I read somewhere that every life is the story of a single mistake, and then what happens after.
Whether it’s brought into the light and owned up to. Or left buried in the darkness of the soul where it all just multiples in consequences and festers into something far worse.
One wrong decision that can’t be taken back. Even the best of lives has one.
And thinking back on that night, on the backcountry road between Westchester County in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut, I felt my own life starting to come down around me like the intensifying drizzle that glared through the oncoming headlights. I could look back where I had run headfirst into mine.
Normally I wouldn’t even have driven this particular route to Jim’s, my ex of four years, who’s remarried now to Janice. It’s a winding and poorly lit stretch with turns that can come at you pretty quickly if you’re not familiar with them, or maybe distracted, as I might have been that night.
But I’d thrown a few bills to mail in the car and driven north on I-684, just to get out of the house and think, so I came back down and cut across from Bedford, which seemed the fastest way. These past four years had become a bit of a struggle to keep things together for Brandon and me. I’d never asked for much in the settlement, even when my lawyers were pushing me to rip the coat off Jim’s back, which in his case meant the condo in Costa Rica where he went with his pals to go bonefishing and surf; whatever was left of his construction business, which by that time was on fumes and down to mostly house painting and a few remodeling jobs; and of course his perfectly restored ’70 Porsche Targa, which, if he were ever honest, was the true love of his life.
I’d just wanted out, as quickly and painlessly as possible.
And four years back Brandon was the sweetest, slightly nonverbal three-year-old with soft blue eyes and a mop of sun-blond hair.
And also the healthiest.
Ahead, the brake lights flashed from the vehicle about fifty yards in front of me, the driver taking a curve a bit wide. I slowed my Acura SUV, staying several car lengths behind.
He was three when we first started noticing it. At least when we started admitting it. He’d always been slow to talk. When other kids were gushing phrases and cuteness, Brandon mostly stared distractedly and pointed at things he wanted. We had him in a Montessori Stepping Stones program and one day his teachers called me in and said he seemed to be having trouble interacting with the other kids.
What made me concerned was that the head of school, Ms. Roby, was at the meeting too.
“Well, he’s always been a bit high-strung,” I said. “He was high-strung in the womb. In our house, when you want to know the temperature, you can just check Brandon.”
Their laugh was brief and polite.
They mentioned that he had difficulty writing—which we’d seen, of course—and completing his tasks. Switching from one activity to another, he would even throw fits. There were times, they said, when he became downright defiant.
They suggested that maybe he should see a specialist in this kind of thing.
What I was praying was just a heavy dose of ADHD was diagnosed as Asperger’s syndrome, and not a mild case either. Though they claimed that Brandon’s IQ, especially on the creative side, was sky high. They just weren’t sure how to reach him. Clearly they didn’t think they could do the job for him there, in such an open learning environment.
So I found a school, Milton Farms, in Greenwich, which specialized in severe learning difficulties. It was expensive, close to fifty grand a year. I went back to work to help with the costs. Not as the rising magazine executive I’d been before I left to start a family. Assistant publisher of Modern Lifestyle in New York. But as the comptroller for a small marketing firm in Westport, Connecticut. Not exactly the glamour job—the recession was in full throttle and publications were shutting down left and right or going digital, in any case, not exactly hiring. But it was reliable—Cesta Pharmaceuticals had been the backbone of its client list for the past twelve years. More important, it allowed me to stay close to home for Brandon.
I brought in just enough to make sure he could stay in school—which after a year or two was really starting to show results—and pay my share of the mortgage and the real estate taxes.
Which soon became all the mortgage and real estate taxes, as by then no one was really interested in Jim’s eight-thousand-square-foot McMansions and his construction business was floundering. And Janice, the blond Greenwich divorcée Jim had taken up with barely a month after our divorce became final and married a year later, finally said enough to bankrolling the operations.
Not to mention the two perfectly preppy and healthy boys he’d inherited from her who now seemed to take up all of his attention. I also paid for Elena, who cleaned the house and picked Brandon up from school most days until I got home. And the weekly behavioral and language tutoring at $150 an hour. And the day camp Brandon went to in the summer for kids with disabilities.
Or the rare times we actually got away these days. Which soon became what time to get away . . .
For a while, my folks helped out as much as they could from their teachers’ pensions. My aunt and uncle, actually. My birth parents were killed in an auto accident when I was eight, and Uncle Neil and Aunt Judy took me in, as they didn’t have children, and I never felt for a second that I wasn’t theirs. I even called them Mom and Pop. They’d bought a small boatyard on Long Beach Island and the recession had hit that even harder than the home building business. My dad’s health wasn’t what it once was and there were boats to pay off that hadn’t sold, that they were paying interest on top of interest on to some finance company. Thank God I’d always kept a little savings separate from Jim from my working days. But now that was just about gone.
For the past year, Brandon and I had been living exclusively on what I brought in; Jim was MIA. Maybe I’d let it go on for too long. The couple of guys I got close to and who I might have seen something happening with both backed off when they got to meet my son. And in truth, he was a handful. I was thirty-six, an eyelash from being broke, months behind in my school payments, with a house my ex had left me that was now completely underwater and a son who ate up every cent I earned.
I saw what was ahead of me, the way the driver in a chase scene going ninety might see the upcoming cliff. Every night I fell asleep, my arms wrapped tightly around my pillow, knowing that all it would take would be one unexpected nudge to send us over the edge.
And how there was no one, not a single person in this world, to catch us.
I’d been there years before in my own life, feeling the terror of sudden abandonment and instability, and that was the last thing I wanted my son to feel.
Yet somehow we always made it through. A bonus here, a tax refund there. And Brandon showed such clear signs of improvement, it made everything worthwhile. The little nudge that could send us toppling never seemed to come.
At least not until yesterday, that is.
My boss, Steve Fisher, called a bunch of us into the conference room. It looked like most of the division I worked for. There was Dale Schliffman from accounts, and two of his senior managers. Dawn Ianazzone from creative. She’d been hired about when I was. A couple of administrative people who worked on the Cesta account.
I knew we were in trouble when I saw Rose from personnel standing alongside.
Steve looked uncomfortable. “Yesterday Cesta informed me that they were going to be making a change . . . A change of agencies . . .” He shrugged sadly. “I’m afraid that means there have to be a few changes around here as well.”
I heard a gasp or two. Someone muttered, “Holy shit.” Mostly we all just looked around, suddenly realizing exactly why we were there.
An hour later, in my one-on-one, Steve shook his head, frustrated. “Hil, you know you’ve done nothing but first-rate work since you’ve been here. I wish there was something we could do.”
“Steve . . .” I didn’t want to beg, but I could barely stop the tears. “I have Brandon.”
“I know.” He let out a sympathetic breath, nodding. “Look, let me check one more time. I’ll see if there’s anything we can do.”
Which ended up as just an extra week’s salary for the four years I’d been there. And one more month on the health plan before I went on COBRA.
I was officially in free fall now.
Which explained why I was here tonight on this winding, back-country road, heading to Jim’s, which I hadn’t been to in years other than to drop off Brandon for a weekend every couple of months. And even that had become rarer and rarer these days.
When I saw what looked like a deer dart across the road about fifty yards ahead, and the car in front of me go into a swerve.