Mr. Smithfield

by Louise Bay

  I ignored her. I had no desire to share laughs about old times with her. I didn’t want to be reminded about how it had all been a lie.

  Bethany’s hand slipped into mine as we took the familiar route around the back of the house to the park, Jade and Penelope following behind us. “Can you push me a thousand times?” Bethany tugged on my hand.

  “My arms will fall off if I do that.”

  Bethany laughed. “No, they won’t. Please, Daddy.”

  “I’ll push you ten times,” I countered.

  “Twenty,” she said.

  “Deal.” If I could successfully negotiate with a four-year-old, my current transaction—a one-point-two billion tech acquisition—would be child’s play.

  We entered the playground and found it almost empty. “Penpee, will you push me twenty times same as Daddy?” Bethany asked, racing toward her favorite swing.

  I glanced over at Penelope and wondered how it felt that her daughter didn’t call her Mummy. Not that she was a mother. She’d resigned her position three years ago. But at least Penelope hadn’t pushed it—hadn’t demanded to tell her that she was her mother. I had to give her some credit for putting Bethany first, because that didn’t happen when she left. There was no way I’d let Bethany know that Penelope was her mother, only for Penelope to disappear again. Bethany would start to question if she was the problem and worse, might wonder if I’d leave her too. Up until now, I’d always explained to Bethany that her mother lived far away and that she and I were a small, special family together. She’d known nothing else, so she’d simply accepted it.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “You need a hand getting on?” Bethany held her arms up and Penelope lifted her onto the seat of the swing and started to push.

  “Higher,” Bethany demanded. “High. High. High.”

  “Now you can do it on your own,” I called out. When she got going, I stopped pushing her. Penelope wouldn’t know this particular trick.

  Autumn would. We’d laughed about it one evening just after we’d kissed for the first time.

  I closed my eyes, trying to erase the memory of her from my head but knowing any time not thinking about her would be temporary. She lived permanently in my mind, if not my house.

  Bethany brought me back to the moment. “Daddy, see how high I am?”

  “That’s really high. Be careful,” I said.

  Bethany spent ten times longer on the swing than I had patience for, and I wished I had my phone. Finally, when I’d pushed her double the times we’d agreed, she moved to the slide. There was nothing for Penelope to do other than stand aside and watch.

  “Would you mind if I took a photograph?” she asked me, glancing at Jade.

  I shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  Now she wanted to capture memories? She’d missed out on three years’ worth of pictures.

  “Thank you,” she said after she snapped a couple. “It means a lot to me.”

  “Have you dropped this issue of getting custody?” I snapped as Bethany climbed the stairs to the slide again.

  Penelope didn’t respond as we both watched her get to the top of the stairs and slide to the bottom, then race around to start the process again.

  “I know that I’ve hurt you,” she said in a small, low voice. “And Bethany—”

  “You can see she’s completely fine.”

  She paused while Bethany came down the slide again only to race around to the steps. “I know that I’ve made choices that I regret, and I know they have consequences. But I’d like to try to not have the mistakes I’ve made last forever.”

  “You can’t undo leaving,” I said. “You can’t suddenly expect those three years to disappear.”

  “I know,” she said, pushing her hands into her pockets and pausing again until Bethany was out of earshot. “But I left for three years. I don’t want to let that turn into sixteen. Or a lifetime.”

  I tried to think back to my earliest memory. When I was Bethany’s age, I spent a lot of time hiding in the small cupboard in my bedroom. I’d climb in there when my parents argued. Every time my mother shut herself in her bedroom to sob. When I first became aware of her crying, I would try to comfort her—I wanted to somehow turn off her pain. But she’d tell me she was fine and would send me away to play. So I’d go to the cupboard where I wouldn’t hear and I could pretend it wasn’t happening.

  I didn’t want Bethany’s childhood memories to be of her hiding anywhere.

  At the same time, I didn’t want to create a new problem. I didn’t want Bethany to come to me one day and ask me why I hadn’t let her see her mother.

  “I’m not trying to take her away from you, Gabriel. I would never. You’re a good man and a wonderful father. Bethany is very lucky to have you. I don’t want to ruin any of that.”

  Didn’t she see that she already had? “There are no second chances,” I said. “Not when it comes to me. Not when it comes to my daughter.”

  Penelope sighed. “I know, Gabriel,” she said in a resigned tone. “I know.”

  Bethany moved on to the roundabout and Penelope rode on with her as she spun them both around. Then onto the monkey bars. Bethany had been trying for a while now to cross them without falling.

  “Go as quickly as you can,” I said as she ran over to me to hand me her jacket. She nodded, determination in her eyes.

  She got halfway across and dropped to the ground.

  “You okay?” I asked, as Penelope rushed to her.

  Bethany sprang up and went right back to where she’d started. “I’m going to try again,” she said.

  “Good girl.” Never give up.

  Penelope backed away. “See. If she gave up when she failed the first time, she’d never learn to master anything,” she said.

  I huffed out a breath. I could see right through her. There was no way she could equate the two circumstances and I wouldn’t allow her to manipulate me. “But you did give up, Penelope. You gave up for three years.”

  Bethany passed the tricky halfway point and was almost across. “Keep going,” I called. “You’re nearly there.”

  Just before she hit the last rung, her hand slipped and she fell to the ground—just thirty centimeters or so. She’d been so close.

  “How are your hands?” I asked.

  She held up her palms. “Sore.”

  “Maybe take a break and try again next time. You were so close.”

  She nodded and skipped over to me to collect her jacket. I helped her into the sleeves so her top didn’t ruche up on the arms in the way she hated.

  “My palms were sore, Gabriel. I needed a break,” Penelope said. “But I don’t want to give up. Not on my daughter. And not on my marriage.”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t have anything to say. Marriage and a child weren’t trying to cross the monkey bars. Sometimes you just needed to push through—do what was being asked of you by the people who loved you.

  Bethany raced back to me and slipped her hand into mine and we headed home, Penelope and Jade following. My mind started replaying my conversation with Autumn, as it had a hundred times since she left. I had no desire to try again with Penelope. But I wanted Autumn. More than anything, I wanted her to come back. If I was following my own advice, I needed to do what was being asked of me. Perhaps I just had to push through.

  “What are your plans for tomorrow?” I called over my shoulder.

  “Me?” Penelope asked. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Meet me at Primitivo’s at one,” I said, referring to a restaurant around the corner from my office. We’d met a couple of times there before Bethany had been born. Lunch with Penelope would be the start of what Autumn had asked of me. I’d spend time with Penelope. I’d hear her out. But only because that’s what it would take to get Autumn back.

  Thirty-Seven

  Autumn

  So much for the amazing weather. It was raining. And not just in a gentle drip. This rain consisted of large, violent splashes of water my umbrella was almost usele
ss against. My sneakers squelched when I walked, and my pants stuck to my legs as if I’d put them on straight from the washer.

  But I was dry from my waist up thanks to the waterproof coat I’d brought from Oregon, and I wasn’t cold. I was invigorated. It was as if the rain was determinedly washing away anything bad. I thought about Gabriel constantly. But I needed to focus on the positive—the man I loved got to have the family he’d always wanted. I had to be happy for him. My devastation at having to give him up would pass. At some point the sharp edges of loss would soften and I would start to feel whole again. In the meantime, I would distract myself. If that took getting soaked to my skin in Madrid, then so be it.

  I saw some large white columns to my left, which must belong to the Prado. I raced toward them, desperate for shelter. I darted under cover and shut down my umbrella, stamping my feet in the vain hope that it would shake some of the water from my pants.

  “I thought it was supposed to be sunny in Spain,” an American, male voice said from behind me. I spun around and found a tall, handsome guy, trying to dry his face with his sweater.

  “You’re American.” It was funny to hear that accent in such a faraway place. Perhaps it was a sign that right here was where I was meant to be.

  “SoCal,” he replied.

  I laughed. No wonder he looked so butthurt. “The rain isn’t personally directed at you. And anyway, look at how green it is, even in the middle of the city. Trees need the rain. It’s a tradeoff. You can’t have the greenery without the water. Breathe it in.” I faced the torrents and opened my arms in welcome. “It cleans everything away so we can start fresh.” I had to believe that Madrid was the beginning of my future and not just a stop I was making while I ran from my pain.

  “I’m Jackson,” he said, and I turned to look at him. “And whoever you are, you just made me feel a lot better.”

  I grinned. “I’m glad. I’m from Oregon, so I guess I’m a little more used to the rain.”

  He shook his head and huffed a chuckle. “So, Oregon, want to go grab a cup of something hot before taking in the Goya?”

  I shrugged. I was just thinking how I needed distracting. “Sure,” I said. “As long as you don’t spend the whole time complaining that Europe isn’t just like California.”

  “I promise,” he replied. A corner of his mouth turned up as he smiled, creating a dimple in his cheek that I wanted to poke with my index finger.

  The Prado was waiting. My future was waiting. I just needed to keep taking it one step at a time.

  Thirty-Eight

  Gabriel

  Penelope was always late but that didn’t mean I had to be, so I got to the restaurant exactly on time. I reached the hostess’s podium and saw Penelope waving from a table by the window. As much as I hated to admit it, every time I’d expected Penelope to stumble since she’d been back, she surprised me. She’d not missed a single play session with Bethany. She hadn’t tried to push me to tell Bethany that she was her mother. She hadn’t been underhanded and told her anyway. When I’d asked her to lunch, I hadn’t had to negotiate on day, time, or place. And she was on time.

  “Please can I get some water?” I said to the hostess. “You want anything?” I asked Penelope.

  “Water’s great.” She grinned at me. “Did you come from the office?”

  I sat down and my phone buzzed in my pocket. “Excuse me.” I pulled out my mobile to see who had messaged me. Unsurprisingly, it was Mike. He seemed to get worse rather than better, constantly checking up on me—like I’d ever dropped the ball—and second-guessing my decisions.

  “You need to make a call?” she asked. “It’s fine.”

  I shook my head and picked up the menu. Mike would have to wait.

  “I can’t believe you’re still doing it. Well,” she said, shrugging, “I never understood why you did the job in the first place. It’s not like you need the money.”

  There was no need to dust off this dance that we’d done a thousand times before. My job wasn’t any of her concern. “You know I think it’s important that Bethany has a good role model. It’s good for her to see that everyone has to go out into the world and earn a living.” Working, and working hard, wasn’t a bad thing. “I don’t want to be just another trust fund kid.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s the only reason you do it.” I didn’t ask her to elaborate. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “You’re never going to end up as your father. You have far too much character for that.”

  It was the kind of thing she would have said to me when we were married. At the heart of our relationship, there had always been mutual respect. It was what had always puzzled me about Penelope’s leaving. We didn’t argue. We bickered over little things but there had never been a fundamental disagreement. Or so I’d always thought. Her departure had come out of the blue. I’d been completely blindsided.

  “Going to work keeps me honest.”

  She paused and looked at me. “Really? Going to work and doing something you hate keeps you honest? Why not choose something you love?”

  I wasn’t interested in a come-to-Jesus moment for myself. I wanted to hear about hers. “So, Penelope, why are you back?” I asked. “Why now?”

  “I suppose I figured out what was important.”

  “And that took three years?”

  “There were reasons I left. And there were reasons why I didn’t come back. They weren’t necessarily the same. I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

  “Try,” I said. I wanted to hear this. I deserved to hear this. “All I’ve gotten so far is some messed-up analogy about monkey bars.”

  She smiled and shifted her fringe out of her eyes. The fringe was new. It suited her.

  “I always loved Bethany, but over that first year of her life, it felt like the walls were closing in. It felt like my life wasn’t my own and that my choices had been taken away from me.” She looked sad but she didn’t look beaten or tired, and it occurred to me that before she’d left, that was how she’d looked—as if the color had drained from her face and someone had switched her into slow motion. The woman who sat before me was much more like the woman I’d married compared to the one who’d left.

  “All I could see was a future being an unpaid servant to this squirming human, and I knew you wanted more than one child,” she said. “I felt as if my entire future was laid out for me. I didn’t like it.”

  I kept my expression neutral. I wasn’t sure if Penelope was telling me she’d been depressed, and if that’s what she was saying, I didn’t want to be insensitive. “You didn’t say anything at the time.”

  “I don’t think I could have articulated it at the time. I just had this sense of panic, needing to run, needing to escape. I didn’t see that I wasn’t coping. I just felt this urge to leave. It didn’t help that I was clearly terrible at caring for Bethany.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I was so impatient with her. Remember when I screamed at her for crying? Like that was going to help.” She shook her head while she worried the edge of the menu with her nail. “When you were around, you were so patient with her, so calming. You only had to pick her up and she settled. It emphasized the way I didn’t feel any of those things. I was the opposite of calm. The opposite of patient. I just felt like a failure. Like she’d be better off with you and without me. I could get out of the way and let the two of you be.”

  As much as I’d like Penelope to have turned into a monster, she was still the same woman I’d married. The woman who set her standards way too high and beat herself up far too much when she didn’t meet them. “I should have paid more attention. I had no idea you felt any of this.”

  She reached over and grabbed my hand. “This is not your fault,” she said. “We were trying to navigate not killing a tiny human. That is quite the distraction.”

  I smiled, remembering how we used to hover over her cot to check she was breathing, how we baby-proofed our entire house be
fore Penelope had given birth, even though Bethany wouldn’t crawl for months. We’d been so cautious and careful about everything. Everything except our own relationship. That had been left to wither and die.

  “After I left, over the following few months, I sort of emerged from a fog only to be enveloped in shame and guilt for leaving,” she continued. “I wanted to come back a thousand times. But what would I say? How would I explain myself?” she said. “I’d left my child. It’s the ultimate crime for a mother.” She pulled her hand from mine and took a sip of the water that had appeared on our table without our noticing. I waited as she swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to push away the obvious upset. “I loved you both, yet I abandoned you.” She shook her head. “I have to live with myself for doing that.”

  She glanced down at the menu, clearly not trying to decide on her order. “Every time I thought about it, I ran further away in the hope that my shame would be left behind, but of course it followed me around and just got bigger. I figured out that the only way it wouldn’t just continue to grow and eventually eat me alive, was to turn around and face what I’d done.”

  “You’re back to face the shame of leaving?” I asked. Was she asking me for absolution? She couldn’t know me very well if she was.

  She shook her head. “No, I had a lot of therapy to handle the shame. I’m back because I don’t want to compound the mistakes I’ve made by staying away. I did a terrible thing to you both, but I don’t want that to be the end. I don’t want to walk away and never return. I want to move forward. Be Bethany’s mother. And map out a new relationship with you.”

  I shook my head. Autumn would want me to agree and that would be that. But she didn’t understand the scar Penelope’s leaving had created.

  She put up her hand to stop me from speaking. “Before you say anything, I know we can’t go backward. That’s not what I’m asking. Whatever happens in the future—whatever relationship we manage to salvage—I understand that it won’t be what we had.”