A Thousand Doors

by J. T. Ellison

  It used to make me want to scream, like the person he was—the real, true human, not this godly figure he was being recast as—wasn’t enough. He also had to be perfect or else we couldn’t miss him. I missed him plenty while still acknowledging he’d never hit a nail with a hammer in his life and never met a beer he didn’t love.

  Quite a lot used to irritate me about Linc’s death. For starters, he didn’t get to live and she did.

  ————

  Martin leaves in the morning before Paige comes home, slinking out like a one-night stand. He insists that’s now how it is, but the role reversal is unnerving. The child is the keeper, I’m sneaking around.

  I wander the house, feeling flush with love, then ashamed. It’s hard to admit what this is: love. There’s no other reason to go through all this. The impossibility of our situation, for anything other than love. A complicated, messy, ridiculous love. One that makes no sense.

  When Linc and I fell in love, decades ago, over tacos at Senor’s (laughing about the generic, Americanized name of the Mexican joint), nothing was complicated. It was all easy. Complications came later, after I quit the hospital to be with the girls. After Linc started drinking, at first just beers with the guys, then other nurses. Then late nights he made excuses for. On nights he didn’t come home, I’d whip through a bottle of white before I realized it. The girls were teenagers, moody, distant. I was spiraling, didn’t know how to ask for help. Linc, was, well, Linc, and everything would be fine, he always said, with a pat to my hand or kiss on the crown of my head. Bills piled up. Linc made comments about going back to work, now that the girls didn’t need me so much. He never knew how much that stung, how going back to work seemed—no, was—impossible. How all I’d come to know was mothering. How bereft I’d been feeling.

  I never knew how hard it was for him to carry the burden of our life alone. More accurately, I never tried to learn.

  You always think there will be time to close the distance. And even if things aren’t great right now, you’ll figure it out. You’re both dependable, steady. Solid.

  Then, the accident.

  Then, the affair revealed.

  It was almost anticlimactic. At the funeral, Nina Preston crying a bit too hard, her tall, gangly husband by her side. A flash of something maroon in her hand, silky and small. A pocket square. Vaguely familiar, yet the day was so jumbled, I hardly remembered it until I was cleaning out Linc’s dresser. Almost a month later. Early, by some standards, but something about his dresser gnawed at me (arguably, I was looking for evidence). I pulled it out, a maroon pocket square—part of a three pack: all maroon and black in various patterns—checkered, striped, diamond. In the drawer, still in the packaging: only the striped and checkered. No diamond.

  I ran my fingers along a satin edge and wondered: His late nights. A long phone conversation on the bill (with his buddy, Bob, he’d said, and I’d never tried to find Bob’s number, just asked out of curiosity: my silent-ish, stoic husband on the phone for seventy-two minutes?). A hushed, middle-of-the-night phone call I’d woken up to months ago, padding out into the hallway to find him sitting on the top step. He’d waved me back to bed, smiling, like it was nothing, mouthing Tell ya later, and I’d fallen asleep before he came back to bed. Had we really grown so far apart that I couldn’t remember if he’d ever actually told me later?

  I still thought about Nina Preston with a detached fascination. I saw her once, picking up paperwork at the hospital. She stopped when she saw me, her mouth parted slightly. She recovered, said all the right things, Oh, I’m so sorry, Mia. Can I do anything for you? How are the girls holding up? But I saw her hand shake, that little tremor of her pinkie finger, a poker tell.

  It was then that I thought of that pocket square. A gift from Penelope for Christmas once, years ago. He’d never used them. Who knows why she had it? Who understands the private jokes between lovers?

  Certainly, never the wife.

  ————

  Paige comes home late, after lunch. I almost call her but settle for a text that she ignores.

  Want to go for lunch?

  “I sent you a text,” I say as she comes in the door, tossing her overnight bag in the corner and eyeing me, daring me to correct her. I would have, but I’m weak now, sort of pathetic, begging her to forgive me.

  For what?

  “Sorry, I didn’t see it.” A lie. Her phone buzzes, pulses, practically alive.

  “Lunch?” I ask, and I see her how she sees me. Hands clasped in front of me. Eager and hopeful. “Panera?”

  She squares her shoulders, and for a second, I think she’ll say yes. Then she sees it. Martin’s sweatshirt, tossed over the back of Linc’s old chair. He’d left in a hurry. Her eyes narrow and she hitches her chin in my direction.

  “I’m good. I ate.” She turns, tossing dark hair over her shoulder, and takes the steps two at a time.

  “How was Breanna’s?” I call after her, like a begging dog.

  ————

  Later, I make dinner. Penelope will be home. My Pen, built like me, tall and thin like a dancer. Dirty-blond hair that I sometimes get highlighted (more now than ever, if I’m being honest) but Pen doesn’t. She’s quiet and sweet, and more than that, she’s happy for me. She cares more about volleyball, studying. Her small circle of friends tight and kind, and we’ve never had the blowout teenage drama that I’d always heard about. I thought I’d somehow dodged it, until Paige. At sixteen, Paige vibrates teenage angst. Her dark complexion, compact build—I don’t even know where she got all that coiled energy from. Linc and I were both tall, languid, almost serpentine, in both appearance and personality.

  What kind of mother cares more about her own happiness than her child’s? What do you do when you can’t stand your own daughter? Nothing. You do nothing. You say nothing. I know this. And yet, the hatred in Paige’s eyes as she looked from that sweatshirt to me and back cuts a hot knife right through my heart.

  How long is long enough? I want to ask. It’s been almost two years. Almost is not enough, this I know to be true.

  ————

  Upstairs I knock on her door. I try the handle and find it unlocked. She’s lying on her bed, on her side, her back to me, pretending to sleep. I sit on the edge and rub her back, like I’ve done since she was small. I imagine the small mole between her shoulder blades, the one I used to wash and check obsessively, worried about skin cancer, and Linc would laugh. Skin cancer on a four-year-old. He always said I was looking for things to fret about. Fretting was my hobby, he’d said. Having children changed me, he’d said, into a worrier. He’d said it fondly at one time, like I’d been brand new to him then. This worrying, fretting mom-person. Sometimes he’d said it to cut, but not often.

  It occurs to me that this complicated history, this historical web—something as simple as a mole, Linc’s reaction to my worry—is what Paige is grieving the loss of. Linc’s absence tears a hole right through it. What used to feel like a safety net now feels precarious. False. Like a trick drinking glass. Then what is Martin? A stick of dynamite, blowing everything the hell up.

  In my head, I try out different openings. How long must I be alone? No, too much about me. What bothers you the most? No, too dangerous.

  I settle for “Do you want to talk about it?” and curse myself for asking a yes or no question.

  “No.” Of course. She sighs into her pillow.

  “Paige,” I say. No idea what to say next, and beneath my palm her back stills. Holding her breath. “I love you.”

  I feel the buck of her, underneath my hand, holding in a sob. She’s been crying. Oh, my baby girl.

  Before I can hug her, she says, “Why him, Mom? I hate that you’ve done this to us. I hate him.”

  “You don’t know him,” I say, before realizing that’s the wrong thing. She scrambles to sitting, wiping her hands, hard across her ey
es, her face.

  “I never will.” Her voice is low, her long, thick dark hair plastered to her cheeks, a sheen of snot under her nose. “And if you don’t break up with him, I’ll hate you, too.”

  ————

  Paige stays upstairs the whole night, stewing in her anger. Penelope gets home, we eat. Tuscan soup with crusty bread and salad. I’ve learned to enjoy living in a house with all women. Linc would have complained about the lack of meat. Soup isn’t a meal, it’s a snack, he’d say.

  She chatters on about the camp, the coaches, the college girls there, a glint of mischief in her eyes. A serve she’s finally straightened out. I listen to her voice, settling into it, the soft hum and gentle excitement. She asks about Paige.

  “She won’t come downstairs. She’s too angry.” I take a breath. “She stayed at Breanna’s, and Martin came over.” It’s a slight airbrushing of events. I don’t say he slept over. Penelope nods, slowly.

  “She’s mad, then.”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “No. Mom.” Her eyes go up, searching the ceiling for easier answers before setting back on me. “I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy.”

  I exhale, a huge relief. I sense the but before she says it.

  “But?” I ask, fear tamping down my happiness.

  She bites her lip. “I just wish he were someone else.”

  ————

  Penelope had been mine, and Paige was Linc’s. Vacations, amusement parks, movies. Pen’s hand slid into mine automatically. When she was little, her fingers found mine, prying against whatever I was holding, or doing, forcing their way in like little heat-seeking missiles. I never knew if the magnetic ease in which Pen and I came together is what turned Paige or if Paige’s deference to Linc drove me toward Pen. I know I’m the mother: I’m supposed to be able to withstand the storms of my children. And yet.

  The few times we’d switch it up, I’d grab Paige’s hand or Link would reach for Pen, always felt like we’d had our shoes on the wrong feet. It seemed to work for us because they didn’t fight, there wasn’t an overt rivalry. Only now, with the anger permeating the whole house and Paige seemingly so bereaved, did I wonder what I’d done. If we’d done it all wrong. When Paige had been little, and even a preteen, any tantrum or meltdown, I’d always said to Linc, Can you talk to her? He could reach her whereas I could not. It had been easier, faster, and in those days, time was of the essence. We’d always been rushed to get somewhere: piano lessons, Girl Scouts, dinner, bath, bed. Fix it quickly had been our mantra.

  I missed him so much. I almost couldn’t recall the way his arms felt around me. We hadn’t routinely hugged or touched outside the bedroom for a while before he’d died. I thought it was waxing and waning. I don’t even remember missing it. I don’t miss it now.

  What I miss is a partner. Someone to take, for one day, the burden away, do the dirty work, the hard stuff. Someone who could reach Paige. And say what? Your mother deserves to have a boyfriend?

  Get over yourself, I say inwardly. Paige’s backpack sits haphazardly, thrown in the corner of the living room. I can see it from where I’m standing in the kitchen. Normally, I’d be annoyed. How hard is it to take their backpacks up to their rooms at the end of the day? Instead, I feel a rush of affection. How long do I have left? In a year Pen will be off to college. Then Paige. There will be no backpacks thrown in the corner, no bowls with chip crumbs left in the living room, no abandoned water cups. It will just be me.

  I open the junk drawer and withdraw a pen, a notepad. Scribble a note, the old-fashioned way. I could have texted, but this might be such a surprise. A little jolt to see my handwriting on a creamy sheet of paper, instead of words tapped on a screen.

  Have a good day. I love you. Russo’s tonight? Just you and I. 7 p.m. Meet me?

  It’s an impulse but a good one, I think. Who knows if she’ll come. She has play practice after school.

  They bound down the steps together, a talking, laughing cloud of perfume. Each gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. I hug Paige a beat longer. Her body is stiff, unyielding, but she doesn’t push away.

  “Check your front pocket!” I yell to her as they slam the door behind them. I hear the car doors thunk, one after the other. Pen has been driving Paige to school forever. I’ve been putting off teaching Paige to drive. The idea of the two of us, trapped in a car together, makes me shudder. I’d always counted on Linc to do it. Now, who knows? She doesn’t seem eager. Pen is an easy shuttle anywhere she needs to be.

  The car pulls away, and I watch from the front door. Pen’s arm out the open window, her hand moving up and down with the air.

  ————

  Martin has a son who is twenty-three. His name is Trevor, and he lives out along the river with his girlfriend in a cabin on stilts. He smokes a lot of pot, I think. His girlfriend has bleached dreadlocks, wrapped in a bandana. Her name is Inga, and she loops her arm through mine as we walk into the cafe. I’ve met Trevor before, but never Inga.

  Martin holds my other hand and I feel caged in, but I mind it less than I would have thought. Martin is affectionate, in public and private. Linc used to be, too, so maybe we’re just new to each other.

  “Inga is a speech therapist,” Martin says. He’s confided that he wants Trevor and Inga to get married. Trevor frequently talks about the “fucked up” institution of marriage. I’m not quite sure what Trevor does—something in finance. Maybe an accountant? He commutes to the city.

  “Do you think you’ll go back to work?” Trevor asks me, and Inga smacks his arm.

  “He’s so rude,” she says. But it’s not a rude question, it’s one I’m sure many people are thinking. I smile.

  “Mia was a nurse,” Martin says, proudly. People think it’s noble, but it’s a job like any other. Albeit slightly more chaotic than some, often with a smaller pay scale.

  “What kind?” Inga asks, her voice pitched with excitement.

  “A trauma nurse.” I shrug. “In the ER, then the OR. I loved it. I miss it.” It’s true, I do miss it. The frenetic pace of the ER on a holiday weekend. I don’t miss the February Saturdays that were nothing but vomiting children from the latest round of norovirus. I pause. “I will go back, one day.” The admission surprises me, but insurance money doesn’t last forever. Rattling around an empty house does not make a productive life. Martin squeezes my hand.

  Later, he says, “Inga loved you.”

  He hasn’t said he loves me yet, but I feel it.

  “Paige is mad at me,” I tell him.

  “Because of me,” he says and I nod.

  He sighs. “What do you need from me?”

  If I broke up with him, he’d understand. He’d go away, Paige and I would go back to normal, maybe. But then what? They go to college.

  I’ve thought about it. Two years. We stay apart for two years, then when the girls are gone, we get back together.

  “Do you think this is too hard?” Martin is tall, happy, and relaxed. He’s easy to be with, and when he smiles, which is often, his eyes crinkle. He’s been through more than I have, in less time. A messy separation, impending divorce, followed by a tragedy. And yet, he’s upbeat and positive. Being without his light, now that I have it, would be too hard.

  We met for the first time in a coffee shop. He’d emailed me, an outreach he’d been compelled to do. An apology for my situation, what happened to Linc, an immediate connection. A deeper understanding for our shared situation. We’d chatted over email for a few weeks, then maybe four months ago, met for coffee. We both took cream, no sugar, and something that stupid had pulled at me. Later, I’d learn more: He sometimes cried at movies, especially the end of war and sports movies. He was a slob, although it was confined to his bedroom—clothes and socks everywhere, abandoned coffee mugs and books. He read everything. He loved, loved Pink Floyd. He was turning fifty next year and wa
s, just a little, bothered by it. The touch of vanity was both surprising and tender.

  I’d been hungry for affection before Linc died. After? I was starving.

  What amazed me the most is how he listened. Not just to me, but to everyone. In ways Linc never did, even way back when, before we had kids. Linc never remembered things I’d said. He never picked a thoughtful birthday present. I’d spend the whole year making notes on my phone: things Linc wanted, liked. I’d present them all with a flourish on his birthday, or at Christmas. A year’s worth of collected intelligence. He was always impressed, which made me happy. I’d open another necklace, beautiful, generally expensive. I’d ooh and ahh. The girls would make a fuss. At the time, I never thought I was disappointed. Later, in a fight, I’d brought it up, shocking both of us. I’d used it as a weapon, fourteen-carat gold proof of his laziness, inattention.

  The other day, Martin brought me an art set. The kind with brush markers and oil pastels, in a wooden case. Earlier that week, we had stopped at a café, split an ice-cream sundae. I had watched him, from across the table, skim all the whipped cream off first because I hated it and he loved it. He’d tapped the spoon to my nose, leaving a puff of white, then kissed it off. The whole afternoon had been spontaneous and silly. He’d asked me what my favorite childhood toy was. It took me three whole minutes to remember. I’d spent hours in my preteens drawing and painting still lifes: bowls of fruit, my mother’s vases, a bunch of spring flowers. Filling it in with oily pastels.

  Instantly, I’d thought of the parade of necklaces. Rubies, sapphires, an emerald. There was something unfair about it: Linc wouldn’t have known to buy something so special. He’d never asked. But had I?

  When my girlfriends said, “It must be so hard to lose the love of your life,” I never knew what to say. The ugly truth was, when Linc died, because Linc died, I found mine. How do you tell anyone that?