Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

  “Was that real?”

  My ever-revving mind fixated on the dichotomy of my emotions. I felt too young for such an adult moment, but I felt too old to feel as giddy and as nervous as I did.

  “I think so,” I answered.

  Just like that, Rachel and I decided to get married.

  Thankfully, Jake, from day one, loved the beach as much as we did. He and I often rushed down early on Fridays while Rachel had to work. We’d reach the house and barely go inside before trekking the few blocks down to the sand. Playing, laughing, and wandering aimlessly along the near-deserted, off-season coast, at times our eyes would meet and even before he could speak, the mutual love was as clear as any sentence could be.

  When I called Rachel those evenings, I would lie about the weather.

  “It was windy. The sand was blowing. Not nice at all.”

  Then I’d look around, hoping Jake was out of earshot.

  So, hearing him even mention the possibility that Laney would not be a beach kid nearly caused my heart to stop. When I looked at Rachel, it seemed she felt the same thing. It just couldn’t be.

  Not five minutes later, the car quieted down. I dared a look back and Laney was fast asleep. Just as I was about to turn around, I noticed Jake held her tiny hand in his. My attention back on the road, I smiled and tapped Rachel’s leg, thumbing for her to look back. When she did, I heard her coo of happiness.

  “How cute,” she whispered.

  I nodded, feeling like I had the best family in the world.

  I guess I forgot when Rachel mentioned it, but it ended up that her grandmother was visiting the beach as well. When we arrived at the house, Grammy M briskly strolled along the decking, a hand up to shade the sun, the other waving vigorously for a ninety-three-year-old.

  “Hi there,” she called.

  Jake jumped out of the back door and raced to Grammy. Hitting the brakes a foot before reaching her, he stopped and put out his arms. Grammy hugged him and laughed. Rachel followed our son and I busied myself unlatching Laney’s carrier from the base of the car seat. I tried not to jostle her, thinking she needed more sleep. As I eased her out of the door, Rachel reappeared. She grabbed the carrier and hurried back to show Grammy her newest great-grandchild.

  “Don’t wake her,” I called after Rachel.

  My wife glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. I know I nagged her about the kids, but I could sense something deeper. I stood on a ledge, dangerously teetering on questioning her mothering capabilities, the ultimate button push for a working mother. I deserved credit for seeing that, but lost it every time I couldn’t loosen up on the reins. Was it such a big deal if Laney woke up?

  With every ounce of control I could muster, I spun around and busied myself unloading our bags.

  Inside, I ran into Rachel’s dad. A tall man with broad shoulders and the most welcoming grin I’d ever come across, he grabbed a bag out of my hands. We looked at each other, eye to eye.

  “Hi, G-Pa,” I said, genuinely happy to see him.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Got any more in the trunk?”

  “Nope, this is it.”

  He turned and I followed him back to the bedroom our family would share. At times, I could see Rachel in the way he walked. They both had an athlete’s gait, as if ready to pounce on some fast-moving prey.

  “How’s the garden?” I asked.

  “Great, great.”

  G-Pa was an avid amateur botanist. Never one to understand the draw of plant life, I was left with little more to add to the conversation. He looked at me and nodded.

  “Gotta find the missus,” he said, walking away.

  I sighed. The ocean called.

  An hour later, we were almost ready to head to the beach. Rachel remained inside getting Laney prepped for her first trip to the sand. Jake played out front on the street, hitting rocks with his yellow Wiffle ball bat. Enjoying himself, he made enough noise for me to miss Grammy M’s approach.

  “Hello, fella,” she said.

  “Oh, hey there, Grammy.”

  “How’s everything going?” she asked.

  I looked at her and sensed where the conversation was headed. She stood, her shoulders squared, ready to tell me something I had no interest in hearing. Her bushy gray eyebrows arched up and her milky, great-grandmother eyes appeared sharper than they had a right to be.

  “Great. Real good.”

  “Have you been playing poker?”

  Grammy played every Thursday evening with the ladies at the assisted living residence. I imagined her, often, wearing a green-tinted visor and taking the old maids for everything they had.

  “Twice a month now,” I said. “I have two groups going.”

  “You know,” she said, licking her cracked lips, “poker’s not a job.”

  My eyes closed. I felt like screaming. Luckily, Rachel saved me.

  “You ready?” she called out.

  I opened my eyes and watched her walk toward me, a little bundled-up Laney held close to her chest.

  “Let’s go!” Jake yelled.

  Jake pressed ahead as I joined Rachel. In a hushed tone, I told her what Grammy had said.

  She laughed. “She didn’t mean anything.”

  “Probably not,” I said, watching Jake. “But I’ll admit that my stomach turns when people say stuff like that to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “About work.”

  “Why? You work.”

  “I guess it’s my button.” I chortled. “I think Grammy just called me soft.”

  Rachel snorted, laughing so hard. “That’s Grammy all right. Always going for the jugular.”

  Our conversation cut short when I had to catch up to Jake as he sprinted along the weathered plank bridge leading up the dune. At its crest, my son just ahead of me, I froze as briny, cool air washed across my face. There, ahead of us, the gray Atlantic Ocean rolled onto the sand, calm for that time of year. I turned just in time to see Laney as the wind pressed against her so-new face. She gulped, losing her breath for a second, and her eyes widened. As if scripted, the corners of her perfect little mouth curled up. She squealed, but no sound came out as her tiny hands grasped for the water still fifty yards away. I laughed. Rachel laughed. And Jake laughed. We fell into each other, a perfect family group hug as the Atlantic sang.

  Once we returned to the grind of the real world, I realized how fleeting nirvana could be.

  “Maybe you could work from home on Tuesdays?” I asked while on the phone with Rachel that first week back.

  I stared out the window at the scene across the street and to the right—the weekly neighborhood playdate. Tiny humans jolting like pinballs against each other and the four decorative cherry trees in Karen’s front yard. Bo, Karen’s towheaded only son, sat under a bush. He might have been crying, I couldn’t tell. I did not recognize many of the other neighborhood kids. That fact did not make me feel great.

  “Daddy,” Jake called from upstairs. “Laney’s up.”

  The way he said her name made me smile. Almost a W at the beginning, but not quite.

  “Great, buddy,” I called back, holding a hand over the speaker. “I’ll be right up.”

  “I have to go, Simon. Isabella needs me on a conference call with a client.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  I think I might have sounded desperate. Rachel, for her part, did not react.

  “Why don’t you just take him over?”

  “Karen didn’t invite me,” I said.

  “Lindsey did last week.”

  Lindsey was another mom from down the street. She had hosted the neighborhood playdate the prior week and had, through Rachel, asked me to bring Jake over. I had not, due to a prior engagement (grocery shopping) and an inexplicable yet numbing fear. A stay-at-home mom might not understand that. Watching them out the window, they seemed to live for Tuesdays. What I imagined was me sitting on an overstuffed couch, my pinky out as I sipped cappuccino and nodded inter
estedly along with so-and-so admitting how childbirth affected her woman pieces or how her husband made the funniest sound after orgasm.

  “Look, I’ll see what I can do,” Rachel said. “But it won’t be this month, that’s for sure. I don’t care if you go or not. It’s just a playdate.”

  As I stared out the window, the sound of the children playing plucked at my nerves like Slash from Guns N’ Roses. I could actually picture him with his poodle hair all crazy while he strummed the synapses inside my skull. Rachel’s response left me wanting. I imagined, not for the first time, our roles reversed. I’d lean back in my roller chair, put my feet up on the desk, and say, “It’s just a playdate.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Just take a deep breath. It’s no big deal.”

  I laughed, suddenly seeing the absurdity of a grown man being terrified of a playdate.

  “Wow,” I said. “I guess I’m moving about five spaces ahead. No playdate leads to Jake being left out, to Friday nights alone in his room listening to alternative music and reading crap like Silvia Plath.”

  “You crack me up,” she said.

  Even I could see how that was a total stretch. I thought about my own childhood. I remembered a good friend in the fourth grade who turned on me and told the rest of the class that I still watched cartoons. We really never talked again after that moment. Thinking back, I could list other examples. Life was built on putting those hard moments back together. My kids needed that stuff. Rationally, I knew that.

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling strong in the moment, like I’d figured everything out. “Real men don’t playdate.”

  Another laugh burst from Rachel, one of the real ones. The sound carried relief and nostalgia. I smiled.

  “That’s the Simon I love,” she said.

  I laughed back. “And don’t you forget it.”

  Laney, five months old at the time, woke up like a little angel. From her first day on this planet, she appeared happy to have her eyes open, like she never wanted to miss anything. On the contrary, things like car seats and cribs cramped her sense of freedom. I picked her up and held her close to my chest, the warmth from her peanut of a body seeping through me, making everything a little better.

  “Can I hold her?” Jake asked at my feet.

  “Not yet, bud. I have to change her.”

  His eyebrows turned down and he stomped out of the room.

  “Once I get her ready, you can. Then we’ll go to the park. I’ll bring your bike.”

  Although the weather could not have been better, I wrapped Laney in a snug baby suit, those all-in-one things that acted as socks, pants, and long-sleeved shirt simultaneously. It was pink, of course. Pretty much all her clothing came in pink or purple. She owned not a single hand-me-down from Jake. None of his clothes made it through me as primary caregiver. Not only had I ignored the existence of bibs, but I also just threw clothes in the washer and dryer (white, dark, whatever), and had no idea how bleach worked (or maybe I was just playing dumb). Either way, I tried harder for Laney. She deserved to look like her mom dressed her.

  Carrying my daughter and carefully walking down the stairs, I felt better. I had almost forgotten my fear of the playdate. Then I saw Jake. He stood in front of the window, peering out. With no context, it could have been one of those great photos that some parents post on Facebook. The sun beamed in around him and the slight glare dappled the natural greens and browns outside.

  With context, however, the vision told a different tale. He stared out at a bunch of kids playing. I felt sick to my stomach.

  “You okay, buddy?” I whispered.

  He didn’t respond. Though I was not proud of it, those thoughts came back. I projected horrible emotion: rejection, loneliness, ostracism. Jake not answering magnified it to the point where it breathed and moved through the room like a specter. Laney squirmed in my arms. She felt it, too. That was what I decided.

  I committed to attend the neighborhood playdate the next Tuesday. I would not allow my fears to make my son feel this way. I would protect him, and Laney, though I’d already sort of figured out she was better at this stuff than I ever could be.

  Tuesday next arrived. Another mom, Regina Wold, originally from New Jersey and married to an accountant/sports enthusiast, hosted the playdate. Even the word playdate drove me near insane when I heard it. I had taken to whispering it like the older folk whispered the word “cancer.”

  That morning, I drank an extra cup of coffee, a vain attempt at delaying what I expected to be torture. Jake hovered around as if he, too, sensed the doom knocking on the door of our little world. Laney, however, remained oblivious. She cooed, already strapped into her car seat.

  Taking Jake by the hand, I lifted Laney and walked to the garage. It was time. Not quite. Deftly, I unfolded the expensive stroller my parents had shipped to us, a gift in absentia from being there for her birth. They had been overseas visiting relatives and got home a day late.

  Locking Laney into the front, I stepped aside. Jake jumped up onto the bar across the back wheels. He loved to ride there when we took walks. He had no idea, though, that this was no normal Connolly family stroll. I wondered if I’d ambushed my son, but honestly I had no idea whether he would like it or not. Maybe all this discomfort belonged solely to me.

  The Wolds lived at the very tip of the cul-de-sac. Though I’d deemed Karen the mayor of the neighborhood, Regina held the crown. In a more confident, haughty way, she ruled. Her husband drove a sweet convertible Mercedes and she threw monthly parties at which she sold jewelry or something like that to the neighbors. For my part, I respected Regina. Although I would shy away from a confrontation, she tended toward the up-front and reasonable.

  I am not sure I could have strolled any more slowly as we meandered down the walk. My stomach twisted and turned. Too much coffee, I thought.

  “Daddy?”

  I turned to Jake. “Yes?”

  “Where are we going?”

  I smiled. “This is Corey and Catherine’s house. We are going to a playdate.”

  “Who’s Corey and Catherine?” he asked.

  “You know! Our neighbors?”

  He looked at me like I had morphed into some strange fuzzy character at an amusement park, one that appeared ambiguously sinister.

  In answer, I rang the doorbell. Regina answered.

  “Silly, just walk in next time,” she said.

  I stuttered. Why would I do that? There was absolutely no way I would just walk into a house I had never entered before.

  “Come on in,” she added, shaking her head. She bent at the waist. “Hi there, Jakey. How are you?”

  Jake hid behind my leg. I awkwardly attempted to coax him out while freeing Laney from the stroller. Regina chuckled warmly, then took Jake by the hand. Jake, stunned, went along with her, glancing back at me.

  “The other kids are downstairs,” she told him.

  The two disappeared through what I assumed had to be the basement door. Laney wrapped around my neck, but when I looked at her face, she seemed thrilled. I eased into the kitchen, following the sound of voices.

  A chorus erupted when I entered. “Hi, Simon.”

  Someone reached out for Laney, and without realizing it, I handed her off. Someone showed me to a chair. Someone poured me a cup of coffee (my fifth of the morning). It all happened so fast, like a huge embrace. I admit that it made me fidget, the warm welcome a double bind when added to my disquiet.

  “Ms. Simons . . . ,” someone said to my right. I turned, mishearing and thinking they were talking about me. They were, instead, talking about a teacher at the school. I glanced at Regina as she reappeared. I tried to figure out the age range of the group of children in the basement. Lindsey’s daughter was in pre-K, so maybe under two to almost five years old or so. The moms seemed so comfortable and confident. I kept staring at the basement door. Some say men don’t have the patience to raise children correctly. Golf takes patience and men love that. I see
it differently. Men are just golden-maned leaders of the pride. We lie around a lot until something needs protecting. Then, it’s best to just get out of the way.

  I decided I needed to check on Jake. Being a homebody (I guess), I had not integrated Jake into large groups enough. I imagined bedlam in the basement. Jake tied to a train table, being sawed at by plastic woodworking tools. I glanced at Laney, not sure if I was comfortable leaving her there at the kitchen table while I checked on Jake.

  Laney’s eyes tracked with the conversation. I marveled at her ability to look fascinated. She smiled at the right time, cooed in agreement, even grunted in disdain. I tried to follow along, although my mind remained obsessed with the goings-on in the basement. I think some of the moms were talking about a cleanse diet.

  “I drink a shake in the morning and then have a snack of whole foods.”

  Regina looked at me, so I nodded in agreement, although I didn’t know what a whole food was. I figured it was not a whole bag of chips or anything like that.

  “Would you like a slice of brain bread? Karen made it. Totally delish.”

  “No thanks.” I shook my head. “I already had breakfast.”

  Lifting my cup, I noticed my hand shook. It had to be the caffeine. Laney looked like she might respond to something Karen said. And what the hell was brain bread, anyway?

  “I’m going to check on Jake,” I blurted out. “Is that okay?”

  Conversation ground to a halt. Everyone stared at me, including my own daughter (at least that’s how it felt).

  Regina laughed. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “Yeah,” others chimed in.

  “I’m just going to see. Is it all right if I leave Laney? She looks like she’s having a ball.”

  Regina nodded, more to the others than to me. Tairyn, who held Laney, kissed my daughter’s downy head, and all the other moms focused their attention on her. They talked about her clothes. Laney smiled (one of her first).

  Ignored, I rose from the table. I glanced back when I opened the basement door. No one paid me any attention, so I slipped down.

  The basement—I often wonder if I misunderstood the scene. To me, the place reeked of a nightmarish death trap. Kids littered the floor, along with jagged piles of toys, whirling dervishes of intermittent laughter and tears. I staggered back a step searching for Jake. I found him sitting in a corner, a Buzz Lightyear doll in his hand, staring unabashed at the other children. For their part, Jake’s existence might have been a dust mote.