by Lisa Tucker
The consequence of the choices in those cases was completely different. It was a simple matter of logic, but David saw no point in continuing this conversation. He was tired of this guy pacing around, looking down on him, instead of doing his damn job. He was considering contacting someone to complain about the detective—the university community liaison? a lawyer?—when one of the police officers came in to tell Detective Ingle that they needed him to come and look at something in the backyard.
David hoped it was a clue, but at this point, it seemed possible that they needed to discuss why Michael didn’t have a swing set. The detective could rub his hands together and act like he’d proved that David and his wife were inconsistent, because if Michael had wanted a swing set and they’d refused to give him one, then they weren’t hearing and respecting him. But if he hadn’t even wanted one, they’d screwed him up so badly that he didn’t hear or respect himself. Either way, they were failing as parents, which seemed to be what the detective really wanted to prove, though David had no idea why.
At least they weren’t suspects in Michael’s disappearance. David was walking down the hall to find his wife when he overheard one of the officers talking on the phone. “No way. Their kid is everything to them. Trust me, these two are the kind who got on a nursery school waiting list the day after they got married.”
In other circumstances, David would have laughed. They hadn’t even bothered to use a cliché that fit with homeschooling.
SEVEN
Of course the officer was wrong: David and Kyra had not signed on to a nursery school waiting list the day they got married. In fact, one of the founding principles of their relationship was that they would never have children. Even the place where they met seemed to support this decision, at least from David’s point of view.
The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia is one of the world’s only medical museums. Among the exhibits are numerous skeletons, jars full of brains, and a woman whose body was buried in a chemical that turned her fat into soap. On that particular day, David had come to the museum to prepare for a history class he’d gotten stuck teaching for a group of med students who were contemptuous of any class that wasn’t science; he hoped to spice up his lectures with bizarre facts. Kyra was there because it was a Saturday, and she had to go somewhere. It was one of the goals that she’d stuck on her refrigerator: Explore the City. Each week, she forced herself to find some well-reviewed spot in Philadelphia and stay for at least two hours. Only then would she let herself escape back to her apartment, the only place she felt comfortable in her new town.
In the seven months since she’d moved here, she’d made very few friends. She’d come to Philadelphia to take a job writing math test questions for a textbook company. The people she worked with were all married, with the exception of the administrative assistant, an older woman, who might as well have been married given how much time and energy she spent talking and thinking about her ex. They invited Kyra to their homes for Friday night dinners or Sunday barbecues, but she was always the only person who came unaccompanied, and though it didn’t make her that uncomfortable, she could tell her coworkers felt sorry for her and so she’d starting making up excuses not to go. She’d met a few people in her apartment building; she knew them just well enough for a hi-how-are-you exchange in the elevator or the laundry room in the basement. She’d also had a few dates, guys she met through personal ads primarily. They were rarely anything like their descriptions. In fact, she’d sworn off personal ads when the last guy turned out to be not only boring but also fifty-one years old. In his ad, he’d called himself “young enough,” which was not exactly a lie, since he was surely young enough for something.
At the museum she ran into David—literally—when she was leaning in to read one of the information cards on the “wall of skulls.” He was moving right, she was moving left, and they walked into each other. It would have been a mere excuse-me moment, except for the fact that she tripped over her own big feet. She felt like a clumsy idiot, not to mention that the contents of her purse spilled all over the floor.
He knelt down to help her collect her things. He didn’t hesitate to pick up her Tampax; she noticed that and wondered if he was married, though he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She guessed he was a little younger than she was, which turned out to be true, though his hair was already graying. It was cut long, curling over the collar of his blue button-up shirt. He had a large forehead that made him look intelligent and dark brown eyes. His pale skin looked perfect, like he’d never had acne or even been sunburned. But it was his smile that made her decide that there was no reason to be embarrassed. It was such a friendly smile, without a hint of mockery, as if he was incapable of laughing at someone who’d fallen down.
Kyra had never understood why so many people considered falls—and spills and punches and kicks and hits—funny. She didn’t like slapstick, and she especially detested The Three Stooges. Every guy she’d ever met just loved those idiots. The last guy she’d dated considered himself an expert on the show, and had spent a whole dinner expounding on the merits of Curly versus Shemp.
When the stranger reached for her hand to help her up, she felt her face get warm. She stood up as straight as she could, with her purse clutched tightly to her body. She was trying to think of what to say now that they’d gotten past his apology and her insisting it was her fault. A family was headed over to the wall of skulls, which meant they would have to move on.
What happened next was a matter of debate. As Kyra remembered it, David repeated his apology and started to turn away, but before he could leave, she screwed up her courage and said, “I think you owe me a coffee.” David, however, thought that the coffee had been his suggestion. He told her this a few months later, after they’d been together long enough to reminisce about the day they met. He also remembered his motive: “You seemed a little off balance.”
They were in her apartment, a studio on the top floor of a high rise in Rittenhouse Square. Kyra had chosen it because of the large window that provided an expansive view of her new city. They were cuddling together on her small bed, their talk punctuated by the soothing sound of the ticking of Kyra’s clocks. It was snowing outside. The big, fat flakes were floating so slowly, like they were never planning to hit the ground.
“Are you saying you were doing me a favor?” She leaned up on her elbow. “What if I’d been an old lady? Would you still have offered?”
“I hope I would have,” he said, and he obviously meant it. Kyra smiled. “But admittedly, it was easier with you.”
“Why’s that?” She leaned against him. “Because you knew I had a purse full of your favorite flavor of gum?”
“You did, didn’t you?” He smiled. “But no, I think how pretty you were trumped the gum. And that you seemed so kind.”
“In what way? Like good-to-meet-you, let-me-fall-on-the-floor-in-front-of-you kind?”
“Remember when you were looking at the exhibit of surgical instruments?”
She nodded. It was when she first got to the museum, long before she ran into David. She remembered thinking it was so creepy. “I thought of it as the ‘instruments of torture’ display.”
“Do you remember the boy that was making jokes about chopping up his little sister?”
“Yes.” She was surprised that David knew about this. He’d never mentioned it before. “I wondered where their parents were.”
“So did I. And I really admired you for getting the boy to stop. I think it was the way you said it. So matter of fact, without making the boy feel like he was in trouble. You said, ‘Look at her face. See how sad she is. Do you want her to be sad like that? You’re her brother. She needs you to be brave, and show her nothing can hurt her in this scary place.’ ”
Kyra surprised herself with how pleased she was that David had witnessed this. “Well, I used to be a professional babysitter,” she reminded him, and forced a shrug. She
’d already told David about the Callahan Child Care Company—and a little about her sister. “As professional as you can be at fourteen years old anyway.”
“You’re very good with kids,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want any of your own?”
They’d discussed this already, on their first real date, actually, when they went to dinner in Old City. David had asked her if she’d noticed all the abnormal fetuses at the Mütter Museum. She told him she had, and they were horrifying. “All the things that can go wrong,” he said quietly. “That’s why I don’t plan to have children.”
Now she sat up with the sheet pulled to her neck. She watched the snow for a moment before she said, “I’m sure.” She leaned down and gave him a kiss. “We can always get a dog if we need something to take care of.”
They discussed this topic at least three more times before David asked her to marry him, and Kyra always said the same thing: she was sure. She moved into David’s apartment on Fitler Square, which was large enough for two people but not three. She loved David’s neighborhood, and she no longer felt like a stranger in the city. David knew everything about Philadelphia because he’d grown up here. His mother still lived in the apartment where David had spent his teenage years after his parents’ divorce.
David’s mother was another reason Kyra felt like she’d won the lottery finding him. Sandra brought them fantastic lasagna and delicious cakes, made them a lovely quilt, cried with joy at the wedding, and insisted that Kyra call her anytime if she needed anything. Kyra felt close to David’s mother in a way that she’d never felt close to her stepmother or her own mother. She wanted to see Sandra more often, but after they’d been married about eight months, when she finally asked David why he rarely suggested inviting his mother to their apartment, he said, “I love my mother, but we have issues. Like every family, I suppose.”
They were standing in the kitchen. Kyra had just unwrapped the last portion of Sandra’s latest food gift, a glorious caramel flan. David was making himself a cheese sandwich. She took a quick bite and mumbled, “Issues?”
“Give me a minute.”
Kyra walked over to their tiny kitchen table, piled up all the bills and junk mail, and sat down with her flan. She ate it slowly, but still, she was finished before David joined her. He ate his food slowly, too. She watched and waited until the only thing left on his plate was a piece of lettuce that had fallen out of the sandwich. Finally she tried, “Is this about your parents’ divorce?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because your mom told me she should have left earlier. I know she blames herself for letting your dad treat you the way he did.”
Kyra was proud that she knew this, that Sandra had felt comfortable enough to talk to her like a friend. They’d had several girls’ nights out on Wednesdays, when David was teaching his late class. They’d even gone to a spa together one Saturday, because Sandra had a coupon. Her mother-in-law said she wasn’t normally the spa type but joked that if they exfoliated enough dead skin cells, they might uncover her missing waist. Sandra was a little heavy, but Kyra thought it looked good on her. She seemed so soft and maternal. Even her gray hair seemed the perfect frame for her delicately lined, heart-shaped face.
“Mom is wrong about that. It’s not her fault that Dad could be an ass. And he was a lot worse to her than he was to me. If anything, I should have protected her more. I was thirteen. I could have told Dad to leave her alone.”
Kyra said, “Thirteen is still a child,” but she respected him for believing this. She remembered herself at that age. She had no sense of responsibility for others. All she wanted then was to be better than Amy at something.
The phone rang—a grad student David was advising. When her husband returned, he was holding his sneakers. He was bent over, tying them, when she said, “You’re not going to tell me?”
She was counting on the fact that her husband was not the kind of person who would say, “Tell me what?” And she was right. He said he was going to talk about it, but he wanted to take a walk together. She nodded. She already had her shoes on. Only David insisted on living in socks wherever he could get away with it.
They walked over to South Street and across the bridge to West Philadelphia. The same path David took every day to the university; he obviously wasn’t walking to see the sights. They’d just gone past the bookstore on 34th and Walnut when David said, “It’s very simple, actually. I would have told you before but it never came up.” He squinted at the sun rather than look at Kyra. “My mom is very close to my ex-wife.”
His pace didn’t slow at all. He was a fast walker, and Kyra was a little out of breath. “Courtney?” she said stupidly, as though David had more than one ex-wife. “What do you mean?”
“She thinks I don’t know, which makes it even worse. She wants to keep their relationship a secret from me.”
A group of students were walking toward them, crowding the sidewalk. David and Kyra separated as they moved to the edges and waited until the kids passed. It was a beautiful April day, almost 70 degrees. It finally felt like spring.
He rubbed his forehead. “I found out about this while I was still in New Haven. It was the third anniversary of Joshua’s death. I don’t know why I decided to go by the grave that morning. I usually waited until after I taught my classes. ‘’
He didn’t speak for another block. Kyra could feel her heart pounding from nerves and from trying to keep up with him.
“I was walking out of the cemetery when I turned around and saw them. My mother and her, holding flowers. Kneeling at his grave.”
He still hadn’t slowed down, but Kyra could hear the emotion he was swallowing back. She reached for his hand and finally he stopped walking. She pulled him into her arms at the corner of 40th and Spruce, and he let her hold him, but he didn’t cry. It was another bond the two shared: neither of them had ever cried in front of the other.
Whenever David talked about his baby, Kyra’s heart ached for him: from the first time he’d told her about Joshua, after they’d been together for about five months, to this moment on the street and every time in between. Kyra had shed so many tears for her husband’s loss, but only at night when he was sleeping, or in the car when she was alone. She still thought her face looked hideous when she cried, but the main thing was that she wanted David to continue to believe she was calm and steady and responsible—and nothing like his first wife. He’d mentioned once that Courtney cried constantly, and that was all it took.
“Why didn’t you ask your mother about it?” Kyra said. They’d been walking in silence for a while when this question occurred to her. They were back on the bridge, going toward Center City.
“Because I know what she’d say.” He crossed his arms. “My mom forgives people, that’s what she does. She did it over and over with Dad. She doesn’t seem to understand that some people don’t deserve to be forgiven.”
“But at least you could have told her how betrayed you felt. It might have brought you closer.”
Now that Kyra was thinking about this, it struck her that her mother-in-law was concerned about her relationship with her son. Sandra had never directly asked Kyra why David didn’t call or come over more often, but didn’t that just prove the point? Her mother-in-law was so careful with her questions, like she’d been relegated to permanent outsider status in her son’s life.
“I don’t think it would have,” David said. “I think it would have pushed us apart, because she wouldn’t have understood my position. She would say something like ‘the past is the past,’ forgetting that I’m a historian.” He forced a smile. “The past is never over for us.”
Kyra doubted that her mother-in-law would forget David’s profession. Sandra tried to read every article David published, no matter how obscure the academic journal. She’d even tried to read his dissertation, all 237 p
ages, though she’d never mentioned this to him because she was afraid she hadn’t understood most of it. Kyra hadn’t read his dissertation because, as David said, it wasn’t all that interesting outside of his field, which was twentieth-century American history, specifically, the impact of the fifties and sixties on American notions of work and the work ethic. David had actually discouraged Kyra from reading it, and joked that it was too much work to read that many pages about work.
It was so odd for Kyra, who knew nothing about being mothered really, to understand that Sandra was trying hard to be a good mother. She understood it better than David himself seemed to.
She didn’t know what to say to her husband. Of course he felt betrayed by Sandra’s relationship with his ex-wife. Even Kyra felt strange thinking of her mother-in-law hanging out with Courtney, possibly going to the spa with her, too. It wasn’t until David was in the shower that she realized she was actually a little jealous. She’d seen pictures of Courtney in an album on the bottom shelf of Sandra’s media console—pictures of all three of them: David, Courtney, and little Joshua. Courtney had looked so confident of her right to be with David. Kyra, on the other hand, still marveled that a man like her husband would even look at someone like her, much less marry her and share her life.
Did her mother-in-law like Courtney better? Kyra wished this thought hadn’t sprung fully formed into her mind, while she was snapping beans for dinner, but now that it had, she felt so much worse. And there was no way to fix it. Even if she had the nerve, she couldn’t discuss any of this with her mother-in-law without breaking David’s confidence.
Kyra knew all too well how easy it was to lose touch with someone you loved, but even as she gently pushed her husband to see his mother more, she found herself seeing Sandra less often. She continued to enjoy her mother-in-law’s company, but she just couldn’t trust her, knowing she could keep something like this a secret from them. In addition, though Kyra didn’t fully understand this, now that Sandra was associated with Courtney in her mind, some of the feelings Kyra felt for her husband’s ex-wife were spilling onto her mother-in-law. And unfortunately, Kyra had a lot of feelings about Courtney.