A Holland and a Fighter

by Lori L. Otto

  When we get outside the building, I shake hands with Chance, the body guard we’d used the last few years for the girls. His only job for us is to walk to and from their school every day, keeping an eye on their surroundings and being ready in case something bad ever happens.

  He’s always been very professional, and even though both Edie and Willow like to tell him about their days and chat with him like he’s their friend, he only extends his hand to them as a greeting when they were both expecting hugs. Emi holds Willow’s hand and leads the way down the street to their private school. Edie offers to push Luca. I keep one hand on her back and one on the stroller handle, always in contact with both in case I need to stop her or the stroller.

  Chance follows us, a couple feet behind, quiet and alert. When we reach the school, he stands at the metal gate while Emi and I take the girls inside to their classrooms.

  In past years, their faces were alight with excitement at the prospects of a new schoolyear. Today, there’s not a smile to be found.

  I feel defeated. At least Luca has quieted down to a mellow whimper.

  “I’ll have new clothes for you this afternoon,” I promise Willow. “No dresses. No skirts. Don’t worry about it. Just make it through today.” I flick at her pouty lip, trying to lighten the mood, but when she nods, a tear breaks free from her eye. “It’s okay.” I give her a big hug, trying to assure her that she’ll be fine. “I love you.” She steps to the side to let Emi tell her goodbye, too, but she doesn’t say a word to either of us.

  This really sucks.

  In Edie’s classroom, she finds her assigned seat and sets her backpack down. Hurriedly, she unzips it and starts unloading her supplies. “Daddy, where’s my note?” she whispers.

  “What note? Did you need a permission slip for something?” I ask her.

  “No!” she says, her brows furrowed. “Mama always puts a little note in an envelope in my bag for the first day of school! Where’s my note?”

  I never knew she did that. She never told me, and my daughters never showed me any such letters. I shake my head, befuddled, then start to tug on my hair. “Bunny, I didn’t know. But I promise there will be one in there tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow doesn’t matter. Tomorrow’s not the first day of school,” she informs me, her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed.

  “I understand… but…” I sigh, feeling like a gargantuan piece of shit. “I’m sorry.” I hug her quickly, then stand up and push the stroller out of the classroom before she sees me fall apart.

  I’m afraid it’s about to happen. I’m not sure how to keep it together anymore.

  Emi’s talking to someone on her way out of the classroom but exits the room alone with a warm smile on her face. She puts her hand on my back, walking with me toward the exit.

  “A bunch of parents were saying hi to you back there. Edie’s teacher, too.”

  “Honestly, Em,” I start, then sigh, “I never even saw anyone else in there. I saw my daughters, and that’s about all I could focus on today, so.” I bite my bottom lip and swallow, trying to maintain composure. “That’s probably rude of me, but I’m overwhelmed today.”

  She opens the door for me and Luca and waits to respond until we’re back on the sidewalk with Chance in tow again. “I’m sure they all understand. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  It’s far too late for that.

  “Jon, would you like me to go get Willow’s uniforms?” she asks.

  “Nope. I’m going to do it. I’m her father. It’s my responsibility to take care of these things.”

  “Okay, but I’m offering to help. It’s not a big deal,” she says.

  “I’ll just get her a size bigger, right?” I respond, ignoring her. “Or two?”

  “Why don’t you just get her Edie’s size. Those clothes fit her nicely.”

  “That makes sense. Yeah.”

  “At least let me take Auggie off your hands–”

  “Emi,” I interrupt. “I’ve got this. You know? They’re my kids. I have to be able to take care of them.”

  “Jon, you don’t have to do it alone.” Her eyes begin to tear up.

  I stop walking and speak to her directly. “I appreciate you coming and being here with me this morning. I do. It meant a lot. I’ve got things to take care of, so… why don’t we have Chance call the car service to get you a ride home? I’ll call you soon. Chance, I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  I hug my mother-in-law briefly, and without giving her any time to argue, I push the stroller away from them both. I can’t stand seeing the pity in her eyes.

  At home, I go upstairs, put a fresh diaper on Luca and grab a soft blanket in hopes that he’ll fall asleep while I make the drive across town to the department store where they sell the girls’ uniforms. I take a skirt and shirt from Edie’s closet for reference, and then head down to where the car is already waiting.

  As soon as I buckle myself in, the baby starts wailing. When I reach back, I discover he’s somehow managed to throw the blanket I’d carefully tucked around him onto the floorboard. I guess he’s hot.

  “Luca…” I say to myself in frustration, pulling away from the drive.

  It is warm today… is it too hot to put him under a blanket? How am I not mindful of that?

  I shake my head, wondering how I’m going to make this work. The girls have to get to school right when he’d normally be napping, right after he eats. I mean, this is why it’s optimal to have two parents, I suppose. The tear is falling from my eye before I even notice it, and I swipe it away angrily. I don’t have time to get emotional. And then this morning, I didn’t even have to account for my job. Sure, on most days I can work whenever from wherever, but there will be times when I have early meetings. Then what am I supposed to do?

  Ask for help, Jon.

  I get a text alert and press the button to let my car read it out loud.

  “Shea Scott sent a message. ‘Send me the first day pics!’ Would you like to respond?”

  My heart drops. “Fuck.”

  I quickly scan the street and pull over at the nearest curb, putting the car in park and setting my head against the steering wheel.

  How could I forget pictures? We have an album. It’s filled with pictures of every first day the girls have had. There are pictures of Edie. Pictures of Willow. Pictures of them together. Pictures of them with me.

  Pictures of them with her.

  I break down, and my crying rivals my son’s. There will never be another picture like that in the album. There had been many times when I’d admired those pictures, noticing how the girls had grown by seeing how tall they stood next to their mother. It was one of the many reasons I loved those pictures. That, and seeing the subtle–and not so subtle–ways each of my daughters favored her. Edie looked so much like her, but in two of the pictures, Willow had mimicked Livvy’s stance without even realizing it, putting her weight on her left leg, and putting her right hand on her hip.

  How could I forget to take the fucking first day pictures to memorialize this day?

  And then I remember the details of this hellish morning. I utterly ruined their first day, anyway. Who would want to remember it?

  I should have ensured the uniforms fit last week, when I asked them both to try them on. I should have gotten them up early this morning to make sure they both had time to do their hair and look their best. I should have asked Emi to come over much sooner to help. I should have had Joel make them breakfast when he offered. Instead, I was tired, and I wanted to sleep in, and I needed to tend to Luca.

  What about my girls? I remember their faces as I left them in their classrooms and wonder if they’ll be scarred for life because I made them go to school today.

  Putting the car in drive, I turn around and go north. When I reach Jack and Emi’s brownstone, I take a few deep breaths before getting out of the car. They’re on the front step waiting by the time I have Luca out of his car seat.

  “Come here, Auggie.” Emi takes h
im from me right away and goes inside. I must look like hell, because once the front door closes, Jack puts his arms around me and hugs me, not asking any questions as to why I’m here. I guess he knows.

  “How do I do this without her?” I ask him through new tears. “Because every day can’t be this way.”

  “It won’t be, son,” he says, patting me on the back and guiding me into the living room where Emi is already calming down Luca.

  “I can’t have another morning like this one, where I just see sheer disappointment on my daughter’s face of how many ways I’ve let her down. I can’t have that.”

  “Well, there will be days like that.” Jack smiles at me. “They will be few and far between, but daughters will do that. If today was your first, consider yourself lucky.”

  I know he’s trying to bring levity into the conversation to lighten the mood, but everything feels so heavy that I can’t bring myself out of it. “How can I ever make up for the loss of the woman we loved? It’s not possible. I can never be that to them.”

  “You’re their father,” Emi says, “and that’s all they’ll ever need you to be. You don’t fill a void left by Liv, or by anyone you lose. The void is crucial to growth… to learning… to maturing. You learn to do things around the void; to shift it so that it’s not the center of your being, like it feels like it is right now. But sometimes you’ll want to revisit it. You’ll feel comfort in the depth of emotions it brings. You’ll remember the great love you shared with her. So, you don’t want to lose touch with that. You don’t fill it.

  “I think of it as… setting it free.”

  I catch myself just before I ask the stupid question–how she became so wise so fast about loss.

  Nate. She’s been through this before, and suddenly, I feel a kindred spirit in her that I hadn’t recognized before. I look upon her, feeling a little less lonely than I did when I arrived.

  “Thank you, Emi.” Although I continue to cry, I feel safe in their home and comforted by their support. Yet another reason to be thankful for Livvy.

  Chapter 30

  “Will and Shea moved their library of books to your house?” Emi asks me as she puts some paint on her small brush.

  “Most of them. We had plenty of empty space on our shelves. We’d planned on expanding it as the kids grew up. I ended up donating a bunch of my old stuff, too.” I study the drawing Livvy had done for Charlie’s nursery and make sure I’ve got everything outlined onto the wall. “Kept all of Livvy’s things, in case the girls want to read them someday,” I add as an afterthought.

  “Edie may like her design books.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. And Willow’s going to love having full access to Will’s stuff.” I laugh. “I had to put his more valuable books on the top shelf. We need to wait until she’s a little older for some of them.”

  “Were you able to clean up the slushee stain?” Emi asks.

  “The steam cleaner fixed the carpet, but the iPad was toast. We got her a new one yesterday with a waterproof case and a stern talking-to about respecting her things better.”

  “I know Willow felt bad about it.”

  “She did.”

  My mother-in-law joins me at the table we’d set up in the middle of the room. “So… just start painting dark blue around all the letters and illustrations?”

  “That’s the best way to tackle it… right?” I ask her for her opinion once more.

  “I think that’s what she would have done. And you can start at the outer perimeter with the broader strokes, and then fill in the gaps in between. We’ll work on the details once the blue’s done.”

  “Cool. I told Will we’d be done by Wednesday. Is that realistic?”

  “Four days? We’ll make it work. We have to let them back into their apartment before Shea has the baby,” she reminds me.

  “The due date’s in a week.” I take a deep breath and dip my brush into the paint. “I can’t wait to meet Charlie. I can’t wait to see him and Luca together.”

  “I know.”

  “Hard to believe Liv’s original due date was just six days ago. And he’s already seven weeks old.”

  “Auggie’s doing so well.”

  It’s just the two of us, and it’s time to have the conversation I’ve wanted to have since the day he was born. I set down the brush and sit against the window pane, my arms crossed.

  “Em, every time you call him that, I die inside.” She pulls her brush away from the wall, surprised at the confrontation. “It takes me back to when she was here. I hear her.” Tears threaten to stop me from speaking. “I hear her voice. I hear her tormenting me with that name, and I die.”

  “Jon,” she says, walking over to me and putting her hand on my forearm, “that’s what she wanted to call him. I want to honor that.”

  “I don’t think she really would have called him that,” I argue. “It was an ongoing joke. We talked about it, Emi. Together, we hadn’t decided on a name. In fact, the only thing we had decided was to not name him after me.

  “The way Auggie came about was when we were discussing using Augustus. I told her I didn’t want to call him by that name, and she suggested Gus. I didn’t like that, either. So, she mentioned Auggie, and I had such a visceral reaction to it. She latched onto it and laughed about it all night and she never let it go, but–”

  “But, Jon, we love it, and I think Livvy fell in love with it. And… wherever she is, I want her to be able to find him… and know where he is.”

  I scoff at her logic. “Emi, she knows where her son is. She doesn’t need a label for him.” I take my phone out of my pocket and show my mother-in-law the background picture of him. “Look at this baby! How can you look at his face and not see Livvy? Look at those eyes! That nose. The ears and the smile! Everything about him is her. And that’s why I wanted to name him after her. When I saw him in the nursery, I just knew she would live on in him.

  “I thought I would honor her with the name forever. It just hurts so bad to hear the name Auggie.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Jon, but he’s Auggie to me. He’s Froggie to the girls.”

  “I know he’s Froggie to them. I’ve accepted that. I can’t change that.”

  “But is it so bad to remember Livvy by that? To remember that night she wouldn’t stop laughing? To remember that smile? Those are the memories you want to have of her, aren’t they?” she asks. “Can’t we try to associate the name with that night? With that beautiful smile of hers? With that memory? You don’t have to call him Auggie, Jon, but don’t take it away from me. To me, that’s a connection I have to her.”

  After staring at the phone for a few more seconds, I tuck it back into my pocket and return to my paintbrush. I dip it into the paint once more and step on the ladder to reach the tall corner of the room. Eventually, Emi goes back to focusing on the other side of the wall.

  As we work on the mural created by my wife–her daughter–I know I can’t deprive her of something that makes her feel closer to the woman she loved. “I get it, Emi. I do.” I sigh heavily and look down at her. “I can’t call him that, but I don’t want to take that from you.”

  She smiles graciously, continuing to paint. “Thank you.”

  At the end of the day, Emi and I return to my apartment where Jack, Will, Shea, Joel and the girls are getting ready for dinner. After we both get cleaned up, we meet everyone else in the living area where the adults are strangely quiet as the girls both work on their homework.

  “What’s going on?” I ask the room, taking Luca from Jack on my way to the club chair in the corner. He’s halfway through his bottle and continues eating while I settle in.

  Jack, Will and Shea look between one another before my brother gets up and retrieves an envelope from the kitchen island.

  “What is it?”

  Will taps Joel on his shoulder from behind and signs for him to take the girls to their rooms for a few minutes.

  “He’s not a babysitter,” I clarify alou
d, not liking that my brother’s asking Joel to do something like this. “Joel’s not here to watch the girls.”

  “These are the autopsy results,” my brother signs to the room, making sure Edie and Willow aren’t watching.

  “I don’t mind,” Joel says.

  “Girls, clean up your things and go to Edie’s room with Joel for a few minutes. He’s going to have a signing lesson with you both.”

  “Now?” Willow asks. “We’re about to eat.”

  “Yes, now. We won’t start dinner without you.”

  “I’ll watch the stove,” Shea tells Joel, getting up from her seat with Will’s help. We all move the conversation into the kitchen, just to make sure we’re not overheard by the girls once they’re upstairs. Luca continues to eat, unfazed.

  Will pushes the envelope toward me and offers to take Luca. “You haven’t opened them?” I ask, looking at Jack, since that’s whose name is on the outside.

  “I wanted to wait for you two to get back so we could read them together.”

  I nod my head. I had been so anxious to see what the final results were of the autopsy, but now I’m dreading the news inside. “I can’t do it.” I adjust the bottle as my son nears the end of his meal.

  “I want to know,” Emi says, taking the envelope. “I want to know if we need to have your kids tested for something genetic. Don’t you want to know that?”

  “I don’t want to think about losing them, Emi.”

  “We would only think about saving them,” she counters, sliding her finger under the paper seal. “Did you find Isaiah’s results?”

  “I never looked.”

  She looks at me disapprovingly before taking out the official paper. I watch her expression as she reads it over. “Sudden cardiac arrest caused by CHD.”

  “What’s that mean?” I ask.

  She nods her head. “Congenital heart disease.”

  “But…” I look between Jack and Emi. “How could you not know?”

  “She never showed signs or symptoms,” she says. “Doctors never said anything. I know these things can stay undetected for many years… obviously.”