After almost twenty-three years of having a partner – thirteen of which we’ve been husband and husband – I rarely had occasion to see a Broadway show alone. That’s one of the comforts of being with Andy that I’ve never taken for granted. So it was unorthodox and unfamiliar to be attending a Friday night performance of ‘Beetlejuice’ at the Citizen Opera House in Boston completely on my own, with an empty set holding only my Burberry coat and the Playbill. It was even more strange, and ultimately sad, to be there on my own at the start of our anniversary weekend.
Before I met Andy, this would not be such an unusual circumstance. One of my favorite things to do when I was going to Brandeis was to escape the mind-numbingly dull trappings of campus life and take the train into Boston to see the newest movie release. The shows before noon were usually at a discount, and I could make a large popcorn into a very satisfying brunch and not worry about eating again until dinner. Sitting there with a small spattering of attendees, I felt relievedly alone and isolated, left to my own devices and happy to be so unbothered. There, in the dark, I didn’t worry about the social anxiety that plagued me in the light of day, when people made encounters at best wearying and at worst highly stressful. I didn’t realize at the time that it was ok to embrace such solitude, that it was ok to be alone, yet as much as it was a relief to me, it also came with its own set of neuroses.
Sitting by myself in the Opera House, as the purple and green lights slowly raked the audience while menacing Tim Burton-like music made a macabre joke of my situation, I remembered those movie days but found no comfort in the memory. My husband was not with me. I’d driven to Boston alone. It looked like we would spending our wedding anniversary weekend without each other.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, if anything can even be planned as ‘supposed to be’ anymore. I’d scheduled our anniversary weekend in Boston – an annual tradition from the time we were officially married on May 7, 2010 (with the exception of the COVID year 2020, which we still honored, albeit it in our upstate NY backyard) – with reserved dinners at Mariel, No. 9 Park, and Rare. The surprise gift was a pair of tickets for the musical version of a movie that Andy loved – ‘Beetlejuice’ – which was playing that very weekend. Planning went back months to get the tickets and dinner reservations, and I thought everything was set, until the morning we were set to depart, when Andy decided to pick a fight before we were even out of bed.
Andy usually gets in a mood right before we go on any trip or vacation – he’s always been that way, and I’ve learned to accept it and go with the flow so as not to make it worse. On this morning, with all the stress and awfulness of the world, I foolishly decided to engage and argue. Now, this was a mistake on several levels – the main one being that I’d entirely forgotten that there was a full moon and Mercury was in retrograde.
For many years, I’ve made it a point never to argue or fight during such tremulous times; it never ends well, and usually ends up in a bigger blow-up than would ever be warranted under saner circumstances. I forgot about that then, and in the end I wound up driving to Boston on my own, while Andy stayed home. Even the reveal of tickets to the show as his gift wasn’t enough for us to calm down and disengage, and so it was that I found myself sitting beside an empty seat, utterly unable to enjoy the spectacle and riotous laughter as ‘Beetlejuice’ made for a fun theatrical romp for everyone other than me.
After the show, I walked back through Boston Common, winding my way to the Public Garden where we’d been married thirteen years ago. It was where I always ended up when I found myself in doubt or worry, and on this night, as the heart was heavy, and the head wondered where we had gone wrong, I followed the full moon and realized what we had done. What I didn’t know was how deep the damage had gone, and whether we’d find our way through it. What I did know was that the world was always off when we weren’t getting along, and the notion of a life without Andy was something that filled me with dread and sorrow and an emptiness I understood would never quite be fixed.
Pausing on the footbridge of the Boston Public Garden, I watched as the clouds parted, revealing the full Flower Moon – that meddlesome, beautiful bringer of mayhem and madness and aptly-named lunacy. I checked my phone for a text or call from Andy, and there was none.
Beneath the full moon, the garden was gorgeous. Haunted and forlorn, but gorgeous…
