First Comes Love

“Yeah,” I say, following him.

  “Never happened…And what about the fact that she pays rent every month when she’s talked for years about buying a place?…Enough examples?”

  I smile and tell him I’d like one more, please.

  “Okay. How about Will Carlisle? She certainly didn’t close the deal there, did she?” he asks, as we stand on our sides of the bed and pull down the covers.

  “No,” I say. “She certainly did not.”

  “I’m glad I closed the deal with you,” he says with a wink before climbing into bed.

  I smile, then get in next to him, both of us reaching up to turn off our bedside lamps. He gives me a quick kiss on the lips, then rolls over, dropping his head to his feather pillow, while I do the same on my hypoallergenic one.

  “Good night, Mere,” he says, his back to me.

  “Good night, Nolan,” I say, relieved he doesn’t want to have sex tonight. I wonder if he’s tired of being turned down or simply too tired, and hope it’s the latter. I try to recall the last time I initiated but can’t. It’s been that long. I feel a pang of guilt, commingled with worry, but tell myself this is all very normal, happening all over town. “I love you,” I add.

  “Love you, too,” he says, his voice muffled.

  A few minutes later, he is breathing deeply, and I can tell he’s asleep. I wonder exactly when the snoring will begin, and if it will get loud enough for me to move to the guest room, as my mind returns to Josie, and Nolan’s statement that she wants what I have. For a few seconds, I feel sorry for her, but then I remind myself that Josie made her own bed, blazed her own self-destructive path. She could be listening to Will snore right now, or plenty of guys for that matter, but instead she chose to put fun and games with Gabe over a real commitment.

  And then it hits me with a jolt: the sudden realization of why I got so upset the other night when Josie told us her news. I suddenly see that it actually has far less to do with the decision, or any of the pitfalls of single motherhood, and more to do with Josie herself. The fact that she has always done exactly what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. My sister puts herself first, period. And maybe, for this reason alone, I’m actually the one who is a little bit jealous of her.

  —

  THE NEXT DAY, Nolan and I take Harper to Isla Graham’s fourth birthday party. Isla is Harper’s best friend, which is really to say that her mother, Ellen, is my best friend (though Nolan and Isla’s father, Andy, are close, too; hence Nolan’s attendance at a Pinkalicious tea, wearing a pink checked shirt, no less). We arrive at the party early, as suggested by Ellen, and walk up the long, winding driveway of the Grahams’ Brookhaven home. Nolan rings the bell, which Ellen had rewired to, in her words, sound less foreboding, as I simply open the door and head straight through the house to the backyard.

  “Wow,” I say under my breath, taking in the pink wonderland. Clusters of hot and light pink balloons bob in the breeze. A long child-size table is elaborately set with crystal and silver, pink polka-dot linens, and pink hydrangeas. All of the food is in various shades of pink—mini bagels covered with strawberry cream cheese, jelly sandwiches cut into hearts, strawberry yogurt in pink porcelain bowls, cubed watermelon tossed with raspberries, even peeled hard-boiled eggs dyed pink. Ellen is a far cry from Martha Stewart, so I know her mother-in-law is behind it even before I see her emerge onto the porch, carrying a pitcher of pink lemonade, Ellen trailing behind her.

  “This place looks amazing!” I say, giving them both a hug.

  “It’s all Stella,” Ellen says, gesturing toward her mother-in-law as I notice the goody bags in a basket by the back door, tied with pink tulle and filled with pink candies and pink Play-Doh.

  “It was fun,” Stella says modestly as I feel a little sheepish about Harper’s lackluster farm-themed party in our backyard, complete with a mangy pony, two ornery goats, and a rather pointless flock of dingy brown hens.

  Meanwhile, Harper runs to embrace Isla, both girls in pink tutus. Andy hands Nolan a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the two head inside to watch the second half of the Georgia–Tennessee game.

  “Did she buy your dress, too?” I say, once Stella is out of earshot.

  Ellen laughs. “Close. I borrowed it from Margot,” she says, referring to her sister-in-law.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything pink,” I say, fondly remembering the day I met Ellen, shortly after I moved back to Atlanta from New York. I was behind her in a long line at the post office, sizing up her outfit the way women do with one another, noticing the details of her faded blue jeans, ripped at the left knee and rolled at the ankles, her bold gladiator sandals, olive-green linen tunic, and layers of funky bead-and-leather necklaces. She looked cool in an effortless way, and although she wouldn’t have stood out in New York, she made an impression in the Buckhead sea of brightly colored Tory Burch, Lilly Pulitzer, and Lululemon. Then I glanced down at her package and saw the familiar address of my old New York apartment building in black Sharpie: 22C, exactly three floors down from my 25C. It wasn’t like me to chat up strangers, but this coincidence was too great. I tapped her shoulder and said, “I don’t mean to be nosy, but your package…That’s my old building! I lived in 25C.”

  Her face lit up, instantly elevating her from plain to pretty. “You’re kidding! My good friends Hillary and Julian live there. Did you know them?”

  “No,” I said, smiling back at her. “But small world, huh?”

  She nodded and said, “So you’re a New Yorker?”

  I told her no, I was actually a native Atlantan, but that I’d lived in the city for years. “I miss it,” I added.

  She nodded and said, “I do, too. I lived there for years myself. Why’d you come back? For a job?”

  “My husband’s job,” I said. We had only just married, and saying the words my husband still felt so foreign to me.

  “Same here,” she said, then introduced herself as Ellen Graham. I told her my name, and we continued to talk in line. I learned that she was a professional portrait photographer, originally from Pittsburgh, married to a lawyer, and I told her my bare-bones biography. She waited as I completed my transaction. Then, on our way out to the parking lot, she reached into her tote bag, handed me a little square business card, and suggested that we go for coffee sometime, maybe grab dinner with our husbands.

  “I’d love that,” I said, feeling that rush of new-friend excitement that becomes rarer the older you get.

  A few weeks later, I called Ellen, and the four of us went to Leon’s Full Service, a restaurant in Decatur. It was a very fun night—easy and relaxed—the double-date chemistry perfect. Nolan and Andy were both Lovett grads (though Andy was several years older); both now worked with their fathers; and, perhaps the biggest thing they had in common, both had married women so different than they—women they had met through their siblings. (Andy’s sister, Margot, had been Ellen’s best friend first.)

  As Nolan told our story, he mentioned Daniel, and I watched Andy piece it all together, connecting the dots from my maiden name to the Lovett alum turned Yale med student who had died in the Christmastime car accident.

  He turned to me, his face somber. “Was Daniel Garland your brother?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” I said, then briefed Ellen so that Andy didn’t have to. “My brother died. In a car accident.”

  Andy mumbled that he was sorry, looking down, exactly the way most people do. But Ellen looked directly into my eyes, took my hand, and said the same words but in such a different way.

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling a deep connection to her even before she told me that she had experienced a big loss at a young age, too, her mother dying of cancer. “Not that it’s the same thing,” she quickly added. “Brothers and sisters are supposed to be from the cradle to the grave….”

  “Yes, but still…I’m really sorry, too,” I said. Although the death of a parent is a more comprehensible void than losing a sibling, because it follows the natural order
we expect, I couldn’t imagine life without my mother. I especially couldn’t fathom losing her when I was still a teenager. No matter how you slice it, I remember thinking, life is tragic.

  “Has your family…healed?” Ellen asked. “Did it bring you closer?”

  It was such a compassionate question, and I found myself confiding in her, as the guys branched off in a separate conversation about golf and travel and their work. I talked a lot about Josie, how walled off she had become, how she refused to discuss Daniel and seemed to view my desire to do so as unhealthy. I asked Ellen if she had siblings. She said yes, an older sister named Suzanne. She told me how different they were, yet still so close. “She really is my best friend.”

  It was something I never said about Josie, and I felt a pang of wistfulness and regret. I wanted to be close like that, but couldn’t imagine it ever happening. “Did losing your mom make you two closer?” I asked.

  “It did,” she said, nodding. “But we were always close….My dad sounds more like your sister. He seldom talks about my mom. It’s funny how grief is different for everyone….”

  I nodded, thinking how true that statement was, remembering a quote from a support group I had briefly attended with my mother. Grief is a mystery to be lived through, not a problem to be solved, our counselor—who had lost her nine-year-old daughter—had written on the chalkboard. Maybe she was right. Yet it seemed to me that talking about it, trying to solve it, was the only way to truly accept it. The only hope for healing. I said as much to Ellen that night, and she quickly agreed.

  “Absolutely. But I guess my father and your sister just don’t see it that way. And it’s hard—really hard—when those we love most don’t handle things in the same way we do. I bet that’s why so many marriages break up after the death of a child. I bet couples are more likely to stay together if they handle grief the same way….”

  I nodded, then divulged details of my parents’ divorce. I told her how certain I was that Daniel’s death had caused their split. My mom blamed my dad’s drinking—but the drinking was a reaction to his grief. In other words, it all came back to Daniel.

  On our way home that night, I told Nolan that I was certain Ellen would become a close friend. Sure enough, we bonded more and more over the next few months, hanging out frequently, emailing constantly, and talking on the phone almost daily, which was something I had never really done with other friends. Josie referred to Ellen as my “girl crush,” which annoyed me for several reasons, but mostly because it trivialized our connection. I didn’t bother to tell Josie all the things I liked and admired about Ellen. She was passionate about her work—and brilliant at it, too. I could spend hours looking at her photographs of people, marveling at how she made ordinary people look famous and famous people seem ordinary. She was original, yet didn’t go out of her way to be different, either—which resulted in unusual combinations that seemed like contradictions only if you didn’t know her. Like owning a rescue dog as well as the most beautiful, regal purebred golden retriever I’d ever seen. Like being a hippie at heart, yet marrying a fourth-generation Atlantan blue-blooder. Like driving a beat-up Toyota covered with artsy bumper stickers, yet filling her house with exquisite art and antiques. I loved her raw honesty—that she was quick to acknowledge flaws in herself and her marriage when so many others couldn’t even admit they were having a bad day.

  As it turned out, Ellen and I got pregnant at virtually the same time, and Isla and Harper were born only five weeks apart. The intense early motherhood experience brought us even closer, both individually and as couples, so much so that we chose each other to be godparents to our firstborns. Josie, of course, was angered by our decision.

  “So if you and Nolan die, you’re giving Harper to them?” she said, cradling our two-month-old daughter with a slightly crazed look. “Someone you’ve only known a few years? Instead of your own flesh and blood?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Josie, everyone knows that godparents don’t necessarily mean guardianship,” I said, doing my best not to think about the grisly circumstances that could claim both my life and Nolan’s. “It’s just…an honorary position.”

  “So you don’t want to honor your own sister?”

  “You’re already Harper’s aunt. The aunt role trumps that of godmother. Ellen picked me instead of her sister. Or Andy’s sister. And they aren’t mad about it,” I said, although this wasn’t entirely true. Ellen’s sister was fine with her decision, but Andy’s sister was a little miffed and territorial, too.

  “So I do get Harper if you die?” Josie morbidly pressed on.

  “Josie,” I said, aghast, discreetly gesturing toward Mom.

  “What? It’s important to cover this stuff now,” Josie said, willing to talk about life and death when it suited her purposes.

  “Nolan and I haven’t done our will yet,” I said, thinking that although we would have much to decide, one thing was for sure: Josie would not be Harper’s guardian.

  “Well, I want her,” Josie said, as if the decision were just that simple. Sort of like her mindset now. You want a baby, you get a baby.

  —

  AFTER THE TEA party is under way, I fill Ellen in on Josie’s latest antics.

  “Interesting,” she says, looking intrigued. Although she is always diplomatic and fair-minded when it comes to my sister, this response still surprises me.

  “Interesting? You don’t think it’s a horrible idea?”

  “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “Josie as a single mother?”

  “She’s good with Harper.”

  “Yeah. For five-hour stints,” I say. “We both know that’s not how motherhood works.”

  “Right. But she wouldn’t be completely solo. She’d have you and Nolan to help,” Ellen says. “And grandparents. And Gabe.”

  “Friends don’t really help when it comes to children,” I say. “Not more than a token playdate here and there.”

  “Maybe not,” she says. “But family certainly does.”

  I look at Ellen, once again reminded of the key difference between the two of us and our respective sister relationships, namely that she both loves and likes her sister, Suzanne.

  “The baby would have you,” Ellen finishes, in case I missed her point.

  “But I don’t want another baby,” I say, just as Nolan passes by us on his way to the cooler. He shoots me a wounded look, grabs another beer, then heads back in the house.

  “Shit,” I say under my breath. “Nolan heard that.”

  “He doesn’t know that?” Ellen says, looking surprised. She and I have discussed it several times before.

  “Not that directly,” I say, thinking it is another difference in our worlds. Ellen and Andy communicate exhaustively, and even do ongoing couples therapy—not because they have any big problems (although they had gone through a rough period before having Isla), but to prevent problems. Their marriage isn’t perfect, but it is strong, as enviable as her sister relationship, maybe more so.

  “You’re really sure you don’t want a second? Teddy’s been such a breeze,” Ellen says, referring to her two-year-old son, whom Stella has just taken inside for his nap.

  “I’m sure,” I say, eyeing Nolan through the glass door. “Besides, what if I had another girl?”

  Ellen knows what I’m getting at. “Most sisters get along.”

  I shake my head and say, “No. Most do not. At least not like you and yours.”

  “You could have a boy,” she says, wrapping her dark hair in a bun on top of her head. “Boys love their mothers. And what if you and Josie both had boys? They’d be like cousins and brothers. And the brother relationship seems completely uncomplicated.”

  “But I really don’t want another baby,” I say, careful to keep my voice down. “And besides. Nothing is uncomplicated when it comes to Josie and me.”

  —

  “SHE’S OUT COLD,” Nolan says to me that night in the family room while I’m straighte
ning up the inevitable end-of-the-day disaster area. He’s just returned from carrying Harper up to her bed after she fell asleep on her beanbag watching Frozen.

  “All that playing in the sun wore her out,” I say, tossing her toys into their proper wire baskets. Legos in one, stuffed animals in another, books in the third, dolls and their accessories in the fourth, miscellaneous bits in the fifth.

  “All that drinking beer in the sun wore me out,” Nolan says, yawning as he picks up a pink elephant puppet and jams his hand inside, both of them staring at me. Ever since he took a workshop with Harper at the Center for Puppetry Arts, he’s turned into a regular Jim Henson.

  “You missed your calling,” I say with a halfhearted laugh.

  Nolan’s face remains blank, his lips motionless, as he somehow manages to make a felt puppet look alert. “It’s never too late,” the elephant tells me.

  “You’re a very wise elephant,” I say, thinking of all the ways his statement could apply to my life. I sink into the sofa, putting my bare feet up on the coffee table.

  Nolan looks at me for a beat, then pulls the puppet off his arm and tosses it into the book basket. I resist the urge to correct him, but he catches me frowning and says, “I know, I know. Wrong basket. I’ll get it in a sec.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, thinking that the Zoloft might actually be working. Six months ago I would have been unable to resist the urge to move the puppet—and I would probably be sitting over there cross-legged, meticulously organizing the miscellaneous items by size and color. Maybe even ordering more bins from the Container Store.

  Nolan sits beside me, his hands on his lap. Remembering his recent offhanded comment that I “never initiate physical contact,” I reach for his hand, lacing my fingers with his. His knuckles are a bit gnarled and his middle finger is crooked from various sports injuries, but I’ve always liked his hands. They are large and strong, and remind me how competent he can be. Handy in a manly way. I put it on a mental list that I’m constantly keeping—Things I love about my husband.

  “So?” he says, shifting to look at me. “Did you mean what you said today?”