The Fixed Stars Read online

  What happens if you fall in love? Brandon asked. I don’t want you to.

  I don’t want to either, I said.

  But what happens if you do?

  I felt my insides ball up, like I’d been scolded. I couldn’t let myself consider the possibility of love: the thought was too painful, too pointed a reminder that I was steering us into murky waters. So I’d point the conversation in another direction instead: If we’d let ourselves interrogate monogamy, I’d ask, why not interrogate love? We’d allowed ourselves to question why sex with someone else should necessarily hurt our relationship, and Pfffft, we’d answered, how narrow-minded. We were bigger than that. So why should love be a threat? Is there not enough to go around? If we—we as a couple—were capable of more than we’d previously imagined, why not this too?

  I began to see myself as someone who could love more than one person at a time. Hadn’t I said, anyway, that I wanted to know what it was like to be loved by a woman who loved women? Loved—that was the word that I’d reached for.

  I, I, I. There was so much I. Even I could hear it. We never worried about him falling in love, only me. Of course we knew.

  When Elio, the narrator of André Aciman’s novel Call Me by Your Name, finds himself fantasizing about a man, a visiting grad student named Oliver, Elio longs for a night with him—a single night, even just an hour—to figure out if the attraction is real. “What I didn’t realize,” Elio explains, “was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it.”18

  An old friend emailed in early April and wanted to catch up. Could I do a Saturday night? My friend was a lesbian, though we’d never talked much about it before. Now we had something new in common: I could tell her about jury duty, about the past several months, about our open marriage. Maybe she could fix me up. We decided to meet at Dino’s, which had been open for a month—admittedly an odd choice given the situation, but this friend knew Brandon, and she wanted to see it. Brandon would be working there that night too. So I would meet up with my lesbian friend at my husband’s restaurant, with my husband across the room, and she and I would hash out my desire to sleep with women.

  I asked my mother to babysit, and she offered to have June sleep over. I put on jeans and a white sweat shirt, the neckline of which I’d trimmed Flashdance-style, so it tipped off one shoulder. I wore a bra with hot pink straps. At Dino’s our friend hugged Brandon, and he gave her a tour. The bar was crowded, everything glowing neon red. I was sweating, that panicked sweat with its own peculiar smell. I had to get outside. I squeezed Brandon’s shoulder, pulled him in for a hug, told him I’d be back in a couple of hours, and steered my friend out onto the sidewalk.

  We ordered Negronis at a bar down the block. She told me about her recent breakup. I told her about Nora. I sat next to her and wondered if we looked like we were on a date. I hadn’t imagined it that way, but could it be? Did she feel it too? Could it be this easy? I swiveled a little to face her, let my elbow bump into hers. Was there anyone I knew in this bar? Anyone who knew me, who knew Brandon, who knew me as June’s mother? What would happen to us, all of us, if I kissed my friend?

  I leaned toward her, and she laughed. Then her face was right there in front of me, and I went in, catching her top lip between my two. She was so soft, my head went blank, as though a curtain dropped. Even when Brandon was freshly shaved, he wasn’t soft like this. She opened her mouth and took my bottom lip, sucked it between her teeth.

  I should go, she said against my cheek. I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow.

  Stay, I said. I want to kiss you.

  She smiled. Aren’t you worried someone will see? Come on, she said, rising from the stool. She was standing by my hip. I turned and clasped her elbow. She dropped to me and met my mouth square-on, so firm I felt the bones behind her skin. I searched her with my tongue.

  You should reach out to Nora, she said, righting herself.

  No, no—it was all in my head, I said. There wasn’t anything there.

  Well, you should find out for sure.

  The next morning, Brandon, June, and I had plans with my mother to take the ferry to Bainbridge Island—a day-trip, just for fun, with Sunday lunch in a French restaurant and ice cream after. We drove my car. June had taken a spill the evening before, my mom reported. She fell face-first onto the asphalt outside the house, and her lip had gushed blood.

  I cried for a long time, Mama, June said.

  What I heard was: while I was out kissing a woman, my three-year-old fell on her face in the street.

  On the ferry we climbed the stairs and found a bench by the window, and I pulled June onto my lap. There was a gash in the tender flesh of her lip, though not too bad. But something was wrong with her left front tooth: a fine gray line ran down it, gum to tip. During lunch I paced outside the restaurant, on hold with the dentist. She had X-rays taken the next morning: the tooth was cracked through to the root, would have to be pulled. June would be missing a front tooth for three or four years, until the adult tooth came in.

  The day after the extraction, I took a picture of what we, with flinching cheer, called her “new smile.” She’s wearing a T-shirt with a lemon painted on the front, squint-grinning at the camera, her nose scrunched up like a cartoon mouse. She’s fine. But what do I do with this? There was no direct line of causation between my child getting hurt and me. My absence did not gash her lip or crack her tooth. But I’d had a choice, hadn’t I, and I’d been away from her. Brandon had been absent too, but he was just doing his job. June fell, and I was out kissing a woman in a bar.

  Later that week I woke one morning with my head vibrating. What tethered it to my shoulders seemed less bone and muscle than live current. Maybe I had the stomach flu. I thought I could feel my intestines spin somehow, like thumbs twiddling. I should skip my morning coffee. I managed a little cereal, but it was hard to eat with my head this way. My insides felt heavy in comparison, though it was mostly empty in there. I had a dermatologist appointment in midmorning, an annual mole-and-freckle check, and I stopped afterward for a ginger ale. It was spicy going down, made me burp. I managed some toast for lunch. I thought about kissing my friend, and my gut turned over like a page.

  That night I was supposed to be a guest speaker in a class at the university, an extension course taught by an acquaintance. Brandon was at Delancey, so I’d booked a babysitter. She came at five thirty, and I kissed June good night, since I’d miss bedtime.

  On campus, I parked in the underground lot beneath the central plaza. The sky was still light as I stepped out of the elevator and made my way along a brick-paved path to the building where the class would meet. Sweat prickled my temples. I probably should have canceled, shouldn’t be walking into a classroom with these germs. Maybe it wasn’t contagious? Things had been stressful; maybe it was catching up with me. In the hallway outside the classroom I stopped to lean against the wall, its pimpled surface cool through my shirt. The nausea subsided, and I knocked on the door. I spoke to the students for an hour, and then I said something about needing to relieve the babysitter, hugged the friend who’d invited me, and left as fast as I’d come.

  I was in the parking-garage elevator when I understood what was going to happen. There was no one around when I stepped out at my floor. In the concrete hallway I made it a few steps before doubling over. It was all ginger ale, a watery puddle on the concrete. I was wearing cheap black boots, faux suede, and it had splashed onto the toes. I stood and took an inventory: I was otherwise intact. I felt almost proud. Look at me! A disaster, but upright!

  I took a few more steps down the hallway. I knew it was going to happen again. There was a trash can, but the lid was on it. Too late. I missed my shoes this time, silently commended myself. I hurried to the car before anyone could see what I’d done, unzipped my boots and tossed them in the trunk. My mouth tasted like bad milk. There was a napkin in the glove box, and I dragged it over my tongue, as though it would do a
nything.

  At home, I fumbled in the dark on the side of the house, jammed the boots into the garbage bin. I knew I’d never get the smell out. I went inside in my socks. I must have offered some excuse to the babysitter.

  I brushed my teeth and stood in the doorway to June’s room. She had no idea what I’d been up to lately, what her father and I were doing. How could I ever want anything but to be here with her? The light from the hall touched her round cheek, pale as the moon.

  Nausea woke me at midnight. Now I knew what to do. I bolted to the bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, and got on my knees. I could hear the tap running in the kitchen. Brandon was home. I was breathing hard. I pressed the length of my forearms into my thighs and leaned over the bowl, but nothing came up. In my lap, I noticed that my hands were closing. I tried to open my fingers, using one hand to tug at the other, but they were stuck. We’d taught American Sign Language to June as a baby: milk, water, please, flower, book, more. More, my hands said. I was panting. More air, need more air.

  Are you okay? Brandon said. He was in the doorway. What’s wrong, babe?

  I puked tonight, I said, after my talk at the UW. I was whispering.

  My bathrobe was too hot. Somehow I was wearing my bathrobe. The tops of my feet hurt, mashed into the floor under my folded-over body.

  Are you okay? he asked again. He stood behind me now, one foot on either side of my knees. There was his sock, gray at the toe. There were his hands in my hair. The space behind my eyes was too small. I decided to sit down, no more kneeling. I rocked onto one hip, braced against the wall of the bathtub with one of my clamped-up hands, which were now buzzing like they’d fallen asleep. My wrists were busy cramping now too, each contracting inward. I slid my feet out from under me, tried to wiggle my ankles, but look! there they went too, my ankles like my wrists, curling in, yanking each heel toward the other.

  This must be a seizure. I’m having a seizure. Someone was gasping, a sucked-in half-sob.

  I had to tell Brandon. He needed to see this, what was happening. What was happening?

  June’s room was across the hall, maybe five steps away. I imagined her standing in the doorway in her floral-print underwear from Target, eyes frosted with sleep, blinking into the bathroom. Please don’t let her wake up. How could she not wake up? My head was too loud. I gave a croak. Brandon said something, and I worked to hear it.

  I’m going to call the doctor, he said. And then, Can you hear me? Should I call your mom? And, Can you hear me?

  There he was, down by my feet. There was no way they’d work anymore, those feet. I turned the room on its side, started a slow descent to the terrycloth rug in front of the sink. A weird hardening spread outward from my mouth across my cheeks, like crystals of ice linking across the surface of water. Brandon was running out of the room. I rolled onto my back.

  Here he was. He climbed over me, knelt, and poked something at my mouth.

  Can you open? Open your mouth, he said. The doctor said to try to get you to drink something.

  I thought about my lips, told them to open. The straw bumped against my teeth, and I pulled at it. Cold juice ran out, apple. It was one of June’s juice boxes. I swallowed. The dog barked, and then my mother was in the doorframe. Brandon had called her too. She’d put on leggings and running shoes and a ponytail like always, like it wasn’t midnight. I saw her seeing me. She held her voice steady and spoke to Brandon, to the air above me. What were they saying? The juice box belched, empty.

  They told me it was only minutes, but it felt like hours that I was lying on the floor. My face was starting to thaw. They said it might have been the juice, the restoration of a reasonable blood sugar level. Or the act of drinking it, which required me to breathe. They decided I should go to the hospital and asked if I could stand up. I nodded. It was ten minutes to the emergency room. My mother drove, and we were silent, no radio. Why wasn’t Brandon with me, and my mother back with June? My mother knew nothing. What catastrophe did she imagine for me?

  The emergency room waiting area was empty. We were given our own room, and the nurse helped me onto a gurney. I still had my bathrobe on. My mother sat in a chair by my elbow and texted Brandon to say we’d arrived. As the nurse drew my blood, the TV on the wall threw off noiseless flashes of white-blue light.

  Have you been under a lot of stress lately? the nurse asked.

  Yeah, I whispered. I wanted to be a good patient. I wasn’t going to lie. But I knew that whatever I said, my mother would hear. This would have to be it. I watched the ceiling.

  Can you tell me what’s been going on? the nurse asked.

  I’ve been having kind of a weird time, I said. I figured out that I don’t think I’m straight. My husband and I just opened up our marriage.

  It seems you’ve had a panic attack, the nurse said. She patted me on the shoulder. Let’s get you some rest. Then she handed me an Ativan and a paper cup of water. This was how I came out to my mother.

  It was a notable omission, not saying anything earlier to her. I never feared being ostracized, preached at, beaten up, packed off to conversion therapy, or any of the tragic and even deadly consequences that coming out can lead to. I had the luxury of knowing that I would be okay. But my mother is my only living parent, and I didn’t want to upset her, disappoint her.

  I had told her nothing because I had hoped it would blow over. Given enough time, enough muscle, there wouldn’t be anything to come out about. Why talk about a hypothetical? And it wasn’t like I was single, able to accommodate my desire without repercussions for others; I was married, I was a mother.

  Coming out would not only be about my sexuality—which, for all its peril, at least has nice cultural precedents. My mother is a Rachel Maddow fan. Six months after jury duty, my mother invited me out to see Carol. She loves going to the movies; this was just another film for her. Sitting in the theater, I said nothing about its peculiar resonance.

  To come out, I’d have to also come out about our open relationship. However I explained it, I knew it would look like a blazing red flag to most people. I knew this because it looked like a red flag to me. I reminded myself that plenty of healthy marriages are open, even if the noisy and dominant norm is monogamy. I repeated this to myself with the shaky fervor of a new convert: Our marriage is valid, no matter its parameters. It was valid before, and it was valid now. I did not want to be divorced, a divorcée. I did not want June to be a child of divorce, shuttling back and forth between houses, towing her purple Frozen suitcase with “Family Forever” in curling script across the lid. Divorce would be a failure, a public admission of error, a giant fucking mess.

  No, I didn’t want to talk about it. What Brandon and I were doing, it belonged to the province of us. We owed no explanation. We were a team, us versus the world. And isn’t that marriage: to be united against the world’s demands, sorrows, and pain? To keep it between us, as something that we were working on, would be a testament to our bond, to us as a unit.

  I had said nothing because I knew my mother would be afraid for us. I knew what her fear would look like, the firm set of her jaw as she took it all in. I was afraid of her silence because the contents of my head would rush in to fill it. I could have filled swimming pools, municipal reservoirs, with shame. She’d think I was crazy. My mother would have some kind of judgment, even if she never said a word. In the emergency room that night, she said little: I’m glad you’re okay. She didn’t have to say more for me to hear it. I feared her judgment because it was my own.

  11

  I thought I knew myself, I said. Until Nora, I really thought I did. What the hell happened to me?

  My therapist uncrossed his legs, recrossed them in the other direction.

  What if you think of it this way, he said. Imagine you went to a doctor, and they told you that you had cancer. They started to plot out a course of treatment, but you said, “No! Stop! I won’t start treatment until I know how, and why, I got this.” Do you really need answers before you can s
tart to heal?

  But but but, I said.

  Another approach.

  Let’s say you’re a writer, I said. Say something strange has happened to you, and you want to write a story about it. The story has got to make sense somehow. If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t work.

  Go on, my therapist said.

  When I was thirty-six years old, I became fixated on a woman I hardly knew. I’d felt pretty straight for my whole life, straight enough to call myself “straight.” Now I was obsessed with a woman. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

  I’m listening, he said.

  Here I thought I knew myself. I must have missed something. I can’t be crazy. This is the only explanation: I just missed the signs. So I do this whole archeological dig on myself, comb through every story of every person I’ve ever wanted or dated or loved, looking for glimmers of gayness. I want to find that it was in me all along, because I’d rather be clueless than crazy. See, I’ve got to make sense! People cohere. If they don’t, they must be nuts, and I’m not nuts. I’m just clueless, that’s all.

  Sure, the therapist says. I’ve heard that story. It’s true for a lot of people. But if you’re hoping to find evidence that confirms the story you want to tell, you’re going to find it. Not because it’s actually there but because you’re biased. It’s confirmation bias: you’ll find it because you want to find it.

  I looked past him out the window, wondering how long I could stare at the sunlight bouncing off the windshield of a car parked across the street.

  Your whole life has been true. It happened to you. All that time that you felt straight, when you dated men, when you married Brandon—all of what you felt was real. But this story you’re trying to tell, it’s not your story. I think you want your story to be a straight line, but it may not be.

  Then what is my story? Tell me.