by Shirley Jump
Nora was about to say Don’t you have homework? but realized that was what the old Nora used to do. Enforce the schedule and then allow room for fun. She’d lived her whole life that way, thinking the more she kept things in order the easier it was to predict the detours in the road.
She’d been wrong.
Maybe if she had loosened up a bit, dropped the reins from time to time, she and Ben could have communicated more. She could have kept that close relationship with Sarah. She could have been honest with her husband that winter day. And she wouldn’t be feeling so lost and adrift now. “Sure. You can do your homework after dinner.”
Surprise lit Sarah’s eyes, and she lingered a moment, as if sure her mother would change her mind.
“Be sure to keep your coat and hat on,” Nora said. “It’s cold out there.”
A second later, both kids were in the yard with Chance running laps between them, barking his joy at playing fetch. Nora watched from the kitchen window and realized this would be her life now. Just her and the kids. No one to turn to and say, Hey, look at how much fun the kids are having. No one to share the milestones with. No one to lean on when the days were dark.
Not that Ben had been much of any of that. He’d unplugged from his family when he’d been gambling. After rehab, he’d tried to reintegrate himself, but he’d been absent from their quartet for so long that it was like trying to add another peg into an already full box. Nora had been reluctant to trust him or rely on him because he’d let her down too many times before. And now…
Now the kids were going to be shuttled from one house to another. There’d be a division of birthdays and holidays and awkward conversations at school plays.
“Nora?”
She turned at the sound of Ben’s voice, wondering for a second if she was hearing things, filling in the silence in the house with her husband. But no, there he was, standing in the foyer. Tall and trim, and handsome as hell, even now. There were shadows under his eyes and several days of stubble on his jaw, but a part of her heart still leapt at the sight. “What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t mean to barge in, but I rang the doorbell a couple times and you didn’t answer. I didn’t know if you were out back or busy or what.”
She waved him into the kitchen. “Sorry. Just daydreaming.”
Ben grinned. “You? Daydreaming? You’re the one who hardly takes five minutes to sit down and eat dinner.”
A rehash of her faults was not on Nora’s agenda for the day. All that did was lead them into fights, and right now she was 5 and 0 on the no-drama scoreboard. “Why are you here, Ben?”
“I wanted to see my kids.”
A little crack of hurt went through her when she realized he hadn’t said he wanted to see her. God, why couldn’t she make up her mind? Why was a part of her still holding on to something that had already died?
She drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. No drama, no tears, just a calm, businesslike discussion. “If you can wait a minute to see them, I’d like to talk to you about the furniture. On my break today, I started making a list—” She opened her purse to pull out a piece of paper.
Ben put his hand over hers, the touch still familiar and warm, even after everything. “Can we not talk about that now?”
“Ben, the house is being auctioned off in eighteen days. We don’t have much time to get the furniture out of there. We still have to figure out how we’re going to pack up the stuff, move it to some storage unit or something—”
“We have time, Nora.”
“You act like we have months, not days. Jesus, Ben, face reality, will you?” She shook her head. “Why did I think you had changed? You’re reliable one time, on Halloween, and here I stupidly go thinking you’re going to be responsible and supportive and stop burying your head in the sand. You know what, Ben? Don’t worry about the list.” She waved it at him before shoving it back into her purse. “I’ll figure it out. Just like I have everything else for the last two years. I should have learned my lesson last year about depending on you.”
“I’m not saying I’m not going to work on this with you.” He took her hand, his touch warm and encompassing and sure. “I’m saying we have time. Things could still turn around—”
She yanked her hand away. He still didn’t get it. “Goddammit, Ben, will you quit gambling with our lives? I swear, it’s like you think our home—our children’s home—is one more blackjack deal or craps roll. Nothing is going to turn around. They stapled a damned auction notice on our house, and we are losing everything. Face the facts. Our house is gone, and our marriage is over.”
“Nora, you have some nerve—” Ben’s gaze went somewhere behind her and his face crumpled. “Sarah. Oh God, Sarah.”
Nora spun around and saw her daughter standing in the open doorway of the kitchen, tears streaming down her face. How long had she been there? What had she heard? Nora took two steps toward her. “Sarah—”
“Don’t talk to me! Don’t touch me! You promised me, Mommy! You promised me you weren’t divorcing Daddy and we were going to be okay!” She spun out of the kitchen and burst out the door. The screen door slammed shut, the dog started barking, and Sarah disappeared.
Nora and Ben spent an hour combing Mary’s neighborhood, calling for Sarah. Ben went on foot while Nora waited for her sister to come and watch Jake. Magpie hurried in the door ten minutes after Nora called, saying only that she needed her there immediately. Those ten minutes lasted an eternity while Nora paced in the front hall and held a finger over the Send button for 911.
“Hey, what happened that you needed to drag me away from my lame evening at home bingeing on Netflix?” her sister asked as she hung her coat on the hook and stuffed her hat in the pocket.
“Sarah heard Ben and me arguing and she took off.” Nora pulled on her coat and grabbed her car keys from the hall table. “Will you stay with Jake? Don’t say anything to him, please. I don’t want him to worry.”
“No problem.” She gave Nora a quick hug. “It’ll be okay, Nora.”
“That’s the problem, Mags. None of this is going to be okay. And it hasn’t been okay, not for a long time.” She hurried out the door, climbed in her car, and started to search, scanning the streets, pausing at shadowy backyards. She and Ben texted and called each other as they made their way through Mary’s neighborhood. She lived on the southwestern side of Revere, near Winthrop Avenue and Route 1A, in a neighborhood peppered with triplexes and apartment buildings. Her little two-story, single-family saltbox was a lone holdout against the towering multifamily homes.
It was a neighborhood Nora barely knew, but Ben had worked several jobs here and knew it well. So she took his direction, forced to rely on his knowledge. They were almost like the partners they used to be. Before…
Before everything went to hell in a handbasket.
Nora and Ben worked in a crisscross pattern, with Nora driving the longer main roads and Ben walking the connecting side streets. Nora kept her window down, calling Sarah’s name every few seconds, keeping the car moving at a snail’s pace.
As she drove, her frustration and anger mounted. Everything that had happened in the last two years had led to this moment, to Sarah running away. The gambling, the house, the fights. Sarah getting into trouble in school, the scuffle with Anna. Nora and the kids living in a house that wasn’t theirs. Their ruined lives, ruined family.
She reached a cross street and saw Ben standing at the corner. He gave her a little wave and started walking toward her, as if nothing was wrong, nothing was different. In an instant, the anger inside her erupted. She slammed the car into park and then got out, leaving the door open and the engine running. “This is your fault!”
“Mine? All I did was try to see my kids. You were the one who started in on me about the gambling. Again. The last time I gambled was a year ago. A year. You won’t fucking let it drop, Nora.”
“Because that gambling is still affecting us now, Ben, in case you haven’t not
iced. You make it sound like you put down the dice and, in an instant, everything was perfect.” She waved at the house in the distance, the house that she lived in that wasn’t home. “Look at our family, our lives. We’re losing our house, our daughter is getting into fights at school, and you’re off telling Joyce how unhappy you are.” Jealousy surged, a white-hot rush. She told herself she didn’t care who Ben was with, didn’t care that he had confided in another woman.
“You want to know why I went to Joyce?” Ben said. “Because my wife hasn’t been there for me in so damned long, I’m not even sure she cares that I’m alive.”
“What is this, feel bad for Ben day?” she scoffed. “I’ve been busy working, taking care of the kids, the house, the bills, all the shit you didn’t want to do. I don’t have time to pick you up off the floor when things get crappy.”
“The things I didn’t want to do? Or wasn’t allowed to do? Perfect, efficient Nora did everything. Every time I tried to do anything, you made me feel incompetent. I’m surprised you didn’t give me directions on how to take my own kids trick-or-treating.” Ben shook his head. “The truth is, Nora, you’re just as screwed up as I am. You just refuse to admit it.”
“Me? I’m not blowing our mortgage on a freaking white ball, Ben.”
“Go ahead, keep blaming it all on me. I can take it. I’m a big boy.” He smacked his chest. “But just remember who deserted who when I went to rehab.”
“Deserted you? I never left us, Ben.”
“Are you implying that going to rehab was leaving you? Leaving our family? I did that to save us, Nora. To save me. And you did leave me, the day I checked into that place.” He took a step closer, and she could see the shadows under his eyes, the stubble on his jaw. “You never called. Never visited. Didn’t write me a single damned letter. When the therapist asked you to come up for a couples’ session, you said no. When I asked you to go to a meeting with me, you said no. You left me, Nora, to do this all on my own, when I needed you. I needed you, damn it.” His voice thickened.
Every instinct inside her urged Nora to reach out to Ben, to apologize, smooth it over, make it better. But then she thought of that winter morning and the many, many nights and days he had left her when she needed him, and she turned around and got back in the car. “Right now, our daughter needs us. That’s all that matters, Ben.”
He looked off into the distance for a second, as if gauging his words. “You want to tell me what happened in Truro?”
“Does it really matter, Ben?” She shut the door, put the car back in gear, and headed down the road. She spent another twenty minutes driving up and down the streets, calling for her daughter.
Should she call the police? Would they do anything about a child being gone for such a short period of time? And then Ben’s number lit up her cell, and for a second, the fight was forgotten. They could circle back to all that later, after Sarah was safe. “Did you find her?”
“No.”
“It’s getting dark. Maybe we should just call the police. What if someone took her?”
“Nora, we’ll find her.” Ben’s voice, steady and calm, carried over the cell connection and eased the racing fear in Nora’s heart. “Trust me, okay?”
For two years, she hadn’t trusted her husband. He’d lied to her over and over again, taken money without her knowledge, spun wild tales to cover his tracks. He’d abandoned her when she needed him most. But in this moment, in the dark interior of her car on a cold fall night, she chose to trust him. Because she needed to hold on to that, to him, if only for a moment. “Okay, Ben.” She clutched the phone and closed her eyes. Please let him be right; please let us find her.
“Wait…I have an idea. Where are you right now?”
She leaned out the window. “Uh…Campbell Avenue.”
“Okay, good. Turn right on Walnut. A couple blocks down on the left there’s a playground. I think she might have gone there. Meet me there? I’m close to it.”
“Me too.” Nora kept the phone connection open until she got there, pulling into the parking lot at the same time Ben came running in. She jerked the gearshift into park and tumbled out the door. The two of them broke into a run, calling Sarah’s name. They circled the playground, trying to see past the shadows, the darkened spaces under the tables and seesaw.
And then, inside the orange tower at the top of a bright blue climbing structure, she saw a familiar pink coat. Nora’s heart lurched and relief washed over her in a tidal wave. “That’s her,” she said to Ben. “Sarah!”
The two of them scrambled up to the tower, Nora opting for the ramp, Ben grabbing the outside poles and swinging himself up. He reached their daughter first, crouching until his broad frame nearly filled the small square space. “Sarah! Thank God. Are you okay? Are you hurt? We were so worried about you.”
Sarah plowed into Ben’s arms and broke into hard, heaving sobs. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry.”
Nora started to cry, too, deep sobs of relief, of gratitude, of regret. She watched her husband hug their daughter, and all those hours of searching and worry evaporated. They’d found her. Thank God, they’d found her.
Nora had already lost one child. She couldn’t survive losing another.
Ben ran a hand down Sarah’s long brown hair, pressing kisses to her temples. She squeezed tighter and sobbed into his shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. We’ve got you.” Then he reached out and grabbed Nora and pulled her into the circle.
TWENTY-ONE
After they got home, Sarah was too tired to eat more than a couple bites of a sandwich. Nora told her and Jake to get ready for bed and then she hugged Magpie, thanking her sister and promising to call later. Mags seemed off, not quite herself. Nora made a mental note to check in with her sister later.
Ben lingered in the kitchen, still wearing his coat. The betrayed, angry part of Nora wanted to kick him out, but the parent in her, who knew how scary those hours had been and how troubled their little girl was, couldn’t shut Ben out. He loved Sarah as much as Nora did, and it wouldn’t be fair to let their argument get in the way of him spending time with her.
“Why don’t you stay and help me put the kids to bed?” Nora said. “I think Sarah would like that.”
“Thanks.” He seemed grateful for the small request, and she felt like crap for not including him more in the last couple weeks. Ben loved his kids—keeping him from them would only hurt the kids.
She busied herself folding Sarah’s sweatshirt because it kept her from having to see the surprise and gratitude in her husband’s eyes. After they were divorced, they would be constantly doing this dance of holding on to the shreds of a family while still keeping that dividing line between them. Already, Ben’s presence had a degree of awkwardness. Part of it was the simmering tension from their argument; part of it was the environment. This wasn’t their house—wasn’t her house either—and this was no longer the family they used to have. Maybe someday she’d get used to that feeling of being out of place, but right now, she felt like she’d stepped into another country where she didn’t know the language or customs.
The two of them fell into step together as they walked down the hall to the guest bedroom. Years ago—before the poker and the horse races and the lies—putting the kids to bed together had bridged the gap between being Mommy and Daddy and shifting back into Ben and Nora. They would sit on either side of Sarah’s bed or stand beside Jake’s crib, giving kisses and stories and last-minute glasses of water and then tiptoe out and shut the door.
Then it would be just them again, and more times than not, Ben would take her hand on that return trip down the hall. Anticipation would build inside her for those moments on the couch when she curved into him. They’d watch a movie or split a bottle of wine or head to bed early to make love and fall asleep wrapped together in a human bow of legs and arms.
Those moments had eroded bit by bit until they were gone altogether. A part of Nora grieved that loss, missed the simplicity of those year
s. What had driven Ben to the casinos instead of their living room? And what had made her turn a blind eye, ignoring his distance, his mistakes, instead of confronting him? By the time she had finally said something, the money was gone and the damage done.
That day when she’d confronted him, she had lost everything. Her husband, her marriage, herself. She’d sat on the cold bench in the snow and watched Ben drive away, while the life inside her died.
The truth is, Nora, you’re just as screwed up as I am. Ben was right. She was screwed up. She had screwed up. She’d ignored and skirted and avoided, doing her level best to put a fresh coat of paint on a wall moldy with lies. You’re a good mother, Magpie had said. Ben had said the same thing more than once. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Jake was already in bed, holding a book and a stuffed dinosaur. Nora pasted on a smile when she saw her son. “Can we read Dinosaurs Sing tonight, Mommy?”
“Sure. Sarah, want to come sit on Jake’s bed and listen?”
“Is Daddy going to do the dinosaur voice?”
“Of course,” Ben said. “Because I’m a good dinosaur.” He bent his hands into claws and let out a “Rawwrr.”
Jake laughed and shifted to the side. Sarah climbed in the middle and Nora sat on the edge of the bed by the nightstand. Ben pulled up a chair and sat on the opposite side. Nora’s gaze connected with Ben’s across the divide of their children. He looked away first, nodding toward the book. “Let’s see what the dinosaurs are up to tonight.”
“Yeah, sure.” Nora opened the book, extending her arms so all four of them could see it. And so that she could read the book through blurred vision. “Once upon a time, there was a family of dinosaurs who lived in a big, deep, cool cave. There was a Mommy dinosaur and a Daddy dinosaur and a little baby dinosaur named Barry.”
Jake laughed. “Barry is a silly name.”
“I’ve never met a dinosaur named Barry,” Nora said as she turned the page. “Barry liked dinosaur school until one day when their music teacher, Mr. Brontosaurus, came in the classroom.”