Page 22 of A Happy Catastrophe

For heaven’s sake, stop wasting your money on pregnancy tests. Go look at sunsets. Drink a cup of tea. Take a hot bath. And how many times do I have to tell you? Whatever happens, love that. Because maybe, just maybe, everything is perfect.

I do all these things, and still my period does not come, which surely means my body is pregnant but wants to keep things a secret.

“Tell me the truth,” Tessa says to me one evening as she joins me in taking Bedford out for his last walk of the day. “Are you for real a matchmaker, or are you just making it all up? You can tell me if you’re faking it. I don’t mind.”

“Well,” I say, smiling. This is so Tessa. “It depends on what you mean by for real, I guess. I can tell when people belong together. Sometimes.”

“Okay, just tell me this then. Am I doing the right thing going off with Richard?”

“Well,” I say slowly. “Nobody can answer that question perfectly.”

“See?” she says. She lets out a sigh that sounds a little bit triumphant. “I knew it. If matchmaking was for real, then everybody would be with the right person, because someone could just tell them who they belong with. And you’d look at me and know if Richard and I are going to last. Maybe it’s like my mum says, and I don’t deserve to even think about love for myself.”

“Tessa, Tessa. Everyone deserves love.” I try to imagine what Blix would tell her—Blix, who believed in people finding their own paths. “Let me ask you this: Can you maybe believe just for a moment that everything is going to be okay no matter which way it ends up? Whether you’re with Richard for the next fifty years or just the next fifty days? How about that? Can you accept that maybe you just have to let yourself live it?”

She scowls harder. “I need to know if loving Richard is real, and if he’s going to be the person I can depend on for the rest of my life. That’s what I’m asking you. Is. This. Real. Love.”

“But maybe it’s worth it even if it’s not permanent. Isn’t it? Maybe with the spark of this love in your life, everything is going to be changed in ways you can’t right now fathom.”

By now Bedford has peed on nearly every object he likes, and we start back to the brownstone. When we get there, I sit down on the stoop and motion for her to sit beside me. “Let’s think about it this way,” I say. “Your life was truly miserable. You weren’t having any joy at all. You’ve been raising your child and everything has felt impossible. Is that right?”

She nods.

“And then you met someone. And you fell in love, because maybe something in you knew that this is the thing you needed in order to stay alive. And so you took some really brave steps: You made a plan, which was to go to him, and then you took action. You applied for a sabbatical, you started thinking of where Fritzie could stay, and now you’re asking for help. Help from Patrick. And from me. Which is a huge step for you, I bet. You probably hate asking for help.”

“I never thought I would do this,” she says, and I think she may be crying a little. “Leave her.”

We sit quietly, both of us watching Bedford ambling around at the end of his leash. Looking for gum wrappers and cigarette butts he can eat. After a while I say, “You don’t have to worry, you know. I’m going to take care of her for you. I will love her for you.”

I put my arms around her rounded, sad shoulders. I would like this to be one of those moments, when she sees she can let down her guard, that we can maybe trust each other. I’m even thinking words like sisterhood and co-parenting and I know that any second those words are going to come leaping out of my mouth. Then, thank goodness, her phone rings. It’s Richard, and she gives me a longing look.

“Talk to him,” I say. “It’s fine.” And Bedford and I go in the house. When I look back, I see the sparkles around her, almost dazzling in their brightness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PATRICK

Patrick has never been one for houseguests. Even before the fire, even back when he was an up-and-coming, promising sculptor who moved in regular social circles, he liked it best when everyone he knew mostly stayed at their own lodgings. On the subway, in airports, he’s happiest when he’s assuming that the people he sees are all on their way back home.

Mainly this has worked for him. His parents are long deceased, and his sister never ventures out of Wyoming, and Marnie’s mom and dad have come to visit only once, staying for two very polite days before they obligingly vanished back to Florida. Her sister Natalie came with her husband and two kids one time and stayed at an Airbnb and came over only for meals.

But now here is a whole new category of houseguest: an interloper who considers herself already home. And this is the kind of person who calls his name a thousand times in a row, with escalating intensity—as in “Patrick! Patrick! Patrick! Patrick!”—and when he finally can take it no longer and says, “What? What do you want?” this person says, “If dogs could talk, do you think they would speak English?” or “Do you think it’s true that squirrels can fly?” or “What’s that thing on your throat that goes up and down when you talk?”

She’s up before him every morning and sticks by his side as much as possible throughout the day. Clearly, she’s on a campaign to win him over. She wants to go into his studio and use his oil paints and would like to tell him a million stories that have no point to them whatsoever, some of which may even be the plots of obscure television shows that are only shown on the internet and involve characters named Dora and SpongeBob. He doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about most of the time.

Aaaaaand . . . she is going to be here for nearly a whole year. Which is unimaginable. He feels the life force seeping out of his body whenever he thinks of it. His teeth hurt. His hair follicles ache. He feels the beginnings of an ulcer forming somewhere.

He has accepted that she’s his daughter, which really, if you want to be technical about it, only means that she shares some of his DNA. Frankly, he has never felt sentimental about his DNA. He may be missing some basic drive, he thinks, the one that makes humans want to spread their seed and track their progeny, some nebulous force that sees creating family as the be-all and end-all of human endeavor.

Not Patrick. Having contributed some chromosomes to Fritzie is strictly a chemical kind of thing in his mind, not something that makes somebody a dad. How could he be connected to her, when he hasn’t awakened with her when she was a baby and walked her around the house through earaches and bad colds? He hasn’t put Band-Aids on her scraped knees or comforted her when she’s sad or done any of the twenty kazillion things he would have done had he planned for her existence and participated in raising her over the last eight years.

He. Does. Not. Know. Her. And yet everyone acts like he should be so amazed to find himself a father. Even Paco said to him yesterday, “So you’re one lucky duck! This is sure the easy way to being a father, eh? Ehh?” And he actually came out from behind the counter to give Patrick a good-natured poke in the ribs, like he’d really pulled off something of a coup.

“I am not a father!” he wants to scream about ten times a day.

He doubts he can turn into one either. Oh, he knows what Marnie is imagining. If his life were a movie, he’ll be the sad, hopeless guy who is taught the Meaning of Life by a grimy-faced, obnoxious little street urchin who happens to be his daughter, and by the time the final credits roll, he finally throws off the shackles of his unhappiness and learns to embrace life and love.

eaven’s sake, stop wasting your money on pregnancy tests. Go look at sunsets. Drink a cup of tea. Take a hot bath. And how many times do I have to tell you? Whatever happens, love that. Because maybe, just maybe, everything is perfect.

I do all these things, and still my period does not come, which surely means my body is pregnant but wants to keep things a secret.

“Tell me the truth,” Tessa says to me one evening as she joins me in taking Bedford out for his last walk of the day. “Are you for real a matchmaker, or are you just making it all up? You can tell me if you’re faking it. I don’t mind.”

“Well,” I say, smiling. This is so Tessa. “It depends on what you mean by for real, I guess. I can tell when people belong together. Sometimes.”

“Okay, just tell me this then. Am I doing the right thing going off with Richard?”

“Well,” I say slowly. “Nobody can answer that question perfectly.”

“See?” she says. She lets out a sigh that sounds a little bit triumphant. “I knew it. If matchmaking was for real, then everybody would be with the right person, because someone could just tell them who they belong with. And you’d look at me and know if Richard and I are going to last. Maybe it’s like my mum says, and I don’t deserve to even think about love for myself.”

“Tessa, Tessa. Everyone deserves love.” I try to imagine what Blix would tell her—Blix, who believed in people finding their own paths. “Let me ask you this: Can you maybe believe just for a moment that everything is going to be okay no matter which way it ends up? Whether you’re with Richard for the next fifty years or just the next fifty days? How about that? Can you accept that maybe you just have to let yourself live it?”

She scowls harder. “I need to know if loving Richard is real, and if he’s going to be the person I can depend on for the rest of my life. That’s what I’m asking you. Is. This. Real. Love.”

“But maybe it’s worth it even if it’s not permanent. Isn’t it? Maybe with the spark of this love in your life, everything is going to be changed in ways you can’t right now fathom.”

By now Bedford has peed on nearly every object he likes, and we start back to the brownstone. When we get there, I sit down on the stoop and motion for her to sit beside me. “Let’s think about it this way,” I say. “Your life was truly miserable. You weren’t having any joy at all. You’ve been raising your child and everything has felt impossible. Is that right?”

She nods.

“And then you met someone. And you fell in love, because maybe something in you knew that this is the thing you needed in order to stay alive. And so you took some really brave steps: You made a plan, which was to go to him, and then you took action. You applied for a sabbatical, you started thinking of where Fritzie could stay, and now you’re asking for help. Help from Patrick. And from me. Which is a huge step for you, I bet. You probably hate asking for help.”

“I never thought I would do this,” she says, and I think she may be crying a little. “Leave her.”

We sit quietly, both of us watching Bedford ambling around at the end of his leash. Looking for gum wrappers and cigarette butts he can eat. After a while I say, “You don’t have to worry, you know. I’m going to take care of her for you. I will love her for you.”

I put my arms around her rounded, sad shoulders. I would like this to be one of those moments, when she sees she can let down her guard, that we can maybe trust each other. I’m even thinking words like sisterhood and co-parenting and I know that any second those words are going to come leaping out of my mouth. Then, thank goodness, her phone rings. It’s Richard, and she gives me a longing look.

“Talk to him,” I say. “It’s fine.” And Bedford and I go in the house. When I look back, I see the sparkles around her, almost dazzling in their brightness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PATRICK

Patrick has never been one for houseguests. Even before the fire, even back when he was an up-and-coming, promising sculptor who moved in regular social circles, he liked it best when everyone he knew mostly stayed at their own lodgings. On the subway, in airports, he’s happiest when he’s assuming that the people he sees are all on their way back home.

Mainly this has worked for him. His parents are long deceased, and his sister never ventures out of Wyoming, and Marnie’s mom and dad have come to visit only once, staying for two very polite days before they obligingly vanished back to Florida. Her sister Natalie came with her husband and two kids one time and stayed at an Airbnb and came over only for meals.

But now here is a whole new category of houseguest: an interloper who considers herself already home. And this is the kind of person who calls his name a thousand times in a row, with escalating intensity—as in “Patrick! Patrick! Patrick! Patrick!”—and when he finally can take it no longer and says, “What? What do you want?” this person says, “If dogs could talk, do you think they would speak English?” or “Do you think it’s true that squirrels can fly?” or “What’s that thing on your throat that goes up and down when you talk?”

She’s up before him every morning and sticks by his side as much as possible throughout the day. Clearly, she’s on a campaign to win him over. She wants to go into his studio and use his oil paints and would like to tell him a million stories that have no point to them whatsoever, some of which may even be the plots of obscure television shows that are only shown on the internet and involve characters named Dora and SpongeBob. He doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about most of the time.

Aaaaaand . . . she is going to be here for nearly a whole year. Which is unimaginable. He feels the life force seeping out of his body whenever he thinks of it. His teeth hurt. His hair follicles ache. He feels the beginnings of an ulcer forming somewhere.

He has accepted that she’s his daughter, which really, if you want to be technical about it, only means that she shares some of his DNA. Frankly, he has never felt sentimental about his DNA. He may be missing some basic drive, he thinks, the one that makes humans want to spread their seed and track their progeny, some nebulous force that sees creating family as the be-all and end-all of human endeavor.

Not Patrick. Having contributed some chromosomes to Fritzie is strictly a chemical kind of thing in his mind, not something that makes somebody a dad. How could he be connected to her, when he hasn’t awakened with her when she was a baby and walked her around the house through earaches and bad colds? He hasn’t put Band-Aids on her scraped knees or comforted her when she’s sad or done any of the twenty kazillion things he would have done had he planned for her existence and participated in raising her over the last eight years.

He. Does. Not. Know. Her. And yet everyone acts like he should be so amazed to find himself a father. Even Paco said to him yesterday, “So you’re one lucky duck! This is sure the easy way to being a father, eh? Ehh?” And he actually came out from behind the counter to give Patrick a good-natured poke in the ribs, like he’d really pulled off something of a coup.

“I am not a father!” he wants to scream about ten times a day.

He doubts he can turn into one either. Oh, he knows what Marnie is imagining. If his life were a movie, he’ll be the sad, hopeless guy who is taught the Meaning of Life by a grimy-faced, obnoxious little street urchin who happens to be his daughter, and by the time the final credits roll, he finally throws off the shackles of his unhappiness and learns to embrace life and love.

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