Hush Little Baby (11 page)
“Pops.”
“I’m just saying, ‘Good riddance.’”
“Adios, Amigo.”
“Sayonara, Sister.”
I wish I could share his optimism.
Y
our conference with Drew’s teacher has been canceled,” Tina says as I walk into the office wearing my Target finds, a Mossimo dress that’s surprisingly chic and a pair of wedge sandals—the entire ensemble cost me sixty-eight dollars.
I nod, relieved that I won’t need to leave early after getting to work late in order to meet with Mrs. Kramer. And because, truthfully, I don’t want to hear whatever it is Mrs. Kramer has to say. Kindergarten, I made the excuse Drew was just young for his age, not ready for the discipline of school. First grade, I blamed it on his teacher. Now he’s in second grade and I’m out of excuses.
Drew’s a bright boy, highly intelligent, but he’s not working to his potential.
Have you been helping him with the worksheets I’ve sent home and utilizing the incentive plan we implemented?
Perhaps if you volunteered one day a week, you could see him in the classroom.…
No conference—another day’s reprieve from facing the fact that my son is failing elementary school. It turns my insides that he does so poorly. I never got anything less than an A in my life, and Gordon, though not as educated, is brilliant.
Earlier in the year, I actually hoped for a diagnosis of ADD so we could implement a quick fix of dosing him a chemical cocktail of Ritalin or Concerta or Adderall, and suddenly Drew would be the perfectly attentive, overachieving student I’d always assumed he would be. But the problem isn’t one of too much energy, it’s much more serious—Drew simply doesn’t care. Scantron tests are turned in with only his name or with an inventive pattern of dots filled in to make an X or a face. Ask him to write a story and he’ll make a paper airplane. Ask him to recite the alphabet and he’ll count backward from a hundred.
He spends most of his time in the principal’s office or sitting in the hall so he doesn’t corrupt the other kids. I minimize the extent of Drew’s transgressions to Gordon, fearing the retaliation Drew will receive if Gordon finds out the truth, and I wonder if, in part, this is why Drew does it. It’s the only time I protect him.
I’m relieved the conference is canceled. I don’t want to deal with it.
I put my purse in my desk, then walk to Connor’s office for a briefing on my life.
I plop myself into the chair across from him and listen as he screams bloody murder into the phone to whoever’s on the other end of the line.
“…well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Squawking screeches through the receiver.
“Damn right I’m the cake, and that tart you’re nibbling is the tasteless ‘eat it too.’”
He hangs up the phone with great aplomb. “Men. Impossible.”
“Pete trouble?”
“For being as smart as I am, I’m an idiot. I need to use my head and stop getting involved with these imbecilic boys.”
“You were. Your little head.”
He laughs. “You’re right, and my little head hath very little brains.”
“You do seem to have serial bad taste.”
“Perhaps, but at least none of my fervent flubs are as bad as the monolithic boner you made when you married Prince Charming.”
His face shifts to sympathetic.
“That bad?” I ask.
“Worse. I spoke with Gordon.”
“You called him?” I gulp.
“I figured it was the quickest way to figure out what was what. I didn’t say anything about the abuse, just asked him how he felt about you leaving and about the kids.”
“And?”
“And he doesn’t give a damn you left, but he’s gonna fight you for Addie and Drew.”
“Well, he can’t have them.”
Connor holds out a stack of printed sheets.
“What’s this?”
“Petition for divorce. It was faxed over a few minutes after I hung up with him.”
“Already?” Along with the bank and the credit card companies, Gordon must have his divorce lawyer on speed dial.
“How long until it’s final?”
“Assuming you can come to an agreement on terms, six weeks.”
I’m stunned. Nine years—vows, promises, a life together, kids—and in less time than it takes for a sprained ankle to heal, it’s over—like it never had any weight at all.
Nine years—almost my entire thirties—so much invested and shared. It’s hard to imagine that in such a short time all our experiences, our achievements, our inside jokes, our sentimental moments, that everything we’ve shared will be reduced to a history remembered separately and alone.
This morning on my way into work, an Indian motorcycle a few years older than the one Gordon used to own cruised by, its driver decked out in black leather and strapped to the saddle by a
Baywatch
babe in a bedazzled helmet that said, “Indian Squaw,” and my first thought was,
I need to tell Gordon about this
. Then it occurred to me that I would not be telling Gordon anything like that again—not about motorcycles, baseball, anecdotes about the kids, updates on the projects I’m working on that he listens to with such pride, the stupid knock-knock jokes that make only him smile.
The ink on the paper blurs. I knew this was coming, I asked for it, but the fact that he filed so quickly slaps me, as though I’ve been discarded like a toy a child’s outgrown or an outfit that’s no longer in style.
“It’s what you want,” Connor reminds me.
I nod, but my emotions won’t agree. What I wanted was for Gordon to love me and honor me and cherish me and to actually be the husband he vowed to be, the husband everyone thinks he is, the husband he pretends to be.
I turn the page past the line that asks for my signature, and my brow pinches. “What’s this?” I scan the first of the three pages attached to the divorce petition, and before my eyes reach the middle, I can hardly breathe.
“Gordon’s declaration of why he thinks he should get sole custody. He’s coming at you with both barrels blazing.”
The metaphor takes the last of my breath, and I need to put my head between my knees to still the dizziness. The papers are a summary of my life—a bombastic list chronicling every error, oversight, and blunder I’ve ever made as a mother and as a person.
“How long were you in the hospital?” Connor asks.
I lift my head. “What?”
“Your hospitalization last year, how long were you there?”
I rear back as the blood leaves my face. No one at work knows about the collapse I suffered following my dad’s stroke—the day after I left Gordon, the day after he nearly killed me, the day after I had fled to my parents intent on calling the police, filing charges, getting custody, restarting my life.
Instead, I ended up at New Beginnings Treatment Center in Los Angeles. The first week I was heavily medicated, the second I was numb. There’s not much I remember of my time there other than it’s terrifying when you lose your mind.
When they released me, it was with a prescription for Xanax and a warning that I needed to change the circumstances that had driven me over the edge.
The first was easy, the second not so much.
The psych report inside my case file states that I tried to strangle myself, and Gordon stopped me. It says that at the time I was admitted, I was a danger to myself and possibly to others. It’s a very damning report, as is the story Gordon told them of my breakdown. I never refuted any of it.
Everyone, except Jeffrey, believes I’d taken the time off to help my father.
“Two weeks,” I confess.
“And you’re still on the Xanax?”
I shake my head. I stopped taking the pills a month after I got home.
“It’s not like it’s heroin,” I snap.
Connor frowns.
“And last year, when Addie broke her ankle and you brought her to the hospital, did she have bruises on her arm?”
The blood returns in a torrent at the insinuation that I could hurt my daughter. “She wouldn’t get in the car seat. I needed to get her to the hospital. You know Addie’s temper. She bruises like a peach. Are you kidding me?”
His face is stone, completely lawyerly.
Connor squats beside me, his hand on mine—every dirty little secret of my life promulgated in black and white, from the pills I took to cope with the fact that my husband’s insane, to every time I’ve been late picking Addie up from preschool.
I force myself to sit up.
Connor looks like a doctor delivering a terminal prognosis.
“I’m going to lose them?” I say.
“All this stuff is true?”
I shake my head, then reverse direction, the tears flowing with the confession. It’s all true, every word. Most of it not my fault and all of it out of context, but all of it true.
“I’m going to lose them,” I repeat.
Though Connor’s hand has returned to comforting me, the strokes are less sympathetic. Even he’s convinced I don’t deserve them.
T
ina follows me into my office and hands me a stack of messages neatly filled in with the date, the time, and the message of each. The seven messages are in addition to the dozen voice mails that blink on my phone and the sixty e-mails that fill my inbox. I’m a day behind, and the day is only half over.
I get to the fourth message and buzz for Tina.
“You told me Drew’s conference was canceled.”
She nods. “It was. Gordon called this morning, told me to tell you it was canceled. But there must have been a mix-up because then the teacher called wondering why you weren’t there.”
I dismiss her and dial the school, then the extension for Mrs. Kramer.
I’m surprised when she picks up.
“Hello, this is Jillian Kane,” I say. “Drew’s mom.”
Irritation buzzes through the receiver. “You’re calling to reschedule?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kramer, but I thought the conference was canceled.”
“Really? Why would you think that?”
She thinks I’m lying. I open my mouth to tell her Gordon caused this, but before I speak, I catch myself. It sounds as insane as it is. Why would Gordon do that? Instead, I do what I always do when these things happen.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kramer, I must have gotten the conference confused with another meeting I had that was canceled. Should we reschedule?”
“No need. I called your husband when you didn’t show. Gordon came right away and we discussed the issues Drew’s having, and I’m confident he’s going to deal with them.”
Before I can respond, she hangs up.
Gordon’s message is clear: The kids are his. He will challenge me on everything, and he will win. A shudder runs down my spine as I wonder how he’ll deal with Drew’s issues. He won’t hit him, but the punishment will be severe—no dinner, locked in the bathroom for a night, write your name three hundred times, clean the floor with a toothbrush.
I put my head on my hands.
For a year, I’ve responded to Drew’s report cards and worked my schedule around his teacher’s constant requests for phone calls and meetings to improve Drew’s attitude. I’ve secretly cajoled, bribed, and threatened him, and we’ve had some modest, though limited, success. For a year, I’ve lied to Gordon, keeping Drew’s issues away from him to protect Drew, but now the jig’s up, and once again, I’ve failed my son.
I remember when Drew was born. Ten fingers, ten toes, and perfect marks on the Apgar scale. I was so proud. Perfection.
No way but down from there.
I reprimand myself for being disappointed in my eight-year-old boy whose failure is probably my fault to begin with.
I need to stay one step ahead, anticipate what Gordon’s going to do. We’ve been married nine years. How hard can that be?
I
wear the same outfit I wore yesterday to my birthday dinner with my parents. So much has happened in the past twenty-four hours it feels like a lifetime ago.
“I should cancel,” I say as I walk from the guest room.
Connor is drowning his relationship problems in a carton of Java Chip Häagen-Dazs.
“Great boots,” he says through a mouthful of ice cream.
“Can’t I just stay here and eat ice cream with you?”
“Jeffrey’s a client, and besides, sitting here moping with me isn’t going to get you anywhere that alcohol and a gorgeous man won’t get you faster.”
“You’re a gorgeous man, and you’ve got alcohol and ice cream here.”
“Shoo,” he barks, and throws the back of his spoon at me. “I want to wallow in self-pity alone.”
I leave the building, and Jeffrey is waiting for me at the curb. He wears jeans and a button-down black shirt with silver embroidery on the left shoulder.
“You look great,” he lies as he holds the door open to his black Audi.
The radio is set to classic rock, and Stevie Nicks croons about one-winged doves, and despite myself and my circumstances, my heart lightens.
“So,” he asks, “are we being secretive or is there another reason I’m picking you up from Connor’s place?”
“I’ve left Gordon.” It sounds so simple.
Jeffrey’s hope fills the car, and for the moment, I pretend I feel it as well.
* * *
Sid’s is a watering hole on the periphery of town, reputed to have the best steaks and rudest service in the state. There’s no sign, no salt and pepper, and you’re only allowed one napkin per visit. Sid, the owner, lives in Las Vegas, where he fled a decade earlier to avoid arrest for building code violations.
The motto on the door reads, “Stop looking for it, you’ve found it.”
Jeffrey leads me to a table in the corner and orders us each a glass of wine—the selection limited to box red or box white. I choose red.
The steaks are delivered juicy and unadorned, caramelized carrots and garlic mashed potatoes on the side. The food is delicious, and the wine smooths out the edges.
“I asked you to dinner under false pretenses,” Jeffrey says. “I do have an idea about the project, but I can’t discuss it until I know more.”
“Then take me home this instant,” I mockingly demand.
“Not a chance. Tonight you’re mine.”
My body tingles before I have a chance to stop it. He’s a client. My life’s a mess. I straighten the emotions.