Abby had gone to the same college as her brother. When she graduated, she’d moved into her sister’s former apartment. In each case it had felt like stepping onto a treadmill that was already in motion, where the journey was preordained. Meeting Mark again; falling in love with him, felt like a variation on that theme, the natural next step. Here were the answers to the questions about what she’d do with her life, and who she’d do it with. Here was an approved path forward, with clearly delineated stops along the way. Easy and comfortable. Meant to be.
It hadn’t taken long—especially not with a pandemic-accelerated timetable—before Abby began spending two, then three, then four nights at Mark’s place, which was bigger than her apartment, not to mention fully furnished, with a large, flat-screen TV that got all the premium streaming services （Abby was still using her parents’ passwords when she wanted to watch Netflix or HBO）。 She’d brought a toothbrush over one night, then a few pairs of underwear. Mark had given her a drawer in his dresser and, more importantly, a shelf in the refrigerator for things she wanted to eat that he couldn’t, insisting, bravely, if not entirely convincingly, that she was welcome to keep any food she liked in the house. Abby knew that he meant it… but, after seeing him carefully relocating her ice cream to the very back of the freezer one too many times, or noticing the way his lips would thin when she ordered pasta at a restaurant, she’d decided it was better to keep her treats back at her own apartment.
Abby’s father had invited them for Thanksgiving the first year they dated. He’d hosted a big, casual buffet for his children and their spouses and significant others, plus all the strays and orphans from his synagogue. Abby had reintroduced Mark to her siblings, whom he’d met, years ago, at her bat mitzvah, along with Simon’s wife and Marni’s husband and Abby’s new stepmother, Shira. Abby had found them seats at the table. She’d fixed Mark a plate of skinless turkey breast and plain unbuttered sweet potato, and tried not to feel sad when she saw him taking a double portion of green bean casserole, then carefully extracting each bean from the mushroom béchamel sauce and fried onion topping.
Abby’s mother had hosted them for Chanukah that December. “You remember Mark,” Abby had said sweetly, knowing there was absolutely no chance her mother would recognize her formerly larger boyfriend.
“Mark! Of course!” Eileen had said warmly. Then she’d cut her eyes at Abby, as if to say, He got skinny. Why can’t you? Abby had been forced to put an extra dollop of sour cream onto her latkes as revenge.
Then Mark’s parents had wanted to meet Abby, which meant a late-December trip to Long Island and a night of very quiet, surprisingly hot sex in Mark’s boyhood bedroom, on a squeaky twin-size bed, underneath a poster of the Islanders. They’d kissed on New Year’s Eve at midnight, as 2021 became 2022. In the spring, they’d gone away for a long weekend to Jamaica, and that summer they’d rented a place with one of Mark’s doctor friends and his wife for two weeks at the Jersey Shore.
“Do you think you and Mark will get married?” Izzie asked. Izzie and Howard were both doctors, who’d been married for two years.
“I’m not sure,” Abby had said. By then, she was almost positive that Mark wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Abby could certainly imagine it happening. She was happy with Mark. But, somehow, she wasn’t in a hurry to bring that day closer.
Their second year together had unfolded in much the same manner. Abby spent three or four nights a week at Mark’s place, and she liked being there, but was always happy to come home, where she could keep whatever she wanted in the refrigerator, and nobody chided her when she left the toothpaste uncapped. She and Mark would go for walks together, but he ran by himself, and she rode her bike without him. They discovered a mutual passion for putting puzzles together, for taking long walks to different neighborhoods, and they binge-watched all six seasons of The Americans and all seven seasons of Mad Men.
Abby had worked hard to improve her self-esteem, to arrive at a place where, if she couldn’t love her body, she could at least feel neutral toward it, and exist peacefully within it. But she wasn’t blind, or ignorant of the way the world perceived her. Mark was one in a million; the kind of man with whom any woman, big or small, beautiful or ugly, would be happy to spend her life. He was handsome and hardworking, he was steadfast and kind, and being his wife would mean that Abby would never want for anything, or have to feel aimless or adrift. She was lucky to have him; lucky that, of all the girls in the world, Mark had picked her. And maybe she should have been in a hurry to lock it down, to demand that Mark put a ring on it, which she knew he’d be happy to do. But things were already so good. Why change them?