“It must be weird,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Having something you wrote out there in the world for everyone to read.”
“Is it any different from that?” I point to the computer screen, where a trail of words is scrolling across the screen.
@connorsallright Dude, I just saw the FUNNIEST video.
“Nah, that’s only, no filter, you know? Nobody’s really saying anything. They’re just … what’s that word? Narrating.”
Oh, Jeff. Your son is bright and perfect.
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
“You worked with Dad?”
“Yes.” I pause. “He was a great guy, your dad.”
“Yeah.”
He opens a new navigation screen and types something. The landing page of an email service. The one Jeff used.
“I’m doing this thing,” he says, looking shy. “This kind of collage thing? You know, like the AIDS quilt?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s this mosaic site where you can load in photos and stuff like that, and it makes these awesome collages, but like mosaic tiles. But you know what sucks?”
OMG. That’s hilarious. What a loser!
Check this version out! Even better with music! xtylorsm.com
“No, what?”
“We don’t have enough pictures of Dad. But I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to email his friends, and ask them to send stuff, like pictures and whatever. But I can’t get in.”
I bet that’s going to get, like, a zillion views … like Star Wars Kid.
“Into his email?”
“Yeah. I’ve been working on his password for days, but I can’t get it.”
My heart squeezes and I raise a hand to my chest.
“Well, maybe there was … stuff in there, private stuff … There must be another way you could get his friends’ email addresses.”
“Not without asking my mom.”
“I’m sure she’d want to know what you were doing.”
“But then it wouldn’t be a surprise. You won’t tell her?”
Before I can answer, or think of some other way to try to discourage this precious boy from trying to crack into Jeff’s email, an IM pops up on Seth’s screen.
Mike_Boarder: Sethie! Have you seen this?
Seth types quickly.
Sethsamillion: What?
Mike_Boarder: Watch this. Immediately. xtylorsm.com
Seth clicks on it and a video loads, ready to play. There’s a blurry still shot of a girl in black standing at a microphone.
The caption reads: Poet Girl Takes a Nose Dive!
Oh, God … no, no, no.
I take the mouse from Seth’s hand, move it to the play button, and click the link. A video loads.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
But I don’t hear anything Seth says after this point. I’m out of his room and down the stairs and into the solarium, where my phone is now charged. I pick it up and it’s vibrating. The revived screen tells me I have twenty-one missed calls and eight messages, and texts from Brian, from Zoey, from Brian.
I dial the last number, Zoey’s cell, and she answers before the ring even finishes.
“Mom?” she says. “Mom?”
“I’m coming, baby. Right now.”
And then I do the first unselfish thing I’ve done in a very long time.
I go home.
PART 3
CHAPTER 18
Piñata
Claire got kind of lost for a while after the miscarriage. That day, when she ended up in the stinking alley, leaning against a rusty green Dumpster, she said she knew she couldn’t go back inside, that she’d never practise law again, that something essential inside of her had shifted, left, disappeared.
“But you love the law,” I said, a tease in my voice because I didn’t know yet that it wasn’t the time for teasing.
“I did.”
“Maybe you went back too soon. You should take a couple weeks off. We could go somewhere, if you like.”
“That won’t change anything.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” she said, with a level of certainty that drove the teasing from my voice.
“Let’s really think about this, Claire. I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“It’s not a question of regret. I can’t go back there. I can’t. I’m not sure I ever should’ve been there in the first place.”
“I thought you loved working with your dad.”
“It’s not that, it’s … what I do, it’s so … hard. You have to be so hard, and I’m not that person anymore.”
“You’re the strongest person I know.”
“No. Maybe before, but now, now I’m soft.”
I took her in my arms and held her, but it didn’t seem to help. And the longer I held her, the more I could feel the loss inside, as if an elemental part of her had been taken away.
But I couldn’t tell her that. I could only reiterate my suggestion to take a few more weeks off. She agreed and said that, if we could, we’d try to get away.
But we didn’t go anywhere, only Claire did.
Her departure was a gradual thing, like a watercolour left in the sun, every day fainter until one day the canvas was bare and you had to rely on memory to recapture the image.
The worst thing is, I didn’t notice at first. I beat myself up about that. I could give excuses about how easy it is to miss things that are right in front of you, to take them for granted, and that I was doing my best, that I was grieving too.
But no excuses.
I didn’t notice at first.
I beat myself up about that.
When I did notice, there didn’t seem to be any fixative I could apply. I had nothing in me to keep her steady, steadfast. If I held her too close, she pushed me away. If I kept my distance, I felt her eyes accusing, uncertain. My suggestions that she try, again, to return to work were met with stony silence or the rational well-reasoned arguments that made me miss her all the more. Because they were so Claire, so the way I knew, deep down, she wanted to be, convincing me why she couldn’t be that way anymore, and why I shouldn’t ask her to be.
Those first few weeks — when we were both still pretending this was only going to last a few weeks—she kept it relatively normal in the mornings. She’d make breakfast, pack Seth’s lunch, and see us out the door. But the rest of the day? The hours between nine and four? When I asked her, she spoke about them like they were as empty as the space between two goalposts.
One day, I went looking for her on my lunch hour, thinking I’d take her out to eat for something different. She wasn’t home, so I drove around the neighbourhood and eventually located her in a park a few blocks from our house.
She was sitting far enough away from the jungle gym to catch the drift of the children’s laughter. She was smoking a cigarette—something I thought she’d given up years ago—and I couldn’t help feeling like I didn’t recognize her. Like how you look at your own face in the mirror sometimes and it feels as if there’s a stranger looking back at you.
I sat in my idling car, only fifty feet away from her, but she never noticed me. After a while, I just drove away and went back to work. I didn’t tell her I’d seen her. I pretended I didn’t know about the smoking, the lost hours. I stopped expressing how helpless I felt, how I didn’t understand what had started this and that I wished I could fix it.
We spoke about it less and less, but as the weeks turned into months my worry was growing like a physical thing. It was this barrier between us, thin at first, but thickening by the day. Eventually, even when I tried, I didn’t have the strength to push through it.
And then Tim came home.
It was about six months into Claire’s dark period. She’d started taking antidepressants a couple months back, and they finally seemed to be working. There were a
few smiles, fewer tears, even a laugh or two. As spring turned the corner into summer, I felt her turning that corner with me. Her recovery was fragile, like a bluebell pushing through last year’s grass, hoping there won’t be another frost.
The ostensible occasion of Tim’s return was our parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. At least, that’s what he told me when I found him on my doorstep, travel satchel in hand.
When I got over the shock of seeing him unannounced and ten years older, I invited him in. Claire was out running errands — another good sign—and Seth was having a sleepover at his best friend’s house. I’d been looking forward to a bit of alone time with Claire and had been debating whether suggesting we go out to dinner, maybe even to our favourite restaurant, would be met with a positive response.
I brought Tim into the living room and went in search of some beers. When I came back, I found him standing in front of the mantelpiece, his eyes wandering over the usual collection of family photos. Our wedding photo was tucked in there among school shots of Seth and a great day on the beach. We looked young and happy, but if you got in close enough, you could see a slight smudge of dark under my left eye, where I’d rammed into a tree after Tim left me in the Woods. A mar on the day, and a reminder too.
“When did you get in?” I asked.
“Just now.”
I handed him a beer. “You didn’t go to Mom and Dad’s?”
“Nope.”
“But you’re staying there, right?”
He shrugged and raised the bottle. When he finished his long pull, half of it was gone. He let it swing loosely between his fingers.
“Is Claire around?”
“She should be back soon.”
He sat on the edge of the couch and downed the rest of his beer. I watched him sitting there, tanned, and relaxed in his jeans and pullover, a fully-grown man. He seemed both intensely familiar and strange, like hearing your own voice on an answering machine.
I sat across from him. “So you’re really back for the anniversary?”
“Sure enough.”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve been home twice in the last ten years. Why now?”
He took a beat. “Forty years together is a serious thing. It should be celebrated. Proper respect should be paid.”
“If you’re implying—”
“I’m not casting stones. I know you’ve been stressing about the party.”
I wanted to protest, but he was right. I had been stressing about the party. Mostly because it was something to stress about that wasn’t Claire but also because basically the whole town was coming, and I was shit at organizing things.
“How did you even find out about it?” I asked.
“The usual way.”
“So forthcoming, as always.”
“Mom told me. How do you think I found out?”
“Right.”
He looked around the room. “Nice house.”
“Thanks.”
“And Seth … well done there.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You should meet him. You know, since he’s your nephew and all.”
“Now who’s casting stones?”
“What the fuck, Tim? Honestly, what the fuck?”
He looked at me for a long moment, a look I might’ve understood twenty years ago but which was impregnable then.
“Maybe I’m here to make amends …”
The front door slammed open.
“Jeff?” Claire called in a voice that rang out like it hadn’t since before.
“We’re in here,” I answered, but my throat felt dry, and I knew it wasn’t loud enough.
“Jeff?” she called again, walking through the house. “You’re never going to believe this! I’ve got the perfect idea. The perfect thing.”
I heard her voice trail off at the same time as I felt her presence behind me. Tim shifted his dark gaze from me to her, and something about him softened.
“Tim.”
I turned slowly, ready with a sarcastic “Tim’s here, honey, isn’t it awesome?” which was always how we spoke of this possibility, the few times it had come up. But something in her expression stopped me.
“Hello, Claire.”
“When did you get here?” she asked.
“A few minutes ago. Jeff and I have been … catching up.”
“Great, great. You’ll stay here, of course?”
“I’d be happy to.”
We fought that night. In low voices, through clenched teeth. A half year of disappointments and things unsaid came pouring out, filling up our bedroom until it felt like a window had to be opened or there wouldn’t be room for one of us anymore.
It was Seth who ended the fight. His soft rap at the door was like a fork hitting a glass at a wedding.
“Yes?” Claire said, her voice shaky.
“Had a nightmare,” Seth replied, his own voice wavering.
I stood up quickly and was at the door in an instant. Nine-going-on-ten Seth stood there in his footy pyjamas that Claire wasn’t ready to give up, his round face streaked with tears.
I picked him up. “You’re getting so big.”
“Not that big. Not as big as you.”
“You will be soon, little man.”
“Can I kill the bad guys, then?”
“Were you playing that video game at Cory’s?” Claire asked from the tangle of sheets where she’d retreated as my words got angrier and angrier.
Seth nodded. “I lost.”
I kissed the top of his head and walked him over to Claire. His slipped from my arms and into hers with a lack of hesitancy that struck me. When was the last time I’d taken Claire in my arms without thinking about it, or sought comfort in hers?
I sat down on my side of the bed as Claire settled Seth in between us. He lay on his back, the covers pulled up to his chin.
“Will you stand guard?” he asked.
“Of course we will, honey.”
Claire met my eyes over his head and we each propped ourselves up on an elbow, forming a wall of family around Seth.
“That’s good. That’ll teach ’em.”
“Shh, now. Close your eyes.”
He obeyed her in a way that was becoming rare and was almost instantly asleep. We stayed like that for a while, listening to him breathe.
“What were you saying when you came home?” I said eventually, speaking low.
“About what?”
“When you came into the house, you seemed all excited about something.”
Her face cleared. “I figured out what I want to do.”
“What’s that?”
She told me. That she was thinking of opening a daycare, that she thought it might be what she needed right now. It seemed to me like the opposite of what she needed—to be surrounded by other people’s babies—so I stayed silent while she talked more than she had in months. I knew her well enough to know that the more I protested, the more she’d dig in her heels. I thought if I gave noncommittal “hmms” at appropriate moments, the thought would pass, sink back into her brain, and be gobbled up.
But apparently not.
Apparently, I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.
But I didn’t think about that then, because Claire was smiling at me, and our son was warming the space between us, protected by the fort that was our family.
I never did get a clear answer from Tim as to why he chose that particular moment to come back. In truth, I spent a lot of time avoiding him over the next couple weeks. It was the company’s year-end and I’d just been promoted, and that provided enough of an excuse to spend longer hours than usual at work.
Tim, to his credit, spent a lot of time with Seth, trying to get to know him. He took him to the local single-A ball team’s spring training sessions, and helped him become proficient at riding the new bike we’d bought him. These were things I should’ve been doing but were good for Tim to be doing too. Seth had always been curious about Tim, a
nd I was happy that he was there to fill in.
Claire was also busy. She was serious about the daycare thing, and seeing her sense of purpose, her determination, made me rethink my earlier opposition. Some of the colour had come back into her face, and the circles around her eyes were fading. I even heard her singing in the shower once, a few bars that she cut off suddenly, as if she’d surprised herself.
When I wasn’t at work, I was planning my parents’ party. I’d originally intended it to be a small affair, but now that Tim had made a big show of coming all this way, I had to take it up a notch. Rent the town hall, have it catered, though the thought of the hole it was going to make in my credit card kept me up at nights, listening to Claire’s regular breathing.
It was one of those nights when she had what I can only describe as a wet dream. Her breathing got shallow and her hips rose and then her whole body tightened and released. It had been so long since we’d had sex, watching her made me hard, but all thoughts of waking her and bringing some reality to whatever fantasy she’d been experiencing disappeared when I saw the peaceful smile crawl onto her face and take up residence. Instead, I went to the bathroom and took care of myself, feeling like a furtive teenage as I came into a washcloth, then rinsed it out.
The town hall was located in an old grain silo that had been converted years ago, but still smelled of wheat and chaff if you breathed deeply enough. My parents made appreciative noises about the long buffet tables groaning with food, the small votives flickering on the tables for eight covered in light blue fabric, and the DJ who knew not to play anything past ABBA’s heyday.
After dinner, Tim rose from his seat by my mother and tapped his glass. A hush fell over the room.
“Some sort of toast at these kinds of things is inevitable. And so, on the long flight here, and off and on for the last couple of days, I thought to myself, what should one say at a moment like this? How does one pay proper homage to the commitment you see before you? Forty years. That’s a beautiful thing.” His eyes scanned the room and found a place to rest. “A beautiful thing. And what more can you say than that, really? I can’t think of anything. So raise a glass, mates. Stand up even. To Mom and Dad. To forty years.”
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