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“Another round?” Gina asked.
I nodded.
“Vanilla with chocolate chip?”
I nodded again.
It was cold inside Scoop Me Up Ice Cream Shop, like the freezer section of the supermarket, where I would shiver while my mother shopped for groceries. I remembered pleading with her to get out of the freezer section as she examined a carton of ice cream with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and saying, “Rub your hands together. Maybe they’ll catch fire.” I rubbed my arms while a server appeared and set our bowls in front of us then cleared away our empty ones.
We were sitting at one of the wrought iron table and chair sets that were lined up a few feet from the row of red-upholstered swivel stools along the soda fountain counter. Next to the counter was a display case full of cakes and pastries all adorned in some way with Scoop Me Up’s signature red-and-white candy striper logo.
Gina was wearing a black T-shirt that read, “Better Off Dead.” A skull wearing a Santa hat replaced the letter O in “Off.”
We finished our ice cream in silence then guzzled glasses of ice-cold water that had suddenly appeared.
“Is my mother going to be okay?”
“I can tell you she’s going to be okay.” She leaned back. “No matter what happens.”
“You’re the grim reaper. Where’s your hood? Do you ever deliver good news?”
“Listen, whether she lives many more years or passes and joins me here sooner rather than later by your definition of time, she’ll go on. She’ll be okay.” She spun a little ball of the paper wrapper from her straw, stuck it in the bottom of her straw, and blew it in my direction. “But you don’t want to hear that.”
“No, I don’t want to hear that. What if she dies and I never have any chance of ever feeling close to her?”
“Sometimes certain relationships aren’t meant to be easy while on earth. Then one person passes, and you can actually have a better relationship than when they were alive.”
“I prefer a better relationship while alive.”
“Of course you do.”
“What can I do, though? I can’t insist on helping her. She’ll just say Orly is there to help.” I glanced toward the window. It was snowing, that pretty initial dusting when everything seemed peaceful and quiet. “It’s summer. What’s going on?”
“It’s summer where you are.”
“Oh, right.” I shrugged. “What’s going on with my throat? What the hell was that?”
“Ah, good question.” She leaned in. “For that, I can provide an answer you will understand. You see, Jada, my dear cousin, you felt nothing for a long time. You were always acerbic. Kind of a bitch, some might say. At times, that’s for sure.”
“I’m supposed to like where this is going?”
“So, there you were, Jada Ann Santanelli Marlone, one of the bitchiest girls on the island of Manhattan. ‘Fuck this. Fuck that. Fuck you. I’ll fix that person. Lionel? I’ll set his stupid ass straight. I will teach him a lesson. My boss? I’ve got him wrapped around my finger. Nobody’s going to tell me what to do. Line cutters? Going down.’”
“I get it. Where is this going?”
“You are spirited. You always have been. But spirited and having a full spirit are two different things. Your spirit, your soul, which is on this journey, was on a path that was not true to... well, your spirit, your soul.”
“Now I’m lost. I understood the bitch part.”
“Okay. Let me lay it out this way. You’ve always felt that your mother favored Orly. Right?”
I nodded.
“And you’ve always been trying to get your mother’s respect, whether you consciously acknowledge it or not. Trust me on that. You tried to prove your small-minded mother and sister wrong and get them to see you differently. You went away to school. You became a lawyer. You lived in the city. But they still didn’t get you. They became as close as ever, and instead of being proud of your success and adventures, you just baffled them even more. But then you married Mark. You had a baby. Those were things they could relate to you about. But did anything change? No. They’ve never made you feel the way you want them to make you feel, but that’s the thing.”
“What’s the thing?” This recap is depressing.
“The lesson. It’s not how others make you feel. That should never be your motivation, consciously or subconsciously. Fuck that. Follow your path. Do what you want. It’s about how you feel about you.”
“What does any of this have to do with the heart attack I had in my throat?”
“You felt nothing for a long time because you were on the wrong path. But now that you’re being set in the right direction in alignment with your spirit, you’re feeling things. And when you’ve been numb for so long and then do an about-face, you’ll catch the wind in your breath.”
“How am I going in the right direction? I betrayed my husband. I feel like an alien in my own family. I’m a... I don’t know what kind of mother I am.”
“Todd was the right direction.”
“What!”
“You’re not supposed to marry him! But you ignored your gut for so long. You went down a path that wasn’t true to you. You married this guy who looked good and impressed your family, and you posted all this fake shit on social media. And then you got stuck and were afraid to change, afraid to do anything to reset the course. When you’re finally following your gut, you’ll be on the path, the direction that will lead you to the most growth. You needed a jolt, something that would make you finally change instead of staying stagnant as you were.”
“He was the jolt I needed?”
“Todd is not what will make or break your marriage, but he jolted you to face what needs to be faced. You’re a big talker, telling Grandma and Grandpa you want a divorce, but you were taking no action.”
“I knew before I ran into Todd in San Francisco that Mark and I couldn’t go on like that. I was going to do something.”
“Were you?”
“I had finally admitted it to myself and tried to talk to him.”
“Would you have actually taken any action?”
I scraped the last bits of melted ice cream from the bowl in front of me. “Well, the course has been reset, all right. Change is in the air. I’m catching it right in my windpipe.”
“It’ll stop when you’re sailing in the right direction. That’s how you’ll know. You won’t have these mini panic attacks. That’s what they are, technically, I suppose.”
More ice cream appeared, and I dug in. I scooped up a wad that was the perfect temperature—starting to melt but still firm—and had the perfect amount of chocolate chips. I savored it then sipped my ice water.
“Will Mark forgive me?” I asked. He had never returned to bed before I’d fallen asleep.
“Is that all you want? To be forgiven?”
“We have to finish the rest of the conversation. We can’t go on like this. But just seeing him stung by the news I did share... I can’t stand to see him hurt.” I touched my wedding band, an eternity band of channel diamonds in a platinum setting. It was always loose when I was cold.
“I know.”
“And what about Ethan?” I asked. “Is he going to be okay? I don’t know what kind of mother I am. Am I screwing him up? I mean, this is horrible, but sometimes I just want to put him to bed to shut him up.” I lifted my head to the ceiling for a moment. “Sometimes I think this is so hard. Why is this so hard? It’s like I’ll never be free again. Even when he’s eighteen and goes to college, I still won’t feel free. It’s this invisible prison for the rest of my life.” I gripped my temples and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Brain freeze?”
I shook my head. “Is that the worst thing you’ve ever heard a mother say?”
“It’s my fault,” Gina said, barely audible. It sounded like she didn’t want to say it but was resigned to it.
“What?” I opened my eyes.
“The reason you feel that way. I mean, it’s not really my fault, but—” She popped up from the chair. “Let’s go.”
The bell on the door of the old-fashioned ice cream shop rang as we left. I followed Gina down the street. She turned right, and we were suddenly on my street on Long Island.
“What happened to the driveway?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Gina did not break stride as she walked up the driveway, past the garage, and toward the front door.
“It’s just not right.” I looked back. “We had paving stones put in last year. What happened?”
“Oh.” She pressed down on the heavy gold handle of my front door. “This is before that.”
I wasn’t positive about what we were about to see, but I was somehow certain I wasn’t going to like it.
“Come on,” Gina called.
As I walked in, I spotted the big cardboard Elmo holding up one finger and a sign above the dining room archway that read, “Happy First Birthday, Ethan.” Pre–Buddy the Bulldozer.
I saw my parents, Mark’s parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my nieces, as well as Mark’s sister, brother-in-law, and nieces. They were all chatting in the living room and eating lasagna on Elmo plates. Mark was organizing the gifts in the corner. All of our nieces looked so young. Amazing how much kids change in only a couple of years.
As I turned around, I saw a one-year-old Ethan, toddling along, unsure on his feet, but eager to move forward. Then he wobbled and fell.
I gasped in delight as I knelt to his eye level. “Look at him at one! Oh my God.” Then my heart thumped. “Oh. Now I know why we’re here,” I said as I stood. “I’ve blocked it so well.”
“Not that well. Consciously, yeah. But not subconsciously.”
“Is it really going to help me to relive this? And how is this your fault?”
“We’ll talk about it.”
I watched myself walking behind Ethan, hunched over, picking him back up.
“What a little potato head,” Gina said.
I marveled. “He has grown into his head.”
“But that hair,” Gina noted. “Ethan would not be Ethan without his big brown curls.”
“I know.” I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“Let’s sit.” Gina propped herself up on the bar we’d set up in the corner. It didn’t seem so sturdy, and I would never dare try to sit on it with my legs dangling in real life. But this was the other side, so I jumped right up after her.
Gina shimmied her hips back and forth on the bar, getting comfortable.
My eyes went back to Ethan. I saw myself follow him a few more steps from the kitchen before picking him up from behind. “Ma, take him,” I called out. “I want to put the cookies out, and then we’ll do the cake.”
My mother hurried up from the couch. She’d been sitting next to my aunt, and they’d been watching my nieces sing and dance.
Aunt Fran was admiring politely and throwing in a few claps and “God bless ’ems.” Gina must have been on her mind at all of these family parties.
My mother knelt down and held out her arms. “Come on. Walk to me.”
Ethan stared, frozen in place.
My mother looked over at the coffee table and eyed a marshmallow Elmo wrapped in plastic and tied with ribbon. “Hand that to me, Fran.”
Aunt Fran obeyed, dutifully peeling the plastic wrapper off.
“You want this?” My mother held up the candy, tearing off a bit.
He lifted his left leg as if it weighed more than him and then his right until he was barreling toward the bright red sweet.
“I thought so,” she said.
Ethan, with no teeth, opened his mouth wide for the marshmallow piece then tried to swallow it whole. He wobbled back and forth, already unsure on his feet, and now unable to breathe. His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed on my mother to help him.
I hadn’t seen it from this angle, how it happened, his facial expressions. I was in the kitchen when it happened.
“It’s stuck! I think it’s stuck!” My mother’s voice had a sharp panic I’d never heard from her before.
I watched myself run to the living room as my mother’s left hand clutched the curls at the back of Ethan’s head and her right index finger poked inside his mouth.
Choking. One of the hazards. One of the statistics. No. No. No.
I lunged toward them and flipped Ethan upside down. I remembered exactly what had been going through my head: Flip? Right? That’s what they say to do? I should know. I’m the parent. Is this right? Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Out. Out, whatever it is.
My son’s little feet inside his brand-new miniature Asics sneakers grated my chin.
“Ouuuuuut!” I remembered feeling the word come up from my gut. “Out.”
When I heard him cry, I could have cried from relief if I weren’t still in shock over what was happening. My brain told my body, It’s okay. He can’t cry if he can’t breathe. He’s breathing. I lowered him to the floor. The room was silent.
“He’s all right,” Aunt Fran kept repeating. “He’s all right.”
I hugged my crying baby. Eventually, that wave of relief washed over me, mixed occasionally with the sting of terror. What would I have done if anything happened to you?
I wanted to hug little Ethan again right at that moment as I watched this from the bar in the corner with Gina.
Our guests resumed talking, and I quickly learned my mother had given him a marshmallow. I immediately chastised her. “You gave a one-year-old a marshmallow?”
She became defensive. “The girls”—meaning my nieces—“have been eating chips since before they had teeth.”
I was too relieved in that moment to yell, “Of course they did!” or to even fight with her at all.
I wanted to go upstairs to his room and rock him until everyone downstairs left. But he wiggled away, and everything went on as usual—the cake, the candles, the singing of “Happy Birthday,” and the opening of gifts.
But of course, it felt anything but ordinary. It had stuck with me.
Later on, I’d tried to talk to Mark about it. “Do you know how quickly he could have lost oxygen? Over a marshmallow. A fucking marshmallow. It could be anything. It could be like that.” I snapped my fingers. “In a second. My poor aunt Fran. How does she go on? She doesn’t really. And I don’t blame her. At least she was here today. I guess that’s good.”
He had only nodded and said, “I know, Jada. I know.” He’d been taking out the garbage when the whole thing happened.
I tried never to think about that memory. I glared at Gina. “Thanks a lot for the reminder.”
She stared straight ahead. “No one actually likes to be vulnerable, completely helpless to what could be. But that’s exactly what you choose when you choose to have a child. There is nothing you can do about the fact that now he’s walking around on earth with all of these potential threats to him at any moment. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“Every parent knows that. You’re stating the obvious. Thanks again.”
“You kind of knew it deep down before the marshmallow incident. Then it hit you. You could be like my mother. You could be Aunt Fran. Anything can happen at the drop of a hat. A marshmallow. A car colliding with a tree.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“It’s fear. And it’s okay. It would be weird if you didn’t have a little bit of it. But it’s also why Ethan doesn’t go to preschool. It’s why you don’t go to the beach, not just because you don’t want to sit on the Garden State Parkway. It’s why you can’t relax when he’s in the pool. It’s the real reason why he’s never stayed over with your parents or in-laws for even a night. You have to try to overcome some of it for Ethan. Enjoy him. Live in the here and now. It’s the best thing you can do for him and for you.”
“Why does it seem like some moms are loving every minute of this? Motherhood is not how it looks on social media.” I held onto the bar with both hands by my thighs.
“Pffft, ya think? Don’t worry how other moms appear. You’re all fucking lying on social media. You are the biggest fake of them all. But parenthood is not for you to love or like. It’s not about that. It’s for you to raise a human and to learn from that. Your favorite thing: learning. You and Ethan picked each other. You’re in this together.” She put her arm around me.
“He picked me? What was he thinking?”
“I see you being so sweet with him—another example of how your outward behavior doesn’t match your inward thoughts and feelings.”
“So I should tell my kid how afraid I am? How hard this is?”
“Of course not. It’s just an example of how you sacrifice for him. He’s changing you, and that’s a good thing.”
“Why do some moms look so relaxed?”
“Who cares? Stop worrying about how other people look!”
“No. Listen! Like the time at the beach. We went to the beach with Mark’s cousins. They were sitting on their beach chairs, relaxed and drinking wine, while the kids played in the sand, a little too close to the shoreline for my liking. And they kept saying, ‘Jada, sit, relax,’ and I said, ‘All it takes is one wave.’ They thought I was joking. Was that wrong? That I didn’t want my kid to get swept away?”
“There is no right or wrong, but try, a little, to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. Stop waiting for something as small as a marshmallow or as big as the ocean to get him. Enjoy the now.”
“Enjoy the now and watch my kid choke or float away?”
“She laughed. “No, of course not. What I’m saying is you would handle motherhood differently if I didn’t suddenly die. I am your constant reminder that anything can happen at any moment. But, Jada, you can’t go on like that. You have to stop, for your sake and Ethan’s.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ll learn. Or unlearn. The seed is planted.”
“But how? Give me specifics.”
“Be in the now. Get off your phone. Have you ever actually played with Ethan? Have fun with him and allow yourself to enjoy it.”
“You’re like my dead therapist,” I said. “Why don’t you just send me to therapy in, you know, real life?”
“You would never go. You don’t have the time, and you won’t make the time. Believe me, if I thought you would go, I’d send you. I’d, I don’t know, have you meet the right therapist for you through the mommy group or at the nail salon. But no, I know you, and I know what will work. We’re doing it this way.”
“How do you know this way is working?”
“I’ve seen it.” Gina uncrossed her legs and hopped off the bar. “You might not remember this, but you are learning to listen to your gut. Something—me—told you to listen to the quiet, to admit to yourself what you really want. Something—me—told you to reach out to Danielle and help Joyce’s mother. Get your head out of your own ass. Something—me—warned you about Todd and told you to talk to Mark, which, yes, we’re still working on, but... Hello.” She waved her hand above her head. “That’s me, guiding you.” She offered her hand to help me down.
“Thank you,” I said and jumped down. “And I could really use a cigarette now.”
“Oh yeah?” She skipped sideways out of my house, reaching for her pack of cigarettes and waving it in the air. “No calories, no carcinogens. Don’t ya love it here?”
“Oh yeah, it’s a real treat.”
We sat on my front steps. She handed me a cigarette and lit it. “Enjoy it, cuz,” she whispered.
And I did.