SHE TUCKED THE little travel pillow against her abdomen before fastening the seat belt. It wasn’t such a necessary precaution anymore, but sometimes when she hit a pothole it made her wince. She described for Alex how it felt, feeling the places inside her knit back together. Once, on a slow day at Phipps Conservatory in their early months of dating, they meandered from room to room, lingering in front of whatever odd plant caught their attention. The sweat dripped from their temples as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the sun-filled glass enclosure, entranced as they watched a grassy plant burst upward in spurts of growth. The sound attracted them first—they could hear the plant growing!
“That’s how it feels inside sometimes. Like little bursts of mending. It’s like I can feel filaments reaching out, webbing together. Like that plant we watched grow at Phipps.”
“Must be weird,” Alex had said as he gently caressed her tender flesh.
“It doesn’t hurt exactly, but it startles me.” And it was reassuring that her body knew how to put itself back together. Though she still willed it to mend correctly, without the aberration of another fistula.
Suzette concentrated on the traffic; midday Oakland was always a mess. She regretted not going in the other direction. She could have stopped by Alex’s office if they’d gone that way—his firm owned a building on McKee Place that had once been a church. He and his partner, Matt, had fully remodeled it, keeping the main room—open and airy—as a conference room with an immense table made of recycled paper. She knew Hanna loved the atrium, which had once been the altar. They’d installed skylights so the trees would reach for the light. Visiting Daddy would have been a treat; he’d give Hanna his effortless kisses and affection. Sometimes it bothered Suzette, how Hanna lit up in his presence, becoming as loving toward her daddy as he was toward her. It wasn’t that Suzette had never tried to be more loving, but her efforts waned as Hanna continually pushed her away. Still, she’d behaved very well through her appointments; she deserved a little reward.
“So Hanna, I want to thank you for being so good today.” She looked in the rearview mirror, but Hanna wouldn’t meet her eye. “Why don’t we stop at Trader Joe’s and you can pick out a little—”
Hanna burst into happy clapping. Suzette smiled, pleased with herself.
“You’re becoming such a big girl. And the doctor had good news: you’re totally fine. Perfect health. It might be a good time to start looking for a school. It’s been a while and you’ll probably like it better—”
Hanna slammed her hands against the window, shrieking as if she’d awakened in a coffin.
“Stop it!” Suzette didn’t think Hanna was strong enough to break the glass, but the girl seemed determined to try. Suzette regretted spoiling their good moment.
“Okay! You wouldn’t be going to school now, not right now. We’d be looking for the fall—”
Hanna kept pounding on the window, squawking in anger.
Suzette wanted to whip around and slap her knee, but the cars inched together nose-to-tail; she couldn’t risk turning away. Why had she said anything? Another of her stupid parental fails. The light mercifully turned red and she put on the brakes. She snapped off her seat belt so she could turn all the way around.
“Stop it right now! We’re not going to Trader Joe’s if you keep acting like a brat!”
Hanna switched off her tantrum. They competed in a stare-off, which Suzette lost when she glanced at the stoplight. But she quickly reengaged with her daughter.
“You think this is funny? These games you play? Someday it’s gonna get you in real trouble. You’re not going to get your way forever.”
Hanna smiled. And nodded her head.
A car beeped at them. “All right!” Suzette put her foot on the gas and the car lurched forward. With one hand, she refastened her seat belt. “And I expect you to behave well in the store—you behave well, and you can pick out what you want.”
Suzette saw the smug grin on her daughter’s face; Hanna might have thought she’d won, but the issue of school wouldn’t be dropped that easily. She’d get Alex on her side before they brought it up again. Meanwhile, if she was lucky, she could appease Hanna with a bag of dark chocolate–covered blueberries, and hope they could maintain the peace for the rest of the day.
* * *
In the store, Hanna dropped her favorite items into the cart while Suzette pushed it along, lost in thought. Alex. Naked. Alex’s mouth. Alex’s comforting arms. Alex’s torso and the way they fit together. She didn’t love his trendy beard, but he looked good in it. More reddish than his corn-silk hair, and he kept it fairly short. He liked his beauty products. He liked beauty—Suzette’s, their daughter’s. He dressed well and kept himself fit, but he wasn’t traditionally handsome. His features were too crowded in the center of his face; when they first met, she had an impulse to pinch his cheeks and stretch them out, giving his eyes, nose, mouth a little more room. But the minute he started talking to her by the coffee machine at her first and only post-school job, he exuded such warmth and interest. His kindness transformed him, making him so easy to talk to. And so gorgeous.
They were all the way to the refrigerated section when Suzette realized she’d forgotten the bananas. She scanned the cart, pleasantly surprised that Hanna hadn’t picked up any strange items, just her Puffins, a jar of peaches, a bag of organic tortilla chips, and a frozen spinach pizza. Suzette experienced a rare bloom of pride, hopeful that she’d managed to teach Hanna about healthy food choices.
“Did you want to get your blueberries?” she asked as they backtracked past the fruit, nuts, and chocolate.
Hanna grabbed up multiple bags of various chocolate-covered fruit.
“Hey, how about just one of each.” That was still more than she usually allowed, but she wanted Alex to have proof of the reward she’d given to her. She knew how he envisioned their family: his good daughter and his perfect wife. The loving, caring mother who successfully eased her daughter’s fears of the scary machine and found a new path to try on the quest for their sweet child’s health and happiness. (The perfect, devoted wife who worried her family was slipping away. She’d spent years in the pre-Alex abyss and couldn’t survive another descent.)
When Hanna didn’t listen, Suzette plucked the extra pouches out of the cart. Hanna only whined a little, halfheartedly stamping her foot.
“It’s still four times what you usually get.”
Flashing a triumphant grin, Hanna bounded off to the produce section.
From elsewhere in the store, a young child was crying. Recognizing the long, determined wails of a tantrum, Suzette felt immediate sympathy for the parent. The cries increased in volume when she reached the produce area, where a mother struggled to hang on to an erupting toddler in one hand as she pushed a full cart with the other. The toddler’s screaming grew louder and more determined, and Suzette made out individual words—Want! No!—as he raged.
Just as she was about to tell Hanna to stop licking the lemons, Hanna abandoned them to go watch the tantrum. Suzette kept a watchful eye on her and quickly placed bananas and apples, Brussels sprouts and salad fixings into the cart.
“Hanna, come on.”
The toddler, red-faced, tried to wrestle out of his mother’s grasp. When he realized he couldn’t, his body went rigid and he howled at the ceiling. The other shoppers made a wide arc around the commotion, their faces pinched and judgmental. Hanna stepped right in front of the bellowing little boy, bending at the waist as she put a finger to her mouth. Sssshhh.
It startled him for a moment and he quieted.
“Hanna, come on—we’re ready to go.”
“She’s a sweet little girl,” said the other mother.
“Thanks.” Suzette, not trusting in Hanna’s sweetness, extended her hand, knowing Hanna wouldn’t take it, but hoping she would move along.
The toddler exploded again, this time with Hanna as the object of his rage. He lashed out at her with a sloppy punch and resumed screeching.
“Brandon, you know better…” said the other mother.
Before Suzette could stop her, Hanna drew back a closed, determined fist and struck the boy on the side of the head.
The boy tottered, stunned, then dropped to his bottom.
“Oh no!” Suzette rushed over, tugging Hanna away. “I’m sorry—we’re so sorry!”
The mother scooped Brandon into her arms, her face alight with shock. He burst into tears, breathy cries of pain.
“Is he okay? I’m so sorry!” Suzette glared down at Hanna. “We do not hit people!”
Hanna pointed at the boy, her silent way of condemning him as the instigator.
The mother held him away from them, checking his eye, his ear, the soft spot along his temple. She bounced him, trying to soothe his tears.
Reading the hateful, how-dare-you-make-my-day-worse glower on the mother’s face, Suzette clutched Hanna’s hand and escaped to the checkout lanes. She would have just left, abandoned the cart, and fled in shame. But things would get worse if Hanna had to leave the store without her treat.
Suzette’s hands shook and she babbled as the cashier scanned her items.
“Hanna, you absolutely know hitting is wrong. And he’s just a little—it doesn’t matter, you can’t hit people, ever. That is not okay, and you know that is not okay…”
Hanna sighed, bored. Suzette kept her head down as they left the store, certain everyone would recognize her as the mother who couldn’t control her violent child. Slugging a toddler.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
After buckling herself into her car seat, Hanna gazed at Suzette, expectant and unblinking. She tilted her head and quirked her mouth, and Suzette knew exactly what she was threatening. A tantrum of her own, unless Suzette handed over the goods.
Suzette put the shopping bags in the front seat, far from Hanna’s reach, and dug out a pouch of dark chocolate–covered blueberries.
“This is not a reward for what you did in the store,” she said before handing them over. “You earned this by being good at the doctor’s, but Daddy and I will have to talk about what you did, because hitting is unacceptable. Okay?”
Hanna grinned, tearing open the bag, and God help her but Suzette saw nothing but devilish pride in her daughter’s face. She wanted to rip the pouch from her hands. But she was too tired. Too tired and she just wanted to get home.
It was always too much to hope for that an entire day would go well.
As they drove, Hanna nibbled her blueberries and hummed a nasally tune that almost made her sound cheerful, normal. Suzette prayed the chocolate would be enough to mollify her until Alex got home, when Hanna could be counted on to put on her angelic mask and become Daddy’s good little girl.