Three Kinds of Resolution

Just, like, starting over

I.

The best argument my wife Emma and I ever had was late at night, maybe twenty years ago, when we were visiting her family in England. I have no idea what it was about, but we were awake with jet lag, having a whisper fight. Back and forth, across the pillows we went, staccato whispers at each other.

Emma got out of bed, spun a robe around herself, and stormed out of the room, shutting the door crisply behind her. She then tried to come back to say something else, working the knob. It’s an old house, and she’d somehow locked herself out.

The knob jiggled more and more insistently. She whisper-shouted, “You open this door right now!”

“Not a chance!” I whisper-shouted back, from the bed.

On opposite sides of the door in the semi-dark, we simultaneously burst out laughing.

When I opened the door to find Emma wiping laugh-tears from her eyes, I felt a deep and sudden recognition. Oh, right—it’s you. How could I have forgotten?

II.

Just like Beethoven dreamt up symphonies away from the piano, I have a gift for conjuring entire imaginary arguments with people in my head. Chords, melodies, everything.

I just know when I go downstairs, Emma’s going to give me a hard time about that thing I didn’t do. She’ll say this. Then, I’ll come back with how busy I’ve been, how these things always fall on me, and how unappreciated I feel.

I trudge down the stairs, feeling like some kind of argument-predicting genius. I find Emma on the far side of the kitchen, holding the kettle.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m making tea. Want some?”

“Oh,” I say. “I’d love some, thank you.”

Seeing her there with two mugs, pouring tea for us, I feel dumb. I have to come clean.

“Just before I came downstairs,” I say, “I had a pretend argument with you in my head.”

She laughs. “Did I win?”

“Yeah,” I say. “No doubt about that.”

III.

My parents didn’t speak to each other for the better part of twenty years. Their divorce in the late seventies was so vicious, my dad wouldn’t even say my mom’s name—for years! He called her that woman. They’d sit on opposite sides of the room at my school sports banquets, never looking at each other, and I’d shuttle between their tables. What in the world is more ridiculous than mortal enemies at a JV volleyball dinner?

When the grandkids arrived, these bitter enemies suddenly turned civil. Almost friendly. Seeing them posing together in a group photo, smiling in close proximity, felt to me like seeing an optical illusion, or a pair of rare, exotic birds. There they were, willingly, just a few feet apart.

A few years into this new and very decent arrangement, I spotted them on their own, in my dad’s living room. I approached quietly, leaning against the doorframe, unnoticed. They sat opposite each other on plush sofas across a low coffee table.

I immediately discovered, though, that they were each talking about entirely different things. My mom was wondering aloud about how common the name “Johansson” is in Sweden. My dad was talking about how much money is in Star Wars merchandising rights. They were going back and forth in this surreal, clueless exchange.

“Johansson is basically like Smith over there,” my mom said.

My dad nodded. “Imagine having just half a percent stake,” he said. “It’d be millions—maybe even billions!”

“It has to be the top Swedish name,” my mom replied.

“Oh my god,” I said.

“What is it?” my mom asked, startled.

“What are you two doing?” I asked.

She frowned. “We are having a conversation.”

“This isn’t a conversation!” I said. “You’re just saying random things toward each other.”

“Well, who put you in charge?” she asked.

“Nobody,” I said.

“That’s right,” my mom said, with a satisfied nod. They went back to it.

Through a wall of French doors behind them, the sun was dipping behind a towering eugenia hedge. These two former enemies whiled away the late afternoon, each taking their turn. I was transfixed. It was like watching two people in a park, one throwing a baseball, the other punting a football back.

As I lingered in the doorway, watching these people who are now both gone, I realized that maybe I was witnessing some kind of miracle. I can still see them there, becoming silhouettes together in the fading light.

It has to be one of the smallest, most ridiculous miracles ever, but it fills me all the way up with hope, just the same.