After You (16 page)

27

T
here was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in the midst of them came a delight more delightful than all, because it was more wonderful—”
We are in Sophie’s bed, cozy and comfortable, though it is still afternoon. I am in the middle of rereading some of the most moving lines from our book—Mary and Dickon see a red robin darting through the air and Burnett is at her magical best—when Sophie’s words burst forth, hostile and without warning.

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a simple question: Do. You. Think. I’m. Stupid.”

“Of course not. You’re the smartest kid I know. What’s going on, Soph?” I am not used to her tone, a sophisticated undercutting I don’t think I developed until high school. Like her black eye, discordant with the rest of her.

“So if you think I’m so smart, then why didn’t you tell me?” She points toward her yellow-sashed drapes, which block the window. I have closed them, hoping she wouldn’t notice the commotion outside. The press, with their clipboards and cameras and incessant curiosity, are back for another round of stories. A knife has been found in a trash can behind the council flats in Westbourne Park, and the thing is apparently full of forensic goodies—dried blood and DNA and fingerprints. The final evidence that, fingers crossed, ensures this is an open-and-shut case. The man—who has a name, of course, printed in every newspaper in the country, though I refuse to use it, to dignify his existence that way—is looking at a life sentence. Nigel, our family liaison officer, has suggested we lay low for a few days. He has promised that the media attention will again blow over and has also reminded us that, though inconvenient, garnering sympathy is not necessarily a bad thing. The pictures of Sophie and me holding hands on the way to school, the focus on our linked fingers, have captured the public’s imagination, increased both their interest and their outrage. The added pressure on Scotland Yard can only help us.

“Soph, I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? You haven’t bugged me about going to the park in ages. And we haven’t left the house in two days.”

“It’s been raining, so I thought—”

“It’s always raining, Auntie Ellie. We just take a brolly.”

“How much do you know?” I ask her straight out. She may play tough, but she’s still only eight. I do not want her to know yet about the complexities of the judicial system or to ask questions about the testing of dried blood. Maybe I can still shield whatever innocence may be left.

“I know about the knife. I reckon—I mean, Inderpal said it’s a good thing, right?”

“You’ve been talking to Inderpal?”

“Sometimes we talk on the phone. So what?”

“So nothing.” I hide my smile and the tiny thrill I get from hearing that perhaps Sophie has a crush. I welcome for her any and all distractions from real life. “It is a good thing. It helps the police.”

“Good. Daddy said it’s good to help the police. That’s why I talked to them, you know,
after
, even though I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not even you.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re talking now. Are you still mad at me?”

Sophie looks toward the window again and then at our book.

“Don’t not tell me things, okay? I’m not a baby.”

“I know. You’re right.” I forget myself for a moment and stroke her forehead, like an infant’s, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She leans into me, soothed.

“I don’t like all those people outside. I know they’re journalists, like Mummy, but I wish they’d leave us alone.”

“I know what you mean. It’s like we’re in a fishbowl.”

“In a fishbowl. I like that. Well said, Auntie Ellie. I’m going to use that one.”

“Why don’t we just pretend they aren’t out there? Let’s just pretend that we’re in the gardens of Misselthwaite Manor, with Mary and Dickon instead. We’re watching the red robin make his nest, and when he chirps it’s like he can talk to us.”

“They’ll still be out there.”

“I know. But we can pretend anyway, right?”

I pass Sophie the book, and she begins to read.

28

T
he FedEx boxes arrive less than a week later. The first is filled with shoes, and not just any shoes but my favorites, a pupu platter assortment. Flats, heels, sneakers, flip-flops, boots, leather and rain. A dream box. And then the second packs two pairs of jeans, a few sweaters, my fall jacket, some tank tops and T-shirts, my cats-and-dogs umbrella, a complete kit for London life. Phillip carefully picked through my closet, weighing what I might need the most. He even supplies me with a power adapter for my laptop, an extra bottle of skin cream—the same brand I used to export to Lucy because it’s twice the price here—and a couple of books, handpicked from our bookshelf at home:
The Portrait of a Lady, Reservation Road, A Moveable Feast
.

The note is short, without sentiment:

For you
.

And with that, with those two words, my heart closes again and my body aches for Phillip, literally aches. In my breasts, which throb with love, in my stomach, which aches with loss, until I am back on the floor again, doubled over and replaying again and again the sound of Phillip’s suitcase rolling out the door.

29

O
n Thursday, my favorite day of the week, Sophie and I go to see Simon. Actually, Sophie goes to see Simon and I come along as her escort, lingering longer than I should before and after her sessions. He is handsome and I am now single and he’s a healthy distraction. Even before this shift in status, I liked to fantasize about his thick arms and the potential tattoo that might or might not crest his biceps. His bald head makes me want to lick it for luck. No, that’s a lie. I want to lick it as an appetizer.

After Sophie’s session, which, based on the paper tablecloths I’ve been forced to admire for the past six weeks, now consists less of drawing and more of chatting, Simon asks to speak with me alone. Sophie is sent downstairs with a couple of pounds for a hot chocolate. I am spared the decision of whether she is old enough to do this on her own, since the child expert is the one who suggests it. I am grateful for this, as I lie awake at nights pondering the many choices I have made during the day on Sophie’s behalf, never sure if I’ve made the right one. Often, I turn to Google searches to soothe my nerves:
eight-year-olds and PG movies; eight-year-olds and
Teen Vogue;
eight-year-olds and American Girl dolls and feminism; British eight-year-olds and tea after three; eight-year-olds and sex
. I admit, based on the results, that this last one was a huge mistake, one that gave me nightmares for two weeks straight. If I turn up on any federal watch lists, I’ll know why.

“How are you holding up?” Simon asks me as soon as we hear Sophie’s footsteps on the stairs. “I heard about your husband.”

“Oh, that. Fine. I’m fine. Long time coming.”

“Yeah?” He says it in that cute Londoner way, a half syllable and expectant.

“Yeah.” I parrot his accent back.

“Good. I’m glad.” Simon pauses for a moment and just looks at me. He is a man who manipulates silence, finding bits of Zen in the air of a conversation. If I were married to him, I’d find the habit annoying. Since I am not married to him, I find the habit enviable and charming. “Sophie’s. Birthday.”

“Yes.”

“Is. Coming. Up.”

“Yes.”

“What’s the plan, Stan?”

“I don’t know. What do you think? Greg and I haven’t talked about it yet, but I was thinking I’d throw a party, like the one she had last year. I remember Lucy saying it was a big hit.”

“No one showed up last year.”

“What are you talking about? Lucy said all of Notting Hill was there.”

“Not according to Soph. She says it was a disaster. She said she’d rather die than have another birthday party. Her words. Not mine.”

“Oh.” I readjust my thinking. Lucy lied. Not surprising, I am learning, as I’ve stepped into her life. I feel ashamed that she didn’t trust me with the truth. Worse, I feel sick picturing Sophie tucked into a party dress, sitting alone among platters of finger sandwiches, knowing full well that no matter how long they waited the doorbell would not ring. And knowing, too, that she had disappointed her mother.

“Okay, time for a new plan. Any ideas?” I ask.

“I’ll have a good think on it, but, Ellie, just so you know, this is really important to Sophie. She’s mentioned it multiple times.”

“I know. We’ll have to come up with something amazing. The kid deserves it.”

“How are her nightmares?”

“Still daily. She’s better at them, though, if that makes sense. She’s grown so used to them, I guess, that she doesn’t wake up as shaken. And the bed-wetting has totally stopped, so that’s good.”

“Good. I’m working through guilt with her right now.”

“Guilt? She’s eight. What does she have to feel guilty about?”

“She disobeyed the morning of the accident.” Interesting that even Simon, an expert on genocide, has adopted that word,
accident
. Maybe it’s human nature to want to gloss over the idea of evil, limit our vocabulary to words we can control.

“But what does that have to do—”

“Her mum told her to run, but she stopped at the end of the lane. Sophie thinks her being there, her seeing it, made it happen. She’s suffering from a form of survivor’s guilt.”

“So how do we stop it? How do we make her feel better?”

“I’m working on it.” He touches my arm, a gesture of comfort. “It’s frustrating. Guilt is such a useless emotion when it’s irrational. And yet it’s so powerful. Holds us back.”

He says it in a way that makes me feel like he is not just talking about Sophie here. I nod my head as if I understand, though I am not sure that I do.

“By the way, reading
The Secret Garden
with Sophie? Absolutely bloody brilliant move. I’m thinking of incorporating it into my grief counseling with some other patients.”

“Thanks, I had no idea if it would actually help. I just love the book.”

“You know, you’d make a fantastic mother.” Simon says it in a clunky manner, like he is handing me a gift that will later require a handwritten thank-you note. I take his words with me and measure them as I walk out the door, the entangled emotions too much to bear. His gift less a gift, more a hand grenade.

His “you’d” implies I am not a mother. Not to Sophie, at least not in the literal sense of the word, and, of course, not to Oliver either. I feel the flare again of guilt and shame. Useless emotions, maybe. Painful, still.

30

S
ophie refuses to eat the lamb I so lovingly ordered by number from a fluorescent-backlit menu bar and then transported home in a Styrofoam container. Ordinarily this, wouldn’t be such a big deal, but we take in Indian three nights a week and the leftovers spill into lunch the next day, and, yes, lamb kebabs have become a staple of our diet. Without them, I worry Sophie will grow even thinner.

We have created a delicate system of ordering and sharing, a fine balance struck between kebab and curry, spicy and mild, liquid and solid. Above all else, we hold fast to routine in this house. There is comfort in knowing that no matter what, Thursday night will include a fresh-baked piece of naan.

Sophie’s sudden refusal to take part in our ritual is upsetting.

The newfound mutton phobia is my fault, of course. Dickon, one of the characters in
The Secret Garden
, finds a motherless lamb out on the moors and nurses her. The description is precious:
It was a soft thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its body…. [W]hen Mary had sat under a tree with its limp warmness huddled
on her lap she had felt as if she were too full of a strange joy to speak. A lamb—a lamb! A living lamb who lay on your lap like a baby!

Again the orphan theme hitting us from all sides, though Sophie doesn’t mind; in fact, we reread that paragraph again and again. We both want to touch its fleece, feel it nip our fingertips, watch it suckle from a bottle; we both want to save this fictional animal and adopt our own motherless lamb.

Sophie takes solace in the fact that there must be other creatures in the world like her. Apparently, dead mothers—mutton and otherwise—abound. Who knew this was the lesson of
The Secret Garden?
Sometimes parents die and the kids turn out okay. Even thrive, in rosy-cheeked and independent fashion. This is something both Sophie and I need to learn: Others have survived what she is surviving.

“Sweetheart, come on. You’ve been eating this stuff forever,” Greg says, attempting to kebab her plate. She keeps returning the skewered meat to his.

“No way. I’m not eating anything that’s cute. And sheeps are cute.”

I don’t join the fight. The kid makes a good point. Why not draw the line at cute? Maybe we need to eat and digest and shit out all of the ugly things in the world and leave the cute to frolic and nibble on leaves.

“I guess that means you’re safe, then. Because you’re supercute.” Greg gobbles up his food in an exaggerated ogre fashion, his Shrek imitation, which results in curry all over his chin. We both do this, Greg and I, go for the cheapest and easiest joke available around Sophie. We would do anything—shame ourselves, even—to provoke a laugh.

She gives him what he wants. A giggle.

“I don’t think I’m cute. I’m dorky,” she says, slow and deliberate, turning the matter around in her head. “All the kids in school call me ‘Sophie the Lesbian Librarian.’ What’s a lesbian?”

My chicken curry hits the wrong pipe and goes down steaming to my gut. I look at Greg, and we are both thinking exactly the same thing. We need iPhones so we can Google
eight-year-olds and explaining homosexuality
under the table.

“Um, that’s because you read a lot, sweetie. That’s why they call you a librarian. You know librarians are supercool. Yeah, they used to wear buns and look like Headmistress Calthorp, but now most librarians are smart and beautiful. I’d be excited if you grew up to be a librarian. And, come on, you’re the cutest kid in the world.”

“Duh, I
know
what a librarian is, Auntie Ellie.” She rolls her eyes at me, a habit I assumed she wouldn’t develop until age fourteen. “What’s a lesbian?”

Greg has gone pale—these are the moments he dreads, the motherless moments, when he has no clue what to do or say to his daughter—and looks at me pleadingly.
Help me
, he says.
Surely you must know what to say? You’re a woman. You’re genetically modified to deal with children
.

I take the ball, ask myself that same old question, like an evangelical:
What Would Lucy Do?
And answer it the same old way:
I don’t know
.

“Um, well, Soph,
lesbian
isn’t a bad word or anything. I think they’re calling you that because it rhymes with
librarian
.”

“Not really. Only the last bit rhymes. Librarian has four syllables. Lesbian has three. But
what
is it?”

“It’s a woman who loves other women.”

“Oh. You’re a girl and I’m a girl, and I love you. So are we lesbians?” Oh, man, if my Googling doesn’t get me arrested, surely this will. I picture Sophie announcing to anyone who will listen:
My auntie Ellie and I are lesbians together. She says I am the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world
.

“Nope. I mean loves other women in a romantic way. You know how your mommy and daddy got married? Well, there are some women who want to marry other women, and they’re called lesbians.”

“That makes sense. But, just so you know, I want to marry a boy.”

Greg looks relieved. I am not sure he can handle his eight-year-old daughter coming out right about now.

“Actually, I want to marry Inderpal. He’s, like, just the coolest boy I know.”

I hide my smile, pleased that Sophie has admitted she has a crush, and on such a worthy candidate—Inderpal is smart and gentle and asks all the right questions, an underrated quality in a person—but Greg’s face goes splotchy. Any relief he felt moments ago is shortlived and replaced by paralyzing fear.
Oh, no, the boy stuff can’t be starting already. Please, God, not yet
.

No doubt, Greg will be up late tonight, Googling:
All-girls’ schools in Notting Hill
.

Mikey calls me at ten p.m., after Sophie’s been put to bed, while I’m watching the BBC and trying to understand what’s so funny about
Only Fools and Horses
. Greg promises me that, if I give it time, I’ll fall in love with the show, like I have with
Big Brother
, but so far the sitcom is not taking. I don’t have all that much else to do instead, since I am on sabbatical from my job. No lectures to prepare. So this seems a reasonable pursuit these days:
understanding the British sense
of humor
. Life has become a crash course in Londoner ways. Greg has introduced me to Martin Amis and Evelyn Waugh, PG Tips and Marks & Spencer Simply Food, looking right when I cross the street and keeping cool when I meet someone new. I now always leave the house with my umbrella and at least two layers of clothing to take on and off at the whim of the sun, end my sentences with rhetorical questions
(isn’t it just?)
, and understand that
cunt
and
twat
are perfectly acceptable words in common discourse.

“Ellie?” my brother asks, his voice flatter than usual, all love euphoria stamped out.

“You okay? What happened?” I’ll kill Claire. I swear to God, I will chop off her fine brunette head if she has hurt Mikey. Even though she is my new friend and we had a lovely cup of tea yesterday, if she hurt my brother, I’ll fucking cut her.

If there is anything I’ve learned these last few months, it’s that you take care of your own. I want no one else to be harmed in the making of my life.

“I’m fine. It’s just. The wedding,” he says.

“No, please, no. She didn’t. Not this time.”

“Yup, she did.”

“But how? What about Dad?” I ask, as if this is the solution to our mother’s insatiable desire for drama, an appeal to my father’s feelings.

“She hasn’t officially called it off. She says she needs some time. She’s currently on a flight to Peru to take part in some sort of retreat. A mystical shaman’s thing. A way to explore past lives or some nonsense like that.”

“How is Dad taking it?”

“He’s in denial, I think. He’s still planning away. He just dropped the invitations off at the calligrapher. I only found out she bolted because I happened to call him.”

“Is he okay?”

“Funny, he asked me the same thing about you. When were you planning on telling me about the divorce?” My stomach knots at my selfishness. Of course my brother would eventually find out about Phillip and me; trying to protect him from the news was just an excuse to put off saying the words out loud again. If I brought it up with him, I would have to talk about it, and I don’t want to talk about it.

“I’m sorry, I just … I was going to. It just happened.”

“Are you okay?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. How are you and Claire? Please tell me at least someone is in a healthy relationship in this family.”

“We’re … Yeah, we’re pretty great.”

“I’m so glad. I’m putting my faith in humanity in you two.”

“Well, fortunately, she’s nothing like you or Mom.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I know exactly what he means. I feel nauseous, lamb kebabs and chicken curry revolting in my gut, and worry I might throw up. He ignores my question.

“What do we do?”

“What can we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither, Mikey.”

“What do we do about you, then?”

“What can we do?”

“I don’t know. But it seems like such a waste. Phillip, he’s good people, and I know I’ve said this a million times before, but you were good together. Before everything happened, you guys were happy. Obnoxiously so, if I remember correctly.”
Everything happened
is code for losing Oliver, like
the accident
is code for losing Lucy.

“Yeah, well. It’s sad, but what can you do?” I don’t mention that it feels like whatever comes after
sad, sad
is too light a word; I am crushed by a quiet pain. Sounding flip seems to be my only option.

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither, Mikey. Me neither.”

We continue chatting and get nowhere. There is nothing to be done about the Lerner women. My mom will climb mountains in Peru, and maybe she’ll come back and maybe she won’t. And Phillip has already spoken with a lawyer.

I wonder if it is human nature to always want what doesn’t belong to you. Is that why Lucy kissed Stuart Tannenbaum and wanted to run away with her married Frenchman? Why my mother enjoys the noise of New York, a city on loan, indulging in the temporary burden of other people’s problems? Why I am here, in this house, cruelly, kindly, ambivalently borrowing Lucy’s child?

But when I flip the question, try to embrace what I do have, what I can hold on to—
what does belong to me
—I come up empty. It doesn’t surprise me, then, that as soon as I hang up the phone with my brother, I am on the floor of the second of the Staffords’ four bathrooms, losing my lamb kebabs. Apparently, even they weren’t mine to keep.