On Grace

by Susie Orman Schnall

  “Hey, hey. She’s gonna be fine. Come here,” I say and give him a long hug.

  “Hey.” We pull away and see Darren in the doorway. He goes up to Jack and gives him a hug. “Sorry, man. I know this must be so rough.”

  “Thanks, Darren,” Jack says as he sits down and takes a sip of the coffee.

  “You okay?” Darren asks me.

  I look at him and shake my head no. I can’t speak. I’m suddenly overcome with emotion: relief that Darren is speaking to me and looking at me so tenderly, and fear about what’s about to happen with Cameron. I try to hold back the tears, but they are too strong for me this time. He looks at me and smiles hesitantly, but I can’t tell what his eyes are trying to tell me. And then he hugs me. For a very long time. My heart is racing, and the tears are unremitting. And he keeps hugging me. Tightly.

  When he releases me, he whispers, “It’s gonna be okay.”

  I can’t help but wonder what he means by “it.”

  It’s just the three of us in the waiting room. A slow day for cancer, apparently. Cameron’s parents are driving down from Maine, and they’re scheduled to arrive this evening. They’ll stick around for a few days to help Cameron once she gets home from the hospital. I try to talk to Jack, but he just answers my questions with yes or no answers, and then looks back down at his iPad. So I take the hint and realize he doesn’t feel up to talking. Darren sits in the corner of the room speaking quietly on a conference call. I’ve brought things to read, but I can’t focus. The television in the room is set to MSNBC. We can’t find a remote to change the channel, and it’s mounted too high to reach the controls. I could go in search of someone for help, but instead I just close my eyes and think.

  The surgeon promised to come in here after the surgery to update us on how it went. She told Jack this morning that she’ll need two hours and that the plastic surgeon will need two more to insert the tissue expanders, the first step in reconstruction. I figure there are three possible outcomes to this surgery. The optimistic and in-denial part of me hopes the doctor will come in and say, “You’ll never believe it! It was just a big misunderstanding. We found nothing. It must have been dust on the ultrasound machine and a mix-up in the lab. She’s fine!” The pessimistic, doomsday side of me considers the doctor might come in and say, “It’s worse than we thought. The poor girl’s body is riddled with tumors. There’s nothing more we can do.” When the surgeon finally comes in the waiting room, she says something in the middle.

  “The surgery went really well, and she did great. There appeared to be some signs of spread to the sentinel lymph node, so I removed more of the axillary nodes to make sure I got it all out. All in all, I’m really pleased.”

  “Great,” Jack says, relieved.

  “The plastic surgeon is in with her now. He’ll come in here in a couple hours, and then you’ll be able to see her when she’s in recovery.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Jack says, shaking her hand firmly. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says with a smile and turns to leave.

  Jack and I look at each other and smile. I ask him if he wants anything from the cafeteria, and he says no. I tell him I’m going to get a coffee or something, and Darren, who had gotten off his call just before the doctor came in, offers to join me.

  As we walk down the hall toward the elevator, I feel like I’m walking next to a stranger. I don’t know what to say. So I decide not to say anything at all and let him start.

  “Do you feel a little better now?” he asks, as we stop at the elevator bank, and he pushes the down button.

  “Yes, a lot,” I say, tears stinging my eyes as I stare at the closed elevator doors.

  An elevator opens, and we get in. It’s crowded, so we don’t talk. When we get off, we walk side by side silently until we get in line at the cafeteria.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Gracie,” Darren says softly as we slide our trays slowly along the metal counter.

  I look at him. I’m a bit stunned. I didn’t expect this from him.

  He stops and turns to me. “I’ve been thinking a lot, about so many things. About us. About what each of us did. About Cameron. About what’s actually important. I’ve tried to analyze this situation from every angle. And the more I think about it and the more time that passes from the night you told me, the more I realize that, yes, I did overreact. I certainly don’t like that you were, as you said, flirting with another man, but I understand how it could have happened. I see how what I did to you could have led you to do what you did. And you didn’t let anything physical happen beyond that start of a kiss, and that’s more than I can say for myself. I was an asshole, Gracie, on so many levels. And I’m sorry.”

  I’m speechless. I look into his eyes and smile.

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Darren,” I say, as I realize the other people in line are quietly stepping around us.

  “I’ve tried to imagine my life going forward in all different scenarios. And what I’ve come up with is that I don’t want to move forward in a life that doesn’t include you and that doesn’t include our family together,” he says, as we start moving again. Darren takes an apple that’s resting in a little paper tray and continues, “I’m sorry I put you through what I did these last few weeks.”

  “Apology accepted,” I say quietly, the joy and relief bubbling inside of me like almost-boiling coffee in a percolator.

  “Let’s just make a deal, though, that we’ll save all our flirting and kissing and feelings for each other from now on,” he says, smiling at me.

  “Deal,” I say, smiling right back.

  We pile our trays with fruit, muffins, and coffee; get in the cashier line; and then make our way back up to Jack in the waiting room, the ride up the elevator being monumentally more pleasant than the one we had taken down just fifteen minutes earlier.

  “Wow, what happened to you two down there?” Jack asks, as he notices we’re smiling and holding hands.

  “Just a little perspective, that’s all,” Darren says, pulling me closer to him.

  “Well, I’m glad that some good is coming out of all of this,” Jack says as he gives us a look and turns back to the heated game of Scrabble on his iPad.

  epilogue

  February

  “How does it feel?” my mom asks amusedly as I come into the kitchen and make my way toward the coffee pot.

  “Feels great, actually,” I say, inhaling the steam from my mug and sitting down next to her at the table.

  “Well, it just makes me feel really old,” she says with a half frown as she gets up from her chair and gives me a hug. “Happy birthday, Gracie,” she says and kisses me on the forehead.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’m really so glad you’re here.”

  “I’m happy you wanted me to come,” she says with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

  “I really needed you here with me.”

  “I know you’ve been through so much lately, Gracie. I imagine celebrating will be bittersweet,” she says.

  “Happy birthday!” a voice sings coming down the back stairs.

  “Thank you,” I say, smiling at my sister.

  The three of us sit at my kitchen table, looking out the windows at the bright and cloudless February morning, the bare trees, the cold blue sky. When my alarm rang this morning at 6:30, Darren gave me a kiss and told me to sleep in, that he would get the boys off to school. So, with a smile, I fell back into a deep, blissful sleep.

  “Anyone want to join me for a run?” I ask.

  “It’s freezing outside,” Eva replies. “I don’t exercise when it’s freezing.”

  “It’s energizing!” I say.

  “I brought a Pilates tape, if anyone wants to join me,” my mom says, already dressed in a spandex ensemble that Jane Fonda would envy.

  “What time do we have to be ready?” Eva asks.

  “We’ll leave at 11:15. The restaurant is about twenty-five minutes away. Lunch is planned for noon, but I n
eed some time to arrange the place cards and the centerpieces, and take care of a few other things.”

  “I’m really looking forward to this party, Gracie,” my mom says.

  “I am, too. And I’m so glad the party is on my actual birthday. It makes it that much more special.”

  “You really are going to have a fabulous day,” Eva says.

  “So, remind me, what happens after the party?” my mom asks.

  “You guys will drive my car back here and get the boys off the bus. I’ve already typed out very good directions, and I’ll set my navigation system as well so you won’t have any issues finding your way,” I say.

  “Always so organized, that baby sister of mine,” Eva says with a little punch to my shoulder. And then she sticks her finger in her open mouth and pretends to gag.

  “Ha, funny,” I say. “But seriously, thank you so much again for babysitting tonight. I know the boys are really excited about it. Darren has a full day of meetings today, but he’s gonna meet me tonight for dinner around seven. And then we’ll be back home around nine or so tomorrow morning,” I say, draining my cup before I head upstairs to put my running clothes on. I joined a running group right after the new year and we meet up at different spots three mornings a week. And I started doing Rye Boot Camp by the Beach and SoulCycle as well. It’s amazing how my body has already changed so much from the regular exercise, and I feel like my head has never been clearer.

  I leave the house as my mom and Eva cook breakfast and dance in my kitchen to Mariah Carey blasting out of my sister’s iPod. I laugh to myself, and a wave of love goes through me. I am really so happy that they both made the effort to fly out here to be with me for my fortieth. There was a point when I wasn’t so sure I wanted my mom to come. At the beginning of January, she called and dropped a bomb on me.

  “Gracie, I made a New Year’s resolution to be honest with everyone in my life.”

  “Great, Mom. But don’t you do that already?” I asked, regretting having picked up the phone. I was in a hurry.

  “Yes, most of the time, I do,” she said, a bit flustered. “But I haven’t always, and I haven’t always been honest with you.”

  “Okay.” I said, drawing the word out, unsure of what my mom was going to tell me. I really didn’t think I would be able to handle another major thing in my life. I heard her take a deep breath.

  “Okay, here goes,” she started. “I’m just gonna blurt it out. I cheated on your father.”

  “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?” I had been getting dressed to go to a birthday lunch for one of the moms at the boys’ school. I sat down on my bed.

  “The reason we got divorced was not because we couldn’t communicate well. The real reason was that I cheated. There, I said it. Ah. Thank God.”

  “Jesus, Mom. I, I don’t even know what to do with this information right now,” I said, putting the phone on speaker for a minute so I could have both hands free to cradle my head in.

  “I know, Gracie. I realize this is a really big deal and a lot of information for you to digest all at once, but I’m so glad you finally know. Not telling you has always been a huge internal conflict for me,” she said, a decided tone of relief in her voice.

  “Not telling me? You mean, Eva knows?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Yes,” she answered quietly. “She’s known for a few years.”

  “Why did you tell her and not me?”

  “Oh, Gracie. You’re just more sensitive than Eva. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. Plus, it just came out one night when we were out for dinner together. I don’t even remember how it came up.”

  “Did Dad ever find out?” I asked, as suddenly a million questions came into my head like: Who was the guy? Was it just once or did you have a relationship with him? How did you tell Dad? My mom and I talked for the next half hour and she answered my questions (a business partner of my dad’s; just once while my dad was away on business; his partner felt too guilty and told my dad himself, then my dad pushed him out of the firm, and now he does trusts and estates in Boca). Despite my being very late to the lunch, I found out that my dad was devastated and that together they had decided to keep it from us girls because they didn’t want us to resent my mom for breaking up the family. Looking at it from a forty-year-old woman’s perspective, I think they made the right decision. Despite the fact that I felt completely betrayed.

  But, it explained a lot. It explained why my parents got divorced in the first place (their “real” reason never made much sense to me, considering they actually seemed well suited to each other most of the time). It explained why my mom was so gung ho from the beginning about Darren and me getting back together, and why she tried to convince me that an affair doesn’t need to end a marriage. It explained our conversation back in September at Il Cielo. And it explained why my dad was so cagey when we had dinner at the Oyster Bar.

  I got off the phone that day entirely confused, and I spent a lot of time over the next week or so thinking back to my childhood and looking at everything through this new lens. Some things about how my mom and dad related to each other after the divorce made more sense, knowing that my mom had cheated on him. And I also started seeing my mom differently. After her admission to me, I was really angry at her. But slowly, I decided that I wanted to move forward.

  Mostly, I realized that I had to let the whole thing go because my other option is to not have a relationship with my mother, and that is not an option for me. Knowing that she did that also humanized her a bit more for me, and allowed me to see her as just another woman who made mistakes in her life and is now trying to make up for them the best way she can. And I appreciate her for that. We went through a period of not talking. When I called her a few weeks ago to invite her to come to my party, she cried. I know she worried that she might have lost me.

  “Hi Grace! Happy birthday!” Callie says, running up to me and giving me a hug. “I’m so happy to be here!” she says.

  “I’m so happy, too,” I say, taking the beautifully wrapped gift she hands me and setting it down on one of the side tables.

  “I think you’re really gonna like forty,” she says.

  “I think you’re right,” I say. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m so glad we’ve reestablished our relationship over the past couple months. I love that I’ve totally gotten into yoga, but I think the best part of it all has been reconnecting with you during our Friday after-yoga coffee dates.”

  “Aww, Grace. I feel the exact same way,” Callie says as she sets down her bag and takes a glass of wine off the waiter’s tray.

  “Hi, ladies.”

  “Hey, Nicole,” Callie and I say.

  “This place is beautiful!” Nicole says. “I’ve been to yoga here and to the little cafe, but I’ve never been in the main restaurant. What an amazing room,” she says, looking around the private dining room at the Bedford Post Inn where my fortieth birthday luncheon has officially begun.

  The Bedford Post Inn is a gorgeous place that Richard Gere (yes, that Richard Gere) and his wife Carey Lowell opened in northern Westchester County. There’s an eight-room inn with really beautiful and cozy rooms, a yoga loft, a casual cafe in the renovated barn, and a more formal dining room, all set on a magnificent property dating back to the late 1800s. After the lunch, I’m going to go upstairs to the lovely room I checked into when I arrived here this morning to relax in the bath, read a book, and wait for Darren. We have dinner reservations in the formal dining room, and then we’re going to spend the night. I couldn’t be more excited.

  “It’s just a little something,” Nicole says, handing me a gift.

  “Thank you,” I say, as I give her a hug.

  “Callie, I’m glad you’re standing here because you are the reason I met Grace,” Nicole says. “And I think this is a fitting occasion to let you know, Grace, that we have decided to officially make Wee Well in Westchester a permanent part of our site. And, if you’ll accept, I’d like to make you
an official member of our staff instead of just a freelancer,” Nicole says, beaming at me.

  Back in December, Nicole called me out of the blue and told me that the new email product was doing really well and they had decided to do a series of emails and short-form pieces on the site for families, called Wee Well in Westchester. She immediately thought of me, and I immediately agreed to the freelance opportunity. I spend about five hours a week researching yoga classes for kids, natural allergy relief practitioners, cafes with healthy kids’ offerings, etc. The Wee division has been mostly ad hoc, but I had heard rumblings around the office that it might become a more permanent part of the company with more resources and a dedicated staff. Well, it appears that dedicated staff is now me. It’s the perfect opportunity.

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Really,” she says.

  “Well, then, Nicole. Yes, I accept,” I say, and I feel like I’m going to burst with happiness. “But,” I start, suddenly not so sure of something.

  “Don’t worry. It isn’t a full-time position, and I’m able to be very flexible with your hours so you can be at the bus for the boys.”

  “Wow. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Nicole. That sounds perfect,” I say.

  “Okay, enough of that, there are lots of people here who want a piece of you, so go have fun. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about your new job next week.”

  “Excellent,” I say as I watch Nicole and Callie sit down on one of the sofas at the end of the room.

  The private dining room is exquisite. There is a long wooden farm table that takes up most of the space. At one end of the room is a wall of windows looking out on the beautiful grounds, certainly more beautiful in the summer with the lush greenery and colorful flowers, but almost equally beautiful today with the snow-covered stone walls and evergreens. At the other end of the room is a seating area with two cozy couches, a low table, and a crackling wood-burning fireplace. I’ve always longed for a summer birthday, but today is perfect and I wouldn’t have it any other way.