I have a list of things I want to do this year that are mine — a trail I’ve been reading about, a cooking class Priya mentioned, a weekend drive to a town I’ve been curious about for no particular reason. I am going to do them. Some of them with Nathan, and some of them alone.
The inn is still there. The cliff walk is still there. The sea is still the sea.
We’ll go in spring.
## The First Year We Said No
There was a time when Nathan and I were better at this. I want to include that because I think the picture I’ve been drawing makes our marriage sound like it was always a managed emergency, and that isn’t true.
In the first years, before Gerald died, we had a more functional relationship with the Hartwell family orbit. We saw Nathan’s parents for holidays, the occasional Sunday dinner, one week in the summer when they rented a place at the lake and we’d spend a few days there. It was a normal proportion. Elaine was warm and occasionally overwhelming — she has always had a large personality, a habit of filling rooms with her opinions and her needs — but Gerald balanced her, and she balanced him, and the system worked.
Nathan and I had a life that was genuinely our own. We took weekend trips. We had a group of friends we saw regularly — couples we’d known since our mid-twenties who have since scattered into different neighborhoods and different stages of life. We had Friday nights that were ours without negotiation. We cooked elaborate dinners for no reason. We went to movies without checking whether there was something else we were supposed to be doing.