“Gigi? Are you alright?” He leans his head down to find my eyes, loosening my grip, gently detaching me from his shirt to help me sit on the bed. I’m afraid, ashamed. Insane. I run my hand through my hair and a clump of gray and brown strands comes out from the back of my head somewhere.
Harry’s staring at me, unsure what to do.
All I can say is “What did you do with the fucking Sudocrem?” That’s what it’s called, motherfucking Sudocrem.
“It’s in the bathroom. I used it because I ran out of chafing cream for cycling. I’ll get it. Then we need to talk about how to help you get through today.”
He goes into the bathroom and I think about that word, “help,” how gentle that sounds, how nice. If someone helped me. A moment of hope and then Harry, finally fully clothed, hands me the tub. It’s nearly weightless in my palm, which can only mean one thing. I take off the lid. Empty.
“I’m sorry, I…” Harry says, but doesn’t finish.
I let it fall out of my hand to the floor. I watch it roll toward the windows. “I told you these floors were uneven,” I say in a calm, clear voice.
I leave the room, walk downstairs, grab my keys, wallet and phone. In the background the baby’s crying. Johnny’s grabbing my sleeve but I can’t hear what he’s saying. Harry runs down the stairs and I think he’s calling my name, yelling it. A stack of mail on the floor. A series of plastic bottles lined up next to the recycling bin. A pile of laundry festering in a corner. A carpet of Weetabix crumbs under the table.
Rocky needs something and so does Johnny. So does Harry. So do I. I put on my flip-flops, pull my robe close around me, and then I trip over Harry’s shoes. He left them by the door again. I pick them up, open the door, and hurl them into the street. A car alarm goes off.
I start walking.
14
steel
A Wednesday in August 2016, 10:30 p.m. London, Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, Room 506
I hear Sharon’s voice asking me what to tell Harry. I say, “Thanks, girls, I gotta go. Don’t worry, I’ll be OK.” I hear their worry as I hang up. I’ll explain tomorrow.
I get my calling card and dial my parents again.
My father picks up. “Yeah.”
“It’s me again.”
He says, “What’s up, you OK?”
“Yeah, just checking on Ma. Did you make her the soup?”
My father yells, “What?” He’s turned up the TV again.
“Did you make her the soup, Dad, cream of chicken?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah.” I can see him, eyes glazed over, barbecue sauce on his undershirt. His face lit up in the dark by the blue light of the screen.
“Well, Dad? Dad?” Trying to get his attention. “Dad! Did she eat it?”
“What, the soup?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Yeah, she came out the room and she had some soup. She’s cleaning the kitchen now.”
“Really?” I feel a sliver of relief, not sure whether it’s for her or me, or both of us.
“Yeah, Jeej, you know the routine. She’ll be OK. Listen, I gotta go, they’re doing Murder, She Wrote.”
“What?”
My dad says, “You know, the lady detective, your mother likes Angela Lansbury. Talk to ya’ later.”
“OK, Dad.” I hang up. I turn off the Housewives. Thanks, ladies, you were good company today. I crack the window to have another cigarette. Something’s glinting on the window ledge. A metal ashtray. It would be bad if that fell on someone’s head below. Overcome with an urge to be a good citizen, I reach out and just barely grasp it with two fingertips. It slips out of my hand onto the carpet, scattering soggy cigarette butts. Pink lipstick still stains most of them. Some other woman in here before me. In the low lighting of the hotel room the writing on the back of the ashtray glints up at me. PRODUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN STAINLESS STEEL.
I put out my cigarette, slide into my flip-flops, grab my wallet and keys, leave the pack of smokes for whoever has to clean this place. Probably a woman with kids. I pick up all the cigarette butts. I take out my ten pound note for emergency taxis and leave it under the ashtray. I hope she gets it. I walk to the door and look at the fire escape plan again. An X marks Room 506. I open the door.
In the hallway I walk slowly, running my hand along the peeling textured wallpaper, feeling its grit under my fingers. Downstairs there’s a new bored Slavic girl at reception. Blue eye shadow and false lashes. “I’m checking out,” I say.
“You have room tonight and one more night and day,” she says, taking my credit card suspiciously.
“I know, but I need to go home.”
She slides my credit card into the reader. “No discount for not stay tonight,” she grumbles.
“I’m not asking for one. I just need to go home.”
Outside, the sky is purple and the air is misty. It’s not rain and not drizzle, just water making its presence felt. The not-rain beads up on the fleece sleeves of my robe. The walk home is chilled and damp. August in London.
* * *
—
I open the front door, afraid that everything will look different. “Hello?” I say quietly, as though talking to spirits in a haunted house. As though I’m unfamiliar with what lies behind each doorway.
“Meesus Gigi?” Stefka appears and startles me. “Meesus Gigi! I am so happy! So worry. Come, come.” She leads me by the arm into the living room like an invalid, scanning my outfit with concern.
“Where’s Harry?” I ask, confused, uncomfortable that Stefka has been in my house in my absence, taking my place, although I know that’s ridiculous.
“Meester Harry call me about five, he says he’s going to look for you, I stay wis boys.” As an afterthought she adds, “Boys is fine,” because I haven’t asked. “I call him now. Say you home?”
I say, “No, it’s alright. My friends told him where I was. I’ll call him. You don’t have to stay, let me give you some money for a cab.” I’m glad he called her. What an angel she is. I feel grateful but also vulnerable and overexposed.
“No, I stay? Keep you company? Is no problem.”
Rocky’s cries blast through the monitor and Stefka turns to go to him but I stand up from the sofa with noticeable effort, hold her wrist and say, “Thank you, sweetheart, for today. I’ll be OK. You go home. See you next week.” I smile, hoping that I convinced her.
Stefka grabs both my arms. “Meesus Gigi, mother is like soldier in war. She train, she fight and kill. And then—she die.”
“Wow, Stefka, that’s, uh…thank you.” She hugs me tight. “Is OK, is OK,” she says. And it is. Or it will be.
She leaves and I hurry upstairs to Rocky. His tears are wild with anger and relief when he sees me. He clings to me tightly, buries his head under my neck. My phone rings. Harry. I answer, in a whisper, “I’m home.”
A long pause. “I was at the hotel. I was trying to find…it doesn’t matter, I’ll be there soon,” Harry says.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“So am I.”
I pace the living room floor to lull Rocky back to sleep and through a narrow space between the curtains I see Stefka sitting outside on the front steps. Making sure I’ll be OK until Harry gets here. She doesn’t know I used to do that for Ma. Or maybe, somehow, she does.
I put Rocky back in his cot and check on Johnny, fast asleep. Harry’s key finally turns in the lock. I meet him in the kitchen and he holds me tighter than he has in a long, long time. We say a lot without words. We did this easily, once. It’s more work now. There’s more to say, more to hold.
When we finally pull away he says, “I called Sharon, she sent me to the hotel, they were worried when you hung up, I told her—”
I interrupt him. “I broke that window.” I look at him. The past few months have made him o
lder.
“I know,” he says. He’s looking at me too but I don’t know what he thinks of what he sees.
“I drink wine out of tiny bottles during the day when I’m alone. I don’t get drunk. It’s to stay calm. But I need to stop,” I say to the floor.
“OK.” He strokes my hair.
Confessions fly out of me like angry crows beating their wings against my chest to get free. “I miss home. I’m lonely. I fucked up at work and I dropped the baby in the office in front of everyone. I don’t know if I can go back. Not because of that, just because I’m…Everything’s so…”
“OK. We’ll deal with it. One by one. Let’s take the boys to New York, see your friends. Let’s talk about work tomorrow. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. I’m just glad you’re home.” Harry rests his chin on the top of my head and I can feel him close his eyes.
If I were more generous, more gracious and humble, I’d say thank you now. But I’m not ready. I let the silence sit between us for a moment.
“Harry, it’s August. It’s almost Frankie’s time.”
“I know. I haven’t forgotten. I know it is.” He looks down into my eyes. “I should have asked you about it, I’m sorry, I didn’t pay enough attention.”
“It’s hard when there’s no one to remember but me. You know?”
“I know, I’m sorry.” We’re both tired of standing but before we move from here there’s one more thing to say.
“I’m sorry today was so bad.” It’s hard for me to say because part of me thinks I shouldn’t apologize for my rebellion. I had my reasons. Part of me is stunned by how my pain took over. The edge it pushed me to. Part of me is sorry. But not for what I did today. I’m sorry for all of us. Sorry for what happened to my body and my brain. Sorry for Rocky’s terrible introduction to life. Sorry for what Johnny has witnessed and how I’ve frightened him. Sorry for the helplessness that Harry’s felt all along. It didn’t just happen to me. I’m sorry that it happened to all of us.
I tighten my grasp on Harry’s hand. He looks at me. “It’s OK,” he says. “You’re home. Let’s get some sleep.”
“OK.”
“Gigi?”
“Yeah?”
“Just please don’t leave again.”
“I won’t.”
* * *
—
Rocky cries at 3:30 in the morning. I pick him up, hold him to my chest, whisper to him, sit in the old rocking chair. It’s a moment I usually dread, the nightly semiconscious moment of fury that he still doesn’t sleep through the night. But tonight I’m relieved that he needs me. I may not feel that way by bath time tomorrow, but for now, I sit in the rocker and tell him that I’ve always loved him. It was buried very deep and I had to move every rock, one by one, and dig through mounds of pain with my bare hands. But I’ve found it now. It was always there. Even when I couldn’t feel it.
“Jeej?” A tired little voice behind me in the doorway to Rocky’s room. Johnny, hair sticking straight up, rubbing his eyes.
“Hey, buddy, it’s the middle of the night, go back to bed,” I whisper.
“Were you poorly?” He stands at the foot of the chair, his shadow cast across the room by the night-light. Just like another little boy I used to know. The meaning of my life, stretched out there in his shadow. The last time I ran away. This time I came back.
“Come here.” I gather him up onto my lap. He’s so big now. All knees and elbows. Soon he’ll be too big to curl up on me like this. Rocky pats his brother’s face to say hello.
“Jeej, are you happy now? Harry said you were poorly. Are you better now?”
“When I’m with you I’m happy,” I say into the top of his head. I’ll keep saying it until the day it’s true again.
In the window I see our faint reflection, the three of us in the rocker. All of us breathing in the same rhythm. They’re content, half asleep. In this moment I’m home and that’s all they need. Through the curtains I can see the Moon. She’s a tiny sliver tonight. She’s got a long way to go. So do I.
epilogue
My phone rings. I know who it is. I put Rocky in his jumpy saucer thing and leave him in front of Food Network. It’s been a Food-Network-all-day kind of day for us—well, for me—but I did take a shower and I bought groceries. They’re still in the bags on the floor. But I bought them.
I find my phone on the kitchen table, still ringing. I have to answer because she’ll call back in fifteen minutes if I don’t. That was their deal with me. Every day, in rotation, one of them calls once and texts twice, and if I don’t answer, they’ll badger me every fifteen minutes until I do. Their own brand of harassment therapy.
Me: “Hey, what’s up?”
Sharon: “What’s up with you? How you feelin’ today?”
Me: “I don’t know. I went food shopping.”
Sharon: “That’s good. What else?”
Me: “That’s it, I guess. Johnny has a soccer game later. I’m going to try to go. I showered already so I wouldn’t have that excuse. If I just don’t talk to any of the other parents I think I’ll be OK.”
Sharon: “Yeah, because other people love it when you’re really unfriendly. It’s one of the things you’re good at.”
Me: “Anyway, the counselor is today at five.”
Sharon: “OK, that’s good. Listen, you’re doing everything, you know that, right? You’re doing all the right things.”
Me: “It doesn’t feel like it. It feels shitty.”
Sharon: “I know, I know it does, but this is just the shit from before the storm.”
Me: “You mean the calm?”
Sharon: “No, like, how everything is darker before the storm.”
Me: “OK, listen, it’s either darker before the dawn or calm before the storm, which one?”
Sharon: “You know what I’m saying, like when the clouds are swirling and it’s dark and the shit happens and then there’s the storm.”
Me: “That’s beautiful, Shar. But I’m good on storms, I had a storm…”
Sharon: “That’s what I’m saying, you already did the storm. And now—this is the shit.”
Me: “Have you thought about doing this professionally? Maybe a career change?”
Sharon: “OK, fine, your sarcasm is intact so you must be fine, just call me if you need me and answer my text later, alright?”
Me: “Love you.”
Sharon: “Love you.”
I put the phone down. I’m about to go back to the sofa but I see the groceries on the floor and I make myself put them away. Not every call is like that. Sometimes I’m sobbing, sometimes I’m yelling, sometimes I don’t say anything at all and they worry about me. But today is OK. Today has been mostly Food Network but there were the groceries, the shower and, maybe later, the soccer game. That’s not a bad day. That’s a day of tiny victories.
Some days are panic-attack-in-the-playground days; paralyzed-and-sweating-in-the-pharmacy-because-I-can’t-find-the-baby-shampoo days; Stefka-sitting-with-me-all-afternoon-because-I’m-crying days. Terror-that-I’ve-thrown-my-life-away-and-will-never-get-it-back days. Brittle days of shame and sleep deprivation. Days when Johnny eats leftover pizza for breakfast and dinner. Days when nothing changes and nothing will ever change again. Days when the steel gray sky of London is the color of my heart and I just want to go home.
But there are other days too. And I start to count them, and they are not every day, and they are not most days, but they do happen. The day I take Rocky to playgroup. The day I call Tracy and we go for a walk. The day I meet Charlie for lunch after the third time she a
sked and Rebecca babysits and I’m grateful to her and I don’t say anything passive-aggressive. And neither does she. The day I write my résumé. The day Harry calls a sitter without me asking or telling and he just does it and we go out and it’s awkward because we forgot how to talk to each other but then he does it the next week and the next and we start to remember. The day we sleep in the same bed. The day I take the medication. The day I don’t have time to reach for wine because I’ve been busy taking care of my kids and looking for jobs online and I start to feel better.
One day I open the closet and try on clothes that aren’t leggings and oversized sweaters. Most of them don’t fit. Fuck it. I throw them on the floor. I fold up the old jeans and tops, the suits and pencil skirts, and put them in garbage bags for donating. I’ll drop them off on the way to Sainsbury’s to get dinner and then I’ll go pick up the boys. As I turn away to take the bags downstairs, a sleeve of the red patent leather coat hanging on the back of the closet door catches my eye. I pull it on, tie the belt and pop the collar. I go downstairs, step over Harry’s shoes and take a last look in the mirror. I smile at my reflection, with my eyes, just like Tyra and Stacy taught me. Then I open the door, one bag in each hand, and lock it behind me. I take a deep breath. And I start walking.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people whose support, time and energy made this novel possible and to whom I will always be indebted.
I am beyond grateful to have had the honor and privilege to work with two extraordinary editors, Jocasta Hamilton and Jenny Jackson. Jocasta, whenever we spoke about Gigi it felt less like editing and more like a concerned conversation about a real person, our girlfriend going through a rough time who we were both worried about. She came alive on these pages because of you. Jenny, thank you for your big-picture thinking and positivity, and for caring about Gigi as much as I did. You have both made this an infinitely better book, but I thank you most of all for how you have made me a better writer.
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