream that fills the entire apartment, and I run to her swing and lift her out. I strap the baby carrier that my mom got me as a baby shower gift around my body and stuff Louisa in as she flails and squawks. “Shhhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhh,” I say, and power walk in circles around the apartment. The computer beckons to me, but I pass it quickly and avert my eyes. Louisa finally quiets down. I sit on the couch and tap my foot. I look at the computer. Fuck it. I open the computer and bring up the History tab again, my hands shaking. Nothing new. I log into Marco’s e-mail. A few work e-mails and a link from his mom to an article about placing your faith in God. My breathing returns to normal. “Stop obsessing,” I say out loud even though I am bringing up our Uber account at the same time. What the . . . There is a ride tonight from Marco’s work to JFK. That makes no sense. Marco is at work. I sway my body from side to side as Louisa starts to wriggle against my chest. I pull up Facebook and log in as Marco. I search for the girl. There is a picture posted ten minutes ago. A plane ticket resting on expensively ripped jeans stares at me, and the caption reads, “Get ready Vegas. Here I come.”

  BEFORE

  MARCO opened the door. “After you.”

  It was my twenty-eighth birthday. He kept the restaurant a surprise until the moment we walked up to the double glass doors.

  “Oh my God, this place is beautiful,” I said, stepping inside. The restaurant was somehow huge and cozy at once, with cavernous ceilings and brick walls.

  The elegant brunette hostess greeted us. “Welcome to Mercer Kitchen. Do you have a reservation?”

  “Yes, we do,” Marco replied quickly, “under Marco Medina, nine P.M.”

  “Oh, yes, I see you right here,” she said, scanning the computer. “Right this way.”

  Marco wore a crisp white collared shirt and nice dark jeans with a brown belt. He squeezed my hand as we descended a large stone staircase to the downstairs dining room.

  “This place is incredible. I’m so excited,” I said taking in the chic crowd.

  “Yeah? I really hope you like it,” Marco said nervously. “I read fifty Yelp reviews that were all five stars, so hopefully it’ll be good.”

  The hostess led us to a cozy table against a wall and I slid into the banquet seat.

  “You clean up nice,” I said with a smile, spreading the white linen napkin onto my lap.

  “You are so beautiful,” he replied.

  “Hey, I wasn’t just fishing for a compliment.” I laughed. “But thank you.” I looked down at the menu and then back up. I started to say something and then stopped. “What?” I asked.

  Marco looked into my eyes for a long moment. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “How do you do that?” I laughed.

  “Do what?”

  “Make the room stand absolutely still.” As I scanned the entrées, my mind traveled to a Facebook status his sister had put up that morning. A simple question that had generated dozens of comments: “What is more important in a partnership, being in love or being friends?” Almost everyone had replied that friendship was ultimately more important than being in love. “You need a strong foundation of friendship to make any long-term relationship work, because being in love will fade eventually,” a cousin had written. But I disagreed. “Both!” I wrote. “They’re equally important. When you really don’t like your partner, you need to be in love with them, and when you fall out of love with them, you need to like them.” It was something my mom had told me ages ago that my grandmother had told her on her wedding day. I had never found that before in any of my previous relationships. Someone had replied to my comment, “May we all be so lucky.”

  I lifted my head from the menu and watched Marco as he looked at the drink list. I had finally found both.

  AFTER

  I SNAP the computer shut. Rage starts in my toes and travels all the way into my forehead. I am going out of my mind with anxiety, I am barely making enough milk to feed our baby, and my husband is paying for a car service to take his (What is she? His girlfriend? His friend? His employee?) Croatian to JFK. I want to scream. I want to throw something. Instead I march into the bedroom and pull the still-packed suitcase out from under the bed. I reach for the car keys on the front table and drop them, my hands are shaking so badly. I bend forward carefully at the waist, pluck them up from the floor, and straighten up. Louisa stays quiet. I roll the suitcase down the stairs and onto the street. Hail pelts my face, and the street is slick with ice. I move forward slowly against the hail, protecting Louisa from the sharp snow with one hand and dragging the suitcase with the other. I throw the suitcase in the car. I trudge back to the apartment, up the stairs, and grab her stroller. I walk back to the car and shove the stroller on top of the suitcase. I am freezing cold, but sweat pours down my body. I unstrap Louisa from my chest and place her in the car seat and buckle her in. Her face crumples, and she starts to scream.

  “It’s OK, baby, it’s OK. You’re OK,” I say, starting the car and blasting the heat. My heart is beating into my ears. I pull slowly onto the highway. The car is on empty. Shit. I pull off into the first gas station. The little store connected with the gas pumps is closed and the area is dark and deserted, but the pumps are on. Louisa screams full-force in the backseat as I roll to a stop. I climb out of the car. My feet crunch on icy snow that is starting to stick and accumulate. The wind whips my face as I make my way around the car to the gas door. There is a thick coat of ice sealing the gas door shut. Shit again. I walk back to the driver’s door and wrench the car keys from the ignition. I take small steps to the back of the car and hack at the ice with the keys. This isn’t going to work. I am going to have to turn back. Louisa is screaming so loudly now inside the car that she is choking on her cries. My heart races, and I am seized with panic. Suddenly, a large piece of the ice falls away, and I renew my hacking with vigor, careful not to warp the car key. I chip away the rest of the ice and pry open the gas door with a gleeful whoop. I fill the car and pull back onto the highway.

  “It’s OK, baby, it’s OK. Please sleep,” I plead with my screaming baby in the rearview mirror. I drive slowly and steadily for two hours before I finally call my parents and tell them I am on my way home with Louisa.

  “I’m sorry, I knew you wouldn’t let me come in this weather if I called you right when I left. I couldn’t stay there, Mom. I couldn’t be there.”

  “OK, please keep us updated every hour,” my mom says calmly. It is only the waver in her voice when she says “I love you” right before we hang up that betrays her fear.

  I call Marco next.

  “I saw the Uber ride to JFK. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but something is not right, Marco. You need to figure out what your priorities are becau
se I can’t take care of Louisa like this.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Jen? That stupid girl needed to get to the airport so I got her an Uber. She paid me back in cash. What the hell is wrong with you? It’s not safe to drive in this weather,” he says, and I can hear the anger bubbling just beneath the surface. “Whatever, Jen, do what you have to do.” He hangs up. My hands tighten around the steering wheel. Maybe I’m overreacting. It’s just a car ride. Thoughts fly around in my head until I will myself to focus on driving in a straight line.

  Over the next three hours, I receive dozens of texts from Marco. They start out angry, and then by the end of the drive he is swearing that he will prove to me and everyone that he is sick, there is something wrong with him, but that he is still the man I married and that he is not having an affair. He will recover and be the husband and father that he knows he is.

  By the time I arrive home I have been driving for eight hours, it is two in the morning, and I am exhausted. My parents are waiting up for us, and my dad grabs my suitcase and brings it up to my room. I tell them quickly about the Uber ride and Marco’s texts during the drive home. My dad says, “You guys should get some sleep. Let’s talk in the morning.” I am so tired that I respond simply, “OK, that sounds good,” and sink into bed with Louisa.

  BEFORE

  A FEW days after we officially signed the LLC agreement and closed on the small-business loan, I received an e-mail from the USCIS.

  “Babe!” I screamed into the bedroom from the living room. “Our green card interview is August sixth! That’s in three weeks. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  “What? Seriously? Aah, I’m so nervous. I can’t believe this is happening after so long.”

  “Do you know what this means? If we get approved on the spot, we can go to Argentina!” I checked daily the website Trackitt .com, which tracks green card applications and interviews all over the country. New York City was infamous for having the longest wait time in between submitting your application, which we had done six months prior, and getting your interview date. Some couples had been waiting a year for their interview. “I can’t believe we already have our interview scheduled. Whoever put our application together must have done an incredibly thorough job,” I said as Marco plodded into the living room and joined me on the couch.

  “Whoever put our application together deserves to be taken on a date,” Marco said, and lifted my feet into his lap.

  “I totally agree. She also deserves a foot rub.”

  “Oh geez, here we go.”

  “I’m just kidding. Well, actually, no, could you rub my feet? They’ve been really tight lately. Thank you, my love. OK, so. Let’s talk,” I said, wiggling my feet on his lap.

  “Talk about what, babe?”

  “I mean, let’s prepare for the interview. Like, prepare for the questions they’re going to ask.”

  Marco scratched the stubble on his chin. “But, babe, we’re a real couple. Don’t only fake couples need to prepare their answers?”

  “But think about how nonobservant I am! What if they ask me what color our bathroom is and I say purple?”

  “Baby, I promise, we are going to pass with flying squirrels. They’re looking for the Russian woman married to the super gay guy. We have nothing to worry about.”

  I smiled and said, “Flying colors. That’s the expression.”

  “I think you can say either.”

  “OK. I love you so.”

  —

  THREE weeks later, we sat in a large waiting room with a dozen other couples. I clutched the photo album tightly with both hands. When Marco pried one of my hands off the photo album and laced my fingers in his, I whispered, “Don’t be overly affectionate. That’s too obvious.”

  Marco laughed from deep in his belly, and everyone else looked up from nervous silence. “Baby,” he whispered back, “we don’t have to pretend. We just have to show them how we usually act, and we’ll be fine.”

  “Do I have my nervous rash?” I asked, and pulled down the neck of my sleeveless blouse.

  “Just a little,” Marco said with a smile. “But you still look beautiful. Oh, oh, see, babe? We have nothing to worry about,” he said, pointing to a man awkwardly holding hands with a woman at least twenty years older.

  Before I could respond a stern woman yelled, “Medina?” and I jumped out of my seat. “That’s us,” I said sharply, and Marco stood up and kissed my forehead. “Babe. Calm down.”

  “I’m calm,” I said as we walked toward the woman. “I’m totally calm.”

  Our interviewer started by asking Marco a series of very straightforward questions back to back. The last question was: “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

  “No. Well, wait, I was fined once for smoking a cigarette on a subway platform,” Marco said nervously. I shot him an “are you fucking kidding me?” look.

  The woman laughed for the first time since we entered her office. “The US Government doesn’t care about that, don’t worry,” she said, and proceeded with her questions. When she asked us who put together the impressive binder, I practically jumped out of my seat. “Me! That was me. Marco thinks I’m anal retentive, but I consider myself detail oriented.”

  “I wouldn’t use the word ‘anal,’” Marco said quickly. “I mean . . . wait, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that word during our interview, but she said it first.” Marco pointed at me and blushed, and our interviewer laughed again and said, “Well you can thank your wife for her anal-ness now. . . . Oh goodness, that doesn’t sound good.” And then all three of us were giggling like schoolchildren.

  “OK, I think I’ve heard everything I need. I’m going to recommend you guys for approval. You should have your conditional green card in a few weeks.”

  I smiled widely. “We were planning to surprise Marco’s parents with a visit next month since he hasn’t been home in twelve years. Do you think his card will arrive by then?” I asked innocently. On Trackitt.com I had learned that New York City offices were notorious for putting you in the “approved” pile and then taking another three months to actually send out the green card.

  “Hmm,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a problem, but . . .” She turned to her computer and started clicking. “Let’s see if I can get it approved right now for you.”

  I squeezed Marco’s hand so hard that my fingers turned white. “Oh, that would be great,” I said.

  That afternoon we walked out of the Long Island City USCIS building with an official stamp in Marco’s passport and an e-mail already in my in-box alerting us that his application had been approved. His card would be sent out shortly. Marco opened the big glass door and we descended the stairs in the hot sun, and when we reached the street we turned to each other and screamed.

  “We’re going to Argentina!” Marco yelled, and we high-fived.

  Six months later, I watched my husband’s face as our plane touched down in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His face remained absolutely still, but his eyes filled with tears, and I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You’re home, baby.”

  AFTER

  THE next morning, I sit with my mom and Louisa around the kitchen table as my dad makes omelets.

  “I really don’t think he’s having an affair. It’s just not possible. Maybe because he’s so overtired and overworked he’s making really bad decisions and doesn’t realize how inappropriate his behavior is. He says he barely even knows this girl and that she keeps asking him for favors and he feels rude saying no so he keeps helping her with stuff. Like the apartment and the ride to the airport. I don’t know. . . .” My voice trails off. I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, my parents or myself. There is a part of my brain that has already added up all the facts. But there is a raw, almost animalistic force within my body that is clinging to the possibility that Marco is telling the truth.

  “If you really want to kno
w the truth, why don’t you check his phone records?” my dad says from across the kitchen. “I’m sure that will confirm exactly what Marco is saying. That they never talk. That they barely know each other.” His voice is encouraging, but his eyes are hard.

  “OK. I will.” My stomach lurches and my hands shake, but I know what I will find. Marco is telling the truth. He has told me over and over and over. He is burned out. He is exhausted and overworked. But he is not having an affair. I open the computer and log into our Verizon account. I fumble around for a few minutes on the website and finally figure out how to pull up the call log for the past month. I select his number and hit enter. I start scanning the month of January. So far, so good. My eyes flick over the numbers, willing the digits I have memorized not to appear. I scroll through the first of January to the tenth. Nothing. Not a single phone call between Marco and the girl. I start to breathe more normally.

  “Nothing so far,” I say with a forced confidence. And then my stomach drops. January 11. 3:14 A.M. Outgoing call for seven minutes. That could be anything. It could be about closing the restaurant. January 12. Incoming call for twenty-two minutes. No, no, no. January 13. Outgoing call, thirty-seven minutes. I have stopped breathing. I feel a searing heat creep into my face. January 14 to the end of the month is littered with her number. Two minutes. Fifty-four minutes. Multiple times a day. There is an eleven-minute call last Sunday, his day off. We were together all day. My brain scans from the beginning of the day (brunch with Marco) to the end of the day (watching the first half of the Super Bowl with Marco and then picking up Seb for dinner). There must be something wrong with the cell phone company records. Some kind of glitch in the system. Wait. I look at the time stamp again. 9:05 P.M., outgoing call. My heart pounds as I remember Marco dropping off Louisa, Seb, and me at home. (“I’m going to pick up lunch meat for Seb’s lunch tomorrow. We don’t have anything in the house. When is the last time you went grocery shopping?”) I push back my chair suddenly and stand up.