“Mama wasn’t yelling at you.”
His teary eyes twinkle instantly and he reaches for a big, pastel, stuffed block.
Why Manhattan?
What kind of business?
“Don’t throw that block, Tyler.”
He throws the block.
I pick it up and put it firmly on his tray.
“No throwing.”
“Gote-dee-doo.”
“I know it’s fun while you’re doing it. But if you throw, you won’t have any toys to play with when you’re done.”
Business? I thought he didn’t even have a job.
Tyler throws the block again.
“I’m not picking that up, mister.”
Can seeing me possibly be the business he has in Manhattan? Or is it just a coincidence?
Tyler throws a rubber ball.
“That, either,” I say wearily, sitting on the floor and resting my head in my hands. I rub my eyes.
Why didn’t he mention that he was coming to New York when I saw him last week? Is it a last-minute thing? Maybe he was going to mention it but I didn’t give him a chance. After all, I ran away.
Something soft and jingly grazes my shoulder on its way to the floor.
“Stop throwing, Tyler.”
“Glah-bee-dot!” is Tyler’s gleeful response.
This is the week of the twenty-second.
Maybe he’s already in the city, waiting for me.
Does he actually think I’m going to call him?
There is no way I’m going to call him. Absolutely no way, I think, just before a wooden-rattle-turned-missile strikes me squarely in the forehead.
“Ow!” I yelp. “You little stinker!”
Tyler bellows in dismay.
“That hurt Mommy!” I scold, wincing as I touch the rapidly swelling spot above my eyebrow.
My son is now sobbing pitifully.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him guiltily. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a stinker. You’re sorry, too, aren’t you?”
He cries harder, his little lower lip vibrating with intense emotion.
“Shh. I know you didn’t mean it, sweetheart. We never mean it when we hurt the people we love. Sometimes we just…we just can’t help it.”
I pick him up and rock him, but I’m crying too, bitter tears that have nothing at all to do with the painful lump on my forehead.
thirty
The past
“You didn’t break up with him.”
“No,” I said flatly in response to Mike’s question that wasn’t really a question. “I didn’t break up with him.”
He sipped his beer and I sipped my gin and tonic, thankful that we had both opted for drinks instead of coffee.
“Are you still in love with him?” he asked, returning his mug to the paper coaster so violently that white foam sloshed over his hand. He didn’t wipe it off; didn’t even seem to have noticed.
“I don’t know.” I handed him my cocktail napkin. “But he’s moving to New York.”
“For you?”
“For a job,” I said with a shrug, then looked him in the eye and admitted, “and for me.”
“So that’s it, then? You’re back with him?” He seemed incredulous, the unused napkin poised in his beer-covered hand.
I shrugged, feeling like a complete and utter fool.
“That’s what you really want, Beau? To be with him?”
“I don’t know what I want, Mike.”
Oh, yes I did know what I wanted, I realized, looking into his eyes. I wanted him.
Just as fervently as I’d wanted Mike last night.
I was torn.
Torn between two lovers…
Feeling like a fool.
A giggle escaped me.
I don’t even know where it came from. I mean, I was already well aware that there was nothing funny ha-ha about this.
But there it was, and I couldn’t hold it in.
“Did you just laugh?” Mike asked, looking even more incredulous.
“No!” I said, and another giggle promptly burst forth.
“You just did it again,” he accused, clearly hurt. “You’re laughing.”
Yes. I was. I was laughing. I gave up and gave in to another wave of mirth that was bordering suspiciously on maniacal. But I couldn’t seem to help myself.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the gin, or the stress of the moment, but all at once it seemed hilarious that my life could be summed up by an ultracheesy decade-old Mary MacGregor song.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.
“I can’t…explain.” I reached for his cocktail napkin, since he was still holding mine, and wiped tears from my eyes.
Not the kind of tears you cry when you’re about to break somebody’s heart, but the kind of tears you cry when you’re laughing hysterically.
“Try me,” Mike said, watching me. Those dimples of his were nowhere in sight, and somehow, I knew an attempted explanation wouldn’t bring them out of hiding.
“You wouldn’t get it.”
How could he, when I didn’t even get it myself? I heaved a sigh, trying to get hold of my unruly emotions.
“I’m sorry, I just…something just struck me funny. But…” I exhaled again, forcing myself to look at him. “I’m over it now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” I nodded somberly, remembering why we were here.
The lyrics to the sappy old song were still running through my head, but suddenly, they didn’t seem comical at all.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
He didn’t respond.
He just looked at me as though he didn’t believe I was sorry at all.
But I was. For laughing. For everything.
“I was going to break up with him last night.” I needed desperately to make him understand. “I really was. I was going to tell him all about you. I mean…about us. You and me. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have a chance before he—”
“Told you he was moving back?”
“Yeah.” God, this was brutal. “I just never thought he would do that.”
“Which means I was just your backup plan, huh? You were just keeping me around so you wouldn’t be alone if he did move.”
“No! You weren’t my backup plan. You were…I mean you are…really, really special to me.”
His dark eyes were filled with doubt.
“You have to believe me, Mike. I love you.”
The words spilled from my mouth as easily as the laughter had moments before.
And I meant them. Truly, I did.
Mike just looked at me and shook his head sadly.
“Mike, please,” I said, touching his arm. “I do love you. I just…I think I still love him, too. I can’t help it.”
“You can’t love two people at the same time.”
“But I do.”
“Well, you can’t,” Mike said again.
Yep, as the song said I was torn between my two lovers…
How had that ever struck me as amusing? It was tragic, that was what it was.
“You have to choose, Beau.”
He was right. I knew he was right.
I wiped tears from my eyes with a crumpled cocktail napkin.
Not the kind of tears you cry when you’re laughing hysterically.
The kind of tears you cry when you’re about to break somebody’s heart.
thirty-one
The present
Two days have gone by since I got back home to Mike—and to Mike’s e-mail.
I didn’t respond to it, if that’s what you were wondering.
Partly because I figured he wouldn’t read it right away, anyway, since he’s in New York. Unless he has access to a computer and e-mail. Which he very well might.
But I’m not going to rush into a response…if, indeed, I’m going to respond at all.
The main reason for that, I’ll admit, is that Mike is home this week, all week. Home on vaca
tion, underfoot every second of the day—not in a bad way, really. Just…here. There. Everywhere. I’m afraid that if I even dare to sit down at the computer again, I’ll turn around and find him looking over my shoulder.
So I stay away from the computer.
But I don’t stay away from Mike.
My husband, Mike.
Truly, there’s something kind of nice about having him home.
Except when it sucks.
It only sucks when he and I disagree about how to handle disciplining one of the boys…or Melina, who’s due this afternoon to clean.
But when everybody is behaving themselves, Mike is upbeat and helpful and as handy as Bob Vila. Mikey’s school picture has been hung at last, the kinks are out of the garden hose, the broken oak limb has been transformed into firewood and neatly stacked behind the shed.
Now he’s working on the pipes under the stairs, where the new half bath is going to go. And I hate to admit it, but I’m almost glad he’s doing this instead of taking us on a fabulous New England beach vacation.
“I can’t believe you know how to install a bathroom,” I comment, peeking into the former closet to see him clanging away at a pipe.
“It’s not hard,” he grunts. “You just have to read the manual.”
“That’s what I always say about cooking,” I point out. “But you still refuse to give that a whirl.”
“When you learn how to install a toilet, I’ll learn how to make a pot roast.”
“Fair enough.” I set a glass of homemade lemonade on the floor by his leg.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I thought you might be thirsty.”
“You’re kidding. Lemonade?”
“It’s no big deal,” I say, flashing a serene B.-Smith-meets-Betty-Crocker smile. “Just squeeze lemons, add water, sugar and ice.”
“Are you giving me the recipe so that I’ll make some for you someday?”
“Maybe.”
“You haven’t made me homemade lemonade in years.”
It’s something I used to do with him back in the old days…the newlywed days. Back then, I loved to surprise him with lemonade, or his favorite oatmeal-raisin cookies hot from the oven, or spaghetti sauce made from scratch instead of poured from a jar.
I remembered that this morning for some reason, and felt guilty for too many synthetic cheese dinners from a box.
I watch him guzzle half the glass of lemonade, then make the same whispered “ah” sound both Mikey and Josh always make upon quenching their thirst. That brings another smile to my face.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, just…the boys are so much like you.”
“Of course they are. I’m their daddy.”
“I’m glad,” I tell him, and I mean it.
At this moment, all is right in my little world at long last. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that I married the right person, or that I did the right thing when I ran away from Mike on the beach last week.
I’ve built a life with this man. We’re family. How could I even think that somebody else could possibly measure up?
“You look glad,” he says, watching me. “Really glad. What’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just…you seem so happy all of a sudden.”
“And you seem to be spending an awful lot of time gauging my moods all of a sudden.” It sounds pricklier than I’d intended, so I smile brightly to show him that I’m just kidding around.
“I guess that’s because they’ve been swinging so wildly it’s hard not to notice.”
“I guess it’s just PMS,” I tell him, because when you’re a woman you can blame a lot of stuff on hormones without arousing suspicion.
“Yeah, that’s what Jan said.”
“What?” My jaw drops. “You’re analyzing my mood swings with your secretary?”
“Not analyzing. Just…discussing.” He’s wearing the same expression Josh had yesterday when I caught him aiming one of his Blopen markers at a pile of clean laundry.
“I can’t believe you would talk about me behind my back,” says the woman who kissed another man.
“I’m sorry. I was just upset about it. And…worried.”
“Worried about what?”
“I don’t know…I felt like maybe you were having a midlife crisis.”
“Midlife crisis?”
“Or maybe it’s menopause.”
“Menopause?”
“Jan said you’re old enough to—”
“My age is none of Jan’s business!”
I can hear Tyler starting to cry in the next room, where I left him on a blanket surrounded by toys.
“Calm down, Beau. You just woke up the baby.”
“He wasn’t sleeping.”
“Well, then, you scared him with all this shrieking.”
“Shrieking?” I shriek.
“I’m sorry.” He puts down the lemonade, comes to stand in front of me, and reaches out to pull me into his arms.
I try to squirm away. “I have to go get the baby.”
“Come on, Babs. Don’t—”
“Please don’t call me Babs.”
“Why not?”
“Because I hate it.”
“I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid of hurting your feelings.”
“I’m not hurt. You should have told me.” He’s still holding me close. I can’t see his face, but I know it’s not angry, and that I have no business being angry, either. Not really.
How can I be angry? He cares about me. He’s worried. He’s looking for answers.
“I’m sorry,” I say. For what, exactly, I’m not certain. But it isn’t a lie.
“It’s okay.”
“And thank you.”
“For what?”
I hesitate. “For the toilet.”
He laughs. So do I.
I pull back and look up at him. “I’m serious,” I say. “It’s going to be great to have another bathroom.”
“Yeah…and after it’s done, we’ll hire somebody who will actually clean it.”
I don’t say anything to that.
I can hear Tyler still fussing in the next room.
“Beau…”
“I know.”
“I’m just reminding you. You have to fire her when she gets here today.”
“I will. Just not today.” I take a step back, as far as I can go in this tiny space without bumping into the slanted ceiling beneath the stairs or stepping into the open toolbox on the floor. I no longer want to be in the circle of his arms. “I have to go get the baby.”
“It has to be today,” he tells me. “You promised.”
“No, I didn’t. I said I’d fire her, but I never said today.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t,” I volley right back, not caring that we sound maddeningly like Mikey and Josh.
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I said I’d fire her and I will. I’ll give her a few weeks’ notice, and—”
“You think that if you give her a few weeks’ notice, she’s actually going to clean anything in those few weeks? Why would she, when she’s never bothered to clean in the past?”
“Well, I think it’s the humane thing to do. She’s a mother with children to feed in another country.”
“I’m a father with children to feed in this house. This filthy house.”
“Oh, please. It isn’t ‘filthy.’ It’s just a little dusty.”
“It’s filthy. And if Melina had done her job right in the first place, she wouldn’t be losing it.”
“I can’t believe you’re so coldhearted, Mike.”
“And I can’t believe you’re such a sucker for a sob story. Where are you going?”
“To get the baby,” I say, already in the hall. “And then, maybe out for a while.”
“Out, where? Out with the baby?”
“No. Out alone.”
??
?You can’t do that. What about the kids?”
With that, this camel’s back snaps in two.
“You’re here,” I snap. “You watch them.”
“But where are you going?”
He follows me into the living room, where I step over the oblivious Mikey and Josh sprawled in front of Cartoon Network, and pluck a crying, squirming Tyler from his blanket. His tears and his drool are streaked with orange.
“What’s all over him?” I ask his brothers, sniffing the orange goop.
“Cheese Nips,” Mikey tells me, staring at the screen.
“You gave him Cheese Nips?” I ask in horror. Cheese Nips are too big for him to eat, and I never let him eat anything unsupervised.
“No, he found them. They fell out of Josh’s pockets.”
I hurriedly sweep Tyler’s gummy wet mouth with my forefinger to make sure there are no stray Cheese Nip chunks. Safe. Thank God.
Thank God.
When I think about what could have happened…
And all because I wasn’t watching him. All because I was distracted by this meaningless…stuff.
Distracted.
Ha. There’s an understatement.
“Here,” I say to Mike abruptly, and thrust the baby into his arms. “I have to go out.”
“But out, where? For how long?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know.” I’ve grabbed my purse and my keys, and I’m already on my way out the door.
Mike is still following me, holding Tyler, whose arms are outstretched. “Look at him. He wants you, Beau.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie….” I pause to kiss the baby’s downy hair. He smells of old saliva and Cheese Nips. I swallow hard, thanking God again that he didn’t choke.
“Mama will be back soon.” I force the promise past the lump in my throat.
I drive away with no idea where I’m going.
Not at first, anyway.
Not until I find myself on the Sawmill River Parkway, heading south toward Manhattan.
thirty-two
The past
Mike had gone home to spend a day or two with his parents before they left on their cruise to Halifax. I had no idea that they were even going on a cruise to Halifax, or that Mike was going to Long Island, until I got home from the confrontation at Charley O’s to find the note he’d left in my empty apartment.