In the morning, I didn’t want to leave Victor alone to deal with the kids, but I also wasn’t sure really what good—if any—I would be to him. Max had some Cocoa Puffs, but the rest of us didn’t want to eat. We all carried dark luggage beneath our eyes and no one said much. Ava wouldn’t even look at me. The kids watched noisy and distracting cartoons in the den, while Victor and I took some time to talk in our room. We sat on the bed, his hands wrapped around mine.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you last night,” he said.
“It’s okay.” I gave him a tired smile. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed, and his eyes filled with tears. “The kids are just annihilated, Grace. I feel so helpless. I have to be here for them, but I also need to get over to their house and get them clothes, plus make all the arrangements. Kelli didn’t want a funeral, but I was thinking we could just have a small gathering here at the house, maybe on Thursday? I also have to make sure the restaurant is covered for the next week, at least . . .”
His voice held a slightly panicked edge, so I held my hand up to stop him. “I can get their things. The kids need you here more than they need me.” Or want me. I thought of Ava’s angry words from the night before.
He looked doubtful. “Are you sure? It’s not going to upset you?”
“I don’t think so. Can you ask what they might want me to grab? Favorite clothes or whatever?” He nodded, and I felt a twinge of relief at having been given something to do. A thought struck me. “Have you called her parents?”
Victor nodded. “From the hospital, last night.” He sighed. “I’m not sure her mother fully understood what I was saying. She didn’t sound right, you know? Confused.”
“Like how, confused?”
“Like not-mentally-all-there confused. Scattered confused. They’re in their late seventies, I think, so maybe she’s got some dementia or something?” I nodded, and he went on. “Anyway, they’re not coming.”
My jaw dropped. “Really?” He nodded again. I knew Kelli was estranged from her parents, but I still had a hard time trying to imagine the kind of people who’d never met their own grandchildren and now wouldn’t give their only daughter enough respect to come say good-bye. “What happened between them and Kelli?” I asked. I’d never had reason to be curious about this issue before, but it suddenly seemed important to know. “What could have been so bad?”
“She didn’t like to talk about it,” Victor said with a heavy sigh. “They were pretty uptight and Kelli was more of a free spirit. It’s what I liked about her.”
My stomach twisted hearing him say this, but I ignored it as best as I could. He had been married to her; at one time, he loved her the same way he loved me now. He would need to talk about his feelings for her, and I needed to be a big enough person to understand this. I shook my head and tried to focus on what was important. “Okay, but it’s their daughter.”
“If they didn’t make the trip when she was alive, why would they when she . . .” He swallowed, visibly choking on his next words. “When she’s not.” He cleared his throat.
“I guess so,” I said. “But it’s still pretty sad.” Both sets of my grandparents lived on the East Coast, so Sam and I didn’t get to see them much when we were growing up, but they always sent us birthday cards and Christmas presents. I always knew they loved me.
Victor nodded. “Anyway . . . how are you doing?” he asked, searching my face with his clear gray eyes. It seemed like such a small question for the enormity of our circumstances.
I shrugged and gave him a brief smile. “It doesn’t matter how I’m doing. How are you? How are the kids?” I paused, knowing he was looking for a better answer than that. The problem was, I didn’t have one. Everything inside me felt unhinged. I took a deep breath before speaking again. “I don’t think it’s easy for any of us right now. It’s just devastating all around.”
Victor sighed and took my hands in his. “I don’t want you to be devastated. This was supposed to be such a huge weekend for us. Telling the kids about our engagement. And now . . .”
“Now things are different,” I finished for him. “But we’re still engaged. We just don’t tell the kids yet. That’s all. We help them get through the roughest part of this first.”
“That shouldn’t be your job,” he said quietly, looking back at me. “Listen. I know this wasn’t part of our plan. The kids with us full-time, I mean. I’m a little overwhelmed by the prospect myself, so I’d understand if you didn’t want to do it.” His voice was low, his words deliberate.
I swallowed hard, wondering if my fear and confusion about the situation was obvious despite how hard I’d worked to disguise it. I decided the best thing I could do was be honest. “It is overwhelming. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little apprehensive about dealing with all of this.”
He suddenly looked scared, too, and in that moment, it felt like my choice was made. There was no way I could leave him. Not now. I reached a hand up and smoothed his hair back from his face. “I know you’re tough, honey, but you can’t be the rock for everyone. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you for that,” Victor said, and his eyes grew dark. “But I need to be very clear with you about something. You don’t have to worry about taking care of the kids. They’re my kids. My responsibility. Our life will be different because they’re living here, of course. But our relationship—you and me—doesn’t have to change. Because I want you to be my partner, not their parent. Okay?”
I nodded once, briefly, allowing myself to become buoyed by his words. We kissed, and he went to talk with the children while I showered and dressed. I texted Melody and asked her if she could meet me at Kelli’s to help me pack up the kids’ things, and she immediately shot back an “Absolutely. Send me the address.” I complied and then walked down the hallway to the kitchen, where Victor handed me two sheets of paper listing the things Max and Ava wanted me to bring: Purple radio by bed, Ava had written. Orange paper clips. Conditioner in green bottle in the shower. And then she went on to detail the multitude of clothing I would need to pack up. Max’s list was easier: Jeans, it read. Shirts with stuff on them. Red flashlight and my Iron Man Halloween costume. My mom’s blue blanket off her bed.
“Take as long as you need,” Victor told me. “Call me if you have any questions.”
My mother had left me a message earlier, returning my call from yesterday, so I slipped on my headset and called her back as I drove toward Kelli’s house. She was likely in her garden, where she’d spent most of her time since she retired ten years ago and moved about ninety miles north of Seattle to Bellingham. I pictured the last time I had seen her in the small but lush yard outside of her tiny one-bedroom house—a beach shack on Lake Whatcom with whitewashed cedar clapboards. It was back in early September, at the beginning of a beautiful Indian summer, and the morning sun lit up the startling autumnal hues in her yard. At sixty-two, she was really just starting to show her age in the slight sag of the skin beneath her chin and the pronounced lines around her eyes and mouth. Still, she was a beautiful woman. Her frizzy reddish-gray curls were hidden beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat. She wore what she called her “mom uniform”: stretchy blue jeans with an elastic waistband, a pink cotton button-down shirt, and lime-green work gloves.
I thought I could drive as I talked with her, but as the phone rang, it suddenly struck me that Ava would never be able to call Kelli like this in a moment of need. She could never reach out for her mother’s comfort again. I had to pull over and park when she answered the phone, crying when I heard her voice.
“Mama,” I said, and the tears started to fall. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used that particular endearment. She was always Mom or Mother. But not now. Not today.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
My throat convulsed as I tried to speak. “Kelli . . . Victor’s ex-wife . . . she died.”
“Oh no!” she said. “What happened?”
I filled her in on the little I knew. “I’m so worried she killed herself. Victor said she was pretty upset when he told her we’re engaged.”
“Grace,” my mother said in a firm but gentle tone. “Honey. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Okay? Can you promise me that?”
“Okay.” She was right. We didn’t have all the facts yet. It was silly to draw any conclusions at this point.
“What about the kids? How are they handling it?” She’d only met Max and Ava once, but I knew she looked forward to the possibility of becoming a surrogate grandmother when Victor and I decided to get married.
I told her what Ava said to me, tearing up again as I spoke. “She hates me.”
“I don’t think that’s true, sweetie. But her heart is broken. And she’s only thirteen. Think about how you were at that age.”
“When you had Sam.” I sniffled and wiped beneath my eyes with the back of my hand, happy I’d thought better of putting on any makeup.
“That’s right. And that was hard enough for you to deal with. Put yourself in Ava’s place. She’s lashing out because she’s hurting, Gracie. She’s just lost the most important person in her life.”
“I know. I totally get that. And I’m just devastated for her. And for Max, too. But I just don’t know if I’m going to be any good for them, you know? What if I say or do the wrong thing and make things worse?” She didn’t say anything, allowing me the space to go on. “I’m not used to feeling so powerless. I manage crisis situations—that’s my job. And there’s nothing I can do to manage this. They don’t even want me there.”
“You never know. Maybe that will change. You’ve told me before that most of your clients aren’t always emotionally ready to accept the help you offer them, but they eventually come around, right?”
“Right, but . . .” I didn’t know how to articulate my fears, to explain how deep they went within me. How fundamentally ill equipped I felt around children, even after spending ten years helping to take care of Sam.
We were both quiet a moment, listening to each other breathe. My tears began to slow down, and finally, she spoke again, so quietly I barely heard her. “Do you regret that you moved in with Victor?”
Leave it to my mother to ask the one question I didn’t want to answer. Maybe she could read my mind or had some kind of other motherly psychic ability I wasn’t aware of. I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me, pressing my lips together before speaking. “We were supposed to tell the kids about the engagement this weekend.”
“I’m so sorry this is happening, sweetie.”
“Me too.” I half snorted, stifling another sob. “I hid the ring in my purse. This is so not how I pictured celebrating my engagement.”
“Nothing is perfect, Grace,” she said with a heavy sigh. “If there’s one thing I learned being married to your father, it’s that sometimes, you just have to make the best of the hand you’re dealt.”
* * *
He was late again. My eighth-grade graduation dance was about to start at the school gym, and if I was going to catch the last bus to get there, I needed to leave in the next ten minutes or I wasn’t going to make it. I paced in our living room, waiting for my dad to get home from his shift at the garage. My hair was curled, my bangs were sprayed, and I was wearing a pair of acid-wash Guess jeans I’d found at Goodwill the week before. My mom had to work, so I had made sure that morning that my dad knew he needed to be home no later than six thirty.
“Of course,” he said, giving my cheek a soft pinch with grease-stained fingers. “Don’t want my girl to miss the big dance.”
Now my baby brother, Sam, cooed at me from his playpen by the window, sucking on a bottle and staring up at the mobile that turned in lazy circles above him. He had been born seven months ago, and at the time, I was still a little horrified by the fact that my mother had gotten pregnant in the first place. I knew about sex, having read the educational book she had surreptitiously left on my bed when I was nine. This book also explained in great detail the unexpected hair that would soon sprout on my body, as well as the strange but imminent monthly event that somehow translated into my becoming a woman. I found the pencil sketches of boys’ erections highly disturbing, and for months after seeing them, I tried not to glance at any of my male friends’ crotches on the playground, lest I witness any such horror in person.
She told me about the baby after her first trimester, and six months after that, I held Sam in my skinny, shaking arms. With his cone-shaped head and swollen, slanted eyelids, he looked like a tiny purple, wrinkly alien. I had a hard time blanking out the fact that he’d shot out of my mother’s vagina, a feat I imagined was akin to pulling a pot roast through one of my nostrils.
“You can help me with him,” she said to me in the hospital. Her reddish curls were matted around her head like a wild woman’s and she looked pale and weak, more tired than I’d ever seen. Her green eyes were half-closed. “Babysit when I’m not home.”
I’d nodded at the time, my own red waves bouncing. I was excited, at first, at the prospect of helping my mother, completely unaware just how many hours a week my “helping” would translate into. I didn’t know how to picture myself taking care of this mewling little creature; I’d always had more interest in my father’s collection of Matchbox cars than the baby dolls people bought me—dolls that usually played the role of an enormous evil toddler who terrorized the race-car drivers on the speedway, threatening to smash them with her giant plastic feet. But I knew that after a month off, my mom planned to return to work at Macy’s to help supplement my dad’s job as a mechanic, so in the meantime, I enrolled in a Red Cross babysitting course. I learned CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, how to handle minor injuries, and techniques for remaining calm in case of emergency. The other girls in the class seemed to be taking it lightly—they were taking care of other people’s children as a hobby, and for money. Not me. I studied my notes diligently—this was my baby brother I was going to be responsible for. I passed my final test with a perfect score.
During the day my mom took care of Sam, but most afternoons, as soon as I got home from school at three thirty, she had to leave for work. “I wish we could afford to hire someone else,” she said, “but we just can’t. Not now. I’m relying on you, okay? You can do it. Your dad will be home at six, and his bottles are in the fridge.”
But tonight, it was already six forty-five and my dad wasn’t home. I grabbed the phone and dialed the garage again. It rang and rang, until the answering machine picked up. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there. He could have been stuck under a car, trying to fix it so the customer wouldn’t have to go the whole weekend without anything to drive. He could have been on his way, slowed down by traffic.
He could have been at the bar, playing poker.
“Hey, Gracie Mae,” he’d say on the nights he came through the front door on time. He’d walk over to the refrigerator and pop the cap off a bottle of Budweiser. If Sam was awake and in his playpen, he’d lift him up, kiss him on his head, then proceed to the den, where he’d plop himself down in his brown leather recliner to holler out wrong answers for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
Other nights, he didn’t come home until I’d given Sam his bath and gotten him down to sleep all on my own. “Stopped for a beer with Mike and Rodney,” he’d say, reeking of cigarette smoke and fried food. “How’d our little man do?”
“Fine,” I would always answer, keeping my eyes on my homework, knowing that stopping for a beer with his friends meant poker at the bar, and poker at the bar meant a fight with my mother later about how much money he’d lost. I tried not to listen to them from my bedroom, but the walls of our small house were thin.
“You have to stop this,” my mother said in a low, angry tone after she came home. “You know we’re barely making it. Since Sam was born, our health insurance alone is more than half your paycheck.”
“I’m just blowing off a little steam,” my dad said. “I’ll stop, I promise.” And for a while, he would. He’d come home every night, help me with the baby so I could finish my homework or even talk on the phone with a friend. But one night back at the poker table was all it took to lose enough to make my mother angry again, and for me to have it cemented in my mind that my mother had three children, not two.
I sighed now and didn’t leave a message. That was it. He wasn’t going to get here in time for me to catch the bus. I didn’t have any other way to get to the school. All of the other kids had parents who drove them there, and the few friends I had I wasn’t close enough to to call and ask for a ride. I wanted to go to the dance so badly my body almost ached. I wanted to stand next to Jeffrey Barber in the dark and wait for the DJ to play “Careless Whisper,” then “accidentally” bump into him. I imagined his black curls and dark blue eyes, his smile as he would take my hand and lead me to the dance floor. I imagined his hands on my waist, the smell of his neck. I imagined what his lips might feel like on mine and every inch of my body grew warm.
“Dad, where are you?” I said aloud, to no one, then looked over at Sam, who was beginning to gurgle in a way that I recognized as the precursor to his starting to cry. Despite everything I’d learned about babies, I always felt a little scared when I was home alone with him, but I knew I didn’t have a choice in the matter. He was my family, and it was my job to help take care of him.
I dialed the women’s department at Macy’s and asked the salesclerk who answered if my mother was around. “Gracie?” she said when she came on the line, the word coming out in a hurried breath. “Is Sam okay? What happened?” I wasn’t supposed to call her while she was working unless it was an emergency.
“He’s fine,” I said. Across the room, as though on cue to prove me wrong, Sam started to cry. “But Dad’s not home yet. I’m going to miss the dance.”
“Oh, Grace. You scared me.” She exhaled a long, tired-sounding breath. “Did you call the garage?”
“Yes. He’s not answering.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I know you really wanted to go.” She paused a moment, listening. “Is that Sam?”
“Yesss,” I said with a sigh, drawing out the word. Who else would it be?
“Why is he crying?”
“How should I know?”
“Watch your tone, young lady.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, and then explained. “He just finished his bottle. He probably needs to be changed.” While I’d learned the hard way to cover his tiny penis with another diaper before taking away the old one, changing Sam was far from one of my favorite responsibilities. I couldn’t believe that something so small could produce something so completely disgusting—and so much of it. The pitch of his cries suddenly grew louder and a deep-seated, panicky ache clutched my insides. I don’t want to do this. Please. It’s too hard. I don’t want to be here. “Can’t you come home?” I said to my mother, pleading. “Can’t you pretend you’re sick or something?”
“I wish I could, but I have to work. There’s a sale tonight and I’m the manager. I can’t leave. You know that.”
I was silent, feeling my blood rush in my ears. “I hate him,” I finally whispered. She knew I meant my father. This was far from the first time he had let me down, and I doubted it would be the last.
“No, you don’t,” Mom said. “You’re just disappointed.” She paused. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll talk with your dad tomorrow, okay? We’ll get it figured out. Please take good care of your brother. I’m counting on you.”
I hung up, staring at the phone, listening to the increasing pitch of my brother’s wails. “This isn’t fair,” I said. “I hate it.” Sam cried louder, and I took a deep breath, then made my way slowly over to him, hoping I could find a way to take his sadness away.
