The Year We Turned Forty

by Liz Fenton

  “Oh?”

  “I told him to get some rest, that I’d clean up the kitchen and help Grandma if she needed anything,” Emily said matter-of-factly as she turned on the water and began scrubbing a casserole dish. Claire watched in disbelief, wanting to say, Who are you and what have you done with my surly daughter?

  “Great,” Claire managed, and slid into one of the chairs at the dinner table, as the dog nuzzled her leg, feeling bad for doubting her daughter. Maybe she had written the apology letter after all.

  “So are you ready to go back to school tomorrow?” she said, bracing herself for a snooty response.

  But Emily only shrugged, her back still to Claire as she rinsed the dish and grabbed a frying pan.

  “We’ll head over to meet Mr. Randall at eight thirty and show him the letter you wrote,” Claire said, deciding not to directly ask if she’d written the apology note to the girl she’d hurt, hoping to show Emily she trusted her by assuming she had.

  “What if she doesn’t want to read it?” Emily said, her voice catching, and Claire felt her chest expand to let out the breath she’d been holding.

  She rushed over to Emily, turning her around by the shoulders. “Of course she will.”

  “Maybe she won’t want to forgive me.”

  “We all make mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

  “Dad didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Dad didn’t deserve a second chance. He asked for one and you refused to give him one.”

  “What do you mean?” Claire felt her heartbeat quicken. Had Emily’s father contacted her directly?

  “Is that why I don’t have a relationship with my dad? Because you can’t forgive him?” Emily’s eyes blazed as they stared into Claire’s. Emily hadn’t brought up her dad in years. Where was this coming from?

  “Em, it’s complicated.”

  “So uncomplicate it for me,” she said, sounding so much the way she did as an adult that Claire blinked several times to be sure this was the version of Emily who had just turned thirteen the week before and not the twenty-two-year-old one.

  Claire took a deep breath, searching for the right words. She’d never said anything bad about Emily’s father to her and she wasn’t going to start now. But she wasn’t sure how honest she should be. Last time, Emily hadn’t asked about her dad when she was this age—in fact, he hadn’t come up at all for years. Emily didn’t mention him until her high school graduation neared, curious if he might attend. The letters that Claire had refused to acknowledge had finally dwindled away. Claire had felt a spasm of guilt when she had shaken her head, no, that she didn’t think he’d be there for this milestone.

  “He loves you, Em. But he didn’t always follow through on what he said. It felt like we were better off without him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you were younger, he’d say he was going to come see you, but rarely did. I hated to see you disappointed, honey.”

  “But he wanted to see me, right?”

  “Of course,” Claire said. “But I guess things came up.”

  “Or was it that you didn’t want him to see me?”

  “Of course I wanted him to see you. Why would you say that?” Claire felt the heat rise to her cheeks, Emily’s accusation hitting on the doubts she still had about her motives back then.

  “Because that’s what he said.” Emily folded her arms tightly, and Claire wasn’t sure if her mind was playing tricks on her, but Emily looked like her father so much in that moment. She had his dark brown eyes, framed by his equally dark lashes and eyebrows.

  “Did he call you? Come see you?”

  “No.”

  Claire breathed again. “Then where is this coming from?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Mom. I know, okay?”

  “Know what?”

  “Are you really going to stand there and act like you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

  Claire searched for the answer her daughter was looking for, and then she noticed a sheet of notebook paper on the table with Emily’s handwriting scrawled across it—her letter to the classmate she’d bullied at school.

  And then she knew what Emily was talking about. The letters. She found the letters her dad sent.

  Claire had come across them several months ago while searching for her favorite pair of fuzzy socks, finding the stack of white envelopes secured with a rubber band in the back of her drawer where she’d always kept it. She’d slid down next to the dresser and read them. And then she’d put them back, she was sure of it. There were ten of them, all one page and handwritten in black ink on a sheet of white printer paper. In the most recent one, he had mentioned Claire and that he knew she didn’t want him in Emily’s life. But that it should be Emily’s decision. Claire had always planned to show Emily the letters at some point, and let her decide if she wanted to respond. But it never felt like the right time, and before she knew it, Emily was an adult and it seemed like it would take her backward to read them. And when he’d never sent another after she’d turned twelve or tried to contact her in any other way, Claire convinced herself she’d made the right decision not to show her at all, that he couldn’t be counted on, that he’d just ended up retreating into his own world the way he had so many times before.

  She’d been with Emily every time they’d gone back to their house to get more of their things, except once. She remembered now. They were having an eighties-themed dress-up day at school and Emily needed to borrow something from Claire. The letters hadn’t crossed Claire’s mind. She was preoccupied with a call she’d received from her assistant, telling her that the financing for the offer they’d just accepted had fallen through. So her father had offered to drive Em. She must have found them while looking for something to wear.

  “I can explain, Emily.”

  Emily’s eyes filled with tears. “What could you possibly say to make me understand why you didn’t think I needed my dad?”

  Claire opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again when she realized she really didn’t have much of an answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  * * *

  Gabriela threw the box of tampons against the wall, the contents spilling out across the ivory rug, anger-filled teardrops splashing down her face. She’d gotten her period almost the second she’d walked through her front door from the airport. It was as if her body was saying welcome fucking home. The house was quiet, and she’d found Colin sprawled across their bed with the sheets kicked down around his feet. She’d paused in the doorway and listened to his breathing, wondering why he hadn’t waited up. They’d talked briefly before she’d boarded her flight home from New York, Gabriela apologizing for hanging up on him and ignoring his calls, but he’d still seemed detached, offering nothing more than apologies that the IVF hadn’t worked again. Gabriela felt more like she was talking to her doctor than to her husband.

  She’d pretended to be engrossed in the romantic comedy playing on the airplane on her flight back to Los Angeles, wanting to turn to Claire and make things right between them, but not sure where to start. She didn’t know if it was pride or fear, but she couldn’t seem to swivel her body toward Claire’s and tell her the real truth, the deep secret that swelled inside of her like a current about to pull her under—that she wanted a baby more than she wanted anything, maybe even a writing career. Maybe.

  Claire might have a child, but she had no idea what Gabriela was going through, no clue what it felt like to fail, over and over again, at becoming a mother. Both she and Jessie tried to find the right words to make her feel better, consoling her when she confided her sadness about not being pregnant, but nothing they said could fill the ache in her gut. Claire’s pregnancy had been a surprise and Jessie had become pregnant with twins naturally and then had a third baby when she was almost forty, despite her lazy ovary. Gabriela honestly felt more connected to many of the women in the TTC chat rooms than she did to her best friends. Her quest to become pregnant
was consuming her, thoughts of it always sitting at the top of her mind, the words to discuss it always at the tip of her tongue.

  When Gabriela had met Jessie for lunch in the park the other day, Jessie had seemed jittery, blaming her disposition on a swarm of bees, but Gabriela knew she wasn’t telling her everything. And Claire had seemed like she was holding something back when she’d talked about Emily’s trouble at school, as if there were more to the story. Their friendships had felt impenetrable before. But this time, Gabriela didn’t feel as protected by them as she once had, and she wondered if they felt the same way about her. How had this distance grown between them?

  Gabriela picked up the tampons one by one and shoved them back into the box and placed it beneath the sink, wondering if she should call her doctor in the morning and talk to her about starting a third IVF cycle. She placed her hand on her abdomen as she looked in the mirror and wondered if there would ever be a baby growing inside of her. She knew she should go to her office and write, even just a few sentences, but she was petrified to turn on the computer and have to face that blank screen, the one that seemed to match her mind. So she kept walking, but not to her bedroom. Instead she opened the door to the room at the end of the hall, the one where visitors slept, and slid under the comforter, thinking of her husband who had left her alone with her loss and wondering why she felt like a guest in her own home.

  • • •

  Jessie had spent the night tossing and turning, Peter’s face working his way into her mind every time she squeezed her eyes shut. Finally, she’d given up on sleep and tiptoed down the hall to check on the children, something that always seemed to calm her since she’d traveled back—they were all still here, under one roof, in the home she shared with Grant. She hadn’t screwed it up, yet. She’d peered into the twins’ rooms, pulling the covers tightly around Madison’s chin and putting the Wings of Fire book she’d been reading on her nightstand. She’d always been a sound sleeper, Grant once joking Madison wouldn’t wake up even if a train drove through her bedroom. Conversely, when she’d cracked open Morgan’s door, Morgan rolled over from the slight sound. Jessie remembered the spot on the carpeted floor of her nursery, the one she’d try with all her might to avoid but somehow always seemed to step on, causing Morgan to wail nonstop until Jessie finally gave in and picked her up.

  Jessie always saved Lucas’ room for last. As she peered into his crib, she pictured Peter’s face. There was something in the way Peter’s mouth formed a tight line after he’d not so subtly threatened her that had pierced Jessie. She felt her chest burn as she thought of Peter’s words, that he couldn’t keep their secret if he couldn’t see his son. If he followed through, he’d be destroying two families. And the idea of ever having to share Lucas with a man who would consider that made her feel sick.

  She was suddenly overcome with the cruel reality that things could turn out even worse than before—that divorce from Grant could be minor in scale compared to the aftermath of Peter exposing the truth. If she couldn’t figure out how to appease Peter soon, it would be worse than losing Grant all over again. She might also lose Lucas.

  • • •

  The next morning, Claire opened her front door, her skin sallow and her eyes bloodshot. “I know,” she said before Jessie could speak. “I look like hell. Only got three hours last night.”

  “You lucky bitch, I only got two!” Jessie set the car seat down and hugged Claire, who inhaled Jessie’s fruity shampoo, wondering when she’d last embraced someone. She hadn’t seen Mason since she’d been back from New York. But even before that, their dates had dwindled to maybe one a week. She knew he wanted to see her more, but even when she was with him, she was preoccupied and felt terrible every time she’d asked him to repeat what he’d just said, constantly lost in thought. “Hey, I brought the girls. Hope that’s okay?” Jessie added, looking over her shoulder as Madison and Morgan walked up the sidewalk.

  “Come in! Hi, girls,” Claire said, squeezing the twins. “Here, let me take that,” Claire offered as she picked up the car seat and made kissing faces at Lucas. “I forgot how heavy these fucking things are! I mean freaking things,” Claire said, laughing as the twins rolled their eyes. “Coffee?” she asked Jessie once they were inside, who nodded vigorously in response. She grabbed her own cup, which she’d already refilled three times. “Emily! Morgan and Madison are here,” she called as she started pouring grounds into the filter.

  Jessie lay back in Claire’s dad’s recliner as Emily came out of her room and grabbed the twins. She watched them, smiling as the door shut behind them, happy she’d decided to bring them over. She realized she’d been selfish before, keeping them away from Emily. This time, she decided the girls probably needed each other, much the same way she needed Gabriela and Claire. Maybe this could end up being a lifelong friendship just like theirs. “This chair is so comfortable, maybe I should get Grant one of these,” she remarked as she pulled the lever to extend the footrest.

  “Be warned that if you do, he might not ever get out of it. My dad sits in that thing for hours every night. Even sleeps in it!” Claire smiled and handed Jessie a steaming mug of coffee.

  “Oh, then I’m definitely out—I don’t want to give him any excuses not to sleep in our bed!” Jessie laughed as she accepted the cup and took a long sip. “Where is your dad, by the way?”

  “He took my mom to the doctor.”

  “Is that why you were up all night? Because of your mom?” Jessie asked, lowering her voice. “Or is it Emily?”

  Claire thought about the letters Emily’s dad had written her and decided now was definitely not the time to tell Jessie the truth, especially in light of her own situation. Hearing the laughter coming out of Emily’s room, she was so thankful Jessie had brought her girls over. She didn’t want to do anything to make her snatch them away, to make her want to keep them from Emily, much like she had in the other version of their lives. Claire had never said anything outright to Jessie, but she knew her friend had made excuses for why the twins couldn’t come over, not wanting Emily’s bad attitude to rub off on them. And while Claire could understand that, she was still hurt. Her daughter wasn’t a bad person, she was just a kid with an absent father.

  Claire wished she could explain to Jessie that withholding Lucas’ dad would eventually have consequences, no matter how good her intentions were. Now that Claire had seen Emily’s reaction to what she’d done, she was beginning to realize that it probably hadn’t been her decision to make. But she knew Jessie wasn’t ready to hear that.

  “She’s doing okay. We took the apology letter she wrote to school today and she gave it to the girl she bull—” Claire’s voice broke slightly and she sucked in a sharp breath as if trying to stop herself from crying. “I’m sorry, I can’t even say the word. It’s just so crazy to think Em would be so”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“mean.” She sighed. “Or at least, mean to someone other than me,” she added, laughing weakly.

  Jessie thought of Madison and Morgan. They were just two years younger than Emily, but still playing with Pokémon cards and watching cartoons. She’d do anything to maintain their naïveté. If Peter decided to reveal he was Lucas’ father, her daughters would know the real reason their parents were breaking up: their mom had betrayed their dad with one of their classmate’s fathers. They would hate her and she would lose them. She was sure of it. Last time, after months of the girls’ acting out, she’d finally found a counselor they could talk to. And it had helped. In fact, the woman had probably saved them from going down a bad path—a path not unlike the one Emily had taken.

  Just yesterday, Madison had suggested they bake chocolate chip cookies. Jessie had placed Lucas in his high chair and pulled him up next to the counter. Morgan had spread flour across his tray and he’d traced his fingers through it in awe, Madison leaning over and kissing her baby brother on the cheek. Jessie watched her children, so blissfully ignorant, and thought of their alternate life, the one where door sl
amming and glares were the way they communicated their displeasure. Jessie wanted more than anything to avoid going through that again. She didn’t want to be separated from her children every other weekend, nor answer her daughters’ persistent questions about why she and Grant couldn’t get back together.

  “Emily is not a mean girl. Even when she was at her worst during those teen years, she never turned her anger on her peers,” Jessie whispered. “What’s different this time?”

  Claire thought about the letters again. Even though Emily had only just admitted to discovering them, she wondered how long she’d had them. “That’s what’s so hard about all this, Jess. I wish I knew for sure! It seems like more problems are coming up. Just when I think I’m getting rid of one, another pops up in its place. Sometimes it feels like I’m playing that arcade game Emily used to love. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

  “Whac-A-Mole,” Jessie said with a smile, remembering Lucas pounding the moles with a felt mallet. She followed Claire’s gaze to a blue jay that had landed on a tree branch. He stared hard at them before spreading his wings and flying away. “Maybe this is why people say what’s meant to be, will be.”

  “I know what you mean.” Jessie sighed.

  “What does Emily have to say about why she did it?”

  “She says she doesn’t know,” Claire responded, opening her mouth and then shutting it quickly, leaving Jessie wondering what she’d decided not to say.

  “And the apology? How did it go over?”

  “The girl accepted it, but she’s very shy—she barely looked up.” Claire paused for a moment, seeing Emily’s classmate in her mind again. The scuffed tennis shoes. The torn fingernails that had been chewed endlessly. The tears sitting in the back of her eyes. “At that age, it’s hard enough to get these kids to talk to an adult on a good day, let alone when they are in the vice principal’s office. I just felt so terrible sitting there. That my daughter had done this to her.”