“Call her after.”
I slumped in my chair. “Okay. The good? I’m married to the woman of my dreams, and we’re about to have a baby.”
“Wow! That’s amazing! But way to sound happy about it.”
“The bad? I’m married to the woman of my dreams, and we’re about to have a baby.”
She frowned. “Is that like Nietzsche or something? Everything good is bad? You know Dale in HR? His brother goes to those meetings of yours at the university, so I know the stuff you guys read.”
“It’s your game,” I said.
She returned to her side of the panel, so I stood and draped my chin over the ledge. “Okay, wait, maybe this will explain it. Don’t laugh, but all my life, I’ve had this theory about loneliness, that it’s congenital, fundamental, but that you could escape or defeat it. And I thought I had, only now I see I haven’t even come close. And I’m worried it’s not even possible. But forget that. I just have to work harder, redouble my efforts. I think that falls into the good category, right?”
She had been about to make a call, but now she replaced the phone in the cradle. “I just have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “But it doesn’t sound good at all.”
“No, no, it’s good. I’m recommitting. I started those meetings a couple years ago, but now I’m going to make them huge. Nationwide.”
I gave her my best smile. I’d wanted to try out my resolve, to see how it sounded aloud. To find in my speech a nostrum for anxieties fallen to me at that moment, among them my wife, the coming baby, and the fulcrum anxiety of knowing I might run out on them both.
But Janice was right: It sounded bad.
I went to the lounge and thought about Ed. If he was desolate inside, could the Helix have helped? Was suicide a more workable option than what I’d been trying to do?
Then I heard Janice yelling my name from across the floor and getting closer. And something in her voice — I knew what she’d come to say. I jumped behind the couch and got low. Dust bunnies clotted the air vent. I held my breath and waited for her to pass. Then I snuck back to my desk. Six messages on the machine, all from my frantic wife. She was in labor, hurry up.
That day, I was supposed to speak at an event on campus, and I felt the pull of this event so strongly that every turn I made toward the hospital had to be won from its clutch. The symposium was called “Iraq: Five Years Later.” I was scheduled to speak last on the bill. I would say something about self-interest and question whether we’d have invaded Iraq to protect a place like Singapore, which has almost no natural resources. I would go on this way for a few minutes and then swell the discourse to include matters touching and dire and germane to the malcontent I knew these people were feeling, the organizer in particular. Her name was Marshall. She was well loved by well-meaning people, which meant that, besides feeling isolated and unreachable, she also felt guilty, because, come on, how much love does a person need to feel a part of? What was she doing wrong? Driving to the hospital, I could not have empathized with her more.
Ida, sweetheart, you were a breech baby. You nearly died from several problems, among them a dislodging of your mother’s placenta and a noosed umbilical cord. There was a C-section. I’m told she stayed awake through the entire procedure, asking for me at intervals of one to two seconds. I’m told she cried and feared for my life, because only a terrible accident could have kept me from her. I was told this by a nurse while Esme slept. I did, after all, get to the hospital, at least to reception, where I counted black diamonds patterned across the floor and tried to will myself to her room.
The nurse told me you were in an incubator — you were having trouble breathing — but that Esme was awake and asking for me again.
I said I’d be right there. I had flowers delivered from the lobby florist with a note that said: I’m on my way! And then I did something awful. I left. I raced my car through every yellow in town and got back to campus.
Marshall gave me a kiss. And I was so relieved to be there with her. For months I’d been telling Marshall about the Helix. That I wanted to believe in this thing to save me from myself. Maybe to save a few other people, too. She said if I was going to be a leader, I’d have to shore up my pitch and make it coherent. Hone my ideas, communicate in story. She said I talked drivel and didn’t have the charisma to hide it. I was, she said, more Koresh than Jim Jones, though we were agreed I was neither.
The plaza was full, which was insane for February. There were banners and balloons, torchlights and pizza. I started to panic. It would be hours before the horror of abandoning Esme tided over me so that I could not breathe, which meant the distress of the moment was caused by something else. And it was this: Those hundred people in the audience? Their lives could change for hearing me vaunt ideas I barely understood myself. Did I really think the predicament of being alone was soluble? I’d just left my wife and new baby to start their lives together without me for dread of us never being able reach each other, no matter what we said. So I don’t know. I was afraid. Too afraid to test out the very ideas I was about to insist were a retort to loneliness and despair. And yet there I was. Because maybe one in those hundred applauding my name would be less scared than me.
They introduced me as a social psychologist who lectured nationwide and whose highly anticipated writ on the topic of loneliness would be issued by an eminent and heroic publishing juggernaut in the spring. I glanced at Marshall, who smiled big, and the smile said: In time, these lies will come true, so who cares?
From the dais, I did not recognize anyone. I found out later that my childhood friend Norman was in the aisle, three rows in, but that he didn’t stay for the whole speech, just long enough to make eye contact with me. Or so he thought, because it wasn’t faces I saw but the same face in every one, of my wife, anguished and alone. And so I started talking about her. I said I worried she was as unknown to me as a stranger in the park. I said that the negative space contoured by our absence in each other’s lives gave shape to what was impossible to shape otherwise but which I could now see with a horror I could barely put into words. What does loneliness look like? So long as my wife was out there, this person I adored, clamoring for me and getting no response, I had a good idea.
I said, “But this isn’t about me. It’s about us all. Because everywhere and all the time, people are crying out for each other. Your name. Mine. And when you look back on your life, you’ll see it’s true: woke up lonely, and the missing were on your lips.”
I blinked at the audience, which had been quiet for a while. As I spoke, the antiwar posters had come down like the flag post-death. I’d noticed a few balloons released and bound for paradise. I turned off the mic. The crowd dispersed. I’d say it was funereal except that no one goes into a funeral expecting to be stoked. This was more like the aftermath of a big loss for the home team.
Marshall gave me a hug. I told her that my baby was three hours old and that I had to go. She lifted the hem of her T-shirt, and there was a double helix tattooed on the small of her back.
I rushed to the hospital. This time, Esme had company. I found Norman sitting next to the bed and holding her hand. It was even possible he was trying to explain me. I was stunned but then not, because if Norman was his own season, he came every year.
I gave him the nod and took her other hand. Kissed her on the forehead and said I’d seen the baby, that she was a marvel. I had not seen the baby, but in my head, I knew I was right.
Esme’s voice was quiet, and for a second, I thought all would be well. Then she said, “Where were you, Lo?”
I’d had hours to prepare an answer, but in my will to believe I was not shirking responsibility in the most horrible way, I had refused to accept this moment would come. I looked at Norman. I half expected a miracle to intercede on my behalf. Just give me a minute, let me think.