FROM THE ARCHIVE: An affair that didn’t happen, a long, long time ago

A lonely mother locked out of her car meets a handsome young engineer with a tool kit, ready to rescue her. He even plays the banjo.

Me at my desk in New Hampshire, sometime around 1990 during the “Domestic Affairs” years. Note the vintage of my Mac.

The essay below originally was originally published as one of my early “Domestic Affairs” columns. I was thirty-one years old at the time—married, with three young children.

This essay is not about an affair, in the conventional sense, but if the definition of infidelity might extend to not simply thinking about a partner other than the one you’re married to, but actively concealing all mention of your marriage, maybe this story qualifies as an admission of a certain kind of unfaithfulness. The emotional kind.

There’s a postscript to what I wrote back in 1985. I’m including that postscript at the end of this essay. Read to the bottom and you’ll find it.

But first, here comes the original story:

A NIGHT IN THE PARKING LOT

--from, “Domestic Affairs”, by Joyce Maynard, 1985

Early last winter (it was just before Christmas) my daughter Audrey, then age six, flew by herself to visit my mother in Canada. It’s a trip she’s made often, ever since she reached the age at which airlines permit children to fly alone (and, in truth, a little before then.) It’s a direct flight; my mother puts her on the plane, and of course either her father or I always picks her up at the other end.

This time she’d been gone about five days, and I was missing her badly. I couldn’t wait to see her coming off the plane.

This particular December day, I’d had a fight with my husband, S., a few hours earlier. I can’t even remember anymore what it was about, but I know my themes well enough that I can guess. He wasn’t talking to me enough. He had slept through all three times Willy woke up in the night. The only affirming words he’d spoken to me in two days had to do with my having taken the trash to the dump.

When I set out in mid-afternoon for the hundred-mile drive to the airport, we hadn’t made up. I didn’t mind the drive: I had brought with me a bunch of tapes of bluegrass music, and I was looking forward to listening to them quietly in the car, by myself, followed by a few hours of shopping in the city on my own before Audrey’s plane touched down.

At Faneuil Hall Market, I bought a few toys for the children—Christmas presents— and three dozen bagels for the freezer. Looking at my watch I realized I had cut things a little closer than I should have, but I knew there was enough time to pick up our car, drive to the airport, and be there when my daughter stepped off the plane. As I walked to the parking lot I actually said out loud--superstitiously--how lucky I was to have a daughter. This one in particular.

When I got to the car I reached into my purse for the car key. It wasn’t there. I checked again, then checked my pockets. I checked the ground around the car. I raced back to the toy store where I’d been shopping: no key. No key at the bagel stand either.

By this point less than an hour remained before Audrey’s plane was due to land. I knew the key might be in the car but it was too dark to see. Or it might be in the snow somewhere between the parking lot and the shops. But there was no more time to look. So I hailed a taxi and told the driver to take me to Logan airport, fast. I had only ten dollars left in my wallet. The fare came to five.

I got to Audrey’s gate with just five minutes to spare. I made a call to the Boston police, who told me they couldn’t get a car like mine open and started without seriously damaging the ignition, and in any case it might be a few hours before they could get around to me. I called my husband--told him what was happening, and explained that I’d be home late. After a day at home taking care of our two sons, he wasn’t particularly happy about this.

Then I caught a glimpse of Audrey, who was carrying an enormous box holding the Barbie Dream Carriage--her early Christmas present from her grandmother-- and a couple of shopping bags besides. I threw my arms around her and held tight. Then I explained about the car.

Neither of us had eaten dinner, so I handed my daughter a bagel. I knew we’d better use our last five dollars to get back to the car and try again to find the key, or –failing that—figure out a way to get our car open. It was around seven thirty by this time, pitch dark and below freezing, with a stiff wind.

At the taxi-share line I’d chosen—to save money—I spotted a friendly, kind-looking man around my age directly behind us, so I asked if he might like to split a fare. The man--Ned was his name--said sure.

In the cab, Audrey told Ned our story, leaving out nothing (not the bagels, one of which she offered to him, or the Barbie coach, or the name of our dog). And it turned out that this fellow was an engineer who’d just flown in to set up a machine he’d invented for MIT. Just our luck, his briefcase was full of miniature tools. The perfect size for getting a car lock open.

“I’ll come with you to the parking lot,” he said.

Audrey (always ready to make a new friend) jumped up and down on the seat, announcing, “ This is just great!” When we reached the parking lot I suggested she could wait inside the attendant’s booth, where it was warm and there was a television set, but she didn’t want to miss anything. So she sat on the hood of our Plymouth Valiant, bundled up in extra clothes she’d pulled out of her suitcase, and leaned over Ned’s shoulder munching a bagel while he laid out his tools on the roof and analyzed the situation.

With his special miniature flashlight beamed in through the windshield, Ned found out the keys were in the ignition. Then he took a coat hanger out of his garment bag, twisted it, and attached a screwdriver to one end. Then he attached some wire so he could maneuver the screwdriver, sort of like a fishing line, from outside the window. The whole thing became pretty elaborate.

It didn’t work. An hour had passed now, and my fingers were numb. “Maybe I should just leave the car and call a friend in Cambridge to pick us up,” I said. Audrey and Ned protested. “I’m going to get this thing open for you,” Ned promised.

He built a second invention. Audrey told him her long-time ambition--to be an inventor. He told her about inventions he’d cooked up when he was a kid.

We talked about all sorts of things while he worked on our car. He told funny stories about taking apart people’s stereos all the time, and Audrey told him about her trip to Canada. She mentioned what a good pie baker I am. He mentioned how much he loved pies.

I was aware, through all of this, of the fact that my husband’s name hadn’t come up, nor had any mention of his existence. I had a child, and obviously she had a father,but after a couple of hours, when the fact still hadn’t emerged that I had a husband back home (and two little boys, whose car seats were plainly visible in the back), it occurred to me that Ned might think I was divorced.

Ned was a really attractive man. Just the sort of person with whom--if I’d met him at the airport, before I met my husband--I would have been happy to have dinner. It was very easy and natural talking with him. More than that, it was exciting. He gave me his scarf and hat when he noticed I was cold. He paid attention to Audrey—really listened to what she said.

Now comes the part that ‘s hard to admit: That there came a point, somewhere along the line, when I began consciously avoiding mention of my husband and my two little boys back home. Not that I planned to head off into the night with Ned (and Audrey, and the Barbie Dream Carriage). Not that I planned anything more than a handshake or a hug, and maybe a gift to him later, in the mail , of some home-baked Christmas cookies. But I liked holding on to the image--for a few minutes anyway-that I was a young single mother being cared for, and , I supposed, courted by a dashing inventor who knew how to talk to children and told me I could make standing in a parking lot for two hours on a night with a windchill factor of negative ten degrees feel like the best time ever.

Twice, while Ned worked on our car, a couple of men came up to see if they could help. One of them even appeared, for a second there, to be making some progress with the lock. I thought I saw , when that happened, how much Ned wanted to be the one to get our car door open.

Which he did, finally, by taking off a window, using the coat hanger and some kind of odd miniature drill, to lower in a towel and remove four interior screws , in a procedure that was (as I told Ned) nothing less than brilliant.

My daughter is always up for a party. “Now we have to take you out to dinner,” she announced. “ To celebrate.”

It was ten o’clock by this point. I explained, with embarrassement, that we were out of money.

“Don’t be silly,” Ned told us. “This is my treat. And though I protested that we really had to get home, Audrey was starved and so was I. And I needed to warm up before the long drive home in a car with one window missing.

So we went to a restaurant that served enormous hamburgers, and Audrey had a sundae, and we all talked a lot more. I was surprised at how much there was to say that had nothing to do with my marriage and my family. Ned told us he couldn’t remember laughing more, ever. He asked me if I always wore my hair in those braids or let it down sometimes. And then, just after our second cup of coffee, I got up and said I’d better call my husband.

I saw the look on Ned’s face when I said that. Now it seems just about unavoidable to conclude that I was leading him on--toying with his affections, giving him reason to hope that things might turn out the way they would in certain highly romantic movies , where the man, the woman (a widow, probably) and the child walk off hand in hand and become, instantly, a family.

It was late. There was no danger, anymore, of my being misundertood. And Ned had been so kind to us, it seemed important to return the favor. So I told him I’d drive him to his hotel before we set out for the long drive home. When we got into the car and I turned on the ignition, my homemade tape of obscure bluegrass music clicked on, Ned shook his head.

“I never met anybody else who listens to The Dillards,” he said. It turned out he played banjo.

By the time I pulled up beside Ned’s hotel, Audrey was asleep. “Be sure and say goodbye to your daughter for me,” he said. I shook his hand and said, “If you’re ever in New Hampshire...” He picked up his briefcase and then closed the door very carefully, so as not to wake Audrey.

For some reason I cried all the way home.

The next morning, setting out for the grocery store with Charlie and Willy), I found , on the floor of the car, a package belonging to Ned, and called the hotel where he was staying. It turned out to be a crucial piece for the machine he was installing at MIT. I left a message that I’d send it Express Mail that day.

Ned called me back to give me the address. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “Do you ever get to Boston?” When not picking up my child at the airport, he meant.

He wrote to me once more, after that, saying his invention had earned a patent and he was coming back to MIT. He had some records he’d like to tape for me.

I didn’t write back.####

POSTSCRIPT:

At the time this essay was first published, I received hundreds of letters from readers all over the country—many of them married, like myself— telling me about their own versions of my Night at the Parking Lot story. The idea of a married woman, a mother of young children, admitting to having done what I did that night, definitely touched a nerve.

”What did your husband say when he read that column?” many wanted to know.

He never said anything. My husband didn’t read the newspaper columns I wrote. Maybe I actually hoped he’d read this one.

Over a dozen years later—divorced for a number of years by this time, and living with my now-teenage children in Northern California—a flurry of messages flashed over my computer screen.

“Check out your message board right away!” one woman wrote. Another was more specific. “It’s the inventor from the airport. The one with the tool kit. He’s back!”

So I checked out my online message board. (This was before the days of Facebook, but I had created a discussion forum that served as a kind of primitive precursor.) There it was, at the top of my screen, his note to me:

“You probably don’t remember this,” he wrote. “But long ago we met on a freezing snowy night at Logan Airport. I helped you unlock your car. I still consider that one of the happiest nights of my life.”

I wrote back to Ned. Not online, but privately. I told him I was divorced. Writing books. And yes, I remembered him well. Did he still play the banjo?

He lived in Virgina now, on a big piece of land in the country on a lake—a purchase made possible by the sale of the very invention he’d been demonstrating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the weekend we met.

“Before that night,” he wrote, “I never thought I wanted to have a child. Those hours we spent in the parking lot, and after, sitting with the two of you at dinner, talking with your little girl, made me realize how much I wanted to be a father one day.”

His own daughter waas five years old, he told me. Things hadn’t worked out great with her mother, but they were trying to make a go of it.

“It’s worth trying hard,” I told him, before I put the phone down. Then I put my head on my desk.

So that made two times when a kind and handsome banjo-playing inventor made me weep.