by Julia Kent
“Your mother’s gone,” I say to the three of them, taken back fifteen years to a time when those words stuck in my throat.
“Right,” Amelie says with a sad smile.
“I’m surprised she lasted a single night,” Jean-Marc says dryly.
I jerk with surprise. “What?”
“Me, too,” Elodie adds, grimacing. “She only came back to try to hook up with you, Daddy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pretty elaborate for a booty call,” Jean-Marc says under his breath.
These kids.
“You’re not… upset?” I’m ignoring all mention of the rest of this.
“Sure.” Amelie’s eyes fill with tears. “But she came. Other than our high school graduation, this is the first big event she’s bothered to, you know, like… attend.”
Jean-Marc’s face goes tight. His mother has never attended an event of significance for him.
“When she said she left Rolf, I knew what was going on. Funny how she wasn’t interested in coming until I told her about Chloe,” Elodie adds with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
I look at her. “What?”
“Maman has this way of talking about you like you’re so boring. Or like you’re a lap dog. I hate it.” Elodie’s eyes are alight with fire and indignation. “And normally, she doesn’t even ask about you. So when she started prying, I couldn’t stand it. Plus, she happened to call the day after, um… you know.”
“You stalked Dad and interrupted him during—”
“Heeeyyyyyyy.” Charlie interrupts, slashing a hand across his neck while looking at Elodie. “Ixnay on the ex-say.”
The three kids crack up.
“Beer? I need beer if we have to simultaneously talk about Simone and Nick’s sex life.”
How did my serious talk with my kids turn into this?
“We’re not talking about my and Simone’s sex life.”
All three kids start gagging.
Charlie gives me a devilish grin.
“Daddy,” Amelie says, her hand on my forearm, clearly troubled. “We know what Maman is like. How she is. We—well, she’s not like you. At all. And,” she adds, her voice halting, “it hurts.”
There you have it.
I close my eyes, battling my own hurt that Simone has caused, and working not to project that onto my kids. When they were little, I thought I could shield them from the worst about her. And to be fair, the worst that she’s done is to be absent. To hold on to herself and refuse to share.
But for a child, that burns, a searing brand on identity formation, and there’s only so much I could do.
“I’m sorry, Ami.”
“I know.”
“She ditched Rolf and decided to check you out,” Elodie declares. “Like you’ve been waiting all these years to be picked back up. Like a purse you stop liking and then it comes back into style.”
They all have this tone in their voices.
A protective tone.
When did my kids start to feel the need to defend me?
“She wouldn’t come to my high school graduation, but she’ll come for a chance to get you under her thumb again,” Jean-Marc mutters.
There’s a gut punch. And I can’t argue with him. He’s right.
“It didn’t work.” I look at them, constantly calculating, mind in motion as I try to balance privacy with their maturity.
All three kids look at each other with frowns.
“We know,” Jean-Marc finally says. “I was here.”
“Here?” I’m puzzled.
“Here when you yelled at Maman.”
A stony silence fills the room.
“Oh.” I don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“I’m not.” His jaw is tight, arms clenched in a fighter’s stance. “Every word you said is true, Dad. Every word.”
Charlie is uncharacteristically quiet, just watching everyone. He opens his mouth. “Your mother thinks Nick is a lap dog?” he asks Elodie.
She nods. “She said a long time ago that if Daddy had been—” She looks at me in distress.
“It’s fine. Go ahead,” I say in someone else’s voice.
“She said that she did what was best at the time, and that any man who does not live his own life is a poor role model for his children.”
I stand suddenly, on my feet via instinct, unaware of the insta-rage that shoots through me like a pipe bomb filled with debris.
Steady, I tell myself. I think of Chloe’s mouth, the taste of her, how she felt against my thighs, her delicate skin and fine bones all mine. I run through the last few days, my memory a video in 4x time, the sequence of events gaining a different meaning as I put it together in retrospect.
I sought out the sanctuary of Chloe after Simone came on to me. Not because I needed to feel like more of a man. Not because I needed freedom.
Because I needed Chloe. The intimacy is emotional and physical, promising and alluring, and I can be myself and be sexual with her. Find connection in the physical and intellectual realm. She’s the whole package. Simone is all surface, no depth, living a life marked by projection.
Chloe’s just living.
“Nick.” Charlie’s taking charge here. I shake myself, looking around the room.
“She’s wrong,” Amelie says. She looks at her phone. “Ooo, text from Kieran. Gotta go.”
“Who’s Kieran?” I ask.
“New guy. Meeting for coffee.” She kisses my cheek and flies out the door.
“Merde!” Jean-Marc calls out, racing to the television. “Pats game! We missed part of it.” Charlie joins him, the two glued to the screen in seconds.
The moment is lost.
Bzzz.
My phone vibrates in my back pocket, and when I pull it out, the Holy Grail appears.
A text from Chloe.
A relieved smile fills my face.
Can I come over? Jemma will watch Holly for me.
Of course, I type back.
I want to add, Thank you, but I don’t.
Wouldn’t want anyone to mistake me for a lap dog.
* * *
Charlie takes Jean-Marc to a local sports bar, while Elodie finds some folklore thing to visit, leaving me with an empty house. I’m fidgety, checking the wine bottles, setting and re-setting wine glasses on the kitchen counter. Chloe’s text is a sign of hope. I’ve given her space. She needs it. So do I.
Between Simone, the clash with Chloe, and the decidedly surreal conversation with my kids and Charlie a moment ago, space and time are in short supply.
“Breathe,” I tell myself, surprised by the case of nerves that hits me.
The doorbell rings.
“Hi.” Her shy smile puts me on guard.
“Hi.” I hustle her inside, out of the cold, and take her coat. Just the feel of my hands skimming her clothed arms makes me stop breathing. I can fix this. We can decide.
We can choose to make this work.
“Wine?”
She nods. “Just one glass.” There are dark circles under her eyes, though she’s carefully made up. Somehow, Chloe manages to look utterly exhausted and radiantly happy at the same time.
New motherhood.
We move to the sofa, where she curls up against the stack of pillows, not touching me. I angle myself so I’m facing her.
“How’s Holly?”
“Good. Great.”
“Getting any sleep?”
She laughs, then yawns as if to prove the point. “No.”
“It’ll happen soon.”
“Define ‘soon.’”
“Jean-Marc didn’t sleep through the night until he was nearly two.”
“I hate you.” She laughs. “Holly is sleeping at Jemma and Henry’s right now. I don’t have long, but I’ll take what I can get.”
The physical memory of our rushed night of sex at her place while the baby slept for seven minutes hits me like a tidal wave.
“Right,” I choke out.
“Look. I’ll get to the point.” Her eyes meet mine over the wine glass as she takes a sip. “I will never, ever date a man again who’s committed to someone else.”
Good thing I’m not drinking. “What?”
“You heard me.” Her eyes are hard and cold, like brown rocks. Yet somehow, I feel her pleading with me underneath.
“I’m not with anyone else. I’m not,” I add, a hard edge to my voice. The stakes are high here, but there’s more. If she can’t trust me, we can’t continue. I won’t grovel.
“I know.” She tips her head down. “I know I’m projecting some of this. After the choice I made – the stupid choice – to stay with Joe for so long, I find myself unable to find true North.”
“North?”
“My compass is a little bit broken. The piece inside you that guides you. Except with Holly.” She beams.
I set down my wine glass and take her hand. She lets me. It’s cold, and I envelop it in both of mine. “I’ll get to the point, too. I don’t play games. That’s not my style. For fifteen years I’ve stayed out of entanglements. My kids came first. I came second. I didn’t want to be with someone who would complicate my life. That was before I met you.”
She’s listening. It’s a start.
“You walked into the damn conference room so poised and self-assured, smart and funny – damn it, Chloe, you’re the whole package. And then the baby...”
“The baby.” The words come out of her like bubbles, floating on the wind.
I stand, realizing some music would help. I’m all drumbeat inside, wanting to say the right words, but trying to make sure I don’t lose too much of myself in this. I’m done compromising to the point of loss. I put on some Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, and she closes her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the couch.
She is breathtaking.
I continue, standing behind her, watching.
“Holly is everything to me, Nick,” she says, her voice dreamy.”I had no idea you could find so much of yourself in raising a child.”
My chest loosens.
“It’s not like you lose yourself in them. It’s like you find yourself in new ways. I know she’ll be grown one day.” Chloe yawns. “And I’m excited to know my job will fade out as a parent. Our job is to raise them to be independent souls, right? I don’t want an adult child who needs me. I want to have one who wants to spend time with me.”
She chuckles softly. “But right now, I’d settle for three hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
I smooth a strand of hair behind her ear. She sighs into the touch. She finishes her wine and sets the empty glass on the end table next to her, eyes still closed. Her breathing evens out.
“I sacrificed,” I tell her. “Put my kids’ needs first. Lost my marriage and a fair number of friends along the way who couldn’t understand that. Made plenty of new friends who did.”
“Umm hmm.”
“But I never met a woman who got it. Who would enter my world and let me enter hers and share the kind of love you only find through family.”
“And I’m that woman?”
Time stops. Seconds tick by. Then a full minute, as I close my own eyes and listen to the voice inside me that wants to say what’s true.
Yes, my heart beats.
I open my mouth to say it, and—
She’s fallen asleep.
Chapter 19
Chloe
We all knew this day was coming, right? The official First Day Back to Work. I stretched my maternity leave as far as I could, stacking accrued vacation and sick leave into a longer break than most moms receive in the United States. Leaving home for ten consecutive hours feels like preparing for a space mission. Five o’clock tonight might as well be ten years away. I can’t even foresee returning.
I read that something like seventy percent of mothers in the US work outside the home. Know how many women that is? Thirty-one million. A few lines below that statistic, this caught my eye: “Eighty-six percent of working mothers say they ‘sometimes/frequently’ feel stressed.”
So it’s not just me.
On the other hand, the percentage of working mothers who report being ‘very happy’? Eighty-five percent.
Deep breath. I can do this.
News flash, Chloe: you have to do this.
My original idea was to reappear in my office today looking pretty much the way I imagine Victoria Beckham looks when she turns up at her office to design her next collection. Cool and calm, fully accessorized, immaculate. She has four kids, right? (I know, probably eight nannies, too, but still.)
Well, that was the concept.
I laid out an outfit last night after Holly went to sleep, but it involved a silk tunic, and I quickly realized that would result in a trip to the dry cleaner. I have no time for another errand. So I rearranged, based around a little cashmere cardigan, but if she spits up, cardigan ruined, so no.
Okay, Round Three. Black knit dress, washable. Black patterned tights, washable. Black boots, waterproof. Something tells me this is my new uniform. I can just be hosed down at the end of the day.
There’s probably a special booth for that at O.
Alarm goes off at five a.m. I shower, find the hairdryer, blow my hair dry. Put on full makeup for the first time in months, eye shadow, mascara, red lips. The face looking back at me from the mirror looks both familiar and very strange.
Then Holly wakes up, and I can hear her over the baby monitor, cooing to herself. I go in to pick her up. She is laying on her back, touching her fingers together in wonder, perfectly happy. I appear in her line of sight and her face lights with a joyous smile of recognition, and now I am perfectly happy, too. But as I lean over the crib, her eyes - fixed on my face - go round with surprise and consternation. Her little face puckers. She begins to cry. I pick her up, but she is holding herself rigid and is now looking away from me, sobbing.
Noises in the kitchen tell me that Jemma has just arrived, and a few moments later she peeks in the room.
“Good morning, what’s going on?”
“I think it’s stranger anxiety. She doesn’t recognize me with makeup.”
“Give her to me. I always look the same.” Jem takes Holly from my arms. “Go get ready.”
By the time I gather up my bag and tote and put on my coat, Holly’s sobs have reduced to just hiccups, but she still refuses to look at me. I hate leaving her this way. I kiss the back of her head and drag myself out to the car.
Peak commuter time, traffic stopped on the Mass Ave bridge to Boston. Traffic stopped in every direction, in fact. I am going to be late on my first day back. Everyone will already be at their desks, so they will all see me slouching in. Busted.
And I need to show them that nothing has changed. I can handle it all.
I reach the final intersection, only one car ahead of me now, when the light turns yellow. Shit! Another light cycle means seven more minutes sitting here. In a minor panic, I gun it and make the left turn just as the light goes red.
I’m about thirty yards down the street when I see another light in my rear-view mirror, very bright and flashing blue. Oh please, no.
Yep. Moving violation, $150. Pulled over for thirty-five minutes. The officer was unimpressed with my explanation.
By the time I pull into the parking garage where O reserves space for employees, I have been awake and trying to get here for four hours. I could have driven to Newark, New Jersey, in that amount of time. I approach my assigned space and just as I am turning into it, I see Carrie’s red junker sitting there. I slam on the brakes just in time. The sudden stop propels my coffee out of the cup holder and across my thigh.
And still I do not cry.
I park behind Carrie’s car and blot the coffee from my dress with a Pamper from the glove box. I knew washable was the way to go. I sling my tote bag over my arm and slide out of the car. That was no fun, but it’s over. I’m here.
My professional day starts now.
I open the t
runk to get the emergency umbrella I keep there - see? I am capable and prepared for any conditions. Except the umbrella is now buried beneath a collapsible stroller and a six-pack of paper towels, so I put down everything in my hands and unearth the umbrella. Load up again with tote bag, slam the trunk shut, and at the exact second I hear the car’s automatic locks engage, I remember.
I set down the keys on the left side of the trunk. Inside it.
Channel Kelly Clarkson. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
As I am setting down my bag, Carrie bursts into my office, a look of horror on her face. “Chloe! I forgot you were coming in today! I’ll move my car right away!”
“Good luck with that,” is all I can muster. “Actually, could you please just get me some coffee?”
It’s 9:20. I am exhausted.
“Yes!” she responds enthusiastically. “We have Grind It Fresh! now, did you know? It’s changed my life.”
“I don’t think I can take any more life changes right now, Carrie. Just black coffee.”
There is so much stuff piled up in my office, it’s going to take me a month just to clear a space. I get started.
Open six envelopes, drink coffee – and it really is good coffee, wonder if Holly is taking her nap, check messages, return eleven emails, drink more coffee, wonder if Holly is up from her nap, break down and text Jemma:
All good?
Unsatisfying response: All good :)
Eat energy bar. It doesn’t work. I am just so sleepy. And I’m not used to sitting still and, you know, focusing… Maybe if I open my office door, the air and outside sounds will wake me up?
As I’m swinging the door in, music comes on the PA system in the hall. That’s new. We never had ambient music before. I pause, swaying to the infectious beat, and listen.
“Zion,” by Lauryn Hill.
Henry appears around the corner. He is wearing grey yoga pants and a tuxedo jacket with a pink silk hanky in the breast pocket. No shirt. Must be a party in the spa this afternoon.
“Hey, girl,” he says. “You gotta see this, come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall.
“Henry, what is it? I have so much to do! Have you heard from Jemma today?”
