You are glad for this New York weekend together. Glad you feel comfortable enough to walk around the hotel room naked—without shielding your breast or the scarred blankness beside it. Glad that with a little push, you remembered the moves and feel open to someone who isn’t Mr. Right forever. At fifteen, you yearned for him; at seventy-four, easy affection seems fine.
You liked wandering together through Central Park in spring bloom, down a dozen hidden trails with no concern for getting lost or arguing to “Go This Way! No, that way!” When an afternoon thunderstorm interrupted the rhythm, you liked how serendipity led to a pub on 78th Street to drink mugs of pale ale, waiting for the sun. You felt a surprise: the twinge of being a twosome. What you’d been telling your friends since your husband died—“No more one guy for me!”— seemed less essential, as did the urge for variety—you know one guy for advice, one to make you laugh, that sort of love life.
This guy likes to laugh, touch, and debate, all good. He did lose you in the packed crowd of Times Square, rushing to get to dinner on time. (Lucky you knew the restaurant’s name.) And he does carry on about his book contract, his Boston apartment, and his wife whom he hasn’t seen in four months, since Christmas! She decided to stay in the small desert house they bought for escape, too in love with the flowering cacti and shifting golden light to return to the East. He doesn’t know what’s next, which is fine for you. A relief, really. No pressure to move beyond the simplicity of words like “fun,” “nice,” and “good.” Those are your adjectives, while he jumps into nightly multi-syllables like “sensual,” “voluptuous,” and “exhilarating,” whispered in your ear.
“I’ll stick to monosyllables,” you whisper back.
“We’ll work on that!”
You laugh without obligation to this man with an easy smile who does not make you feel the need to pretend.
Your husband was like that, too. It’s what you loved best about your shared fifty years: how the first strong jolts of sexy lips, broad shoulders, and seductive voice morphed gradually into a comfortable ‘as is’ love. Your lost breast, his damaged heart, and all the small imperfections became manageable with empathy and humor. Not all the time. Not every year. (He also walked ahead too quickly, losing you in a rush.)
What you didn’t expect on this New York weekend is the 1950s girl still in you—and to hear your mother’s voice insisting, “Boys make the advances, girls defend!” as you kissed on the edge of the bed. You expected boldness from yourself, not high school timidity. Fortunately, fingertips and lips quickly took over, your mother’s voice fading along with the fear of an exploding heart. That’s the image you couldn’t shake during sex that last year of frailty; but in the end it was sepsis not his heart that killed your husband. Luckily, this guy is in good shape, a hand tremor maybe, but full of energy to touch everything, everywhere.
Do you feel a twinge of marital betrayal? No! Not in the City, not on neutral turf, not after three years as a widow alone. Because you never let “I love you!” slip into your desire even if this guy says it. What slips into your head is your husband’s If I die first, be happy and find someone else! always followed after a few beats by, Just so you wait until I’m dead! You’d both laugh in this ‘what if’ game played so easily before consequence, ignoring the next, unspoken line: Or I’ll divorce you! He would have too, being 100% committed to monogamy. Me, maybe 85%, but I loved him, so I paid attention, happy you could trust him more than yourself. But he’s gone. And this guy with one foot out of marriage is here without guilt, and it’s catching. So why not have this no-strings, together weekend?
It is a leap, for sure, from the dates you’ve had—dinner, day hikes, computer help—just a few hours here and there. And you never want to become your cousin whose weekend date stayed in her house for good. You’ve grown too used to 3 a.m. baths without having to answer, “Are you okay?” And buying a fridge without negotiation. And not sharing the morning paper. True, you’d forgotten the pleasures of pillow talk, the comfort of a body curving around yours, and love lyrics in the middle of the night. Shall we dance all night… …That old black magic…. You like hearing them, maybe three days a week after four days apart. You’ve read how singles, both young and old, are choosing this arrangement. It even has a name: Living Apart Together or L.A.T. — a new way to combine sex, friendship, and independence. You like that.
After this weekend, you’re going north to a lake house and he asks to visit. You say okay, feeling ridiculously daring. You’re making up for missing the free-love Sixties when you were having babies and doing laundry while juggling grad school. Now that you’ve met your Sixties Self and like her; you want to see what else she can do.
His emails and phone calls start coming. Compliments, books that you might enjoy, and, once, his need to decide about his failing marriage. You grow uneasy with “need to decide,” preferring the safety of no one deciding anything. And then, two days before his arrival: “M. and I are kayaking in stormy waters.” You laugh at first—In the desert? –until you picture yourself standing on the shore, wanting their kayak to tip over. That is not the woman that you have decided to be. Your Sixties Self wouldn’t care if they are in the tippy kayak on sand. She’d embrace the mixed metaphor and write, “Come anyway. I have a kayak here and the water is calm. We’ll have fun.” She’d sing “Monday, Monday,” like the Mamas and the Papas, with no desire that he stay past Sunday evening.
The Sixties Self would not write “I don’t want to be in the middle of a marriage working itself out.” Or put the email in Drafts, thinking to revise it later for just the right tone—not too flip, or too angry, or whiney. Or write “If you two can work things out, good for both of you.” Or add, “Let’s not talk until mid-September and see where we are.” That was your Fifties Self, who also had no clue that she hit the “Send” button by mistake until he answered: “I was about to write the same thing.” Evidently, his wife was coming to Boston in a week, but he assures that, “We are no closer to reconciliation.” Followed by, “You’re so wise, so intuitive.” Followed by your earnest-sounding, “You know I want the best for you.” Followed by his very pleased, “I know!”
Such an idiot! On that, your Fifties and Sixties Self agree.
You go back to “No more one man for me!” and call your hiking buddy who takes you up to Sunfish Pond. You say yes to dinner with the widower who makes you laugh until sitting in his car in your driveway, he takes your hand in his, saying “We should do this very often.” A nice man, attractive and good for dinner conversation, but you pull away, feeling your dream of having multiple lovers dissolve. Like it or not, intimacy touches deeper than you thought, reaching below sex to vulnerability. A 1950’s girl vulnerability, it seems.
You are fine as a woman on her own. You will be like your mother. Widowed at sixty-four, she settled for independence without risk, family and friends over new men, while knitting everyone sweaters. You tackle your husband’s study. You replace the motheaten rug, change four light bulbs, have the back deck repaired, feeling in charge of your life. Then he calls. He’s coming to the City, so how about going to the U.S. Open with him? Also, King Lear is opening on Broadway. “Are you interested?” You marvel at how he knows what you like, knows how pushy to be, knows how you love Federer and Nadal. You say yes to the Open, ‘maybe’ to Lear, and the rest you’ll decide one day at a time.
——
Note: A few identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of those who didn’t ask to be in my story.
Mimi Schwartz’s seven books include her latest, Good Neighbors, Bad Times Revisited- Echoes of My Father’s German Village. Essays have appeared in Lilith, Ploughshares, Gray Love, The Boston Globe, Pangyrus, Assay, Agni, among others. She is Professor Emerita in Writing at Stockton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. For more about the author, go to www.mimischwartz.net
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