by Amy Hatvany
A few minutes later we loaded into Victor’s SUV, both of us making idle conversation about pumpkins and the upcoming Halloween holiday. I shifted in my seat to look at the children. “What costumes are you going to wear this year?” I asked them, figuring this was a neutral enough subject to get them to engage with me.
“Iron Man!” Max offered. “With real lasers on my hands!” He held his palms out at me, making pretend electronic shooting noises. “Pew! Pew!”
I laughed. “Awesome. I loved that movie.”
“You did?” Max asked, an edge of doubt in his voice.
“Totally. Iron Man rocks.” I grinned at him, and he grinned back.
“Pew! Pew!” he said, again pretending to shoot me. Victory!
“What about you, Ava?” Victor prodded, looking at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “What are you going to be for Halloween?”
Ava shrugged, staring out the window. “I don’t know.”
“It’s next weekend,” I said. “Do you have any ideas at all? Maybe we could help you figure something out.”
She looked at me, pressing her lips together in a thin line, and shook her head. I sighed a little internally, wondering why she was so unresponsive. Had I already done or said something that bothered her? Maybe she simply hated me on principle, just because I was another woman, invading her time with her father. I could handle kids who were more like Max, open and mouthy. Or maybe it was because he was a boy, and I was used to how my brother behaved when he was Max’s age. I knew how to relate. Ava’s silence made me extremely uncomfortable.
The afternoon went well, all things considered. I even got Ava to laugh when I did my impression of the llama that had spit at her dad over the petting zoo fence. Momentarily disregarding Melody’s advice to avoid bribery, I bought them caramel apples covered in miniature chocolate chips and paid for the sepia photo of them with their dad dressed up in old western frontier clothes. Victor tried to get me to dress up and take the picture with them, but I felt like a family photo would be pushing things too far for a first meeting. I snapped many pictures of the three of them together that day, though, planning to put them together in a small album for both of the kids as a kind of thank-you for letting me join them. I went back to my condo after we returned to Victor’s, even though at that point, I was already accustomed to spending almost every night at his place. There was no way I was going to freak the kids out by sleeping in their father’s bed.
The next day, we went to brunch together at IHOP, then to the beach to collect shells before taking them to Kelli’s house. She immediately seemed uncomfortable with my presence, even though Victor had prepared her by saying I would be there. I’d asked to meet her, thinking that if I were a mother and my ex-husband started dating someone, I’d certainly want to get to know the person spending time with my kids.
“What do you do for a living, Grace?” she asked me. Her voice wavered a bit as she spoke. Her tiny frame was clad in the tight black skirt and white blouse she wore to wait tables at her job. Both kids clung to her after being away from her for the weekend, and she wrapped her arms around their shoulders protectively.
“I already told you that,” Victor interjected before I had a chance to answer her, his voice holding a twinge of annoyance I hadn’t heard from him before.
“Do you have any kids?” Kelli continued, ignoring his remark.
I shook my head, and a brief, smug look flashed across her face. She tried to hide it with a quick smile, but it was too late—I’d seen it. I didn’t understand why so many women seemed compelled to pit themselves against others who had simply chosen a different path. Stay-at-home moms against those who worked; women who breast-fed against those who chose to use formula; and my personal experience—women who had children against those who did not. Luckily, it wasn’t the first time I’d faced this issue, so I gave my standard response to smooth her ruffled edges: “It must be amazing to be a mother.”
She softened a little in that moment, when she saw I wasn’t intent on proving myself a better or more evolved woman because of my focus on my career. “It is amazing,” she said, moving her gaze to Victor then, her eyes suddenly seeming darker and more intensely blue. “They’re what keep me from falling apart.”
Victor looked away. “We need to get going,” he said. He smiled at his children and threw his arms out for one more hug. They complied, wrapping their arms around his neck until he pretended to choke. “Love you, monkeys. I’ll talk with you this week.”
“Love you, Dad!” Max hollered as he turned around and sped inside the house.
“Let me know how that algebra test goes, okay, kitten?” Victor said, and Ava nodded, shoving her face into his neck, inhaling deeply, as though she was trying to memorize his scent. Victor carefully extricated himself from her embrace, and she reluctantly followed her brother’s path inside.
I smiled at Kelli. “It was so nice to finally meet you,” I said, but she only nodded once, briefly, not taking her eyes off Victor. A moment later she whipped around and shut the door.
“Okay,” I said a little shakily as we walked toward his car. “Did that go well or not? I couldn’t tell.”
Victor grimaced and shrugged. “Could’ve been worse,” he said, reaching to take my hand. I opened my mouth, about to ask what he meant, but then closed it again, uncertain if at that point I really wanted to know.
Almost exactly a year later, as I heard the sharp slam of Ava’s door, my gut churned thinking about the pain she and Max were facing. I was a little hurt that Victor asked me to leave the room when he told them about Kelli; I’d assumed we would do it together. It made sense, I supposed, that he wanted to do it alone, but I wished he had said something to me about it in the bedroom so I would have been prepared. So it didn’t look to his children like he was dismissing me. Still, I’d heard every word from the den. They were devastated, and I had no idea how to help them through this. I had no idea how to get through it myself.
“Grace?” Victor called out from the hallway, pulling me from my thoughts. “What happened?” He must have heard Ava’s door. His face appeared from around the corner a few seconds after his voice. He was pale and disheveled, as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. I didn’t want to tell him what his daughter had said. He had enough to handle; he didn’t need a thirty-seven-year-old whining that she got her feelings hurt.
“Ava just needs some time in her room, I think,” I finally answered him, sighing wearily. I couldn’t believe the exhaustion rolling through my blood. Even my bones felt heavy.
His dark eyebrows furrowed and he frowned. “What did you say to her?”
“Nothing!” I snapped, trying to keep the defensiveness I felt out of my voice, but failing miserably. “She wants to be alone. She’s traumatized, Victor. I’m not her mother and I’m certainly not a therapist. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
The skin softened around his eyes and mouth. “Sorry.” The word was a whisper. A ghost of an apology.
I nodded, holding my breath instead of speaking. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to accuse. He turned around, and a moment later, I heard another door quietly shut.
I blew out an enormous breath between pursed lips and leaned heavily against the back of the couch, pressing both of my palms to my forehead. It was obvious I was the intruder—a totally unwelcome guest. And this was supposed to be my new home. How would we build a life together after this? And then, a much worse thought, one I shoved back down the instant it echoed through my mind.
Maybe I shouldn’t be here at all.
Kelli
Kelli was almost three months pregnant when she and Victor stood together in a small church and said their vows. Victor’s mother, Eileen, was thrilled when Kelli asked her to be the matron of honor.
“Are you sure your parents can’t come, dear?” Eileen asked as they shopped for a wedding dress. Eileen was a loving and kind woman, and while she was a little concerned that Victor and Kelli were marrying so yo
ung, she was as smitten with Kelli as her son had been. Eileen hadn’t married again after Victor’s father left them—she’d worked hard and raised Victor on her own.
“I’m sure,” Kelli said, pulling a dress off the rack and holding it up for Eileen to see. “What about this one?”
“It’s lovely, but maybe a touch too much lace here?” Eileen said, fingering the edge of the bodice. She looked at Kelli with the same warm gray eyes she’d passed on to Victor. “I just hope they don’t regret missing all of this.”
“They won’t,” Kelli said as she hung the dress back up. “We’re not close.” She hadn’t spoken to her parents since leaving California and couldn’t fathom having them in her life. They wouldn’t have recognized her, anyway. She’d built a new version of herself since arriving in Seattle—bubbly and fun. She knew they’d be too much of a reminder of what went wrong, of the mistakes she’d made and the pain she’d suffered through. It was easier to simply tell people they were estranged.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eileen said, giving Kelli a quick hug. When she pulled back, Eileen smiled at her. “Well, you have me now, so that’s something.”
Kelli smiled and nodded in return, imagining that Eileen would become the mother figure she’d always wanted. While it made Victor happy to see her spend time with his mom, he too expressed concern that Kelli never talked with her parents.
“They’re your family,” Victor said. “Don’t you miss them?”
“Don’t you miss your father?” Kelli retorted, knowing full well that Victor wanted nothing to do with the man who’d abandoned him. Her point hit home, and Victor let the subject go.
For the first few years, being married to Victor was everything she’d dreamed it would be. He couldn’t wait to become a father. He placed headphones on Kelli’s stomach every night, playing a wide variety of music for Ava—Talking Heads, Bach, and the Beatles. “We don’t know what she likes yet,” Victor told Kelli. “So we need to let her hear a little bit of everything.”
He put his lips on her stomach, too, talking to their baby girl, telling her how much he couldn’t wait to meet her. Kelli relished every kick and turn of Ava inside her body, calling her obstetrician a couple of times a week to make sure everything was okay. “She hasn’t moved for almost eight hours,” Kelli told the doctor once, waking him at three in the morning. “What if something’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sleeping, Kelli,” her doctor said in a tired but patient tone. He was accustomed to the panic of first-time mothers. He knew how to talk them off the ledge. “If she doesn’t move in the next couple of hours, then you can call me back, okay? Everything’s fine. You have a very healthy baby girl on the way.”
Kelli knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help it. This baby meant the world to her—being a mother, a wife, living the kind of life she’d always dreamed of having. She worked up until her eighth month, when her belly made it impossible to carry the heavy trays at the restaurant. “Is it all right if I stay home with her?” Kelli asked Victor. “Will we be okay?”
Victor smiled at her, reaching out to cup her belly. “It’ll be a little tight, but I think we can make it work. I might have to work a few more shifts, though, to make ends meet.”
She’d nodded, wanting nothing more than to spend hours every day cradling her baby girl, loving her, not letting her out of her sight. When her labor began, the doctor warned her it might be a long one, but Ava arrived after only four hours. Ava screamed atop Kelli’s bare chest, and Kelli cried. Eileen, whom Kelli had asked to be in the room with them for the birth, wept, too, clutching Victor as they gazed upon this small miracle. They were a family.
Not long after Ava was born, Kelli found herself missing her mother; the longing to talk with her became a palpable ache in her chest. After a few weeks, she worked up the courage to call and tell her parents about their granddaughter. “She’s perfect,” Kelli said to her mother, who answered the phone. “Do you want—” Her voice broke on the words, so she had to start again. “Would you like to come see her?” She wondered what it would be like to share Ava with her parents. To see the joy and pride on their faces when they saw the beautiful life she had with Victor.
Her mother was quiet a moment. Kelli could hear her breathing, a lightly raspy sound, as though she was getting over a cold. “I think that might be too hard,” she finally said. “And you know how your father doesn’t like to travel.”
As her mother spoke these words, the door that had cracked only slightly open inside Kelli slammed shut. It was a mistake to have called, a mistake to believe that anything might have changed. As soon as she hung up the phone, Kelli swallowed her tears, pushed down her hurt, and turned her focus toward Ava. Toward her beautiful, perfect daughter whom Kelli knew she would love no matter what. She adored nursing, seeing her own blue eyes look back at hers, feeling the warmth of her daughter’s body cocooned against her skin. Even though it thrilled Kelli that he wanted to be such an involved father, she was reluctant to let Victor change Ava’s diapers or rock her to sleep. For the first year of Ava’s life, Kelli was never away from her daughter—never left her with a sitter. Not even Eileen, who offered time and again to watch her granddaughter. “You need to get out,” she told Kelli. “Have an afternoon at the spa or lunch with your girlfriends.”
“I can’t stand to leave her,” Kelli said, cupping Ava’s dark head with her hand. “Why don’t you stay for lunch and hold her while I make us something?” She didn’t want her mother-in-law to think she didn’t trust her. It wasn’t that at all. There was something deeper inside Kelli that made it feel impossible to be away from Ava. Something she wasn’t ready to explain.
Then one afternoon, when Ava was only thirteen months old, Victor called Kelli in a panic. “My mom had a stroke,” he said. His words were jagged with tears. “I’m at the hospital.”
“Oh no!” Kelli said. “Is she going to be all right?”
“No,” he sobbed. “She died.”
“Oh, honey,” Kelli said, closing her eyes, suddenly regretting her unwillingness to let Eileen spend time alone with her granddaughter. “I’m so sorry.” Hearing him weep like that unsettled Kelli. She didn’t know how to manage that kind of grief—she was better practiced at pretending it didn’t exist.
As Victor processed the loss of his mother, Kelli went about her days, attempting to work up the courage to chat with other mothers at the park, wanting to make friends, but she felt awkward and shy, worried they wouldn’t like her because she was so young. They all seemed so confident with each other and their children—Kelli was afraid she wouldn’t fit in.
Then one afternoon, a slightly chubby woman with dark messy hair sat down beside Kelli on the bench as Ava played. “I’m Diane,” she said. “And that’s Patrick.” She pointed to a little boy a few years older than Ava, who was climbing on the monkey bars.
Kelli smiled gently and introduced herself. “We just bought a house over on Lilac Street,” Diane explained. “I thought I’d bring Patrick to the park and check it out.”
“Lilac Street?” Kelli said. “That’s where we live. You bought the house next door to us!” They’d only been in their house a few months; Eileen had left it to her and Victor in her will. A true gift, since there were only five years left on the mortgage.
“Well, what do you know?” Diane said. “I guess this friendship was meant to be.”
Kelli smiled. Diane was plain—she didn’t wear makeup and her gray sweatshirt had some kind of red stain on the arm—and Kelli liked her immediately. She reminded her a bit of Nancy, her best friend in ninth grade. She wondered briefly what had happened to Nancy but resigned herself to the idea that she’d likely never know. Nancy was another thing she had lost.
Now, though, having a friend next door helped the days go by much more quickly. Over the next few years, she and Diane spent almost every morning together, letting the children play, talking about their husbands, and gossiping about the other women they st
ill saw at the park. Victor worked long hours at the restaurant, but Kelli did everything she could to give him a wonderful life. She cooked and cleaned and made sure his favorite beer was always in the fridge. She took long walks with Ava, staying in good enough shape to wear the lacy lingerie he loved. He adored her body; he touched her gently and was as focused on her pleasure as he was on his. They still wrapped around each other every night, murmuring about their dreams. “I think I might have an investor to open a restaurant next year,” Victor told her one night when Ava was five.
“Really?” Kelli said, verging on the edge of sleep. “Who?”
Victor proceeded to tell her about a regular customer he’d gotten to know—an executive at Amazon who was looking to back a local business. “We went and looked at a space downtown today,” Victor told her. “It’s perfect. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
Kelli loved the space, too, and before she knew it, Victor had signed the paperwork and together, they began figuring out the design. It was just like they’d talked about that first night when he drove her home. They weren’t just building a restaurant together—they were building a future. They were building the rest of their lives. Once Ava was in first grade the following year, Kelli imagined she’d work during the day at the Loft, helping Victor with their dream. She’d wait tables or serve as hostess. Whatever Victor wanted, she’d do. But just as Victor processed all the permits to begin renovation on the space, Kelli began feeling sick in the mornings, just as she had when she was nineteen. “Are you pregnant?” Victor asked her as Kelli stumbled out of the bathroom the morning they were supposed to meet with the general contractor.
“I think so,” Kelli said, nodding. “I’m a few weeks late.” She hadn’t thought much of missing her period at first. She’d always been a little irregular, especially when her weight was down.
A flicker of panic sparked in Victor’s gray eyes, but it disappeared just as suddenly. “Maybe it will be a boy,” he said in a soft voice.