Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [75]
“What are you gonna do?” I shrug. “That’s life.”
“I guess, but it’s still hard. So what now?”
“Now, I deal with Coke’s shiny new Christmas campaign!” I throw my hands in the air in mock celebration, but Henry doesn’t laugh.
“I’m serious, Jill. What now?”
This is not what you do! You are not a prober! You don’t ask the hard questions; you don’t crack the facade that our life is anything less than perfect. Stop it this very second! We forged an entire marriage without asking each other for deeper explanations to an entire bevy of problems! You never stopped to ask me what I wanted with my mother! It was only “do this, do that,” or “this is what I think is best,” as if you were the one who had to deal with the carnage of your decisions.
“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know.” I clear my throat. “I just wish someone would tell me what to do. . . . I’m not, it seems, very good with figuring out what I want, what’s best for me.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to assess.” Henry nods. “Instant gratification versus long-term reward.” There’s my old Henry! Rational to the bone.
“What would you do?” I ask, surprised at how easily it slips out when I’d rebelled against his advice on the subject for so long, more surprised at this quiet confidence that we have found in each other. Between Katie’s demands and Henry’s work and my need to create a crisp, perfect household, I can’t remember the last time one of us leaned on the other in this manner.
“Oh, shit, I don’t know. I’d probably take a hard look at what matters more: getting to know my mother or risking that she might hurt me again.” He pauses. “I’m analytical, though—I try to find the most logical solution possible, you know? Both my parents are scientists, so that’s probably why.” He shrugs.
I know! I want to scream. Enough with your backstory! I know that they’re both professors at George Washington, and that, barring our wedding and a few other choice moments, much of your energy is spent compartmentalizing your emotions, buffing them down to “the most rational point,” as you used to say whenever we would devolve into a screaming match, and you’d inevitably tell me to stop being irrational and “get a grip.” So I did stop being irrational and I did get a goddamn grip, which is why we stopped fighting and eventually stopped communicating and why I ended up seven fucking years in the past, all to get away from the haunting and suffocating silence that comes with being perfect.
I don’t say any of this.
Instead, I offer, “See, that’s the thing: I obviously don’t want her to hurt me again, and I’m not sure how I can move forward in any sort of relationship with her, knowing that.”
“Well, yeah, that’s definitely the risk. But, I mean . . .” He pauses and considers exactly what he’s trying to say. “Isn’t that sometimes the point? No risk, no gain?” He clears his throat. “My dad is a math professor [I know!], and he’s always calculating the odds of things, what the odds are—real odds, not due to luck or fluke or anything like that—of say, a bus crashing into the car in front of it, or us getting to school on time when we left the house five minutes late if he drives forty-five miles per hour; you know, quantifiable stuff like that.”
I nod my head. I’ve heard all of this before, mostly from Phil, Henry’s dad, who could spin nearly anything you say into a math problem, which led to many dreary and insufferable dinners and conversations. It also surely didn’t help nurture Henry’s softer, more compassionate gene. But I realize now, as I stare at my former husband and old love, that maybe his prodding and his niggling nagging about my mother was his way of watching over me. In the future, I took it as judgment, as his way to look down on, not out for, me. But I sense none of that today, only compassion.
“So anyway,” he continues, “I mean, this one is harder because there’s emotion and all of that involved, and my dad would say it’s thus a flawed formula . . . but you have to weigh the odds and assess how likely it is that you’re risking more than you