If We Lived Here (28 page)

“Wow, what a mess.”

“Exactly. We haven’t told Caleb yet about his friend—he’ll be in a wheelchair for weeks. The kids are already so freaked out from the storm and the power outages.”

“I can imagine.”

“I’m really sorry about your apartment. We’ll do whatever we can to help. I don’t think Max meant most of those things. . . .” She petered out.

“There’s no need to apologize to me. It sounds like you’ve had a hell of a week. For some reason Max has a way of getting under Emma’s skin. She doesn’t act that way or say those kinds of things to anyone else.” Nick wondered if he was betraying his girlfriend in speaking so candidly, but he also believed he was doing his part to repair the Feit family relations. Plus, it felt good to talk about the Max-Emma rivalry with someone who probably understood it as well as or even better than he.

Alysse shrugged. “Classic sibling stuff. Do you have any?” Nick shook his head. “Ah. Well, I was a hundred times worse with my sisters.”

“But that was when you were kids, right?”

“Yeah, but still. Those childhood relations die hard. I want so badly for Aimee and Caleb to get along. Max thinks I coddle them, that I interfere too much when they’re fighting. But he’s not exactly an expert on sibling harmony, is he? I feel like the kids were taking notes tonight. Hopefully they didn’t quite put together that their father and Emma are related in the same way that they are.”

“I think it’ll be a few years before your kids start criticizing each other’s major life choices,” Nick said. “Anyway, maybe that all sounded harsher to us. Emma and Max are so used to it.” Though truthfully, Nick had never heard them go at it quite like that.

“Maybe.” Alysse didn’t sound convinced. “And Max is still really wrapped up in being the older brother. Ever since their parents moved abroad, he feels this huge responsibility, like he has to take care of Emma, well, at least until she’s married and settled.” She glanced down. “Oh gosh, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Sorry, I guess I’m more exhausted than I realized.” She patted her belly pooch.

“I’ll give you a pregnancy pass. The bottom line, I think, is that Max and Emma are just very different people.”

“Yes, and not always so accepting of each other’s differences.” Nick handed Alysse a platter to dry. “Look at that, you’re quite the scrubber. Max isn’t so reliable on the tough stains.”

“You sound like an ad for dish soap.”

“What can I say, I guess I’m just a boring suburban housewife and mom.”

“By the way, Emma found out yesterday that her best friend’s pregnant, hence the anti-procreation remarks.”

“You mean Annie Blum?” Alysse said. “Gosh, that was fast!”

“Exactly.”

“You know, I read an article the other day about the earth’s population. It’s seven billion now, and they’re saying it could reach ten billion by 2100. Ten billion! That really makes you think about bringing new people into the world, doesn’t it? Especially when they’re saying we’re going to have more and more crazy storms like this one.”

“Huh,” said Nick.

“Sometimes I feel guilty being pregnant.”

“Well, I guess I won’t be out of a job anytime soon.”

“Good point: All my baby making is keeping you teachers employed. I’m a job creator, as the politicians like to say.” Alysse giggled girlishly.

Nick handed off the last dish, then wiped his hands. “I’d better go check on Emma.”

“Thanks for helping. You’re a mensch.” Nick took the comment as a kind of olive branch; it was a given that Alysse would’ve preferred Emma to be with a Jewish guy, but maybe she wasn’t quite rooting for Nick’s ouster, either.

 

Nick found Emma facedown in bed. He tapped her on the shoulder and she turned her head, revealing eyes swollen from crying.

“Nick, the landlord left me a message. I was too upset to tell you before.”

“Oh God, what does that asshole want?”

“No, not Luis, Shelley. She must’ve called when my phone was dead. She said she checked in on our place and things were floating.”

“What do you mean?”

“Floating. As in, the water was a foot high. She said we were lucky since most of it’s receded by now and other places on the street had flooding up to five feet. A foot of water in our home and we’re lucky, can you believe it?” Nick wasn’t sure what to believe; he pictured a pile of his stuff all scattered like flotsam across a wading pool. “Anyway, she has our mail. Like, thank God, all of our belongings are waterlogged but the catalogs and credit card offers have been spared.”

“That was good of her to call.” Emma gave him a look like
Really?
, but it was all he could think of to say. His head was reeling. “So that’s what’s been on your mind all evening, when you were laying into your brother?”

“I guess. And I don’t know, everything else, too.” Emma waved her hand, as if to swat it all away. “But also, I’m sick to death of Max treating me that way, like I’m a complete imbecile.” Nick began rubbing circles into her back. “And yeah, yeah, I was an asshole, too. I’ll apologize.”

“You know, they’ve actually had a hard time this week, too. Alysse has basically been running a soup kitchen out of their home, and Max was up all night in the ER with Caleb’s friend, who broke both legs from a downed tree.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah. But, Emma?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m always on your side. You know that, right?”

Her brow was knit, her eyes distracted, but Nick detected a hint of a nod.

Chapter
28

E
mma had passed out by nine p.m., so it didn’t surprise her that she was tossing and turning by three, and though she willed her body to reverse course into sleep she was wide awake by four. So she tiptoed downstairs, stretched out on the family room couch, and, taking a chance on one of the four remotes, pressed Power in hopes of finding a distracting TV show.
Dora the Explorer
clicked on from the DVD player—not what she’d had in mind. Emma eyed the remotes, clueless, and wary of screwing up the entertainment system and giving her brother the satisfaction of yet another grievance against her, she resigned herself to the cartoon. Dora and a monkey sidekick had set their sights on an ice-cream truck, which they were now busy chasing to Coney Island. Emma preferred the show’s sparkling ocean and golden sand version of Coney Island to what she imagined the storm-ravaged beach looked like now, post-Sandy. All the talk of ice cream eventually made her peckish, so she wandered into the kitchen to forage.

The cabinets were stocked with Tupperwares of grains, canned vegetables, and beans, and an entire shelf of herbal teas. Where were the snacks? Emma wondered. The fridge was a disappointment, too—there weren’t even any leftovers wedged between the fresh produce and organic yogurt. The freezer featured bags of peas and chicken breasts, not a pizza or pint of ice cream in sight. Emma kept searching, thinking Alysse must have a weak spot, that surely a pregnancy craving had made her cave and buy something processed or yummy for middle-of-the-night noshing. Finally, in the small space above the oven, which Emma used a footstool to access, she hit on her treasure: the kids’ Halloween pillowcases. Gold mine!

Emma returned to the couch carrying a handful of chocolates. Dora was now venturing across a crab-infested sand dune, and Emma set about stuffing her face with the fun-sized treats, filling her pockets with the wrappers. She didn’t even bother to keep the TV volume low; everyone sleeping was upstairs, and she had the whole downstairs, four large rooms, to herself. This was the life! Growing up, Emma had taken it for granted that her four family members might all be under the same roof but each in separate spaces, doing their own things. Now, it seemed incredible that they’d had so much space. Any apartment Emma had lived in as an adult could fit in its entirety in this family room. No wonder it felt like such a big deal to move in with a boyfriend in New York City; apartments were sized so that you couldn’t just coexist. If you were both home, you were necessarily together. In Brooklyn if Emma woke up at four a.m. to watch TV, she’d either have to make the volume barely audible or use her laptop with headphones to avoid waking Nick. She supposed there were some perks to suburbia.

Emma was so absorbed in her candy consumption and in trying to estimate the house’s square footage that she didn’t notice her niece’s presence until the girl began cuddling up to her on the couch. Aimee wore pajamas covered in unicorns and she smelled like talcum powder.

“Hi,” she said simply. “May I please have a Milky Way?”

Emma hesitated before remembering that it was Aimee’s candy supply she’d been siphoning from. “Okay, but don’t tell your mother.”

“Thanks. This is a good episode. They walk across the boardwalk”—
bud-wuk—
“to get Boots’s floatie and then they go swimmin’.”

“Aw, man, did you just spoil the ending?”

Aimee grinned wickedly. She kicked her bare feet against the couch cushions. “Mommy says I can watch one show a day.”

“Oh yeah? That’s good, so you won’t become a couch potato.” Aimee squirmed and repeated the phrase “couch potato” quietly to herself. “So tell me, besides watching
Dora the Explorer
in the middle of the night, what are your hobbies?”

Aimee looked thoughtful. “Painting. And dancing. And mac and cheese.”

Emma laughed, tearing open another candy bar. Aimee’s gaze followed the chocolate’s trajectory from hand to mouth. “Oh, what the hell,” Emma said, and tossed a second Milky Way to her niece. “We’re gonna brush our teeth after this, okay? We’ve got to cover our tracks.”

“Also I like the Torah and
Cat in the Hat
.”

“So you’re into the classics. And what are you gonna be when you grow up?”

Aimee shrugged. “I’m just three, you know.”

“Wise girl.”

“You’re still wearing my barrette,” Aimee said, beaming.

“Yes, I adore it.” Emma touched her hair; the clip was adorned with a row of strawberry decals. “Thank you so much for lending it to me.”

“Aimee and Emma. Emma and Aimee. Aimee and Emma. That’s a tongue twister.”

“You’re right.”

“Auntie Emma, I’m sleepy.”

“Okay, let’s go back to bed.” She lifted her niece, who was surprisingly heavy for her size, and carried her upstairs. They brushed their teeth with Aimee’s bubblegum toothpaste, then Emma tucked the girl into bed.

“We have to do
Goodnight Moon,
” Aimee said. She began reciting the words to the children’s book, and Emma added what she could remember—
goodnight house, goodnight mouse
—until Aimee declared it was okay to make up their own words. Aimee wished goodnight to Dora and Boots and Emma and Mr. Nick and hamburgers and Halloween, and Emma wished goodnight to Aimee and Caleb and Milky Ways and Aimee’s barrette. Then Aimee closed her eyes and tucked her thumb between her lips, apparently satisfied with the ritual. Emma fluttered her lashes against her niece’s cheek, feeling a pang of envy toward her sister-in-law, then tiptoed back to the guest room.

“Hey, babe,” she whispered, nuzzling into Nick’s sleepy scent. He emitted a noise that was adorably incoherent and it made Emma well up; how sweet and kind and patient Nick was, despite his flaws, and how lucky she was that he was hers. On a whim she asked, “Are you going to love me forever?”

“Probably,” he mumbled, still seeming to be asleep. “But no promises for now.”

This made Emma snort out a laugh, which woke her boyfriend. “Huh?” he said, blinking in confusion. “Oh, hi, Em.”

“Go back to sleep, babe. It’s nothing.”

 

Emma could feel her heart pumping as she descended the stairs in the morning, but it calmed as soon as she realized Max was already gone for work—at a satellite site, since his Manhattan office was still closed. She waved to Alysse, who was helping Caleb with a Lego structure while talking on the phone about a food drive. “Yep, I’ll do today’s drop-off,” she said, then whispered to Emma, “Can I make you some coffee? Tea?”

Emma shook her head, sitting down with Caleb to take over Lego duty. Aimee attached herself to her mother’s leg and complained of a stomachache, and Emma blushed with guilt; maybe a strict limit on Halloween candy wasn’t such a bad idea for a three-year-old. Alysse made two more calls—phone tree duties, she explained—before hanging up and turning her full attention to Emma. “Oh, you’re still in those same clothes from yesterday. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll scrounge up some clean ones. I haven’t had a chance to get these guys fed yet, and I just have to call the plumber about a pipe in our basement. As if our little leak is going to be a priority this week!”

Emma felt a surge of sympathy toward her sister-in-law, who clearly didn’t ever get a break in her job, even—or especially—after a hurricane.

“How about Nick and I take the kids out for breakfast and you can have a couple hours to yourself?” Alysse looked skeptical, so Emma added, “I’d really like to help. You’ve been so generous.”

“Oh, um, thank you. You can take my car to the diner in town.” She sounded tentative, which gave Emma a pang of shame, realizing she’d maybe never before offered a favor to Alysse.

Apparently the whole town had the idea to take their kids out to eat. A half hour later, Nick and Emma found themselves entrenched in a mob scene of children climbing across booths and screeching at random, like animals on the loose. It was clear they’d all been cooped up inside all week, with school canceled and little opportunity to play outside in the hurricane’s aftermath. But Caleb and Aimee seemed oblivious to the chaos, thrilled as they were by the novelty of an outing with adults who weren’t their parents.

A ball flung over the booth divider bounced directly onto Nick’s head. Aimee tittered and Caleb pumped his fist. “Bull’s-eye!” he yelled.

“This is horrifying,” Nick said.

“I know.” Emma noticed Aimee was drawing on her brother’s shirt and wrestled the crayon from the girl’s grip. “Thank God these guys are just on loan.”

“For real.”

And yet, Emma was enjoying herself. She played referee to the siblings’ brawls over the green then the red then the yellow crayons, at first lecturing them about the importance of sharing, then when that didn’t work, meting out three-minute increments for them to take turns. And when Nick again got bonked by the ball, he gave in and began a game of catch with the boy from the next table.

“For real!” Aimee shouted, parroting Nick, and then her elbow knocked over a water glass and soaked the table.

“Mommy always gets us sippy cups,” Caleb said with authority.

“Okay, smarty-pants. And what does Mommy usually make you for breakfast?”

“Bacon,” he said. Emma nearly ordered it before Nick interjected that there was no way Alysse cooked up bacon for breakfast in her kosher kitchen.

They managed to make it through the morning with only minor additional catastrophes—a glob of jelly in Aimee’s hair and, upon leaving the restaurant, Caleb sprinting across the parking lot and almost getting himself run over. (“Mommy always holds our hands when we’re near moving cars,” he declared when Nick caught him.) Driving home, Emma felt ready for a nap.

 

All afternoon Emma dreaded her brother’s return home, and when he finally arrived she was glad to be on the floor playing with his children like a good aunt.

“Hey,” he said. “I let Mom and Dad know you’re here. They want to Skype with us at six.”

“Okay.” God, the thought of dealing with Max and her parents all at once was overwhelming. Maybe the two stressors would cancel each other out.

Max murmured something about a shower and shuffled upstairs. He remained absent through their early dinner—a slew of neighbors who were still without power showed up, and Alysse made chicken Marsala, plus pasta for Nick and the kids. Emma was amazed at her sister-in-law’s composure serving dinner for a dozen; it had once taken Emma a week to prep a dinner party for eight, then another week to recover.

Max resurfaced at 5:55, grabbed a leftover drumstick, and launched Skype. Emma sat down next to him. In silence they waited for their parents. Emma kept wanting to say something—that she hadn’t meant half of what she’d said the night before, that in fact she was in awe of her brother and the life he’d built, that she couldn’t imagine the responsibility of feeding and caring for and raising two, and soon three, kids. She wanted to ask him about what he’d said, too—like at this point did he like living in their childhood home? And was he excited to have another child? But Emma felt tongue-tied, unable even to ask after the boy with the broken legs, the one Max had taken to the ER.

At 6:10, their parents signed on. “Hey-a, kiddos,” said their mom, cheeks flushed. “We’re just in from a night of salsa dancing. Your father’s almost got the moves of those sexy Spanish men. They say it’s all in the hips.” She shimmied before the screen.

“Are you drunk?” Max asked. Emma realized it was after midnight in Spain.

“Oh no. Well, maybe just a little,” she tittered. Max seemed irritated, like he was the disapproving parent and their mom the naughty kid.

“Hola, mis hijos.”
Their dad appeared, hair matted with sweat to his forehead. “That hurricane is the talk of the town around here. All of our regulars have been asking if you guys are all right.”

“It’s nice to hear that
your customers
are concerned about us,” Max said. Emma shot him a side smile. Their parents either missed or ignored the comment.

“I’m just so glad you two are safe and sound. You both look healthy and happy!”

Max filled them in on the neighborhood—the downed trees, the power outages, and how it was a good thing he’d installed a backup generator last winter.

“Well, isn’t that lucky!” their mom said.

“It’s not luck, Mom, it’s preparation.”

“Sadly I wasn’t so well prepared,” Emma said. “Only thanks to the generosity of Annie and then Max and Alysse did we not basically drown in our home. Our landlord says our things were floating in our apartment.”

“Really?” Max said. “Wow.”

“You’ll figure it all out, Emma. You always do.” Their father flashed a thumbs-up. “It’s just great that the two of you are together. It’s so important to lean on family at a time like this.” Emma and Max exchanged a tentative glance; she couldn’t read her brother’s expression, but she felt a twinge of remorse.

“Oh, that reminds me of a segment I heard on the news about a group of urban farmers in New York,” their mom said. “Apparently they’d set up a whole bunch of beehives at the Brooklyn Navy Yard along the East River, and the storm completely destroyed them. One million bees have lost their homes!”

“Homeless bees, huh?” their dad said, winking. “Let’s hope they don’t go swarming after you guys.”

“The worst part is,” their mom continued, “they were donated by some retired bee expert who’d made certain their genetics were top-notch.”

“Meaning what, they were of Aryan descent?” Max asked. “How tragic, the beekeeper’s dream of a master race of bees doomed. What will we possibly do without all that genetically superior honey?”

Emma laughed. She thought how she should always team up with her brother to talk to her parents; he made the experience much more bearable.

“Oh, Emma, have you met with Sophia recently?”

“No, Dad, my office has been closed this week.”