TWO days later, when I had all but given up on her, Lois Curtin called me with the names of the couple with whom baby Noah Lorgeree had been placed. I ran a skip trace on them and found them easily enough, on Alcatraz Avenue in Oakland. The address was recent, and the phone number came up listed with the bill paid through the end of the month. I had them.
“Oh no,” I muttered under my breath, staring at the computer screen.
“What?” Peter said.
I’d waited until after I put the kids to bed to begin work on the computer, and the house was pleasantly quiet. Quiet enough to hear the symphony of competing appliances—dishwasher, washing machine, dryer.
“I have to go back up to northern California.”
The obscenity Peter used was one of those words he specifically keeps out of his screenplays in order not to run afoul of the Motion Picture Association of America’s PG rating.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked.
“What’s wrong with me? What do you think is wrong with me? This will be your third trip in a little over a week.”
This had never happened to us before. Never had Peter been anything but supportive of my career, no matter how burgeoning, no matter how little money I made, no matter how foolhardy my job would strike anyone else. All the other feminist men my girlfriends and I went to college with, the ones who marched by our sides in Take Back the Night marches, who protested sex-segregated fraternities with us, who took Intro to Women’s History as their freshman American Studies elective, those men had all ended up as versions of their fathers, working twelve-hour days and expecting to come home to immaculate homes and above-average children whose homework was done and already in their backpacks waiting to be handed in to the teachers in the morning. Peter was one of the few husbands who didn’t mind a messy house, filthy children, and dinner from a bucket or paper bag. Not so long as his wife was satisfied and content. Most women I knew were complying with their husbands’ expectations. A few were still working, but many had left their jobs as pediatric neurologists or partners in law firms or studio executives, and had become full-time mothers. It went without saying that the stay-at-home moms did all the child care and housework, whatever wasn’t contracted out. What was stranger was that the working mothers did it, too. But Peter was different from my friends’ husbands. He did more or less his fair share, and didn’t object when I tried to carve out some sort of career in the few hours between car pool runs. Or at least he hadn’t until now.
“I don’t have a choice, Peter. The couple that fostered the baby is in Oakland.”
It was just stress. That’s the only explanation for why we ended up standing inches apart, our faces red, screaming at each other. Peter said things like, “You aren’t around when I need you,” and I said things like, “You aren’t being supportive.” It’s even possible someone screamed, “I hate you,” at the top of his or her lungs. Like I said, it was all just stress. We were exhausted, stretched to the breaking point by sleep deprivation and worries, Peter about his lawsuit, me about Sandra’s murder and her lost son. We loved each other as much as we ever did, and we didn’t mean any of it.
But try explaining that to a four-year-old.
Isaac stood in one of the balcony nooks overlooking the living room. He was sucking on the neck of his pajama shirt and rocking back and forth, holding on to the iron railing. His low moans were virtually inaudible from so far above our heads. I noticed him only because he was wearing a pair of Ruby’s bright-orange-and-pink-striped long underwear, and the flash of brilliant color caught my eye. The pajamas were much too big for him, and the long cuffs drooped over his wrists and ankles, covering his hands and feet.
“Oh, baby,” I crooned, looking up at him.
Peter followed my gaze. He swore softly under his breath. We ran up the stairs and within a few moments I was holding Isaac, who by now was crying uncontrollably, his little bird body shaking with sobs. Only his cheeks retained any baby softness now; the rest of him was all knobby, little-boy bones. Snuggling him was like cuddling a Tinkertoy.
“Sweetie,” I said. “Mama and Daddy were just having a little argument. We’re okay.”
He burrowed his head into my belly. Peter patted ineffectually at his back.
“It’s all right, buddy,” he said.
Isaac moaned.
“You’ve seen us fight before, kiddo,” I said. “Lots of times. Mama and Daddy fight, and then we make up. Just like you and Ruby. See, now we’re making up. Watch.” I pried his face loose from my waist and lifted him out of my lap. His eyes and nose were streaming and I wiped them with the tail of his shirt.
“I love you, Daddy,” I said brightly.
“I love you, too,” Peter replied, equally falsely.
“And I’m so sorry for all the mean things I said.”
“Me, too.”
Isaac looked from one of us to the other, part of him wanting desperately to believe that it could be over so easily, part of him disgusted with what was obviously a sham.
“See?” I said. “Mama and Daddy are all made up.”
“Of course.”
“For forever?”
“Of course.”
Peter said, “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to fight again, bud. That happens, God knows. Especially when a person is married to someone like your mother. But I’m going to try to be more patient in the future.”
I opened my mouth, all set to resume with a fresh blast of fury, but caught myself in time. Peter smiled at me and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
I saw him then, as I hadn’t for the past few minutes. It’s strange what happens when we fight. When we argue it’s as though I am no longer able to recognize that standing before me is the person I love. Instead, I see only this opponent. Now, suddenly, when he made a joke and whispered a real apology, the red haze lifted from my eyes and I could recognize him again.
“I love you,” I said. This time there was no falseness in my tone.
“Me, too.”
“Me, too,” Isaac interjected.
“Bedtime for you, my friend,” I said as I heaved him up into my arms. “And for me, too.”
“Juliet, why don’t we all go with you?” Peter said as he walked us down the hall to Isaac’s bedroom. “There’s an animation studio up near San Francisco that’s in the running for the TV series. I wouldn’t mind checking out their setup. And the kids have never been to San Francisco. We can ride the cable car.”
“What about school?” I said.
“So they’ll miss coloring and Legos for a couple of days. It won’t kill them.”
I rested my cheek against the top of Isaac’s head. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go online and find a hotel as soon as I get him to sleep.”