Free House of Wonder by Sarah Healy Page A

hasn’t seen Duncan very often over the past four years either.”
    I tried to smile. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”
    Despite his flaws, or perhaps in some cases because of them, everyone loved Duncan. When Duncan walked into a room, glasses were raised. “You’re Duncan Nash’s girlfriend?” people used to ask, and I’d proudly say that I was. When we first met, I was bartending to keep financially afloat after a round of layoffs at an ad agency I had worked for in New York. Duncan had an apprenticeship with a renowned English chef with a French name who was known equally for his skill and his vitriol. Duncan and some of the kitchen staff used to come into the bar to lick their wounds after their nights at the restaurant. They drained their drinks and admired their scars and mocked the chef whom they both revered and feared. Duncan did the best impersonation. “Motherfucking-cocksucking-stupid-American-cunt!” Duncan would quote in his best approximation of a British accent, his words sounding like a drumroll. I would listen and laugh with the rest of them, and Duncan would smile at me.
    Then one night, I walked out of the bar to find Duncan waiting for me. He was leaning against a telephone booth with his arms crossed over his chest and smiling, like ours was going to be a romance from a movie. And for a while, it was.
    Duncan was the first man besides my father to tell me that I was beautiful. He had snuck us into the pool at a posh hotel and as I came up for air after diving in after him, our whispers and giggles echoed around the dark room. I dipped my headback to let the water slide off my hair and I looked at him, only my head visible as my limbs circled under the surface that twinkled with the city’s lights.
    â€œYou know you’re beautiful,” he said casually, the words hanging between us until his hand skimmed the water, playfully sending a small spray into my face.
    When my father used to say those words, my mother would scold him. “Don’t tell her that,” I’d hear her whisper. “She’s so much more than that.” To my mother, beauty was a junk currency, one that lost its value almost as soon as you had finished counting it.
    When she was younger, I understood that my mother’s beauty was something to behold. “I was the first redhead to win Miss Texas,” she used to say proudly. “They were all blondes and brunettes before me.” One of the pictures still displayed on the wall by the stairs at 62 Royal Court was of my mother wearing her crown and holding an armful of flowers, her sash proudly announcing her new title. Her hair hung past her shoulders in thick, smooth curves and she had full, ripe cheeks that bespoke youth and health, and the ephemeral nature of both.
    When Duncan told me that I was beautiful, it didn’t come as a warning or a caution, but the most charming type of appreciation. Duncan was unconditionally charming. But the problem with a charming man is that everyone finds him so. And after several years, I started to notice something else, another ingredient that diluted the admiration with which people would ask if I was Duncan Nash’s girlfriend. It would take me years and a few very unpleasant discoveries to realize that it was pity.
    Then came the series of humiliating, tear-streaked arguments and the sort of theatrical relationship that plays well ontelevision and in the movies, but not in real life. Like most women, I eventually realized that love is supposed to be quiet, not loud. It’s supposed to make you feel whole, not broken. And like most women, I had to find this out the hard way.
    When I became pregnant with Rose, my relationship with Duncan was in its death throes. We said that we were “taking a break,” which is what men say when they’d like the option of possibly having sex a few more times, and what women say when they’re having