by Kate Hewitt
“Be good, girls,” I called half-heartedly, even though part of me didn’t want them to be good. I wanted them to miss me, to act out, to show Paul and Elaine all the things I was dealing with. I tried to catch Alexa’s eye, but she wasn’t having it.
And then, before I could say anything more, they were gone, doors slamming shut and Paul revving the engine, pulling smoothly out into the street and leaving me behind in the frigid air and clouds of exhaust.
I stood there for a moment, already at a loss. For the last six weeks my life had revolved around my children—they’d been with me all the time, so I’d barely been able to go to the bathroom without someone knocking on the door. I wasn’t sure I knew what to do, how to be, without them anymore.
Finally I went back inside; the apartment radiated emptiness. I closed my eyes, imagining that Laura was here, that we’d let the kids go for the first time on their own, so we could have a staycation by ourselves.
Can you believe it, Laur? A week of sleeping in. Takeout. Movies.
And we’re going to watch at least one romcom. You promised.
Oh come on, action all the way.
I’ll give you some action right now…
And, laughing, we’d chase each other down the hallway and tumble into bed, just like we’d done before kids, when we’d been young and silly, without a care in the world.
Except, of course, that had never happened. We’d never had a week without the girls, and even if we had, we wouldn’t have done those things, or even had that conversation. We’d have come back inside, and I would have gone on to my laptop, and Laura would have drifted around the house, tidying up, feeling lonely. After an hour or so she would have roused me from my study, asked if we could go for a walk. I would have sighed and said okay, as if I were making a concession. Then we would have walked around the Central Park reservoir, hands deep in pockets, my fingers itching to check my phone. Laura would have made a few comments about the weather, the girls, what she’d read recently in The New Yorker. And I might have said something back.
That memory, real or not, was the way it would have gone. I knew it, with a thud of disappointment in myself. Why did it take my wife dying to realize it?
Shaking my head, trying to hold back that almighty tidal wave of grief, I started cleaning the kitchen, wanting to do something useful, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept imagining Laura; she felt so close, I lifted my head a few times, half-expecting to see her around the corner, coming into a room.
Hey, you’ve been at that for an hour. Come relax with me.
And sometimes I would have; a smile would have tugged my mouth as she reached for my hand. I would have rubbed her feet as she’d sprawled on the sofa, sun streaming through the window. That had happened. I was sure it had.
In the end, I left the kitchen still mostly messy and sprawled in front of the TV instead, turning on something mindless.
There were a dozen ways I could have used this time productively—tidied the apartment, caught up on laundry, checked in with work, dealt with the whole nanny, or lack of one, situation. All of those options felt overwhelming, impossible. I’d struggled on for six weeks and I couldn’t anymore. I just couldn’t.
I watched six episodes of Ice Road Truckers back to back before my brain started to feel like it would melt.
I stumbled up from the sofa, foggy-brained and blurry-eyed, pacing the confines of the apartment, so restless I could have slipped out of my skin. I told myself I could get a start on some of the renovations—strip the wallpaper from the dining room, since it was half peeling off anyway. Or I could paint the walls in the living room. Do something with the 70s-style bathroom, surprise the girls when they got back.
But of course I didn’t. I didn’t even finish cleaning the kitchen. Instead, I called Frank and asked him if he wanted to meet up for a beer.
“Nathan, it’s so good to hear from you,” he said in that slightly unctuous way he had of talking. I realized he was treating me like a client, someone who had to be handled. “Yes, sure, let’s go for a beer. Where do you want to meet?”
I mentioned a bar in midtown, halfway between us since Frank lived in Soho with his high-powered lawyer wife Claire. They had no children.
“Thanks, Frank,” I said, because I realized it was asking a lot, for him to come out the day after Christmas.
* * *
The bar was packed with half-drunk holidaymakers as I shouldered my way through the crowd and found Frank at the bar, sipping a draft beer. I slid onto the stool next to him and ordered one for myself.
“Nathan.” He eyed me appraisingly, clearly not knowing quite how to treat me, which rankled, even though I understood it. My friendship with Frank had a foundation of mutual ambition and shared work; that had always been enough. In moments like this, though, I knew it wasn’t. We hadn’t seen each other since Laura’s funeral. “How are you holding up?” Frank asked after a moment.
I shrugged. “I’m okay.” What else could I say? I’m falling apart, I want to howl, I’ve come to realize I’ve been a crap husband as well as dad?
“Good.” He sounded relieved. “And the girls?” This said reluctantly, because Frank and Claire had always been very firm as well as vocal about their desire never to have kids.
When Laura and I had had Alexa, things had invariably shifted between us; we were besotted with our baby, Frank and Claire not so much. Then we’d had Ella, adding insult to injury, and when Ruby had come along, a not-entirely-welcome surprise, we’d turned into this awkward, unwieldy thing, a family with far too many kids, especially by New York standards.
“It’s hard for them,” I told Frank. It felt disloyal to pretend that it wasn’t, to gloss over my daughters’ grief the way I could mine. “Really hard. Alexa, especially, I think. She’s so angry, and I don’t know why.”
Frank looked shocked and even a bit embarrassed by my emotional outburst. Way too much sharing for him. Clearly he’d wanted a “fine”, but I was sick of pretending. I hadn’t been doing a good job of it, anyway.
“It must be tough,” he murmured. “Do you have people to support you?”
I glanced up at him, unable to keep from noticing his choice of words—and having them sting. Do you have people? Meaning he was not one of them.
It was obvious what he wanted me to say: Oh yes, lots. So many families and friends. We are totally taken care of! At first it had felt like that, at least a little. A few preschool moms had brought casseroles, sent cards. Walkerton’s PTA had ordered a schedule of meals, mostly ordered from Fresh Direct and delivered to our door, no personal interaction required. But all that had tapered off weeks ago, and nothing had taken its place.
No one had, I realized then, invited Ruby for a playdate, or suggested they take the girls somewhere fun for an afternoon. No one had sent a card or email or even just a lousy text, checking how we were. The radio silence, unnoticed in my own dazed and exhausted grief, hit hard now. Where were Laura’s friends? Why weren’t they stepping up? Was it because I’d never really known them, or because Laura had been detaching herself from them over the last few months?
I thought of the secret volunteering, the lack of texts from friends on her phone. I hadn’t realized any of it. I’d had no idea what had been going on in her mind. Maria had known more than I had.
“Sure,” I told Frank now, trying to smile. “A few friends.” I could barely manage the lie, but he looked relieved, eager to drop the subject.
“Good, that’s good. And you’re looking forward to coming back to work? Next week, right?”
Wordlessly, I nodded.
“We need you back there, man. It’ll be good to have you in the driver’s seat again. You got the email about the Drexler bid?”
The bid we’d been making the day Laura died. I flinched as I nodded; I couldn’t help it.
Realization flashed across Frank’s features. “Sorry,” he murmured. He didn’t look apologetic, though, more like annoyed. Grief was an irritant to ot
her people, I knew. It slowed them down, made them impatient. When you weren’t experiencing it yourself, it was so very tedious to have to endure in someone else.
And part of me got that. I really did. I remembered when one of our admin staff at work had lost her mother. She’d asked for compassionate leave for three weeks, which seemed ridiculous to me at the time. I even remember thinking, Come on, it’s only your mom. She must have been at least eighty.
Now I felt ashamed of my former self, even as I wished I could go back to that hardened, quick-moving version of me. Grief might be tedious for others, but for those feeling it, it just sucked. And I was tired of it. I was tired of feeling it, all the time, a never-ending drain on my life, my body, my heart.
Which was why I ordered another beer, and then another, and then a shot of Johnnie Walker. Frank matched me beer for beer, but when we got to shots, he backed off. Coward.
“Sorry, man, but Claire’s waiting for me at home. And we’re heading to Aspen tomorrow.” He held up his hands in a don’t-blame-me pose, shaking his head with mock regret. “Otherwise I’d be right there with you, absolutely.”
Yeah, right. As if. I downed the shot in one; I was used to whisky after six weeks of necking it as an anaesthetic every night, and it barely burned a trail to my gut. I held up my hand for another.
“Nathan…” Frank sounded more exasperated than concerned. “Don’t get drunk.”
“Why not?” I gave him an acid smile. “I don’t have a wife waiting for me at home, and I’m not heading off to Aspen tomorrow.” I slurred a little bit; I also sounded bitter.
Frank held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I just…” He shook his head. “I’ll see you in the new year? January second, eight-thirty sharp?” He smiled, wanting me to be excited about the prospect of work, and I just didn’t have it in me. I didn’t even have a nanny yet.
I nodded, not looking at him. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay.”
I watched him go, and then the bartender poured me another shot.
Things got a bit blurry after that. I had a few more shots, none of them helping, the bar, its crowd and noise, fading in and out. At some point, a guy jostled me in the shoulder, and I shouted at him. I don’t remember what I said.
The bartender came over. “Hey, buddy, I think you’ve had enough.”
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t had nearly enough. I said something rude, I didn’t know what, and then a bouncer came over, and I started to laugh, because really? I was going to get thrown out of a bar?
“My wife just died, okay?” I slurred, ashamed, even in my inebriated state, to play that pathetic trump card. “My wife died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the bouncer said stiffly. “But there are rules, man.”
“Fine, fine, I’m going.” I threw a couple of twenties on the bar and lurched up from my stool, the room swinging wildly around me. I felt as if I could cry. People were staring.
I stumbled out of the bar, the cold air a slap in the face, but still not enough to turn me sober. A taxi sped by, throwing slush across my shoes, and then my stomach cramped, and I was violently sick all over the pavement. I ended up on my hands and knees, my insides turning out, people nearby exclaiming rudely as they swerved around me.
I felt a terrible, corroding shame. Was this what I had become? What I was choosing?
Somehow, I got a taxi back home, stumbling past the doorman, who remained solicitously blank-faced. Inside, the apartment’s empty silence taunted me. The laundry I’d put on yesterday, still wet in the washer and starting to smell—all the clean clothes I’d forgotten to pack in Ella’s suitcase. A spill of stale cereal across the kitchen counter, dirty bowls piled in the sink. In the girls’ bedroom, Ella’s too-small underpants lay on the bed, three pairs she couldn’t wear.
I kicked off my shoes, started to undo my belt, and then I gave up, collapsing on my bed, too tired and weary even to cry. This was my life, and I felt as if I couldn’t stand a second more of it, or of myself.
Fourteen
Maria
“Thank you so much for meeting me.”
I stared at Nathan West uncertainly and managed a nod. I was still shocked that I was actually here, in a coffee shop around the corner from his apartment building, talking with him… why?
He’d called me that morning, three days after Christmas, sounding exhausted and uncertain and alarmingly desperate.
“Maria… it’s Nathan. I was wondering… well, I was wondering if you’d have coffee with me. I wanted to discuss something with you,” he’d clarified hurriedly, as if I might actually jump to some inappropriate conclusion when, in truth, I had no idea what to think. “If you don’t mind…”
“I don’t mind.” I spoke quietly, each beat of my heart painful. What did he want to talk about? Had he found out something about Laura’s death? I could not imagine what he might have to say to me.
Nathan hadn’t contacted me in two weeks, since we’d decorated the tree and I’d made krofne with Ruby and Ella. It had been a lovely evening; the memory of it had sustained me for the following weeks, as I went to work, to volunteer, and then home again, a numbing and familiar cycle. As the days passed and he hadn’t been in touch, I’d resigned myself to never hearing from the Wests again. No, that was a lie. I hadn’t resigned myself at all, and that was the trouble. I was waiting. Without meaning to, I was waiting for him to be in touch.
“I’m not doing well,” he blurted, looking down at his coffee. His hair was sticking up in several directions and he hadn’t shaved that morning. His eyes were bloodshot. He emitted, I couldn’t help but notice, the stale, yeasty smell of metabolizing alcohol.
“It hasn’t been very long,” I reminded him quietly.
“I know… but it’s not just that. I can’t cope with everything. Anything. It’s too much. All the time, it’s too much. I feel like I’m a crap dad. I am a crap dad. And I’m going back to work next week… I have to. It’s been six weeks already, I’ve got to work…”
I nodded to show him I understood, and he sighed heavily.
“My in-laws… well, it’s complicated. The girls are with them now. And when they get back, I need to have childcare in place. Otherwise…” He paused, as if I should be able to finish that sentence.
“Are you going to hire a nanny?” I asked after a moment.
“That was the idea, of course, but the agency I found is so stuck up and they say it will take weeks, if not months, to find someone they deem suitable, especially over the holidays…” He shook his head. “Why does it have to take so long? It’s like they want to make it difficult for you. Anyway, I was thinking… and the girls keep asking for you, Ruby especially, she’s really bonded…” He trailed off, looking at me expectantly. I had no idea what to think. What he meant for me to think.
“They’re lovely girls,” I said after a heavy pause.
“And they’re really fond of you. Already. I mean, I know this is a bit unexpected, and we don’t know each other very well, and hell, it’s a bit, well, strange… but it just occurred to me, you know, how all the girls seem to like you, even Alexa, and you know what she’s like…” He hesitated, and I started to get a glimmer of what he was trying to say, even though I still couldn’t credit it at all. “I know I have no right to ask you anything,” he continued hurriedly. “And this might not even work, you might have no interest at all in something like this…” He stopped with another despairing shake of his head, needing me, as ever, to make the connection. The choice.
“Nathan,” I said quietly. “What are you trying to ask me?”
He met my gaze, nodding once, as if coming to a decision. “I want to ask if you’d consider being a… a nanny to the girls. Nanny might be the wrong word, though. Housekeeper, superwoman, lifesaver…” He let out a shaky laugh and shook his head. “Tell me to stop whenever you want. I realize I’m being completely presumptuous. You have a job, I know that, a whole life, and we don’t really know each other. It co
uld be a temporary position if you’d rather, until I can work something else out…”
“A nanny,” I repeated, hardly able to believe it.
“Am I crazy?” He gave an appealing look. “It’s just, you get on so well with the girls. But I know I’m being presumptuous, offensive even. You have a job… at a hairdresser’s, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you probably don’t want to leave that. Sorry, this was a long shot. It’s just…” he trailed off again, shrugging, despondent now. “I suppose I thought it was worth a try…”
I shook my head, half to keep him from talking while I ordered my thoughts and half because I couldn’t actually believe what he was suggesting.
Involve myself completely in their lives, day in and day out? For how long? My mind reeled with all the implications, the images—making dinner, baking with Ella, bedtime stories with Ruby, board games in the dining room, all of us like a family… but would it—could it—even be like that?
“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment, because the silence had gone on for several taut seconds and something needed to be said. “This has surprised me. I need to think.”
“Of course, of course…” He nearly tripped over the words. “I’m sorry for springing this on you. It must be strange… I know we don’t actually know each other all that well, but the girls have taken such a liking to you. And I trust you…” He let that statement dwindle away, as if he knew he had no reason to trust me. No reason at all.
I took a sip of coffee, trying to compose my swirling thoughts. I was so shocked by his proposal that I couldn’t get past the surprise, the utter unexpectedness of it. It had been over two weeks since he’d been in touch, and in truth I’d never expected to see any of them again. And now this… not just to visit once or twice, but to see them every day. To, more or less, mother his daughters. To order his home. I could picture it already, all of it, in sweet yet excruciating detail. I could see myself in that kitchen, tucking Ruby in every night, brushing Ella’s long golden hair, somehow getting past Alexa’s sullen sulks. Oh, I could see it. How I could. For the first time, I could see a future. My future.
