“I’m really sick,” he said, when his coughing woke me up.
“Yeah,” I said. “You are.”
And then his eyes filled with tears. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. “Our plane’s taking off in four hours. I don’t think I can go to Colorado today. I don’t even know if I can get out of bed.”
Even though Darren was the one who usually handled logistics—and still is—I quickly called the airline and, with some pleas and explanations, got our tickets moved to a flight two days later. Then I called his mom and explained the situation. And then threw on some boots and a coat and went to the drugstore to get him whatever I could find—cough suppressants and fever reducers and cold-and-flu medications.
“I’m sorry for ruining your Christmas,” he said when I got back.
I kissed his feverish forehead and said, “As long as I get to spend it with you, it’s not ruined.”
He took some medication and went back to sleep, and I snuck out of the apartment again. I bought a three-foot-tall tree—the biggest I could carry on my own—and lights and tinsel and glitter snowflakes that had already been marked twenty percent off at Duane Reade. I got a box of red and gold ornaments, too, and a ballerina for the top of the tree, because everything else had been sold out. Then, while Darren slept, I turned his living room into Christmas. I even unpacked our gifts for his whole family and put them under the tree, which I’d balanced on the coffee table, to make it look taller. It felt like I was giving him back some of the happiness that he’d given to me over the past year.
“Lucy?” Darren called from the bedroom, just as I was sticking the last sparkly snowflake to the wall behind the couch. “Are you moving furniture?”
I heard him padding slowly to the door, coughing as he walked, and then the bedroom door opened, and he was there, leaning against the door frame, pale and rumpled, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked at the living room and didn’t say a word.
“Darren? Is this okay? I wanted to make sure that being sick didn’t mean you missed Christmas.”
I took a step closer to him and saw tears in his eyes. “Lucy,” he said, and started to cough. “Sometimes I love you so much that I don’t even know how my heart can stand it.”
I walked over to him and hugged him, harder than I ever had, as if I somehow needed to show him how much I loved him with the strength of that hug.
Darren was my Old Nassau experiment. The longer we were together, the more I loved him, and the better it got.
xli
There are certain events in a person’s life that feel like turning points, even as they’re happening. September 11th was a turning point in my life. Your moving away was another. And Christmas with Darren was a third. We’d been together not quite a year and a half at that point, but I knew then that we would get married. Not necessarily right away, but I knew it would happen—unless something unexpected happened instead. Unless you happened, actually. I always imagined you were the only person, the only thing that could stop me from marrying Darren. I wondered if that meant I shouldn’t marry him, but I also knew then that I couldn’t have you, and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. And I loved him—I love him—really and truly. Just not the same way I loved—love—you.
I still dream about you—I’ve told you this—I have ever since you left. You and I are in Central Park having a picnic, or in a hotel room, or apple picking. Sometimes the dream is about something we actually did together, and sometimes it isn’t. But it always ends with you pulling me toward you, our bodies pressed together, our lips meeting—and then I wake up, my heart racing, feeling so guilty for thinking about someone else when I’m in bed with Darren, even all these years later. I’ve tried so hard to stop them, but they still come.
Do you dream about me? Are you dreaming about me right now?
• • •
ONE MORNING, right around my twenty-sixth birthday, I saw a picture you took in the New York Times. Pakistanis protesting civilian casualties from a drone strike. Pakistanis, not Iraqis. You had moved. You’d moved to a brand-new country and you hadn’t told me.
I dreamed about you that night, but that dream was different. We were walking through Times Square, and a rush of tourists came. My hand was torn out of yours; we got separated and I was looking for you all over. I was panicked in the dream, and I must’ve called out to you, because the next thing I knew, Darren was shaking my shoulders and saying, “You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, Lucy.”
I woke up sweaty, the panicked feeling still there.
“What was it?” Darren asked. “You were saying ‘gave.’ What did you give?”
I shook my head. “I . . . I don’t know,” I stammered. But, of course, I knew I wasn’t saying “gave” at all.
Darren got me a glass of water, then climbed back into bed and held me close to him. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here. I’ll keep the bad dreams away.”
I wrapped my arms around him but knew that no one could keep that kind of bad dream away. I stayed up a long time after that and finally fell back to sleep as the sun was coming up.
That day at work I e-mailed you. Haven’t heard from you in a while, but saw that you’re in Pakistan. Loved the photograph. Are you there for a while?
The response came quickly. Hey Luce! So nice to hear from you. Hope you’re doing well. Have been in Pakistan for a few months, but they asked if I’d transfer here officially. I’m thinking about saying yes. I’ll probably be in the States again this summer. Hope we can get together then. I keep an eye out for It Takes a Galaxy whenever I travel. Your team has been doing great work. Still love that Galacto.
Do you remember sending that? I was so glad you did. Knowing that you hadn’t moved without telling me made me feel calmer, as if the world were spinning at the right speed again. But really, I’m not sure why it mattered so much to me. I guess I wanted to still be important to you, to be the person you wanted to share news with, even if you weren’t that person for me. Some psychologist would have fun with that one.
What you didn’t tell me then was that you’d met a journalist—Raina—who was reporting from Islamabad, and that was why you were thinking about moving. I’m not sure how I would have felt if I’d known that just then. Honestly, I think I’m glad you didn’t tell me.
xlii
That year Darren gave me a pair of Manolo Blahniks for my birthday. And we decided to move in together. We’d been a couple for a little over a year and a half, and both of our leases were up in the summer.
“Let’s find a new place,” he said. “One that’s not yours and not mine—one that will only ever be ours.”
I liked that idea. It had felt a little strange moving your clothes out of drawers so that mine could fit in, and you offering to take down a poster or two on the wall so I could put up some of mine. You had shared your space with me, and I didn’t want to take more than what was offered or change too much, even if I would’ve set the apartment up differently.
“What do you think we should look for?” Darren asked, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen off his coffee table. We were at his place. It seemed we were mostly at his place. Probably because it was bigger and easier to get to on the subway and had a particular dog bed that Annie loved that was too big to lug with us and too expensive to buy a duplicate of.
“Dishwasher,” I told him, as I put my socked feet up on the table. “Light. As much space as we can afford.”
He nodded, writing furiously. “I’m adding close to a subway stop, near good restaurants and shopping, and two bedrooms.”
“Two bedrooms?” I asked, my feet back on the floor.
“For guests,” he answered, not looking at me.
But my brain went to babies. Moving in with Darren didn’t feel like moving in with you. It felt more serious. More like we were making a real commitment to each other. More like the step before getting engaged.
We spent our weekends looking at apartments. Darren wouldn’t let us settle for something less than perfect. Our real estate agent was ready to kill us.