Life After Coffee

by Virginia Franken

  And then she’s gone, hurrying back down the street. As she heads in toward her house, she starts to run. I think she may be crying. This, of course, does nothing to help my own fragile emotional state. Crying can be as contagious as a hearty yawn, and as I close the front door and dive into the shower, the vice clamp is back around my throat. I think it’s going to be staying there for a while.

  The next two hours slip by at warp speed, just as I knew they would. Just as they have dozens of times before. And then the backpack is fastened, the taxi’s at the curb, and there’s nothing left. There’s no more time standing in between this moment and the one when I walk out the door, away from them for days, weeks, and then more weeks on end. I open the front door and signal to the driver that I’ll be out in just a minute. And then I turn back. The moment is upon us.

  “Where’s Violet?” I ask. I can’t leave without saying good-bye to her, despite the punch to the gut that I know it’s going to be.

  “I don’t know. She’s probably in her room,” Peter says. I’m surprised she hasn’t been glued to me like normal this morning. Maybe she’s old enough to have figured out how to sulk.

  I pick up Billy and wrap his body around mine. He nuzzles his head into my shoulder and holds tight. We stay there, and then I give him a quick pat on the shoulder and carefully lower him down. He looks back up at me. He’s angry. He’s resigned. He’s only five years old, for goodness’ sake.

  “I’ll miss you, Mom,” he chokes out, and then runs for his bedroom before we can see that he’s crying. No slammed door today. Just the sounds of a small, sad boy crying into his pillow. Billy’s never said he’s going to miss me before. I feel the clamp close tighter around my throat and my heart. I stare after him.

  I can’t do this.

  “Peter, you’ve got to sell Draker’s Dark.”

  “What are you talking about? Matt said it was poorly written and commercially unviable.”

  “Matt’s only one person.”

  “He’s a pretty knowledgeable person.”

  I’m going to have to tell him. Now. All of it. With the taxi meter running.

  “It’s not true what he said about the script.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but—”

  “He lied. He knows it’s good. He told me.”

  “He told you it was good?”

  “Yes. It is good, Peter.”

  “Then why did he—”

  “Because . . .” Here I go. It’s literally now or never. “He’s jealous of you. And because he wanted to sleep with me.”

  “What?”

  The driver honks. Can he not see we’re having a crucial conversation here?

  “Just keep the meter running!” I yell down the front yard. “Don’t let Matt stop you from trying to sell this screenplay. Because it’s good. And I need you to sell it so I don’t have to do this anymore. I don’t want to miss my children’s childhood.”

  “Did you sleep with him?” He’s livid.

  “Matt? No.” He doesn’t need to know about the Kiss That (Almost) Changed Everything or the trip to Barbados. At least, not right now. The meter is running after all. “He’s a manipulator, Peter. I think he set you up to fly off the handle in front of me that day in the writers’ room. I think he set it up for you to be out of town for a week so he could try to get closer to me.” I’m waiting for the furniture to start flying. I’m waiting for the rants, for the I knew its and the I told you sos. So far he’s quiet. “It didn’t work, Peter. We’re still here. We’re still together. I love you.”

  Peter’s wrapped his arms tightly across the top of his chest and he’s staring directly at me, breathing in and out very slowly.

  “Peter, are you okay?” The crazy heavy breathing is scaring me much more than the normal screaming and yelling. Is he gearing up for something huge? Is this what a nervous breakdown looks like?

  “I’m doing the Turtle.”

  “The Turtle?”

  “It’s a breathing technique. Do it with me.”

  And so I do. And for the next few minutes we both stand there with our arms wrapped across our chests staring at each other, silent, breathing. His inhales and exhales start to become very long. In, two, three . . . out, two, three. I find my breath wanting to fall into sync with his, and so I let it. Why not? My only briefly self-conscious moment comes when I realize how lacking in self-consciousness I am. We’re both right in the middle of the moment. In the now of it. Breathing together. Looking directly at each other. I feel more married to him than I ever have. It’s not the kids, or the mortgage, or the letter of the law that binds us together—it’s this. This true connection that we have, that we still have, buried under all the layers of fossilized stress.

  Eventually Peter lowers his arms; I follow.

  “Kind of ironic that the minute we do this is the moment I’m walking out the door.”

  “Don’t go,” he says. “Send the taxi away.”

  “Don’t say that to me.” The clamp, which had started to ease off during the Turtle, is moving into a death grip. “You know I have to go.” He knows it. I know it. It doesn’t mean that we don’t wish it wasn’t so. He pulls me into a hug and kisses me firmly on the top of my head. For the first time in a long time, I feel safe. And loved.

  “I’m sorry about Matt,” I say.

  “It’s okay. It’s done now.” I’m suddenly extremely glad I threw Matt’s phone into the pool. That I threw him back to Kimberly. This is where I’m supposed to be, with Peter. I look up at him and he kisses me. And it’s a real kiss. Not a “two kids later in a flailing marriage” kiss. It’s a kiss that makes me wish that the taxi wasn’t due for another half an hour.

  “You have to figure this out, Peter. You have to sell your screenplay or do something. I can’t miss any more of this. Any more of you and me.”

  “I’ll work something out,” he says. And I believe him. For the first time ever, I believe in him. Because if he can conquer the indignant anger that’s been running wild through his body like anarchy all these years, solving a chronic unemployment problem is just a step away. And compared with what he’s already solved, it’s a simple step.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say. I’m already running late. If we get into traffic on the way to the airport, it could be a disaster at this point.

  “I know,” he says, not letting go.

  “Where’s Violet?” I ask again.

  “Probably in her room,” he repeats. “Let’s go and look.”

  And so we do, holding hands. She’s not there.

  “I’ll check the backyard,” I say. We let go of each other’s hand and Peter heads toward the front of the house calling her name. I go out the back door. Inkie tries to follow, but I toe him inside the house again.

  “Violet!” I yell. Where is she? The side gate is closed and locked, and she’s not on the side deck. She’s not on the back deck or in her playhouse. Not hiding behind the trash cans. The back gate is locked too. I determinedly keep my breathing under control. There’s no reason to go anywhere near panic yet. All the gates are locked. There’s no way she could have gotten outside the house without us noticing. I do a thorough check of the garage just to be sure. Nothing. She must be back inside. Peter’s probably found her already. That taxi driver must be ready to throttle me.

  I let myself in through the back door to find Peter standing alone in the kitchen. We look at each other.

  “Find her?” he asks.

  “No.” I shake my head. We stand there for a couple of seconds, staring at each other. Is this the official moment when we’re supposed to start panicking? Wordlessly we pass by to check each other’s work. He heads out the back door and I start ransacking the house. I can feel the sharp edges of panic start to jostle inside my chest. I go through every room, beginning at the front of the house. I pull the contents out of our closets, I upturn furniture, I empty out boxes, I yank dishes out of cupboards, I pull storage containers out from under beds. Nowhere. She’s now
here to be seen. I hear someone screaming her name.

  “Violet! Violet!” Billy’s staring at me, and I realize that it’s me who’s screaming. I’ve gone from relatively normal to batshit crazy in the space of about six minutes and can you blame me? She’s not here.

  The doorbell rings. I stop upending my shoe collection and run to the front door. Someone must have found Violet wandering down the street and brought her back home. It’s the taxi driver. I hold back the urge to scream fuck you! at him.

  “What’s going on?” he says. “You’re going to miss your flight.”

  “I’ve lost my daughter.” Saying it out loud makes it bone-crushingly real. I can feel the blood falling away from my head in one quick, cold wave. I think I’m going to faint.

  “What do you mean you’ve lost her?”

  “What do you goddamn think I mean?” If I were the taxi driver, at this point I’d doff my cap, if I had one, get in my cab and drive back home or to the cabbie depot or wherever it is that cabbies go when they’re not cabbing.

  “How old is she?”

  “She’s three.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. Not yet. I mean . . . Do you think I should?” Is it that real? That serious?

  “I’ll call them. You keep looking,” he says, like he’s done this a thousand times before.

  Suddenly I feel completely negligent. More so than any other time over my catastrophic motherhood career. Of course I should have called the police by now. What was I thinking? Peter runs in through the back door and into the living room looking hopeful.

  “Anything?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’ll walk the block,” says Peter. “You stay here in case she shows up.”

  And so I’m left. Standing here in the “do nothing” role. The “stay here in case she shows up” role. It’s ridiculous, what’s she going to do? Saunter in the front door holding an ice-cream cone she just picked up on her way back from sightseeing in Old Town? She’s gone! She’s missing! She’s not going to voluntarily come back. She has to be proactively found. The only thing that stops me from running out the door is Billy. If there’s some kind of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang–style kid snatcher in the area, I have to stay and protect him. I can’t lose both of them. You see how I’ve gone off the deep end here. Well, wouldn’t you?

  After what seems like an inappropriately long time, the cops show up. They walk way too slowly up the front yard, take their time walking in the door and introducing themselves, and then start asking me a thousand questions. It’s all I can do to stop myself from screaming at them: stop asking me questions and go out there and FIND HER! She could be miles away by now, and you’re asking me what color her Strawberry Shortcake nightgown is? I don’t know! It’s got Strawberry Shortcake on the front—isn’t that distinctive enough for you?

  “And you’re sure she was still wearing her nightgown the last time you saw her?” asks the male officer.

  “Yes.”

  “Even though it was nine a.m.?” says the female officer. Don’t judge me right now, woman! Do your job.

  “Y-es.” I swear she gives a miniraise of her eyebrows. If I didn’t need her to find my daughter right now, I’d punch her square between the eyes.

  After a moment the male officer goes outside and starts talking to someone on the radio. Another cop car shows up. At last. Something’s happening. Peter returns from his search. He’s covered in sweat.

  “I can’t find her.”

  “The police are here.”

  I glance at the clock. It’s noon. If we find her within the next two hours, I can still catch the evening flight out. I stop short. What is wrong with me? As a person? I hear a cop knock on Lizzie’s door and explain the situation. She sounds shaken as she replies that she hasn’t seen her. I can just imagine her pulling Odessa tightly against her body, thinking that her problems may be bad but all of a sudden realizing that nothing is as bad as it could be. I can give her that today at least.

  Billy, Peter, and I sit there in cold, horrified silence as the minutes tick on. Minutes that Violet’s not here. The police go through every nook and cranny of our house—even more thoroughly than I did. They come to the same conclusion: she’s not here.

  More cops arrive. I’m on the last fringes of being able to hold it together. Before too much longer there’s going to be an ambulance arriving instead of endless cop cars as I’m going to be the one having a nervous breakdown. The taxi driver sticks his head in the front door.

  “Still nothing?” he asks.

  I bite back the snarky retort that yes, she was playing with her pink Girl Lego in her room the whole time and all these people walking around looking like police are just part of a costume party we spontaneously decided to throw. The Lego sets were a gift from my mother, by the way. I’m not sure why having a vagina means you can’t just use the same multicolored Lego pieces that boys do, but what do I know? Having misplaced my second-born, I feel like I have even less authority to speak on any parenting subject than I normally do.

  “No,” I say. “I’m sorry. I should let you go. What do I owe you?”

  “I’ll stay,” he says. “I’m involved now.”

  He takes a seat on the couch right next to Billy. It doesn’t seem right to ask him whether his meter is still running. I’m trying to decide whether this is extraordinarily intrusive or unbelievably supportive when I hear it: a small girl crying. And I think it’s Violet. It’s not just me imagining things, as Peter leaps to his feet. He hears it too. The crying’s coming from outside and Peter beats me out the front door.

  Daniel’s on the sidewalk outside our home, and he has Violet wrapped around him. Her nightgown is immodestly hitched up around her hips, and I thank God she was wearing underwear when she went to bed last night only a split second after I thank God for her safe deliverance. Daniel’s always looked a bit like a Gap model, but dressed in Levi’s and an old T-shirt, with two days of beard growth, he looks like an all-American hero.

  She’s found.

  Somehow I beat Peter to her and grab her little body out of Daniel’s arms.

  “Where was she?” I ask, half-hostile. We haven’t got the full story yet. What on earth was she doing sequestered away in their house?

  “I found her in our tree house,” he says. “She was sleeping. I thought I’d check up there, because we’ve found Billy camping out there before.”

  The fence. We never fixed it. This is all my fault: the millions of cop cars (which are already starting to dissipate), my completely traumatized family, the certain escape of Inkie, my missed flight, the taxi driver’s wasted morning. Violet snuggles into my body and I clasp her right back. What would I have done if I’d lost her? I’d have died. But she hasn’t been lost. She’s here. I have her. At least for the moment.

  “Thank you, Daniel,” I whisper, resting my head on hers.

  The police finish up the rest of their paperwork and everyone clears out pretty fast. Everyone except the taxi driver, who’s standing there, waiting for direction. I check the clock. If we leave like now, I can make this evening’s flight, which means I won’t miss my internal flight to Jimma. And it’s important I don’t miss my internal flight, because Getu booked that for me (flights are less than half the price when booked inside Ethiopia); it’s going to be super difficult if I have to reschedule it, because Getu has one phone on the farm and he never answers it. Yes, that was poor planning on my part, but Roth is supremely anal about costs right now and half price is half price.

  Peter and I meet each other’s eyes. He knows it. I know it. I’ve got to go.

  “Violet, honey. Mommy has to catch her plane.” I kiss the top of her head. One last kiss.

  I brush my cheek against the soft skin of hers and then hand her over to Peter. She doesn’t fuss. I think she’s dazed by everything that’s just happened. I’m not going to wait until she figures out exactly what’s going on and screams the place down. The taxi driver is already
starting the cab back up. I give Billy one more hug. Peter and I spontaneously touch heads, closing our eyes. We breathe. This time it means something. Our Hawaiian kiss has returned. None of us says anything. We’re still too stunned for “good-bye.”

  I start my walk down to the taxi. Violet suddenly catches on to what’s really happening.

  “No, Mommy. No!”

  I keep walking. There’s nothing to be gained by going back. With that last kiss I made the transition from mother to coffee buyer. Logic reigns. There’s nothing more I can do for her. She won’t be calm for hours. Perhaps even not quite right for days. And none of us will be fully whole until weeks and weeks have gone by and I return again.

  “Mommy, just one more hug!”

  I keep walking. Tears flowing down my cheeks now. How can I stop them? I don’t go back, because it’s never one more hug. I’ll never be able to give her enough hugs to plug the pain of this separation. Just one more won’t help. It’ll be as useful as one more ice cube thrown into a heartily burning house fire. I open the taxi door. Don’t look back.

  I look back. It’s a mistake. They see I’m crying. I never cry at good-byes. Both children immediately kick it up a notch. Violet strains against Peter, holding out her arms to me.

  “Mommy, don’t go!” yells Billy. I get in the cab quickly. I’m too traumatized even to wave.

  “Drive,” I say. The cabbie pauses as if he’s going to ask me if I’m sure I want to do this. “Just drive,” I repeat. And he does.

  Straightaway I want to ask him to drive around the block and come back. Just so I can give her that one last hug after all. But I don’t. Because I know if I come back one more time, I’ll never be able to persuade myself to leave again. And so I just keep on going.

  Why?

  Because I have no choice.

  CHAPTER 25

  It’s been raining hard and solidly now for around half an hour. I was pretty wet with humidity and general sweatiness before the rain started, but now I’m saturated. I keep my eyes firmly on Getu—as I have been doing all morning—as he deftly cuts a path through the foliage around us. There’s no pathway beneath our feet—we’re walking directly on a twisted mass of undergrowth. It’s kind of like walking on a springy mattress covered in vines that are trying to catch you around the ankle. I’m not certain, but I think the rain’s beginning to let up a little. My pants are tight around my waist—apparently I gained some weight during my work hiatus—and that’s not doing anything to add to my general comfort right now. Out of the corner of my eye I see something large and black land on my forearm. I brush it off as quick as lightning and keep on walking like it didn’t happen. That’s why you wear long sleeves in the forest.