The After Wife

by Summers, Melanie

  “Would you like to meet my cat, Walt Whitman?”

  She nods, her eyes lighting up.

  I gesture for her to come stand by me, then wait while she slides off the kitchen chair. I crouch down near the end of the table and point, lowering my voice. “He’s hiding on that chair.”

  She crouches too, then whispers, “Is he scared?”

  “Maybe. He’s never met a child before.”

  “Never in his whole life?” she asks, clearly shocked by this revelation.

  “Not even one time.”

  Tilting her head so they can see each other, Olive uses a gentle voice. “Hi Walt. I’m Olive Wright and I’m what you call a child. Some kids—oh, that’s another word for child—some of us are really loud and rough, mostly boys, but not me. If you want to play with me, I’ll be very careful, and I promise I won’t touch your eyes.”

  Looking up at me, she says, “My grandma’s neighbor has a cat, Pickles, and one time my cousin poked him right in the eye with a stick. And Pickles didn’t like that one bit.”

  “I would guess not.”

  “My cousin’s a goofball.” She looks back at Walt. “Will he come out and play?”

  “Tell you what, if we get him some treats and a couple of toys, he may just decide he’s not scared anymore.”

  Olive stands and gives me a confident smile. “That would totally work on me.”

  “Me too. Except with beer and Cheetos.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

  ~ Anais Nin

  Who knew I would like kids? Well, one anyway. Olive has come over four times now, and as far as I can tell, she’s nearly as good as a cat. She expects almost nothing from me, doesn't poke her cute little nose in my business, and she's actually kind of fun. Even Walt has taken to her and seems to have an almost dog-like manner when she's around—wanting to play from the moment she arrives until they leave. When it comes to holding a feather stick toy for him, she has a much longer attention span than I do. She also bounces it at just the right ratio of challenging-to-satisfying to keep him interested.

  And I shouldn’t admit this because it sounds pathetic, but she's quite good for my ego. She laughs at all my jokes, and yesterday she said I have “beautiful smooth brown hair like a princess.” She also asked me if I had fake eyelashes, which I don’t, obviously, because that sort of maintenance is way too much effort for me. But apparently, I don’t need them anyway because I already look like I have lash extensions. Well, according to a seven-year-old.

  So, when Liam showed up this morning and told me he found a new sitter, and that today would be the last day I’d “have her underfoot,” I felt surprisingly disappointed. I should be thrilled since it’s one less person around, but instead, I’m kind of mopey. Not for my sake as much as for Walt’s. He’s going to miss her.

  There’s a terrifying bang on the roof and I flinch just as I’m topping up my coffee. I spill some on the counter, then glare up at the ceiling. It’s the third day that Liam and Colton have been working up there, and I have to say, I’m at the point where I’d gladly just throw a tarp over the house permanently to avoid all this racket. It’s been the worst part of the renovation so far because you can’t get away from the sound. Yesterday, I worked on a flowerbed in the farthest corner of the backyard (to avoid falling nails and shingles), but it’s even louder out there.

  Finally, it’s three o’clock, and Liam leaves to pick up Olive. I take my coffee and go to my office in case inspiration hits, then busy myself checking my email and seeing how many minutes I can go without glancing at the clock. So far, my longest run is two minutes.

  When they finally return, I go outside into the bright sun to greet them. Colton, who has been lying in the shade of a maple tree with his headphones on and his eyes closed, sits up when the truck pulls into the yard. He takes off his headphones and hangs them around his neck.

  Olive gets out of the truck, her head hanging down as she pulls her backpack onto her shoulders. Her feet shuffle as she walks toward me.

  “Hey, Olive!” I say. “You okay?”

  She shrugs and nods a few times without making eye contact. I glance at Liam. He waves his hand as though saying everything’s fine, then lowers his voice. “She’s a little sad that I found a new sitter.”

  Oh, well that is just heartbreaking.

  “She’s gotten really attached to Walt,” Liam says.

  “And Abby!” Olive spits out, using the sharpest tone I’ve heard from her.

  I glance at Colton, who looks as though he’s as surprised as I am to see an angry Olive.

  I stand by, feeling helpless as she trudges past me and through the open front door. “Hi, Abby.”

  Turning to Liam, I wince, but he shakes his head. “She’ll be fine.”

  Then he tells Colton he’ll be right out. Once the three of us are inside, Olive lets her backpack slide off her skinny shoulders and drop to the floor.

  “Oh, come on now, Olive. Chin up. The Wrights aren’t pouters. We make the best of even the worst situation.”

  She gives him a look that is most definitely a preview to her teenage years. “I just don’t understand why I can’t keep coming here.”

  “Remember, I told you this would only be for a few days?” Liam asks, sounding slightly exasperated. He gets no response because Walt has chosen this moment to trot over to his daughter and rub against her leg.

  Liam continues. “You’re going to love it at the O’Brien’s house. She has two other kids from your school who go there. Plus, Mrs. O’Brien bakes her own bread.”

  Olive sinks to her knees in a way that is so dramatic, I almost want to laugh. She rubs her face against Walt’s head. “You mean Mrs. No Brien?”

  “What? Who calls her that?”

  “Seth in grade four goes to her house after school. He told me Mrs. No Brien says no to everything and that the bread she bakes isn’t for the kids she babysits. It’s for her and her fat husband.”

  “Olive! I’m shocked at you,” Liam says, raising his voice.

  “What? I’m just repeating what Seth said.”

  “Well, don’t repeat things that … aren’t worth repeating.”

  Walt has curled up on her lap now, right on the entryway floor, and starts purring, oblivious of the building conflict.

  “They don’t even have a cat,” Olive says. “And you can’t get to the lake from their house!”

  Liam sighs and shakes his head. “We’ll talk about this later. I have to get back on the roof.”

  With that, he walks out the front door. A minute later, the thumping starts up again.

  “Can I get you a snack?” I ask Olive.

  “No, thank you. I’m too sad to eat,” she says.

  And I don’t know if I’m just a total sucker, but I believe her.

  I stand and watch her scratching Walt behind his ears with both of her little hands. His eyes are closed and he’s clearly in cat heaven. A loud bang shakes the house and Walt darts off her lap and under my new armchair, leaving Olive with her arms stretched out and empty.

  I’m suddenly desperate to fix things for her. “Do you think your dad would mind if we go for a walk? I can’t take another minute of that awful racket. Plus, I haven’t tried the ice cream at the Eighty-One Flavors Shack down on the beach.”

  She springs up onto her feet, a wide grin spread across her face. “He’ll definitely say yes.”

  A few minutes later, we’ve obtained permission from Liam and are on our way through the backyard to the beach. Olive skips ahead of me, revived by the thought of a bubble gum ice cream cone. We’re almost out of the yard when Liam hollers, “Olive! You stay away from the cliffs!”

  She spins around and shouts, “Okay, Dad!”

  “I’m serious, Olive. If you fall in, I won’t be there to fish you out.”

  “I know!” she calls, then she reaches for my hand as we continue on down the dirt path to the beachfront.
>
  I feel a bit awkward and don’t quite know how tightly to hold on, but she grips hard enough for both of us. “You’d save me, wouldn’t you, Abby? If I fell in?”

  I make a little clicking sound with my tongue. “Don’t think so, kiddo. I’m not exactly hero material. I’m also not exactly a strong swimmer.”

  She looks up at me with her face scrunched up. “What? I thought you had to learn to swim before you could be a grown-up.”

  “Who said I’m a grown-up?”

  She purses her lips together and stares at me over her glasses.

  “All right, fine. I do know how to swim. But it’s been about a hundred years since I’ve done it,” I say, giving her hand a light squeeze. “So let’s promise each other to steer clear of the cliffs, okay?”

  “Okay. That’s not where you find the mermaid tears anyway.”

  “Mermaid tears?”

  “Yup, they’re on the sand part of the beach. Not the rocky part.” She points farther inland, away from where Bras d’Or Lake meets the Atlantic. “Can we go there after we get our ice cream? I want to see if my mom left me some of her tears today.”

  “Is that something she does often?” I ask, wondering if Liam would mind me entertaining this notion.

  Olive nods. “Uh-huh. All the time. ‘Cept in the winter because it’s too cold, so all the merfolks have to stay down at the deep part of the lake. Otherwise, their fins would freeze off.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true,” she says. “Hey! I bet your husband left you some too.”

  Her words are jarring to me and, although it’s against my better judgment, part of me needs to find out more. “Were all the mermaids humans before?”

  “Yup. Well, they’re not all mermaids. Some are mermen,” she says, skipping while she holds my hand.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “That’s why they leave their tears on the shore—so the humans they love know they’re thinking of them.”

  I will not cry. This is all just nonsense.

  “Oh,” Olive says, her eyes lighting up. “If you see a very beautiful mermaid with a big floppy ponytail and a baby boy, that’s my mom and my brother Malcolm. Hey, I wonder if they know your husband? I bet they do. What was his name?”

  “Isaac,” I say, my voice wavering.

  Olive looks up at me. “Don’t worry, Abby. He’s okay. They’re all happy down there under the water. It’s the most wonderful place ever. No one has to go to school or work, and there’s the most beautiful music because lots of them play harps and fiddles, and they all sing. And they dance, except it’s so much better than our dancing because they can twirl so fast without getting dizzy." She lets go of my hand and twirls around with her arms stretched out to the side. “Isaac is probably dancing right now.”

  I press my lips together as hard as I can, but there’s no stopping it. My eyes sting and my vision blurs. His face appears in my mind’s eye—happy and young and free. A sudden sense of desperation comes over me. I need this to be true.

  She stops twirling and puts her hand on my forearm. “Are you crying?”

  “No, no,” I say, faking a smile. "I just … have allergies.”

  “Oh yeah,” she says, “My dad gets those sometimes too when he’s sad.”

  * * *

  It’s evening now and I’m sitting outside at my new wrought-iron table sipping some chilled chardonnay. After Olive and Liam left today, I needed to get out of the house for a while, so I went for a drive to the liquor store. The table was waiting for me in front of McDavid’s Hardware with a thirty percent off sign on top of it. So I made a quick U-turn and an impulse buy to make me feel better.

  The wine is kicking in as the last of the oranges and pinks disappear into the water, and the stars are lit one by one. A white salad plate sits in the center of the table. It has a handful of mermaid tears on it—or, as people who aren’t Olive call them, sea glass. Most of the pieces we found this afternoon are brown, a few are green, but there is one tiny blue one that catches my eye. Olive is sure it belongs to Malcolm because only the youngest merfolk cry blue tears. I pluck it off the plate, then hold the round, pleasing object in my palm.

  I know it’s nothing more than a shard of a broken bottle, but somehow it seems like much more. I can see why Olive believes what she does. It seems almost magical that only time and the tide are required to smooth away all the sharp edges so we can safely hold broken glass in our hands. Maybe grief can be buffed in the same way, until our memories can’t hurt us anymore.

  Without thinking, I pick up my phone and text Liam.

  Hey, can you back out on Mrs. No Brien? Walt’s really choked up that Olive won’t be coming over anymore.

  A minute later, my phone rings. “Hello, Abby’s Babysitting Service, where bread isn’t just for fat grown-ups. Abby speaking.”

  “Abby, I know Olive was pulling out all the stops today,” Liam says in a quiet tone, “But I promise you she’ll be fine at the O’Brien’s. They’re nice people despite what that boy said.”

  “Yeah, but Walt just won’t stop giving me the huge sad eyes. I can’t take it anymore,” I say. “What if it’s a business proposition? You take babysitting fees off my bill? At least then I’ll be making some money for a change.”

  “You do realize what happens at the end of the month? Summer holidays. That means all day, five days a week for the entire summer. That’s a lot of days.”

  I hear her voice in the background and it tugs at my cold heart.

  Liam’s voice sounds far away when he says, “I’ll be right back inside. You get on with your reading.” Then he comes back to me. “It’s over two months.”

  “I know how long summer holidays are. Please? I want to do this.”

  He sighs, so I keep going. “Come on, you and I both know that No Brien hordes all the homemade bread. What kind of sadist does that?”

  That finally breaks him because he starts to laugh. “And you’re sure about this?”

  “Am I ever not sure?”

  “Right. I keep forgetting.” He pauses, then says, “All right, then.”

  “Really?” I ask, feeling almost giddy.

  “Sure.”

  “Walt will be thrilled.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.

  ~ Confucius

  Now that it’s almost July, instead of Bachelor Tuesday, Lauren and I have Pride and Prejudice Wednesdays. PBS is showing the entire BBC mini-series, one hour at a time, over the next six weeks. We’re getting caught up before the show starts and I’ve just been telling her about my new side hustle.

  “So, let me get this straight. You’re now babysitting your contractor’s kids for him?” Lauren asks.

  “Kid. Singular.”

  “And this doesn’t seem odd to you?” she says. “Your contractor brings his child to the work-site and leaves you to deal with her.”

  “She’s actually a cool little thing. Plus, I’m getting paid, so …”

  “But, have you forgotten you don’t like kids?”

  “That’s not true. I like my niece and nephews.”

  “You mean the ones you once referred to as the tyrants of Portland?”

  “Okay, they’re a little wild for me, but Olive is … more like a tiny grown-up. She likes to draw and color, and she has surprisingly good taste in music. She’s a huge Beatles fan. In fact, she knows almost every word on The White Album.”

  “But you don’t like The Beatles.”

  “I do, actually. I forgot about them after college, but now that I’ve heard them again, I’m right back into their music." I pour some salt and pepper chips into a bowl and walk into my living room. “In other news, I can officially watch Mr. Darcy on my television in my living room, which is now fully carpeted and furnished with a sleek but oh-so-comfy couch, armchair, and coffee table.”

  “Sweet. Send pics,” she says. “Now, back to you, your hot contract
or, and his adorable daughter.”

  “I never said he was hot.”

  “You never said he wasn’t, so I filled in the blank on that one.”

  I laugh. “And, how exactly would you come to that conclusion? Maybe he’s hideous and I just didn’t want to be cruel.”

  “Is he?”

  “No.”

  “I know. I could tell the first time you mentioned him. You tried to sound overly disinterested but there was this almost giddy quality to your voice that is a dead giveaway.”

  “I have never sounded giddy in my entire adult life,” I say, indignation rising in my chest.

  “Umm, yeah, Angelo from the art department?”

  “Okay, Angelo is a very special case. Even Isaac was giddy when he met him. With that accent and the muscles and the fitted dress shirts and the whole hand-kissing thing? He’s like a walking pheromone factory. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Exactly. And you get that same tone when you start with the ‘Liam said the funniest thing today,’ or ‘I was having the worst morning, and Liam just swooped in and fixed it.’”

  “You are dead wrong. I’ve only talked about him because he’s been in my space all day long for months. Nothing is going to happen between us. We’re just friends, if that. It’s mainly a business thing.”

  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

  “Seriously, quoting Shakespeare to make your point? You’re grasping and you know it.”

  “It’s okay to like him, Abby. Let yourself have some fun for once.”

  “Well, Liam and I are not about to have that kind of fun. He’s still in love with his wife, and my heart will always belong to Isaac. End of story.” Before she can continue badgering me, I say, “Show’s starting.”

  An hour later, I shut the TV off and yawn, then notice the green stains on my fingers. Olive and I made playdough, which I almost think I enjoyed more than she did. Lauren is updating me on another writer of hers who’s been going all man-diva on her lately. As I listen, I pick at the green cuticle on my thumb, finding it hard to believe the different ways I’m filling up my time these days.