The Miracle is You--part 2

I’ll tell you when I knew. In ninth grade. One afternoon when I’d stayed a while past the end of school we were still talking when he walked me to the door of his classroom. The classroom door was right by the double doors with glass panels in them at the west end of the 300 Building. I stopped in the hall, and the sun coming in those doors was golden. He leaned back against the door jamb, and for a second I had the horror that he had missed it and was going to fall right past it to the floor. But he settled into place against it, his eyes never leaving mine. I told him about my memory of that day after we got together. He said that it had the same meaning for him that it did for me, that the sun had shone right on my face as if to say, “she’s the one you’ve been looking for.” He said he didn’t really know what to do with all the emotions he felt, but he knew that whatever he did, he’d have to be careful.
“Was I ever not safe?” I asked him. In loco parentis, I thought, and I had to smile.
“You’ve always been safe with me,” he said softly.
I never let things go very far in my head when I thought about him after that day in the hall. I was 14 and he was my teacher. Mr. Reid and I were friends, as far as a student and her teacher could be friends. But that one moment of connection, his back against the door jamb, my face in the sun, meant that it wasn’t just a crush.

The summer after his first year in Connecticut, we went to California together for his summer teaching job. We loved it. He was invited to stay on, but we both had stuff to get back to in Connecticut. I found a studio that needed a scenic painting intern, and it was so refreshing to have a nine-to-five job after my whole life of school and homework. It gave us more time together, to explore each other, and we were deeply in love by the end of the summer.

May 1985: Married almost two years. Hit my head at a theatre conference in NYC. I was 25, he was 34. Hospitalized in NY. His contract at Wesleyan was up for renewal, and this was the beginning of the final exam period for his students. Many gut-wrenching good-byes each time I made him go back home to deal with school. Interest in starting a family put on hold. Contract wasn’t renewed; we left CT for CA at the end of the summer. He’d been at Wesleyan almost four years.

California, summer of 1982:
Him: “Do you think you want to have children?”
Long ambiguous answer from me.
Him: “Do you want to have children with me?”
Me (rambling): Well, I’d prefer to be married first, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.
Him: “Do you want to be married, then?”
Me: Well, yeah, someday, yeah…yeah…
Him: “Do you want to be married to me?”
“Are you asking??”
“Of course I’m asking.”
Shocked, stammering answer about finishing school, parents freaking out, etc.
He puts his hand up to his face and looks like he’s going to sneeze. Says “excuse me” and gets up and goes into the bedroom. In a few minutes he comes out with something cradled in the palm of his hand. He sits down; it’s his mom’s engagement ring on a gold chain. I’ve seen him wear it before, a long time ago, but frankly, didn’t realize he had it in California.
Him: “I’d like you to have this. God, the diamond is so small. It’s pathetic….”
It’s not pathetic, and I let him slip it on my finger and it sort of fits. I hug him, kiss him, cuddle his face.
Me: “I’m a little worried about my parents, since I haven’t finished school…”
Him: “I just want you to have it now. Wear it while we’re here if you want, and then put it back on the chain when we go back East.”
Me: “Or I can switch it to over here (right hand), it seems to fit okay there…..

The day he found out his contract was not going to be renewed I felt horrible. I thought is was because of all the time he’d spent away from school while I was recovering from the accident in New York City. He said that wasn’t it, but he was preoccupied with the news he’d just gotten. At one point, he put his head in his hands, I thought he was going to cry—I’d never once seen him cry—and when he swept his hair up away from his forehead, I guess it was the angle—he was seated, I was standing—I saw a small scar there that I had never seen before. How could I not have seen that, I thought. I’d lived with this man for almost four years and hadn’t noticed it. So I asked him about it. He said it was a soccer accident when he was young, someone’s cleat. Ouch, I said. I knew he’d played soccer as a teenager. That was reassuring; I was back from the unknown territory of the scar. He rubbed it with his fingers.
“Christ,” he said, “It used to be above my hairline.”
“You’re not going to have a mid-life crisis, are you? If you are, I can tell you, I’m not ready for it!”
We both laughed. It helped us both to laugh.