The Rosie Effect

35

I booked my ticket online on the way back to the apartment. Only full-price tickets were available, but they had the advantage of being refundable. Rosie was notoriously disorganised, but in important matters such as international travel she overcompensated by arriving early. I hoped she might not have passed through security by the time we arrived. Rosie did not have the ‘special’ status that I had been awarded by the airline as a result of past contributions, so could not access the airline lounge. I would text her if necessary to find her, but did not plan to warn her.

We stopped at my apartment to get my passport.

‘You don’t need it,’ said Gene. ‘It’s a domestic flight as far as Los Angeles. You can use your driver’s licence.’

‘I don’t have one. It expired.’

‘Aren’t you taking anything else? I’d pack a bag, just in case.’

‘I’m only going as far as the airport.’

‘Just throw a few things into a bag.’

‘I can’t pack without a list.’

‘I’ll tell you what to pack.’

‘No.’ I was reaching a stress limit and Gene must have sensed it.

I retrieved my passport from my bathroom-office cabinet. I would use the travel time between the apartment and the airport to solicit advice from Dave and Gene. It was critical to optimise my argument before I saw Rosie. I realised that there was an opportunity to improve the advisory panel. On the way out, I visited George and he agreed to join us.

I sat in front with Dave. Gene and George sat in the back seat.

‘What are you going to say to her?’ said Dave.

‘I’m going to tell her she made an error on her spreadsheet.’

‘If I didn’t know you so well, I’d think you were kidding. All right, I’m going to play Rosie. Ready?’

I supposed that if Sonia could imitate Rosie, there was no reason why Dave could not. I looked out the window to avoid being distracted by his anomalous physical appearance.

‘Don, I’ve thought of something I missed on the spreadsheet. You snore. Five points off. Goodbye.’

‘You can use your normal voice. I don’t snore. I’ve checked with a recorder.’

‘Don, whatever you say, I’ll find something else to put on the spreadsheet because it’s only there to convince you I’ve made the right decision.’

‘So you won’t come back no matter what I do?’

‘Maybe. Do you understand what you did that made me leave?’

‘Explain it again.’

‘I can’t. I’m Dave. You explain it to me to make sure you understood it.’

‘I was doing things that you could do already, only in an annoying way.’

‘Right. You were in my face all the time. The toughest thing for fathers is to find a role. For me, it’s being the breadwinner.’

‘You want to be the breadwinner? I thought you wanted to look after the baby, then get a research job.’

‘I’m being Dave now. You’ve got to work out where you fit. What position you play. She thinks she doesn’t need you. There’s only one relationship in her mind now: her and the baby. That’s biology.’

‘You’ve been paying attention,’ said Gene.

One relationship. Our relationship had been usurped, superseded, rendered obsolete by the baby. Rosie had what she wanted. Now she didn’t need me.

‘This must happen with all relationships,’ I said. ‘Why don’t all relationships split up?’

‘Groupies,’ said George. ‘Seriously, you’ve got to find your own way. None of my relationships was ever the same after the first kid.’

‘Give it six months,’ said Gene. ‘It gets better.’ Gene seemed to have chosen a timescale that supported his argument, like a populist denier of global warming. Obviously his marriage was now in a worse state than six months after the birth of Eugenie. But he had recently resumed contact with Carl. It seemed reasonable to conclude that happiness in marriage was not a simple function of time, and that instability was part of the price of an improvement in overall wellbeing. My experience was consistent with this.

Dave added: ‘What you’re supposed to do is take the load off your wife so she has time for you. Do the washing, vacuum the house. That’s what everybody says. Everybody who’s never tried to run a business.’

‘Sonia can take responsibility for all paperwork,’ I said. ‘Hence freeing you up for relationship-enhancing activities.’

‘I can run my business,’ said Dave. ‘I don’t need help from my wife.’

‘I reckon if your wife offers to do the books for you,’ said George, ‘you say, “Thank you very much,” and do the bloody vacuuming, and when you’re done you use the spare time for a well-earned bonk.’

Dave did not speak again until he pulled into the drop-off zone. ‘Do you want me to wait?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s more efficient to catch the Airtrain.’

‘No carry-on, sir?’

The security officer (estimated age twenty-eight, estimated BMI twenty-three) stopped me after I had passed through the scanner without incident.

‘Just my phone and passport.’

‘Can I see your boarding pass? You checked a bag?’

‘No.’

‘You’re going to LA with no bags?’

‘Correct.’

‘Can I see some ID?’

I gave him my Australian passport.

‘Step over here, sir. Someone will be here to talk to you momentarily.’

I knew what momentarily meant in American.

In the interview room, I was conscious of Rosie’s flight time approaching. Fortunately my interviewer, a male (approximately forty, BMI twenty-seven, bald), dispensed with formalities.

‘Let’s cut to the chase. You just decided to go to LA, right?’

I nodded.

‘You didn’t have time to pack underwear, but you remembered your passport. What do you plan to do there?’

‘I haven’t made plans yet. I’ll probably fly home.’

After that, they performed a thorough inspection of my clothes and body. I did not object because I did not want to waste time. It was only marginally more unpleasant than my routine check for prostate cancer.

I was returned to the interview room. I decided it might be helpful to share further information.

‘I need to join my wife on the flight.’

‘Your wife’s on the flight? With the bags? Why didn’t you say so before?’

‘It would have added complexity. I’m frequently accused of providing unnecessary detail. I just want to board the plane.’

‘What’s your wife’s name?’

I provided Rosie’s details and the officer made a confirmatory phone call.

‘She’s checked through to Melbourne, Australia. You’re not.’

‘I wanted to accompany her on the flight. To maximise time with her.’

‘You must enjoy talking to your wife more than I do.’

‘That seems probable, since she and I chose to be married and you haven’t met her.’

He looked at me oddly. It was not the first time. ‘Your flight’s on final call. Better move your ass. There’s a new boarding pass for you at the gate. They’ve done a seat switch so you’re beside your wife.’

The gate lounge was empty: Rosie was already on the plane. My only option was to board also.

She was surprised when I sat beside her. Extremely surprised.

‘How did you get here? What are you doing here? How did you get on the plane?’

‘Dave drove me. I’ve come to persuade you to return. I purchased a ticket.’

I took advantage of her silence to begin my argument, which, thanks to Dave’s advice, did not begin by identifying the sunk-cost error on the spreadsheet.

‘I love you, Rosie.’ It was true but probably sounded out of character.

‘Did Sonia tell you to say that?’

‘Correct. I should have stated it more often, but I was unaware of the requirement. However, I can confirm that the feeling has at no time disappeared.’

‘I love you too, Don, but that’s not what it’s about.’

‘I want you to get off the plane and come home with me.’

‘I thought you said you had a ticket.’

‘I purchased it only to enable me to access the airport.’

‘It’s too late, Don. My ticket’s non-refundable.’

I began to explain the sunk-cost fallacy. But Dave was right about the spreadsheet.

‘Stop, stop,’ Rosie said. ‘The spreadsheet was just to show you I’d thought about it rationally. There’s a whole bunch of other things—things I can’t quantify. I told you, there’s someone else.’

‘Phil.’ The 34 had been visible on his football shirt in photographs on the wall of Jarman’s Gym.

Rosie looked embarrassed, or at least I assumed that her expression was one of embarrassment for deceiving me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was your father?’

Rosie was provided with additional thinking time by a loud cabin announcement that was not compatible with conversation.

‘We’re just waiting on three passengers from a connecting flight—’

‘I wanted to make it easier, simpler.’

‘By inventing an imaginary boyfriend?’

‘You invented an imaginary me.’

It was possible that Rosie was offering a deep psychological insight, or she could have been referring to Sonia. It was irrelevant.

‘You’re replacing me with Phil, world’s worst father.’ This was not, of course, my current view of Phil, but it reflected Rosie’s comments prior to their reconciliation. Accuracy was not my priority right now.

‘I guess he must have been,’ said Rosie. ‘Look how I’ve turned out. A mess who can’t make a marriage work and is going to be a single parent like he was.’

Repeating patterns. One rainy morning, after Rosie had rejected my first offer of marriage, I had ridden to the university club to try again, as I was trying again now. But on that occasion I had a plan—a better plan than the sunk-cost fallacy.

Three passengers walked down the aisle.

‘The plane is about to depart,’ I said.

‘So you have to get off,’ said Rosie.

‘There are numerous reasons for remaining in New York.’ I was improvising, not giving up, though I knew that the probability that Rosie would be convinced by anything I could think of now was minimal. ‘Number One is the prestige of the Columbia medical program, which—’

‘All electronic devices must now be switched off.’

It was probably better for my sanity that Rosie stopped me.

‘Don, I so appreciate what you’re trying to do, but think about it. You’re not really engaged with this baby. Not emotionally. You’re engaged with me. I believe that, I believe that you love me, but it’s not what I need right now. Please, just go home. I’ll Skype you as soon as I arrive.’

Rosie, unfortunately, was essentially correct. Claudia was right about her motivation and no rational argument would change her decision. Bud was still a theoretical construction in my mind. I could not fool Rosie that I was emotionally configured as a father. I pushed the call button. A flight attendant (male, estimated BMI twenty-one) appeared almost instantly.

‘Can I help?’

‘I need to get off the plane. I’ve changed my mind about flying.’

‘I’m sorry, we’ve closed the doors. We’re about to taxi.’

The man sitting in the aisle seat next to me offered his support. ‘Let him off. Please.’

‘I’m sorry, we’d have to unload bags. You’d delay the flight for everyone. You’re not ill, are you?’

‘I don’t have bags. Not even carry-on.’

‘I’m truly sorry, sir.’

‘Passengers and crew please take their seats.’

In retrospect, it was the realisation that if I had claimed to be ill I would have been let off the flight that pushed me to the line between sanity and meltdown. It came on top of the stress of the previous day’s life-threatening emergency, my failure to save my marriage, administrative incompetence and gross invasion of personal space. One more deception, a small deception, and I could have walked off. But I had reached my limits in all dimensions.

I couldn’t walk away. I was being prevented from walking away.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I visualised numbers, alternate sums of cubes behaving with predictable rationality, as they had before humans and emotions, and as they would for all time.

I was aware of someone leaning over me. The flight attendant.

‘Excuse me, sir, would you mind bringing your seat fully forward for take-off?’

Yes, I would fucking mind! I had already tried and it was broken, and the almost zero probability that it would make any difference to anyone’s survival…

I breathed. In. Out. I did not trust myself to speak. I felt the steward reaching across my neighbour, jiggling my seat as the meltdown began, and the seatbelt prevented me from moving. I could not let this happen in front of Rosie.

I started my mantra, steadying my breathing again and keeping my voice toneless. Hardy-Ramanujan, Hardy-Ramanujan, Hardy-Ramanujan.

I don’t know how many times I said it, but when my mind cleared, I could feel Rosie’s hand on my arm.

‘Are you okay, Don?’

I was not, but the reason had reverted to the original problem. And I had a further five hours to find a solution.