I sometimes wonder what has made me feel whole again. If it is your absence, or his presence. Neither of the options is the right option, I know.
It’s simply the result. Something I had forgotten I could feel.
Almost right away, Marcus knew something was wrong.
He didn’t notice it in my absence; I’m a good liar, always was, and distance made me better. I was supposed to be out, after all. I was supposed to be working. I was even supposed to be distracted about my daughter, about my husband. I think he missed all the early signs, the daily phone calls that began to come once every two, three, four days, the lack of reference to my friends, my absences at night.
And then, I came back. He couldn’t put his finger on it, I could tell. He just knew I wasn’t the person I had been before I left.
It was little things, in the beginning. Things that didn’t bother me suddenly started driving me nuts. Everything was so rigid. The schedules, the ban on smoking, the stupid bank teller who refused to let me withdraw cash the day my ATM card didn’t work because I had no picture ID with me, even though I’d been banking in the same branch for six years.
I tried to apply “the glass is always half full” theory, but I couldn’t. Nothing worked as it should.
“I was someone there!” I cried in frustration one evening over drinks in the kitchen, after a particularly unproductive day of making my gallery rounds. “Here, I’m meaningless. I don’t know the right people, I don’t have the right accent, my photographs are too ‘Colombian,’ they told me today.”
“Helena, you know me,” Marcus said reasonably. “I carry some clout in some places. Tell me who you’re targeting, maybe I can help you with some of them. But you have to tell me!”
“Marcus,” I said, rubbing my eyes, because he just didn’t get it. Why didn’t he get it, after all this time? “I can’t use your name forever. Everything I’ve done is tied to you. Do you have any idea how… humiliating it is to always be referred to as Marcus Richard’s wife?”
Marcus twirled the stem of his wineglass and sighed.
“No,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t see what’s ‘humiliating’ about it. My family name helped me get in the door here. And if it weren’t for your family name, you wouldn’t have been asked to do this book of yours for the governor. It’s all in who you know in our fields, and you know that.”
He stared at me, trying to read my mind.
“What are we really talking about here? What’s pissing you off? Because you’ve gotten work rejected before, and you’ve always turned around and come up with something else. So what’s going on, Helena?”
What was I supposed to say. There’s someone else? I didn’t even know that anymore. Was there someone else?
I looked around me, my beautiful kitchen that I didn’t use, my beautiful garden that I hardly ever set foot in, the swimming pool that was too cold most of the year. The one thing I truly, truly enjoyed was the red Mercedes-Benz convertible parked in my driveway, my dream car and an indulgence, because getting Gabriella’s car seat in and out of that backseat was a nightmare. I could drive it in peace here like I never would have in Colombia. Here, I wouldn’t be kidnapped or carjacked.
“I don’t know, Marcus,” I said defeated. “I was there almost two months photographing, and everything felt right. My work was right, I was inspired. I took my best shots. My photographs were treated with respect. I was treated with respect.”
“I don’t get it,” he said tersely now. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you got written up in the local Cali newspaper and the L.A. Times isn’t writing a Sunday piece on you? Maybe, if you were as serious about your work here as you apparently were there, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“And just what do you mean by being serious?” I asked defensively.
“I mean exactly that,” said Marcus, setting his glass down. “You don’t finish your projects. You don’t even present your proposals properly. You’ve fought with your two past agents. You act like you’re in Cali and all you need to do is waltz in and give out your name and voilà! You’ll get an exhibit. Or a book. Or a fashion shoot. Whatever. Do you have any idea how many people from all over the world are here, busting their chops, trying to do what you do, while you’re taking yoga classes?”
I felt assaulted.
And furious at him because I knew he was right, but right there, right then, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing, even as I saw my dreams drifting from my fingertips as I led the life of a Hollywood wife.
“I have a little girl,” I said angrily, my voice low, spitting out every syllable. “You have no idea how hard it is to be inspired when you have to be on top of her every move and take her to classes and take her to the park and try to be a decent mother that doesn’t dump her kid in day care or leave her with the nanny all day because I have no family to give me a hand. You took care of her for a little over a month. I’ve taken care of her for four years! All this time, I’ve left everything else aside, and I’ve lived for her. And now, for the first time since she was born, I was able to live for me. Just for me. I was able to have a day to myself, to my things, to my thoughts, without having to worry about someone else’s well-being. I could breathe, Marcus!”
I could see the disappointment in his eyes. Like the disappointment in my father’s eyes.
I had fulfilled no one’s expectations. Never gone on to do the grandiose things everyone always thought I would do. Things I could accomplish, things I had the talent for, forgotten. Why hadn’t Marcus pushed me? Why hadn’t he seen what was happening to me?
“I’m not a cretin, Helena,” he said tiredly. “Of course, it’s hard to work and raise a kid. Of course, you need room to breath. So come up with a plan. We have the money to work things out, so take your time. But don’t give me this guilt trip. You chose to be a parent. Unfortunately, parenting is part of the package.”
Just then, Gabriella ran into the room.
She had been in the garden and her little white Laura Ashley dress was a muddy mess and her long, curly hair was tangled with flowers and dirt and grass.
“I’m gardening!” she announced loudly and with propriety, and in that moment, she was so amazingly alive and beautiful that I couldn’t help but laugh, and I went to her and picked her up and buried my face in that hair, which smelled of soil mixed up with shampoo.
“Come, Mami. I’ll show you how to do it!” she said confidently, scrambling to be put down. Gabriella grabbed my hand to lead me out to the garden, and I quickly snatched the straw hat I kept hanging from the back of the door, the one I automatically put on every time I went out into the sun.
The late afternoon sun was low as it hit the bed of roses, and when I crouched down to examine the plants, I had to laugh, because Gabriella had actually planted new seeds that stuck out from under sparsely placed soil.
“Say cheese!” I heard Marcus shout out, and when I turned around on my heels to look up at the camera he held, I brought my hand up to my head, to keep my hat from falling, and the smile was still on my face, for the moment at least, erasing the discussion that took place only five minutes before.