by Kate Hewitt
“You didn’t win?” Ruby interjected, and I gave her hand a quick, warning squeeze.
“I’m proud of you,” I told Ella. “But we don’t have to celebrate if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t,” she snapped and stalked off to the locker room without looking at either of us.
“Why is she so cross?” Ruby asked.
I shook my head and didn’t answer. What could I say? Over the last few weeks, I’d immersed myself in the Wests’ lives, but there were too many moments like this one when I felt as if I were floundering.
Only a few nights ago, Nathan had worked particularly late and I’d attempted to get Alexa to put her phone on the charger at nine, as Nathan had told me was the rule. She’d refused, rudely, and I’d been too timid and uncertain to press. Yesterday, in one of her sudden fits of temper, Ruby had told me she didn’t need to do what I said. Ella had been refusing to eat breakfast for the last few days, and I could count the sentences Alexa had addressed to me since I’d started on one hand. So often, too often, I had no idea what to do with any of it, and yet I still wanted to try. I wanted to help.
“Wasn’t Daddy supposed to come?” Ruby asked as we sat on the bleachers and waited for Ella.
“Yes. He must have got caught up in work.”
“He always works.”
“He is providing for you, Ruby. That is important.”
“Providing?” Ruby’s little nose wrinkled. “What does that mean?”
“Your clothes, your food, your house, your school. All of these come from your father.”
“I don’t live in a house.”
“Your apartment, then.” Her literalism made me smile, even as I worried about Ella. How long would it take for her to get over this disappointment? And why hadn’t Nathan been here? He’d said he would be. I’d told him it was important.
Ella was silent on the walk back to the apartment; it was late January, the bleakest time of year, the world full of greys—slush and street and sky. Ruby skipped along, clinging to my hand, keeping up a steady stream of chatter I tried my best to listen to, while Ella lagged behind, head tucked low.
Back in the apartment, the emptiness rang out like a bell. Alexa wasn’t home, which made me uneasy, and neither was Nathan.
“You said we could have hot chocolate,” Ruby reminded me as she scrambled onto a stool. Ella drifted into the living room, curling up on a corner of the sofa, a pillow tucked to her chest.
“Hot chocolate. Yes.” Perhaps once she saw the steaming mugs, the whipped cream and the marshmallows, Ella would soften a bit.
I glanced at my phone again. Nothing from Nathan. I wasn’t all that surprised, considering how much he’d been working these last few weeks, but I was still disappointed, although I tried not to be.
Over the last three weeks, Nathan had become more and more absorbed in his work, so that by the end of the second week he was leaving before Ruby had woken up, and coming back when she was already asleep. It wasn’t much better for either Alexa or Ella; he might say goodnight to Ella, or read her a story, but that was all, and he left Alexa to her own devices, quite literally, poking his head through her door for a few seconds, if that.
Yet who was I to condemn, or even judge? I was here to help, to make his life easier, not point an accusing finger. It wasn’t my place or right, but I still worried. We’d stumbled into a rhythm, but it wasn’t an entirely natural one. I’d taken over the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, and—it felt like—a lot of the parenting.
And now Nathan had missed Ella’s first swim meet, and that felt like a step too far. I needed to talk to him, but the thought of doing so filled me with fear. I didn’t want to jeopardise what I had here, new and fragile as it was, and I hated confronting anyone about anything. Ghosts like me didn’t argue.
“Hot chocolate is ready,” I called to Ella as I gave Ruby a mug and a small pile of marshmallows, as she liked to sprinkle them on top herself. Ella didn’t answer from the living room, and when I glanced in, she was in the same position as before, the pillow hugged hard to her chest.
“Ella.” With Ruby decorating her hot chocolate, I ventured into the room and perched on the other sofa. “Are you sad because you came in third?” I asked. I’d never seen her look so closed off and despondent; the pinched, sullen look on her face reminded me of Alexa… which reminded me that Alexa wasn’t here, and I had no idea where she was. At nearly fifteen she had a worrying level of freedom that Nathan had sanctioned, more out of weariness, I thought, than anything else. I knew I should speak to him about it, but I wasn’t brave enough yet. “Ella?” I prompted gently. “Will you talk to me?”
“I wanted to be first.” Her voice was low, the words barely audible. “I needed to be first.” She clutched the pillow harder, her arms looking far too skinny wrapped around its velvety softness. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten breakfast, and she only picked at dinner.
“Perhaps you will be, another day. It was your first race, after all. There is lots of time.”
“No.” Ella shook her head, the movement sudden, violent. “No.”
“Have some hot chocolate,” I coaxed. “It’s such a cold day…”
“No.” Ella got off the sofa and ran into the bedroom she shared with Ruby; I watched her go, feeling as if I’d handled that all wrong, as if I should have known the right words when I so obviously didn’t. Perhaps Nathan would.
An hour later, while Ruby and I were coloring at the dining room table, Nathan finally came home. He closed the door softly, as if he didn’t want to be noticed, but Ruby was ever alert.
“Daddy!” She raced from the table to the hallway, and I listened to her babble her news. “I had ten marshmallows and Alexa still isn’t home and Ella’s so cross because she lost her race. She wouldn’t even have her hot chocolate.” Ruby seemed almost cruel in her succinct honesty.
I rose from the table and began putting the crayons back in their plastic tub.
“I’m sorry I missed the race.” Nathan stood in the doorway, his hair and clothes both rumpled, a battered leather messenger bag hanging off one shoulder.
“Ella’s in her room.”
He raised his eyebrows at my somewhat pointed remark, but I pretended not to notice. Three weeks in this home and I still had not figured out how to act with Nathan. Most of the time, I tiptoed around him; our few conversations tended to be about the logistics of the girls’ days, and how to manage them.
Nathan dropped his bag by the door and went in search of Ella, Ruby following behind.
“Ruby,” I called to her. “Let them be.”
She scowled at me, hands on hips. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I can and I am,” I said firmly. I might not know how to handle Ella or Alexa or even Nathan, but Ruby was three. Her I would manage. “Come into the kitchen and help me start dinner.”
One of the small, surprising joys of being with the Wests had been shopping and cooking for a family. I had eschewed the convenience of online shopping for the simple pleasure of handling fresh fruit and vegetables in the market, testing their burnished skins and firm texture. I’d even found a shop that sold Eastern European groceries down in the East Village, and pored over the selection of tins and packets I recognized from my childhood. The city I’d tiptoed around for twenty years, my head well down, was becoming my own at last, at least in this small way.
And so I’d made nourishing stews and warming soups, dolma and dumplings, kebabs and tufahija—apples boiled in sugar, stuffed with walnuts, and topped with whipped cream. Most things the girls had liked; a few they tried and shook their heads, pushing plates away. I had not minded.
Now I took some minced pork out of the fridge and set Ruby to putting a spoonful in the center of each parcel of dough, all the while half-listening to the murmured voices of Nathan and Ella down the hall.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan said a few minutes later, when he came into the kitchen, looking abject. “I should have
been there.” I did not reply, because there seemed no need. “She’s really broken up about coming third.”
“It matters to her.”
“Yes.” He raked a hand through his hair, sighing deeply. “We’re working on a new bid. It’s taking a lot of time.”
Again I could think of no reply. Already, after just a few weeks, I wondered if Nathan was always working on a new bid. Wasn’t this what Laura had once said to me, with that disappointed look in her eyes? He works too hard.
I bent over the dumplings, pinching the dough together to make a neat seam. Ruby copied me, pressing the dough so hard, her fingers poked through.
“Gently,” I reminded her. “Always gently.”
“Maria,” Nathan asked when Ruby had become bored with the repetition and gone off to play. “I was thinking… how would you feel about this becoming a live-in position?”
I looked at him in surprise. “Live in?”
“Yes, you could have the spare room. I know it’s a bit small, but you’re here so much as it is…” He shrugged, and I stared down at the dumplings. Part of me wanted to jump at the chance. To live here, in the bosom of this family… and yet I knew it would be an excuse for Nathan to work more, to be less involved, and I could not allow that to happen. “What do you think?” he asked. “It seems like it could make sense, and be easier for you.”
“And easier for you,” I could not keep from saying.
Nathan hung his head like a little boy. “Yes,” he admitted. A beat of silence ticked by painfully. “Maria…” he said finally. “Are you disappointed in me?”
The question surprised me; I hadn’t thought he cared or even noticed what I felt.
“I am worried,” I answered carefully, afraid of presuming too much, stepping too far. “You are gone so much. Your daughters still need you. I cannot take your place.”
“I know.”
“All of them need you, in different ways.”
“Yes.” He nodded, but I could tell that he still didn’t know what to do. How to make it better.
“Spend time with them,” I urged. “Even when there is work.”
“I try…” It sounded half-hearted. It was half-hearted; I’d seen it myself how much. How little. “Well, think about living in, at least. For your sake as much as mine.”
I nodded slowly, not wanting to say more, even though I knew already I would do it. I could not resist.
“Where’s Alexa, anyway?” Nathan asked.
“Out.” I shrugged. “I don’t know where.”
Nathan frowned and glanced down at his phone. “She’s been out all day…”
“I don’t think it is good for her,” I said, still feeling cautious. “All this freedom. It is too much.”
“I know.” He shook his head, his mouth and eyes both drooping at the corners. “Laura would have known what to do.”
I nodded, feeling his sorrow like a wave rolling over us. “I’m sorry I do not.”
“I ask too much of you already. I know that, even if I don’t act like it. It’s just easier… to work.” His lips twisted wryly, his eyes filled with pain. “It’s something I know how to do. I get it right.”
I smiled sadly, touched by his honesty. “This is something you need to get right,” I told him gently, gesturing to the apartment, his family. “And you can, just by being here.”
“They need more than that.”
“It’s a beginning.”
“I know.” He sounded resigned, and for a second, despite all my understanding, all my compassion, I felt angry, and more than that, furious. Suddenly I was filled with a surprise rage; it grabbed hold of me the way a dog would with a bone or a bird, by the throat, shaking it hard. Do you realize how lucky you are? I wanted to demand. You have three daughters, all healthy, all with you, all wanting your love. You lost one person. One. And yet you are willing to throw this all away for what?
I took a deep, steadying breath, letting that unexpected surge of fury ebb away. It had no place here. I hadn’t felt anything like it in a very long time, and it surprised me, the intensity of it, the way it had taken me over. This too, it seemed, was part of coming alive, letting yourself feel not just the joy, but the anger. The grief.
“Just try,” I said, and the edge of that anger was audible in my voice.
Nathan stared at me for a moment, as I put the dumplings on a baking tray. “There’s a grief support group that meets in a church near here,” he said finally. “The church where we had Laura’s funeral. I thought… maybe I’d take the girls there. See if it helps.” He sounded uncertain, as if he were asking for permission or approval.
And so I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “You should do that. That sounds like a very good idea.”
Nathan nodded back, looking resigned, as if he didn’t want to do it—any of it.
I wondered why he was not holding tight to his daughters, making the most of every moment, even as I understood why he wasn’t: some things hurt too much.
Seventeen
Nathan
The air inside the church was warm and coffee-scented, a welcome change from the freezing temperatures outside, as I stepped through the double doors, Ruby and Ella clinging tightly to my hands, Alexa slouching behind me.
I’d been as good as my word for once and was taking all three girls to a grief support group for families. I’d debated whether to take Ruby, since she was so little, but she’d insisted on going, and with a threatened tantrum in the offing, I’d agreed. Besides, it could be good for her, even if when I’d mentioned it to them this morning, all three of my daughters had looked wary.
“Will they ask us questions?” Ella asked in a whisper. “Do we have to talk?”
“Only if you want to, sweetheart. It’s just meant to be a help… to be with people who have been through similar things as you have.”
“You mean people whose mothers were shot by some crazy guy?” Alexa interjected in a hard voice. “Wow, I didn’t know there were so many of us.”
“Alexa.” I spoke quietly, but I felt a flash of rage towards my oldest daughter that I knew was utterly unhelpful. “Please don’t speak that way, especially in front of your sisters.”
“Why not? It’s true.” Her chin jutted and her eyes flashed, and even though it was only half past seven in the morning, I felt too weary for this.
Maria was bustling about in the kitchen; she’d moved in over the weekend, much to my relief. Ruby had been thrilled, Ella quietly excited, and Alexa, predictably, hadn’t said anything at all.
“I think this could be a good opportunity for us,” I said with far more determination than I felt. I didn’t want to go talk about my feelings with a bunch of strangers, of course I didn’t, but all the advice online seemed to say this could be helpful for the girls. “Let’s try it at least once.”
“And if we don’t like it, we don’t have to go again?” Ella asked, a bit too eagerly.
I sighed, the battle half-lost already. “No, sweetie,” I said, because I only had so much fight in me. “We don’t.”
Now we stood in the empty foyer of the church, looking around askance. The last time we’d been here had been for Laura’s funeral. The day was a blur, but I remembered walking into the church, behind her coffin, borne by six professional pall-bearers, dark and solemn in their black suits. I’d hated it all, the ritualistic formality as well as the terrible finality.
“Daddy, where is everybody?” Ruby asked, tugging on my hand. “It’s so quiet.”
“They must be downstairs, in the hall.” More memories of wandering around assailed me, making small talk and sipping cold coffee, feeling like the host of a particularly horrible party. “Come on, girls. Let’s go see.”
Silently, we all headed downstairs. As we came to the bottom of the steps, I heard the murmur of voices, a sudden, unexpected laugh. Really? People were laughing?
Ella threw me a panicked look. Ruby clutched at my hand so hard it hurt, her little fingernails digging into my palm. And Alex
a folded her arms and muttered something under her breath, undoubtedly rude that I chose to ignore, just as I’d chosen to ignore a lot of her behavior, preferring a tense truce of silence than to be continually rebuffed.
I hesitated now, torn between going ahead and doing something proactive and wanting to beat a hasty retreat home. What did you actually do in a grief support group anyway?
“Hello, you must be new.”
All four of us whirled around to see a middle-aged, smiling woman coming down the stairs, holding a tray of white china mugs.
“We ran out of cups,” she explained, hefting the tray aloft. “I’m Eloise. Come, join us.”
Reluctantly, feeling as if I had no choice, I followed her into the brightly lit hall, a circle of occupied folding chairs in the middle. Everyone turned and watched us walk in; the girls kept their heads down and I tried not to look anyone in the eye. I was seriously regretting being there.
There was a flurry of introductions that washed blankly over me, and then Eloise explained that the girls went to a separate group in the room behind the hall, for children.
All three girls looked at me with various expressions of dismay—Ruby cautious, Ella terrified, and Alexa giving me a don’t-you-dare glare that was icy enough to freeze marrow.
“Come on, girls,” Eloise said cheerfully, before I could say anything. “There’s hot chocolate and cookies.” She shepherded them towards the back, one hand firmly on Ella’s back, while I stood there, gormless and uncertain.
“There’s an empty chair here,” one of the women sitting in the circle called to me. “What did you say your name was?”
I hadn’t yet. “Nathan,” I half-mumbled. I felt like the new kid in school, an experience I’d lived through far too many times in my childhood. Already I was fighting an inevitable flush, my cheeks heating under the scrutiny of a dozen strangers, slinking to my seat.
Everyone introduced themselves again, slowly, so I could remember, but I knew I wouldn’t. The chair creaked as I sat down and someone passed me a cup of coffee that I took with murmured thanks. Now what?