couldn’t take the pressure. I was practically hospitalized after the first year.” He laughs to make it sound like a joke, even though it’s fairly close to the truth. After dropping out, years before we met, he’d spent the summer living with his mother in his old bedroom in New Hampshire, the one with a twin bed and airplane wallpaper, and decided to go back to music, his true passion. If not for his anxiety, which got more and more debilitating, he would have had an amazing career, I’m sure of it.
“And a year after that he opened for Aerosmith!” I say super enthusiastically, citing his résumé highlights from memory, since aside from a few grainy old videos, pre-iPhone quality, I’ve never seen Gary perform live in a big venue. Except for small bars and coffeehouses, he’d stopped playing with his band before we met, and I’ve always wished I had known that version of him.
“Our band did,” Gary corrects.
“Dude! Impressive!” Nick says.
“It was a long time ago,” Gary says, changing the subject. Reminiscing always makes him uncomfortable—how does he explain to people what happened to his promising future, how does he square the present with the past, when he barely understands it himself? “I’m in snacks now. Ordering, stocking, and restocking beverages and crunchy, chewy, salty, and sweet nut and protein bars. It’s a low-pressure job. Relatively. Unless you run out of Kind bars right before the four o’clock rush.” He pauses, then lowers his voice to an intense whisper. “But I do miss playing sometimes. I went to hear a band last week and I was like, man, I want to do that again someday.”
“Last week?” I’m confused. “Before or after couples therapy?”
There’s an awkward silence.
“You guys go to couples therapy?” Teddy asks, inching into the living room.
Gary sighs. “Thanks, Judy.”
I turn to Teddy. “We just go once in a while. For maintenance. Like going to the gym.”
Teddy’s eyes narrow. “You guys fight all the time, so I don’t think it’s working.”
Everybody laughs, and Teddy’s face relaxes, brightens. Even adolescents love the power of cracking people up.
“We do not!” Gary says.
“You’re scaring the People Puppets, Teddy! Now they’re not going to want to stay here!” I turn to Nick and Phoebe. “We absolutely do not fight all the time, I swear! Plus we have a great dog!”
“We love dogs!” Phoebe says.
“Not that any dog care will be required, since, as you can see, I’ve got that covered.” I hug the dog through the cotton, then stick my hand inside the sling for a calming hit of fur. Yum.
“As you can see,” Gary says, “Judy wears the dog.”
Nick and Phoebe shrug inside their giant costumes. “That’s cool. That’s cool,” Nick says. “Everyone has their thing.”
“It’s a long story,” Gary explains, “which I’m sure Judy will eventually tell you—she tells everyone at some point.”
“Because I’ve worked past my shame.”
Gary nods. “Yes, she’s worked past her shame.”
“Shame was very big in my family.”
“Shame is big in everyone’s family, Judy.”
I ignore Gary. “I used to be embarrassed about the sling but I’m not anymore. This may not be who I am forever but it’s who I am right now.” I have no idea what I’m talking about. (“Professional social workers ‘meet people where they are’ and so should you: how self-acceptance is the secret sauce of self-help.”)
“We certainly hope it’s not who you are forever!” Gary says, elbowing me lightly.
“But it’s who I am right now,” I repeat. (“Looking for a life anthem? Edie Brickell FTW: ‘What I am is what I am.’”)
“Indeed it is.”
The bird on my head has a bird on its head, which I take as my cue to stand up and head toward the kitchen. “How about a house tour?”
* * *
I won’t lie: it feels strange to have giant costumed characters in our house, knowing they’ll soon take over the snoring room, which will force Gary and me to share a bedroom again, albeit temporarily. The sound of their hoof-shoes on the wood floors, the way the fabric of their oversize clothes catches on doors and stair banisters, how they need to bow their papier-maché heads under light fixtures and entry moldings: it’s what I do all the time, too, I realize now. Maneuvering the sling in stairwells and around furniture, I’m always conscious of my width in tight spaces and squishing the sling when necessary—and this ability to navigate daily life encumbered by such a protrusion suddenly feels like an actual skill, one I could list