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With one eye half-opened, I grabbed my phone. It read 5:03. I pried the other eye open to confirm what else I saw... or didn’t see. Nothing from Todd.
I checked my email. I had nothing but a few annoying weekend work emails and one from my sister with two lines. “Hey, how was Cali? Did you go on one of those trolleys?”
Is she for real? It wasn’t a vacation. It was for work. Though I did want to go on one of those, but I never got a chance.
I wished there was someone I could talk to. Just not Mark. I knew that conversation had to happen but not yet, not until I found the right words and the right time. Until then, I would do my best to avoid him. I had a feeling that would be easy. He probably won’t even notice.
I scrolled through Frontbook. There were Syd and Veronica twirling their girls on the dance floor at some cousin’s wedding.
I replied to Orly. “It was for work, so it was uneventful. How was Mom’s doctor visit?”
I went back to Frontbook. No updates from Jessica, which was a little unusual. I was now, more than ever, grasping for any peeks into Todd’s world. But at the same time, if I saw a “Going to Long Island at Play all day” update, I would stay far away. I couldn’t look her in the face.
Then I saw that Danielle had asked for lunch recommendations in the city because she was taking the Tree kids to a matinee on Monday of something Ethan wasn’t interested in. I said a quiet prayer that Buddy the Bulldozer never made it to Broadway.
Get your head out of your butt. Reach out, lonely girl.
My fingers took control before I could stop them, and I sent a message to Danielle.
Jada: I don’t work far from the theater. I’d love to meet you for lunch.
I immediately had message regret. She would have her kids with her. Why would she want me to join them for lunch? And she was asking for recommendations, not company.
“Vroom!” Ethan was up and “vrooming” his trucks and, from what I could tell, jumping on the bed.
As I turned to get out of bed, Danielle replied. She even sounded excited. She had already received a recommendation for a “kids’ bar” where each place setting had a tablet propped up in front of it. It sounded like a germ fest and a prime example of what not to teach kids to do while dining. But it also sounded like the perfect place for adults to catch up, undistracted. And so I had a date for Monday, a friend date.
The cold, hard marble floor of our hallway felt like ice on my bare feet. I held my ear to Ethan’s door before opening it to hear him happily vroom around a bit more.
“Mommy!” he shouted and ran to me. I knelt down and picked him up. His big brown curls smelled like his delicious baby shampoo.
I brought him to the bathroom, and then we played with his trucks on the floor for a little while. Afterward, we went downstairs so I could have coffee.
“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked when Ethan was settled in front of the TV, watching Buddy the Bulldozer. I sipped my coffee and checked my phone.
Mark appeared in the doorway of the TV room. “How ’bout slapjacks?”
Slapjacks? Has he gotten cornier in the past few years, or is it me?
“Slapjacks!” Ethan yelled.
They headed to the kitchen to make pancakes—and a mess—while I leaned against the window to see rain pelting the pool and the umbrella over the table swaying violently.
“Ethan, it doesn’t look like we’re going to swim today. The park is out too. I guess it’s a pajamas and Buddy kind of day.”
“Or you could take him to LI at Play,” Mark said.
I bit my lower lip, still facing the yard.
“Yes!” Ethan screamed. “LI at Play. LI at Play.”
Mark chimed in with the chant. “LI at Play. LI at Play.”
Fuck. I better nip this. I spun around. “No! In this weather, it will be a zoo. More than the usual zoo that it is. Not today. And I’m exhausted from traveling.”
Ethan instantly burst into tears.
“He’s been in this house with Joyce all week,” Mark said as he hoisted Ethan into his arms. “And it rained every day, so they couldn’t go in the pool or to the park. I think he’s got cabin fever.”
“Well, maybe we’ll go to the mall.” It was a lame suggestion, but my mind was fried. “We’ll get one of those hot pretzels.”
“LI at Play.” Ethan sobbed into Mark’s shoulder.
“Do you want to take him?” I suggested. “Just for an hour?” Mark had never taken Ethan there before. It was more of my activity with Ethan, but there was no reason Mark couldn’t take him.
“I’ve actually got three conference calls today and have to prep for each one. We’ve got a filing on Monday.” He handed Ethan to me. “If you go for just an hour, that’ll satisfy him, no?”
I received a whimpering Ethan in my arms. “We’ll go after you eat, but we are not staying long. Do you hear me?” Like that meant anything to a kid.
Ethan ate his pancakes and watched Buddy the Bulldozer while I showered. Maybe if I hang out in the trampoline room, I can avoid seeing Jessica. Mommy group just got more complicated.
###
JESSICA WAS NOWHERE in sight. While I was as curious as ever to gather any information about her and Todd, I also didn’t want to get too close. I didn’t want to feel even more guilty about what we were possibly about to do and about all that I now knew. Still, where could he be? How could I have not heard from him? Is he still traveling for work? Did something come up? I had tried to find his imposter Frontbook account, but it was as private as he’d described. Nothing to glean there.
Danielle was also absent, unfortunately. But there sat Melody. Crap. I tried to make a beeline for the trampoline room, but she spotted me.
“Jada!” She sat up straight.
I waved and headed over.
“How’ve you been?” Melody asked as I sat down.
“Good. I’m a little tired. I was away all week for work.”
She smiled widely and leaned in. “Have you heard from Jessica?” she asked in a concerned voice.
My heart skipped. “No, why?”
“We texted and messaged on social media all week, but I haven’t been able to reach her since yesterday, and we’re supposed to meet tonight to put together the gift bags for the boys’ swim class. We’re doing this fundraiser—I think we sent you the email—and we’re doing these aquatic-themed goodie bags. We both bought stuff for it, and we were supposed to put them together tonight, but I haven’t heard from her. It’s weird because she usually responds right away.”
My heart was racing. “Maybe she just got busy.”
“I wonder if I should just show up at her house with my goodie supplies.”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. You know how it is. We get busy. Her husband just got home from a business trip, and—”
“He did?”
Fuck. “Yeah. She mentioned last week that he was going away all week and how hard it is when he travels.”
“I know he was away last week. Yeah, he must have just gotten home.”
Melody stared directly into my eyes for a beat too long. Does she suspect something? How could that be? I must be getting paranoid.
I turned away, pretending to search for Ethan among the crawlers and climbers. I spotted him and waved.
“Yeah, they’re probably having family time with Todd,” Melody said.
The sound of his name made my heart jump. I waved wider and faster for Ethan.
Before I could escape this painful conversation, Jessica was sitting next to me.
I gasped. Her hair was tied back, and her face looked redder than usual. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things or if her eyes were actually puffy. I’m probably just studying her extra close today. Well, as close as I can study someone while being afraid to make eye contact.
“Hi.” I could have sworn I caught a slight croak. She even sounded tired. She didn’t offer an apology for sneaking up next to me.
I turned back to searching for Ethan. “We’re going to have to go soon,” I said. “I told him just a little while, but I should have known better.”
Oh dear God, what if Todd confessed? What if she knows everything? What if she’s planning to be coy to test me? Or trap me? And Melody knows too, and she was fucking with me ever so slightly. I have to get out of here.
Jessica moved to sit next to Melody.
“Hi, Jess. Listen, did you get multicolored Swedish Fish or all red?” Melody asked like she was asking her doctor exactly how many milligrams of meds she was supposed to take.
“Uh, all red,” Jessica croaked. That was a definite crack of the voice. Maybe she has a cold.
“Do you think we should return them?” Melody asked. “You know, and get the multicolored because the boys’ swim trunks and caps are green. Maybe to add a bit of green, we should get the multicolored? I’ll return them, no problem. I’ll do it.”
Is Melody fucking serious?
Jessica seemed to be thinking the same thing as me. “I don’t think we have to worry about having green Swedish Fish to match their swim trunks. And we should probably get them done tonight because we don’t have much more time.”
“I’ll go real quick!” Melody said. “It won’t take long. You bought them at the party-supply place?”
Before Melody could move the conversation to making sure their jellybeans were color-coordinated, Ethan ran over and announced that he had to poop.
Saved by the shitter!
“Okay! Can you hold it until we get home? We’ll go right now.”
“No. It’s coming out.”
Shit.
I carried him to the bathroom. He went quickly, but the cleanup took a while. By the time we finished, Melody had left to replace the Swedish Fish, and Jessica was sitting there alone. She smiled in our direction.
But I couldn’t bear to be in her presence. “We have to go.” I shook my head and tried to appear like the harried mother I felt like.
“No!” Ethan wrestled away from me and ran off.
“I just got back from a business trip.” All of a sudden, the collar of my shirt felt like it was shrinking as I spoke. I tugged at it, trying to make it seem like an unconscious habit as I babbled on. “And I have to do laundry, food shop, get my nails done. You know how it is. Unpack! I still haven’t unpacked. Can you believe it?”
“Is everything okay?” Jessica asked.
“Yes!” Weird question. Does she mean something by that? “Well, on top of everything else, Ethan just shit his pants, and I feel like I smell like it. So, I need a shower.”
Real smooth, Jada.
“Ha. I’ve been there.” Jessica smiled through her tired eyes.
I marched over to Ethan, who had a death grip on a monkey bar. I managed to pry his hands free and only withstood one karate chop to the head.
“Jada!” Jessica marched toward me. She was determined. She even stopped Ethan in his tracks. He stopped whining about leaving and was suddenly fixated on her.
“Did you leave this?” She held my phone. I must have left it on the seat when I rushed Ethan to the bathroom.
“Thank you so much! I’m addicted to this thing. That would have been bad.”
Her bloodshot eyes met mine. I could see I had several text messages.
No! What if one is from her husband? Did she see it? Why didn’t I ever change that stupid setting so someone can’t read messages when my phone is locked? Shit!
I said goodbye and speed-walked with Ethan to the car, wrangled him into his car seat, jumped in the driver’s seat, and reached for my phone. I had four text messages. One was from Orly, asking if we could have a family dinner tomorrow. Another from her was asking if it could be at my house because her dining room was still being painted and my parents’ grill was broken. One was from Mark, asking if I could pick up milk. What is it with him and running out of milk? And the last was an invitation to the “summer soiree” from the gym I’d joined four years ago and hadn’t been to in about three years and eleven months.
Nothing from Todd.
###
MARK HAD JUST FINISHED one of his calls when we got back to the house. As I pulled into the garage, I called him to help with Ethan.
“He has to go to the bathroom. And be forewarned, we had a little incident earlier. Can you take him in? I have to return a work email.”
I didn’t have a work email, not that an urgent work email was unheard of on a Saturday afternoon, but I had other business to attend to.
“Hey, kiddo,” Mark said as he came into the garage in his white T-shirt. He could win a “Who wore it better?” T-shirt contest with Todd, but that would never change who I desired more.
Mark unbuckled Ethan and maneuvered him out of his car seat.
I unlocked my phone and waited for the door to shut behind them before I tapped Todd’s name to call him.
It rang and beeped. And rang and beeped. He was obviously on the other line with someone.
When it finally went to voice mail, I said, “Hi. It’s Jada. Obviously. Um, just calling to see if you got home okay. I’m at home tonight—not doing anything, really—so call me. I can get away to talk anytime. Bye.”
I needed to talk to Mark eventually. I’d made my decision, and he needed to hear it. We needed to discuss it. But I could only handle one stressful situation at a time. At the moment, all I could handle was finding out where Todd had disappeared to. I needed confirmation that we were on the same page, that our chance meeting meant something, and we were going to see where it took us. We needed to figure things out.
I spent the rest of the day and night alternating between tending to Ethan in front of the TV and begging him to eat his fish sticks, take a bath, put his pajamas on, and brush his teeth. Then I read him a book, named his toes, and finally watched him drift off to sleep. And at every turn, I checked my phone.
Nothing.
It was my turn to get ready for bed. I flossed, brushed my teeth, shellacked my face in antiaging cream, and put on my moisturizing undereye masks. I waited fifteen minutes like it said on the package then removed them. And of course I checked my phone.
Nothing.
###
“CRAP!” ETHAN YELLED as he jumped from the top stair of the pool into the shallow end with his swimmies on.
“What did you just say?”
The day after our short LI at Play visit, I promised Ethan we would spend all day in the pool if the weather was good. As if God wanted to be sure I made it up to Ethan, it was sunny all day.
When I saw my phone light up with a text message, I almost slipped and cracked my skull as I ran up the concrete steps of our shallow end to check it before Mark happened to walk by and glance at my phone, not that he ever did that.
I scratched my knee in the process of making it to my phone. But it was only Orly.
Where the hell is Todd? Did he not get my message? I sound like a lovesick teenager. Of course he got my message. But why hasn’t he called back or even texted? He better have a damn good reason.
“Crap!” Ethan repeated.
“No, no, no,” I said. “That’s a Mommy word. Remember Mommy words?”
“What’d you say?” Mark was chomping on celery and reading his iPad.
“Nothing,” I called back as I read Orly’s text.
She wanted to have a family dinner with our parents later that evening, even though I’d already told her I just got back from traveling for work and didn’t want anyone coming over. Why should that stop her from asking again? She can be so obtuse.
I replied: Did you get my text yesterday? We can’t today.
Orly: Maybe one night this week.
She must have lost her mind. We never did a family dinner during the week.
Jada: During a workweek is never good for me. Next weekend?
Orly: Okay. Sorry you’re so busy. Too bad you can’t get a job closer to home.
I rolled my eyes and plopped onto the lounge chair.
As I watched Ethan splash around and Mark tap on his iPad, the gravity of what had happened only days prior jolted me. I’d woken up in a hotel room with someone who wasn’t my husband. I had confided in Todd things I’d never confided in anyone. I had completely detached from my real life and fallen into this new reality, this new hope that something was going to change. And I was excited about it. I felt guilty, of course. I couldn’t look at Mark or Jessica, and I was a nervous wreck about how this would all play out. But once everything was settled, it would be a new life, a whole new existence.
It was the kind of excitement I felt when changing jobs or moving to a new place—the feeling of possibility in the air. Things were going to be different and better. That feeling of just existing, of just going through the motions of life, was going to be lifted. I was going to be happy. Happy for real. Mark would move on. Todd and I would finally be together. And hopefully, our kids would all be okay, maybe even better for it. I hoped.
Mark stood up to start the grill for lunch. I watched him lift the cover and spray something.
Why do I feel so numb toward him? He must feel the same way toward me. Does it not bother him that we haven’t had a real conversation since before Ethan was born? I tried. Once. But then again, did we ever have real conversations? How did we end up together in the first place? And how did it get this far?
I tried to turn my mind off and get quiet.
“Catch!” Ethan yelled one second before a ball bounced off my head. I retrieved it and threw it back.
Then I picked up my phone and swiped it to take a picture. “Smile,” I called to him.
He showed me a toothy grin. His brown curls were matted to his head, and his swimmies were attached to his side. I posted it with the caption “Another peaceful day in the pool” with a sun emoji.
Someday, the things I post on social media will actually be true. If only Todd would get back to me, we could get the show on the road to this new life. Where is he?
A few minutes later, I checked to see if my picture had racked up any likes yet and saw that I had a text message from Todd. “Can you talk tomorrow?”