The Husband's Secret(43)
“I bet you didn’t get a portfolio like this at that ordinary little preschool your girls went to,” her mother had said, while Cecilia tried to flip the pages faster. She was going shopping for all the nonperishables in preparation for Sunday before she picked up the girls.
“Actually, I think most of the preschools do things like this these days,” Cecilia had said, but her mother had been too busy exclaiming over Sam’s finger-painted self-portrait.
“Imagine, Mum,” said Esther, “if we kids were visiting Grandma in West Berlin for the weekend when the wall went up, and you and Dad were stuck in East Berlin. You’d have to say to us, ‘Stay at Grandma’s place, kids! Don’t come back! For your freedom!’”
“That’s awful,” said Cecilia.
“I’d still go back to Mummy,” said Polly. “Grandma makes you eat peas.”
“It’s history, Mum,” said Esther. “It’s what actually happened. Everyone got separated. They didn’t care. Look! These people are holding up their babies to show their relatives on the other side.”
“I really can’t take my eyes off the road,” said Cecilia with a sigh.
Thanks to Esther, Cecilia had spent the last six months imagining herself scooping up drowning children from the icy waters of the Atlantic while the Titanic sank. Now she was going to be in Berlin, separated from her children by the Wall.
“When does Daddy get back from Chicago?” asked Polly.
“Friday morning!” Cecilia smiled at Polly in the rearview mirror, grateful for the change of subject. “He’s coming back on Good Friday. It will be a very good Friday because Daddy will be back!”
There was a disapproving silence in the backseat. Her daughters tried not to encourage deeply uncool talk.
They were right in the middle of their near-normal after-school frenzy of activity. Cecilia had just dropped Isabel at the hairdresser, and now they were on their way to Polly’s ballet and Esther’s speech therapy. (Esther’s barely perceptible lisp, which Cecilia found adorable, was apparently unacceptable in today’s world.) After that, it would be rush, rush, rush to get dinner prepared and homework and reading done before her mother came over to watch the children while Cecilia went off to do a Tupperware party.
“I have another secret to tell Daddy,” said Polly. “When he comes home.”
“One man tried to abseil out of his apartment window, and the firemen in West Berlin tried to catch him with a safety net, but he missed, and he died.”
“My secret is that I don’t want a pirate party anymore,” said Polly.
“He was thirty,” said Esther. “So I guess he’d lived a pretty good life already.”
“What?” said Cecilia.
“I said he was thirty,” said Esther. “The man who died.”
“Not you; Polly!”
A red traffic light loomed, and Cecilia slammed her foot on the brake. The fact that Polly no longer wanted a pirate party was breathtakingly insignificant in comparison to that poor man (thirty!) crashing to the ground for the freedom that Cecilia took for granted, but right now, she couldn’t pause to honor his memory, because a last-minute change of party theme was unacceptable. That’s what happened when you had freedom. You lost your mind over a pirate party.
“Polly.” Cecilia tried to sound reasonable, not psychotic. “We’ve sent out the invitations. You’re having a pirate party. You asked for a pirate party. You’re getting a pirate party.”