As Husbands Go

As Husbands Go

 

Who knew? It seemed a perfectly nice night. True, outside

the house, the wind was whoo-whooing like

sound effects from a low-budget horror movie. The cold was so

vicious that a little past seven, a branch of the great white spruce

on the front lawn that had been creaking all afternoon suddenly

screamed in pain. Then a brutal CRAAACK, and it crashed to

the frozen ground.

But inside our red brick Georgian in the picturesque Long

Island town of Shorehaven, all was warmth. I went from one

bedroom to another to kiss the boys good night. Despite the

sickly yellow gleam of the SpongeBob Squarepants night-light

in his bedroom, Mason, the third-born of our triplets, glowed

pure gold. I stroked his forehead. “Happy dreams, my sweetie.”

He was already half asleep, thumb in mouth, but his four other

fingers flapped me a good night.

A flush of mother love reddened my cheeks. Its heat spread.

For a moment, it even eased the permanent muscle spasm that

had seized the left side of my neck seconds after Jonah and I

gazed up at the sonogram and saw three little paisley curls in

utero. My utero. Still, a perpetual neck spasm was a small price

to pay for such a wonderful life, one I had hardly dared dream

about as a little girl in Brooklyn.

Okay, that “wonderful life” and “hardly dared dream” business

does cross the line into the shameless mush of Mommyland,

where “fulfillment” is all about children, not sex, and

where mothers are jealous of each new baby-shoe charm on

their friends’ bracelets. Feh.

Sure, sure: Sentiment proves you’re human. Feelings are

good, blah, blah, blah. But sentimentality, anything that could

go on a minivan bumper sticker, makes me cringe. Take this as

a given: Susan B Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten (i.e., me) was

never a Long Island madonna, one of those moms who carries

on about baby Jonathan as if he were Baby Jesus.

What kind of mother was I on that particular night? A happy

one. Still, it wouldn’t have taken a psychologist to read my emotional

pie chart and determine that the sum of my parts equaled

one shallow (though contented) human being. One third of that

happiness was attributable to the afterglow of the birthday present

my husband had given me two weeks earlier, a Cartier Santos

watch. Another third was courtesy of Lexapro (twenty milligrams).

A little over a sixth came from the pure sensual gratification

of being wrapped in a tea-green Loro Piana cashmere

bathrobe. The remaining sliver was bona fide maternal bliss.

Excerpted from As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs. Copyright © 2010 by Susan Isaacs. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.