What Remains True

by Thomas, Janis

  I feel myself deflate. I know I can’t be upset. This kind of thing happens in the life of an architect. He told me this morning that work was crazy, and I know that makes him stressed, and that’s probably all there is to him being a little off this week. His work pays the bulk of the bills and the mortgage, so what can I say, really?

  Disappointed, but I understand. Drive safe. Want me to save dinner for you?

  Again, I stare at the phone expectantly. He doesn’t text me back.

  THIRTY-SIX

  RUTH

  I don’t like lying to my sister, but sometimes lying is a necessity.

  I wasn’t at therapy when she called. My therapy was Wednesday morning, as always. But I couldn’t tell her where I was. She wouldn’t understand. I don’t even understand.

  I have a new routine. It began last month with a random occurrence. I was at the pharmacy on Euclid, which I don’t frequent, but my usual pharmacy was out of my medication and sent me to their other branch downtown. The pharmacist could have had my prescription sent over, but I didn’t want to wait, was down to my last three pills, so to expedite things, I took the option of going myself.

  As I was coming out of the store, I happened to look across the street and saw a group of young mothers pushing their strollers into the adjacent park. Charlie’s new wife was among them, although calling her his new wife is rather inappropriate, since they’ve been married for over a year. She was pushing a double stroller, and there was another woman who looked like a teenager pushing a single stroller beside her.

  I felt nauseated and exhilarated at the same time, and more than that, I felt like my will was not my own. I crossed the street, compelled by some perverse need to see my husband’s family up close, and surreptitiously followed the group into the park. I kept at a fair distance, not wanting to be noticed. I’ve never met Charlie’s wife in person—I’ve only seen her picture on Facebook—and I have no idea if she knows what I look like, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  They went straight to the playground, just inside the park gates, and I kept walking, pretended to be interested in something on my phone, ducking my head as I gazed at the lifeless screen. I found a park bench on the other side of the playground from where the group of mothers had stopped and encamped. I watched them, obscured by the jungle gym, these mothers who had the luxury and blessing of coming to the park on a Friday morning. They all looked very much the same: fit, wearing designer jeans and light sweaters, their hair—various shades but predominantly blonde—perfectly coiffed, their makeup perfectly applied, their countenances carefree. Charlie’s wife was older than the others, but not by much, and she looked like a magazine image of a mother, with her highlighted shoulder-length locks, button nose, and pink lipstick.

  The teenager was clearly her nanny, and I held very ungracious thoughts toward both Charlie and his wife. I don’t have children (and never will), but the idea of turning over a great percentage of your child’s care to someone else seems like throwing away a gift.

  I sat and watched as Charlie’s new wife released the twin girls from their confines and let them run free. The nanny pulled the infant boy out of his stroller and handed him to his mother. She set him across her lap and laid a small blanket over him as she covertly fed him from her breast.

  I watched and watched, and imagined that this could have been my life if I hadn’t been defective, if only my uterus and ovaries had been compliant to my demands. I could have been a part of this group of women. I would have been older by many years, but they would have accepted me and loved me, and we could have shared advice and diapers and stories of wonder of our babies’ firsts and complaints of sleeplessness and our impatience to stop nursing so we could drink again.

  I left the park that day in complete emotional turmoil, which I couldn’t share with my sister or anyone else in my life. I tried to reach my therapist, but it was a Friday, and he was unavailable until the following week.

  I’ve been coming to the park every Friday since then. I tell myself I won’t, but then I do. It’s almost like an addiction. I know there’s no harm in it, except . . . except a part of me dies every time I see her with her three children. Charlie’s children. The children I couldn’t give him.

  It was a blessing when Rachel asked me to babysit. The scene at the park this morning left me feeling sorry for myself and so damn empty and unfulfilled and useless. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Just because you are not physically able to bear children doesn’t mean your biological clock doesn’t tick. The maternal stimulation that Jonah and Eden provide is exactly what I need.

  As I pull into the garage of my apartment building, my phone chimes with an incoming text. I park in my assigned slot and pick up the phone. The text is from Rachel.

  Sam has to work late. Don’t need you to babysit.

  My heart drops, and I feel tears threaten. Then the phone chirps again. Want to come over anyway? We can put the kids down early and have a girls’ night in.

  I take a deep breath and blow it out very slowly. Then I type a response. Sounds lovely. Should I still bring the lasagna?

  A moment later, she replies. You supply the lasagna, I’ll supply the wine.

  I smile through my tears. Thank God. I don’t think I could handle a night by myself in front of the television. Not tonight. It will be good to be with my sister without Sam around. We haven’t had much girl time lately. Maybe I’ll tell her what I’ve been doing these Friday mornings. I haven’t told my therapist. I should, but I can’t. I’m ashamed.

  Maybe I can tell Rachel. She’ll probably laugh and make me feel silly, but that might be okay, too, because it is silly. And I need to stop. And telling Rachel might help me stop. Perhaps she and I can make a standing date to have coffee every Friday morning. Except the kids are off next week, so she won’t be able to make a date with me until after they’re back in school. Then you have another week of watching. I’m conflicted by the thought. Angry with myself for having it, and relieved that I don’t have to give this up just yet.

  Maybe I won’t tell Rachel tonight. It can wait.

  I get out of the car and walk to the elevator. Just as I press the “Call” button, the doors slide open. Judd Stevens, my downstairs neighbor, steps out. He is in his late forties, tall and lanky with an open, honest face. A professor of literature at the local college. A widower. He smiles when he sees me.

  “Hello, Ruth,” he says. “Just on my way to school. How are you this morning?”

  He holds the elevator door for me, and I step in. “I’m well, Judd. Thank you. How are you?”

  “Other than my sciatica, I’m just grand. Say, when are you going to come down and share that bottle of wine with me?”

  The first time he asked me down was two months ago. He’d received a wonderful bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild from the dean at the college, and he didn’t want to drink it alone. He said only a woman of my character could truly appreciate a wine such as this. I’d asked for a rain check, but I never assumed he would actually wait for me.

  “Hmm. I don’t know.” I feel my pulse rise, but not in a good way, and all I want to do is get up to my apartment where it’s safe.

  “Come on, Ruth. We’ve been neighbors for a year and a half. You know my intentions are completely honorable. It’s just a glass or two of wine.”

  My eyes meet his, and for a single moment, I wonder what the hell I’m so afraid of. I was never like Rachel, impetuous and gregarious and reckless. But I was also never the simpering, tragic figure I’ve become.

  Before I can stop myself, I say, “I’m free tomorrow night.”

  His smile grows wider. “Wonderful. Around seven?”

  “Shall I bring some cheese?”

  “You’ll bring nothing but yourself, if you don’t mind.” He winks at me. “See you then?” he asks, almost as if he suspects I’m going to cancel at the last minute, which I probably will.

  But for just these few seconds, I allow myself to imagine
that I am a woman who has actual plans tomorrow night.

  “See you then,” I say.

  When I step into my apartment, I notice that the air smells stale. I take off my jacket and hang it in the closet, then I spend a few minutes opening windows throughout the apartment. The cool April breeze whispers through the cracks, carrying with it the fragrance of sunshine.

  I go to the little corner desk in my living room and sit down. I pull out the second file drawer and peruse my recipe folder, then find the lasagna recipe. Luckily, I already have all the ingredients, although the sausage will need to defrost.

  I think about Judd Stevens. Maybe I should make a second lasagna to bring tomorrow night. We don’t have to eat it. He can put it in his freezer for another night. Then I realize that if I make a second lasagna for him, I’ll really have to go. My stomach clenches at the thought. I haven’t been alone with a man since Charlie. I don’t know if I remember how to behave.

  I decide to make a second lasagna for myself. If I happen to keep the date—oh God, did I just say date?—I’ll take it to him. And if, more likely, I cancel, I’ll put it in my freezer and save it for another meal with my sister’s family. The kids love my lasagna. Possibly as much as they love me.

  I pull the sausage out of the freezer and set it on the counter to defrost. My thoughts shift from Judd Stevens to Charlie’s new wife and his new family. They’re perfect, those children. Blond and gorgeous, I can tell from across the playground. Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be?

  I know it’s wrong to resent innocent children, and, really, my resentment isn’t directed specifically at them. But they should be my children. Not hers and Charlie’s. Mine and Charlie’s.

  I don’t like the direction of my thoughts, but I can’t really start the lasagna until the sausage thaws, so I march into the living room and sit on the couch and turn on the TV. I scan all of my recordings and settle on an episode of Bones from several years ago that I never watched.

  A grown woman watching her TiVo at eleven o’clock on a Friday morning is pathetic. But there are worse things I could be doing. Worse things I’ve done.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  SHADOW

  I don’t like being alone. I like it much better when my humans are home. I like it best when all of them are here, but if it’s just one, that’s okay.

  My mistress and Little Male and Little Female and my master left the house. I don’t know how long I was alone—I can’t really tell how the time goes by. But then my mistress came home. She patted my head and gave me a treat and that made me happy because I like treats even better than the food in my bowl.

  I’m on my bed now, eating my treat, while my mistress sits at the table staring at the little screen. There’s nothing alive on the little screen right now, just squiggly lines, and her fingers are tap-tap-tapping, and more squiggly lines come on the screen with every tap.

  I start at the knobby end of my treat and crunch through it. It tastes a little bit like the bendy strips my humans give me sometimes. Those are the best, and my tongue goes out of my mouth and drops of drool fall on the floor when I’m sitting waiting for them to give me one.

  I finish my treat and feel my insides move. I get up and go through the small door that’s just for me in the big door. I go to the grass and sniff around for a while, trying to find the right place to make. Finally, I find it, over by the fence. I squat. Up on the branch of the tree from the other side of the fence is a bird. It shakes its feathers and looks down at me. I sniff the air and can smell the bird’s wings and the worm it ate.

  I try to cover what I made with my back paws, but the grass never covers it. I hear something from the front of the house, and I go back inside. My mistress is still sitting at the table, but she isn’t tap-tap-tapping. She’s looking at her little screen. Her face is not happy.

  I go into the couch room, behind the couch, and stand at the window. I see the front yard, the grass that I’m not allowed to make on. I see the sidewalk that sometimes I walk on when my humans put my collar on and attach it to a long rope. I see the dark, wide strip where the cars move back and forth. I see the sidewalk on the other side of the dark strip. I see, sitting on that sidewalk, the cat.

  I push my nose against the window, hoping this time I can go through it, but the cold hits my nose and I pull away. The cat sees me, or somehow knows I’m here. It stiffens and turns its furry head in my direction and stares at me and then yawns.

  I feel the fur on my back go up, even though I didn’t make it so. My ears perk forward. The cat meows, and I hear it through the window. A whine happens in my throat, and then I bark. And then I bark again, and then I’m just barking and barking and I paw at the window and the cat is just staring at me with a face that looks like it thinks it’s better than me, which is not so because dogs are better than cats because dogs eat cats and cats can’t eat dogs.

  I bark and bark and my mistress comes into the room and I hear my name come from her mouth. I stop barking and turn to her. Her hands are on her hips, and she has an angry face.

  “Shadow, no!” she tells me, and I whine and sit back on my haunches. I’m a Good Boy and I listen to my humans. But the cat is still there. My mistress says something else, and I don’t know what her words mean, but her voice sounds not angry anymore, so I wag my tail at her. She walks over to where I am. She says something I can’t understand, and then she says the cat and then something else, and I know she saw the cat. She pats my head and calls me a Good Boy, and I want to be a Good Boy for my humans, but I also really want to bark at the cat.

  My mistress walks back into the kitchen, leaving me sitting, looking out the window.

  The cat arches its back and stretches its paws, turns around and shows me its backside, jerking its tail from side to side, like it knows I’m watching.

  I want to get the cat. I don’t know exactly why—it’s just something inside me. I don’t want to eat it. I just want to get it and show it that dogs are better and stronger and just more good than cats.

  If I have the chance, I’m going to get the cat.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  JONAH

  Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. It’s time! This day has been so long, the longest day in the history of the world. I don’t know why they don’t do the spring egg hunt when we first get to school. They make us wait till after lunch, which is like forever. Mommy said it’s because the teachers don’t like us to have sugar first thing in the morning, but I told her that didn’t make sense ’cause I have cereal or pancakes for breakfast sometimes and they both got sugar in them. But Mommy said that cereal and pancakes have other things in them that are good for you and that Easter eggs are, like, 100 percent sugar, and that 100 percent sugar can make you all jumpy and excited and make you not be able to do your work in class. But I couldn’t do my work in class anyways ’cause I was too excited thinking about the egg hunt!

  When we finally got to have lunch, I was almost too excited to eat the sandwich Mommy packed for me, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat the eggs unless I had something good for me in my tummy. So I ate the whole thing, and the carrot sticks and the string cheese she sent, and I ate it all real slow, so it would take time. Then we got recess, and I played on the jungle gym with my friend Jesse, and he said he was going to find the most eggs and I told him, no, I was going to. The one who finds the most eggs gets to take home Marco, Mrs. Hartnett’s stuffed monkey, for the whole vacation. I want to take Marco home so bad.

  After recess, my teacher made us line up by the gate and handed all of us the paper baskets we made yesterday for putting the eggs into. We’ve been waiting here for five minutes while the fourth and fifth graders are hiding the eggs. Jesse kind of sneaks over to the side of the building and looks around the corner like he’s trying to see where the big kids are hiding the eggs, and my teacher calls him back with a real serious voice and tells him now he has to go to the end of the line. He kicks the ground and makes a mad sound, but he goes.

  Then all
of a sudden, a fourth or fifth grader comes around the side of the building and says they’re ready. I jump up and down, but in my place ’cause I don’t want to get sent to the end of the line. Then Mrs. Hartnett looks at all of us and repeats the rules. I don’t need to listen ’cause she already told us them this morning, and they’re just about being nice and respectful, not grabbing or pushing or shoving, and everybody already knows that anyways. Then she tells us that as soon as we hear the whistle, we all need to stop finding eggs and march straight over to the four-square courts and that anyone who doesn’t won’t be able to win Marco. I’m glad I listened to that last part ’cause I kind of forgot about it.

  Then my teacher raises her hand and says, “Happy hunting!” And I dash around the corner toward the big-kid playground, with all my classmates running along with me.

  The fourth and fifth graders are all standing in a big circle around the jungle gym, blacktop, and field area, watching us kindergartners find eggs, making sure we’re not fighting or anything. I see Eden over by the monkey bars, and I give her a big wave. She must not have seen me because she doesn’t wave back, but I don’t have time to think about that right now ’cause I got to find my eggs.

  While most of the other kids go onto the big-kid jungle gym, I duck underneath it, because I know that’s a good place to hide eggs. And I’m right, ’cause they’re everywhere. I can’t even count how many I put in my basket, but lots and lots, and then, when Jesse and some other kids follow me under, I scramble out the other side and go to where the grass starts. I see so many eggs hiding in the long grass! I get down on my hands and knees and kind of crab walk along the grass, scooping eggs into my basket. I pretend I don’t see the ladybugs on the grass—they’re called Coccinellidae—’cause if I stop to look at ’em, I won’t get as many eggs.

  I’m just grabbing a couple more when I hear the whistle. My fingers are already on them, so I scoop ’em up and put ’em in my basket and then I march over to the four-square area. I can’t believe how fast that hunt went! And I think I got a lot of eggs, but when I look at other kids’ baskets I see that a lot of my classmates have a lot of eggs, too, and I think maybe I’m not going to win Marco after all. I still get to keep all the eggs for eating and sharing with Eden and Mommy and Daddy, and that’s good, too, but I sure do wish I could take Marco home.