Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  She puts the phone away and looks up. Birdie’s standing in the threshold of the bathroom, staring at her. “Why didn’t you come get us?” she asks. “Why did you send Dad?”

  “Oh,” she says. “He called right after you did. He was already out so it was faster.”

  Birdie nods, and Charlotte can tell that they both know she’s lying.

  “I’m going to go get some clean clothes from your room for Hannah,” she says.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry,” Birdie says again. Charlotte takes a step forward and hugs her hard.

  Jason is standing in the hallway when she comes downstairs with Hannah’s soiled clothes for the laundry.

  “I can take them,” he offers, holding his hands out.

  “I’ve got it,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  He presses his lips together. “I’ll just sleep in the guest room, okay?”

  She nods. “Thank you.”

  Nineteen

  In the photo, they must be twelve. She is barely developed, still a kid really, with two long low ponytails hanging over her scrawny shoulders. She is squinting into the camera, barefoot on the dock, in hot-pink terry-cloth shorts and a white T-shirt. Just from looking at the photo, she can smell the marsh—its musky, loamy sourness—and feel the heat on her cheeks, her arms, the part in her hair. In one hand, she holds a net. Her other arm is around her father’s waist, his squinty smile identical to hers beneath his cap. Reese is on the other side of him, an old tackle box in his hand, grinning beneath the bangs that nearly cover his eyes, one of his sneakers untied.

  Reese had texted the photo at four in the morning. Found this—one of my favorites.

  Lying in bed, Charlotte is so ashamed that she can hardly bear to look at herself, this former self, this innocent self. She woke up warm, damp with sweat, the taste in her mouth rancid, a dull ache pulsing just behind her temples. She looks at herself at age twelve, and knows with a stony certainty that she has let this girl down.

  She remembers the day the picture was taken, even though it wasn’t any particular occasion, there were simply so many days like it. Summer weekday mornings, Saturday afternoons. Arguing with Reese and Aaron over who had to tie the chicken back to the crabbing net, her dad laughing to himself a few feet away, casting out with a Camel cigarette between his lips. Flicking sea snails at each other on the side of the shore. Teasing when one of them caught a stingray and couldn’t lift it to the surface. Lying side by side, mushy Sunbeam bread tomato sandwiches between them, their arms over their eyes to block the sun.

  This was long before they knew what would happen between them, when love was a word that you used for parents, your stuffed animals, the dog who slept beside your bed. Everything was simple and clear, even easy.

  What became of her?

  She’s nauseous, looking at herself, thinking of what that girl would think of her and how she’s turned out. Her stomach burns. What a mess she’s made, she thinks, and then the phone rings. Her hands shake as she answers.

  “What happened?” Stephanie says.

  “They’re fine.” She runs her tongue along her teeth, which are filmy. “Still asleep but I suspect it won’t be pretty when they wake up.” She knows how hypocritical this is, the disapproving tone in her voice when she is so clearly just as guilty. More so.

  “I don’t know how the hell they Houdinied themselves out of my house again, Charlotte,” Stephanie says. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “You shouldn’t have to lock up your house like a fortress when my daughter sleeps over,” Charlotte says, walking to the bathroom for the Alka-Seltzer she’s started keeping next to her toothpaste and face wash. “They’re the ones who should know better.”

  “I guess so,” Stephanie says. “But still.”

  “You are the last person who should feel guilty right now,” Charlotte says.

  “How drunk were they?”

  “It wasn’t pretty,” Charlotte says. “Hannah threw up.”

  “Oh my God!” Stephanie groans. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Come on, don’t be silly,” Charlotte says, her cheeks burning, thinking of herself last night in the car. “They did Jell-O shots and drank some sort of punch.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Stephanie says. “If there’s one thing I’ve told Hannah to stay away from—”

  “I know,” Charlotte says. “I know.” She lies back on her pillows and massages her forehead with the heel of her hand.

  “Do you think it’s the first time they’ve drank?” Stephanie says. “I mean . . . probably not, right? I don’t know. What do you—?”

  “Maybe not,” Charlotte says. “Probably not . . .” Her voice trails off.

  “I thought kids didn’t really drink anymore,” Stephanie says. “I thought they just got together and stared at their phones in a group.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Remember when we used to go to Kindermusik together on Saturday mornings?” Stephanie says. “How they used to wiggle their big diaper butts, clapping, singing along to ‘The Wheels on the Bus’?”

  Charlotte presses her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, trying to stop it, but the tears come anyway, hot and fast.

  “Are you crying?” Stephanie says. “Oh, Char . . .”

  She sniffs and clears her throat. “I’m fine,” she says. “It’s okay. They’re supposed to do this stuff, right? We did this stuff . . . Hopefully this is the one bad time, the one big mistake . . .” She thinks of the photo of herself again, all of the things that girl didn’t know she’d do, all of the things she would take back if she could. This has to stop.

  “I’ll throw some clothes on and come get her,” Stephanie says.

  “No hurry,” Charlotte says. “I think they’ll sleep for a while. Why don’t I text you when they start to stir? Probably good to let them sleep it off a little, for all of our sakes.”

  “Sounds good,” Stephanie says. “Thanks so much for everything you did last night. Dealing with all of it.”

  Charlotte turns on her side, remembering the blur of the shower running, of carrying Hannah’s clothes downstairs. Jason turning his car keys in his hands, asking if she was okay and insisting he sleep over. In the guest room.

  “Oh!” Stephanie says. “Not to bring this up now, but I keep meaning to ask what you’re wearing to the auction.”

  Auction? “Oh, fuck,” Charlotte says. “I totally forgot about it.” They’d bought the tickets months ago, before the holiday break. Were she and Jason really going to attend a school auction together when they couldn’t even live under the same roof? She inhales deeply. “I need to check my calendar to see if we can still make it.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t go,” Stephanie says. “Who will I talk to?”

  “Okay, I’ll see,” Charlotte says.

  “I’ll see you in a little bit,” Stephanie says. “Thanks again.”

  Charlotte stares at the ceiling after they get off the phone, the room rocking a bit. She tries to tell herself that it’s no big deal, people get drunk all the time. Parents all over Arlington are waking up hungover right now. But her old excuses, the ones she’s used so many times over the years, feel flimsy now. It occurs to her that for the past several years—five? Ten? Twenty?—the only time she’s made it through a weekend, or a week, without at least a little bit of a hangover was when she was pregnant or trying to be. Sure, they weren’t all as bad as this one, but how could she think that is okay? How could she call it normal? Every bad decision she’s made in her adult life, including reaching out to Reese when she should have been reaching for her husband, has happened when she’s been drunk. She looks at the photo Reese sent one last time, stares into that little girl’s eyes, whispers, to herself, “I’m sorry.”

  When Charlotte walks past the guest room, she finds the bed made and the shades pulled open, as if Jason hadn’t been there at all. But when she gets downstairs and turns in to the kitchen, she discovers that he has put out breakfast.
<
br />   She clenches her fist at her chest, thinking how much she doesn’t deserve this. There is a pot of coffee brewing and her favorite mug—chipped, with a photo of Sylvie as a puppy—set next to it. There are sliced bagels, fanned out on a plate. A bowl of strawberries with the stems lopped off. Bacon slices on a baking tray on the stove. She looks for a note but he hasn’t left one. Why would he? Why should he?

  But still. There is something about this gesture. Maybe he meant it more for Birdie, but there’s the coffee cup left just for her. It’s a little thing, but it’s everything. He wouldn’t do this if he didn’t care.

  The girls finally stir, neither of them able to look Charlotte in the eye as they shuffle downstairs and nibble at strips of bacon before they retreat back to Birdie’s room. Minutes later, Stephanie comes to retrieve Hannah, apologizing once again.

  “Did Jason see her throw up?” Stephanie whispers, standing in the entryway in an old Turkey Trot T-shirt and exercise leggings while Hannah is finding her shoes.

  Charlotte hopes Stephanie can’t see the worry on her face at the mention of her husband. She should be able to tell her that Jason isn’t living here right now, but she can’t. It’s too much to explain, there will be too many questions she doesn’t want to answer. She nods her head consolingly, letting Stephanie believe that Hannah vomiting on the very rug they’re standing on is the worst thing that happened last night. “It’s fine!” she says, reaching to squeeze Stephanie’s arm. “Trust me, his mind is on Birdie.”

  Stephanie gives her a guilty look. “I really don’t know how they snuck past me.”

  “Stop,” Charlotte says.

  Stephanie sighs, then reaches out and grips Charlotte’s shoulders. “We will make it through this,” she jokes, her hands squeezing. “When they’re heading off to college, we might even miss this.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Charlotte says.

  Stephanie laughs. “We might, though! Because when they’re gone, we’ll be left all alone with our husbands.” She widens her eyes in mock terror.

  “Scary,” Charlotte manages to joke along, then turns before Stephanie can see the emotion on her face. “Birdie?” she calls up the stairs.

  Hannah comes down alone. “Birdie’s in the bathroom,” she says, her Converse sneakers hooked into two fingers at her side. “Mrs. McGanley,” she says, her eyes downcast. “Again, I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

  Stephanie puts her hand on her daughter’s back, guiding her out the door. “We’ll talk in the car, Hannah,” she says, then turns to Charlotte. “We’ll wash these and bring them back,” she says, nodding at Birdie’s T-shirt and pajama pants that Hannah’s wearing.

  “No hurry,” Charlotte says. “Least of my concerns.”

  Stephanie gives her a morose look, as if to say Tell me about it, and Charlotte shuts the door behind her.

  After Birdie comes downstairs, Charlotte asks her to join her at the table on the back patio where so much of their family life has occurred. Lazy weekend breakfasts, Sunday afternoon cookouts, long late-night talks between her and Jason when their marriage was young and they didn’t know what lay ahead of them, Birdie falling asleep in Jason’s arms, the fireflies twinkling around them.

  “Let’s talk,” Charlotte says, pulling out a chair and forcing those memories from her mind.

  Birdie sits across from her, tucking her knees up under her chin.

  “I’m not going to punish you,” Charlotte begins, picking up a shiny green leaf that had fallen onto the table and turning it between her fingertips. “We don’t need to go over why it was wrong for you to sneak out of Hannah’s house again but I’m proud of you for calling us when you needed help.”

  Birdie looks up at her, and when she does, her glare shoots right through Charlotte. “You were drunk last night, weren’t you, Mom? That’s why you couldn’t pick us up?”

  Shame courses through Charlotte’s body. “I need to apologize to you,” she says, weighing her words.

  Birdie’s expression remains stern and determined, waiting for an answer.

  “I did have too much to drink last night, that’s true.”

  “So what did you do? You called Dad to get us?”

  Charlotte nods. No need to tell her daughter that she tried to come get her, or how humiliating it felt when she realized she couldn’t.

  “Are you going to get a divorce?” Birdie asks.

  Charlotte looks down at her lap, trying to collect herself as she figures out how to handle Birdie’s questions. It’s difficult to look at her daughter. She has the same aggression on her face as when she’s lobbing a tennis ball over the net.

  “No,” Charlotte says, although the truth is, she doesn’t know now. “Bird,” she continues, “I haven’t been available to you in the way that I want to be. This first year of high school is such a big transition, and instead of helping you through it, walking with you . . . figuratively at least . . . I’ve been . . .”

  “You’ve been distracted?” Birdie says.

  “Yes.” Charlotte looks at her daughter, stunned by her intuitiveness. “That’s exactly it.”

  “By stuff with Dad? With work?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte says. “That’s right.”

  “It’s just weird, Mom,” Birdie says, sitting up in her chair. “Because you’re always so stressed. You have this expression on your face all the time like you’re worried about something.”

  Charlotte feels tears come to her eyes. She’s always believed that kids see and hear more than their parents realize, but it doesn’t make it any easier to see the truth of it staring right back at you, asking for answers.

  “But then I see you out in public somewhere, like talking to Hannah’s mom, or in a video I find on YouTube of one of your talks, and you’re like this totally different person.”

  “Well, that’s just, with work—”

  “I’m not talking about work, Mom,” Birdie interrupts, clearly frustrated. “You always use that as an excuse but I’m not talking about work. I’m talking about you.” She runs her hands through her hair, pulling it into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and then letting it go. “I’m just wondering, which one of you is my real mother? The one in the videos or the one I see here? Because I’d like to know. I think I can guess, but it’s not fair to me, Mom, to give the world one person and leave me with . . .” She looks away, and Charlotte can tell from the expression on her face that this is far from the first time she’s thought about this. “It’s not fair to any of us.”

  “Birdie, I—” Charlotte begins. “You have to understand that I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Are you, though?” Birdie says.

  “What?”

  “Is that what you were doing when you talked to Tucker that day at my practice? Doing your best?”

  “Birdie, I don’t understand where this is going.”

  “You know Tucker broke up with me because of you, Mom. That’s what I didn’t tell you in the car the other day. He said you threatened him, and it was all just a little too much. It was so humiliating, Mom. He broke up with me at school, in front of everyone.”

  Charlotte tenses. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he posted this video online when we were still together. It was so stupid,” she says. “Of a girl’s back, out by his pool. She was wearing a yellow bikini top, the kind that ties in the back?”

  “Okay,” Charlotte says, pressure building in her chest, wondering where this is going.

  “And the video showed Tucker’s hand—though he tried at first to claim it wasn’t his—pulling the string on the tie until it came undone.”

  “Did she—Was it like a joke?” Charlotte says. “Did she want him to do that, or—”

  “Yes, she definitely wanted him to,” Birdie says. “So everyone was talking about it the next day at school, the day after that practice, and when I saw him in the hallway, I confronted him. He was with a bunch of his friends, all the lacrosse guys, and she was there, too.”


  “The girl?”

  Birdie nods. “She put her arm around Tucker’s waist and he kind of looked at me and then looked away.”

  “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

  “I just . . . I didn’t know what to do. I froze,” she says. “He just stared at me and said, ‘I guess I should have told you, but I don’t think it’s going to work out.’ And everyone laughed. It was so terrible, Mom. You can’t even imagine how embarrassing. And then later that day outside school, when he wasn’t in front of his stupid friends, he told me about what you said to him.”

  “Oh, Birdie, why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve—”

  “Helped?” Birdie deadpans.

  Charlotte’s heart sinks. “I would have liked to know,” she says. “I would have liked to have been there for you.”

  “That would have been impossible, Mom,” Birdie says. “Because you’re never around. And you have no idea what it’s like to be me. The pressure at school, the pressure with tennis.”

  “If it’s too much pressure, you can stop playing tennis,” Charlotte says. “We’ve always said that, Bird.”

  She rolls her eyes. “And have you heard Dad when he starts talking to someone about college and the scholarships, like at the Cunninghams’ that night? Have you heard Coach Noah, constantly on me about my potential?”

  “But we’ve always said—”

  Birdie shakes her head and looks away, like she doesn’t want to hear it.

  Charlotte leans forward. “I really am trying to do my best,” she says, grabbing for Birdie’s hand across the table. Birdie lets Charlotte take it, but it lies limp in her hand. “You have to understand that, Bird. I’m trying really, really hard to hold everything together.” Hold myself together, she thinks.

  Birdie looks up at her, not an ounce of understanding on her face. She removes her hand from Charlotte’s and stands.

  “I’m trying so hard to do what’s best for us, Birdie,” she says, almost pleading. “I really, really am.”

  “Try harder, Mom,” Birdie says, the words hitting Charlotte with such force that she feels like she’s had the wind knocked out of her. And then Birdie is gone, leaving her, too.