“Our state cannot be severed; we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself." —John Milton, Paradise Lost 

I woke up early the next morning and went running. Afterwards, I called Kevin.

"Hi, it's me. I saw this movie last night about an Iranian couple with a baby. The husband was mad at the wife because she wanted to study English, but then she realized he was scared she was leaving him, and it wasn't just the fact he was a fundamentalist Muslim."
"Who did you go to the movies with?"
"Another artist. We're driving to Abiquiu tomorrow. He's a painter."
"You went out with a painter to the movies?"
"Yes, but he's just a person in the colony who was going to the movies."
"Is he married?"
"Why would that matter?"
"You leave your son and husband to go gallivanting to New Mexico. It matters."
"No one is gallivanting! What does that even mean? I'm totally alone here and working all the time."
"Unless you're going on movie dates with a painter."
"For god's sake, don't you trust me?"
"I don't trust him."
"That's insulting, Kevin. I'm not some idiot girl."
"What does he look like? Bald, fat, old?"
"He's gorgeous. Seriously, he's completely gorgeous. I'm hanging up." I hung up.

Driving to Abiquiu, my mind circled the idea of being left. My parents were constantly leaving me and my sisters while they toured Italy or Ireland or drove west to stay for an entire month in New Mexico, leaving us with our grandparents. Kevin had traveled for work while I had remained static, stoking those proverbial home fires, welcoming him back with eagerness to hear his stories of the outside world, a magical place free of bottles, diapers, and mundane domestic problems. I had little to tell him about: bottles, diapers, nonsense conversations, coffee with other mommies exiled to baby land while he spoke of terrorists, political negotiations, and staying in nice hotels. I bored myself, so how could I expect Kevin to be enthralled about the tiny world I now inhabited with an incoherent, temperamental being who found dust and his own toes fascinating?

Helen insisted on the back seat, which made sense as Scott’s legs were as long as Helen's entire body, but I  picked her up first, hoping she might want to sit in front. Fortunately, Helen talked constantly, lessening the tension between Scott and me, a tension made worse by my sense that I was being watched closely, Helen seemed oblivious to it all until we had nearly reached Ghost Ranch. There was silence, and then she stuck her head into the front space.

"Hey," Helen said. "What's the matter with you two? Did you sleep together last night or something? You know Molly's married, right?" Instead of responding with something witty and dismissive, I blushed deeply and muttered, "Shut up, Helen!"  Scott remained silent.
"Oh, my god!" Helen said. "Did you two fuck?"
"No!" we both shouted.
"Well, maybe you should." Helen sat back. "I feel like I'm out with my parents after some huge argument."

I was holding the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles were white. I felt Scott looking at me, and then his hand touched my leg. The place where his hand rested burned. "I'm starving," I said.
"I could eat," He took his hand away.
"There's an awesome café back in town." Helen stuck her face back between the seats. "I'll give you directions."

The café was seriously cool, with Leonard Cohen on the stereo, handmade, weathered furniture, weavings and pottery for sale, and a tattooed woman behind the counter who greeted us with a smile and menus. I have always felt that crushes are ridiculous, based on something you project on another person, something that is probably imaginary. In seventh grade, I had a crush on Jay Pollan, who spoke in monosyllables and rode a minibike in a pleather jacket his mom bought him at Korvette’s. In eighth grade, it was a boy in my math class so high on drugs his eyes were nothing but pupils. In ninth grade it was Jeff, who also barely spoke but was very cute. In tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade, I cherished a massive crush on a boy, so obviously gay it was almost funny if it wasn't sad. I invited him to dinner, made a quiche, drank a bottle of wine, and took off my shirt, causing him to flee without a word.

When I stopped drinking, my crushes were a strong repudiation of my former criteria. I no longer cared if the person was handsome but fell hard if they seemed spiritually fit. This led to moving into a Buddhist monastery, desperately in love with the head monk and a fling with an ex-priest with odd ideas about sin. Kevin represented a return to handsome and successful.

Back at Ghost Ranch, I attempted to keep Helen between me and Scott. Still, Helen wanted to take pictures of odd things, bits of walls, the footprints left by a wandering cow, edges and angles. At the same time, Scott had a different approach, pausing to look at vistas that Georgia O'Keefe had used in her paintings, telling me stories about how O'Keefe had lived with Alfred Stieglitz in New York, where he photographed her naked. They managed to exist side-by-side as artists.

"Did they have children?" I asked, staring at a canvas depicting a cactus in bloom.
"No," Scott said.
"Too selfish. Artists make terrible parents."

I felt his arm on my shoulder and then a swooping, stooping kiss on my lips. It happened so quickly I didn't react. It was a soft, light kiss, furtive and fast, so it seemed like my imagination, but then the aftermath, the burning awareness of being touched, my longing to be touched again, my fear and guilt about breaking my marriage vows even though I hadn't done anything and anyway, my mother claimed Kevin had married me in City Hall because the Catholic Church would not recognize a civil ceremony. "You aren't really married," my mother said. "Not in the eyes of the church." 

Did the church have eyes? Did a kiss in the desert of New Mexico signify unfaithfulness? I snapped at my mother that seventy-two hours of hard back labor meant we were married. "Oh, that," my mother said. "That doesn't mean anything." There was cruelty in this conversation, masquerading as concern, but it was malice. Was your mother supposed to be malicious right after you had a baby?       

After the kiss, I fled up the side of a steep hill and walked quickly down a dirt road. I felt like a badly behaved heroine in a Hardy novel, someone who committed follies and was condemned for wearing too many ribbons in her bonnet. Indeed, it was folly to kiss a tall, Canadian artist who looked like Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans while your saintly Midwestern husband sold the family house, and your child cried himself to sleep wondering why his mother was gallivanting in an artist's colony. Except I was sure Luke wasn't crying as he had his pretty cousins who adored him and his father close, and I'd never wanted that stupid house to begin with.

By the time I reached the car, I felt calm and resolved, deciding there was something about the air surrounding Abiquiu, the spirit of a naked Georgia O'Keefe and her much younger lover after Stieglitz had died, an air of sex and art that made a person behave with a lack of social norms. But what was the social norm of falling madly in love with a stranger? What was the social norm of recognizing your husband was bored with you, grateful for the child you had incubated but treating you in a way that forced you to flirt with a ridiculously charming and handsome artist? It had to be Kevin's fault, or I was a terrible human being.

"Where did you go?" Helen was standing beside Scott, so small beside his great height that she looked like a miniature person with a giant camera. "I turned around, and you were scrambling up that precipice as if a tiger was chasing you."
"The bathroom," I said. "Also, there was a wasp." I needed to stop talking.
"Did it sting you?" Helen shuddered. "I hate stingy things."
"No," I said. "I was too fast."

We got in the car. Within a few minutes, Helen was snoring quietly. Scott put his hand back on my thigh.
"Look," I said, "you need to stop."
"Stop what?"
"Touching me. Everything. Just stop."
"I can't help it. You're very touchable."
"Don't say that!"
"Why not?"
"Because it isn't true. It isn't appropriate. Also, I don't like it."
"Liar."
"I bet women melt at your touch."
"Sometimes. What's wrong with that? Babies die if they aren't touched.”
"Oh, don't throw that AIDS babies shit at me. Nobody's a baby the last time I checked. Find someone else to paw."

He didn't move his hand. I felt enraged. I remembered a horrible history teacher I had in middle school who'd seduced my best friend. His wife had stabbed him in the hand with a fork. I wished I had a fork. Then I realized it was nice to have Scott's hand on my leg; it was a beautiful hand that painted beautiful pictures. Georgia O'Keefe wouldn't be this self-righteous, and she would never stab such a good-looking man with a fork. Helen woke up and stuck her head between the seats. "I sense something is going on between you two," she said. "Something sexy." Scott laughed while I remained silent.

I tried returning to my novel but found myself doodling hearts and flowers (the two things I could draw), resisting leaving the casita, the heat of my body drawn to the cool evening of the desert. What had I done? Had I done anything? Odd snippets of my Catholic grandmother's comments came into my head, impure thoughts, acts of contrition, venial sin. I recalled a venial sin was less grave than a mortal sin, but that mortal sin might include adultery. Was imagining sex with someone adultery? It didn't feel like this physical manifestation of desire was much of an issue, but the idea was seriously wrong.

Trying to think my way through these ideas was exhausting, but I didn't trust anyone enough to share my quandary. Then I remembered I hadn't thought about Luke for hours, and each time I tried to summon up his round cheeks and sweet forehead, they were replaced by the firm jaw, chiseled cheekbones, and gray green eyes of the Canadian.

"Devil mother," I said to myself, sleepless. I tried to arrange my past lovers chronologically but failed, starting again by locating them geographically but also failing. Catherine had called me “the man magnet" because of the quantity of boyfriends I had from the years graduating from high school to when I left college and beyond. When I met Kevin, it was easy to forget how much I had once depended on the male gaze to assure me I had a purpose. I had become self-sufficient, although I still secretly wanted to be that object of men's desire. My therapist attributed this to my relationship with my father and my longing for his attention.

Just before dawn, I rose from bed and put on my sneakers. The air was cool, almost cold, and the streaks of light on the horizon slashed the midnight blue of the desert sky with vivid streaks of orange and red. The moon was setting, the stars fading, and the sun rising when I reached the peak of a Taos hill and sat on the curb. Thinking about Scott and our conversation about relationships and art made me happy, a feeling that had proved elusive in the period after Luke's birth.

"My marriage is in trouble," I spoke aloud to a jackrabbit standing on its hind legs, looking at me without blinking. "I am a terrible wife."

The jackrabbit dropped down to four paws as if this confession had made its balance go awry. "I am in love with a Canadian artist." This wasn't entirely true, but I liked how it sounded.

The jackrabbit reared back up, twitched its ears violently, and then disappeared into the hill. I stood and walked back down the hill, resisting knocking on Scott's door, but instead went to Valerie's casita, where I saw a light burning in the kitchen window.    

"Good morning," Valerie said, opening her door. She looked like a Bloomsbury-era Bohemian with a silk dressing gown belted over what seemed to be a Victorian nightgown, her hair pinned up messily. "You're sweaty."
"I was running."
"Water?"
"Please."

Valerie did not have a dozen photographs of her partner and child pinned on her wall. Instead, she had an assortment of black-and-white postcards with authors and artists like Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Picasso, Willa Cather, and Georgia O'Keefe.

"I think I dislike Georgia O'Keefe," I said.
"Ghost Ranch wasn't fabulous?"
"No, it was fabulous. But O'Keefe is an acolyte to sex and self-indulgence and 'oh here's my vagina pretending to be a flower,' and she didn't have any children, and if she did, she was probably an awful mother."
"No doubt," Valerie said. "I seem to remember that Stieglitz discouraged motherhood. I don't think she was anyone's mother. You dislike her for that?"
"It's probably guilt masquerading as criticism."
"Helen said watching you and Scott was like watching tango dancers, a giant magnet pulling you two closer."
"She was asleep most of the time. How would she know?"
"Are you?"
"Tango dancers? Absolutely not. I can't even square dance."
"In love?"
"I just met him, Valerie! And I'm married."
Valerie's eyebrow arched and rose. "The last time I checked, marital status had no effect on desire."
"I'm not looking for an affair."
"Maybe an affair found you."
"Stop. Why don't you or Helen sleep with him?"
"I'm too old, and Helen only likes girls, although she said if she were suddenly struck straight, she'd jump on that immediately. Anyway, let's change the subject. Come to meditation with me. The Ksitigarbha Buddhist Center has a free community sit at nine. The people are nice. And they have awesome chai."
"Can I change?"
"No need."
"I'm sweaty and grubby."
"No one cares, but you have to get there on time. "
"You're still in your pajamas!"
"This is a dress as well as a nightgown." Valerie shed her bathrobe, pinned her hair more securely, pushed her feet into flip-flops, and picked up her huge tote bag. "Let's go!"

Sitting in the main hall of the Zendo with twenty strangers was comforting. I counted my breaths and gradually my mind slowed and I experienced several seconds of calm. Towards the end of the calm period, it was as if I was trying to hold a door closed that was being forced open. First I thought about my father and the last time I'd spoken to him, the night before I left for New Mexico. Usually, my conversations with him were brief as my mother snatched up the extension and began to speak while my father quietly hung up.

My mother wasn't home this time, so after discussing the weather and the misery of keeping the house clean enough to sell, my father cleared his throat and said, "I'm glad you're taking this trip to New Mexico, Molly. You must keep writing."
"Kevin doesn't think so."
"Does he expect you to rot in Dallas getting your hair done, teaching undergraduates how to describe a landscape while he gets to be an important journalist?"
"You think I'm rotting?"
"I think you're being a mother and a wife. But you're also a writer. A good writer."
I resisted the impulse to ask for more. "How is your writing?"
He didn't answer for a long minute. "Since your sister died, I've failed to find anything worth writing about. Life is shades of gray."

I held my breath. Would we discuss Catherine, a forbidden subject since my mother refused even to say her name as if by denying her existence, she could ameliorate the terrible loss?  I had forgotten the sound of my sister's voice. I had worn out my answering machine tape with Catherine telling me how to find her house. I could barely remember the sound of her laughter or how to inject life into the photographs I had filched from my parents' albums. My sister's camera face was a study in non-expression. My memory of her presence was fading while her absence remained sharply outlined.

I thought about my last night in Dallas, the house packed to move, Kevin's rigid back in bed, the silence and the anger. Unable to fall asleep, I finally went into the living room and curled up on the too-small couch. Dead mommy versus bad mommy seemed like a draw, but then I went into Luke's room and lay down next to his crib, listened to his deep breathing, and felt sure I was making the right decision.

Allowing the thought of Luke to enter my brain was a mistake. I opened my eyes as the bowl was struck, and for a moment before my eyes focused, I saw a roomful of babies, big-eyed, chubby-cheeked, slack-jawed babies looking at their fat baby toes.

"Did that help?"
"No. I should leave."
"Molly, you don't have to sleep with him. Just write."
"I can do that at home."
"Here, have some chai."

And then I saw him. He was sitting on the arm of a chair talking to one of the impossibly pretty, skinny residents of Ksitigarbha Buddhist Center. The girl appeared to be wearing someone's lace curtains, which once would have been a possible fashion choice for me, but that ship had sailed. Rags and baby doll dresses made me look like a member of a cult or one of the Beales. I could still get away with very little makeup but needed a decent haircut and tailoring.

"Whom is he talking to?" Valerie was leaning forward on her cushion.
"One of the Buddhists. Of course, he's speaking to her and not some overweight ex-poli-sci major from a small Ivy League school like that guy over there." I gestured towards a middle-aged Allen Ginsburg wannabe wearing sandals and a white robe.

"Chai?" Smiling down at me was a very tall, pretty girl wearing a sari. Although there was a bindi on her forehead, she failed to display anything else related to an Indian heritage. I smiled back. Who was I to condemn this girl for cultural appropriation? She probably came from a wealthy, agnostic household like mine and was simply seeking refuge with a guru. How could I judge anyone after my sojourn in the Buddhist monastery?

I had replaced alcohol and drugs with AA. Maybe this exquisitely pretty girl needed something to make her feel less alone and helpless. The western wall of the house was glass, and the mountains were bathed in sunshine glowing purple. Everyone in the room, even the wannabe Alan Ginsburg guy, looked beautiful.

"He kissed me."
"Scott?"
"No, the guy who bags the groceries. Yes, Scott. He leaned down like I was a child and kissed me. I wanted him to. I need to tell Kevin."
"Don't tell Kevin!"
"I feel awful."
"You want him to feel awful?"
"Shouldn't I be honest?"
"Marriage requires an affinity for omission. Omit criticism of your spouse. Omit describing your dreams. Omit admitting to anything. Don't lie. Omit."

"Hi." Somehow, he had managed to move through the people crowded around the pot of chai to appear at my elbow.
"Oh, hey," I said. "Look, Valerie, Scott's here." Valerie was having an intense conversation with one of the Buddhist students and did not turn around.
"Hey, let's get some breakfast.
I shook my head.
"C'mon." Scott slipped his hand into mine, and a shiver traversed my spine. We walked outside and sat down. He let go of my hand, which was a relief, but I also felt sad. "How's the writing going?"

I didn't answer. It felt better to stare at the stars than to describe how little I had managed to write since the Abiquiu trip. Before I could blame the baby, the malls, my absent husband, or the house, but now I had been given the ultimate opportunity, time and place, and silence, but all I wanted to do was sleep with the Canadian or, failing that, consume large amounts of chocolate.
"Let's eat. Eating is good."

We walked into the town center, entered a café, and sat down.
"I need an AA meeting."
"Does that help?"
It was an innocent enough question, but I couldn't help but think that Scott had no idea of the rat's nest in my brain, the stored memories, ideas, fantasies, and resentments. "Yes," I said.
"Do I make you want to drink?"

Everything and nothing incite the same response: someone turns off the lights, stamps my passport, and lets me go. I understood Eurydice's return to the Underworld. I understood Anna Karenina's decision to fling herself in front of that train. The decision to end everything was seductive but out of reach. Surviving was an ongoing state. Some people called me a phoenix because of the quantity of ashes produced by my spectacular fall from grace. Yet, I was never close to grace, never free of the haunting that finally became overwhelming when Catherine died.

"No," I said. "You make me want to get naked." I stood and walked back to my casita.

—Molly Moynahan