“Good boy!” She scratched behind his ears, celebrating him as if he’d just split the atom. “Who’s my Mr. Smarty-Pants?”
“Wow,” Arthur said. “What a feat.”
From there, he wasted no time flopping directly into bed, his head spinning.
The bucket list wasn’t working. He wasn’t getting any closer to feeling like he was ready for fatherhood. If anything, he felt farther away than ever, his shortcomings becoming more and more apparent. His judgment and overall competence, too.
He stared at the ceiling. A stain here. A mummified cockroach in the corner. A flicker of light that came from his bedside lamp, which had a tendency to short in and out randomly, not because of the lamp or the bulb, both of whichthey had replaced, but because of some inherent and probably hazardous wiring problem hidden deep within the walls. He hated this place, hated the idea of feeding and rocking his newborn child to sleep in this awful cave, and worse, he had not a single prospect for getting them out of this mess.
“Oh God,” Wren interrupted. “Oh no, no, no, no, no.”
“What is it?” He sat up as Wren entered the room, staring at her phone now, sheer horror and panic in her face. Her giddy mood from just moments ago was cratering fast.
“I left my phone here today and I’ve got half a dozen missed calls from Charlie.”
“Is she OK?”
“Today was the cake tasting. I was supposed to be there. No, no, no, no, no,” she repeated, as if saying it enough times would allow her to go back in time.
She typed something, deleted it, typed and deleted again, held the phone up as if about to make a call, then decided against it and dropped the phone in resignation. No way of making this right, not right now. It was too late.
Wren flopped into bed beside him, and soon Ferdie joined them, creaking his way up the little doggie stairs cushion Wren had purchased. The little purchases like that were adding up, and their savings had really plateaued. They really could have used that seventeen grand.
“I completely forgot,” Wren said, now also staring at the ceiling. “I’m the worst friend. The one thing she asked me to do, and I couldn’t be bothered to do it.”
Arthur turned to face her, placed his hand on her belly. He felt it go up and down with her breathing, and while he waited for a kick to come, he could definitely feel some movement in there. Wriggling and repositioning. The little guy trying to get comfortable. Couldn’t have been easy; he or shewas getting really big in there and running out of room. He wondered if the baby knew how miserable Mom and Dad were out here, if they could sense it somehow.
“You’re not the worst,” Arthur exhaled. “Iam. If I was more like you, our life would be so much better. If I could take some chances, live in the moment, not be so scared to fail.”
“I think sometimes I’m so busy living in the moment that I’m actually missing out on the things that really matter. Like this. Lying here with you and Ferdie. Like being there for my friend. Not chasing adventure all over the city. What am I doing?”
They weren’t talking to each other, not really, but to the heavens. Some kind of higher power that could take pity on them and do something meaningful to change things.
Arthur wondered: Had he always been such a chickenshit? Surely not. He’d always been a little more shy and reserved. A conservative, goal-oriented person. But he’d always had the courage to go for those goals before. What had happened to him in adulthood?
He looked over at Wren, who was lying higher than him on the bed. Something about the angle, viewing her face from below, triggered a memory. Suddenly he was at the National Aquarium with her years ago, in the dark and moody exhibit called Shark Alley. They’d walked down spiraling ramps and taken in the sights of tiger sharks, sandbar sharks, and great hammerheads in massive, glowing blue tanks. At the bottom, they paused, and Arthur had decided it was the right moment. He was so excited to get down on one knee and ask her to marry him, to the point that he was shaking and stumbling and could barely get the words out.
Most of all, he remembered the look on her face, and the way she looked over at the sharks, as if hoping one of themwould climb out of the tank then and there and eat her in a single gulp. It would be painful, but not as painful as what was going to come next.
Then he remembered her saying no.
That was the last impulsive thing he could remember doing.
She loved him, she’d assured him, but wasn’t ready for the commitment. They were young. Fresh out of school and twenty-two years old. Living together, broke, scraping by on their love and not much else. At least that much hadn’t changed in the years since. He remembered not knowing what to do after that, exactly, if he should gather his self-respect and leave, or if maybe she was right and it was too soon. In the end, he decided that, whatever her real reasons were, it was probably his fault. If he could just be perfect, make everything just right, never make a single mistake, become a man she could be proud of, maybe things would eventually work out and he’d be able to try again one day.
That kind of courage never came to him. He held his chin up high and never let on how much it devastated him. And he never let on that he knew he’d always wonder how much she really loved him, if the day would eventually come when she’d realize that she didn’t and head for greener pastures.
“I don’t want to waste any more time playing it safe, Wren,” he said finally after the long silence. He grabbed her hand and ran a thumb along its side. Whatever else had happened before, and whatever would happen, he was so glad to have her here and now. He felt maybe if he wrapped his body around hers and locked his arms together that they could just stay right here in the safety of this moment and not have to face whatever would come next. Whatever it was, they weren’t ready for it.
“And I have to figure out a way to take it easy,” Wren said. He could tell in her voice, she was exhausted. They’d been out all day, she on her feet the entire time. Arthur couldn’t help but think that, too, was his fault. “Dr. Abadi said if I don’t…” She didn’t need to finish the thought. “I’d never forgive myself.”
Arthur squeezed her hand even harder. To let her know it was OK, that they were still in this together.
“So what do we do? Do we abandon the bucket list?” she asked.
Arthur got an idea then. He began to think—but he stopped himself on the spot. He wasn’t going to think. He was just going to say and do.
“No,” he said. “We’re not going to abandon it.”
