The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

by Kelly Harms

  “Definitely not,” I tell him. “But it’s better with you all here.” Lena and Talia are looking at us curiously.

  “Did you call him?” I ask them both.

  “I don’t even know who he is,” says Talia.

  “He’s the hot librarian,” says Lena, and Daniel colors. “He’s the one who has been sleeping in your bed for the last month.”

  “Aha!” says Talia. “You left your sports watch. I’m so glad it’s not yours, Amy.”

  I smile. “It’s his. Daniel, meet Lena and Talia.”

  He gives them a quick glance. “Nice to meet you. Wish it was in better circumstances. When does she get out of surgery?”

  I look at my phone. “Soon. Or in hours. It all depends on what they find. But we should go back to the room just in case.”

  “Someone has to wait here,” says Daniel. “Matt will be here any minute. He’s the one who told me.”

  “Matt?” I say. “Talia’s Matt?”

  “What about Matt?” asks Talia.

  “He’s coming here,” I say.

  “We drove together,” says Daniel. “He’s parking the car.”

  Talia shakes her head in wonder. “Ok, you two go inside and wait for the doctor,” she commands. “Lena, you and I are going to meet up with Matt.”

  I go to the new CNA behind the reception desk and tell her Cori’s family is here. “Two aunts, one uncle, and a . . . cousin,” I say because Matt is too young to be anything else. She raises her eyebrows at us: Talia is Black, Lena white, and Daniel Asian.

  “I’ll sign them in,” she says, though she is obviously skeptical. She takes Daniel’s ID and beeps us back to the ICU. The moment the doors are shut behind us, Daniel takes my hand. “Is this ok?” he asks. “It doesn’t have to be an ‘us’ thing. I just . . . Matt called and said your daughter was seriously hurt. And I couldn’t not come here. Just because, no matter what, I really have come to care, you know.”

  “It’s good you came. But how did Matt find you?”

  “Twitter,” says Daniel. “I, uh . . . when your momspringa photos first went up, back in June . . . well, I direct messaged the magazine’s account. Saying we’d gone on one date and I was hoping they’d pass along my phone number.”

  “You did?” I say in surprise.

  Daniel shrugs. “It sounds kind of desperate. But when I saw the trending hashtag and realized it was you, I was . . . too tempted to let it lie.”

  “Matt didn’t tell me that,” I say.

  “Yes, and I had some words for him about that today,” he says. “But it all worked out once I found you on Facebook.” He falters. “I mean, worked out as far as it worked out. That’s not why I came. I’m not going to pressure you or anything. I’m just here as a friend.”

  I nod. “I’m glad you’re here. Friend or otherwise,” I say. “It’s just . . . my preexisting condition is here too.” I tilt my head into the doorway of the respite room where we now stand.

  Daniel doesn’t flinch. “Good. Cori needs her family.”

  “He’s asleep at the moment,” I say. “I think his brain overloaded and then powered down.”

  Daniel laughs. “Ok. Well, I’m done avoiding preexisting conditions anyway. In fact, I have a new policy that if you don’t have a preexisting condition by the time you’re our age, you haven’t been doing something right.”

  “Maybe, but I’m basically uninsurable at this point,” I tell him. “And I’m too worried about my daughter to care.”

  He nods and squeezes my hand tightly. “I am here for you. How about I am in charge of feeding you, watering you, and holding your hand if you’re scared.”

  “I’m very scared,” I tell him.

  “Then it’s probably best that you don’t let go.”

  I look down at his hand. Up into his eyes. Yes, says my heart. It’s Talia and Lena and Daniel and even Matt that I want here with me now. I want Joe to be here when we know everything is going to be all right, and Cori to laugh at my soggy tears when she finally wakes up, and John to be a wonderful father and nothing else, and Lena to be arm’s reach away, and Talia to be showing up with stuffed cheetahs, and Daniel to be holding tight to my hand. Wherever these people are, New York, Pennsylvania, or a hospital upstate, that is where I also need to be.

  I put my head on Daniel’s shoulder. “Thank you,” I say to him, and then there is a shadow in the doorway of the respite room, and the shadow turns into footsteps. And then at last, finally, the footsteps turn into blue scrubs, and the unreadable face of Dr. Boch stands before me, and she inhales and begins to speak.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A week and a half later

  “Amy, are you ready?”

  Daniel is holding my hand again. Firmly. I shake my head.

  “It’s too soon,” I tell him. “I can’t do this yet.”

  His mouth forms a line. “It’s time. Everyone is going to start to wonder.”

  I inhale. Ok. He’s right. It’s time. I can do this. “Is she doped up?” I ask carefully.

  “No,” he says. “The opiates wore off hours ago, and she hasn’t asked for a new dose. I think she’s really on the mend.”

  I whisper a silent prayer of thanks for this for the thousandth time. “Let’s go tell them, then,” I say, and I drop his hand like it’s on fire. We separately cross over the threshold into Cori’s recovery room, where she is sitting in her bed, next to Joe, watching an Animal Planet dog show in Spanish. Joe is shaking his head. “I still think I should have come home sooner,” he says to me before I can even speak.

  “Why? Why would you miss out on Space Camp when it turned out she was going to be ok and couldn’t do anything but rest anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I feel guilty is all, that I wasn’t with her when she needed me most.”

  Cori punches her brother in the upper arm. “I didn’t need you; I needed a neurosurgeon. Unless you actually got your medical license in Alabama, instead of your nerd certification.”

  Joe frowns. “The support of your dearest sibling is sort of being taken for granted here.”

  “Nah,” she tells him. “It’s just that you got here at the exact right time. Mom was starting to drive me nuts, and Dad’s in Chicago, so it’s all on you from here on out.”

  Daniel looks at me, one eyebrow aloft. “He’s gone again? Already?”

  I shrug. “He just went out to take some meetings,” I say, not mentioning that I suspect having Daniel around was weirding him out enough to make that sound like an extra-good idea this week. “He’ll be meeting us back in PA for the rest of the summer. And the kids will see him again at Thanksgiving and winter break.” I’ve talked to the kids about this endlessly now that Cori is in the clear, and John has too. Yes, yes, the kids keep telling us. They are ok with this plan. Yes, they want to spend Christmas vacation overseas. No, they never expected he’d stay. Yes, they had fun, but they want to go back to their real lives soon, and they’ll see him again every couple months anyway. And all of next summer. Plus, Cori helpfully points out, per the quickie marital settlement agreement that a judge will be hearing just before school starts, he’ll be paying me back child support, which makes this entire summer “worth it.”

  Daniel knows John and I filed for divorce, but he hasn’t been privy to any of the family conversations, as he’s been trying to be a “friend” of mine and give my family lots of space. He looks consternated, so I add, “This is just the reality of John.”

  Joe nods. “He’s not perfect. But he’s our dad, so no criticizing.”

  “Ok,” says Daniel. “Well, your mother and I came in to tell you two that—”

  “We know,” says Cori. “You’re dating. Everyone knows. I think one of the Kardashians just tweeted about it. Please don’t say it out loud, ok? It’s gross to think about your mom having sex. Unless . . . do you need us to give you the facts about safe intercourse?”

  “Ew,” cries Joe. He sneers at Daniel viciously—or as viciously as Joe has ever sneered
. Apparently no one is good enough for his mom. I could have brought home the pope, and Joe would have found fault.

  “No thanks,” I say. “We can talk to our doctors if we have questions. But what about your, um, feelings about us being a couple?”

  Cori shrugs. “Do we have to move to New York?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “All three of us are going to be going there together from time to time,” I warn. “And one weekend a month you’ll be staying over with Auntie Lena.”

  “Can I have Diet Coke when I’m there?” asks Cori.

  I ignore her. “But the point is no one is moving. We have our lives here, and Daniel and Cassie have their lives there. We’ll figure things out our own way and reevaluate when Cassie graduates next spring.”

  “At the moment she’s planning on applying to Temple and Princeton,” Daniel says. “So she may make our lives that much easier by moving nearby.”

  “Whoa,” says Cori. “Princeton.” Her eyes are wide.

  “It’s not a competition,” I say.

  “Well, not a fair one,” she says. “It’s not my fault I’m too brain damaged to go to Princeton.”

  I laugh. “You cannot apply that excuse retroactively. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with you. And I know, because I have made them order every test they have in this hospital.”

  Joe raises his hand.

  “Joe, you don’t have to wait to be called on,” I tell him.

  “He’s a teacher,” says Joe, giving Daniel the side-eye.

  “I’m a teacher,” I say in wonderment, mostly to myself.

  “Ok, Joe,” says Daniel, “go ahead.”

  “Can I apply to Bronx Science?” he asks.

  I look at Daniel. He looks at me. He is grinning.

  I shake my head. “Let’s just slow things down a bit here, people. We’re dating—that’s all. Stop moving in with my new boyfriend.”

  “What?” Joe says. “Cori will be graduated and working at the beauty parlor by then.” Cori gives him a mild shove at this. “Country Day doesn’t even have a second year of physics. Plus their chess team kills ours every year.”

  I dismiss him and say, “We’ll see,” but I can’t help but imagine it. Moving to NYC in two years. Joe kicking butt at an academic magnet school, truly challenged and growing into the best he can be. Me teaching in a school library that could really use me, building out Flexthologies for truly underserved students. Daniel and I living together, in the same amazing city, reading together every night. I have to admit it sounds pretty nice.

  “I’m not going to work at a beauty parlor,” sneers Cori. “I’m going to dive for Penn State.”

  I hold my hand up firmly.

  “When I am fully recovered, and the doctor says it’s ok,” she adds.

  “And your mother masters Transcendental Meditation,” I say.

  She cuts an exasperated glance at Joe.

  “Don’t worry about Mom,” says Joe. “She’s going to be too busy to notice, what with her new ‘boyfriend’”—he uses air quotes—“and the big NEA grant he got for her.”

  Cori inclines her head. “What’s this? A NRA grant?”

  “NEA. National Endowment for the Arts,” says Daniel. “Your mom’s Chicago friend, Kathryn, helped me put together a grant proposal a while back, right after the library conference. Ever since she and I heard your mom talk about the Flexthology, we just knew it had legs, whether your mom believed it or not. Finding a way to get it off the ground was a Hail Mary to get you to keep going out with me,” he adds to me with a wink.

  I shake my head in wonderment. “I still can’t believe you two managed that on the sly.”

  “Wait, is this for that e-book reading-choice thing you started at Country Day?” asks Cori. “That was actually kind of fun. As far as reading goes.”

  “Yes, exactly,” I tell her. “We couldn’t think of a way to get it funded on a larger level—school boards are such slow-moving machines, and we were trying to get free rights to some really valuable novels to make the financials work and have it represent a diverse population. But then it hit us—well, it hit Daniel. Rather than try to get the rights from the authors for free, we could get someone else to pay the authors. Like an agency whose very purpose is to support artists on the community level . . .”

  “So I put it to Kathryn, and she knew a grant writer on the PTO, and one thing led to another . . . ,” Daniel says. “And now your mom has a lump sum to run a pilot program in underfunded schools.”

  “So you’re dating this guy because he got your big dorkfest librarian thing funded?” asks Cori, incredulous.

  I laugh. “Nah. I’m dating this guy for the Latin jokes.”

  Daniel perks up. “Why did Marcus Aurelius make his kids eat grits?” he asks the room. “Because he wouldn’t accept ad hominy arguments!”

  We all cringe. “Mostly because he’s very attractive,” I amend.

  Joe looks at Cori in horror. She makes a dramatic retching sound.

  “Cori,” I say. “I’ve missed your nuanced commentary. If I haven’t said it enough, thank you for doing such a good job at staying alive this week.”

  “Yes,” adds Daniel. “I especially appreciate it because otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you. And I’m pretty sure your mom wouldn’t have called me ever again, grant or no grant.”

  Cori says, “That’s kind of a selfish perspective on the value of a young woman’s life.”

  “You and Cassandra are going to get along very well,” he says. I smile and nod, though I am not so sure. The beauty is they don’t have to. Daniel has given me a way to be where I need to be, to celebrate all the things I discovered in myself in New York, and still fulfill all my responsibilities in PA. For me, life after John doesn’t have to mean martyrdom and loneliness, or some Brady Bunch–style mishmash of two already happy established families. There is a third way.

  I get this now. I get now that you can love what you have, love your kids and your life and your friends, and still want more. I get that it’s ok to go out and get more—more love, more friendship, more fulfillment—and still be a wonderful mom.

  Because of Daniel, because of my friends, because of Cori and Joe, I finally understand that traditional math does not apply to mothers: I can be 100 percent a mother and, though it isn’t easy, still be 100 percent myself as well. It means changing how I think. It means understanding that to care for my children well, I must never again forget to care for myself.

  And for me to learn all that once and for all, it took more than a village. For me, it took a #momspringa.

  —

  Hey you,

  These are going to slay you, I think. They’ve been coming in all month since the issue released, and some are addressed to us, but some are definitely meant for you. A few of my favorites are on top. And have you checked out our Twitter feed lately?

  xx

  Talia

  PS: You’ll be happy to know Matt got a promotion. Well, technically it’s a promotion, and there’s a big raise, too, though I’d sooner die than do that job. Online Marketing Trend Strategist. Ick. Better him than me. But he’s thrilled, and he’s going to be crazy good at it. He made up a care package from the fashion closet for you as thanks for being the face of momspringa. I tucked some things in for Cori too. Enjoy. Don’t forget to wax!

  —

  Dear Pure Beautiful magazine,

  I never write in to magazines, but I just want to write you and tell you how great your article “Do You Need a #Momspringa?” was. I had no idea “momspringas” even existed, but once I found out, you better believe the first person I told was my husband. I told him, if you don’t give me a momspringa in the next two weeks, I am leaving you, and honestly, I think I mean it! I have three beautiful children and I have done nothing but wipe noses and change diapers for the last seven years and “for fun” I make dinners that my three-year-old would rather “die” than eat and then I make a second dinner for him and then my husband comes
home from his weekly—yep, every week—happy hour with the guys too tipsy to put the kids to bed, plus he has his bowling nights and he works late and on Sundays he just sleeps and sleeps while I wrestle the kids to church so that my own mother won’t disown me, and let me tell you, she has all kinds of ideas about how I should be parenting and keeps saying it’s time for me to “lay down the law,” but where is she when the healthy meal is set out and no one has touched their green beans? I will tell you where: she’s standing by the freezer handing out Dove Bars! And my youngest doesn’t even have all his teeth yet! And I am telling you, if I don’t get a night by myself alone in a bed with no one else in it for at least eight straight hours, I am going to run away forever!

  So thanks for publishing that piece. Though it was kind of crazy that the lady in the story did exercise classes while she was away from her kids. I would never make that mistake.

  Yours,

  Becca Aldt, Omaha, Nebraska

  —

  Dear Amy B.,

  I asked the magazine that printed your story to pass my note along so you would know what an inspiration you’ve been to me and my friends. I found your article in my dentist’s office, and as soon as I read it, I knew I had to talk to my girlfriends—we call ourselves the Monday Mamas, because we were all in a group-therapy class six years ago when we all had postpartum depression at the same time. Things are a lot better now thanks to lots of support and good meds, but parenting is still a ton of work, as you know.

  Anyway, there are four of us Monday Mamas, and we decided right then to help support each other so we would each get one week on a momspringa. We are going in turns according to our work schedules, and while one of us is gone the other three of us are going to carpool the kids to school and look after them with sleepovers and share the work as needed. We’ve each been putting fifteen dollars a month together into a “spa fund” since our kids were really little, but in all this time we’ve never ever found a way for the four of us to get even one night off together to stay in a hotel and get a massage. Now, instead of that, we are divvying that money up four ways, and each of us will have enough to stay in a hotel and just have some quiet time to think and relax for an entire week.