flustered. Jessica sighed, plying his skin with her fingers. She felt knots of stress in his muscles.
At times like this, Jessica was reminded of the super-gifted classmates she’d met when she was a kid, so bright and yet so socially and emotionally maladjusted. She figured David’s moodiness, his tendency to tears, was part of the makeup that gave him such a capacity to love. Maybe he couldn’t have one without the other. She’d learned it was best to appeal to his reason.
“So what you’re saying is, because we’re afraid of losing the things we cherish, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to enjoy anything. Am I following you?”
“Something like that.”
“But can’t you see what that means? That’s not right.”
He didn’t answer.
Jessica’s own childhood losses had been overshadowed by David’s, she learned soon after they began dating. His parents, sister, and brother died in a train wreck in France when he was twelve and away at boarding school. They’d all been en route to visit him as a surprise. He’d been too shattered to continue his studies and fell into state care, where he bounced between foster homes and ended up traveling with Catholic missionaries in Africa, never mind that he’d been raised a Muslim. That was how he’d come to learn Swahili and English in addition to French, Arabic, and his parents’ native language of Amharic. Spanish came in college, which he finished in Madrid by age nineteen with an accelerated master’s degree. He got his Ph.D. in music history from Harvard, and ever since he’d lived in Miami, where he learned Creole. Miami, he told her, had been his first home that felt lasting.
Maybe losing Princess was tearing at his fabric, proving to him that his newfound family was fragile too. Jessica did understand. Some mornings she woke up, gazed at David’s sleeping form, and wondered when it would finally occur to him that he had twice her IQ and could do so much more with his life than spend it with her. She understood all too well.
“We should go away somewhere, all of us,” David said.
“I can’t take another vacation so soon. Not now.”
“Not a vacation,” he said, turning around to look at her. “I mean, we should leave. We should go to Zimbabwe or France or Des Moines, Iowa, and start everything fresh again. Let’s just cash in some of my stocks, live on royalties. I can’t understand your compulsion to anchor yourself to that newspaper. I’d really like to leave, Jess. I’d like for us to enjoy each other without any distractions. Kira will be grown up before we know it.”
Jessica bit her lip, hoping the darkness would obscure the pain on her face. The career she was trying to build didn’t mean anything to him. David had made this suggestion once before, when he was slightly tipsy, and it worried her then as it did now. Their visions for their lives were so different, how could their future possibly remain entwined?
“Why are you saying this, David? Because Princess died?”
“Yes,” he said. “Because she spent the last six days of her life locked up with strangers, not with us. And because if we had known she would be dead in six days, we wouldn’t have left her there. We would have done things differently. And I don’t like to go through life counting the things I’d like to have done differently. The list is getting longer.”
“Does that list include me?” Jessica whispered.
David’s long silence frightened her. She saw his chest rise and fall as he breathed deeply. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “I wasted a year teaching you, another year courting you. I should have married you the day we met. And we should have had Kira sooner. Much sooner.”
Jessica laughed at herself for the sentimental tears that sprang to her eyes. She should know David by now, that his words were capable of making her swell until she too was certain that it was all too good to last. David was too good to last.
She could nearly buy
At times like this, Jessica was reminded of the super-gifted classmates she’d met when she was a kid, so bright and yet so socially and emotionally maladjusted. She figured David’s moodiness, his tendency to tears, was part of the makeup that gave him such a capacity to love. Maybe he couldn’t have one without the other. She’d learned it was best to appeal to his reason.
“So what you’re saying is, because we’re afraid of losing the things we cherish, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to enjoy anything. Am I following you?”
“Something like that.”
“But can’t you see what that means? That’s not right.”
He didn’t answer.
Jessica’s own childhood losses had been overshadowed by David’s, she learned soon after they began dating. His parents, sister, and brother died in a train wreck in France when he was twelve and away at boarding school. They’d all been en route to visit him as a surprise. He’d been too shattered to continue his studies and fell into state care, where he bounced between foster homes and ended up traveling with Catholic missionaries in Africa, never mind that he’d been raised a Muslim. That was how he’d come to learn Swahili and English in addition to French, Arabic, and his parents’ native language of Amharic. Spanish came in college, which he finished in Madrid by age nineteen with an accelerated master’s degree. He got his Ph.D. in music history from Harvard, and ever since he’d lived in Miami, where he learned Creole. Miami, he told her, had been his first home that felt lasting.
Maybe losing Princess was tearing at his fabric, proving to him that his newfound family was fragile too. Jessica did understand. Some mornings she woke up, gazed at David’s sleeping form, and wondered when it would finally occur to him that he had twice her IQ and could do so much more with his life than spend it with her. She understood all too well.
“We should go away somewhere, all of us,” David said.
“I can’t take another vacation so soon. Not now.”
“Not a vacation,” he said, turning around to look at her. “I mean, we should leave. We should go to Zimbabwe or France or Des Moines, Iowa, and start everything fresh again. Let’s just cash in some of my stocks, live on royalties. I can’t understand your compulsion to anchor yourself to that newspaper. I’d really like to leave, Jess. I’d like for us to enjoy each other without any distractions. Kira will be grown up before we know it.”
Jessica bit her lip, hoping the darkness would obscure the pain on her face. The career she was trying to build didn’t mean anything to him. David had made this suggestion once before, when he was slightly tipsy, and it worried her then as it did now. Their visions for their lives were so different, how could their future possibly remain entwined?
“Why are you saying this, David? Because Princess died?”
“Yes,” he said. “Because she spent the last six days of her life locked up with strangers, not with us. And because if we had known she would be dead in six days, we wouldn’t have left her there. We would have done things differently. And I don’t like to go through life counting the things I’d like to have done differently. The list is getting longer.”
“Does that list include me?” Jessica whispered.
David’s long silence frightened her. She saw his chest rise and fall as he breathed deeply. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “I wasted a year teaching you, another year courting you. I should have married you the day we met. And we should have had Kira sooner. Much sooner.”
Jessica laughed at herself for the sentimental tears that sprang to her eyes. She should know David by now, that his words were capable of making her swell until she too was certain that it was all too good to last. David was too good to last.
She could nearly buy
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