Rose closed her eyes as an unexpected wave of nausea overwhelmed her. If Liddy was right, it was clear her own relationship was doomed. She had had a conversation with Peter the previous week about childproofing the house, during which he had fallen asleep.
“Three. Discuss money, politics, and/or religion with your children, but do not denigrate your ex’s point of view. Even if it’s why you separated.”
Thank goodness, thought Rose, Peter and I never argue about those things. And it was true. As career academics in liberal arts living in New York City, they both shared the same measured, careful (or “penny-pinching,” as Liddy had once referred to it) outlook and were committed to recycling, the Democrats, and godlessness.
“Then for tip number four I have to do something about ‘communication,’ but I’ve got my own twist on that. Sometimes decisions have to be unilateral. You can’t hide behind the other parent once you’ve split. Or even if you haven’t, frankly. Parenting can be a lonely business whatever your situation.There are things you just have to get on with.”
Rose was not sure now how helpful this book would be to anyone. It seemed to be turning into a Vindication of the Rights of Liddy. Rose lifted her right hand and examined her nails. Pregnancy had made them weak and split-y.
“Rose, I’m feeling good,” Liddy said, smiling happily. “This stuff is beginning to write itself.”
“Lucky you,” said Rose, and when Liddy asked her what she meant, she told her about Professor Sophia Lesnar and the situation at work, and that even thinking about it made her feel queasy.
“Don’t worry,” Liddy replied briskly. “It’s good timing, actually. You’ll have to go to bed early every night, so you can put your laptop on a tray and bash the article out over your bump.”
Rose, suddenly ill, felt unable to take on Liddy one on one, exactly like Corinthia Jordan in the Style section. Of course Liddy would find a way to fit extra work in during pregnancy, in the same way that she viewed a colonoscopy as an opportunity for weight loss.
“Would you make me a cup of tea, Liddy? I’m not feeling well.”
She shivered, and Liddy stopped being sententious and became solicitous.
“Do you need a doctor?” she said calmly, pulling her cardigan off and wrapping it around Rose’s shoulders.
“No,” said Rose, shaking her head vigorously, and motioning for Liddy to carry on and fill the kettle, but a sudden pain in her belly overtook her and her hands clenched white over it and she cried out to Liddy, who knew the time for keeping calm was over.
Liddy immediately called Vince, her driver, and got Rose and the boys into the car. Within ten minutes they were at University Hospital, where Barbara, too tense for tears, ran over to them and took Rose down a corridor on a trolley, but not before Rose clutched Liddy’s hand and said, “Pray for a miracle, Liddy, I used all mine up,” and Liddy kissed her forehead and did.
For He said, Liddy whispered, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from there to here,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
And then Liddy became aware of a high-pitched sniveling beside her and she turned to see Cal sobbing and crying out for Mr. Oz, the cuddly kangaroo he had left at Carroll Gardens, and Matty juddering with the force of his emotions, repeating, “What’s happening? What’s happening? Is the baby going to die?” and when Liddy did not say anything, just reached her hand out to touch his face to calm him, he told her to get OFF and hit her arm away so hard she yelped, “Matty! Don’t do that!” and shook her hand, which hurt, but he looked up straight into her face, fearless.
“I’ll do as I please,” he said, and walked over to the drinks machine, truculently scrabbling for change in his pockets as Liddy stood still, impotent, frozen first by the look on her elder son’s face and then by embarrassment, as at least six people, including two health professionals, had witnessed the exchange.
At this moment, Peter burst through the glass doors and ran toward her.
“Where’s Rose?” he asked.
“They took her off down there. Barbara’s with her,” she said, and without thinking they embraced, and for a long moment all the enmity between them disappeared and they dissolved into each other’s bodies in the way that only once-lovers can do. Peter pulled away first.
“Thank you, Liddy, thank you for getting her here.”
“I’m so sorry, Peter . . .” she began, but he had walked away as Matty silently linked his arm in his father’s and the two of them headed up the corridor, searching.
Left behind, Liddy felt Cal’s body wrapped around her leg, and grateful for his compliance, she lifted him into her arms and they sat down together, her promising to send Vince back for Mr. Oz. There were still tears on Cal’s face, so she stuck her hand into the bottom of her purse searching for a tissue and pulled out the yellowing linen handkerchief Sebastian Stackallan had handed her almost three months ago and that she had not thrown away, though now she wished she had. It was a vivid and unpleasant reminder of another scene that had not played out according to Liddy’s approved script, and a sudden and unwanted vision of Stackallan appeared in front of her now—his arrogant smile, the way he tilted his head as he prepared to make an argument, the fact that you could never tell from his tone of voice whether he was about to be nice or nasty. She shuddered and stuffed the handkerchief back beneath a stale and squashed York Pepppermint Pattie, and wiped Cal’s face with her sweater instead.
She looked up. Barbara had reappeared, smiling thinly, but it was a real smile, and the news was good. It had all been very frightening and there had been some bleeding, but the baby was fine—so far. And the two women felt an urge to embrace, yet made the same decision to quell it. So instead they walked into the side ward together, Cal between them, Barbara unable to resist having a quick look at Liddy to see if she showed any evidence of the Vampire Facial around her cheekbones.
Peter and Matty were lying on either side of Rose, Peter on the right, his face buried in her hair, and Matty on the left, his arms wrapped tightly around hers, his head against her shoulder, eyes closed, smiling, so content that for a moment Liddy did not recognize him. Barbara sat down on the end of the bed and told them that Rose had gestational hypertension and that she must stay in the hospital for at least a week. Then, if her condition stabilized, the obstetric team would allow her home for bed rest for the next five months.
“Bed rest?” said Rose weakly. “That’s like something out of Gone With the Wind. What does it mean?”
“It means bed rest, my love,” replied Peter, “where you lie in bed, day and night.”
“But I have to go to work,” said Rose, gripping his forearm. “My job’s on the line.”
“For God’s sake, forget about that!”
“What about income protection?” asked Liddy.
“It doesn’t cover pregnancy,” said Peter, in the weary voice of someone who had waged innumerable unsuccessful wars against the university’s Human Resources Department.
“Bullshit! This isn’t about normal pregnancy. Look at the state of her,” said Liddy, typically straightforward. “I want her contract couriered to my office tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll call them first thing and tell them I’m her lawyer.”
“Thank you, Liddy,” said Rose.
Liddy leaned over to her and stroked Rose’s hair from her forehead. “If there’s any trouble they can get ready for one of my special letters,” she whispered.
Barbara grinned and turned to Peter.
“Rose really mustn’t leave the house. You’ll have to look after her.”
“I’ll look after her,” said Matty bravely, but Peter shook his head and stood up.
“No, son.” And then he looked at Liddy, who nodded.
“Matty, you’re going to move in with me for a while,” she said.
&nbs
p; There was a long silence.
Barbara got up and kissed everyone good night, including Liddy by accident, and those left around the bed all looked at each other as the clip of her heels disappeared down the corridor.
Liddy made an awkward stretching movement with her arms.
“I guess we’ll head off then. Cal. Matty.” She looked at Peter. “I’ll get Vince to drop over tomorrow for Matty’s stuff.”
“But I want Mr. Oz now!” said Cal.
“Don’t bother,” said Matty. “I’m not going.”
“Matty . . .” warned Peter.
“You can’t make me, Dad. I’m staying with you and Rose.”
“No, you’re not,” said Liddy, her tone beginning to take on an adversarial note. “Your father and I have joint custody of you and we worked out an arrangement in your best interests. Now that’s going to change—”
“Don’t be so smug!” the boy shouted furiously. “You think you can make everyone do what you want but you can’t. I have rights!”
Liddy felt a white-hot wave of rage engulf her now, and a dismaying urge to lift the hand he had bruised and strike him pulsed through her. She managed to take a breath.
“I am going to the car now. Peter, I expect you to tell our son to join me.”
And she looked away, as she could see Peter was about to cry.
“Matty, sweetheart,” said Rose softly, “I love you so much, but you must see that your dad and I can’t look after you properly for a little while. So you have to do this for me, so I won’t be worried about you.”
Rose gestured for him to come close and she hugged him and stroked his hair. And now a kindly nurse appeared to check on Rose and, smiling at Matty who was lying in Rose’s arms, turned to everyone and said, “Now there’s a boy who loves his mother.”
Peter gently helped Matty away from Rose, and Rose was grateful that the nurse bustled around her, sticking a thermometer in her mouth, pouring her more water, as she did not wish to dwell upon the expression she had just glimpsed on Liddy’s face. She was suddenly gripped by an uncomfortable feeling that Barbara was right and the cruel fates were just getting started with Liddy.
And Liddy, the real Liddy, felt something, too, the funny feeling again that brought tears to her eyes and made her vulnerable and careless. She took a deep breath and counted to five. She lifted her phone to summon assistance.
Matty refused to get out of the car and the only person he would talk to was Vince, so Liddy left them together in earnest debate about WWE, as she and Cal ran back into the house in Carroll Gardens in search of Mr. Oz. They found him under the cushion with the red wine stain from the faculty party Liddy had hosted in 2006, and this made Liddy shudder. Tonight she had learned that the house haunted her, not Rose, and the reason Rose had never changed the furniture or painted the walls in a different color, Rose Garden Pink as Liddy had suggested, was because she did not care about such things.
Everything in it that mattered had become hers.
Quality time is as important as quantity time, the child psychologist had said, and whenever Liddy parroted that to her clients (often when arguing for Skype access or, as she preferred to say, “virtual visitation”), she was emboldened by the fact that no one could accuse her of not practicing what she preached.
Up to now, she had even believed it.
But as she looked at Matty’s back, hunched over, his shoulder blades jutting out of his black hoodie, rigid with an emotion that she knew would have unpleasant repercussions for her, it dawned on her that she had become Mom2, and her role in his life was to enjoy the compliments from waiting staff about his good behavior in restaurants, work ceaselessly to provide the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to, and nag him occasionally about his math results. How had that happened? She had sacrificed so much for him.
Liddy closed her eyes. She was well aware what military organization, no social life, and working late had brought her. She was a grown-up. She had made choices. And she was allergic to the whining of the privileged, or any form of self-pitying introspection, particularly her own. No, she could not think about anything now, it would drive her crazy. She decided she would think about it tomorrow.
As they turned onto Hudson Street, she finally remembered to switch on her phone and was greeted by a fanfare of pinging messages. She scrolled through quickly, ignoring all but the four from Curtis Oates, as the car pulled up outside her building. Mark the doorman came out, greeting Matty enthusiastically. But Matty ignored him and Liddy’s humiliation continued. She hurried into the lobby—she had noticed Lloyd Fosco, languid in black, in front of the furniture shop opposite and did not want to discuss a dinner date in front of an audience—and Mark lifted a sleeping Cal out of the backseat and carried him inside. In the elevator, Matty started singing a song too loudly, rocking backward and forward and thumping his forehead against the steel wall every two beats, so Liddy made strained small talk about the weather until the doors opened at her apartment. She overtipped Mark so he might still like her, despite the rude, not to mention disturbing, behavior of her elder child.
Liddy hurried the boys into the perfectly proportioned white living space and escaped out of the darkness with relief. She turned and locked the apartment door behind them and for the first time in several hours felt safe. The irreplaceable Lucia was waiting in the kitchen, a plate of sandwiches, mugs of hot chocolate, and a large glass of merlot reassuringly at the ready. Cal sleepwalked into Lucia’s open arms and they headed into his bedroom. Matty sat and ate with morose intent. Liddy took a large gulp of wine and checked her e-mails. Then Lucia returned and, with an affectionate pat on Matty’s back, chivied him toward the shower. Liddy looked for the dog. She saw a small puddle of liquid on the stripped oak floor.
Oh, no, Coco! She cursed silently but said nothing. She had left a note for Lucia reminding her to take the dog out at least four times a day, but Lucia was unsentimental about animal welfare and strongly disapproved of keeping animals in the city, so Liddy knew this was some sort of statement.
She grabbed a roll of paper towels and scurried over, but as she knelt down, she felt a sudden splash on the back of her neck. She looked up. A drip fell onto her face. She picked up a vase of yellow roses and stuck it under the slow stream, but before she could even ponder the implications of water leaking through the walls or ceiling or an exposed pipe, which the architect had left as an interior feature, she heard a displeased shriek from Cal.
She ran into the bedroom where Cal was standing on the bed pointing at the floor. Her nose wrinkled at the sweet, acrid smell that greeted her. She knew it could mean only one thing. Her shoe sunk into a yellow-green turd that the dog had deposited beside the door. This time her curse was not silent.
She seized the canister of instant pet trainer, a device that shoots compressed air in the direction of an errant animal in order to discipline it, and one of which she had placed in every room in order to house-train this four-legged impulse purchase she had bought on Christopher Street when Cal pleaded. Liddy sprayed it vigorously, the loud hissing causing Cal to cry out but Coco only to yap cutely and scrabble away. She took off her shoe gingerly and took another handful of paper towels to clean up the mess from shoe and floor. She vowed that if the animal ever crapped on the cream carpet at the foot of her bed, she would pay someone to make it disappear and tell Cal it was run over. She suspected he would not even notice.
She tucked Cal into bed and came out to find Matty, the dog clutched in his arms, hot chocolate splattered around his mouth, standing in the doorway of his room staring at her. For one moment she thought, Maybe this is conciliatory? Maybe he’s decided he wants to be here?
“What about my lunch tomorrow?” he said.
“You’re on the meal plan,” said Liddy.
He rolled his eyes contemptuously, put the dog down, and pointed to his chin.
“I don’t eat pro
cessed foods anymore. Doctor Barbara said it might help my skin.”
“What?”
“Look at my face! It’s repulsive.”
Liddy peered. Yes, there was a cluster of tiny pimples.
“Oh, I can hardly see them, but, okay, we’ll stop at Subway on the way to school and buy something.”
“I told you I’m not eating processed foods. Rose makes me a salad every night. I like quinoa—”
“That’s enough. Don’t wake Cal. Go to bed.”
“Of course. Don’t wake Cal!”
He turned and slammed his door behind him.
“And brush your teeth!” shouted Liddy, although by now she didn’t care whether he did or not. She took a breath.
“Good night. I love you,” she said.
“Good night to you, too!” he shouted back and Liddy fired off another hiss of pet trainer, although she knew that it had no effect whatsoever on a teenage boy.
She turned to see Lucia silently wrapping the untouched sandwiches in foil. Lucia held views about everything, from the Affordable Care Act to Beyoncé, and always shared them. But not tonight.
“I’m sorry, Lucia,” said Liddy. “Thank you for coming over. I know it’s very late.”
Lucia nodded but did not reply. Liddy knew well that the emphatic manner in which she moved from fridge to kitchen counter was another sort of statement, in the same way as the quiet refusal to walk the dog.
“I’d be lost without you, you know,” said Liddy. She could not bear Lucia’s disapproval.
Lucia nodded. “You need to go to bed, Liddy. Two boys and a dirty dog. It’s a lot.”
Suddenly Liddy’s phone rang. It was Curtis, with the admonishing tone he always took when he could not get hold of her exactly when he wanted. He asked her where she’d been, and when she said the hospital he ignored this and told her he was summoning the partners for a breakfast meeting at seven a.m. the following morning.
The Real Liddy James Page 5