What Happened Is, What Happened Was

Rae is standing near the ruins in Tulum. Blue skies, green grass, palm trees. The heat like a friend – it warms her. P. takes a picture then asks her to turn— no, the other way. She squints into the sun as happy travelers, other families, walk by. It’s more crowded than she thought it would be; she looks at everyone in their ease and wonders how they do it.

P. doesn’t want to walk any farther. At the entrance, he’d decided they didn’t need to pay for a guided tour, and he didn’t want to buy the self-guided booklet. Now, Rae has to guess what she is looking at: stone walls and walkways, a temple, a trading post. Sales or sacrifice? She should have done more research. P. says they can follow along behind another tour being given in English, just blend in and she decides to laugh it off – ignoring the part of P. that is devious or cheap or both.

They walk a few more steps before he stops and says, “Too hot. Let’s go.”

Rae catches the urgency in his voice – like a tear at the bottom of a grocery bag. It starts small. She’s learning to note his tone. When they first started dating, his directness, his surety, was comforting. Here was a person who knew what he wanted. Who directed her across busy city streets, picked places for dinner, decided what to order.

Each Sunday they went to the same brunch place, and ate the exact same thing. She didn’t see it as a problem. A quirk, maybe, after the fifth identical meal. An oddity after the eighth. She stopped suggesting alternatives: what about the French toast for a change? The avocado omelet? No. Pesto Scramble and Belgium waffle only. They split both so he could have half of each. What she liked, what she preferred to eat, became less important than what he liked. She set herself aside. It was years before she ordered French toast for herself.

It’s good, right? You like it, right? P.’s need for reassurance after every meal came later. Rae hadn’t been raised to say no. The best compliment her parents gave her was that she was agreeable. Teachers, too. Easygoing. Amenable.

“Come on,” P. says now, stepping out of the sun into the shade of the mangroves. He takes off his baseball hat and wipes the sweat from his forehead. “Ready?”

He isn’t asking. This much Rae understands now – a year in. The question as statement.

Before her, the walkway and further on, the steps. She wants to know the story of the place. She wants to touch what she can.

“We just got here.”

P. didn’t panic on the trip from San Francisco to Mexico. She had worried about his moods since the morning they left: getting to the airport, through security, into the cab and down to Playa del Carmen. Checking in. He held it together. That’s the way she has started to think of him – as either intact or apart. Is it nervousness, anxiety? Whatever the underlying emotion, it erupts instantly into anger. If she can keep things calm, she does.

If.

“What else is there to see? We’ve seen it.”

Stones and stones, steps. She wants to go through the pathways, take the trail to the ocean view, listen to the way the wind whistles through, imagine it as it was, when it was. What? She doesn’t know enough of the history, but she wants at least to absorb the energy of the past. He would laugh if she said that out loud to him.

“Here, have some water.” She takes the bottle of water out her backpack and hands it to him. “We can go swimming after.”

The place they’re staying has a pool, but P. hasn’t gone in yet. The beach is a block away. It’s crowded – with lounge chairs and umbrellas inches apart. For tourists. You pay for a seat, pay for a towel, pay for a drink. P. has spent each evening on the hunt for the perfect al pastor taco. Rae follows him through the streets – walking a little behind him. He likes it that way.

The last time Rae was in Mexico she was with Castle. It was spring break – their last year of college. They made a point of staying away from touristy places like this and spent their days instead swaying in hammocks by the ocean, dipping in to float and swim, reading, dozing. No one else was around except for the one time a group of kids canoed in – on some kind of field trip or campout. The kids stayed for a few hours and then rowed back out. Castle and Rae were the only guests at the modest place. The owners and their family had a litter of black puppies rolling around. At night, Rae and Castle ate at the restaurant down the beach: black beans and avocado, a Pacifico with lime. They slept in two twin beds under a whirring fan. The shower had only two temps: scalding hot or cold cold cold. They didn’t mind. Castle got up early to write in her journal and sketch the puppies or the palm trees. They talked together when they felt like it, stayed silent when they needed to. It was one of Rae’s favorite trips; if she was still talking to Castle, they would talk about it, she’s sure. The quiet of it. The comfort.

P. turns back toward the parking lot.

“No. I’m leaving.” He is resolute and even though Rae was raised not to make a scene, she decides not follow him. Coming all this way only to take a photo from a distance is not why she is here.

Why is she here?

He will ask her to marry him in three days. And she will hear the ocean in her ears – like she is going under, tossed underwater, hit by a wave and she will think maybe this is what love is. Maybe this is what it’s supposed to feel like. She will tell him yes even as her body recedes. She will recognize it as discomfort and doubt herself.

She walks away from him. Why shouldn’t she get to make a decision? Why shouldn’t he do what she wants for a change?

Sure enough, when she gets to the first bend, she sees him huffing toward her, bent forward. In anger.

When he reaches her, he comes up behind her on the trail. Seen enough? Seen enough yet? Like a child. He is so close he steps on her heels intentionally, the seam of his anger no longer taut, now breaking open, spilling out.

She will learn to wait for it – his breakage. After their daughter Mona is born, she will learn to balance it – each day like a tenuous walk back from the grocery store – on foot, still blocks away, holding a bag full of breakable items. Things she needs for dinner that night or lunches that week. Slowly pacing her steps, in fear of the tear growing bigger – splitting open to the point that she is left on the sidewalk juggling an armful of sauce jars, eggs, milk bottles ready to smash and crack, leaving a mess for everyone to see.

He ruins the ruins for her – and then blames her for it. On the ride back to the hotel, he says he told her so. It wasn’t that great and not worth the sunburn. Look at her shoulders. That’s gotta hurt.

It hurts, she says. But not only the burn. They have four more days together and already it feels like there is a box inside her chest where she has to store her breath. Stuffing in air. Holding/withholding.

That night Rae follows P. around looking for another street vendor selling al pastor.

What happened is. What happened was.

He tells her to stand here – no, there – for a picture in front of a building with weathered pink paint and a peeling aqua door. Behind her, the sun is setting, and the light is a golden stream. There is beauty in it, and she wants to hold onto that part of the day.

“Smile,” P. says. “No, look this way.” He is trying to capture something that isn’t there.

What happened is. What happened was.

Years later, a marriage counselor – an older woman, with a careful hairstyle and matching lipstick and nail color – will tell Rae if her marriage is going to work, she has to start seeing it differently. You need to see him differently, she said, pursing her lips together and clicking her tongue a little. There was a pointed look. It felt like a challenge. Rae forced herself to meet the counselor’s gaze and nod in agreement.

What happened is. What happened was.

She couldn’t do it.