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Mark picked Ethan up at 8 a.m. He looked well rested and freshly showered.
“How’s the apartment?”
“Good.”
“Do you need help with anything?”
His lip curled in anger. “How could you help me, Jada?”
Whoa. “I don’t know, Mark.” I spat the words. “I’m trying to make this as easy as possible for you.” Can we go back to barely speaking to each other? I think I liked that better.
“How kind.”
“Can we just focus on how we’re going to explain this all to Ethan? He woke up this morning asking where you were. I told him you stayed in the city, and he didn’t ask anything else.”
“We’ll say Daddy is living in the city now because of work.”
“But that’s not the truth, and we have to be honest with him.”
“Honesty? That’s your big concern? Then we’ll say Mommy wants a divorce.”
“And you don’t?” I held my arms out in disbelief.
He shrugged.
I imitated his shrug. “On the fence? Mark, there is nothing here between us. You would have been just fine going through life like that? I want more. I want a connection. I know we had something once, but not enough to sustain a lifetime together. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.”
“We should have had this conversation before San Francisco.”
“I tried!”
He shrugged again.
“Stop shrugging!”
“Sorry. Does that annoy you? Everything I do annoys you. Let me get Ethan and get out of here before I do something else that irritates you.”
Mark walked to the television room, and I heard Ethan full of delight. “Daddy!”
They came back toward the foyer. I kissed Ethan’s head before they headed out the front door. “Have fun with Daddy today.” He kissed my cheek and bounded down the front steps.
I tapped Mark and whispered, “Tell him Mommy and Daddy are going to live separately now, but we still love him.”
He nodded. I didn’t want to watch them drive away but thought it would be wrong to skulk back inside. I waved and grinned as widely as I could. See? Mommy is all right, so you can be all right. Everything is all right.
Ethan waved back.
What to do with a wide-open day ahead of me? I didn’t have the energy to go to the gym. I didn’t feel like going shopping, though I did need new shoes. I didn’t feel like doing anything. Instead, I did something I hadn’t done in a long time—I called my mother.
“Jada? What’s wrong?”
I leaned against the kitchen counter. “Nothing. How are you feeling?”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“What’s going on?” She sounded suspicious.
“Nothing. What’s going on there?” I walked to the living room and plopped on the couch.
“Orly’s coming over to eat because Paul took the girls to a daddy-daughter picnic.”
I hugged one of the many beige pillows on our large sofa. “Oh, nice.”
“Do you feel okay?” she asked.
“Me? I feel fine. I’m just worried about you.”
“Why? I’ll be all right. Why don’t ya come eat?”
My initial instinct had always been to make up some excuse why I couldn’t spend time with my family, but this time, I said, “Okay.”
###
THEY WEREN’T EXPECTING me until noon, but I arrived at their house at ten a.m.
My dad answered the door, looking perplexed. “Hi. You’re early. Did Mommy tell you to come early?”
“No.” I walked through the front door.
“Where are Mark and Ethan?” He watched me walk through the living room.
“Oh, um, Mark has some work calls. And Ethan wanted to swim today, so Mark’s going to swim with him between calls.” I will tell them the truth eventually. One thing at a time.
“He could have swam here.”
“He likes his own pool.”
I sifted through the newspaper on the kitchen table.
“All right.” He grabbed the odd-looking metal pipe contraption that was on the counter and went back to his plumbing work in the basement.
I picked up the Real Estate and Business sections and stepped outside, where my mother was drinking coffee, reading the paper, and smoking.
“What are you doing?” I screamed.
Her mouth gaped open, and she caught her cigarette before it fell from her mouth. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped. “You scared the crap out of me, screaming like that. And I don’t have lung cancer.”
“Still!”
“Jada, you almost gave me a heart attack!” She shook her head, adjusted her paper, and sipped her coffee. “What are you doing here so early? Where’s Ethan and Mark?”
I sat down across from her on one of the white outdoor chairs with plastic cushions. I gave her the work-swim excuse then grabbed the mostly finished cigarette in the ashtray and crushed it out.
“Well, Orly’s not getting here until noon. You should go swimming.”
Just my parents and me. When was the last time that happened?
“I didn’t bring my bathing suit. Listen, I want to speak to your doctor.”
“Why didn’t you bring your bathing suit?”
“I don’t know. What is your doctor’s name?”
“Will you stop it?”
“Does your doctor know you’re smoking?”
“Oh, Jada, you could use a cigarette. Want one?”
“Very funny.” I sat back and got comfortable, unfolding the newspaper in front of me.
I sat there with my mother, drinking coffee and reading the paper, mostly in silence, until Orly arrived. She came in wearing a T-shirt image of an angel with large outstretched wings, balancing like a ballerina above the planet earth.
The shock of seeing Orly in that shirt must have shown on my face.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s just, I don’t know.” I swallowed. It was an odd, familiar feeling that I didn’t understand, like I had just seen that shirt recently or something.
“Does it not fit right?”
“No, it’s so not you, I guess. That’s what it is.”
“Well, it’s not mine. It’s Gina’s. Aunt Fran insisted I take a bunch of her T-shirts. She gave you a bunch too. Didn’t she?”
“I don’t remember what I did with them. It looks cute on you. I was just shocked to see it.”
“Jada! What do you mean you don’t know what you did with them?” my mother scolded.
“I mean, I know they’re in my closet somewhere. I’ve just never worn any.”
“You should,” my mother said. “It’d make her happy.”
I didn’t know if she meant Gina or Aunt Fran, but I didn’t ask.
“I had them in the corner of my closet forever, and I finally went through them.” Orly held out the shirt as she glanced down at it. “I’m surprised any of them fit me. She was so tiny.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She didn’t get the big-boob gene like the rest of us.”
“All right, come on now! Let’s eat.” My mother shooed us out of the kitchen toward the deck.
My mother cleared the table, then Orly and I set it with her red ceramic dishes and matching salad bowls.
Sunday dinner always included “macaroni,” which is what we called all pasta, “gravy,” which was marinara sauce, and gravy meat, which was either meatballs or sausage, always homemade by my father. When the four of us sat down for dinner in the middle of the day—which was how we always did it on Sundays—my father said, “Just like old times.”
I cut a meatball with my fork and inhaled the delicious aroma. “When’s the next doctor’s appointment?”
“Tuesday,” Orly answered. She sprinkled grated cheese on her macaroni.
“Are you going?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
I nodded. “Are you going, Dad?”
“I gotta work,” he said. “They’ll let us know everything. Don’t worry so much, Jada.”
“I can leave work for a few hours,” I said. “Or even take off. When is it? In the city, right?”
“No, not that doctor,” my mother said. “This one’s here, on Queens Boulevard. The surgeon. You don’t have to be there.”
“Yes, I do. What if he or she says something either of you don’t understand?”
“It’s a he, and we’re not idiots,” Orly said.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I mean three heads are better than one... or two. I can take the train from work. What hospital?”
“Don’t worry about it, Jada.” My mother twirled her linguini. “Please. What you can do for me is not be there. You’re giving me agida, and I don’t need you there, questioning this doctor and making it uncomfortable. He’s got the highest ratings everywhere. We looked on the computer.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dr. Omar.”
Note to self: Research him when I get home.
“Ma, can you watch Ari tomorrow?” Orly asked. “I have to take Isabella to the other Isabella’s birthday party.”
“Of course.”
“Are there a lot of Isabellas in the class?” I asked.
“Only one other one.”
This reminded me of a conversation we’d had while I was pregnant with Ethan. We were out to dinner with my parents, Orly, Paul, my nieces, and Mark, and the issue of baby names came up.
“You named me after Daddy’s mother, right?” I’d asked my mother. Even though I’d heard this story before, Mark hadn’t.
“Sort of. I wanted to name you Roseann or something after my mother, but I figured Fran might have a girl too, and so I let her have it. That’s why Gina was Gina Rose. And Daddy loves his mother so much. Grandma Giada. Oh, how I hated that name, but I compromised. I said it’ll be spelled J-a-d-a and pronounced Jay-da. I think of it as the American version of that name. Compromise. That’s what it’s all about.”
“Well, Grandma still pronounces it ‘Giada,’” I said. I thought of my dad’s parents, who we rarely saw and who spoke very little English. They lived in New Jersey with my aunt, and we never learned enough Italian to have complete conversations with them, so it was always a little awkward. They would give us biscotti and stroke our hair and call me ‘Giada, Giada, bella Giada.’ They were cute. I was happy to be named after my grandmother, and I liked having a unique name.
“Who’s Orly named after?” Mark asked.
“My grandmother who I never met,” my mother said. “Her name was Ornella. I always liked that name. I thought it was different. But of course, Jada couldn’t pronounce it, and we’ve been calling her Orly ever since.”
“And I like it,” Orly said. “If you called me Ornella, I might be like ‘Who?’”
“So, what are you thinking for baby names?” my father asked.
“We like Ethan,” I replied.
“What?” My mother stopped eating. “No, no, no.” She shook her head.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Orly was also making a disgusted face. “It just sounds, I don’t know, like a lawyer’s name.”
“Well, both of his parents are lawyers, so that’s fitting,” I said.
“It’s not Italian,” my mother said.
“It’s just so formal,” Orly said.
Are they kidding me? “What do you want me to name him? Rocco? Mario? Paulie?” I turned to my brother-in-law. “Sorry, Paul.”
He shrugged and kept eating.
“Jada picked it,” Mark said.
I snapped my neck toward him. “And we agreed on it.”
“As long as you like it,” Orly said.
Oh, now you say that. Like it will erase the fact that we now know you don’t like our son’s name.
“I guess.” My mother shrugged. “Ethan Marlone. It just doesn’t go.”
“We think it goes perfectly,” I said.
Mark and I had actually talked about changing the name after that dinner. Did it not go with our last name? But I’d woken up the next day with the conviction that Mark and I liked it, and that was all that mattered.
I shook the memory off. “Is there anything for dessert?” I asked my father. “I’m craving a sweet.”
“I brought cannoli,” Orly said.
“Oh, good.” I stood and brought my dish inside to the kitchen sink. I spotted the pastry box and brought it outside.
I devoured my cannoli while my mother and Orly talked about people I didn’t know. Someone named Alicia, who was trying to have a baby, and Felicia, who still hadn’t closed on her house. “What do you think the problem is? The inspection?”
After dessert, Orly and I helped clear the table, wiped the counters, and took the garbage out.
“Want to take a cannoli home for Mark?” my father asked as I grabbed my car keys.
“Nah.” I kissed everyone goodbye and hugged my mother a little longer. “Let me know if I should meet you at the doctor’s appointment.”
“Not necessary,” my mother said.
“Let me know what he says at least.”
“They will,” my father said.
It was too early to go back to an empty house, so I drove to our local park, where I sat in my car, checking my phone.
I researched Dr. Omar. My mom and sister had been right—he had excellent credentials.
Then I checked Frontbook. There was an update from Gina’s friend Cori. She’d gone for her final wedding dress fitting with her mom and sister. I wondered what kind of wedding dress Gina would have gotten. Probably something with a skull pattern that would horrify Aunt Fran and my mother. Gina was one of a kind. Cori looks pretty, though. She was standing outside the bridal shop, holding up a long white garment bag. The caption read, “Said yes to the dress.” That was corny, but I tapped Like.
Congratulations, Cori.
I was dying to text Mark to see how his day with Ethan was going, but I felt like it wouldn’t be received well, considering the tension between us that morning. When there was nothing left to see on social media, I headed home, where I poured myself a lemonade with a little vodka, grabbed my Vanity Fair magazine, and sat by the pool.
As I flipped the magazine pages, I remembered being so excited to have some alone time without having to keep an eye on Ethan when I’d gone to San Francisco, but now I didn’t know what to do with myself.
When Mark and Ethan came home, Ethan ran up to kiss me hello and tell me all about what they did all day—video games, miniature golf, McDonald’s.
Mark and I made conversation about the traffic and weather, but it was obviously for Ethan’s sake. Luckily, he was in a lighter mood than he had been that morning.
We went through the motions, and then after Ethan went to bed, Mark walked into our bedroom with a duffel bag. He loaded it up with more of his T-shirts, jeans, and workout clothes. “All right, I’ll probably come back next weekend to see Ethan and get more clothes, and you know, some more things.”
“What did you say to him?” I asked.
“Exactly what you suggested, that Mommy and Daddy are going to live separately now, but we still love him.”
“Thank you. What was his reaction?”
“Honestly, I don’t think it registered.”
We stood in silence for a moment. I stepped toward him and put my arms around his neck. He hugged me back. It was oddly familiar and, at the same time, foreign, comforting, and yet uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry this is so hard, but we’re doing the right thing,” I said.
“Are we?”
“What? Do you think we should have gone to counseling?”
“I think you should have never gone to San Francisco.”
“If you think that, then you’re not understanding.”
“I understand very clearly.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
And he walked out.
###
THE NEXT DAY, JOYCE arrived at her usual time. “Is Mark sick?”
“No. He’s staying in the city this week for work.” I can’t get into it right now. I hope she’ll understand the fib when I eventually explain the truth.
I drove to the train station alone, parked alone, bought my pass alone, and stood on the platform alone. As I stood there, I checked social media, my email, People.com, and NYPost.com, never daring to glance up and, God forbid, see Jed.
When I arrived at the office, the first thing that greeted me was an email from Lionel with the subject line “Where is the Bennett filing?” The message read, “Was this filed? I don’t have a copy.”
I don’t want to risk being on probation. I have to handle this with care. Step away. Breathe.
I inhaled deeply, tried to let it out slowly, then typed out my reply. “I believe you are asking about the response to interrogatories. Yes, it was filed, and yes, you have a copy. Please check your Inbox folders.” He is infuriating. I bit my fist and returned to typing. “Otherwise, I am going to have to bill you for the time it takes me to check my Sent folder. Have a wonderful rest of the day.”
Moments later, Dan was standing in my doorway.
“What? I said, ‘Have a wonderful day.’” I reached for the pile of mail on the corner of my desk.
“You can’t send emails like that to the client. If he wants us to resend him something, we have to just do it!”
I looked up from the mail. “I’m sorry.” I pushed my hair back. “I really am.”
“Jada, what’s going on? You’re always a nutbag, but you’re, I don’t know, extra nutbaggy lately. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“I don’t need you to tell me your personal business, but whatever it is, if you need time off to get things situated so you can better do your job—”
“Mark and I are breaking up. And my mother has cancer.”
It suddenly occurred to me that the only people who now knew that were Danielle from mommy group and Dan, my boss—not Veronica, and my family knew nothing about Mark. These two non-friends, in technical terms, knew my deepest, darkest agonies at the moment.
Dan’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I can’t hug you. That would be an HR violation. Shit. Listen, take the rest of the day off. Take the week. Whatever you need.”
I shook my head. “I made it through last week. I can keep going. I don’t have a choice.”
“Wow. Is your mom going to be okay? And Mark, is he going to be okay?”
I smiled at his effort but shook my head.
“All right, we don’t have to get into it,” he said.
“It helps a lot that I just let it out. At least you know now. I’m sorry, Dan. I oscillate. One moment wanting to do right by you because you’re a cool boss, and other times getting overwhelmed with rage by Lionel.”
“Listen, take it out on me. But can you go easy on the client? For me?”
I nodded. “I will. I’ve been trying. I slipped.”
“All right, skip the morning meeting. It’s okay.”
“I’ll be there. But thanks.”
For the rest of the week, I spent most of my days hiding in my office. I didn’t need to leave for lunch because I couldn’t eat anything. I didn’t go to my mother’s doctor’s appointment because everyone insisted it wasn’t necessary. I had to finish something by noon on that day for Lionel anyway.
I asked Joyce to feed Ethan dinner, bathe him, and put his pajamas on before I got home on nights I had to work late. He seemed to be completely unfazed by Mark not being around and Joyce doing more. It unnerved me, though. I feared when it finally hit him, it wouldn’t be good. But for the moment, he was fine. I heard from Mark around seven each night when he called for Ethan. But there were no other calls, emails, or texts from him.
And that was how it went. That time was the sad calm before the storm.
###
ON THE SUNDAY OF GINA’S memorial, I had to come up with another excuse for Mark and Ethan’s absence. “It’s one of Mark’s partner’s son’s birthdays. They had to go.”
“They couldn’t skip a birthday party for this?” my mother asked. “Isn’t this more important?”
“It’s the managing partner,” I said defensively. “I wanted them to at least make it to the church, but their party starts too early,” I added for believability. The truth was I was fine being there alone with my family. I had to get used to it anyway. This was our new normal—Mark having Ethan on weekends.
“I guess he has to do what he has to do,” Orly said. “They don’t understand about family at law firms, I guess.”
I ignored her and pried open the heavy church door. I know I have to tell them what’s going on, but it never feels like the right time, and my cousin’s memorial certainly isn’t the right place.
The annual memorial was held at Holy Trinity, our church in Queens where all of us—me, Orly, Gina, and Andrea, Gina’s sister—were baptized, made our communions, and were confirmed. It was where we’d had Gina’s funeral five years ago. It was also where Orly and Andrea had gotten married. I’d married Mark at the hotel in Manhattan where our reception was held.
My mother had been horrified at the time. “How can you not get married in a church?”
“We’re doing it our way,” I’d said. “And I’m a New York City bride. I have to do what feels right for me. Getting married in Queens is so not me. And besides, I’m paying, so if that’s how I—we—want to do it, that’s how we’ll do it.” Mark had agreed that the city suited us, but deep down, I didn’t think he’d really cared.
A few years later, when we’d baptized Ethan at Holy Trinity, it felt like an apology to my mother for having had the wedding I wanted. I realized how messed up that sounded, but it was the truth, and I believed that was how she’d taken it.
The memorial was a regular mass. Then Father Bertoli—who did the baptizing, confirming, marrying, and burying—made the same speech he made every year. He talked about how he remembered the day Gina was born, and he remembered the day she died. He said no one should ever remember those two days in a person’s life, that it was completely unnatural, but we knew Jesus was holding her in His arms.
I looked up as if to wink at Gina, who I imagined was not being held by Jesus but tapping her feet to music I’d never heard, smoking and cursing, like I always remembered her.
“Every year, around this time,” Father Bertoli continued, “I call Gina Rose’s parents, Fran and Eddie.” He motioned toward a sniffling Aunt Fran. Uncle Eddie put his arm around her. “And we always say we can’t believe it’s been one, two, now five years. But it’s not the amount of time she was here. It’s the impact she had. And Gina Rose left her mark.”
I hated platitudes like that. Come on, Father Bertoli, you’re better than that. Gina would have thought the same thing, I think.
But what could he say? I wish he would just be honest one year and say, “She was too young. It was too sudden, too shocking, and you’ll never get over it for the rest of your lives. Nothing I say will make it better. Now, go eat.”
I wondered if anyone could read my mind. I surveyed everyone around me and caught my cousin Andrea’s eye. She gave me a sad smile, which I returned and then let my head fall. My phone sat in my lap. My screensaver of Ethan with chocolate all over his mouth lit up as I checked the time. His smiling eyes were crinkly with sugary delight.
Poor Aunt Fran. How does she go on?
My throat pulsed hard and fast. I reached for my collar and shut my eyes.
“Ya swallow your gum?” My mother’s loud voice reverberated.
Everyone turned in our direction.
I shook my head and placed my hands on my lap. Apparently, like scaring someone to get rid of their hiccups, mortifying me made my throat thing disappear.
After the service, we went next door and ate. While I ate and chatted with Andrea, I watched her kids and my nieces run across the restaurant, chasing some electronic car. They giggled loudly, and I wished Ethan were there.
When I finished my coffee and cake, I started kissing everyone goodbye. Aunt Fran hugged me and said, “I hope I see Mark and Ethan soon. Tell them I missed them.”
“I will.”
“Well, Ethan’s birthday is coming up, so at least I’ll see them then.”
Oh, right, my child’s birthday was in three weeks. Mother of the year again. And that meant I would have to plan a kid’s party and a family party. And Mark and I will have to fake it one last time in front of everyone we know and love.
“Drive safe,” Aunt Fran said.
I wondered how she was able to get through each day, let alone have a party every year. But this year, I pictured Gina thoroughly enjoying seeing everyone eating, talking, and laughing. She wouldn’t want to see us sad, especially her mom. I was on the fence about showing her the shirt I was wearing, which was why I’d worn a jacket over it. But as we were saying goodbye, I unzipped my jacket. “Aunt Fran, look. It’s Gina’s.”
She stepped back to get a better view. It was a black T-shirt with a dragonfly, butterfly, and ladybug sitting atop a martini glass, smoking cigarettes. Aunt Fran’s smile grew wide.
“I thought I’d wear it today, but then I wasn’t sure.” I was going to say I’d recently found it, but I didn’t want her to think I’d lost it. I didn’t want her to know the truth either—that Gina’s clothes were in a box in the closet of our guest room and I couldn’t bear to go through it until recently.
“I’m so happy you wore it! She would love that you’re wearing it.”
We hugged longer than usual, and I felt happier than after any of Gina’s other memorials.