Annie is discharged the next morning, with a list of all the concussion symptoms to look out for, things that would mean an immediate trip back to the hospital. I know we need to have a talk, but not yet; my daughter needs to heal before she deals with my upset.
I see Ellie just as we are leaving, her hair and clothes disheveled, looking more like Julia than Ellie. It is the first time I actually see a family resemblance. I think of walking over to her to say something, but there is nothing to say. I can’t make it better, and seeing me here will doubtless make it worse.
I am walking through the car park when I hear my name and I stop in my tracks, unwilling to be shouted at yet again, unwilling to turn and listen to whatever it is she has to say.
But I do turn. I walk slowly over to where she is standing.
“Cat, thank you.” Her voice is rasping and rough, but authentic. “Thank you for being here.”
“You’re welcome,” I say, and then she just looks at me, as if she is going to say something else, but she doesn’t, and I give her a rueful smile and leave.
I don’t know what Ellie’s story is. I don’t know if she drinks in the way we tend to drink in our family. I don’t know if she was drunk last night, or if she just needed to let off steam. I do know it is not my place to judge her. I do know that as I walk into the streams of sunlight hitting the car park, I am filled with gratitude that I am no longer the kind of mother that can’t be there for her child; I am no longer the kind of mother who goes AWOL, who finds herself in bars with strangers, is more interested in being in bars with strangers than raising her daughter. I thank God that I am not showing up in the morning drunk, smelling of booze and cigarettes, because my family was never my priority.
How easily this could have been me. This was me. For years. Jason protected me from the full horror of how bad a parent I was. But what if I hadn’t had him? I doubt I would have been able to be present last night in the way that I was. My daughter would have been “fast,” “advanced,” because how else do you survive when you do not have a mother? How else do you survive when your mother is too busy planning her next drink, or binge, to know or care what you are doing, until of course the terrible thing happens, when you wail down the phone and fortify yourself with booze on the ferry over, to get you through whatever pain awaits you when you arrive?
* * *
Annie is home, being looked after by Sam the nurse. Eddie dropped in with an “Eddie” bear that I thought Annie would discard, announcing she is much too old for stuffed toys, but the Eddie bear is squeezed next to her in bed as Sam runs up and down the stairs tending to her every need.
Here I am, at the ferry, to collect Jason. I have parked a little ways up the street and walk down to watch the boat come in, the hordes of people that swarm off. I never understand where all these people disappear to. It is such a small island, but never feels crowded, although every day I see more people arrive. I’m never here to see the same crowds leave.
I’m in a reverie about where people disappear to when I see Jason, and my heart starts to smile, for he looks so very English in his slim-cut jeans and trendy sneakers, his V-neck T-shirt and cool metal aviators. He looks English, and handsome, and I wish to God, oh how I wish to God, my heart didn’t do an involuntary flip. But it does, and I take a deep breath, compose my features into something that does not give away the fact that I still think this man is the most perfect man I have ever seen, and I wave.
“Hey, you,” he says, and he puts his bag down and gives me a hug.
* * *
I could stay here forever. I give myself the luxury of closing my eyes so I can fully appreciate the loveliness of being in his arms again, if only because he is trying to comfort me, comfort himself perhaps, and when we pull away I try to be very matter-of-fact to hide the fact that even though we are divorced, even though he is now very much with the poison dwarf, he still has the ability to make me come completely undone.
“How is she?”
“Happy to be out of the hospital. Worried about Trudy, her cousin, actually, who is still in the hospital, and very much enjoying having Sam and Eddie run up and down stairs and bring her treats.”
“Eddie?”
“Sam’s new friend. I know, we’ve only been here five minutes, but he seems to have lucked out. He brought Annie a huge teddy bear this morning that she engulfed.”
He runs his fingers through his hair as he shakes his head. “I can’t actually believe our daughter was in an accident. You always think these things happen to other people, never to you. Jesus.” He pauses. “How grateful am I that she’s okay.”
“Speaking of grateful, there are incredible meetings here.”
“You’re going?”
“Almost every day.”
“Cat, I’m so happy that you’re really doing it this time,” he says, as we reach the car. “You really are so different.”
“Thanks,” I say lightly, swallowing the lump in my throat, because if I’m so different, if I’m really doing it, how come you still don’t want me?
* * *
“Daddy!” If Annie hadn’t been covered in bandages and stitched up everywhere, if she could have leaped out of bed to jump into her father’s arms, she would have done.
“Bobannie!” It has always been his nickname for her after a childhood song: Annie Bannie Bo Bannie, Banana Fana Fo Fannie, Me My Mo Mannie, Annie! She would make him sing it over and over, giggling hilariously each time, and Bo Bannie, over time, became Bobannie, which became Bob-any, emphasis on the Bob.
“Daddy!” She nestles into his arms, joy exploding out of every pore. I didn’t tell her he was coming, wanted this to be a surprise, and I step back to wipe the tears from my eyes, then go downstairs to make some lemonade.
“Where’s Eddie?”
“Gone to fight fires.”
“Actually?” I turn to Sam, impressed.
“No. He’s gone to get some fish.”
“Does that mean to the fish market or out on a boat with a rod?”
Sam raises a withering eyebrow. “You look at him and tell me what you think. Is he mincing round the aisles with a red plastic basket hanging prettily from his very strong, sexy forearm, or is he ruggedly on a large boat, gritting his teeth, his muscles bulging as he hauls in a giant swordfish?”
“Fishing, then?”
Sam nods, then puts down the magazine he was reading, a freebie we picked up on Water Street with a list of houses for sale on Nantucket.
“I was thinking I might buy somewhere here,” says Sam, examining the cover, “until I saw what the prices are. It’s insane, Cat. I don’t think I could even afford a shed here, let alone a sweet little two-bedroomed cottage.”
“Are things already that serious between you and Eddie?” I’m impressed. “You’re actually thinking about buying a house here?”
“No, sweetie.” He sighs. “It’s just what I do. Thank God the only porn I indulge in on a regular basis is real estate porn. You have to look, indulge in the fantasy of what if. What if Eddie and I fell madly in love and decided to live out the rest of our days on Fantasy Island?”
“You do realize he might have to tell his mother he’s gay if that were to happen.”
“Oh, we’ve already had that discussion. Many times. I keep telling him life’s too damn short.”
“Anyway, he’s a builder. You don’t have to buy a house. If we’re going to indulge in fantasy, you could probably buy an adorable piece of land somewhere for next to nothing and have Eddie build you a palace.”
“There are no pieces of land on Nantucket for next to nothing. There’s nothing under a million. Not even land. Also, I don’t want a palace. I want a grey-shingled house with window boxes filled with geraniums and lobelia, and banks of blue hydrangeas, and a white crushed-oyster driveway, and French doors from the bedroom that open onto a gorgeous little balcony with tons of old terra-cotta pots and a couple of chairs for Eddie and me to sit in when we have our morning coffee or our evening glass of wine.”
“Will the balcony overlook the sunset?”
“Well, of course it will!” says Sam. “And the sunrise.”
“Oooh. Same balcony? Tricky!”
“Maybe the balcony will be on the roof. What do they call that thing? A widow’s walk! So we can just turn the chairs around.”
“Or have a backless bench so you can sort of face each other and simply turn your heads one way to watch the sunset, and another way to watch the sunrise.”
“I like it!” He gives a slow grin. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re good.”
“I’m available for decorating services anytime you need.”
“Sweetie, the one thing I don’t need is decorating services.” He gestures around at the new-look house, for even though he swore he would stop at the living room that first day when we went shopping, every time he goes out he comes back with a little something to make the house even better. The kitchen table now has a burlap runner going down the middle of it, and assorted sizes of glass lanterns, and I’m pretty sure those white ceramic bowls on the sideboard weren’t here yesterday.
“So.” He peers at me. “How is having hunky ex-husband over here?”
“Nice,” I say, getting up and making myself busy at the kitchen sink because Sam has a horrible habit of getting the truth out of me, and I’m not sure I’m ready for him to see how much I still care.
“Nice in a you still want to sleep with him way, or nice because you feel supported and it makes Annie happy?”
“Those days of wanting to sleep with Jason again are long gone,” I lie, as someone clears his throat in the doorway, and I turn, horrified that Jason is standing there, mortified that he heard, my cheeks turning a swift, startling red.
“Well, that told him,” says Sam happily, who loves nothing more than being witness to a horrifyingly embarrassing situation.
“I’m just going to use the bathroom.” I dash past Jason, my head down, and up stairs, where I throw myself onto the bed with a huge groan. I can’t face him again. I just can’t. I grab a hat, tiptoe down the stairs and out the front door, managing to avoid everyone. When I’m safely out of sight of the house I text Sam that I’m going for a walk along the beach and I’ll see them later.
I go to the end of the road, climbing the long wooden steps to the beach, taking deep breaths and trying not to think about the fact that Jason just heard me say I wasn’t interested in sleeping with him.
I suppose it’s marginally better than hearing me say I was interested in sleeping with him.
Sleeping with him.
Oh, how I loved sleeping with Jason.
Jason has always made me feel safe. I had never been able to sleep comfortably in a bed with anyone before Jason. Granted, I don’t remember most of my one-night stands and brief relationships in my youth, only remember waking up the next morning with a sinking feeling in my stomach, but the few I do remember, I remember not wanting to be touched.
I never understood spooning, for example. How could anyone sleep pressed into someone’s hot body? How could anyone sleep even touching someone else? No thank you. I wanted to be all by myself, on my pretend island on my side of the bed.
Until Jason. The first night we spent together was in my apartment, not his. It wasn’t a drunken falling into bed but a sober experience, in more ways than one. I still remember everything about it. How we had spent the evening kissing, and kissing, and kissing on the sofa. How I knew then that this was it, that he was the one for me.
I remember that I got up and went to the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. I brushed my teeth, took my hair down, and got undressed. I pulled on my pajamas and padded back into the living room, where I think Jason was shell-shocked, wondering where on earth I’d gone, what I was doing. He never expected me to come back into the room in my pink and white flowery pajamas.
I walked over to him, sitting on the sofa, took his hand, and saying nothing at all I led him into my bedroom, sat him on my bed, then straddled him, taking his face in my hands and kissing his face everywhere but his mouth. I wanted to remember this. I wanted to remember everything.
And finally, gently, I kissed his lips, back to his neck, and back to his lips, and it was the sweetest, slowest, most loving kiss I could ever remember.
He buried his face in my hair, in my neck, murmuring my name. It had been such a long time coming, Jason and I, friends for so long, this unspoken attraction unspoken for so very long, that allowing it to emerge was an almost spiritual experience.
He unbuttoned the buttons of my pajamas very slowly, kissing all the way down, as I moved my hands under his T-shirt, unable to believe I was able to do this, feel his skin, feel his tongue in his mouth, when it was all I had thought about for so very long.
It was soft, and sweet, and slow. Loving. It was the first time I had ever known the difference between sex and fucking and making love. This was making love, and when he was above me, moving inside me, leaning down to kiss me all over my face, in just the way I had kissed him all over his when I first sat him on the bed, I was astonished to feel tears leaking their way out of my eyes.
He stopped moving. “You’re crying. Why are you crying? Am I hurting you?”
I shook my head. I had no words. I had no idea how to explain that these were tears of joy, because I had never cried tears of joy before.
Afterward, he pulled me in tight, spooning into him, and I sank back into his body, wanting to drink in his taste, his smell, his strong arms wrapped around me.
I woke up to daylight streaming in through the cracks at the sides of the curtains, Jason’s arms still around me, still holding me tight, and I had had the best night’s sleep I had ever had.
It was how we always slept. No matter how bad things were between us, we slept together, in the middle of the bed, Jason’s arms wrapped tightly around me, and however bad things had been, however much we had fought, as soon as I felt his arms, I knew everything would be all right.
* * *
I stay on the beach for a long time. I wish Jason hadn’t heard me say it. Even though I said I didn’t want to sleep with him, what the hell am I even doing putting the words “Jason” and “sleep with” in the same sentence? Surely he’ll think I am thinking about sleeping with him. Maybe he’ll even laugh about it when he’s home, lying in bed with the poison dwarf, both of them feeling sorry for me, the single mother who threw her life away and won’t find anyone to love her ever again.
People start gathering up their things, and I realize it’s time to go. Much as I would love to stay away forever, we’ve got days and days more, and Jason’s going to stay in the house, and I can’t avoid him forever.
* * *
The house is quiet, until I hear a burst of laughter coming from the screen porch. Female laughter, and it’s not Annie’s.
I walk through the kitchen, wondering who in the hell is in my house, and push open the door to find Jason sitting on the sofa, a pitcher of iced tea on the table, with Julia.
They both clearly found something incredibly amusing before I walked in, and I bite my tongue so as not to say something sarcastic, because I am completely discombobulated by seeing the two of them together, the two of them laughing, and oh how I am hoping I am imagining the threads of chemistry I feel weaving around the room.
Instead I look warily from one to the other, disturbed that they were having fun, that I was excluded from the aforementioned fun, and bewildered as to what she is doing here.
“Julia. What a surprise. How’s Trudy?” I hover in the doorway, wanting very much to disturb them, to disturb their laughter, whatever fun they seem to be having, but not, obviously, wanting to disturb them.
“Come and join us,” says Jason. “I made iced tea.”
“No you didn’t.” Julia shoots him a look as he shrugs apologetically. “I made iced tea. You had no idea how to do it.” She’s smiling, and I’m quite sure she’s flirting, and I look from one to the other, stunned, not knowing quite what to do, only knowing that I wish she would leave.
“I have absolutely no idea what’s going on here. How do you know each other, and what are you doing here, Julia?” I try to keep my voice light, keep the accusation out of it, but I’m not sure how successful I am.
Julia has the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, Cat. I came over to apologize for last night, and to thank you for looking after Trudy. I was organizing a big event over at Quidnet last night, and I didn’t even think to check my cell. I thought the girls were staying in watching a movie. I’m completely mortified at what happened, and so upset. And, obviously, so worried about them. I can’t believe they stole a scooter and then crashed. Thank God no one was seriously hurt. And there’s something else I have to tell you.…” She looks away, uncomfortable. “I am so sorry, Cat, but I lied about Ellie saying it was fine for the girls to be together.”
My mouth drops open as I look at her in disbelief, even though a part of me thought this might have been the case. I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to believe it so I didn’t pursue it.
How stupid I have been.
“I just felt so awful that the girls couldn’t be friends, so Trudy and I decided not to say anything. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I realize how wrong it was. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh my God, Julia,” I gasp. “I don’t even know what to say. That’s such a huge lie.” I am gratified that even Jason looks shocked.
“I know, but it truly came from the best intentions. I screwed up.”
“Ellie knows you were lying too.”
“Yes. Now she does. I’ve apologized to her.”
“Did she go off the rails?”
“No. She’s too guilty at not being here, and too relieved that Trudy is okay. I think she’s even relieved that you were there. This time she will actually let the girls see each other. She feels horrible, and she knows she was wrong.”
Julia looks remorseful, which isn’t really the point. I still can’t believe she would lie, not just to Ellie, but to me; to all of us. And even though this may have resulted in what we all wanted, the dishonesty behind it makes me wonder how well I know Julia, why she would go to the trouble of lying for my daughter.
“Why did you do it?” I ask. “Why risk it?”
“I did it for Trudy. I know how much she has always wanted a big family, and I didn’t think it was right to keep them apart, so I took matters into my own hands. I know I was wrong. I feel horrible about it now.”
To give her credit, she does look mortified, but I feel extremely unsettled. Honesty has become such a huge part of my life; if I had known she had lied, I would never have encouraged the girls to get together.
And yet, I stop myself, I did know. On some level, I knew.
But if Julia could lie so easily about that, what else might she lie about? Would she lie that she has forgiven me? Would she be that callous? Does she, in fact, feel the same as Ellie?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Julia says, standing in front of me now, grabbing my arms. “I hated lying. I’m not a liar, I did this for the girls. For you. I know I made a terrible mistake but this isn’t who I am, and I am going to make it up to you. If nothing else, Ellie is pretty disgusted with me right now, but much more inclined to have a relationship with you. She has forgiven you. This isn’t all bad, Cat.”
I look in her eyes, and I realize she is right. People make mistakes. We fuck up, and what kind of person would I be if I was unable to forgive her?
I close my eyes for a few seconds and nod my head. “Okay,” I say. “Okay, I understand. We need to move on from this.”
Julia envelops me in a hug. “Thank you. You will never know how relieved I am. And Ellie too, so relieved and appreciative. She said she had no idea what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
How could she not believe it? I think, staring at her. Isn’t Julia filled with stories of doing exactly the same thing when she was a teenager? Didn’t she regularly steal Jeeps parked by the harbor and drive them to parties all over the island? Didn’t she sneak into all the bars underage, chatting up the doormen and sticking her boobs out to get in? How on earth could she possibly think Trudy isn’t going to do, if not the same exact thing, then something similar?
How did I not realize? I think. Because I still think of Annie as a little girl. I hadn’t realized, until last night, just how much she has grown up.
“I am so sorry, Cat.” Julia is standing in front of me now, and she grabs my arms. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it up to you. Ellie is furious with me. She may never talk to me again. But she’s feeling a bit warmer toward you, although disgusted with me that I went out to an event and wasn’t contactable, and you were the one who showed up.”
“I imagine it’s the last thing she would have wanted.”
“I imagine that’s true, although she is relieved and appreciative you were there. Really appreciative. She said she had no idea what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
A glow of warmth spreads inside me, and I realize how much it has bothered me, all these years, being hated by someone for no reason at all. I am a people-pleaser; I need to be liked, and I can’t help but feel gratified that Ellie may be changing her mind, even though it took a web of lies to get her there.
“The nurses at the hospital told me you were back and forth between the two rooms all night. I feel awful I wasn’t there when it happened. I’m so sorry, Cat. I really don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s the least I could do, the least anyone would have done. I just wish I had known you weren’t going to be around last night. The girls could have come here.”
“Ellie would never have allowed it. I was just trying to do the right thing without having the girls feel like they had to lie. I’m sorry.”
“Okay. It’s … fine. I’m just relieved I was able to be there. How is Trudy doing?”
“She’s okay. They took off the bandages to examine the eye, and they think it’s going to be fine. Ellie’s with her. I just left to get her some things from home, and I wanted to drop by and say thank you in person.”
“Oh. So … have you been here long?” I look at the iced tea, remember the discomfort of walking in to her and Jason laughing.
She flushes slightly again and grabs her straw purse from the floor. “Longer than I should have been. I’ve got to get back to the hospital. Cat, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, and again, I am so sorry.” And with that my half sister puts her arms around me and gives me a genuine hug. “It was good to meet you, Jason,” she says, as he stands up and shakes her hand across the coffee table. I watch his face very carefully as he looks at her, and I forget everything that just happened.
I know my husband.
Ex-husband.
He fancies her.
Fuck.
I know that look in his eye. For once, Cara the poison dwarf doesn’t seem like a bad alternative. I walk Julia to the car and come straight back in, standing in the doorway with my arms crossed accusingly.
“You fancy her.”
“Oh my God.” He starts to laugh. “Are you out of your mind?” And I start to feel a tiny bit better.
“You were totally flirting with her,” I say, but even I’m aware there is less conviction in my voice.
“I was not flirting with her, totally or otherwise. Actually I was curious about the sister I’d never met.”
“Half sister. You do realize it would practically be incest. And more to the point, what would Cara say if she knew you were entertaining attractive single women in your screen porch?”
Jason makes a face, looks away, then looks back at me, and I know what’s coming next, a shiver of happiness running through me in anticipation of the words I know I’m about to hear.
“We broke up.”
“What?” I sit down in the chair opposite, shocked in spite of myself, trying to hide the smile that so desperately wants to break out, having completely forgotten the unsettling conversation with Julia, having completely forgotten, in fact, that Julia was just here.
“What do you mean you broke up? When? Why? I thought this was the big one. I thought you were going to end up together.” It’s too late: The smile has made its way onto my face, and I know how massively inappropriate that is, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop smiling.
“We broke up about a month ago.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
He shakes his head.
“So. What happened?”
“It just wasn’t right.”
“Oh come on, Jason. It’s me. I know I’m not your wife anymore, but you have to tell me. Let me guess. You had enough of her telling you what to do.”
“It wasn’t just that.”
“So that was part of it?”
He groans and sinks his head into his hands. “Okay. It was all too much for me. Everything revolved around her, everything had to be done her way. I tried, I really tried to make her happy, but nothing was ever going to make her happy. I’m not sure anything ever will.”
“But you didn’t end it, surely?” I know Jason. He’s a good guy, a people-pleaser. That’s why I thought he was so stuck. Even if he was miserable, he’d have to stay to try to make it better, try to make her happy.
“She kind of ended it.” He starts to shift awkwardly in his seat. He’s not making eye contact, and I realize he must have done something, behaved in a way that made her give him an ultimatum.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I didn’t do anything!”
I peer at him. “Did you have an affair?”
“Can you have an affair when it’s just a girlfriend? Don’t you have to be married?”
“You’re totally evading the question, which means you did! You started seeing someone else!” I’m shocked, but convinced this is what he did. It’s so typically male. They’ll never directly end it, unless of course you’re a raging alcoholic and make your marriage a living hell; instead they’ll behave so badly that the woman is forced to end it, to say shape up or ship out, offer an ultimatum that enables them to make an easy exit.
“I didn’t actually do anything,” Jason admits reluctantly. “It was a flirtation, and not even one I started. Someone was flirting with me.”
“Who?”
“An actress I was working with. She was sending me some pretty outrageous texts, and Cara found them.”
My mouth has dropped open. “You really didn’t respond?”
“Barely. I was extremely polite, but”—he looks embarrassed—“I didn’t want to be rude and not say anything.”
“What did Cara do?”
“It was extremely high drama for twenty-four hours. Lots of screaming and crying. I kept telling her nothing had happened and it wasn’t my fault this woman had a crush on me, but she didn’t believe me. In the end she said she couldn’t trust me anymore and she was leaving, and I had screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“So you got dumped.”
“I can’t quite think of it that way because I’d been desperate for it to be over for weeks. I just didn’t know how to extricate myself. This was like a lucky gift from God.”
“Has she been back in touch saying she made a terrible mistake yet?”
He gives me a sheepish smile. “Yes. She said she realized I would never do anything to hurt her and she wanted to give me a second chance.”
“And you said?”
“That over the past few days I had had a lot of time to really think about what she had said, and I think she was right, we aren’t right for each other.”
“You know I never liked her,” I say, knowing that I probably shouldn’t be saying this.
“She didn’t like you either.” He grins.
“Well, clearly. She obviously hated my guts. She didn’t seem like a very nice person, and honestly, I couldn’t ever figure out what you saw in her. She treated Annie horribly. Not in the beginning when she was trying to win her over, but as soon as she felt secure with you, Annie just seemed to become this enormous source of resentment and irritation.”
“I’m so sorry,” says Jason. “I kept thinking they would figure it out.”
“I don’t think Cara has it in her to figure things out. Some people battle with jealousy. I think she couldn’t ever deal with you having other women in your life. Me, your daughter. It would have been hell for the rest of your life.”
He nods, pensive. “Yes. I think that’s probably true, and I think I had realized that. I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier.”
“Me too.”
And then we hear Annie from upstairs. “Mum? Dad? Hello?”
“I’ll go.” I turn to go upstairs, knowing that the time has come for Annie and me to talk, that she is healed enough. “Won’t be long.”
* * *
I push open the door, heart melting at how vulnerable my daughter looks, in bed, bandaged, like a wounded duckling.
“Hi, darling, how are you feeling?”
“Good. Okay. Better. You know what I really want?” She sits up, pushing the covers back. “I’ve got a huge craving for ice cream.”
I lean over and kiss her on the top of her head, then sit down on her bed. “We can get you ice cream. But first I think we do need to have a talk.”
Her face falls.
“Annie, now that you’re better, I need you to know that I love you, and I am so relieved that you are fine, but I am also so angry and disappointed that you got into this mess.” I am careful to keep my voice flat. In the old days, the drinking days, I would have shouted, screamed, ranted and raved. I wouldn’t have waited until Annie got better, would have been a reactive mess.
“You are thirteen. I don’t know what to say about you even being on a scooter, let alone stealing one. The lying, Annie. The dishonesty. How am I supposed to trust you?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” she grumbles, picking at the bedspread, refusing to meet my eyes.
“It was Trudy’s idea?”
“No!” She is quick to defend her cousin. “It just … I don’t even remember how it happened. It was the other girls, not Trudy. They dared us to do it. I knew it was stupid and I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to be the annoying bratty little cousin. Mum, I really didn’t want to.” Now she looks at me, eyes swimming with tears. “Neither of us did, but we didn’t know how to say no.”
“Okay.” I nod. I understand this, understand what this feels like, when you are thirteen, and desperate to fit in, and terrified it might be discovered that you aren’t as cool or as fun as everyone else. I don’t know that Trudy felt the same way, am quite certain, in fact, that she was an instigator, but I know my daughter. “Okay.”
She looks up at me. “What about Trudy?”
“What about her?”
“Can I still see her?” Her voice is tentative, nervous.
I look at my daughter’s face. I know Trudy was an influence on her. Not necessarily a bad one, but one who is older, more experienced, who I’m quite certain has seen far more of life than my sweet young daughter.
I want to say no. I want to tell her that there is a consequence imposed for stealing scooters and lying about what you are doing and where you are. I want to be absolutely sure this doesn’t happen again.
But this is her cousin, and Ellie has now said it is okay. How can I separate them? How can I get in the way of a family, when I know just how much my daughter craves a connection with this girl, her own age, and her blood relative?
How can I say no?
“Supervised.” I give her a stern look, although of course it will be supervised. Poor Trudy is still bandaged up. It is doubtful Ellie will let her go anywhere for a while.
“I love you, Mum!” My daughter flings her arms around me before pulling back. “Now. About that ice cream…”
* * *
Jason and I take Annie to town. She swears she is up to it, but her arm is in a sling, and we are careful to move slowly, not to tire her out. She wants to look in the stores, sees a pair of sandals she wants, which Jason buys for her.
In the window of another store, I pause, seeing a beautiful silvery grey scarf.
“That would look great on you, Mum,” says Annie, seeing what I’m looking at.
“It would,” Jason agrees. “Shall we go in?”
We do, and the sales assistant brings me the scarf, and it is quite the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.
“It’s pure cashmere,” she says as I wind it around my neck, “but so fine it’s almost like silk.”
In the mirror, I see Jason standing behind me, looking at me. I meet his eyes, and he grins. “It does look beautiful on you,” he says. “You should buy it.”
I search for the price tag, and see it is $395, and there is no way in hell I have $395 to spend on a scarf, cashmere or otherwise, and I do not let my face register my shock at the price, slowly unwinding the scarf, telling the sales assistant I will think about it.
“Sure!” she says. “We have a few of them. How long are you here for?”
“Another week,” I say.
“You’re an adorable family,” she says, looking from me to Annie to Jason, and I just smile and thank her, not wanting to catch Jason’s eye, not wanting him to see the need in my face, the longing, the wishing that we were still an intact family.
“Why didn’t you buy it?” he asks as we leave the store. “It really did look wonderful.”
“Because it was a fortune,” I say, not adding that I’m a single mother who has to watch pretty much every penny, who can’t afford to waste hundreds of dollars on frivolities, no matter how beautiful.
We walk down to get ice cream, both of us flanking our daughter, who chatters away, looking from one to the other, and I see how happy she is to have her family complete, to have her mother and father together.
I remember how good we always were when things were good. How good we always were when I wasn’t drinking. I remember how good we were on holiday, how well we got on, how much fun we had.
Jason always liked doing the same things I was doing. I had friends who were married to men who hated lying around on a beach doing nothing. When they go on holiday my girlfriends spend all day by themselves while their husbands furiously run from tennis lessons to fishing or sailing, or hike around deserted parts of a Greek island for hours on end.
I have other friends who love walking around cities, spontaneously going into wherever takes their fancy, be it a museum, a gallery, a café, or a shoe shop. Obviously the shoe shop is the most important, but they’re married to husbands who refuse to stop, who march from A to B, sullenly waiting outside should their wives give in to the urge to browse, which makes those wives feel guilty, even as they slip their feet into exquisite heels that they would never find at home, and the whole holiday turns into one big stress fest.
Jason and I always seemed to be on the same wavelength on holiday. We would fly over to Paris for long weekends with nothing booked, nothing planned, staying in a tiny little boutique hotel in Le Marais, le Bourg Tibourg, spending all day every day just walking. We would go to the Rodin Museum if we felt like it, or the Musée d’Orsay, and we would walk. We would wander up and down the banks of the Seine, stopping for café au lait and chocolat chaud, entering the tiny boutiques, where Jason practiced his school French on the chic sales assistants.
We would go to the Greek islands, staying in stark white beautiful villas on Mykonos, spend all day lying on the beach, plunging into the Mediterranean, happy to read a book, play backgammon, be with each other. We’d wander back to the villa after lunch, make love, fall asleep with a fan whirring above our heads, wake up in time for showers and dinner.
Then Annie came along, and our holidays changed, but we were still good together.
We were so good together.
Walking along these cobbled streets, Annie chattering away, from time to time both of us smiling at each other across the top of Annie’s head, it is absolutely clear to me that we are still good together. That our divorce was a terrible mistake.
I don’t get an ice cream. Annie does, and Jason does. I abstain, deciding that my jeans may be skinny, but my thighs definitely aren’t, and if I want to continue being able to get into them, I have to stop with the ice cream.
Jason holds his ice cream out to me, and I lick it, making the mistake of looking up just as my tongue touches the swirl. I meet his eyes, and the intimacy in this look, in my tongue being out, in a flood of desire washing over me, turns my cheeks bright red, and we both look away.
Why is this happening to me now? How has all this time gone by, during which I have been able to accept that my old life is over, that Jason no longer wants me, that I screwed things up and we have now both moved on, only for me to feel like this here?
Where the hell has this desire come from, and what am I supposed to do with it now?