Baby proof

a comfortable numbness. You always hear that it's not healthy to repress emotions like this, but whenever I watch Ben skate on the surface of sadness, coping like a champ, I can't help feeling envious. I have never been able to shut down that part of my brain. I think of last year when Ben's cousin and best friend, Mark, was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer. Ben remained stoic, almost defiant, throughout the whole ordeal, even when that phone call came in the middle of the night with the news that Mark was gone.

As Ben climbed back into bed after that brief conversation with Mark's mom, I asked if he wanted to talk. Ben shook his head before turning off the light and whispering, 'Not really. There's not a lot to say.'

I wanted to tell him that there was a lot to say. We could talk about Mark's way too short but still full life. We could talk about Ben's boyhood memories of the cousin who always felt more like a brother. We could talk about their days at Brown, each of them passing up their first-choice college so they could go to school together. We could talk about the end, how painful it was watching Mark slip away. We could talk about what would come next, the eulogy I knew Ben had been writing in his head for weeks.

But Ben said nothing. I remember sensing in the dark that he was wide awake, so I stayed up, too, in case he changed his mind and wanted to talk, or at the very least cry. But he didn't cry. Not that night or the next day. Not even at the funeral when his beautiful eulogy brought everyone else to tears.

It took six long months for Ben to break down. We were standing in the cereal aisle in Fairway when he picked up a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats, a look of sheer devastation on his face. I didn't have to ask what he was thinking about. He made it home and into our bedroom before I heard that strange, scary sound of a grown man stifling sobs. When he emerged, a long while later, his eyes were red and puffy. I had never seen him like that. He hugged me hard and his voice cracked as he said, 'I miss him so fucking much.'

'Not that I'm comparing our breakup to Mark's death,' I say after I tell her the story.

Jess nods and says, 'I know. But if you guys really do breakup, it sort of will be like a death.'

'Yeah. Especially because Ben and I don't do that 'stay in touch with exes' shtick,' I say. 'If this is over, it's over. I don't want to be Ben's friend.'

Jess sighs and then says, 'Well. Maybe it's not over.'

'I really think it is, though,' I say. 'Just think. It took Ben six months to really face the fact that Mark was gone. By the time he lets himself miss me, it'll be way too late.'

Jess looks worried, which makes me think about the second reason Ben is suffering less than I am. This one I don't share with Jess. I have never said it aloud-or even written it in my journal. It is something I have always been aware of on some level, but have not allowed myself to dwell on. Until now, there wasn't any point in addressing it.

The reason is this: I am pretty sure that I love Ben more than he loves me. I know he loves me a lot. I know he loves me more than he loved Nicole or anyone else. But I still think I love him more. It's one of those things you never know for certain because there's no way to enter all the relationship data in a computer and have it spit out a definitive answer. You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can wind up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality-the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom-almost never-an even proposition. Someone always loves more.

In our relationship, that person is me. With some couples, it can switch back and forth. But in the beginning, middle, and end of ours, I think I've consistently loved him more. Ben would tell me I'm being ridiculous-but if somehow he were forced to answer honestly, I think he'd acknowledge the truth of my claim. I think he'd also agree that it has nothing to do with our merits as people. I think we're roughly equally smart, successful, funny, and attractive, which seems to comprise the Big Four in the crass business of mate comparison. I am Ben's approximate equal and have always felt secure, confident, and worthy. But still. I happen to love Ben slightly more, which has the effect of making you fear losing someone more than if it were the other way around.

Which brings me to another point. I think I have always had the misguided sense that worry and fear serve as an insurance policy of sorts. On a subconscious level, I subscribe to the notion that if you worry about something, it is somehow less likely to happen. Well, I am here to say that it doesn't work like that. The very thing you fear the most can still happen anyway. And when it does, you feel that much more cheated for having feared it in the first place.

five

Sowwow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall-the blind belief in fate, the whole 'things happening for a reason' drill.

But my personal favorite defense has always been anger, with its trusty offshoots of self-righteous indignation, bitterness, and resentment.

I remember the first time I realized that people turn to anger in sad times. I was in kindergarten, and Jimmy Moore's dad had just died of a heart attack while lugging their Christmas tree in from the garage. A few weeks later, my mother and I ran into Jimmy and his mother in the grocery store. I peered at Jimmy from behind our cart with morbid curiosity while my mother asked Mrs. Moore how she was doing. Mrs. Moore shook her head and clenched her fist. 'I'm so furious at God right now,' she said.

Jimmy and I exchanged a glance and then cast our eyes down. I think we were both startled. And I know I was a little scared. I hadn't heard of anyone having a bone to pick with God. It seemed like a dangerous thing to be doing. I also remember thinking there must be something very wrong with Jimmy's mom for feeling anything other than pure, unadulterated grief upon her husband's death. Anger didn't seem like it should have been part of the equation.

But about six years later, when I was eleven, I learned how closely the two emotions are aligned. That was the year that my mother had an 'alleged' affair (she still denies it) with my elementary school principal, Mr. Higgins. I steadfastly maintain that short of being orphaned or severely disfigured, it is about the worst thing that can happen to a fifth-grader, particularly when you're the very last person in the school to hear about it. I never had any illusions that either of my parents was perfect, as I frequently compared them to the ideal parents in books. I wished that my father were a little more like Atticus Finch, and that my mother would occasionally behave like Ramona Quimby's nurturing, understanding mother in my favorite Beverly Cleary books. But overall, I was happy with my parental lot. I appreciated the way my father always took us to do fun things on the weekends, rather than doing yard work or watching football like the other dads in my neighborhood. And I was proud of how beautiful and funny my mother was-and how much my friends admired her fashion sense.

And for the most part, I didn't think too much about my parents one way or the other. Most kids don't. If things are going well in life, parents are more of a backdrop and safety net than central characters who, say, take center stage during recess. Which is actually what happened on the playground one day when Chet Womble, a boy I hated for his nose-picking and name-calling, decided to break the big news of my mother's affair via chalk graffiti. He drew two large stick figures, complete with some vivid male-female anatomy, and the words CLAUDIA'S MOM DOES MR. HIGGINS. (The video cover for Debbie Does Dallas had just been passed around the cafeteria the week before, so even without Chet's clever graphic, there was no confusion about the word does.)

I remember staring at my mother's loopy, lopsided boobs, then desperately trying to rub out my name with my heel, all the while thinking that no matter what, I would never get over it. I had become a pathetic victim in a Judy Blume novel (although, at that moment, I would rather have been 'Blubber' than my mother's daughter).

It didn't help that Chet was suspended for a week or that very few people saw the drawing before it was hosed off by a janitor. All that mattered was that upon one glimpse I knew in my gut that it was true: my mom was, indeed, doing Mr. Higgins. The pieces came together for me in a rush of shamefaced horror: my mother's sudden and uncharacteristic flurry of volunteering at our school; the care she took applying lipstick during carpool, followed by her excuses to come in the building with me; the fact that Mr. Higgins knew my name and seemed to go out of his way to smile and greet me in the halls.

The night of Chet's stunt, I went home and somehow made my way through my homework and a particularly horrible chipped beef dinner. I debated on when exactly I should confront my mother, and saw some merit in doing