by Bec Linder
He gave me a narrow look. “Play your card, Elliott.”
This was my father’s life: machinations, strategy. Everyone was out to get something. “I spoke to mom’s lawyers recently,” I said. “Turns out she left me a pretty sizable trust fund.”
He started laughing. “Of course. So that’s your ticket out, is it? Still clinging to mommy’s apron strings. You’ll never be a man, Elliott. You’re still just a nervous little boy.”
I considered all of my possible responses. I could argue with him, insult him, try to convince him that he was wrong. None of it would work. He would never be proud of me, no matter what I did. There was no point.
And so I turned my back on him and walked out of his office.
“Elliott,” I heard him say behind me, but I didn’t stop.
Henrietta, in grim silence, escorted me back to the lobby. I walked out of the building into the weak January sunlight, trying to decide how I felt. Angry? Humiliated?
I felt nothing. I was free.
Three decades of trying to please my father, and I was done. I didn’t care anymore.
In a month, I would have fifty million dollars, and I could do anything I wanted.
I took a cab home. Speeding along FDR Drive, my phone rang.
It was Sadie.
“I got your note,” she said.
“And?” I asked.
She was silent for a few moments. “I’m sorry for doubting you,” she said at last. “But I need some time.”
It wasn’t I’m going to work for Eric. It wasn’t don’t ever contact me again. Time I could work with. I could give her that. “As much as you need,” I said. “But I hope it won’t be too long.”
Another pause. “I’m scared,” she said.
I closed my eyes. Brave, fragile Sadie. I could hear in her voice how hard it had been for her to admit her fear. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” I said.
She sighed. “I guess not.” I listened to her breathe, in and out, a quiet presence at the other end of the line. “Look, I’ll call you in a few days, okay? I’m just… I need some time.”
“Okay,” I said. “Whatever you need.”
After we hung up, I told the cab driver to turn around, and texted Kristin that I was coming over. Sadie needed time, and I needed an evening spent drinking wine with Kris and listening to her talk about what she termed “boy problems.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Sadie
I was still in my pajamas when Elliott’s package arrived well past noon, and I had to go downstairs and talk to the bike messenger with my hair wrapped in a scarf like somebody’s grandma. The guy didn’t bat an eye, though, and I reminded myself that this was New York: half the people I knew worked from home, and the other half had weird hours that meant they were home in the middle of the day. Like I was. Nothing unusual.
After I had signed for the package, and taken it back upstairs to my apartment, I set it on the coffee table and looked at it. It was completely ordinary in every way: fat, rectangular, that funny orange-brown color like all shipping envelopes. My address was written on the back in Elliott’s firm hand.
Well. It probably wouldn’t bite me.
I opened it up and slid the papers out. On the top of the stack was a handwritten note. I looked at it, at the black ink scrawled across the page, and I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read what he had to say.
I had to. I had to be a grown-up and read it.
I took a deep breath.
Dear Sadie,
Uganda International Friendship is a shell corporation for a Ugandan NGO. They received funding from the World Health Organization, with the stipulation that the money can’t be spent outside of the country. But they’re interested in my work with water filter technology, and they offered to help fund me while I develop a prototype. UIF was created to funnel the money in question out of the country without raising any red flags. The Ugandan government might be displeased, but there’s nothing truly illicit going on.
I’ve attached some relevant documents. Please know that I wasn’t deliberately concealing information from you. I simply thought the entire situation was a non-issue, and not something you would find particularly interesting. Eric has a real talent for putting a dark spin on just about any scenario.
I hope you’ll come back and work for me again. We’re great together. And yes, I do mean that as an innuendo. I want to wake up beside you every day for the rest of my life.
With all my heart,
Elliott
I dropped the letter on the coffee table and sank down onto the sofa, bending forward and pressing my forehead against my knees. I didn’t need to read the documents he’d sent. Everything he said made sense—more sense than what Eric had told me. And I knew that Elliott was a good man.
I read the papers anyway. I was curious, and he’d sent them to me, so why not? Everything was exactly as he said. The Ugandan woman he’d been corresponding with was apologetic about all of it in an “oh isn’t this silly” sort of way. The problem was the Ugandan government: they received money from the WHO, and then doled it out to various charity organizations, and they didn’t want the money leaving the country. I could understand the reasoning, although it seemed a little short-sighted to me.
So Elliott wasn’t a liar, or a thief. I didn’t have to stop associating with him. I could keep my job. I could keep making out with him. We didn’t have to stop.
I should have felt relieved, but instead I just felt a sad muddle of worry and confusion churning in my gut. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I had to figure it out pretty soon.
I called him and told him I needed some time.
I could tell he wasn’t thrilled, and I felt bad, but I was undergoing a sea change, and that wouldn’t happen overnight. I needed a few days to get my head straight.
After I got off the phone with Elliott, I went to take a shower. It looked pretty nice outside, sunny and not too cold, and I didn’t want to waste the entire day sitting on my couch like some pathetic basement-dwelling shut-in. My heart ached. I needed advice, and a metaphorical shoulder to cry on.
I called Regan.
“I would love to get out of the house,” she said. “Can you come here? We can go to the park. I haven’t been outside in two days.”
“Oh, Regan,” I said, and sighed. She really needed to get back to work. “Of course I’ll come to you. I just need to do my makeup, so I’ll leave in like ten minutes, okay? Put that baby in a stroller. I’m going to bring you some vodka in a water bottle.”
“I’m not supposed to drink while I’m breastfeeding,” she said.
“I think you can have a little bit,” I said. “I’ll call my mom on the way over. She’ll know.”
“She’s an oncologist,” Regan said.
“She’s still a doctor,” I said. “Don’t argue with me. I’ll come prepared.”
“Okay,” Regan said, laughing a little.
I took the subway to 23rd Street and walked the few blocks to Regan’s house. She was sitting on the front steps waiting for me, the stroller parked on the sidewalk at her feet. She stood up and waved when she saw me coming.
“I hope you haven’t been out here long,” I said, giving her a hug.
“Not long,” she said. “It’s nice to get some fresh air.”
I bent to peer into the stroller. The baby stared at me and tried to shove its fist in its mouth. Okay. Nothing exciting going on there.
We walked to the small park a few blocks away and sat on a bench beneath the leafless trees. Children ran and shouted, chased by harried mothers—or, since this was Chelsea, nannies.
“Elliott wants a relationship,” I said, because I didn’t believe in beating around the bush.
Regan smiled. “I know,” she said. “He called Carter last week and they had one of those conversations where men try to talk about their feelings but they’re really bad at it.”
“And then Carter told you all about it,” I said.
“Oh, good,” I said. “So my personal life is already common knowledge.”
“That makes it easier for you,” Regan said. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
I snorted. “Okay, so tell me what I should do.”
“You like him,” Regan said. “I know you do, because I saw how you were when you both came over for dinner. He’s a good guy. I think it’s a good idea for you to start dating again. So that’s all. That’s what I think. I don’t know what you should do, though. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was hoping you would tell me.”
“It’s hard making decisions, isn’t it?” Regan asked. “I know that probably sounds like I’m making fun of you, but I’m not. I don’t mean decisions like what to eat for dinner. The big stuff, though. It’s really hard. I always thought that grown-ups had all the answers, and that someday I would be an adult and know everything, and I wouldn’t ever be scared or uncertain. But that’s not how it goes.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Isn’t that the truth. We’re all just making it up as we go.”
“Yeah,” she said, and sighed deeply, and said, “I think I’m a bad mother.” And then she started crying.
“Regan, honey,” I said, horrified. I wrapped my arms around her, and she sobbed against my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what to do. I experienced a brief moment of resentment that Regan had hijacked my complaining about Elliott, but I quickly pushed that aside. If Regan was weeping openly in public, something terrible was going on, and she needed my support.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry,” and kept crying.
A passing woman stared at us. I stared back, daring her to say something, and she moved on by.
Lord. We were making a scene. “Honey, come on,” I said. “What’s wrong? How can you say you’re a bad mother? You know that isn’t true.”
She pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t love him enough,” she said, sniffling. “I should be—I’m supposed to be happy just being with him, and changing his diapers, and—and—but I’m so bored. I’m trapped in the house all day, and Elliott works all the time, and I hate it. Sometimes I feel like having a baby was a huge mistake.”
“Oh, Regan,” I said again. I’d known she was going a little stir-crazy, but I hadn’t thought it was this bad. Guilt sat heavy in my belly. I should have noticed that something was wrong.
“I know,” she wailed. “I’m a terrible mother. If I loved him more, if I—if I could just—”
“Stop,” I said sternly, before she could start crying again. “You love that kid more than anything. You’re not a bad mother. You’re just having a hard time right now. I would be going crazy, too. It’s not like newborns are all that interesting. Your life has changed completely. It makes sense that you need some time to adjust.”
“It’s supposed to be easy,” she said. “It’s supposed to be easier than this.”
“A lot of people have trouble,” I said. “Regan. You know I’m right. This is so normal.”
Her lower lip wobbled, but she nodded, finally.
“We’ll help you,” I said. “Me and Carter. Okay? You aren’t alone. You can put that kid in daycare a couple of days a week and work on taking care of yourself. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, her voice thin and shaky.
“Let’s call Carter,” I said.
“He’s at work,” she said. “We shouldn’t bother him.”
“He would skin me alive if I didn’t bother him for this,” I said. “I’m going to call him.”
Regan looked like she intended to keep protesting, but just then the baby let out a thin cry, and Regan immediately bent to lift it from the stroller, cooing and kissing its little face. Her love and devotion were so clear that I couldn’t imagine why she thought she was a bad mother. Hormones, probably. Babies did strange things to a body.
I didn’t get home until after dark. By the time Regan and I walked back to the house, Carter was waiting in the entryway, practically vibrating with concern. Regan started crying again, and then the baby started crying, and for a moment I thought Carter might cry; so I took myself and the baby back to the kitchen, but the baby in its little seat on the countertop, and made some sandwiches. When people started crying, it was time for food.
Sandwiches finished, I discovered that I could get the baby to smile by making weird faces, and the little dude was sort of cute, really, in a toothless, bug-eyed sort of way. I did that for a while, until the kitchen door opened and Carter came in. He looked very tired.
“You made sandwiches,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, and offered him the plate. “I figured you guys could use it.”
“Thanks,” he said. He took one of the sandwiches and looked at it. “Regan’s mom is going to come out to stay with us for a while.”
“I’m really glad,” I said. “That’s great. That’s what she needs.” I patted him on the shoulder, feeling awkward. “You’re both going to be okay.”
“I think so,” he said, and gave me a weary smile. “Thank you, Sadie. Your friendship means a lot to both of us.”
I went out into the living room, where Regan was sitting on the sofa, hunched over, looking very small. I sat down beside her and hugged her tightly. “I’m going to get out of your hair,” I said. “I love you, kid. Call me tomorrow and let me know how you’re doing.”
“I will,” she said, and I kissed her on the cheek and left.
Walking to the subway, I thought about what had happened that day: about Regan’s charmed, imperfect life, and the unshakeable love between her and Carter. About hope, and second chances, and starting over. About forgiveness.
Everyone had their own grief. Nobody’s life was without pain. The only thing to do was hold tight to someone you loved and refuse to let go.
It was time for me to put my old sorrows to rest.
When I got home, I turned on all of the lights in my apartment and looked around with fresh eyes. It was a mess. I hadn’t ever dealt with Ben’s things, not really, and they were strewn all over the apartment in drifts of clutter and dust. How had I been living like this? Well: I hadn’t been living, really. Just getting by.
I turned on some music, poured myself a glass of wine, and got to work going through the stacks of papers piled on my kitchen pass-through. Old receipts, bills I had long since paid, random takeout menus. And then, crumpled, stained with coffee, the to-do list I had written the night I got fired from my old job.
Find interesting work.
Go on a date.
I grinned, reading down the list. I’d done a lot of the things I listed. But now it was time for a new list.
I fished a pen out of my junk drawer and scribbled on the list to make sure the pen still worked. Good enough. I thought for a minute, and then wrote:
Hang out with Regan more.
Learn to like babies.
Take a trip somewhere exotic.
Finally learn how to drive.
That was a pretty ambitious list. Why not go all out?
Win the lottery. At least a million dollars.
Buy a huge loft in Soho.
Fall in crazy stupid love.
I started in the hall closet. It was still full of Ben’s clothes: his winter coat, his boots. I sorted through everything, folded it, and packed it in trash bags to take to the Salvation Army. The bedroom closet was worse. Harder. They were just clothes, I kept telling myself, fighting the tears stinging my eyes. Ben’s favorite sweater. The t-shirt that still smelled faintly of his deodorant. Just clothes. Ben wouldn’t want me to keep anything for sentimental reasons; he would say there were people who needed it, who could get a good job if they went to an interview wearing his one suit.
I had loved him. I would miss him every day for the rest of my life. But it was time to move on.
I broke down, then, standing in front of the open closet, holding Ben’s t-shirt in
my arms. I cried with heartsore grief for what I had lost, and with immeasurable gratitude for what we had shared.
And then I dried my eyes, and got back to work.
I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed up until dawn, alternately laughing and crying as I went through Ben’s things—kitchen utensils, boxes of old photographs, love notes I wrote to him when we first started dating that he had stashed in a shoebox. Even my handwriting looked young: loopy, dramatic. I had loved him.
Most of it went in the trash. Some things I kept, packed away in a plastic box I slid beneath the bed. I didn’t want to forget Ben, or pretend our relationship never happened., but it was time for me to stop living in the past. I was ready for whatever would happen next.
Finally, a little after 8:00, I was done. I gave the kitchen floor a quick mop and realized there was nothing left to do. Ben’s things were either thrown out, packed away, or ready for donation. The clutter on the kitchen counter and coffee table had been put away. The apartment was cleaner than it had been in months. And I was exhausted. I checked my email, drank a few cups of coffee, and then decided that I absolutely wasn’t going to get anything useful accomplished and I might as well go back to bed.
I could call Elliott later. Maybe tomorrow.
In the end, it took me close to a week. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him. I had to think of the right words. So I putzed around the house, went to a lot of spinning classes, and threw a dinner party for the first time in a year. I applied for some jobs—with NGOs, because Elliott had ruined me. I took Regan shopping and made her buy a dress that she insisted she was still too fat to wear.
I was a coward. That was all. At least I could admit it to myself.
On Saturday afternoon, a letter arrived in the mail. I recognized Elliott’s handwriting and tore the envelope open with shaking hands. I wasn’t sure what I would find inside. But it was just a check—my paycheck, mailed to my home address because Elliott had never gotten the payroll system set up. There was no note inside.
I rubbed my face. I really needed to call him.
