Acts of Contrition

by Handford, Jennifer

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Dom says.

  “I want to stay with you,” Danny says.

  “That’s great, guys!” I say, finding the Vince Lombardi in me. “But you’re going to school, and you’re going to love it! It’s going to be the best! Come on, now. Eat up your oatmeal so we can go check it out.”

  Each swirls his spoon through the gruel. Danny, my child who barely eats, looks at me with worried eyes.

  “Four bites,” I say. “Because you’re four years old, right?” I hold up their lunch boxes. “Look! You’re all packed. Dom, remember, you picked out Spider-Man, and Danny, you picked out the one with all the dinosaurs! Look, T. rex! I even packed you two Oreos!” I slap my hand over my mouth like it is truly scandalous to give them two whole Oreos apiece.

  The boys shrug and begin to discuss dinosaurs.

  “T. rexes are the best,” Danny says, anchoring his elbows along his sides, waving his menacing little T. rex arms.

  “Yeah, but brachiosaurs have really long necks,” Dom says, sticking out his neck so far his mouth stretches and he looks like a skeleton.

  It still amuses me to hear my four-year-olds say pterodactyl and triceratops. I’m a girl who has been surrounded by girls her entire life: first sisters, then daughters. The boy stuff still has a way of shocking me. Dinosaurs, trucks and tractors, peeing contests.

  By eight fifteen the boys have eaten a respectable amount of oatmeal and drunk their milk in exchange for mini-marshmallows, and we are upstairs preparing to get dressed.

  “Let’s go potty!” I yell, and start in the direction of the bathroom. Instinctively, the boys start to waddle, splaying their feet, their hands out to the side, quacking. When we began potty training, I had pretended I was the mommy duck and they fell in line behind me. Once something sticks with kids, there’s no getting rid of it.

  My oldest sister, Martina, once told me, “Don’t think that what you’re doing with them now won’t be the same exact thing you’re doing with them ten years from now.” She was talking about bad habits, like letting the kids sleep in our bed or leave the table without cleaning their plates. But I know the stickiness rule applies to other things, too, like the way Tom and I profess our love to our children each day with a ferocity that leaves no question as to how we feel about our treasured gifts. If something sticks, I hope it’s that, a film that covers each of them like a security blanket, an assurance that leaves them with a resounding echo in their ears, “I’m loved.”

  Danny goes right away, quacking all the while.

  “Good job, baby duck!” I cheer. “Mommy duck is so proud!”

  Dom’s hovering in the doorway.

  “Come on, Dom. Your turn. Quack.”

  “I don’t have to go,” he says, holding his hands across his pants, as clear as a NO TRESPASSING sign.

  Dom is just barely potty trained, and the preschool had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the children must be! No Pull-Ups. If they kick him out of preschool on his first day, I will seriously need to check myself into a mental hospital.

  “Come on, buddy! You can do it!” If he can just go now, he’ll be fine for the three hours of preschool.

  “No,” he says, tightening the grip across his crotch.

  I kneel down and look into his eyes. “What’s it going to take, champ?” I say, lowering my voice, sounding awfully like a used-car salesman. “We need to get this done.”

  “I don’t want to go,” he says.

  “M&M’s,” I say.

  He shakes his head.

  “Marshmallows.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Chocolate chips,” I say.

  “I want six,” he says.

  “Four.”

  “Five.”

  “Fine,” I say, “you little tyrant,” and breathe a gigantic sigh of relief at the satisfying sound of trickling wee-wee.

  I know from the girls that no good can come from lingering in the classroom. It is always best to drop off the kids and go. So after I get Dom and Danny situated in their preschool room, unpack the backpacks and lunch boxes into cubbies, and hang sweatshirts on the hooks, I slip out of the room as stealthily as a secret agent, while the boys are building a wall out of brick-sized cardboard blocks.

  Once in the minivan, I breathe a gigantic sigh of relief and think maybe I’m hearing a chorus of angels, but then I realize that the Laurie Berkner CD is blaring through the boys’ headphones, which are plugged into the van’s sound system. I head straight to Starbucks, get the latte and apple fritter I’ve been fantasizing about, and then cross the road and park in front of the nail salon. With the fritter on its way to my thighs, I take the rest of my latte and head inside. I pick out my nail polish (Tasmanian Devil Red) and the latest People magazine and head back to the comfy massage chairs, exhaling and sinking into the soft leather glove. The technician starts the massage rollers and I close my eyes.

  “Relax, miss,” she says.

  “I’m trying,” I say, and take a deep breath, willing my shoulders to drop. “Believe me, I’m trying.” I hasten to tell her that I’ve been here before—literally and figuratively—and though I wasn’t usually superstitious, I had every reason to be wary.

  Four years ago I attempted to scale this version of Everest only to be kicked down to base camp, landing flat on my butt. The day I dropped off the girls at school for the first time was the day I found out I was pregnant with twins.

  As the technician massages my feet, and the automatic rollers knead my back, I am finally in the zone, finding that pure relaxation I so seldom enjoy. I exhale deeply and take stock. Four kids, a great husband, a nice home in a good suburb with reputable schools. Mom and Dad just down the road. All three of my sisters still in the DC/Virginia/Maryland area. A few bucks stashed away for the kids’ college and our retirement. Our eleventh anniversary just around the corner. A celebratory trip to Ireland has been mentioned. Life is good, I’m thinking, as the technician lifts my foot and begins scrubbing at my heel.

  I take another deep breath. Sure, there were sacrifices. I had practiced law for only three years when I gave it up to marry Tom and to have kids. But it was worth it. It’s what I had always wanted. The only ladder I ever wanted to climb was the one that ended around the same dinner table every night. Now the payday was upon me. After ten years filled with three pregnancies and full-time child rearing, I was finally having my day. A few hours to myself. In no time Danny and Dom would be in school full-time like Sally and Em, then my days would really be my own. Maybe I’d go back to work. Maybe I’d just volunteer, leaving plenty of time for Tom and the kids.

  After Sally and Emily were born, Tom and I considered the possibility of another baby. Definitely, we both agreed. And seeing that we’d conceived Emily on our first try only months after Sally was born, we were certain we could get pregnant whenever we wanted. But month after month my period arrived like clockwork. I chalked up those frustrating first months to pure exhaustion. After all, I was caring for two babies day in and day out. Then a year passed and still no pink line. Then another year. After a battery of tests at the gynecologist’s office, I was ruled to have secondary infertility.

  “Stress can be a huge factor,” the doctor said. “Are you under an unreasonable amount of stress?” He directed the question to me because Tom had already been checked out, receiving a silver star sticker for his sperm’s high count and speedy motility.

  I nodded but didn’t speak. I didn’t wish to elaborate on the fact that the decade before I met Tom was a snowball gathering speed, and if it crashed into me, I’d be flattened. Enough stress to level a town.

  “There’s stress,” Tom answered for me. “A boatload of stress.” The doctor nodded sympathetically. Who knew what he thought Tom was referring to—the stress of caring for two young girls, maybe—but I knew we were talking about Landon. Or, mostly, furiously not talking about him. After several years of absolutely no contact, my ex-boyfriend had resurfaced.

&
nbsp; The girls were little—Sally was three, Emily two. We were at Gymboree class when my cell buzzed. While the girls played under the balloon of a parachute being flown in the air by a circle of eager parents, I slipped around the corner and took the call. Landon was headed overseas for work and had a small life insurance policy that his grandmother had taken out on him when he was a child. It wasn’t much, but he wanted to name me as the beneficiary, just in case his plane went down over the Atlantic.

  That’s crazy, I said to him, name someone else. But he insisted and later that day called me again when I was at home. Rattled—I was alone with the girls, but still—I gave him the information he needed, and jotted down a few chicken-scratch notes about the policy on a scrap of paper I stashed away in the back of my drawer. Months later, Tom was rummaging through my desk, looking for stamps, when he came across it. Though I was terrified, there was a strange relief in being caught, a relief in knowing Tom would finally understand how deep it went with Landon. I would finally come clean, tell my husband everything, and start anew on truthful footing. But my words lost their courage somewhere around my throat, and rather than digging up the truth, I buried it further.

  That was a rough year for us. We’d tried our best to put it behind us and go on with our plans of having more children, but month after month, the pregnancy stick came up with a single, lonely line. It was no wonder, really, with the stress and anxiety that had taken up such sturdy residence right above my heart and below my throat.

  That day, as we drove away from the doctor’s office, Tom gathered himself and said, “It is what it is, Mare. He is what he is, whatever the hell that is.” He stopped himself, took a breath. “The point is, there’s stress in our life and it might be affecting our fertility. We’ll do our best. If nothing happens, then so be it. We’ve got two beautiful girls. And they’ll get twice as much attention because of this.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling a surge of love for him for trying to get past this. “Nothing wrong with being smack in the middle of the bell curve, right?”

  “It’s fine, Mare. Really, we’re fine.”

  While Tom might have been satisfied with two kids, I wanted more. Each month I hoped. Years passed and I continued to hope. I needed more children. I needed our family to be bigger, our familyhood to be harder to breach. I needed our castle to be impenetrable, and it seemed to me that there was strength in numbers. So I continued to hope. I hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, right up until the time the girls were getting ready to start school.

  Then, all of a sudden, the nagging worry disappeared. I was no longer anxious. The truth seemed to lose relevancy, like a photo fading over time, until my recollection of the image was dated and worn. What mattered was the state of my family, and my family was strong. Tom and I had grown as a couple. Our family was solid. All was quiet and right in our life. The want for more children might have still been there, but the need wasn’t. I was at peace. And I was ready for a break. Finding out that I was pregnant the same day I dropped off my girls at school for their first time seemed not so much like a joke, not even really an irony. It seemed more like I’d been the subject of a prank.

  My eyes are closed and I’m wishing that the young Vietnamese girl who is massaging my legs will never stop. She’s rubbing sea salt exfoliant onto my calves, kneading her palm into my muscle, and it feels so good I can hardly stand it. I do the quick math, considering the possibility of a weekly pedicure. Forty dollars a week, about two thousand dollars a year. Money that we could send to the kids’ college accounts. Okay, maybe not every week. Maybe once a month. Maybe I should get a part-time job first.

  What should we have for dinner? Grilled chicken, maybe. There’s a package in the freezer, but I’ll need to remember to take it out when I get home or it’ll never thaw. Mom’s birthday is next month. I’ll need to get her a present. Emily has rehearsal for Oliver! tonight. Sally has soccer practice. I wonder if the boys will take a nap when they get home. I need to make some doctors’ appointments—physicals for the girls, well-baby appointments for the boys. Need to call the dentist—confirm the kids’ cleanings. Pay the bills, milk and eggs at the store, dry cleaning to be picked up. My eyelids stop twitching and fluttering.

  I’m finally in a state of blissful relaxation when—for the second time today—I hear the one name that still sends a tremor shooting down my spine. I look up at the television screen and, in spite of myself, I warm at the sight of Landon James. I tell myself it’s like spotting a friend in a high school yearbook and marveling, Where has the time gone? But it’s more than that, of course. Years ago he promised to love me and he didn’t. Then years later he promised to let me get on with my life and he didn’t. And, more years later, after I was happily married with two daughters and trying for more, he showed up in my life again with the bizarre life insurance request. After that Tom and I fought to regain balance in our relationship, to get on with our lives, and eventually we did. But there were two other times—once before Tom and I were married, and once after—that I saw Landon, too. This, my past—and the truths that are held in it—keeps me on guard every day of my life, for fear that I will be revealed as exactly what Tom’s brother, Patrick, suspected me to be.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Powerless

  IT’S SUNDAY MORNING AND THE six of us are crammed into a pew at nine o’clock Mass at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. I’m nodding hello to our neighbor, who is sitting a few rows up, when Dom or Danny slams the kneeler down onto my foot. I grumble an expletive under my breath while my eyelashes flutter double time trying to quell the impending tears. I send an empathetic grimace to the Jesus statue, swallowing the metallic taste pooling in my mouth. My foot is throbbing, and even worse, I’m mad at myself for making such a rookie mistake. Always put the kneeler down immediately! Any Catholic parent of small children knows that.

  Sally and Emily sit on the other side of Tom. Half an hour ago they were still in their pajamas. Now they’re wearing shiny dresses from holidays past: Sally’s in a mint-green dress from Easter that now, five months later, is pulling tight at her arms and struggling to hit knee level. Emily’s wearing a taffeta Christmas skirt with a bright yellow cardigan and a polka-dot scarf wrapped around her neck. Her Ugg boots stick out from the floor-length skirt. Her outfits are crazy and would make anyone else look like a gypsy or bag lady, but Emily pulls them off, like a Manhattan hipster. Each girl has opted for a headband, our compromise for dealing with shoddy hair brushing. They know I’m relatively happy as long as the mops aren’t in their faces.

  I’m sandwiched between the boys, whispering commands to them every five seconds: look forward, hands together, sit up, be quiet. The priest is talking about our opportunity to repent and to return home, to leave our hopeless state, and is referring to the parable of the prodigal son. I’m covering Dom’s hand with my own and putting my arm around Danny, signaling for him to pay attention, to listen to the priest. When I was younger and my senses were more keen for recognizing moral rightness and wrongness, I remember taking issue with this parable. How’s that fair? I remember thinking. Where’s the justice? My sister Teresa and I used to debate parables such as that one. She, arguably the most faithful of us sisters, would criticize my brand of belief.

  “Your faith, Mare, isn’t blind,” she would say. “You go at it like a lawyer. Your faith is negotiated: ‘If you do this, God, then I’ll do this.’ ”

  “Fair’s fair,” I’d respond, even though I knew that Teresa was right, that the real measure of faith lay in receiving home a son no matter where he had roamed.

  It’s time for Communion and I watch Sally and Emily stand, each with her prayer hands, head low, eyes forward. Emily made her First Holy Communion this past spring and Sally made hers the year before. For each girl we had a huge celebration, presents piled high, flowers covering the tables, a banquet of food that rivaled a wedding meal. Mom cooked for days: trays of antipasto; gnocchi, ravioli, and lasagna; filet mignon, a crowned rack of lam
b; cakes, crème caramel, and cannoli as far as the eye could see.

  On both occasions, my parents and sisters came, Tom’s parents and brother. A photographer took portraits of the girls in their white dresses, veils, and gloves. Rosary beads cradled in their hands. The pride swells in me as I remember, and I choke back a gulp of emotion. These girls are growing up faster than I can process, and sometimes their beauty seizes me in a stranglehold.

  Dom and Danny walk up with me and whine when we sit down because they want a wafer. I tell them we’ll get doughnuts if they’re good and then slide onto my knees and apologize for making deals during Communion, though I doubt I’m the first mother to negotiate her way out of this in similar fashion.

  I signal again for the boys to pay attention, put their hands in prayer position, and sit up straight. And while I’m acting so pious and devout and obedient as a role model for my children, I’m thinking of Landon James.

  Landon James, whom I’d loved with such fervor and devotion and who’d loved me back in schizophrenic waves of excess at times and treated me with icy distance many others. But now here I am, living the life I treasure with a husband and children, whom I adore, and I’m full, truly full, and more than anything, I am grateful. Yet Landon James still seeps into my brain like a daydream I can’t shake, still holds a claim ticket on my life that I fear every day he will someday collect on.

  I met Landon when I was nineteen years old. The winter before the summer I met him, I had taken a job as an office clerk in the downtown DC law firm of Becker, Fox & Zuckerman. The firm was on the eleventh floor of an impressive glass building on Connecticut Avenue. I could see the Washington Monument from one named partner’s office, the Capitol from several others’. I spent my days sorting through correspondence and pleadings and memos, dashing in and out of the lawyers’ offices to file important documents. When I wasn’t making the rounds, I worked in the gigantic file room itself. Some days I would hide in the back of one of the aisles with a thick stack of paper, reading all the filings, from the first motion. I was fascinated by the legal process, and exhilarated by the charged, personal nature of the information I was reading. I could be a lawyer, I thought. Until I fall in love, get married, and have children, I definitely wouldn’t mind being a lawyer with an office in a building like this with a view of the monuments.