by Kelly Harms
She smiles, not particularly warmly. “Nice to meet you. I have heard some very complimentary things about you, and you have greatly reduced the rate of unnecessary ‘just to check in’ communications from my father this summer. It’s a good start.”
“Well!” I say anxiously. “I’ll take it.”
“Also, this lunch means free pho for me. So you are approved, and we can move on to the next stage.”
“Wow, she’s very decisive,” I say to Daniel. “Is she like this with all your ladies?”
Cassandra snorts. “All his ladies. What a stitch. Do you also laugh at his Latin jokes?”
Daniel clears his throat. “What did Mark Antony say to his dog walker?” He doesn’t wait. “Shar-pei diem!”
We both groan.
Cassandra says, “You’re the first one, you know. That he’s brought around.”
Daniel shakes his head almost imperceptibly at Cassandra. “I’ve dated other women,” he says. “I just haven’t felt the need to take them to this restaurant, where my daughter lies in wait five days a week.”
“The pho is very good,” she tells me. Her eyes have a sparkle to them, just like Daniel’s, but she seems more sophisticated than her father, tougher somehow. And there’s no missing that she, like Cori, is lippy and quick. The two would probably get along, so long as there were no areas of competition. Cori is very competitive.
“It looks delicious. Would you order me some?” I ask her. “I can’t pronounce the word properly. When I say pho, I sound faux.”
“Oh, Dad,” she says to Daniel after a polite laugh at my pun. “You’re dating a female version of yourself?”
“She doesn’t know Latin,” he warns her. “But she loves the same books as me. And she seems content to ride around on the subway reading half the day, and she is good at pretending not to know much about things I like to be the expert in.”
“Never let her go!” exclaims Cassandra, but with a hint of sarcasm. Then she turns to me. “Did Dad tell you much about me?” she asks. “Did he make it clear that I am the center of his universe?”
I nod. “Yes, he told me on our first date that no matter what happened with us you would always be top banana, and one day, when you married and had kids, I would have to move into your attic and braid your children’s hair.”
She laughs.
“However, that knife cuts both ways. I have two kids, Corinne and Joseph. Their kids might need hair braiding too. How is your dad with french braids?”
And then she drops the information I didn’t know I needed to know. “Actually, when Mom left us,” she says casually, “Dad had to learn to do my hair. He got very good at it.”
I turn to Daniel, confused. “I thought you had shared custody.” Who has his daughter been with all the nights we’re together if not her mother?
“I do now,” he says. “Georgia came back. Kind of like your guy, John, except when she came back, she was married to a woman.”
My jaw drops. “How long was she gone?”
He exhales. “Let’s see. Cassie?”
She thinks for a moment. “I was in first grade when she left and fourth when she came back.”
Three years. Just like John, and yet it never came up with Daniel once before now. I wonder if that means it’s a sore spot. “Was it hard?” I find myself asking. “To let her come back into your life?”
The question is aimed at Daniel. But Cassie says breezily, “Oh, I didn’t just let her. She had to grovel for like a year straight. I was too mad.”
I consider this, comparing it to Cori’s iPhone shakedown—which I was pleased to hear John put the quick kibosh on—and other mild antics she’s tested her father with in the last couple months. “What turned your mind in the end?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Just time, I guess. I felt like I had hazed her long enough. And also, I needed a ride to chess club while my dad was at work.”
I smile. “My son, Joe, plays chess too. He’s actually with his dad right now. Not exactly hazing him, but I can’t say I’d blame him if he was. John did a disappearing act similar to your mother’s.”
She nods, and I realize this is not news to her. “Dad says people walk away from their families when they are trying to escape themselves,” she tells me. “He says we have to have compassion, because they may lose their loved ones, but they’ll never outrun themselves.”
I nod. “My friend Lena says the same thing,” I tell her. “She would add that those with the humility to come back and try to fix things deserve a chance to do so.”
“Yeah,” says Cassie with a one-shoulder shrug. “I know it was the right thing. Mom’s, like, my best friend now. And now that I’m older”—Daniel raises his eyebrows at this—“I get what the whole thing was about. How trapped you can feel as an American woman in early motherhood. The cultural systems of maternal support have all been eroded. You’re all alone. I’ve read, like, two books about it, and I see how my friends’ moms seem pissed all the time, like they wish things were different.” She fidgets, perhaps realizing now how far she’s stepped out. “And also, like, you. The hashtag-momspringa thing. Like, the feeling that the only way to get your true identity back is to run away from your family.”
I choke on a spoonful of soup. “Well, that’s not what happened with me,” I say. “I didn’t feel trapped, exactly. I was tired from single parenting. That’s true. And you’re dead on about cultural systems, maternity leave, multigenerational support, the new expectations of superparenting,” I tell her, stalling as I collect my thoughts. “And my job . . . well, it’s the same as your dad’s, and educators work hard. But as for the ‘momspringa,’ so to speak, mostly I got shoved out to sea by my friends and family. I didn’t want to leave it all. I had no choice.”
Cassandra shrugs, dismissing me in the way only a teenager can. “I’m just saying I could understand if you did want to run away. After all, you seem to be having a pretty good time now that you’re here.”
I look at her. She is sixteen, I remind myself. Just a bit older than Cori. She talks like an adult because she’s a city kid and well read, but she’s not actually mature. She doesn’t really understand my situation.
But still. Is she right?
After a moment the quiet gets thick. I look to Daniel and say, in the hopes of ending this line of conversation, “Your daughter has a good point. I’m having a very good time. But this hashtag-momspringa thing has an end date.”
Daniel sets his mouth in a line, but he nods. “Yeah,” he says, unusually quiet.
Cassie shrugs, this time the left shoulder a bit higher than the right. “I’m just saying,” she says again, and Cori has taught me that any sentence that comes after I’m just saying will rub me the wrong way. “Amish rumspringa ends with a big decision. Go home or never turn back. I’m not sure how your momspringa is any different.”
I look at Daniel and see a question in his eyes. Is he wondering if I’m facing a big decision too? Does he think there might be a chance of my staying? His expression is a little sad, and I know mine must be too. I’ve gone and done it—fallen in love with him over the summer, as unlikely as I might have thought such a possibility before we met. And sometimes, when I first open my eyes in the morning and see him in bed next to me, I think leaving here will be impossible.
“It’s different,” I say. But as I do, I realize it’s not that different. I am going to hit a crossroads soon. Very soon. Daniel, New York, the plays, the meals, the museums, the long, lazy days—it’s all on a ticking clock. My real life is waiting for me. A choice is nigh.
And I wonder: Was I, like John, like Cassie’s mom, too, trying to escape myself by coming here?
And if so, why does it feel like I found myself only after I arrived?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dear Mom,
I finished Me before You, and it was really sad. Really, really sad.
And it made me think, when this summer ends, things are going to be kind of weird for us, aren’t t
hey?
I know I should have thought about this earlier. But Dad and you aren’t getting back together after this, are you? You told me you were dating in New York, and I know you say you’re not going to give me any details, but if you met someone, that must mean you’re not open to giving Dad another chance. Were you ever open to that?
If you come home at the end of the month and Dad doesn’t, like, have a chance of getting you back, will he leave?
I know before all this started we talked about him leaving. But that seems long ago. It seems like things have changed so much. He’s not what I thought he’d be. He is fun, and he definitely cares, and he knows he made a mistake, and he’s fixing things. But he talks about you all the time, and he has a picture of you on his desk, and I can tell he thinks about what it would be like if things could go back to the way they were.
I googled rumspringas and read about this guy who left his family after one. He fell in love with the regular world. Some of his Amish friends were cautious and afraid, but he was excited and energized. He said that he knew his responsibilities to his family and the church were important, and he wrestled with them for a long time, but in the end, the love he felt for stuff like modern technology and free expression and disposable cleaning wipes transcended his old responsibilities.
Is that what’s going to happen with you on your momspringa?
Whatever. Joe and I have talked, and we agree we will live with whatever Dad decides. But if he decides he wants his family back, can you please, please consider just thinking it over?
Love,
Cori
—
After lunch with Cassandra, I make up an excuse and come home alone. I check my emails and pace in circles, thinking again and again of what Cassandra said. I eat takeout and drink a very medium-size glass of Talia’s scotch and watch Notting Hill on Netflix and cry myself a little river. It is the first night in weeks I’ve been without Daniel. It is miserable.
The next morning, first thing, I call Lena. I can’t possibly call Talia—she knows phones have an audio-transmission function of some sort, but she’s not much interested in experiencing it for herself. And besides, she is not a disinterested party. She is childless and ex-husbandless, and she unapologetically wants me to move to New York and entertain her like in the good old days. She doesn’t know my family. She knows the old me. Not the real me.
But the real me has fallen in love with Daniel. I want to spend every waking second with him. I don’t want to go out with any other men who order my dinner for me or try to communicate how much money they make or have long, sordid romantic backstories. I just want to lie around with Daniel and read with him and sleep with him and eat egg and cheese on a roll with him. I haven’t felt this way about anyone since John. Maybe not even John. I don’t want to leave in a couple of weeks. I don’t want to go back to my high-maintenance house and carpool and thankless job.
This is not momspringa anymore. This is something else entirely.
“It sounds like you are really into him,” says Lena.
“I am,” I tell her. “He likes me too. He’s nice to me. He’s his own man. He doesn’t make me feel dependent or in danger. He’s good at listening to me talk about my work and my kids.”
“That all sounds like good news.”
“It’s terrible news.” I am in Talia’s apartment, and I open the big sliding door onto her Juliet balcony. There’s an adirondack chair out there with a matching footstool. Because the balcony is so narrow, Talia has at some point removed one of the arms of the chair, the side facing the sliding glass door. You open the door, climb into the chair, and then close the door after you and take in the Brooklyn sky, locked into place.
“Why is it terrible news?” asks Lena. “Because he’s there?”
“And I’m going back to the other there.”
“Well, right now you’re at that there. The there where he is.”
I think of my surroundings. A minuscule patio, several stories up, in a one-armed chair, with the glass door so close to my face I could turn and kiss it, the railing against my shoulder on the other side. So often I think it: Talia’s New York is my Wonderland.
“But I will be going back there soon.” The sky is so bright. The noises that make it up this high—sirens, honking horns, a drill—are so muted. “You know what I mean. Your Here. His There.”
“And Everywhere. Maybe if you guys really have something good, he could move to you.”
“He cannot come to me.” I sigh. “He shares custody of a strong-willed teenage daughter. She goes to Bronx Science. You know, the best public high school in basically anywhere. She’s not going anywhere. Daniel moving would be the same thing to him as forfeiting his custody.”
Lena is quiet, and I know she is choosing her words. “There are men,” she says carefully, “who uproot their lives over love.”
My lips tighten. “That was not love,” I say brusquely. “Think what you like, but I know John wasn’t running toward that girl. He was running away from us.”
“I wasn’t necessarily talking about John.”
I breathe in slowly, sending much-needed oxygen to my brain. There are fragrant spices in the air. Cinnamon. Turmeric. Someone in another apartment is cooking with their windows open. “I suppose that could be true for other men.” Unbidden, I think of Daniel, packing up, leaving his daughter behind, and my stomach turns. “But if he moved away from his own kid, I wouldn’t want him anyway.”
Lena pauses. “I am loath to ask. But would you move to him?”
“Absolutely not,” I say. “No way. Never.”
“You seem to be enjoying New York. Beyond just the dating, I mean. You are sending such happy text messages now. You use exclamation points for everything. Two days ago you sent me a selfie of you eating a pastrami sandwich.”
“Did you see the size of that sandwich?” I ask.
“Yes,” Lena says. “It was a nice-size sandwich. I’m saying the city life agrees with you.”
I drum my lips with my fingers and think this over. Is that true? Do I like it better here than at home with my children?
Oh god, here comes another burst of guilt, hot and dry like an August wind.
Because something tiny inside me, tiny and selfish and bad, is shouting, YES!
“Lena,” I say. “I’m going to end this thing with Daniel. Right away.”
“What?” she asks. “Wait, how did we end up with that conclusion? I was about to tell you to enjoy yourself in the time you have and then figure it out later. I was going to give you my great ‘life is short’ talk. I had a Rumi quote all lined up ready to go.”
“I’m ending it today. I have to hang up and call him.” I try to stand up between the chair and the ottoman, but when I do, there’s nowhere to go. I end up flopping down again, like a fish trying to flap itself off a dock.
“No, no, no. Amy, you do not need to end it,” she says. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I need to come back home,” I say.
“Hang on,” says Lena. “Where did this come from? I feel like you and I are having two different conversations.”
“New York is getting to me—that’s all,” I tell her. I feel panicky. I want to get inside the apartment. Get out of this city air. Off this ridiculous balcony. I fold up my legs and pivot myself toward the door, open it, and slide myself off the chair and into the apartment again, nearly tumbling to my knees. Pull closed the door and lean my back against it. Breathe in the silence, the air-conditioning, the complete lack of aroma.
I look around the apartment. With Talia gone for so long, it feels as much my apartment now as it did hers when I first arrived. There are stacks of my books everywhere, my laptop set up next to sheaves of notepaper filled with lesson-plan brainstorming. On the kitchen counter are the soy sauce–packet collection I’ve amassed, four take-out menus, a bag of my favorite kind of granola, a paperboard box of strawberries from the market. By the door are all four of my pairs of shoes and my bag of
stuff I take to spin class. It feels like . . . like I live here now. Like my kids are grown, on their own, somewhere far away, and I live in New York and work on reading-instruction advancement and go to the theater and museums and eat dinner at eight p.m. and pay someone else to do my laundry.
This is not me. This is not my real life. I have to get home before I forget that again.
I call Daniel. I get his voice mail. “Daniel, I have to talk to you,” I say, and then, because I know that is going to put a knot in his chest, I just tell him. “I need to get home, to my real home. I am . . . I’m missing my kids too much and . . .” I fade away, thinking what to say. “I think it will get harder for us the longer we go,” I admit. “I think, you know . . . we joke. But we were doomed from the start.” I am quiet for a while, wondering if I should hang up, start again, rerecord, erase the whole message, change my mind, stick to my guns, stop being silly, stop ignoring danger. In the end I simply add, “Will you keep me posted if anything ever comes of the Flexthology?” and then hang up. He’ll hear it and be mad. I know I would be mad in his shoes. He’ll hear it and be mad and say, “Better off without her,” and he will be. And I’ll be too. There’s no sense imagining a future with this guy. Joe is twelve. I have just six years left with him at home. Only three more with Cori. I’m not going to waste that precious time with doomed love affairs and dawdling in museums and, what—sex and pillow talk and bagels? No.
I feel like an idiot. Momspringa. What a ridiculous idea! I have been neglecting my children. I should be ashamed. Kids need their mother. I am needed at home. I can’t just up and leave my life for a good-looking librarian and a wide selection of sushi restaurants. Even considering such a move calls my character into question. Even thinking it would be nice makes me a bad mom.
This charade is over. It’s time to pack it up. It’s time to get back to life.
—
I don’t check my emails. I don’t pass go. I just pick up my ephemera littered around Talia’s place, try to stuff it in my suitcase, and fail. The magazine has bought me so much stuff—so much nice stuff. My cycling shoes and my capsule wardrobe and a special boar-bristle hairbrush. And there are books everywhere that belong to me or the New York Public Library or Daniel. In the end I divide things into three repurposed FreshDirect boxes—library books, things to mail to myself, and things that belong to Daniel—and pack them up as neatly as I can in the rush I feel.
