Family Affair

by Caprice Crane

  He’s been calling her? Texting her? Has he been writing her letters spelling out her name?

  H - How could I have been so dumb?

  E - Every time I think I know what to do about Brett, I’m wrong.

  A - Any man who couldn’t see right through her whole “Forever 21” thing isn’t worth the trouble.

  T - They’ve got some nice stuff there, don’t get me wrong. But those awful patent-leather belts in baby blue and lime green, with the braided-rope bracelets and jean jackets with the torn cuffs? C’mon, even the store’s buyer wasn’t serious about that trash.

  H - Hate is a strong word, yet I think I hate this woman. And Brett, for that matter.

  E - Evil. As in: She is evil. And you get a double if you use “extremely evil.”

  R - Running her over with a car sounds appealing.

  brett

  My mom doesn’t laugh anymore. Or smile, really. At least she doesn’t when nobody’s looking. I used to catch her smiling as she cooked or made a bed or fed the dog or took out the trash. My mom was a happy person. Now she only smiles if someone’s there and she’s expected to. And it looks fake and forced. Almost like she’s in pain. I’m afraid that she is.

  They say it’s not a physically painful disease, but it is a disease. And in its base form—the word disease splits into dis and ease, meaning she’s not at ease. How can that be comfortable? How can that not be painful? Emotionally, at the very least. So my mom doesn’t laugh anymore. As a result, no one feels like saying or doing anything funny anymore.

  I want to talk to her about Layla, but I can’t. I don’t want to burden her with my bullshit or, actually, try to burden her with it only to learn eventually that she has no idea what I’m talking about and maybe isn’t sure who Layla is, or who I am, for that matter. She’s not quite at that point, but it’s coming and it’s dreadful.

  The shocking thing is, Scott is stepping up. He’s no longer wallowing in self-pity, and has taken to going on walks with Mom every day. And when she asked recently if they were going to go for a walk just half an hour after they returned, Dad says Scott smiled, told her yes, and put his sneakers back on. So he’s becoming less selfish, and both of them are getting their cardio. He’s also been spending time with April. Turns out that in addition to being a bit of a photographer, her real talents lie in her imagination—or, rather, her dream of one day writing sci-fi and fantasy fiction. She’s got all these ideas that mesh perfectly with Scott’s flair for illustrating the fantastical, and the two of them are conceiving a comic book. If it’s autobiographical, it’s guaranteed to be good for some laughs. DorkBoy and the Shutterbug. He swears the sex is phenomenal, but I hope they don’t put that in.

  I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Or so desperate. I wish I could make Mom promise me she’ll get better. Promise me she’ll live at least another thirty years. Promise me she’ll know her grandkids and remember them from day to day. I’m about to give her a grandkid and I can’t even tell her. I don’t feel right about having good news when everything feels bad. And I don’t even know if it is good news. Layla’s saying it’s her baby. Like I had nothing to do with it.

  I call Tommy Thames, the lawyer Layla brought to that screwy mediation thing, to see what she’s really thinking—and because Tim Ning isn’t calling me back these days. We set an appointment for the next day, and when I walk in I nearly choke on the smell of smoke in the office. It’s like everyone in the world who ever smoked came to this office to exhale.

  About fifteen minutes after I complete reading the year-old People magazine in the waiting area (amazing how fast celebrity gossip gets stale), Thames pokes his head out and waves me toward him, almost like nobody else is supposed to see him there. “We’re moving,” he says. “It just got put off.”

  It’s odd, being in his office. But he’s odd, from what I recall of my brief dealings with him. I tell him the whole story. Well, I tell him the story from the point where the little mediation left off. I tell him how the whole joint-custody thing didn’t work so well and yet how, after all is said and done, I’m desperate to get Layla back—how I’m actively trying to win her back. I tell him how she dropped the baby bomb on me and how not for a second did I think it was bad news. How I thought it felt right. That it was perfect. That it was time. That it was exactly the reason for us to quit the crap and start picking out colors for the baby’s room. And how she basically told me to fuck off. That because I screwed up, she was trying to keep me as far away from her womb as possible, and the future taking shape inside it. And then I told Tommy how he fit in. Again.

  “Huh,” Thames says. “I played along with that mediation—and the rest. Those phone calls from Layla during the whole thing, they sounded more like calls from my kids when they were five and seven and used to fight over who got to drink out of the backyard hose first. I am through,” he adds, “with the two of you and your back-and-forth. It’s clear you don’t hate each other, and neither one of you wants to take the other to the cleaners, so there’s really no money in it for me.”

  “Obviously I don’t hate her. I love her,” I say. “I’m trying to get her back.”

  “You two are ridiculous,” he says. “And she is my client. Not you. I’m crossing a serious ethical line just talking to you.”

  “No argument from me. Layla and I are ridiculous. And you are unethical, but back to the business at hand. That baby is half mine. And I have every right to be in its life.”

  “She wanted joint custody of your family,” he says. “You want joint custody of her fetus…. What’s next? She seeks joint custody of your football team and you want joint custody of her hair appointment?” He sighs and picks up a paperweight shaped like blind justice—though I can see in this version that she’s peeking out from under the blindfold. Clever.

  “Look,” Thames continues, “you definitely have legal rights to any child you helped conceive. So does she. You also have the right to sue the supermarket when milk goes bad. But that doesn’t mean every damn dispute should land in court. I’m saying this not only because neither of you has money—although mainly for that reason—but also because in this case it’s true.”

  I see his point, but the fact remains that this situation is out of hand and I need his help. So I tell him as much. But he just shakes his head.

  “Let’s not lose sight of what you really want,” he says. “You were trying to win her back before you knew about the baby.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “So why are you here?” he asks. “Do you want half of her uterus or half of her heart?”

  I stare at this walking anachronism, with his wild hair and wrinkled, stained shirt, sitting among the chaos of his professional life. And it seems to me appearances can sometimes be very dishonest, telling us lies about who really gives a damn about us. It seems to me this man has stopped chasing ambulances for at least a few minutes to actually give a damn about Layla and me, and that makes me grateful, and it makes me listen very carefully to what he’s saying.

  “If it’s the former, you’ve got a case, but I can’t ethically represent you, and I’d rather not get disbarred, so I’ll have to refer you to my cousin, who’s an exceptional attorney, judging from his grades in law school last year.

  “If it’s the latter,” he says, “you’ll have to make the case on your own.”

  He stands, sending a strong hint that it’s time for me to go, but he stops me at the door, puts a hand on my shoulder, and smiles. “My advice? Whenever I faced a hostile judge and jury—and I’m afraid that’s what you’ve got here—I always tell my clients to be as honest and genuine as possible on the witness stand. To show their humanity. If that doesn’t work, I start showing up for closing arguments in a chicken costume and try to get my client a mistrial.”

  The door closes behind me, and I’m half tempted to ask his disinterested secretary if I can borrow the chicken costume.

  ginny

  February 5

  Dearest Ev,


  I don’t know quite how to get to this so I’ll just come out and say it. I’m sick. And it’s not a cold or the flu or the chicken pox. Remember when we had the chicken pox? You had them first, and I slept next to you in the top bunk to make sure I got them, too. This is a sickness I wouldn’t share with you. I wouldn’t wish it on my dear sister—on anyone. They have me on medicine. It’s called Aricept, and I think it helps, but I’m not the best judge of myself lately. I do notice a difference if I miss a dose, so that says something.

  I have good days and bad days. We’ve been through a lot as a family, but Bill has shown me that he truly meant it when he said “forever.”

  The kids are really being wonderful, but I’m still brokenhearted over Brett and Layla, who haven’t quite found their way back to each other yet. I’m hoping they do. But now I’m afraid you’ll never hear about it if or when it happens, and that’s made it all that much harder. Because as much as it pains me, it’s time I stop writing you. I’ll always miss you, but I’ll need all my strength and focus to wage this fight, and where I’m going I don’t think you can help me. Bill and my doctors agree. In fact, Bill is insisting I stop writing these letters to you and I don’t have it in me to argue right now.

  You know I’ve always loved you and looked up to you, and you’ve helped me get through a lot—more than you could ever imagine. For the next stage of my life, I’ve got my family.

  See you in heaven. (I hope not too soon.)

  Ginny

  layla

  Macaroni and cheese. I didn’t eat it much as a kid, so it’s not like I’m regressing or reaching out to a comforting time. Yet it’s all I want. In various forms. Sure, Kraft straight out of the box, cooked as indicated, is the gold standard. But since all I have any interest in is mac and cheese, I have taken to spending countless hours researching new recipes. (I myself have invented at least three, and mac and Jack is currently my favorite—possibly because I just like saying the words. And that’s Jack as in cheese, not as in Daniel’s.) Anyhow, there’s an entire website dedicated to the foodstuff, http://macaroniandcheese.net, where I’ve found at least a dozen new versions, some of which include: four-cheese macaroni (A+), seven-cheese macaroni casserole (a little busy for my tastes, C-), Mexican mac and cheese (Olé A), spicy mac and cheese (F, spicy isn’t fun when you’re pregnant), beef and mac (C), chili cheese and mac (A+)—I mean, I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that all I want to do is eat macaroni and cheese, and when I’m not eating it, all I want to do is research new and exciting ways to eat it next. This is possibly a coping mechanism.

  I haven’t seen Brett since he stormed out of my house. After I told him to leave. After Heather and her breasts told me that she dumped him and that he’s been trying to win her back. Why do we say and do the exact opposite of what we want? Because we want to test people? Because we think they’re mind readers? Because there’s a corkscrew turn somewhere in the connection between our brains and mouths that takes perfectly civil, sensible thoughts and spins them around backward before they come out? Or because we really just love macaroni and cheese?

  It sucks. I’m lonely and hormonal and I miss Trish and I don’t know how to balance our business with my distancing myself from the family. And my heart aches for Ginny.

  And I truly, deep down, want Brett to be a part of this baby’s life.

  I can’t say that to him, though, because I have too much pride. My cupboards are filled with pride, and I am considering building a shed out back where I can store the surplus, because every time I consider opening up to him and the family about what I’m going through, I immediately dump the thought in the trash, ashamed of how foolish and vulnerable I’d look. I’m tired of looking stupid and desperate and vulnerable.

  I keep having strange dreams. Once I was swimming in an upside-down pool. I dove in, and the water disappeared and I fell out onto the concrete deck. I tried to get out, but I kept going deeper, sinking into the concrete. Another time, Brett had become a successful investment banker and lived in a luxurious blimp that flew nonstop around the world, hosting dazzling parties. And in another that I’ve suffered through about eleven times now, I’m screaming and nothing comes out. I wake up trying to scream, and there’s a persistent wail but it’s only the alarm clock. I’m conscious but completely fogged in.

  This time, instead of the alarm clock filling in for my scream and causing further confusion, I hear knocking. I’m disoriented for a second, because I can’t place the sound, but then I realize it’s not part of the dream at all: There’s a strange person at my house. I peer through the storm door and see a figure I don’t know, who may or may not be strange. “Layla Foster?” the man asks.

  Instantly I feel panic. Someone showing up at your door, asking if you’re you, is never a good thing—at least from what I’ve seen on TV and movies, unless there’s a big Publishers Clearing House van nearby and the person knocking has a camera crew, balloons, and an oversized check. This person has none of the above. I look for the van anyway. Nothing.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “This is for you,” the person says, and when I open the door, he hands me a piece of paper.

  I open it to find it’s from my lawyer—or at least a person with the same last name as my lawyer—and it’s a notice to appear at a new mediation, which I can only imagine is regarding the custody of my unborn child.

  Is. He. Fucking. Kidding?

  I don’t know who I want to strangle more, my husband or my ex-lawyer. Is that even ethical? Can his relative even take this case? If it is actually allowed, can the Thames family be so unprincipled as to throw their own client under the bus?

  The depression that sets in is a new low. It feels almost like the first time I saw Brett with Heather after we split up. I’d known we were technically split up, but I hadn’t anticipated him ever actually dating. This feels like that times a hundred. How can he do this?

  I call Trish and she doesn’t answer. I leave a weepy message that I regret the second I hang up. I call back to leave a second message telling her to disregard the message, and then a third telling her that I stand by everything I said but am sorry for the whining. I consider calling a fourth time just to apologize for being annoying, but I don’t want to be a parody of that guy in Swingers, and I worry that she’ll get a restraining order against me if I make one more call.

  She doesn’t call back.

  Four days later, she still hasn’t called back. Trish has never not returned a phone call from me. Trish and I have never even gone four days without talking. Sure, things were stilted after I decided to take a break from our business to let Brett have his family back, but I’ve never ignored a phone call from her.

  I feel ill. As if it wasn’t bad enough to lose the only family I had, now I’m potentially losing my baby to a hostile takeover. Isn’t there some sort of Gloria Steinem—type nouveau-feminist icon who wants to fight for the rights of me and my unborn child? But do I even want to fight? I’m so tired of it all.

  My heart is broken into so many microscopic pieces that it would be impossible for even an experienced and extremely anal paleontologist to put it back together. I’m so dazed and confused, and not in a Richard Linklater, fun indie hit, Ben-Affleck-before-he-was-famous kind of way. No, I’m “dazed,” as in not knowing which way is up, and “confused,” as in not knowing what I’m going to do next. I get it together long enough to call Tommy Thames to give him a piece of my mind, but he won’t come to the phone. The only info I can get from his oddball secretary is that he is planning to attend the mediation with me and that I should “remain calm and not worry so much.”

  She says those exact words to me, and I feel like there may be some double-dealing going on. If Thames’s brother or cousin or whatever is suddenly Brett’s lawyer, why is Tommy Thames going to accompany me to the mediation? I have a million questions and feel like I have nobody to ask.

  I spend the next eighteen hours in bed. I bring new meaning to the wo
rd wallow. But then I get past the sad and enter the mad. Furious is more like it. And it’s with this new resolve and the anger of a lion protecting her cub that I answer my door to receive Tommy Thames on the morning of the mediation.

  “You’re wearing that?” he asks, which I find odd, not to mention off-putting and insulting.

  “I was planning to,” I say, looking down at myself.

  It’s true. I’ve looked better. I could have more carefully planned my outfit or put something on that could actually be considered an outfit … or showered, for that matter. But I’m too angry to care. The baseball cap will have to do. And I tell Thames as much.

  “I’d reconsider,” he says.

  “Why?” I ask. “Because he’s going to be there?”

  I can’t even bring myself to say his name. He’s become a pronoun. One said with permanent italics.

  “Well, yes,” Thames says.

  “I don’t need to impress him,” I say.

  “No,” he replies. “You don’t. But you do want to appear qualified for parenthood.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It means you haven’t even washed your hair,” he replies, unapologetic.

  I open my mouth to say something about wrinkled suits, stained shirts, and shar-peis, but nothing comes out. Which is fine, because he’s not done talking.

  “I’m going to go down the street to the diner and give you a half hour to clean up and make yourself look presentable,” he says. And then he turns around and closes the door behind him.

  When Thames returns, I have showered and changed into a pretty A-line dress and knee-high boots, and I’ve pulled my wet hair back into a neat ponytail.

  “That’s more like it,” he says, with a smile. But then a look of concern grows out of his grin. “Are you sure about the ponytail?”