When I'm Not Myself

by Deborah J. Wolf

  “Cara,” he said, more calmly, his voice even.

  She ignored him, hoping he would leave, disappear, vanish, dissolve.

  “Cara, please.”

  “What, Jack? What is it that you feel is so vitally important that you have to tell me? What is it that will help you clear your conscience? Go ahead”—she opened her arms wide—“go ahead and get it off your chest.”

  He took a deep breath, willing himself to find an extra dose of patience. “Cara, honestly. I don’t care if you’re seeing someone. I don’t care if you’re not. All I’m hoping is that somehow you can see through to the end of this. I’m just, I’m just . . .” He struggled to find the words that he wanted to say. “I’m just hoping you can heal from this. I hate to think the wounds are so deep that they might not ever heal. That’s all.”

  He stood before her, exposed. He hadn’t meant to touch her most sensitive nerve and bring her to a boil but that’s exactly what he’d done.

  Cara set the bottle of disinfectant down with a thud. The paper towel she’d used to scrub the countertop was shredded. She wouldn’t cry. She’d promised herself that over and over again. She wouldn’t cry. Damn, Jack was infuriating. The last thing she needed from him now was his sympathy.

  She studied the countertop, the intricate detail the tumbled marble made. She and Jack had argued about the tiles. He’d wanted something far more simple and she’d spent hours meticulously picking out the exact tiles, the color and the unfinished, rough edges—part of what made the kitchen so warm and inviting.

  “Just go, Jack. Please, just go.”

  She didn’t want to share anything with him, not anymore. She didn’t want to confide in him the relationship she’d started with David for fear he’d make a judgment about it. She didn’t want to know that he thought David was too young, or that she was too old, or hear him say that everyone needed a rebound and that it was just good for her to be back out in the dating scene again. She certainly didn’t want his advice about how to talk to the children about her new boyfriend.

  He picked up his car keys, jiggling them in his hand, and paused, waiting for her to say something else. When she didn’t, he turned and left.

  Cara felt as if a storm had filled a river, backing up at a dam, ready to burst forth. She paced the kitchen like a caged animal, back and forth, back and forth. Upstairs the kids were arguing; Will and Luke ganging up on Claire, banging on her door and tormenting her. Claire cried for her—Mama, Mama—screaming with a vengeance that Cara knew meant she was all right, just in need of attention, of being rescued. Cara took the stairs two at a time and stood on the landing.

  “Will, Luke, Claire. Get your butts out here this minute!”

  They appeared in unison, each of them with their mouths open and cries of mistreatment springing forth.

  “Stop!” Cara yelled at them. “Stop it right now. I’ve had enough. I am sick and tired of listening to the three of you argue with each other. Do you hear me?” She stomped up the remaining stairs and stood towering over the three of them.

  Will crossed his arms over his chest, angry. His eyes were just slits, narrowed and studying her as if he wanted to lash out at any minute. Luke held back, cowering. He wasn’t used to his mother yelling, certainly not as much as she had been lately.

  And Claire was insistent. Determined that she’d been wrongly accused, she began to argue with Cara. “But Mom, you don’t understand. It’s not my fault. I wasn’t doing anything. The boys won’t leave me alone.”

  “Zip it, Claire. You’re just as much to blame as your brothers.”

  “Am not.”

  “Claire, I said, ZIP. IT.”

  “She’s such a pain, Mom. All she ever does is bug the crap out of us. She has to be right in the middle of everything we’re doing.”

  “That goes for you too, Will. ZIP. IT.”

  They stood in front of her, her three youngest charges, waiting. She was on her own here, outnumbered and exasperated.

  “Which one of you told your father that I was dating someone?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. She figured that if she caught them off guard she’d know right away, that the guilty party wouldn’t be able to look her straight in the eye. “Come on. Which one of you told him that Mommy had been seeing someone? He really had no right to know, no need to know. So which one of you thought it was so important that you had to tell your father about it?”

  Will shook his head and pulled his baseball cap down low over his eyes. He scoffed under his breath, “Yeah, right.”

  “What did you say, Will?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “No?”

  He tipped his head up so she could see his eyes, so that they were eye to eye. “No,” he answered her, more clearly.

  Luke’s tiny voice piped up, sounding smaller than Cara had ever heard him. “Are you, Mom?”

  Cara was tired, exhausted even. Her kids had been home less than an hour and she was already running referee. “Am I what, Luke?”

  He swallowed hard, and stared at the toe of his shoe. “Dating someone? Do you have a boyfriend?” His voice was so small Cara almost had to strain to hear him.

  She dropped to her knees in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders so she could hold him at arm’s length and be certain he wouldn’t run from her. Luke was wearing his favorite pair of jeans and a T-shirt from Spring Training. His lips were rimmed in purple popsicle. She grasped his hands and held his arms open wide so she could look at all four foot nine inches of him. The last time they’d been to Disneyland—nearly two years ago—he’d been devastated that he wasn’t tall enough for the Orange Stinger, a giant swing that circled the inside of a make-believe orange. Now Cara was sure he’d make it, sure he’d be tall enough, but that the ride would still leave him nauseous.

  “Oh, Luke,” she said to him, and he collapsed against her chest. She kissed the top of his head over and over again, a million tiny little kisses that ran over his sweaty forehead and around the top of his ears. “Oh, honey, it’s okay.”

  Luke was crying, silently dropping hot tears against her tank top and bare arms. She held him tight to her chest; hugging him from behind until she was certain he couldn’t breathe or even wriggle free.

  “Lukey, Lukey, sweetie, it doesn’t matter. Really, you can’t get upset about all of this. I promise you that nothing else is going to change. Oh, sweetie, come on, take a couple of breaths, honey, just take a couple of breaths and breathe.”

  He gulped giant breaths of air, hiccupping and trying to catch his breath, and then tried to be very brave, nodding his head. His bottom lip quivered and his body shook and Cara’s heart went out to him. He’d been so invisible, little Luke, fading into the background. Claire had been so inquisitive that it was impossible to miss her. Will’s antics had caused her nothing but headaches, days of grief. And, of course, Katie had required all her strength. But Luke? He’d gone so long without being noticed, without needing her that she’d practically forgotten he was there at all.

  Will stood behind him, his right hand stoically placed on Luke’s shoulder as if he was supporting him. Cara hadn’t seen him like this in a long while, so grown-up-looking, so mature. Cara looked from him to Claire and back again. Claire was sniveling but silent, one leg crossed over the other as if she had to go to the bathroom. There was no way Claire was moving, no way she would dare break the moment.

  Luke pressed the palms of his hands deep into his eye sockets and rubbed them hard. Cara felt as if she owed him an answer, as if she owed all of them an answer.

  Cara sat back on her heels. “Hey, you guys,” she said softly, and pulled Luke down into her lap. She reached for Will’s hand and pulled him down next to her, under her right shoulder. Claire settled in next to her on the other side, nuzzling her face against Cara’s left breast. “So, yeah, okay, I am seeing someone. He’s someone I met at work and his name is David. And he’s far, far from being my boyfriend or anything remotely that serious. He’s just someone t
hat I enjoy spending some time with sometimes, you know, when you guys are over at your dad’s house and I’m on my own.”

  She waited for one of them to say something but they were soundless, subdued. Luke held himself as still as he could and Claire ran her fingertips up and down Cara’s arm as if she was thinking of something she might want to say, but couldn’t quite put it together.

  “I really don’t want you to worry about this, you guys. Nothing around here is going to change. It’s not as if I’m going to make you spend a bunch of time with him, or even meet him if you don’t want to. Okay?” She wasn’t sure they believed her, not even a little bit, and who could blame them. The only data point they had was Jack, and any promises he had made them about life not changing could be disputed in a flash. “Okay?” she asked again, looking from Claire to the boys, hoping she might find a little something in each of them that would make her feel better.

  Cara wasn’t in the mood for anything in particular to eat. Actually, she didn’t have much of an appetite at all. Katie was due home in a week, Cara had been called twice this week by Will’s principal about his behavior, and Jack had called to complain about the amount of spousal and child support he’d been assigned to pay Cara and the kids.

  “It’s the new house, Cara. Well, with a second mortgage, and the baby due in just a few weeks and Barbie on bed rest now, the expenses are really adding up. I’m sure you can imagine what it’s like.”

  “Yeah, it must be a bit tight,” Cara answered, not really listening, or trying, for even a second, to imagine what it must have been like.

  “Well, after all, you are working now, Cara. Surely you can get by on just a little less a month. Maybe for just a few months.”

  She paused, waiting on him, anger mounting. She couldn’t believe he wanted her to let him off the hook. He had no right to ask, none whatsoever. And since the last time she’d seen him he’d been so inquisitive about her personal life, she had no desire to give in.

  “No. I really don’t think so.”

  “But, Cara.”

  “No. Sorry, Jack, but I don’t see how it would work for us.”

  “Can’t you at least hear me out? I mean, maybe we could work this out amicably in some way, just for the time being.”

  “Amicably?” she asked, with emphasis. Then, “AMICABLY?” she shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Cara,” Jack warned, assuming he could speak to her the way he had, in the tone he had always used.

  “What?”

  “Be reasonable about this. Can’t you stop and think about this from my side? Just once?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Cara remembered the day Jack had left, the way he had packed his suitcase and clothes in his car and driven off down the street, Cara running after him. She remembered what it was like to feel emptiness, really feel it to her core, and know there was nothing she could do to change his mind. She thought about all he had taken with him, and the things he’d left behind, turning them over to her willingly so that she would be faced to deal with them alone.

  “Because, Jack,” she answered him, “I wouldn’t have any idea what your side looks like. I wouldn’t have any idea how to stop and think about this.”

  Summer in San Francisco had never been colder; it had never left Cara feeling more damp and chilled at the core. It wasn’t just the weather, the gray, overcast days that settled on the city like a goose down comforter, it was the feeling that this was it, this was the way it would remain for the rest of her foreseeable future.

  “Cara,” David said to her, “your mood leaves a little to be desired.”

  She was frowning and she hadn’t even realized it. They sat across from each other at a small round table, the restaurant bustling around them with activity. Cara usually liked this place, the quaint Mediterranean market at the center of the Ferry Building. She and David often walked from the office to the building to have lunch or a cup of coffee or sometimes a drink after work if she had time and Jack had the kids. But today she wasn’t in the mood for anything on the menu, not even the seafood stew, which was one of her standbys. Today she wasn’t in the mood for the rush of people, the noise or the activity.

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s bothering you so?” David believed in long, slow lunches. And since he’d had almost no time with Cara lately, in his opinion, they were off the clock and due some time together. If need be, they’d make up for it later.

  Cara shrugged her shoulders noncommittally, the way Katie would have if Cara had been asking the questions. Everything seemed so desperate.

  “Cara. It isn’t that bad; it can’t be. Katie’s due home in a week. You’ll start putting the pieces back together. You’ll see; it’ll start feeling like you’ve got your sea legs again.”

  She stared back at him, annoyed. How could he know what it would be like when her daughter came home, the dynamic shifting once again in their house? How could he have any idea about how to put things back together? David didn’t have any understanding of what it was like to get a phone call from Kate’s probation officer or Will’s principal. He’d never worried about getting a child’s homework done or school project completed, or about getting home in enough time to make the first pitch. David didn’t have a seven-year-old daughter who questioned everything, or an eight-year-old son who questioned nothing, for fear of the answer. He didn’t have an angry ten-year-old or a rebellious seventeen-year-old. He wasn’t saddled down by a mortgage or encumbered by PTA meetings and baseball commitments; he didn’t have to deal with the guilty feeling of leaving his kids with a nanny every day, knowing he wouldn’t see them again until just before bedtime.

  “How would you know, David?” she snapped at him. “How would you know what it’s going to be like when Katie comes home?”

  He placed the dainty butter knife on his bread plate and cleared his throat.

  “Look, David, it’s not that I don’t want my life to have some peace in it. Trust me, there’s nothing more that I’d like. But it doesn’t appear it’ll be that way for a while, and your breezy, easy, it’ll-be-better-soon attitude really isn’t helping.” She ran her hands through her hair and tucked the wispy ends back behind her ears. Compounding it all, she was due a haircut. And a wax, for that matter.

  She’d laid into him hard, her sarcastic voice firing off before she knew what she was saying. She’d meant no harm, and she certainly hadn’t meant to distance him from her, but that’s exactly what she’d done.

  “Cara, let it go. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It may not even be close to perfect, not now and not for a while. But it will get better. I can promise you that. There’s something on the other side of all of this for you,” he said softly, sweetly, to her.

  She listened to his voice, the calm rhythm his words took. He reached across the table and touched her arm, laying his palm over her elbow. She was tense, incredibly rigid and locked. She couldn’t remember being this tightly wound in a long time.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. She didn’t figure on such sensitivity from him, certainly not when she’d first met him, and not even much later, even now, as she got to know him better. She never would have considered David someone who could calm her so easily. And yet here he was, bringing peace and order to her life.

  He waved her off, shaking his head. “There’s no need to apologize. None, whatsoever.”

  Cara took a deep, cleansing breath and sat back against the small chair, trying to relax. Around them, waiters dodged in between the tables as if in an orchestrated play. She looked across the table and smiled weakly.

  “Cara, how’s Mel?” he asked her and she prickled at his question.

  Mel had been into the agency only the day before, and Cara had avoided her at all costs. She was there to meet with an art director, a planning meeting for a website they were designing, and although it wasn’t an account Cara worked on directly, it was odd that she’d avoided the meeting altogether.


  “Fine, I suppose,” Cara answered him, vaguely. “Um, I wouldn’t know, really. I understand she was in yesterday but I must have missed her.” She hunched her shoulders benignly enough.

  “She asked about you, you know.”

  “She did?” Cara asked, surprised.

  “Mmm-hmmm,” he baited, waiting to see what she would do with this piece of information. He could tell she was rolling it around in her mind, unsure of how to handle it.

  Cara waited, hoping he might go on. When he didn’t, she asked him, smugly, “How did the planning session go?”

  “Cara,” he said to her, and she looked up at him. “You and Mel have been friends for a long time. A long, long time. When are you going to put this whole thing behind you? I’ll bet there’s a part of you that misses her something fierce.”

  Cara didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. She had missed Mel a great deal. This stupid argument had gone on longer than any other squabble she’d ever had with her best friend. And, truth be told, she needed Mel now, maybe more than ever. She could have used Mel’s unabashed confidence, her bigger-than-life personality. She would have given anything for an afternoon of laughter, of easy conversation that was possible only with the one person she’d known practically all her life. She would have liked to have heard a few of Mel’s stories, listened to her go on for a while about Garin. There were no two ways about it; she just plain needed her.

  Cara shook her head. “I can’t call her, David. I just can’t. There’s so much that I just can’t overlook. There’s just so much, that well, she never shared with me, that she . . .” Cara trailed off, lost. She’d been over it so many times in her head, so many scenarios over and over again. She’d been so angry with Mel, so disappointed in the way Mel had hidden so much from her.

  “Cara, what is it you are so afraid of? That maybe she’s right and that maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong?”

  She eyed him carefully. She expected such a comment would set her off, like a match to dry leaves. But it hadn’t. Because of the way he’d said it, as if he was honestly trying to help her comprehend what it was that was holding her back, what it was that kept her from picking up the phone and throwing the whole stupid argument out the window.