Just after her fortieth birthday, in the midst of a vague discontent, Mindy began seeing a shrink, a woman who specialized in a new psychoanalytropic approach called life adjustment. The shrink was a pretty, mature woman in her late thirties with the smooth skin of a beauty devotee; she wore a brown pencil skirt with a leopard-print shirt and open-toed Manolo Blahnik pumps. She had a five-year-old girl and was recently divorced. “What do you want, Mindy?” she’d asked in a flat, down-to-basics, corporate tone of voice. “If you could have anything, what would it be? Don’t think, just answer.”
“A baby,” Mindy said. “I’d like another baby. A little girl.” Before she’d said it, Mindy had had no idea what was ailing her. “Why?” the shrink asked. Mindy had to think about her answer. “I want to share myself. With someone.” “But you have a husband and a child already. Isn’t that so?” “Yes, but my son is ten.” “You want life insurance,” said the shrink. “I don’t know what you mean.” “You want insurance that someone is still going to need you in ten years. When your son has graduated from college and doesn’t need you anymore.” “Oh.” Mindy had laughed. “He’ll always need me.” “Will he? What if he doesn’t?” “Are you saying I can’t win?” “You can win. Anyone can win if they know what they want and they focus on it. And if they’re willing to make sacrifices. I always tell my clients there are no free shoes.” “Don’t you mean patients?” Mindy had asked. “They’re clients,” the shrink insisted. “After all, they’re not sick.”
Mindy was prescribed Xanax, one pill every night before bedtime to cut down on her anxiety and poor sleep habits (she awoke every night after four hours of sleep and would lie awake for at least two hours, worrying), and was sent to the best fertility specialist in Manhattan, who preferred high-profile patients but would take those recommended by other doctors of his ilk. At the beginning, he had recommended prenatal vitamins and a bit of luck. Mindy knew it wouldn’t work because she wasn’t lucky. Neither she nor James ever had been.
After two years of increasingly complicated procedures, Mindy gave up. She’d tallied their money and realized she couldn’t afford to go on.
“I can count the days I’ve been truly content on one hand,” Mindy wrote now. “Those are bad numbers in a country where pursuing happiness is a right so important, it’s in our Constitution. But maybe that’s the key. It’s the pursuit of happiness, not the actual acquisition of it that matters.”
Mindy thought back to her Sunday in the Hamptons. In the morning, they’d all gone for a walk on the beach, and she’d carried Sidney as they labored in the soft sand above the waterline. The houses, set behind the dunes, were enormous, triumphant testimonials to what some men could achieve and what others could not. In the afternoon, back at the house, Redmon organized a touch-football game.
Catherine and Mindy sat on the porch, watching the men. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Catherine said for the tenth time.
“It’s amazing,” Mindy agreed.
Catherine squinted at the men on the lawn. “Sam is so cute,” Catherine said.
“He’s a good-looking boy,” Mindy said proudly. “But James was cute when he was younger.”
“He’s still attractive,” Catherine said kindly.
“You’re very nice, but he isn’t,” Mindy said. Catherine looked startled. “I’m one of those people who won’t lie to herself,” Mindy explained. “I try to live with the truth.”
“Is that healthy?” Catherine asked.
“Probably not.”
They sat in silence for a moment. The men moved clumsily on the lawn with the heavy breath that marks the beginning of real age, and yet Mindy envied them their freedom and their willingness to pursue joy. “Are you happy with Redmon?” she said.
“Funny you should ask,” Catherine said. “When we were pregnant, I was afraid. I had no idea what he’d be like as a father. It was one of the scariest times in our relationship.”
“Really?”
“He still went out nearly every night. I thought, Is this what he’s going to do when we have the baby? Have I made another terrible mistake with a man? You don’t really know a man until you have a child with him. Then you see so much. Is he kind? Is he tolerant? Is he loving? Or is he immature and egotistical and selfish? When you have a child, it can go two ways with your husband: You love him even more, or you lose all respect for him. And if you lose respect, there’s no way to get it back. I mean,” Catherine said, “if Redmon ever hit Sidney or yelled at him or complained about him crying, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“But he’d never do those things. Redmon has so much pride in being civilized.”
“Yes, he does, but one can’t help thinking about those things when one has a baby. The protective gene, I suppose. How is James as a father?”
“He was great from the beginning,” Mindy said. “He’s not a perfect man…”
“What man is?”
“But he was so careful with Sam. When I was pregnant, he read all the parenting books. He’s a bit of a nerd…”
“Like most journalists…”
“Well, he likes the details. And Sam has turned out great.”
Mindy sat back in her chair, taking in the hazy warmth of the summer day. What she’d told Catherine about James was only half the truth. James had been neurotic about Sam, about what he ate and even the kind of diapers he wore, so much so that Mindy would find herself arguing with him about the best brand in the aisle of Duane Reade. Their resentment toward each other was always just under the surface. Catherine was right, Mindy thought: All the trouble in their marriage went back to those first few months after Sam was born. Likely, James was as scared as she was and didn’t
want to admit it, but she’d interpreted his behavior as a direct assault on her mothering abilities. She worried he secretly thought she was a bad mother and was trying to prove it by criticizing all her decisions. This, in turn, inflamed her own guilt. She’d taken her six weeks of maternity leave and not a day more, returning to work immediately, and the truth was, she secretly relished getting out of the house and getting away from the baby, who was so demanding that it scared her, and who elicited such love from her that it scared her, too. They’d adjusted, as most parents do, and having created little Sam together was ultimately big enough to astonish them out of their animosity. But still, the bickering over Sam had never quite gone away.
“I don’t have it all, and I’m coming to the realization that I probably never will,” Mindy wrote now. “I suppose I can live with that. Perhaps my real fear lies elsewhere—in giving up my pursuit of happiness. Who would I be if I just let myself be?”
Mindy posted her new blog entry on the website and, returning to One Fifth for the evening, caught sight of herself in the smoky mirror next to the elevators. Who is that middle-aged woman? she thought. “I have a package for you,” said Roberto the doorman.
The package was big and heavy, and Mindy balanced it precariously on her forearm as she struggled with her keys. It was addressed to James, and going into the bedroom to change, she dropped it on the unmade bed. Seeing it was from Redmon Richardly’s office, and thinking it might be important, she opened it. Inside were three bound galleys of James’s new book.