by Emily Giffin
“Oh, Charlie,” she says nonchalantly, spooning diced tomatoes and onions onto her plate in the assembly line Hank has created along the kitchen counter. “Summer’s mother called today.”
Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Charlie look at her, his small eyebrows arched with curiosity. “What did she say?” he asks.
“She invited you over to play on Saturday. She invited both of us over. I told her yes. Is that okay? Would you like to go?”
She looks at him, awaiting his reaction.
“Yes,” he says, a small smile flashing across his face, confirming everything.
Valerie smiles back at him, feeling happy to see him happy, but also awash with a new brand of protectiveness—the kind that comes when things are going well. It occurs to her that she has always believed in keeping expectations low. You can’t get hurt if you don’t care. Nick has proven that theory.
“Now. Wait. Who is Summer?” Jason asks—even though Valerie is sure that he knows exactly who Summer is—while Hank looks on curiously.
“A girl in my class,” Charlie says, his ears turning a telling shade of pink.
Hank and Jason exchange a knowing smirk and then Hank breaks the ice with a hearty, “Charlie! Do you have a girlfriend?”
Charlie hides another, broader smile with his taco shell and shrugs.
Jason reaches over and punches him on the shoulder. “Go, Chuck! Is she pretty?”
“She’s beautiful,” Charlie says, his voice and expression so pure and sincere and angelic that Valerie feels an inexplicable knot in her chest—a feeling that she can’t quite place as good or bad.
Later that night, as she applies vitamin E ointment to Charlie’s cheek, the feeling in her chest returns when he looks at her, wide-eyed, and says, “You know, Mommy. Summer is sorry for what she said.”
She feels herself tense, remembering those words, that day.
“Oh?” she says carefully.
“About having an alien face,” Charlie says matter-of-factly.
“Really?” she says, not knowing what else to say.
“Yes. She said she was sorry. And that she takes it back. She said she likes my face the way it is . . . And so . . . and so I . . . forgave her. And that’s why she’s my friend.”
“I’m so glad,” Valerie says, awash with raw emotion. She looks at Charlie and can’t decide whether he is enlightening her or asking her permission for his feelings.
“Forgiveness is a good thing,” she says—which seems to cover both possibilities. And in that moment, looking upon her son’s scarred but contented face, she lets go of some of her bitterness, and feels her heart start to mend, just a little.
41
Tessa
In the days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief. When I am angry, I can make everything about Nick—his failure, his mistake, his loss. I can focus all my energy on punishing him, refusing to see him, ultimately leaving him. In one very dark moment, I even consider turning him in to the Ethics Committee at the hospital. I am comforted by anger’s sharp, precise lines, its definite road map. Anger makes me believe that my brother is right—there should be no forgiveness or second chances. Life will be different moving forward, but it will go on.
Grief is a more complicated matter. It is something I can’t direct at Nick, as it is also about my loss, my children’s loss, the loss of our family and everything I once cherished and believed in. It has a component of fear and one of regret—of wishing I could turn back the clock and do things differently, more vigilantly guard my marriage. Be a better wife. Pay him more attention. Have more sex. Be more attractive. When the grief hits, I find myself looking inward, blaming myself for somehow allowing this to happen, for not seeing it coming at all. Grief also has a disorienting effect, offering no game plan whatsoever, leaving me only one option: to suffer there in the moment, until it is usurped by rage once again.
On the morning of my thirty-sixth birthday, a dreary, blustery Monday in January, I find myself squarely in the anger camp, and am further riled when Nick calls in the morning, just after Carolyn has arrived to watch Frankie and I’ve dropped Ruby off at school. I nearly answer the phone, but keep my track record alive and let him roll to voice mail, even showering before I check his message. When I finally listen, I detect a note of desperation in his voice as he wishes me a happy birthday, followed by an urgent plea to see me, if only to have cake as a family. I delete it immediately, along with an e-mail letting me know that if I won’t see him, he will leave my gift on the front porch as he did with my still-unopened Christmas present, a box that is too small to be anything but jewelry. I flash back to our tainted anniversary, feeling a rush of resentment toward him—for not giving me a gift that night, not even a card. For not switching his call in the first place. For everything. I hold on to this anger, determined not to dwell on Nick or my situation on my birthday.
Then, in an ironic twist, my divorced parents, neither of whom I’ve yet told my news, are both in town. My mother’s visit was always a given, as she almost never misses seeing me or my brother on the “anniversary of our births,” as she calls them, while my father is in Boston for a last-minute meeting. He calls to wish me a happy birthday, then informs me he has several hours before his flight back to New York. “Can I take my little girl to lunch?” he asks, sounding chipper.
I scribble on a notepad, Dad’s in town, and hold it up for my mother, who forces a broad, fake smile. I see right through her, feeling stressed at the mere idea of being at a table with both of them, and say, “Shoot, Dad. I already have plans. I’m sorry . . .”
“With your mother?” he asks, knowing that she owns this day, that he relinquished all birthday rights, along with the furniture and photo albums and Waldo, our beloved (by everyone but my mother) basset hound. It was always clear to Dex and me that my mother kept Waldo out of spite, a reaction that once annoyed me, but I now understand.
“Yeah. With Mom,” I say, overcome by two emotions, seemingly at odds. On the one hand, I feel intensely loyal to my mother, along with a fresh sense of empathy for all she went through; on the other, I am frustrated for her, with her, wishing she could get over the bitterness I know she still feels. Bitterness that does not bode well for my future—or Ruby’s and Frank’s, for that matter.
“Right. I figured as much,” he says. “But I was hoping to see you, too.” A note of exasperation creeps into his voice, as if to say, It has been years since the divorce. Can’t we all be grown-ups here and move on?
“Are you . . . alone?” I ask gingerly, knowing that Diane’s presence would be a deal breaker in the scenario I am actually contemplating.
“She’s in New York . . . C’mon, hon, let’s do it. Wouldn’t it be nice if both of your parents took you to lunch, together, on your thirty-fifth birthday?”
“Thirty-sixth,” I say.
“We can pretend,” he says, a smirk in his voice. My father hates growing older more than I—or any woman I know—which my mother ascribes to what she calls his boundless vanity. “So what do you say, kiddo?”
“Hold on a sec, Dad,” I say, then cover the phone and whisper to my mother, “He wants to join us. What do you think . . . ?”
She shrugs, smiles again, and says, “It’s up to you, honey. It’s your day.”
“Can you handle it?” I say, not at all fooled by her cool-as-a-cucumber facade.
“Of course I can handle it,” she says, looking vaguely insulted.
I hesitate, then return to my father, giving him instructions on where to meet us. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I watch my mother reach for her compact, carefully, nervously, touching up her lipstick.
“Fabuloso,” my father says.
“Dy-no-mite,” I deadpan, wondering if I will ever achieve the indifference that has so clearly eluded my mother. Or whether, years from now, I will hear my ex-husband’s name and feel just as frantic to look my best. To show Nick what he’s missing, what he destroyed and lo
st, so long ago.
Thirty minutes later, I am seated with both my parents at Blue Ginger, a sleek, bamboo-paneled Asian restaurant, sharing the lobster roll appetizer. My father is intermittently humming a tune I can’t quite identify while my mother taps her nails on her wineglass and chatters about the bonsai trees ornamenting the bar. In short, they are both nervous, if not downright tense, and the fact that the three of us have not been in the same room together since the night I married Nick is not lost on any of us. Yet another layer of irony in our family infidelity files.
Then, after a glib discussion of Ruby and Frank and other neutral topics, I try to muster the courage to break my news. It occurs to me that it is unfair to do it this way, at least to my mother, but part of me thinks that it will help me maintain a degree of dignity and pride that I feel I’ve lost. Because no matter how many times I tell myself otherwise, how many times Cate and Dex reinforce the notion that Nick’s affair is no reflection on me, it still feels like my humiliation. I am deeply ashamed of my husband, my marriage, myself.
“So. I have something to tell you,” I say during the next lull. I feel stoic, if not strong.
I look at my mother, then my father, their expressions so worried, nearly fearful, that my eyes begin to water. Upon realizing what they might be thinking, I reassure them that the kids are fine and that nobody’s sick.
It is a thought that puts all of this in perspective, although in some ways I’d rather be ill. Then I could have a diagnosis, a treatment plan, and faith—or at least hope—that things could somehow work out. I take a deep breath, searching for the right words, as my father puts down his fork, reaches for my hand, and says, “Honey. It’s okay. We know. We know.”
I stare at him, slowly processing what he’s telling me.
“Dex told you?” I say, too relieved that I don’t have to actually say the words aloud to be angry at my brother. Besides, in the context of broken promises, his is not so egregious.
My mother nods, reaching for my other hand, her grip as tight as my father’s.
“Should we sing ‘Kumbaya’?” I ask, laughing so I won’t cry. And then, “Dex sure has a big mouth.”
“Don’t be upset with Dexter,” my mom says. “He told us out of love and concern for you . . . He and Rachel are so worried about you.”
“I know,” I say, thinking of how many times they’ve both called me in the past few days, calls I’ve been too upset to return.
“How are the kids?” my mom asks. “Have they figured it out?”
“Not yet,” I say. “Which tells you something, right? That’s how much he works . . . He’s only seen them four or five times since Christmas and they don’t seem to notice that anything is different.”
“Have you . . . seen him yet?” my mother continues, now in her information-gathering mode.
I shake my head.
My father clears his throat, starts to speak, then stops and starts again. “I’m sorry . . . Contessa, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Contessa” has been his special nickname for me since I was a little girl, one that he only breaks out at emotional moments, and I know, even without looking at him, that he is apologizing in more ways than one.
I bite my lip, pull my hands free, resting them on my lap. “I’m going to be fine,” I say, sounding far more convincing than I feel.
“Yes,” my mother says, lifting her chin, looking more regal than she usually does. “You will be fine.”
“No matter what you decide to do,” my father says.
“Dex told us his advice,” my mother says.
“And I’m sure you’re on the same page,” I say to her, no longer caring about any possible innuendo. The parallels are obvious and I feel too defeated and exhausted to pretend they’re not.
My mother shakes her head and says, “Every marriage is different. Every situation is different.”
It occurs to me that that’s what I’ve been telling her for years, and yet here she is finally agreeing with me now that her theory has been proven correct. I quit my job, prioritized my husband and family, and ended up in her shoes, just as she predicted.
“Tessa, honey,” my dad says after the waiter refills our wineglasses and scurries discreetly away, likely sensing that something is amiss at our table. “I’m not proud of what I did . . .”
“Well, that’s comforting,” my mother scoffs under her breath.
He exhales, appropriately shamed, and tries again. “Okay. That’s an understatement . . . I’ll always regret behaving the way I did . . . Behaving so . . . dishonorably . . .”
As far as I know, this is the first he’s ever admitted any wrongdoing and, as such, it feels like a shocking admission. It must to my mother, as well, because now she looks like she might cry.
He continues, more gingerly, “I wish I had handled things differently . . . I really do. Things weren’t going well with your mother and me—I think she’d agree with that.” He glances her way and then continues, “But I looked for solutions in all the wrong places. I was a fool.”
“Oh, David,” my mother says under her breath, her eyes welling.
“It’s true. I was stupid,” he says. “And Nick is stupid, too.”
My mother gives him a knowing look as it suddenly dawns on me that their intervention was not only planned, but possibly rehearsed. Then she says, “Although, obviously . . . we don’t know what was in Nick’s head . . . or why he did what he did.”
“Right. Right,” my dad says. “But what I’m trying to say . . . is that I think your mother and I—”
“We made a lot of mistakes,” she interjects as he nods.
I feel a wave of nostalgia, remembering our dinner conversations growing up, how much the two used to interrupt each other, more when they were getting along and happy than when their relationship was stormy, marked by silent gridlocks and standoffs. “I was depressed and frustrated and hard to live with. And he,” she says, pointing at my father and nearly smiling, “was a cheating son of a bitch.”
My dad raises his brows and says, “Gee. Thanks, Barb.”
“Well, you were,” she says, releasing a high, nervous laugh.
“I know,” he says. “And I’m sorry.”
“Duly noted,” she says—which is as close as she has ever come to forgiving him.
I look from one parent to the other, unsure if I feel better or worse, but thoroughly perplexed as to their overarching point. Are they implying that I somehow contributed to this mess? That Nick had an affair because he’s not happy? That marriage is more about how you manage a catastrophe than commitment and trust? Or are they simply caught up in their own bizarre feel-good moment?
My father must sense my confusion because he says, “Look, Tess. Your mother and I are just trying to impart some of the wisdom we collected the hard way. We’re just trying to tell you that sometimes it’s not about the affair—”
“But you married Diane,” I say, avoiding eye contact with my mother.
He waves this off as if his current wife is utterly beside the point. “Only because your mom left me . . .”
Clearly liking this version of their history, she smiles—a warm, real smile, allowing him to continue.
“Sweetie, here’s what we’re trying to say,” my father says. “Marriages are funny, complicated, mysterious things . . . and they go through cycles. Ups and downs, like anything else . . . And they shouldn’t really be defined by one act, albeit a terrible one.”
“Multiple acts, perhaps,” my mother says, unable to resist the softball. “But not one, singular mistake.”
My father raises his palms in the air as if to say he has no defense, and then continues her train of thought. “That said, you don’t have to be okay with his transgression. You don’t have to forgive Nick,” my dad says. “Or trust him.”
“They aren’t the same thing,” my mother says. “Forgiving and trusting.”
Her message is clear—she might have forgiven my father the first time around,
but she never trusted him again, not even for a second. Hence her undercover work and her grim, but unsurprising, Diane discovery.
“I know, Barbie,” he says, nodding. “I’m just trying to say that Tess has a decision to make. And it is her decision. Not Nick’s—or her brother’s, or mine, or yours.”
“Agreed,” my mom says.
“And no matter what, we’re on your side,” my father adds. “Just as we’ve always been.”
“Yes,” my mother says. “Absolutely. One hundred percent.”
“Thank you,” I say, realizing that this might be what hurts more than anything else—the fact that I always thought Nick was that person who would always, no matter what, absolutely, one hundred percent, be on my side. And the fact that I was absolutely, one hundred percent wrong.
And just like that, my anger dissipates, supplanted once again by a thick, murky grief.
A short time later, the three of us return home from lunch, and are standing together in the driveway, saying our extended good-byes before my father leaves for the airport. My parents both appear perfectly at ease, and to watch their casual body language, you’d think they were very old friends, not two people who were married for nearly twenty-five years before going through a bitter divorce.
“Thanks for coming to Boston, Dad,” I say, ready to get out of the cold. “I really appreciate it.”
My father gives me another hug—his third since we left the restaurant—yet makes no move toward his rental car, instead commenting that he could take a later flight.
I look at my mom, who shrugs and smiles her permission.
“Would you like to come in for a while?” I say. “The kids will be home soon. Carolyn’s picking Ruby up from school now.”
My father quickly agrees, and minutes later, we have moved inside, congregating in the kitchen, discussing my dad’s recent trip to Vietnam and Thailand. It is the sort of exotic travel my mother craves but doesn’t undertake—either because she’s too busy or doesn’t want to do so alone. Yet she doesn’t appear to begrudge my dad the experience, asking friendly, open questions. My father answers them, avoiding any plural pronouns or mention of Diane, although I know that she was with him—and I’m sure my mom does, too.
