As we drove, I considered the reality I headed toward. Certainly, I didn’t expect my problems to go away during this little excursion, but I wasn’t any better prepared to face them now than I had been when I left. Tanya was on the road again and had been for a few days. Ally would almost surely be in the office tomorrow and we would need to come to terms with our new relationship.
It had been ten months since Tanya walked out on us. Nine since Reese was born. Seven since Maureen was taken. Through all of it, I persevered, or at least made a modest attempt at persevering. But as I worked my way through the days, I discovered only more uncertainty. In fact, at this point the only thing I could be sure of was that I couldn’t be sure of much. There was something appealing about running away from this, about driving until I couldn’t drive anymore and just putting down stakes. But I couldn’t do this now anymore than I could when I rejected Maine and Halifax. Therefore, I continued east on the Long Island Expressway.
We pulled into the driveway and Reese started screaming. Had he just now realized how much he missed his home? Or was he protesting our return, wondering why we weren’t going back to that place with the water and the interesting bugs? I took him out of his car seat and held him for a moment, but he wiggled out of my embrace so he could walk around on the lawn. I started unpacking the car and, keeping a close eye on him, brought my first armload to the porch. It was then that I saw the enveloped taped to the door. I recognized Ally’s handwriting immediately. I scooped Reese up and brought him inside with me so I could read the letter without concern about him walking into the street.
Gerry,
When I learned you had gone away for the week, I have to tell you I was glad. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I see you again. I’ve given some serious thought to leaving Eleanor Miller. I have some feelers out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to simply smile at you as we pass in the hall and I can’t work someplace where just taking a walk can cause me heartache.
I was so deeply, deeply wounded by our last conversation. I don’t think anything has ever hurt me as much as what you said when we got back from the hospital. And what hurt the most was that there was some truth to it. I was playing at being a mother with Reese, though I didn’t realize that this was what I was doing. But if I’m going to be honest with both you and myself, I have to acknowledge that some of what I found so appealing about you when we first became friends was that you had a little kid and were taking care of him by yourself.
You see the rest of the story with Philip is that what ultimately broke us up wasn’t that little pregnancy scare, but what followed. I learned that I would never be able to take a baby to full term. Philip wanted a family and when he learned that I was “damaged goods,” he disappeared as quickly as possible.
So yeah, the idea of hooking up with a guy and his little kid and being needed by both of them seemed pretty romantic. And that was even before I met Reese. Afterward, I just flipped for him. The way he smiles with his whole body. The way his eyes shine. He wasn’t just an attractive idea anymore; he was a living, breathing, magical thing and I was crazy about him.
Of course, I fantasized about being his mother. I started imagining the three of us doing things together. I started imagining doing things with Reese by myself. I felt like the luckiest person on the planet, someone who had gone from the heartbreak of childlessness to being a significant presence in the life of a kid like this. I knew I had volumes to learn about being a parent, but I was hungry to learn all of it.
And to learn all of it from you. It was amazing watching you and Reese together. You were just so natural with him and you cared for him so completely and you found it so absolutely satisfying. In our months together, you taught me things about parenting I never even considered before. But that was only a piece of it. What we shared as lovers was at least as important to me. I already admired you as a colleague and even more as a friend. But when we began seeing each other, I started feeling things I never felt before. It was passion and excitement for sure. But it was something much more complete than that.When I was with you, the entire world seemed more alive to me.
I was totally in love with you. I never told you that because I didn’t want to complicate your life any more than it already was. I knew that you had so much you needed to work out. But I said it to myself all the time. I went to sleep every night telling myself that I loved you.
And when everything fell apart the way it did, I wanted to hate you with the same intensity. If you could hurt me this much, then I had to hate you. But I couldn’t do it. Because when you love someone the way I love you, it doesn’t disappear in an instant. I don’t know that it ever disappears.
I thought that you should know these things. It’ll probably make seeing each other on Monday even more awkward, but I had to tell you anyway. I hope you had a good time on your trip with Reese. And I hope you thought about you and me a little. And I hope you felt at least some of what I felt when we were together.
Love,
Ally
I was stunned. Not by the revelations in the letter, though some of them were shocking. But by Ally’s willingness to lay herself out the way she did. After what I’d said to her, after what I’d done, she was still willing to reveal these things to me. She was remarkable.
And I needed her. In that moment, I realized that my ambivalence was never about her. I was as certain about my feelings for Ally as I had ever been about anything. All of my consternation had been over having those feelings, but none of it was about the feelings themselves. She emerged in front of me and made me better. She not only started to heal me, but she made me believe I could be strong again. And though I knew that Maureen would loom large in my life forever and that I would never let go of what we had together, I also knew that allowing her to come between Ally and me was a tragic mistake. I’d lost Maureen because fate intervened – something I’d never fully get over. But if I lost Ally, it would be my own doing – and that would forever diminish me.
Reese toddled past me and I picked him up and headed for the bedroom. There, I could close the door and have the hugely important phone conversation I needed to have while he roamed free.
“I love you too,” I said as soon as she answered.
“You do?” she said in a voice I couldn’t completely read.
“I love you. I knew I loved you. I was just afraid to love you. And I’m so, so sorry I let that hurt you.”
“Are you sure you mean this?”
“I am totally sure I mean it. Do I still have a bunch of stuff to work out because of it? Yeah, probably. But there’s no question in my mind. None whatsoever.”
She was quiet on the other end for a long moment. I couldn’t picture what she was doing. “Did you have a nice trip,” she said at last.
“The trip was good.” The baby stumbled past me, fell on the carpet, and picked himself back up. “Oh, Reese walks now.”
“He does? I wish I was there to see that.”
“Me too. Come see it now.”
“I can’t. I told my sister I’d take care of my niece. I’m just getting ready to leave.”
“Tonight?”
“It might be late.”
“Whenever. I really need to see you.” I hesitated for a second “Ally?”
“Yeah?”
“This is a ridiculous thing for me to say, but please don’t have second thoughts on me.”
She chuckled a little. “No second thoughts. Just a prior engagement.”
“I love you.”
“I am so glad. I love you too. Give Reese a hug for me.”
“It won’t be the same. I think he really misses your hugs.”
She sniffled. “You think so?”
“I know it. You weren’t playing. This is very, very real and you are great at it. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
I put the phone down, grabbed Reese, and bounced him on the bed, tickling him. He laughed uproariously, ev
en though he had no idea how much better his life had just become. We played like this for a while and then I sat up.We had errands to run – no food in the house, down to our last three diapers, that sort of thing – and while I was loath to get back in the car and suffer the consequences of strapping him into his seat again, I knew we had to do it.
While we finished shopping, the sun cut through a thick layer of clouds. I thought all day that it was going to rain, but now it looked like the weather was going to be okay. I took Reese to the playground – the one where he first got to know Ally – and we stayed there for nearly an hour, Reese squealing loudly or rapt with fascination. We had come here dozens of times with Ally and I knew we would return as a trio countless times in the future. That made me extremely happy. I pushed him on the swings and allowed myself – maybe for the first real time – to think about sharing the days to come with the new woman I loved. I’d cursed my luck more times than I could calculate over the past seven months, but it turned out that fortune hadn’t turned its back on me. It had given me a new partner, someone to share the life I had now and welcome what lay ahead.
And someone who would always understand that there was another person walking beside us, inhabiting my most personal spaces.Maureen was eternal within me. She was a part of my eyes, my hands, my mind, and my soul. She helped me form the words I spoke. She helped me see the world I saw. I would never let her go, and I understood now that I never needed to. Love is always custom built. And every time it happens, it brings its own unique qualities. Maureen and Ally could co-exist and each remain vibrant in my heart.
• • •
Reese fell asleep on the ride back to the house. It was very late for him to nap, but I didn’t try to wake him. He barely moved as I settled him into his crib.
I went back to the car to get some of the grocery bags.When I brought them into the kitchen, I found Tanya sitting there. For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But no, she really was here. She was thinner than I remembered and her hair was unkempt. But she seemed healthy. And her eyes were bright.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure that I could. And I wasn’t certain what she would do if I approached her. I didn’t want to do anything to make her disappear again. So, even though I’m sure I looked ridiculous to her, I stood three steps into the kitchen holding my grocery bags.
“Turns out that the runaway train stops here,” she said.
“One way?” I said tentatively.
She broke eye contact for a minute. “I think so.”
“Then that makes this a very good day.”
Tanya looked around the kitchen. Her eyes stopped often and I followed her gaze, trying to get a sense of what she saw.
“Mom’s really gone,” she said.
“I’m so sorry, Queenie.”
She smiled slightly. “I thought I told you I hated that nickname.”
I closed my eyes for a second. Don’t do anything to make her go away. “I’ll never use it again.”
“I didn’t say I wanted that.”
I was still holding the grocery bags. I put them down but then found I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I wanted desperately to hold her, but I was still so fearful of her reaction. Only once before had I ever been this nervous in my own home.
“I have something for you,” I said, turning to go to the library. I returned with the journal and handed it to her. It was the closest we’d come to one another so far. “I wrote this for you while you were away.”
“This is that blank book from a couple of Christmases ago.”
“Yeah.”
She ran her hand over the leather cover. “I guess Mom was right.” I didn’t even realize she was aware of that exchange, though of course I knew she was in the room.
Tanya opened the book and looked at the title page. She glanced up at me. “I’m gonna go to my room for a while, okay?”
I nodded.When she passed me, I reached my hand out to her and she squeezed it for a moment and looked deeply into my eyes. Then she squeezed my hand one more time and walked away.
She was gone for more than an hour. It was so hard for me to believe that my daughter, who I’d lost in a variety of ways over the years and nearly completely ten months ago, was only a few dozen feet away from me. Her room was the same as it had been the last time she saw it. I hadn’t touched it, had barely gone into it, since she left.
I put away the groceries and sat in the family room, staring at that antique wall hanging Maureen loved so much and wondered what she would think of everything that had happened today.
Reese woke up from his nap. As I went to get him, I glanced at Tanya’s closed door, trying to guess which entry she was reading at that moment. What was she thinking? Did she understand why I wrote these pages? Did she know what it meant to me to do so?
Reese and I returned to the family room, and he walked around a little with no obvious destination before settling down on the floor to play with his blocks. I didn’t sit with him, but unlike with Tanya, it wasn’t because I was afraid to. I knew how Reese would react to me, how he always did. I just wanted to watch him for a while.
About twenty minutes later, Tanya came into the room. She glanced at Reese, but his attention was elsewhere and I don’t think he noticed her. Then she looked over at me and our eyes met.Whether it was something about the way they touched or something she read in the journal or just the sheer power of being in this house again, I don’t know. But she took several quick steps in my direction and then threw herself into my arms. She buried her head in my chest and we cried together for an immeasurable length of time.
“I missed you, Dad.”
“I’m right here, Queenie.”
We held each other for a long time without saying another word. At one point, I checked in on Reese, who had moved on to yet another toy but seemed perfectly satisfied to play by himself. It was almost as though he knew how much I needed to spend a little time with my daughter.
Eventually Tanya leaned back against the couch with my arm still around her shoulders. She tilted her head back and looked off into somewhere. Then she turned back to me.
“Ally?” she said.
I offered her a half-smile. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“I guess we do.” She smiled and then leaned her head into the crook of my neck. Once again, we didn’t say anything for several minutes. The feel of this girl in my arms was not all that different from the way it felt when she was four or eight or eleven. But at the same time, it was overwhelmingly new. And like everything else that mattered, it was imprinted upon me forever.
A few minutes later, Tanya leaned up, kissed me on the cheek, and got off the couch.
“Gotta get to know my baby brother,” she said, kneeling down to see what he was playing with.
• • •
Maureen always told me I was too much of an optimist. She said I left myself open to too much heartache by believing the best was in the offing. I would be safer, she said, if I was at least marginally prepared for the worst.
In the last ten months, I’d done my share of preparing for – and experiencing – the worst. I’d had long-held notions challenged and sometimes proven wrong. I’d had the very foundation I built my life upon crumble underneath me. I’d experienced more dark moods, disillusionment, and defeat in three hundred days than I had in nearly forty years.
But as my daughter held a toy phone to her ear and made my son laugh with the exaggerated voice she used; and as Ally entertained her niece in some way or other as a prelude to returning to my life to stay; and as the hangings on the wall and the songs in the piano bench and the children on the floor confirmed for me that nothing I ever cherished would disappear from my soul, it was hard not to feel optimistic.
Under the circumstances, I think Maureen would have approved.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
When You Went Away means a great deal to me and I can only hope that you’ve enjoyed it and that you experienced
some of the affection I felt for the characters and passion I felt for the various topics I explored. When You Went Away is the Zrst of several novels I’ll be publishing with great rapidity over the new few years. These stories have been building up inside of me for quite a while now and it is a true joy to get them on the page at last.
The title of my next novel is Crossing the Bridge. Like When You Went Away, it’s a love story. But also like When You Went Away, it addresses many other things as well. It’s about the places we have in our families and the expectations our families place on us. It is about what happens when we refuse to face loss head-on. And it is about how memories and secrets intertwine and sometimes bring us somewhere very different than we ever intended to go.
What follows here is a snippet from the opening of the novel. You can read a longer piece at MichaelBaronBooks.com. There, you can also get some more stuff, including music, essays, and other things that I haven’t considered yet but very well might by the time you read this book. While you’re there, drop me a note at [email protected].
Thanks,
Michael
FROM
CROSSING THE BRIDGE :
They closed the Pine River Bridge for six hours after my brother drove off it. I heard that the rush hour commute was a nightmare that day. I remember thinking that Chase, who loved to make fun of the “drones” heading to Hartford every morning in their Brooks Brothers suits, would have found it satisfying to see so many of them backed up on River Road, chaZng at the maintenance crews who couldn’t possibly appreciate how valuable their time was. Chase could Znd entertainment in practically anything. He would have found even this amusing.
By the time the police reopened the bridge for traffic, my mother was on her third Valium and my father hadn’t moved from the window in hours. I wasn’t sure what he thought he would Znd by looking out there. It wasn’t Chase. Richard Penders knew his son was gone forever.
When You Went Away Page 27