The Book of Someday

by Dianne Dixon

  “I’ve met your dad—” Sierra stops and shoots a quick look in Livvi’s direction that says “he’s a shit,” before glancing over her shoulder at Grace and telling her: “Your old man is a pricey-organic, high-end restaurant type. You’re sure he lets you eat at McDonald’s?”

  Grace slowly, solemnly, shakes her head from side to side. Then, after a brief hesitation, as she’s sliding down out of sight, there’s the hint of an irresistibly hopeful smile.

  ***

  Whatever lightness was in Grace during the drive to Livvi’s guesthouse, and the stop at McDonald’s, has given way to a fidgeting, sleepy fretfulness.

  Livvi is taking off Grace’s shoes and socks, helping Grace to get ready for a bath. They are in Livvi’s bedroom, sitting on Livvi’s high, white bed. Sierra is in the bathroom, filling the tub with water. And Grace, so tired that her eyes are half-closed, is, for the third time in as many minutes, asking: “Is my daddy coming soon?”

  It’s close to seven and Livvi still has no idea where Andrew is. Ever since leaving the house in Flintridge, she has been consumed by anxiety about what the explanation could be for Andrew’s continuing absence. Now she’s trying to deflect Grace’s worry by saying: “You know what? I bet if we go see what Sierra’s doing, we’ll find out she’s making a big, giant bubble bath for you.”

  Grace is restless, yawning. Looking around the room—noticing the brightly painted thrift-shop table Livvi uses as a desk, and the laptop that’s there. “While we wait for Daddy, can we play a game on your computer?”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t have any games on my computer.”

  Grace seems bewildered. “Then why do you have one?”

  “It’s, um…not for fun…I use it for my job. I’m a writer.” Livvi goes to the table, picks up a copy of her novel, and brings it back to the bed, showing it to Grace and explaining: “I write books. This is the first one I wrote. I started writing it a long time ago, but this is what it looks like now. It’s called The Book of Someday—”

  “—and so many people liked it,” Sierra says, “that those who published it want her to write another book.” Sierra is coming out of the bathroom, drying her hands on a washcloth.

  Grace points to the computer. “Is your other book in there now?”

  “Not yet,” Livvi says.

  “Will it be there soon?”

  Sierra sits on the bed beside Livvi and laughs. “I think the kid has a future as a New York editor.”

  And Livvi tells Grace: “It will be there as soon as I know what the story is.”

  Grace, cuddling her little pink pig, leans sleepily against Livvi’s side. “Can you make it be like Winnie the Pooh? That’s a good story because Piglet’s in it.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Livvi gathers Grace up, intending to carry her into the bathroom, and Grace immediately says: “I don’t need help. I take baths by myself.”

  Livvi releases her hold on Grace; Grace quickly disappears through the bathroom door; and Sierra says: “That kid is what…? Five, maybe six? It’s weird how calm she is. It’s like she’s totally used to being left on her own—with strangers. What sort of a twisted shit of a father could that guy be?”

  The feeling Livvi experienced earlier, when she saw the lipstick-colored stains on the napkin in Andrew’s kitchen—that feeling of being hit in the chest with a baseball—is hitting her again. “I’ve been with him for seven months…and I honest to God didn’t have any idea he had a child.”

  Sierra gives a cynical snort. “Bullshit. You knew there was something about him that wasn’t kosher.”

  Livvi is riding out a wave of nausea. “I can’t believe how stupid this sounds…I didn’t think that whatever it was I didn’t know about him could be something this big.”

  “Well, I did. Starting with Valentine’s Day,” Sierra says. “You guys were supposed to be all hot and heavy in love—and he’s not around? And his story was that he’s in Europe, on business? I didn’t buy it for a minute.”

  Livvi goes to her desk, sits, and puts her head in her hands. She feels like a fool. Worse than a fool. Like an idiot.

  “Hey. Don’t beat yourself up. You had the love goggles on. There isn’t a female in the world who hasn’t been blinded by those things at least once. Hell, there’s probably a woman somewhere right this minute hooked up with a guy sitting on death row for murdering a carload of preschoolers, and that goggle-eyed girl is saying, ‘Gosh, I never saw it coming—he was always nothing but sweet to me.’”

  Livvi’s response is an embarrassed laugh.

  “Besides,” Sierra says, “your goggles came equipped with those special green lenses.”

  “What do you mean…?”

  “All the cash your boy likes to throw around,” Sierra explains. “The hot-air balloons and the sailboats. The fancy restaurants. All that champagne and caviar—”

  “Money had nothing to do with it,” Livvi insists. “Money doesn’t make any difference to me.”

  Sierra is leaving, going into the living room. Her tone has a take-no-prisoners honesty to it. “Money makes a difference to everybody, kiddo. All I’m saying is…he was able to turn life into such a thrill ride it didn’t give you a chance, or the desire, to do a lot of thinking.”

  For the second time today, Livvi is experiencing the sensation that she’s swallowing lead. As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, there’s an element of truth in what Sierra has just said. Not about the money. But about wearing the goggles, being willingly blind. Before Andrew, Livvi’s life had been so closed in that, without giving it a second thought, she’d let the freedom and the excitement that Andrew gave her overshadow all the questions he brought with him.

  It takes a while before the sickened feeling passes. As soon as it does, Livvi’s first thought is of Grace; Livvi quickly goes to the open bathroom door, to check on her. “Ready to come out?” she asks.

  “Not yet,” Grace says. She’s scalloping the side of the tub with mounds of bath bubbles.

  Livvi walks back into the bedroom—to the bedside table—where her phone is in its charger. In the less than ten minutes since she’s been home, Livvi has been intentionally avoiding this moment. Knowing that the instant she reconnects with reality she’ll open the door to staggering hurt. But she can’t put it off any longer. She has to face the pain and somehow survive it. Livvi touches the phone. The screen instantly displays a text. From Andrew. Sent today, at 11:32 a.m. The message reads:

  Can’t make lunch. Surprise visit from out of town clients. Stuck in meetings through dinner. Will call later. If too late, tomorrow.

  Following Andrew’s message is a second text. Also sent today. From David:

  I’m at the airport. Glad the weather vane crashed your car. Glad about Culver City. Glad I got to see you.

  David’s message barely registers. Livvi is preoccupied with Andrew and his monumental, unspoken lie—she’s preoccupied with Grace.

  Livvi’s eyes shift to a scrap of paper lying on the bed. It contains the telephone number belonging to Grace’s mother. Livvi asked Grace for the number as soon as they came in the door. But she has been unable to use it. Too afraid.

  Livvi picks up the paper. Looks at the number. Then puts the phone on speaker and presses Andrew’s number instead. No answer. Straight to voice mail. Livvi sends a text:

  Grace came to your house while I was there. She’s with me. Call ASAP.

  Livvi’s hand, the one she’s holding the paper scrap in, is damp with sweat. She has run out of options: she doesn’t have a choice. Grace can’t spend the night here without anyone knowing where she is. Livvi knows she has to call Grace’s mother. But still, she’s reluctant. Thinking about the grim-faced stick figure in Grace’s drawing—and the torrent of black lightning raining down from the sky.

  When Livvi finally enters the numbers from the paper scrap into her phone, she leaves the phone on speaker—unwilling to hold it to her ear. Nervous about being in too close a proximity to the dangerous-looki
ng creature in the drawing.

  On the second ring, the call is answered by a melodious female voice that sounds like it was polished in a finishing school.

  “Is this Grace’s mother?” Livvi asks.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  Livvi is tense; she can hardly breathe. “I’m a friend of Andrew’s. I’m calling because—”

  Instantaneously Livvi is cut off by a sarcastic snarl: “Just for the record, ‘Friend of Andrew’s,’ you are speaking to Grace’s mother…but more importantly, you’re speaking to Andrew’s wife!” The finishing school purr has become a dockworker’s roar. Livvi is backing away from the phone.

  And the woman is screaming: “Don’t ever dare call me again, you slut. You bitch.”

  After that the phone at the other end of the call is abruptly switched off.

  In the brief silence that follows, Livvi hears a small gasp. Grace is in the room. Dripping wet. Clutching a towel. Her eyes wide. Her face ghostly pale. And in a frightened whisper, she’s asking: “Mommy’s mad, isn’t she?”

  Livvi recognizes the look on Grace’s face. It’s the emotion that ruled Livvi’s childhood—the terror of not knowing how to navigate the dangers, and madness, of the world into which you’ve been born.

  Grace darts back into the bathroom. Livvi quickly crosses the bedroom, to follow her. When Livvi arrives in the bathroom, Grace is at the window, shivering, facing away from Livvi.

  “I want my daddy.” Grace’s arms are wrapped around her chest, her hands visible on either side of her back. She’s cradling herself in a sorrowfully lonely embrace.

  Livvi kneels and wraps a dry towel around Grace, turning her so that they’re facing each other. “Why are you holding yourself like this?”

  “Bree taught me. So I always have a hug if I need it.” Grace’s eyes are filling with tears.

  Livvi is again experiencing the sensation that came over her earlier while she and Grace were waiting for Andrew, that feeling of gentleness with its undercurrent of fierce determination. Livvi intuitively knows that whatever this is, it’s important. Information that she once had, and somehow lost track of.

  As she’s looking at Grace, Livvi is slowly remembering the thing that she had forgotten—a key piece of knowledge about herself.

  She’s realizing that buried underneath her pain there has always been a wellspring of love. The kind of love she had glimpsed through a telescope. The love she had always wanted to receive. Love flowing between a mother and child. A pure, unshakable love she’d instinctively known she was born for—and would someday be able to give.

  And that day has come.

  Livvi is opening her arms to Grace—inviting her in. “Would you like me to rock you to sleep, baby?”

  Grace nods, and folds into Livvi’s embrace.

  Livvi carries Grace into the bedroom. To the high, white bed. And dresses her in a fresh cotton T-shirt that Livvi hasn’t worn yet. On Grace, it looks like the calf-length robes of a cherub.

  Livvi holds Grace, rocking her gently. And wondering how, now that she has found her, she will ever be able to let her go.

  ***

  When Grace has drifted into sleep, when Livvi is tucking her in, drawing the covers up around her shoulders, there is the sound of the doorbell in the living room—and Andrew’s frantic voice asking, “Is Grace okay?”

  Before Sierra has finished saying, “Of course she is,” Livvi is already in the living room—pulling the bedroom door closed behind her.

  Sierra is glaring at Andrew as she adds: “Livvi’s been watching over that kid like Grace belongs to her—what a shitty deal that the same can’t be said about Grace’s parents.”

  Andrew appears to be in anguish.

  Sierra, picking up her purse and keys, is murmuring to Livvi: “I made you some coffee. It’s in the kitchen. Call me if you need anything.” Sierra gives Andrew a disgusted stare. “When my goddamn phone rings, I answer it.”

  After Sierra has gone, Livvi and Andrew are riveted in place.

  Livvi is burning with questions. Choking with disappointment, and anger.

  Andrew is the one who speaks first. His voice is hoarse, tense. “I was going to tell you about Grace. I was going to tell you everything.”

  “Everything?” Livvi is steeling herself—asking and at the same time not wanting to know: “How much more is there?”

  Andrew, as if he hasn’t heard her, is saying: “Things got out of hand. It took awhile before I knew I was in love with you and by then I’d let too much time go by and I—”

  “How did you erase her so completely, Andrew?” Livvi is thinking of Grace, at the window, in the bathroom, holding herself in that lonely embrace. The sadness of it is making Livvi furious. “Do you ever spend any time at all with her?”

  He seems shocked. Indignant. “Of course I do.”

  A small, heavy, stone statue—a woman holding a basket of fruit—is on the table near the sofa. Livvi’s hand is closing around the woman’s neck. For the first time in her life Livvi is being moved to violence. Tempted to smash the statue into the side of Andrew’s head. To somehow avenge the wrongs that have been done to Grace.

  Livvi, with the statue clutched in her hand, is rapidly moving toward Andrew. “I don’t believe you do spend time with Grace. I’ve been with you for seven months. I would have known if she was part of your life.”

  There’s a sudden flare of anger in Andrew. It’s white-hot and stops Livvi in her tracks.

  “Grace has been here from the beginning, Olivia. She’s the reason I walked out on you. That first night, at the fundraiser. I got a text from the nanny. Grace had a fever. They couldn’t get it down, and they were thinking about taking her to the emergency room.”

  Livvi’s mind is going to the stick-figure drawing. The torrent of black lightning and the little girl in the lemon-colored skirt. All alone. Hiding in a forest of flowers. It’s as if Livvi is talking to herself, not Andrew, as she asks: “When were you ever together? When was she actually with you? And how did I never know?”

  The anger in Andrew has been replaced by what seems like overwhelming weariness. “You didn’t know because I saw her on weeknights when I wasn’t with you. When I said I was working, or tired. And on weekends. When you were out of town at book signings. A lot of times we go to the park, the zoo, we go to lunch. I have Bree bring Grace to my office during the day.”

  Bree. The girl with the lavender shorts and the BMW.

  The memory of her sets off a flare of jealousy in Livvi. “Is she really Grace’s nanny?”

  Andrew seems offended by the sarcasm in Livvi’s voice. “What the hell are you implying?”

  “Most nannies don’t drive brand-new BMWs.”

  Andrew flinches. Closes his eyes. Turns away.

  He goes to the sofa and sits. His head dropped between his shoulders, his elbows on his knees. In a dull monotone, he says: “The car is Kayla’s. It belongs to my wife.”

  Hearing Andrew say those words: My wife. It’s as if Livvi’s heart is taking a flurry of cuts from a freshly sharpened razor.

  After a short pause, Andrew tells Livvi: “I’m not sleeping around.”

  And Livvi, reeling from the burn of those cuts to the heart, asks him: “Is that the same story you tell your wife?”

  Andrew looks up, annoyed. “Hold it right there, Olivia. You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Kayla and I have been married for eight years.” He raises his voice, stopping Livvi before she can interrupt. “And we’ve been separated for close to three. Long before I ever met you.”

  His tone is quieter as he says: “There are a lot of reasons we haven’t gotten a divorce. The situation with Kayla is difficult. She’s emotionally frail. An innocent. Old-school Catholic. My first marriage, the one I told you about when you and I were in Canada, it lasted a couple of months and was annulled—in Kayla’s mind, this is the only marriage for either one of us. She’s also very close with my parents. Me pushing for a divorce would’ve put
incredible stress on her, and on my folks. And the truth is, until I met you, I didn’t have any reason to want a divorce.”

  The weight of the stone statue is heavy in Livvi’s hand. She wants to put it down, but can’t. The anger—the blistering sense of betrayal—is holding it too tightly.

  Andrew seems to be terribly upset as he’s saying: “Kayla wasn’t the one who wanted our marriage to end. When I left, it almost killed her—I felt like I was clubbing a baby seal. Every time I see her, I still do.”

  A dry, involuntary laugh comes out of Livvi. She’s dying inside as she’s explaining. “I spoke to your wife, Andrew. She doesn’t come off as an innocent, or a baby. I called her—to try to let her know where Grace was. She screamed that I was a bitch and hung up on me.”

  In the midst of her desolation, and her fury, Livvi is experiencing an irrational need to have Andrew hold her, console her. But he’s staying where he is, on the sofa, informing her: “First of all, Kayla wasn’t being callous about our daughter. When she got that call from you, she thought you just wanted to rub her nose in the fact that I was seeing someone—she had no idea you were calling to let her know where Grace was. Bree had told her Grace was fine. When Bree left Grace at my place this afternoon, she saw Grace go inside after somebody opened the door—she assumed it was me.”

  Andrew has gotten up from the sofa and is restlessly pacing the room. Repeatedly circling past Livvi. Without looking at her.

  And Livvi, left alone, listening to him defending his wife, is slowly filling with an aching need for mercy.

  While Andrew is insisting: “I want you to understand…it’s hard for Kayla…the idea of me being involved with anyone else. It tears her apart.” He deliberates, then quietly says: “That’s why I didn’t tell you about Grace. If I’d told you, you would’ve wanted to meet her and I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  Again there is the sensation of dying inside as Livvi asks: “Why?”

  “Because if Grace knew about you—Kayla would’ve known, and she would have lost her mind. I didn’t want to expose Grace to that kind of drama. She’s already been through enough.”