The Winters in Bloom

by Lisa Tucker

  “He must be in shock,” Kyra said. She wasn’t as angry with her sister as she’d expected to be. In fact, she felt like a weight had been lifted now that Amy had done the right thing.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Amy said. She was wearing her old peacoat and one of Zach’s stocking caps, but she looked really pretty, as always. “I hope that’s why he’s so against the idea of separating.”

  “He is?” Kyra could feel a snowflake melting on her eyelash. She loved the smell of snow, and the way her footsteps echoed in the silence that fell over everything.

  “He’ll get used to it. I just need to give him time.” After a moment, Amy smiled. “Gregory has decided to leave his wife.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “He’s staying in a suite at Crown Center. I’m going to take a bus over there with Hannah, so the three of us can have brunch together.” She took Hannah out of the stroller and picked up the diaper bag. “Could you take this back to the apartment for me?” she said, nodding at the stroller.

  The snow was coming down harder, but Amy had on her boots—Kyra checked. She’d be safe walking to the bus with Hannah. Kyra grabbed the handle and pushed the stroller out of her sister’s way. “Where should I tell Zach you are?”

  “Tell him the truth. I’m moving in with Gregory.”

  “Oh, Amy.”

  “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, sis. Please be happy for me.”

  It took Kyra only a minute before she reached out and hugged her. If Amy really was happy, then maybe this was the right thing. Of course she shouldn’t have married Zach, but an unplanned pregnancy could happen to anyone. And though the Church taught that divorce was wrong, it had been a long time since Kyra believed everything the Church taught. What if this relationship was what her sister had been looking for since she dropped out of college? What if Amy could finally settle down and be fine? Love worked in mysterious ways, or so Kyra had heard. She herself had almost no knowledge of love. The closest she’d ever come was Zach, and sure, this was hurting him, which made her feel awful, but her sister had to come first.

  “At least he’s rich,” Kyra finally said, pulling away from her sister.

  “I know!” Amy said, and they both laughed. Amy adjusted Hannah so the baby could look over her shoulder. Before they walked away, Kyra kissed Hannah on the chin. The baby was smiling her best toothless grin. She always loved being outside, especially when it was cloudy, because the sun in her eyes made her squirm and get fussy. Kyra wondered whether Hannah would grow up to be a winter person, like her aunt.

  She was so deeply in this memory that she felt like the wetness on her checks was snow. But then she heard Sandra’s warm voice. “ ’Course you miss that baby, sweetheart. Especially right now.”

  Kyra was crying for Hannah and Michael, but she was also crying for that Amy, who was so happy. Happier than she’d ever been in her life, she said—and much, much happier than she’d ever be again.

  Unfortunately, Zach didn’t get used to it. Though he couldn’t stop Amy from leaving, he told Kyra that he did not want that “asshole” Gregory Todd raising his daughter. He decided to fight Amy for custody of Hannah. The first shock was when, almost immediately, temporary custody was awarded to him, primarily because he was still in the so-called “marital home,” but also because the judge made no secret of disapproving of Amy’s affair with a married man. Amy got two weekends a month with her baby. Her lawyer said it seemed punitive, but it was only for a few months, until the real case could be heard.

  Of course a few months in a baby’s life is an eternity. Amy had always been a physical person and she slapped her own face, hard, when she realized she had no choice but to go along with the court. The only thing that made her feel better was her sister’s promise that she would watch over the baby. Zach had never blamed Kyra for any of this, and he was glad for the help. When Kyra wasn’t with Zach, she was usually at Amy’s, consoling her sister, who had moved into a condo with Gregory, except it turned out that Gregory was only “in the process” of leaving his wife. It was all so confusing that Kyra couldn’t keep up with her feelings—or her classes. In the future whenever she applied for a job, they would invariably ask what happened at the end of her senior year. “Family crisis,” she’d say, knowing they wouldn’t press for what she meant. It was a good thing, because though she knew every detail intimately, she would not have been able to give them a simple summary. The job interviewer would expect to hear something concise such as “my brother got sick,” or “my family’s farm failed.” If she said “my sister’s heart was broken” that would be close, but heartbroken made it sound like Amy was innocent. She wasn’t of course. None of them were innocent, including, unfortunately, Kyra.

  The judge had ordered an evaluation by a psychologist. After Amy was finished with her evaluation, she felt like she’d done a near perfect job representing herself as a good mother. She’d even baked cinnamon cookies when Ms. Jenkins came to the condo the first time. “She liked me,” Amy said. “She told me she’d wanted to be a musician when she was young.” But she liked Zach, too. He said so, and Kyra knew it was true after her own meeting with Wendy Jenkins, at the beginning of June.

  The psychologist had asked to meet with her because Kyra was the only member of Hannah’s extended family. Predictably, Amy and Kyra’s father had shown no real interest in the child, and Zach’s parents, though they whined constantly for pictures, had visited the baby only once, for a few hours.

  They met in Wendy’s office, which was filled with toys. Wendy was wearing khaki pants and a loose-fitting blouse that she hadn’t bothered to tuck in. Kyra felt stiff and ridiculous in her only suit, the one she’d bought for her job interviews. She’d just graduated; she was starting at an insurance company next week. She still didn’t want to be an actuary, but there were no other jobs she could find in Kansas City.

  Of course she began by emphasizing how much Amy loved her daughter. She said, “Amy would do anything for Hannah.” She also said that Amy deserved to have her daughter more often. “She’s a good mother.” She even told Wendy Jenkins about the Callahan Child Care Company. “Amy’s always been great with kids.”

  “Tell me what kind of person your sister is. The first four words that come to mind.”

  Kyra answered quickly so it wouldn’t look like she was editing her response. “Loving, generous, spontaneous, and talented.” She paused. “And patient. I should have put that in instead of ‘talented.’ Amy is so patient. That’s part of why she’s really good with kids.”

  “Do you know her boyfriend, Gregory?” Wendy said.

  “Not really,” Kyra said. “He’s usually not around when I’m there.” She paused and decided she had to say it, no matter how hard it was to get the words out of her mouth. “But from what I’ve seen, he’s a great guy. I’m sure he would be very good with Hannah.”

  Wendy wrote something down. Kyra hoped it wasn’t “sister is clearly a liar.”

  “How long have you known Zach?” Wendy said.

  “A long time. Since he and Amy first started dating.”

  “Tell me what kind of person he is.”

  “But you’ve already met with him.”

  “Yes, of course. But I’d like your perspective. Just four words, as before.”

  She couldn’t answer as quickly this time. She wasn’t sure why, but summarizing Zach in four words was really hard. And she didn’t want his description to be better than Amy’s. But she couldn’t bring herself to use negative words to describe a really good person like Zach. She felt like Wendy was setting a trap for her, and she wasn’t sure how to get out.

  In the end, she decided to just use versions of the Amy words, weakening them if possible. Instead of “loving” she used “nice,” for “generous” she said “warm,” for “spontaneous” she had to go with the opposite, but she on
ly said “cautious” rather than her first thought, “responsible.” Finally, for “talented” she used “smart,” as that was Zach’s real talent. He was smart: at least smart enough that Kyra never questioned her assumption that he had to be smart or she wouldn’t be in love with him.

  Her crush had returned with a vengeance after Amy left—and turned into love one night in April, when she was spending the night on the couch, as she often did on the weekends to help with child care. She was almost asleep when Zach suddenly knelt down on the floor and kissed her. He kissed her again and again and she kissed him back and soon they were stumbling into the bedroom together. After it was over, he apologized, but she told him she was very glad it had happened. Since then, they’d slept together a dozen times, though they didn’t act like boyfriend and girlfriend during the day. Kyra didn’t mind. She assumed that Zach was being careful. Of course he would worry that someone could find out about his own affair, which could hurt his custody case. And she could tell by the way he touched her that he was falling in love, too. As soon as the custody hearing was over, they would be able to show how they felt.

  Wendy Jenkins was looking at Kyra, staring really. Had she said something wrong? Kyra felt herself blushing, but she always blushed when someone stared at her. She often thought that if she were ever questioned for a crime, the police would decide she was guilty merely because her cheeks would be bright pink.

  Kyra couldn’t take it anymore. “Are we finished?” she said, and sat up straighter. She hoped she sounded professional, like the insurance clerk she was soon to be.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I was thinking about what a unique prospective you have about this.” She smiled. “You know both of the parents very well, and even though one is your sister, I can tell you’re striving to be objective. That’s very unusual.”

  “Thank you,” Kyra said. “I majored in math. I hope I learned how to separate my feelings from the facts.”

  “Then tell me this, if you had to choose Zach or Amy to be the primary caretaker for little Hannah, which one would you choose?”

  “I wouldn’t. I think Hannah deserves to have both of them in her life.”

  “Certainly joint custody is desirable whenever possible. The court has been very clear about that. Since both Zach and Amy seem to be fit parents, I see no reason why they wouldn’t be given joint legal custody, which simply means that both of them can be involved in decisions in Hannah’s life. And joint physical custody makes sense as well. However, the bulk of physical custody is usually given to one parent, especially in the case of a child Hannah’s age. This parent we call the ‘residential custodian,’ and the other parent is the ‘non-primary custodian.’” She paused. “So my question still stands. Which one would you choose to be the primary caretaker?”

  For the rest of her life, Kyra would remember this moment. Of course she had no idea how important her answer would become, how it would sway Wendy Jenkins’s recommendation, which would turn out to be the sole criterion the second, less-conservative judge would use to decide her sister’s fate. Even so, she took it very seriously. She tried to consider only what was best for Hannah.

  Did she have dreams of being in a family with Zach and the baby she adored? She would have said no and meant it, but deep down, she already felt that they were acting like a family. They shopped together, cooked together, played with the baby together, even sang Hannah a lullaby that Kyra had invented for the little girl to the melody of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Go, go, go to sleep, my sweet little one / happily, happily, happily, happily, you have all our love. Neither Zach nor Kyra could carry a tune, but that just made it better. They were so much more alike than he and Amy ever were.

  But did she think that if Zach no longer had custody of Hannah, her relationship with him would suffer? Not at the time, but later, she thought some part of her must have been worried about this—and she prayed that part had had no role in answering the psychologist’s question.

  She wanted to be objective. She wanted to be fair. Oh, she wanted so many things. She wanted Amy to be happy again. She wanted her sister to be stable, and normal, and a much better mother than their own mother had been. And she wanted Zach to love her. She was so desperate for him to look at her the way he’d looked at Amy. She thought she would never need another thing if only she could go to sleep each night snuggled up to Zachary Barnes.

  She was barely twenty-two years old. She had no idea what would be best for Hannah forever, but for now, it seemed clear that Zach was the better parent. Amy traveled with her band at least one week a month. And her obsession with Gregory hadn’t diminished despite all his broken promises to leave his wife. Whenever she wasn’t talking about Hannah, she was talking about him: when he was coming over, when he didn’t show up, when he acted like he loved her, when he seemed like he was losing interest. She had so many problems, and Zach just didn’t.

  Kyra couched her answer in those terms. Only for now. And the psychologist nodded. Kyra hoped that nod meant that custody orders weren’t hard to change. She hoped that maybe by the time Hannah was two, they could switch it and Amy could have her for a year or so. By then, Amy and Gregory’s relationship might have settled down. Or Amy would have a new guy who wouldn’t put her through the emotional hell of dealing with his marriage.

  It was a little over a month later when the judge ruled against her sister. Kyra would always remember that day, July 12, as one of the worst of her life. Though Amy knew what Kyra had told Wendy Jenkins—it was all in the report, unfortunately—she didn’t scream or call her sister a betrayer. In fact, she said “it’s not your fault” so many times that Kyra knew she was trying to convince herself of that.

  Zach had to be happy with the results, but Kyra hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. She stayed with her sister, who took to her bed when Gregory claimed he had to be with his family that evening, for a barbecue. It was the first of many gigs Amy would cancel for emotional reasons. By the time Amy finally fell asleep, it was after midnight, and Kyra was exhausted from trying to calm her down. But she still rushed over to Zach’s apartment to spend the night. She had her own key, so she wasn’t worried about waking Hannah. She hoped Zach might be awake, but if he wasn’t, she planned to wake him. Or perhaps she would just slip into his bed. She hadn’t decided.

  When she got there, she discovered how right she’d been about Zach being careful during the custody case, afraid that if anyone knew he had a girlfriend, it would affect the outcome. He was so cautious that he hadn’t even told her that he’d fallen in love with Terri, the woman who babysat Hannah during the day, while he and Kyra were at work.

  Though Zach and Terri were only sitting on the couch together, holding hands, she instantly knew she’d been a fool. Indeed, she was so full of self-loathing that she almost threw up. Zach said something vaguely apologetic, but she couldn’t find her voice. She ran out of the apartment and drove back to her sister’s condo, which she’d left unlocked because she’d planned to be back in the morning, before Amy woke up.

  She didn’t start to cry until after she’d crawled into bed with her sister. Amy didn’t fully wake up, but she put her arm around her and said the same thing she used to say when they were kids, sleeping together to hide from imagined monsters or their real losses. “I’m here. It’s okay. I’m here.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  All evening, David kept thinking he heard Michael’s voice coming from the backyard. Again and again he’d headed outside, clutching his flashlight though it wasn’t yet dusk, to look for his son. He walked the perimeter of the fence and checked the latch on the gate; he stared into his wife’s tomato garden and pushed back the bushes behind the green ash tree. When he came back inside, he was too depressed to care that neither of the police officers would look him in the eye; he didn’t even care when he overheard the taller one whisper, “He’s losing it.” But now, standing alone in the hall
outside his wife’s study, he wondered if it could be true; if he was, in fact, losing it. How else to explain his sudden conviction that his wife would not have fallen apart if his mother hadn’t told her Courtney’s version of that night?

  Kyra had been holed up with Sandra for almost an hour—and crying for what seemed like a very long time. Thanks to the strange acoustics of their old house, the sound could be heard all the way in the kitchen, where the two officers were still stationed by the coffee machine. When the older one suggested that David might want to check on his wife, he’d headed for the stairs, relieved to have an excuse. But when he opened the door of the study, what he witnessed made him back out quickly without making a sound. To say he was surprised to see Kyra curled up on his mother’s lap was an understatement. His wife was a very reserved person. Though she was openly affectionate with their son and with David himself, with everyone else, including Sandra, her embraces had always been a bit formal. Yet there she was lying in his mother’s arms, with her face buried in Sandra’s neck, sobbing like a desolate child.

  On some level he was aware that Kyra’s odd behavior didn’t have to mean that Sandra had told her, but his mind was unable to hold on to this. Now it seemed obvious why Kyra had wanted to be alone with his mother. Earlier, when she’d said there are things you haven’t shared with me, David had refused to discuss it. But Sandra wouldn’t refuse. Sandra would tell Kyra the truth, for Kyra’s sake but also because she’d think that David would be better off if his wife could help him with his “unresolved feelings” about the past.

  He wondered why he didn’t feel furious with his mother, why he didn’t feel anything but more panicked. Kyra’s crying seemed to be quieting down, but the idea of being there when she came out, full of questions—no, he couldn’t bear it, not while his son was missing. He turned down the hall and rushed to the nearest bathroom, the only place where he knew he could be alone until he figured out what was happening to him. The nearest bathroom was Michael’s, and his son’s white terry cloth robe was still lying in a heap on the rug from the child’s morning bath. David picked it up and clutched it against his chest as he crouched down on his knees.