Page 156 of Embracing the Change

“Like I said, not when shit is important. And you’re important, Nico.”

If Castellini had been anywhere near him in that moment, Jamie might have been moved to cut him gut to gullet at the look on Nico’s face when Jamie said that. Because it was clear Castellini had not made a point of being absolutely certain his son knew he was important.

Fortunately, that moron was nowhere near.

And Jamie had to pay attention, because Nico was talking.

“Okay then, straight up, it’s like she thinks she married a different guy. The longer I’m with her, it’s like she hates everything about me.”

Jamie nodded again.

“She has a real problem about class,” Nico informed him.

“I’m sorry to say, that wasn’t lost on me.”

Nico flinched. “Did she say something to you to make you uncomfortable?”

“Not personally. But I wasn’t a fan of the digs and looks she gave Nora.”

He watched Nico’s jaw bulge, sharing he wasn’t big on that either, before he pointed out, “I mean, I can not be rich. It’s doable, obviously. I can give away my trust fund. I can ask Mom and Dad to disinherit me. But that’s fucking lunacy.”

“It is,” Jamie agreed.

“She cares about everything. At first, I thought that was incredibly cool. She reads The Times religiously. She knows how senators and congresspeople vote. But she spends a lot of time up in her phone, watching these TikToks that serve no purpose but to piss her off. I’ve told her she’s feeding into the algorithms, and seeing stuff that only sounds in her personalized echo chamber, without getting any alternate perspectives, but she doesn’t listen. I’ve asked her to stop, or at least cut back her screen time, and, I don’t know, maybe spend some time with me. She says she will, then she doesn’t, and our lives are permeated by what she consumes. One day, we can’t eat at Chick-fil-A. She reads something, the next day, we can. And that’s with everything, Jamie. Everything.”

Jamie could imagine that would be very frustrating.

Nico continued, “And, a month ago, she said she wanted to leave the city. Move to Vermont. Use my trust fund to buy some cabin or something. Plant a big garden. Slaughter our own pigs and chickens. I mean, slaughter our own meat, for chrissakes.”

Jamie grew up on a ranch. The circle of life was not lost on him.

That said, he liked his steak, but he’d never slaughtered an animal and he had no desire to do so.

“This Vermont full-time idea is out the blue,” Nico told him. “She never hinted at wanting to leave the city. She told me she loves it here. She can go to protests. She can go to poetry readings. All that shit. Now, she wants to raise pigs and figure out how to make our own Oreos organically and go off the grid. It’s freaky.”

Jamie leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “No one stays the same. We all grow. Mature. Change. And sometimes, if you’re in a couple, when you do that, you grow apart.”

Nico nodded, right before he shook his head.

“I think she’s always been like this. I think I was like…one of her causes. This poor little rich boy she can show the way. But, serious to Christ, there’s only so many times a man can listen to a woman shouting at him because he forgot to clean out a Ziploc when he’s just done.”

Jamie sat back, saying, “I can imagine.”

“I feel like a fucking failure,” Nico mumbled.

“You aren’t. It happens. It would be a fail if you knew it was over, if you ignored the red flags, and you gave more of your life to it.”

“I kinda married Mom, except the not-funny, totally not-self-aware, naggy, judgy flipside of Mom.”

At that, Jamie smiled a soft smile.

Because he’d married his mother too.

In Rosalind.

Loving, generous, kind.

His last woman was all his pick.

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