She stopped suddenly and turned around, running back toward me with the wind pulling her dark hair behind her like many tails to a soaring kite. I wanted to take a picture so I could capture her face. Her gleeful expression was priceless.
Rummaging in my purse with one hand while I still held Alex with the other, I pulled out my phone and clicked haphazardly, trying to seize the moment as best as I could. I tried to coax Alex into a selfie, but he was only interested in pulling off my sunglasses, so none of the shots were successful.
A text message came in just then. The sun had slid out from behind the blessed veil of clouds that had been over us since we got there. I squinted to read the text in the brightness.
Checking in on movie for next Wednesday. I think we’re all in but Jennalyn. You in, Jennalyn? Hey, that rhymes!
Sierra followed up her text with a string of emojis including a big chunk of broccoli.
Broccoli? I replied.
Oops, texted Sierra.
I smiled and replied, Yes, I’m planning to come. Remind me of the time.
Sierra responded with: We can go at 3:20 or 7:10. What works best for everyone?
The usual stream of pings and buzzes followed as the others discussed what would work best for each of them. I put my phone back in my purse because I knew Joel had mentioned earlier that he planned to take two days off again next week. I left it to the others to decide on the time for the movie.
Joel lowered himself to the blanket and lay back. Wind-tossed Eden fell on his chest, dramatizing along with her daddy how worn out they were after their race. Thirty seconds later, though, Eden had popped up and reached for my hand.
“Come on, Mommy. Your turn. Let’s race.”
“I need to hold your brother,” I said.
Eden made her most dramatic, chin-lowered, “my world just caved in” pout. Joel burst out laughing.
“That’s a new look,” he said.
It was, in fact, an old look and one that had lost its charm on me months ago. Apparently, she hadn’t pulled it out of her bag of tricks when Joel was around.
“Pleeeeease, Mommy? Just one little eenie meenie teenie tiny race?”
Joel sat up and took Alex from my lap. “Let’s all race!”
I reluctantly rose and brushed the sand from the backside of my new boot-cut jeans. I rolled up the cuffs so they wouldn’t get soaked if a wave curled up over my feet. We all took our marks, with Alex perched on Joel’s shoulders while he clutched Alex’s chubby, bare legs.
“Ready? Set?” Joel gave me a nod, letting me know that it was going to be only Eden and me racing.
“Go!” Eden took her racing seriously and shot ahead of me. Instead of turning around as she had with Joel, she kept running, and I kept chasing her.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Joel was standing beside our blanket with Alex balanced still on his shoulders. He was grinning like the happiest man who had seen all his dreams come true.
We continued the frolicking for another half hour before folding up the blanket, collecting all our shoes and the diaper bag. Joel carried Alex and the other items while Eden led the way to the outdoor shower and begged me to help her turn on the water so she could wash her feet. I obliged, and Joel put Alex down. I gave both of them all the usual mommy instructions, which were nearly worthless. My children were elated to splash around, and in all the fun they did manage to wash off most of the sand.
They were soon a sparkling, soggy mess. I caught Joel’s expression. He was smiling, and that made me happy. It had been so, so long since we had had a spontaneous day like this. I couldn’t remember ever doing anything with both kids. On the rare occasion when Joel was home, our plans usually were complicated by Alex’s nursing schedule or a diaper blowout or Eden scraping a knee and being inconsolable.
I think it was the first time I felt that we were a functioning family of four and everyone was content. I wondered if Joel was thinking the same thing.
He had reached for my shoulder bag that I had placed on the small bench next to the showers. Strapping it over his shoulder he asked, “What do you carry in this thing? It’s heavy.”
“Just the basics.”
Joel seemed to evaluate the “basics” I carried around. “With your purse, the diaper bag, and our son…how do you do it?”
With a bit of a smirk and a wink, I told Joel, “Us mommy magicians never reveal our secrets.”
He grinned broadly and leaned in to kiss me. In that tiny moment, I felt as if Joel saw me. He had a bit of understanding of what my daily life looked like. I enjoyed that he was thinking of me. I liked it a lot.
As we made our way back to the car, I thought about how I used to take Eden for stroller rides on the sidewalk along all the beachfront homes. I loved to study the various patios, noting the widely varied decorating touches.
As we passed one of the familiar houses, I noticed that the flower boxes along the edge of the second-story balcony were highlighted with bright red and orange bougainvillea. It always amazed me how the soft petals were able to keep clinging to such a thin, gnarly, thorny vine. They were as colorful as they were hearty.
I knew growing plants and vegetables in the coastal climate was difficult. Joel and I had spent plenty of money on a variety of plants in our raised box garden. I tried to remember which herbs we ended up having some success with. I recalled that our zucchini proved to be hearty enough to survive the climate.
We should start a garden in our backyard. Eden would love it.
On the drive home, I thought through the steps needed to prepare a corner of our backyard for a garden. Alex had been too young for me to think about doing anything like that last spring. Joel’s big project last year was setting up his fancy new barbecue once the deck had been completed.
I think one of the reasons I liked the idea of our planting a garden was that, if we could work shoulder to shoulder on it during Joel’s days off, it would be a way for us to plant new seeds of togetherness in our marriage. Our time at the beach had been so fun. Working as a family on a garden would be ideal.
I knew that if I mentioned the garden now, Joel would want to work on it right away. The kids needed naps, and I needed to finish the small art project I had started several weeks ago. I had bought nice cardstock and planned to calligraphy everyone’s word for the year on a card. The project had stalled when I remembered that Tess didn’t have a word.
Maybe she has one now. I’ll call her to find out. It would be fun to surprise everyone with the cards on our movie night.
Once our house was quiet that afternoon, I texted Tess. And she said she didn’t have a word. She also told me that she had applied at the agency, told the truth about how she had turned down the earlier opportunity, and hoped they would have another job referral for her. They didn’t. She said she may have made a big mistake.
My reply to Tess was Wait, trust, be at peace. I realized after I sent it that I had just given her Sierra’s, Christy’s, and Emily’s words for the year.
The coincidence wasn’t lost on Tess. She texted back that she recognized those words, and maybe instead of one word for the year she needed to borrow all of ours and try to make a banner sentence out of them.
I smiled and replied, Then don’t forget love.
Tess texted back with a question mark and then typed, I thought the point of all this is that you DOEs are helping me not to fall in love with Guy so I won’t do something stupid.
Love is my word for the year, I replied.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Wait, trust, be at peace, and love. It’s sort of like the “keep calm and…” saying.
I replied with a smiley face and said a little prayer for Tess. She was figuring things out, and so was I.
By that weekend I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to talk to Joel about Garrett. I started the conversation wh
en we were in bed Saturday night. It was late. He had worked a full day plus taken the dinner shift, and we were sitting up in bed talking about what we would plant in our garden on his next day off. Ever since I had tossed the garden idea at him, he had been excited to start the project.
“Carrots would be good,” he said. “And maybe lettuce. I want to plant things that Eden will eat.”
“Then we’ll have to plant some cheese.”
He gave me an odd look.
“Haven’t you noticed that our daughter still has a fixation on cheese? I coaxed her into apple slices the other day. That was a major breakthrough.”
Joel still looked mystified.
“About Eden,” I took the plunge with a now-or-never determination. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that at her ballet class—”
“I can’t take her on Monday. I’m working.”
“I know. I was just going to say that at her class, one of the other students, Violet—”
“I met Violet. Have you set up a playdate for them yet?”
“No. Joel, please.”
“What?”
“You’re interrupting me.”
Again, he looked mystified. “Okay, sorry. Go ahead. But wait. I forgot to tell you. My mom wants to have my dad’s birthday lunch at the restaurant. They want to use the back room and have the whole family there. It’ll be on a Sunday.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No. In two weeks, I think. I’ll write it on the calendar in the kitchen.” He slunk down and pulled the covers up. “Keep talking. I need to stretch out.”
My mind had already moved on to trying to figure out which Sunday, what to wear, if the time they decided on would interrupt Alex’s usual naptime, and whether anyone at the party would notice that our daughter only ate cheese.
“Joel?”
“I’m listening. What were you going to say?”
I drew in a deep breath. “When I took Eden to her ballet class, I met Violet’s dad. His name is Garrett.”
“Right.”
“The thing is, though, I didn’t meet him at the ballet class for the first time. I actually have known him since I was fifteen.”
Joel had closed his eyes.
I decided to keep going and get it all out at once. “Garrett, who you met, Violet’s dad, he was my boyfriend. The one I told you about. The one who…who broke my heart.”
Joel didn’t say anything.
I leaned closer. “Joel?”
He was gone. Way down the track on the sleep train.
“Oh, Joel.” I whispered and turned off the light. “This is getting way too difficult.”
Chapter 14
On Monday, I was ready to take Eden to her final ballet class and have an unemotional response when I saw Garrett. If he had the pictures of my mom as promised, I would thank him, talk to the other moms there, and exit as soon as Eden was finished.
I designed the strategy to limit my interaction with him because I didn’t want to hear anything that might tug at my heartstrings—no inside jokes from high school, details about his mom, or anything about how his wife was gone all the time.
The other reason I wanted it to be an easy hello/goodbye was because I still hadn’t managed to tell Joel about Garrett. At least not when Joel was awake.
He had Tuesday and Wednesday off this week, and our plan was to work on the garden. I wanted to be able to tell him the whole story and conclude it with a tightly sealed “the end” since, with no more classes, I didn’t have a reason to bump into Garrett ever again.
That was the plan. Or so I thought.
But Garrett and Violet never showed up at class.
Eden asked about her friend before the lesson started but was quickly distracted when the teacher put on the music and lined up all her charges. I took a seat next to two other moms and, for the first time, truly watched Eden.
“Is she yours?” the woman next to me asked toward the end of the class. “The one in front with her hair up in a bun?”
“Yes, she’s mine.”
“She seems like a natural dancer. Has she had a lot of lessons?”
“No, just this class.”
“My oldest is fourteen. She showed the same poise and balance when she was this age. She’s in a dance company now. It’s a lot of work, but she loves it.”
I would have thought the woman was trying to advertise or sell me something by the way she sounded so enthusiastic. She wasn’t, though. She didn’t even tell me the name of the dance company her daughter was with.
I drove home frustrated because the teacher had announced another class was scheduled the following week to make up for the time she had been ill. My closure with Garrett would have to wait another week. Now I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell Joel about Garrett that week or wait until after the final class. I was beginning to wonder if there was anything to even tell him.
Poppy had come over to watch Alex so that I didn’t need to take him with me. GiGi was having her hair done; so it was just Poppy and Alex at the house for the hour and twenty minutes that Eden and I had been gone. I stood in the living room and surveyed the chaos.
How is it possible for my son and father-in-law to make such a mess in so short a time?
“Hope you don’t mind that I made myself a sandwich,” Poppy said.
“No, of course not.” The counter was strewn with every possible sandwich ingredient that could be found in the refrigerator and pantry.
“How ’bout if I make one for you?”
“You know what? I’d like that. Thank you.” I surveyed the many options and added, “Everything except sriracha, please.”
“Comin’ right up.”
I found it sweet that he wanted to take care of me. I especially appreciated the way he applauded Eden as she showed him all her ballet twirls.
The next morning Joel was the one who had covered the counter with breakfast fixings. I sat on the barstool spoon-feeding Alex applesauce.
“Eden did really well in her class,” I told Joel. “One of the other moms told me Eden has natural talent.”
Joel pressed the lever on the toaster. “She must get it from your side of the family, then.”
“I don’t know who that would be. It’s definitely not me.”
“Are you going to sign her up for another class?” he asked.
“If she still likes it, sure. I wouldn’t want to push her too much when she’s still so young.”
“She’s going to be five in September,” Joel reminded me.
“Five sounds so old.” I reached for the jar of honey in the cupboard, and as soon as the sourdough toast popped up, I spread the honey on top and took a bite.
“Guess you were hungry,” Joel said with a laugh.
“This is the only way to eat it. Still warm, slightly crunchy around the edges, and with the honey soaking into all the little holes.” I held out the slice for Joel to take a bite.
He chewed slowly, nodding his agreement before swallowing and jutting his chin out, inviting me to offer him another bite.
“Did I tell you that Eden’s class meets next Monday for the last time? The teacher just announced it this week.”
“Why don’t you tell my parents? I’m sure they would like to be there.”
“Oh, okay.” I felt a little uneasy about them coming and the possibility that I would have to do a bit of explaining about Garrett.
“Do you want me to call them, or will you?” Joel asked.
“I will.”
The morning TV show that had kept Eden quietly occupied was ending. I could tell by the familiar theme song that began to play.
“Breakfast.” I reached for the remote on the counter and turned off the TV.
Eden let out a big, sad sigh. She always had the same “my life is so tragic” respo
nse whenever I disconnected her from anything digital. Her reactions were much more dramatic when she was younger. Both Joel and I had worked hard on the transitions so that we could use TV as well as games on our phones as tools when we needed them but not let her make demands on when, where, and how much screen time she got. I wondered what Alex was going to be like with screens when he was a little older.
I also had wondered many times if other moms had the same challenge. I hadn’t ever brought it up with my friends. I think I was embarrassed that my child could burst into tears over being separated from a TV show or when she was engaged with something on my phone.
Thinking of my friends reminded me of the plans for Wednesday movie night. The 7:10 showing had won the vote. As Joel dished up the eggs, I told him about the plans.
“You’re going this Wednesday?” he asked. “Tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“How long have you known?”
“A few days. We hadn’t settled on the time, though. The movie is at 7:10.”
“What movie?” Eden wanted to know. “Are we going to watch a movie?” She began listing her favorites.
“I have that night off,” Joel said, ignoring Eden. “Can’t you go another night?”
I didn’t want to explain to him that it had already taken way too many texts to get all five of us to agree to go on Wednesday. Instead of replying, I handed Alex his sippy cup.
Apparently, I hadn’t tightened the lid all the way. Alex knocked it off his high chair tray, and it fell on the floor, leaving a puddle. It wasn’t a big spill, but Joel and I fell into one of our “you’re in my space” kitchen dances when we both went to clean it up. I knew he had a thing about being territorial in the kitchen, and having his own space was a big deal for him at work. That was part of the reason it took him so long to find the right chef to hire. He needed someone who could learn his dance steps and fall in at the same pace without stepping on his toes.
Maybe Eden gets more of her dancing skills from her father than he thinks.
We rolled into the usual round of distractions that came when the four of us tried to eat at the same time. The topic of the Wednesday night movie didn’t come up again until the next morning. By then, it was no big deal. Joel had invited his parents to come for dinner that night, and he would now have some help with the kids. It made his mom happy, too, because she hadn’t come with Poppy on Monday night.
Being Known Page 13