Same As It Ever Was

by Claire Lombardo

A new job, another baby, a doubled-down commitment to her marriage, and then, after that, the way things relaxed into routine: the accrual of acquaintances and the maturation of her children and the adoption of a tiny black terrier mix named Suzanne, the embroidery of daily existence, fabric softener and presidential elections, the dogged forward march of time.

It wasn’t even specifically sexual, the charge between them, though that was part of it; it was something more storied and time-tested, the glow of two people who’d chosen to go through life together, who’d figured out how to navigate the shared space of a marriage, the rules of bathroom doors and breathing room and honey could you take a look I’ve got this weird thing going on with one of my molars. “How many years, darling?” Helen asked. “Thirty-five? Thirty-six?”

She stays awake long after she hears him fall asleep, resenting the slow deep sounds of his breathing while hers remains shallow, keeping chaotic time with the metronome of her thoughts.

They drive to a chaotic big-box hellscape in the South Loop, and she wonders how many times she has showcased her love for her son in this way, by procuring for him school supplies, enormous tureens of snacks to last him through cold collegiate winters, a hundred thousand pairs of boxers and athletic socks.

The darkness of a house when all of its inhabitants are expected to be asleep, the darkness you can only experience when you aren’t asleep yourself, when you are supposed to be sleeping, when you are supposed to not have seventy-five thousand things keeping you awake; she hasn’t spent time with it in so long but she knows this particular darkness, really, so very well.

It was a knack you had to pick up, letting someone adore you.

Julia studies her, this girl she’s been studying her entire life, watching her daughter grow from shy pigeon-toed preschooler to surly adolescent, the years passing merciless and blinklike.

He seemed at once smaller and larger in his parents’ house, and to see him this way felt like both a privilege and an invasion of privacy.

“Moving to the suburbs is like getting a face tattoo,” she said. “You’re committing in perpetuity to a certain kind of lifestyle.”

Time moved differently when you had a newborn, weeks of minutes, hours and hours and hours of yesterdays and tomorrows.

All stuff, only stuff, but evidence nonetheless of life, the clunky but functional life that’s improbably hers.

Don’t you sometimes just feel something for another person? Like you were meant to have found them? That’s how I felt about you when we met. Like I already knew you.”