The Comfort of Lies (32 page)

Before Tia or Nathan could comment, Peter and Savannah returned. Peter carried a large tray covered with a platter of cookies, glasses, and a pitcher of iced tea. Savannah, who’d recently entered an everything-pink phase, clutched the pink glass sugar bowl she’d picked out for the occasion. Lost for ideas of how to prepare for this meeting, Caroline had taken her to Target to pick out serving pieces for tea.

Peter set the fuchsia lacquered tray on the coffee table, and Savannah placed the sugar bowl beside it. The moment Peter sat, Savannah sidled between his knees, staring openly at Nathan and Tia.

“Do I have to go away with you?” Savannah clutched the fabric of Peter’s pant leg, looking at Tia and Nathan with an expression somewhere between fear and awe.

“Oh, honey, of course not,” Tia said.

Nathan leaned toward Savannah. “We just wanted to meet you. That’s all.”

Savannah nodded. “Are you my real daddy?”

Nathan shook his head. “No, honey. Peter is your real daddy. I’m just the man who made you with Tia.”

Caroline began to understand why women were drawn to this man. His concentration on Savannah didn’t waver as she pondered his answer.

“Is this lady my real mommy?” Savannah asked him.

Tia’s eyes went from the child to Nathan, as though not sure who to absorb first, her hunger shaking Caroline. No one should look at Savannah with eyes like that. How could the child breathe under such pressure?

“No, Savannah,” Nathan said. “She’s the woman who made you with me. Caroline is your real mommy.”

Savannah turned to Tia, moving a little closer to her and Nathan, while keeping a pudgy hand on Peter’s knee. “But I was the baby in your stomach, right?”

Tia nodded. She stared into Savannah’s eyes. “Yes. You grew in my belly. I have a picture with me.”

Tia picked up the large leather bag at her feet.

Caroline and Peter’s eyes met. She telegraphed,
Is this okay?

I hope so,
his eyes answered. He looked as helpless as Caroline to stop or even slow down the crazy train.

Tia rummaged in her bag and drew out a large brown envelope.

“What is that?” Peter put out his hand as a stop sign.

“Some pictures I thought Hon—Savannah would like. From before she was born.”

“Pictures?” Caroline wanted to snatch the envelope from Tia’s hand and shuffle through them, edit them, even as Savannah stretched out a hand to see them.

“Just one, okay?” Peter’s question was not a question. “Let’s not overwhelm anyone.”

“Right.” Tia opened the envelope on her lap and peeked in until she drew out a tattered photo. “I should have copied this so I could give you one.”

Tia held out the photo to Savannah, but Caroline intercepted it. She glanced down and saw a pregnant Tia sitting in shadows. Savannah left Peter and sidled over to Caroline, who was closer to Tia. Caroline felt the weight of Savannah’s warm palm on her forearm.

“This is me?” Savannah tapped the image of Tia’s swollen belly. “Before I was born?”

“Yes, baby, that’s you before you were born.” Caroline lifted the girl to her lap. “And then as soon as you were born, you came home with me and Daddy.”

“Like in the
Tell Me Again
book?”

“That’s right, honey, like in the book.”

Savannah asked for the
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born
book at least twice a week, always making Caroline repeat her favorite lines, and then once again tell the story of Peter and Caroline bringing Savannah home.

“Tell me again how you carried me like a china doll all the way home and how you glared at anyone who sneezed.”

Savannah squinted at Tia. She left Caroline’s lap and took a few cautious steps toward Tia. “You don’t look too young,” she said.

“Too young for what?” Tia asked.

“Too young to take care of me.”

“That’s in her book,” Caroline said. “Where the pregnant woman is too young to be a mother, so she gives the baby to the baby’s mommy.”

Why
did
Tia give her child away? All those lies Tia told about not knowing the father’s identity, her intimations of some sort of abusive episodes with men, her fragile emotional state, all of it had been lies. Peter hadn’t allowed his wife to ask Tia a single question. He’d been too thrilled that they’d been chosen to be Savannah’s parents to risk irritating her.

“I guess I was too young in ways you can’t see,” Tia said.

“Like what?” Savannah asked.

Tia blinked rapidly. Nathan put an arm around her shoulder. “Like I wasn’t married, and I didn’t have a job or a good place to live,” she said.

“That’s why you gave me away?” Savannah asked.

Oh, Jesus, please, let me take this child’s pain.
That’s what Caroline should research: how to surgically remove a child’s pain and transplant it in the mother’s body.

“We knew that your Mommy and Daddy would do a better job,” Nathan said.

“So you gave me away, right?” Savannah’s lip quivered.

Tia’s tears spilled, and she reached out and took Savannah in her arms.

Caroline hugged herself as she watched Tia twine her arms around Savannah. “I just couldn’t do it right, honey,” Tia said. “I just couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

Savannah leaned into Tia. “It’s okay,” the child said in a quivery voice. She touched her biological mother’s back with a tentative child’s pat. Tia responded by leaning her head upon Savannah’s, their dark hair mingling.

Who comforted whom was impossible to determine. For a few
moments, they fit in a way that shattered Caroline’s heart. Then Savannah broke away and ran back to her father.

Savannah looked at Peter, tears mixing with the panic on her face. “I am staying here, right? Right, Daddy?”

 • • • 

Caroline spent an hour with Savannah before bedtime, reading
Adoption Is for Always
three times and then repeatedly writing words like
Love
and
Special
on her back before her girl finally fell asleep. Savannah, once Caroline calmed her, declared herself lucky, because unlike the girl in the book, she was able to meet her birth mother and birth father. Caroline felt grateful that whatever happened, this one truth felt right. Savannah wouldn’t spend her life imagining who Tia and Nathan were. Caroline prayed that somehow, in that way, the almost disastrous afternoon had blessed her daughter.

After Caroline’s initial gratitude that she could soothe Savannah, and that her girl seemed to have weathered the drama, the time spent rubbing letters on her back became no less boring than the day before. Still, despite the tediousness of bedtime—the long hour spent reassuring Savannah how much they loved her, that no one would take her away, and that she was their girl forever and ever—once Savannah slept, Caroline remained in her room. She sat on the rose-colored carpet next to her daughter’s bed, legs crossed, listening to Savannah’s soft breathing.

After all the tears and hugs, Savannah had asked Caroline a final question. “Can I see the other-mother and other-father sometimes? Not for a long time, just for itsy little bits. Just to see.”

“Just to see what?” Caroline had asked.

Savannah had shrugged, and unlike the motion of a child avoiding truth, it was the gesture of a girl who truly didn’t know. “Just to see what they look like.”

 • • • 

Caroline found Peter in the family room kneeling on an old oilcloth his mother had given them after one of her cleaning sprees. Caroline
remembered her urging it on them after a Sunday dinner. “You’ll be surprised. It will come in handy one day. Take it. I have three of them.”

Caroline hadn’t asked why Peter’s mother had three red oilcloths. She hadn’t a clue how Peter’s mother imagined they might use it, and yet here Peter was, kneeling on the slick material, his tool box open, a row of tools laid out neatly beside him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He looked up, a wrench in one hand and a pair of pink handlebars in the other. “I bought a bike for Savannah.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I forgot. It was in my trunk.”

Caroline didn’t think it was likely he forgot. Buying toys for Savannah was Peter’s sedative. She knelt beside him and picked up a piece of the bike. “A two-wheeler. Do you think she’s ready?”

“Maybe I’m rushing it.” Peter looked drained and tired despite his brave smile. “Maybe I’m the ready one.”

The bike pieces were spread out in a deliberate pattern. Caroline was sure he’d laid them out in the order they would be put together. He was always careful. They were alike in that.

“I’m so sorry, Peter.”

“We’ve fought enough. Let’s just let it go for now.” He held out his hand. “Phillips head, please.”

Caroline began crying. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt Savannah.”

Peter ran a chamois cloth over a piece of chrome.

“I don’t want to hurt any of us,” Caroline repeated when he remained silent. “I wish I could do a better job with her. Really. I wish I could be the wife you want. Be the mother Savannah needs.”

Peter leaned over the handlebars as he attached them to the body of the bike.

“You must hate me.” Caroline fell on her knees beside him on the oilcloth. “I’d do anything to be able to take all my words back. To feel different.”

Finally he looked at her. “I just don’t know what to say. I can’t believe we put Savannah through this today.”

“I should have told you awhile ago how I felt. I’m not cut out for this. I’m not a natural, like your mother or mine. I can’t be like them.”

Peter threw down the cloth and stood up. “Well then, what the hell are we going to do? Can you answer that? Can you figure that out? We’ve ignored the obvious too long—Savannah deserves more than we’re giving right now. This is making me crazy. Just goddamn crazy.”

He picked up the bike he’d been working on, and for a moment, Caroline feared he’d fling it across the room. He lifted it and tensed his arm. Then he slowly lowered it down.

“You’re a mother now.” He spit each word out as though wanting to raise welts.

She didn’t answer.

“There are some choices you don’t get to make anymore,” he added.

Everything locked inside Caroline gave way. An unbearable sadness and feeling of failure washed over her. “What you’re saying, it doesn’t even make sense to me. Maybe it’s just not working. Us. Maybe we’re not working.”

“You have to jump there? Is that what you think I’m saying? I’m just trying to—”

“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re telling me I don’t get to have things the way I want them to be. But somehow, somehow you do, Peter. You wanted a child, and so we have one. And I love her. I really love her. I love you. But I’m crumbling. I see how much I’m failing Savannah, and it’s killing me. I just don’t know what to do.”

Peter remained silent.

Caroline didn’t have the will to fight. “Sometimes I have to take pills to get through,” she almost whispered. “That’s how I try to manage, Peter. And it’s not working. I want to make you happy. I want to make Savannah happy. But maybe I just don’t have the right stuff. Maybe you’re both better off without me.”

She walked out of the room.

“
Where are you going?
” He ran to the garage door. “
Answer me
.”

“Out,” she said. “Just out.”

 • • • 

It was past one in the morning when Caroline came home. Peter sat in the family room, an unopened magazine on his lap. The room was cleaned of tools and the oilcloth.

“Where were you?” he asked. “You didn’t answer the phone.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t.” She stood in front of him.

“Where were you?” he asked again.

“Thinking. I went to my office. I don’t have anywhere else. It’s not like we’re bar types.”

“But we’re pill types?”

“I became one,” Caroline said. “I didn’t know how else to stay quiet.”

“You thought you had to stay quiet? Are you frightened of me, Caro?”

“I’m frightened of us. Who we’re—I’m—becoming. Our life seems to make you happy no matter how awful I feel.”

“I hate that also, Caro.” He took her hand and tugged her down. “It’s true, though. I want you to change. How did we get here?”

“I couldn’t admit how awful everything was . . . is for me,” she said. “I can’t do that anymore. It just backfires.”

“And here we are. You’re unhappy. Savannah is a wreck. And I charge around like a raging bull, as though I can make everything the way I want it by stubborn will.”

“You’re only trying to make a family.”

He raised his shoulders, as though indicating
big deal.

“What are we going to do?” Caroline lowered her head to her husband’s shoulder. “I don’t want to lose us, but I don’t know what to do. I honestly can’t keep going like this.”

“Are you leaving? Are you asking me to leave?” he asked.

She couldn’t answer because any way she turned, she didn’t see a life she wanted.

“Caro? Answer me!” He put a hand under her chin and forced her to look up. His eyes were wet. “Please don’t ask me to choose between a life with you and Savannah and one without, because I can’t.”

She’d never seen him cry before. It wrung her out, seeing him pucker his lips and press them together. Savannah did the same thing when things got bad; she’d done it when Tia moved to hug her.

Caroline had been ready to pry Savannah away in that moment.

Caroline knew the truth now. She knew she might not love spending time with Savannah, but she loved her as deeply as any mother loved her child. She’d gladly suffer wounds to her own flesh to keep her from harm.

She was Savannah’s mother—maybe not a very good one; maybe even a reluctant one—but she’d never have given away her child. It had probably been the right thing for Tia to do, but Caroline couldn’t imagine it.

Oh, who the hell knew? Here she was practically running away from her child, judging the woman who’d at least been honest about what she couldn’t do. How did you reach for that kind of truth? Juliette was probably the only real mother among them.

Did Peter have a clue who Caroline was? God knows she could never tell him about the temptation of Jonah. Carrying that toxic secret alone would be her punishment. The same Peter who would never have denied his child’s existence was the man who’d never cheat or even contemplate doing such a thing.