We opened a savings account and named it the house fund. I set up an automatic transfer of nine hundred dollars each month, timed for the morning after my largest paycheck cleared. Celeste said she couldn't commit to a fixed amount because her bonuses varied, so she'd contribute whenever a commission or incentive check came in. I said that was fine. To me the important thing was the destination, not whose contribution made the balance increase on a particular Tuesday.
Four years is forty-eight months. Nine hundred dollars each month comes to forty-three thousand two hundred dollars before interest, and the amount wasn't abstract to me. It represented weekends on top of roofs in freezing rain, overnight emergency calls at hospitals, and twelve-hour shifts inside loading docks where the heat from the equipment made the air feel wet. It represented choosing to repair my truck rather than replace it, and packing lunches rather than buying them. I was proud of those deposits in the quiet way a person is proud of keeping a promise to himself.
Celeste contributed, too, though not as consistently. Some months she transferred two hundred dollars; occasionally a bonus would bring in a thousand or more. Other months the account remained exactly where my automatic deposit had left it. I didn't keep a scoreboard on our refrigerator. I reminded myself that we were married, that paychecks in one household didn't need separate applause, and that generosity wasn't generosity if you used it as a weapon later.
The problem was that I had begun confusing not keeping score with not paying attention. There were times when Celeste booked expensive dinners or bought clothes while we postponed replacing the tires on my truck. If I asked whether something could wait until after a major bill, she said I was making her feel guilty for enjoying her own money. If I backed off, the atmosphere in the apartment recovered quickly. After enough repetitions, I started choosing that recovery before the conversation had even begun.
I noticed the change most clearly after my father died. Diane Okafor, the lawyer who handled the estate, helped me sort through insurance paperwork and the few things he had owned outright. Celeste came to the funeral, sat beside me, and held my hand during the service. But when the errands afterward dragged on for weeks, she became impatient with the time they consumed. I remember apologizing to her for spending a Saturday clearing my father's tools from his garage, then wondering later why I'd been apologizing at all.
None of that meant Celeste was incapable of kindness. She could be wonderfully attentive when someone was sick in a way that made her feel useful, and she remembered birthdays better than I ever could. If I came home with a fever, she'd buy soup and put a fresh pillowcase on my bed. If her sister needed help moving, she'd organize six friends before anyone else had finished reading the message. Those memories are important because the person I married was not a cartoon villain who woke up each morning searching for new ways to hurt me.
She was also someone who had grown accustomed to getting the final word. When she wanted a weekend away, she booked it first and discussed the price afterward. When I wanted to see my mother on a Sunday, she asked whether we couldn't do it another week. When we disagreed in front of other people, she had a habit of turning the disagreement into a joke about how practical I was. Everyone laughed, and I generally laughed too, because telling the room the joke hurt would have made the evening awkward.