throw a pot of water on to boil. The crushed tomatoes in the sauce crackle and splash out, staining the stove top with blotches of juice. I turn down the heat, sprinkle in a bit of sugar for sweetness, some salt for bite, and leave it to putter away while I start on the rest of the salad.
I turn on some music and dance through the apartment, tucking dirty clothes under my blanket and snapping down my air-drying bras from the shower curtain bar. I touch-up my lipstick, give the vinaigrette another shake, and combine the pasta sauce with the drained noodles back in the original pot. I toss in some chopped kalamata olives, some arugula leaves for color. I rummage in the cabinets for something to serve it in.
The memories always comes out of nowhere, when I least want to be thinking about Adam. I’m about to throw my first dinner party, for Christ’s sake, but suddenly, I am reminded of the day he bought me the serving dish I’m holding in a small town in Upstate New York.
We had been on vacation, a small weekend getaway to Bolton Landing on Lake George . We spent the day wandering through antique shops and drinking coffee by the water. Right before we got back in the rental car to return to the city, we stopped in a home goods store to pick up a gift for my sister’s birthday.
Nestled between two teapots was a cheery, orange, oblong dish with stripes around the top edge. We often played a game while we were dating where he had to guess whether or not I liked a certain ring or dress as we window shopped. This game strangely stopped soon after the wedding, even though I was obviously dying to play it during all of those excursions to Me&Ro. But in this store, back when he seemed to care what I thought as if he was exploring every nook and crevice of my being, he raised his eyebrows at me and pointed at the dish, “Like?”
“Like,” I agreed.
While the cashier was ringing up the vase we were buying for my sister, he pointed towards the serving piece and asked her to box it for us. “Adam,” I hissed, trying not to let the woman hear me. “We can’t afford that right now.”
“I don’t really think you can wait on happiness,” Adam said, which was such an Adam thing to say at the time. “And when are we going to get back here?”
He had a point, and I had a dish. It was one of the things I debated leaving behind in the divorce because it made me remember that day, but it was my favorite serving piece. Remembering Adam and that day by the lake is a little bit like my longing for children when I see Beckett—this strange mixture of grief and peace and happiness all at the same time.
The truth is that a long time ago, I was more like Adam now, and he was more like I am now, and somewhere along the way, our personalities crossed and transferred like a Freaky Friday experiment. Back in graduate school, where we met, I was the one who worked well into the night. He was the sort of person who loved the minutiae of academics but dreaded applying that to the real world. He liked to argue, liked to read cases and dissect them in the same way he loved his literature books and talking about composition.
One night, he even asked me if I thought he’d be better off being a teacher. But we were too heavily in debt from law school, and he agreed—he’d find a job at a New York firm, work the requisite amount of hours so we could pay off the student loans and then have money left over for travel, the suburban house and 2.4 kids. He brought home stories from the office about other lawyers who stayed well into the night while we happily snuggled and ate carry-out dimsum on the sofa.
At first, he was the one who suggested that we grab matinee tickets to the off-Broadway shows or check out the latest exhibit at the Met or walk around the funky, bohemian Busker festival as if we had nothing better to do with our afternoon.
And then slowly, slowly, the wardrobe changed, and the jeans and t-shirts were replaced by suits.
I turn on some music and dance through the apartment, tucking dirty clothes under my blanket and snapping down my air-drying bras from the shower curtain bar. I touch-up my lipstick, give the vinaigrette another shake, and combine the pasta sauce with the drained noodles back in the original pot. I toss in some chopped kalamata olives, some arugula leaves for color. I rummage in the cabinets for something to serve it in.
The memories always comes out of nowhere, when I least want to be thinking about Adam. I’m about to throw my first dinner party, for Christ’s sake, but suddenly, I am reminded of the day he bought me the serving dish I’m holding in a small town in Upstate New York.
We had been on vacation, a small weekend getaway to Bolton Landing on Lake George . We spent the day wandering through antique shops and drinking coffee by the water. Right before we got back in the rental car to return to the city, we stopped in a home goods store to pick up a gift for my sister’s birthday.
Nestled between two teapots was a cheery, orange, oblong dish with stripes around the top edge. We often played a game while we were dating where he had to guess whether or not I liked a certain ring or dress as we window shopped. This game strangely stopped soon after the wedding, even though I was obviously dying to play it during all of those excursions to Me&Ro. But in this store, back when he seemed to care what I thought as if he was exploring every nook and crevice of my being, he raised his eyebrows at me and pointed at the dish, “Like?”
“Like,” I agreed.
While the cashier was ringing up the vase we were buying for my sister, he pointed towards the serving piece and asked her to box it for us. “Adam,” I hissed, trying not to let the woman hear me. “We can’t afford that right now.”
“I don’t really think you can wait on happiness,” Adam said, which was such an Adam thing to say at the time. “And when are we going to get back here?”
He had a point, and I had a dish. It was one of the things I debated leaving behind in the divorce because it made me remember that day, but it was my favorite serving piece. Remembering Adam and that day by the lake is a little bit like my longing for children when I see Beckett—this strange mixture of grief and peace and happiness all at the same time.
The truth is that a long time ago, I was more like Adam now, and he was more like I am now, and somewhere along the way, our personalities crossed and transferred like a Freaky Friday experiment. Back in graduate school, where we met, I was the one who worked well into the night. He was the sort of person who loved the minutiae of academics but dreaded applying that to the real world. He liked to argue, liked to read cases and dissect them in the same way he loved his literature books and talking about composition.
One night, he even asked me if I thought he’d be better off being a teacher. But we were too heavily in debt from law school, and he agreed—he’d find a job at a New York firm, work the requisite amount of hours so we could pay off the student loans and then have money left over for travel, the suburban house and 2.4 kids. He brought home stories from the office about other lawyers who stayed well into the night while we happily snuggled and ate carry-out dimsum on the sofa.
At first, he was the one who suggested that we grab matinee tickets to the off-Broadway shows or check out the latest exhibit at the Met or walk around the funky, bohemian Busker festival as if we had nothing better to do with our afternoon.
And then slowly, slowly, the wardrobe changed, and the jeans and t-shirts were replaced by suits.
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