“Hmm,” I said. “Let me think about that.”
“Mo-om!”
I grabbed him and hugged him hard against me. “Nah. I kind of love you.”
He squirmed away. “I can’t see the TV.”
“Another beautiful Hallmark family moment,” I said. “I could cry.”
Gabriel dropped off Nicole and Cameron the next morning, as planned.
“You going to come back for the party?” I asked him as I greeted them at the door. Melanie was in the shower.
“Should I?” He was looking a little forlorn, his big, round face slightly droopy.
“Yeah, you should,” I said and hoped I was right about that. “Hey, any news from your brother? He’s in Turkey, right?”
“Just a mass e-mail saying he’s having fun and is crazy busy.”
I had gotten that same e-mail. “Sounds like it’s going well. So maybe I’ll see you later?”
He nodded and turned to go, then said over his shoulder, “But tell Mel she should just text me if she doesn’t want me to come. I’ll understand.”
“I’ll tell her.” I said good-bye and closed the door.
Nicole had already joined my mother in the kitchen and was busily rolling forks and knives up in napkins for the buffet. Cameron and Noah were eating cereal at the table together, and my mother was racing wildly around, banging cabinet doors, whisking food violently, checking the temperature of various things that were cooking—and generally freaking out.
I slipped away before she could take some of that frantic energy out on me and went upstairs to find Melanie.
She had just finished showering and I told her about my conversation with Gabriel while she rubbed her wet hair with a towel. When I was done, she said slowly, “I guess it’s okay. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a mistake. But if he wants to come, he should. I’m not going to tell him not to. It just might be weird… and people know we’re separated now so that could be weird for them… Maybe I should just tell him not to come. But the kids would be so happy to have him here and he knows a lot of our friends at this point. And I want people to see we’re still friends. But I’m not sure how I feel—”
“It’s up to you,” I said, cutting her off, and I left to take a shower.
The party guests consisted almost entirely of friends of my parents who wanted to exclaim over how grown-up I’d become and how tall Noah was. As far as I was concerned, both comments simply revealed what liars they all were. I endured it for as long as I could, but when Louis Wilson walked in the front door with his tall, statuesque wife, I fled into the kitchen. Making polite conversation with Noah’s (and my) principal just wasn’t something I was at ease with. Maybe in another fifty years or so.
My mother had hired a couple of servers to help at the party. I spent some time comparing tattoos with one of them—she had more, but admitted to regretting a couple—and then lingered in the kitchen, assisting them as they got the food in and out of the oven and onto serving trays.
Noah had escaped upstairs much earlier. My mother always insisted that her grandchildren politely greet the first guests—not that Noah actually said anything, since he became determinedly mute in major social situations—but after that, she got too busy to keep track of them and Noah was able to sneak up to my parents’ bedroom and watch TV. Cameron joined him there a little later, but Nicole stayed downstairs for the whole event, eager to help pass food out or chat animatedly with the many adults who exclaimed over how adorable she was in her bubble dress and curled hair.
People stopped arriving after the first couple of hours and started leaving after the third. By five o’clock, all but a few of my parents’ closest friends had left.
My mother came into the kitchen then to pay the servers and let them go. She spotted me cramming a broken mini-quiche into my mouth. “So this is where you’ve been hiding,” she snapped at me. “A lot of people left saying they’d been hoping to talk to you but couldn’t find you.”
“I thought I was more useful in here.”
“Well, you weren’t. I wanted you out there.” She made a big show of handing the servers their check and some cash for tips, just to make her point that she had adequate help. She headed back to the living room after that, barking out a brusque “Come join us!” as she left. It was an order, not an invitation.
Fortunately Melanie came into the kitchen a few seconds later, which gave me an excuse to stay where I was. She dropped down into a chair. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “Trying to keep the conversation going with some of Dad’s professor friends…”
“I think they only ever leave their offices for this one party,” I said. “Their caves, I mean.”
“Did you see Professor Orton? He had a big tag sticking out from his shirt collar and there was this orange stain right in the front of his pants.”
“Yuck.”
“He never showed up,” she said.
I looked up from the cupcake I was tearing in half. “Huh?”
“Gabriel. He didn’t come to the party.”
“Weird. He said he was going to unless you told him not to.” I popped a piece of cupcake into my mouth.
“I guess he changed his mind.” She twitched her shoulders irritably. “It’s probably for the best.”
Later that evening, she called me into her room as I was coming up the stairs. She was sitting on the bed, staring at her computer, her half-packed travel bag open next to her, since she and the kids were going back to their house that night.
When I came in, she shifted her laptop toward me. “Read this.”
I crouched down so I could see the screen. It was an e-mail from Gabriel.
Hey, Mel. I was going to come today—I was actually in my car, on the way—when I pulled over and thought better of it. Not because I didn’t want to come, I did. But because I was worried that it might hurt you, that I might still be hurting you in ways I don’t intend. And because it’s too hard for me to be with you and not be WITH you. It’s stupid to write all this in an email, but it’s impossible to say it any other way. This is the point: I’m miserable without you and the kids. I know I screwed up and don’t deserve you. But I want you. If you were willing to give me another chance, I’d be happy and grateful beyond anything I can put in words.
I’m so sorry for everything, Mel. Please forgive me and give me another chance.
Love,
me.
P.S. Love me?
I didn’t say anything at first, just reread it a couple more times. “Wow,” I said finally. “That’s quite an e-mail.”
“I know.”
“Would you consider doing what he wants? Getting back together? You could do the marriage-therapy thing.”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her temples. “Sitting in some therapist’s office, being reminded over and over again that my husband fell madly in love with another woman… not my idea of fun.”
“A good therapist might get you past all that.”
“Maybe.” She dropped her hands. “But then there’s the whole timing thing. I mean, if he had just written this right at the beginning, said that he couldn’t bear being separated from me, that he realized Sherri was nothing to him. Instead he waits until that whole thing runs its course. For all I know, she broke his heart and now he’s coming crying back to me because he thinks I’ll take him back in. So, what—no consequences for everything he’s done? That’s not right, is it?”
“No.” I sat down on the edge of her bed. “But”—I stopped and made sure I was going to say it right—“There’s the issue of right and wrong and then there’s the practical stuff like you miss him and he misses you and that makes me think that maybe you should just forget about right and wrong.”
She twisted her mouth uncertainly. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, think about it.”
She managed a bleary smile. “I can promise you that this is all I’ll be thinking about for a very long time.”
19.
She called me the next day from her house to let me know she had agreed to host Tuesday’s meeting of the Event Hospitality Committee. “Do you think I should get the pastries from Huckleberry or Clementine?”
“I don’t know or care,” I said. “But I think you should shellac them. Since no one actually eats anything, we might as well just keep reusing the same ones.”
“You’re not very helpful. Oh, my god, you know what just occurred to me? Marley Addison might come! She might actually be in my house!”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s likely. Given her attendance record.”
“Just promise me you’ll come early,” Mel said. “I don’t want to do this alone.”
Tanya, Melanie, and I had all met with the head of Crackerjack Catering right before break to finalize the Casino Night menu, and Tanya was pleased to announce at Tuesday morning’s meeting that the meal would be soupless, as she had specified. In addition to no soup, the menu included swedish meatballs, hamburger sliders, puff pastry savory pies filled with spinach and cheese, and crudités.
Maria Dellaventura was in charge of the alcohol. “I’ve spoken to the bartending company and they’ll be mixing pitchers of vodka martinis. We’ve got a ton of champagne, too—well, sparkling wine, actually, but same difference—and red and white wine. I’m ordering it all from one of those alcohol warehouses—they gave me a bulk discount but because of that, we can’t return anything that’s not drunk, so we’d better all do our part and drink a lot.” She smirked. “Should make it a fun party, right?”
“Ha, ha,” Tanya said stiffly. Linda Chatterjee just looked blank. Carol Lynn was checking her cell phone and didn’t hear what Maria said. I laughed, Melanie smiled, and Marley—
Marley didn’t respond at all because she wasn’t there. Big surprise.
In an impressive display of hope over experience, Melanie had ordered (and had me pick up on my way) five platters of muffins, scones, and biscuits from Huckleberry Cafe. Five. Count them. Five. Platters. Of pastries. For six women. Six women who didn’t eat. “You are certifiable,” I told her when I carried the first two into her house. She was too busy fretting about how her house looked to respond to that. “It’s so small compared to the other women’s houses,” she said, looking around. “And so big compared to the shacks ninety-nine percent of the world lives in,” I said. I loved her little house. It was warm and comfortable, and Gabriel had an amazing collection of Mexican art, so every wall and corner was filled with colorful and eye-catching statues and paintings.
As I manfully did my part to eat as many buttery-rich sweets as my stomach could handle, the conversation moved on to a more general discussion of the upcoming event. Tanya didn’t approve of the invitation the Event Coordinating Committee had sent out. “Too big and too square—it cost them extra postage on every one, and I just don’t think it makes sense to spend money like that in these times.”
“But people notice the big invitations more,” Carol Lynn said. Today she was wearing a tank top and yoga pants. The woman was always either just coming from or just going to a workout. Possibly both. “They’re less likely to just toss them aside.”
“I liked the way it was black with silver writing,” Melanie added.
Carol Lynn raised her eyebrows. “That was my least favorite part about it. Looked like an invitation to a funeral.” Her tone was so pointedly negative that Melanie flinched, hurt, and I frowned at Carol Lynn, trying to figure out what was going on. She had been ignoring or sniping at both of us all morning in a deliberately obvious way.
The reason why became clear later, when the meeting had ended and people were saying their good-byes. Tanya and Linda had already taken off when Carol Lynn suddenly turned to Mel and hissed, “Just out of curiosity, I was wondering what you found so objectionable about my cousin. He said he thought you’d both had a nice time together but then you wouldn’t return his calls. He’s very hurt. Maybe you could explain it to me so I could explain it to him?”
“Oh, no.” Melanie’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry! He’s so nice. I thought he was great. Really. I just—it’s—”
“You’re just not that into him?” Carol Lynn suggested icily.
Melanie’s eyes widened with horror. “No, not at all. It’s just…” Her voice faltered. “I think I may be getting back with my husband.”
Maria had been picking up her bag, getting ready to leave, but her head whipped around at that. “Really?” she said, advancing. “I mean… really?”
“I don’t know for sure.” Mel’s face had turned bright red. “At this point we’re just talking. That’s all. But I don’t feel like it’s fair to start dating anyone else right now.”
Carol Lynn waved her hand at that, the smaller transgression completely overshadowed by the potentially far greater one. “Right, I’ll tell my cousin. But… from everything you’ve said… Are you sure this really makes sense?”
Maria touched Melanie’s arm before she could answer, which was good since I don’t think Mel had an answer to that. “Just remember how hard this stuff can be on the kids,” Maria said. “The back-and-forth stuff. I didn’t go through it but I know people who did and in the end the kids were far more devastated by having their hopes raised—and then dashed again—than by the original separation.”
“I—” Poor Melanie was trapped between the two bitter divorcées. “I know. I understand. I’ll be careful, I promise. And I don’t know—It’s just—”
“It seems so easy,” Carol Lynn said, shaking her head. “Like you can just turn back the clock. But you can’t. Not ever. And most of the time you shouldn’t.”
“We’re not trying to be negative,” Maria added. “Just realistic. We want you to be careful.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Melanie said faintly.
I rescued her by stepping forward. “It was great seeing you guys! I think Casino Night’s going to be fun, don’t you?”
They took the hint, said good-byes, and left. But later, when I looked out the window, I saw the two of them still out in front, whispering on the lawn, and, from the way they glanced up at the house periodically, I suspected that it was all they could do to keep from marching back in and making poor Mel even more anxious, all in the name of female solidarity.
“Did you mean that?” I asked her as we carried five almost-full platters of pastries into the kitchen. “Are you really thinking about getting back together with Gabriel? Or were you just saying that so Carol Lynn wouldn’t be mad at you about her cousin?”
“Maybe we can freeze some of this,” Melanie said, putting her tray down on the counter and heading back toward the living room for more.
Guess she didn’t feel like answering my questions.
I wasn’t the only one with unanswerable questions.
“What if I don’t know anyone on the team?” Noah said. “What if someone I don’t like is on the team? What if Caleb’s on the team? What if a ball hits me in the eye? What if I stink up the place the second I go to bat and everyone laughs at me? What if…”
Anxiety had set in on the way to the first Saturday morning T-ball practice.
I glanced at my son in the rearview mirror. He was dressed in new clothes—sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt—that were way too big for him. I just couldn’t go on buying size-fours for my six-year-old son any longer. But he was swallowed up by the sixes, and he looked especially small at the moment, as his terror was making him curl up in a fetal position around his seat belt. He was wearing a baseball hat that came down over his ears and was clutching the bat and mitt to his chest. “It’ll be okay, Noey, I promise. Coach Andrew will look out for you.”
“What if I hate every minute of it? Can I stop?”
I was tempted to tell him how much happier I’d be if he quit. I wouldn’t have to get up early on Saturday mornings. I wouldn’t have to sit in some park for an hour every week, watching my son get made fun of for being the worst player on the team. I wouldn’t have to hang ou
t with a ton of sports-obsessed parents who would make it clear they thought that Noah was dragging the team down.
I had my own anxieties about T-ball practice.
Still, I had to push Noah to keep going, for his sake. I had to stop teaching him that quitting was a viable option. So I said, “Let’s just think positively about this, okay, Noah?”
“You have to promise me if I don’t like it I can leave. Or I’m not going!” His voice was getting shrill.
How could this be the same kid who, before he’d gone to sleep last night, had carefully laid his mitt on the night table beside him “so I can find it first thing in the morning before we go”? How was he able to do a 180-degree turn like this? Why couldn’t he just stay enthusiastic about anything? What had I done wrong as a mother that had made him such an anxious little boy? Was it because he didn’t have a father? Because I was only nineteen when I had him? Would a forty-year-old mother know the perfect thing to say at a moment like this?
I felt very tired. “Just… let’s just get there. Okay? And we’ll go from there.”
“But what if—”
“Just stop!” I snapped.
He kept quiet then, but he managed to make his breathing sound unhappy.
The good news: Joshua Golden, the nice kid from Austin’s birthday party, was there and Noah brightened up considerably when he spotted him.
The bad news: all the other kids were strangers. And most of them were bigger than Noah and Joshua. I swear a couple of them were bigger than both boys put together.
Andrew was busy making sure all the parents had the right paperwork and the kids had the necessary equipment, so when I walked Noah over he just nodded at me and said a cheerful “Noah! I’m glad you came” and then went back to work.
I left Noah with Joshua, both of them staying close to the coach, and headed toward the bleachers. Joshua’s mom came rushing toward me. “Hey!” she said. “Thank god you’re here too!” She was wearing sweats and a cardigan sweater that was old and stretched out. Her hair was messy and she had no makeup on. She looked unbelievably normal. “I’m Debbie. Rickie, right?”
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