I’ve done that before, and I’ve never had regrets, exactly. There’ve always been things to be grateful for.
That’s life. You’re always making decisions, taking paths that lead you away from the rest before you can see where they end. Maybe that’s why we as a species love stories so much. All those chances for do-overs, opportunities to live the lives we’ll never have. “He wants to be here for you and Sally,” I say. “He’s working so hard to be what he thinks you need.”
Confirmed Sweet Guy Clint Lastra wipes at his cheek. His hands shake a little when they rest against his leg.
“He’s always been special,” Clint says. “Like his mom. But sometimes . . . well, I think Sally’s always enjoyed standing out a bit.”
His mouth twists. “I think my son has spent most of his life feeling lonely.” Clint glances sidelong at me, appraising, that same X-ray sensation his son’s so good at evoking. “He’s been different these last few weeks.”
Clint laughs to himself. “You know, I used to try to read a book a month with him. Did it all through high school, and college too. I’d ask for recommendations — the last thing he’d read and loved, so we’d always have something to talk about, that mattered to him. He was probably fourteen years old the first time I read one of his books and thought, Shit. This kid’s outgrown me.”
When I start to argue, Clint lifts a hand. “I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating way. I’m a smart enough man, in my way. But I’m amazed by my son. I could listen to that kid talk for way longer than he ever would, about pretty much anything. The first time Sal and I visited him in New York, it all made perfect sense. It was like he’d been living at half volume until that moment. That’s not what a parent wants for their kid.”
Half volume.
“He’s been different these last few weeks.” In the twitch of his mouth, I see shades of his son, biological or not. “More comfortable. More himself.”
I’ve been different too.
I wonder if I’ve been living at half volume too. With agenting. With dating. Tamping myself into a shape that felt sturdy and safe instead of right.
“You know,” I say cautiously, not wanting to out Charlie in any way but also needing to be in his corner, to not choose politeness or likability or winning over anyone over him, “maybe you’re trying to prove you don’t need him, because you think he doesn’t want to be here. But don’t act like he’s not doing any good, or like he can’t help. This place already gave him enough reason to feel like he was the wrong kind of person, and the very last person he needs to get that from is you.”
White rings his eyes. He opens his mouth to object.
“It doesn’t matter whether that’s how you feel or not, if that’s how it looks to him,” I say. “And if you do let him help you, he’ll do it. Better than you ever expected.”
With that, I turn and walk away before any more tears can fall.
36
WHEN I STEP out of the building into the crisp September afternoon, a flurry of pink and orange hurls itself at me. Libby’s lemon-lavender scent wraps around my shoulders as she squeals, “You did it!”
“If by it,” I say, “you mean ‘completed the first step of an interview process that might go nowhere,’ then I sure did.”
She pulls back, beaming. Her hair has faded almost entirely back to blond, but her clothes are as colorful as ever. “What’d they say?”
“They’ll be in touch,” I reply.
She threads her arm through mine and turns me up the sidewalk. “You’ve got it.”
Nerves jostle in my stomach. “I feel like it’s the first day of school, I’m naked, and I forgot my locker combination. Wait — no, it’s the last day of school, and I never went to math, plus all those other things.”
“The uncertainty is good for you,” she says. “You really want this, Sissy. That’s a good thing. Now let’s go, I’m famished. Do you have the list?”
“Oh, do you mean this list?” I say, producing the laminated sheet she made of everything we need to eat, drink, and do before she leaves.
Most days, I see her. For lunch, or a walk to the playground by her place, or to sit on the living room floor packing stuffed animals and tiny overalls into cardboard boxes. (Sometimes I cry over particularly tiny onesies that used to belong to Bea, then to Tala, and will soon be inherited by Number Three.)
One Saturday, we take the girls to the Museum of Natural History and spend two and a half hours in the room with the huge whale. Another night, Brendan and Libby and I meet at our favorite pizza place in Dumbo and we stay out on the patio talking until the staff is cleaning up for the night.
We overpay to have our caricatures drawn at Central Park. We ask a tourist to take our family picture at Bethesda Fountain. We meet for crepes, Sunday after Sunday, at Libby’s favorite spot in Williamsburg.
And then November comes.
They leave on a Thursday, bright and early. The girls are so sleepy that we’re able to plop them into the U-Haul without much fanfare, and secretly I’m disappointed. It kills me to hear them crying over the words Aunt Nono, but to not hear them might be worse.
Brendan and I hug goodbye, and then he climbs into the rental truck to give me and Libby some privacy.
“Run!” I stage-whisper to Libby, and he shoots me a smile before pulling the door shut.
Libby’s already crying. She said she woke up crying. I didn’t, but then again, I’m not sure I slept.
The third time I jolted awake, I got online and made appointments with both a therapist and a sleep specialist, then ordered four books that promised to have “helped millions in [my] exact situation!”
It was almost nice to have something else to focus on in the dead of night.
“We’ll talk all the time,” Libby promises. “You’re going to be sick of me.” There’s an iciness to the wind, and I lift her chilly fingertips to breathe warmth into them.
She rolls her eyes, laughing tearily. “Still such an utter Mom.”
“You’re one to talk.” I bend down to kiss her belly. “Be good, Number Three, and Auntie Nono will bring you a present when she visits. A motorcycle, maybe, or some party drugs.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Libby’s voice cracks.
I pull her into a hug. “This sucks.”
She relaxes in my arms. “This does indeed suck.”
“But it also rules,” I point out. “You’re going to have a big-ass house, and windows that don’t face that old guy who never wears pants, and you’re going to have a garden and you’ll wear those overpriced prairie dresses when you host dinner parties with fresh floral arrangements on every surface, and your kids are going to stay out late catching fireflies with the neighbor kids, and Brendan’s probably going to learn how to, like, chop wood and get ripped and carry you around like you’re in a romance novel.”
“And then you’re going to visit,” Libby cuts in. “And we’re going to stay up all night talking. We’re going to drink one too many gin and tonics, and I’m going to convince you to sing Sheryl Crow with me at Poppa Squat’s karaoke night, and we’re going to go to a real Christmas tree farm, not just a tent in an alleyway, and we’re going to show the girls Philadelphia Story, and they’re going to say, Hey, am I mistaken, or is Cary Grant kind of being an asshole? Why wouldn’t she end up with Jimmy Stewart?”