The Husband's Secret(44)

            A nonrefundable deposit had been paid to Penelope the Singing and Dancing Pirate, who certainly charged like a pirate.

            “It’s a secret just for Daddy,” said Polly. “Not for you.”

            “Fine, but I’m not changing the party.”

            She wanted the pirate party to be perfect. For some reason she particularly wanted to impress that Tess O’Leary. Cecilia had an illogical attraction to enigmatic, elegant people like Tess. Most of Cecilia’s friends were talkers. Their voices overlapped in their desperation to tell their stories. I’ve always hated vegetables . . . The only vegetable my child will eat is broccoli . . . My kid loves raw carrots . . . I love raw carrots! You had to jump right in without waiting for a pause in the conversation, because otherwise you’d never get your turn. But women like Tess didn’t seem to have that need to share the ordinary facts of their lives, and that made Cecilia desperate to know them. Does her kid like broccoli? she’d ponder. She’d talked too much when she met Tess and her mother after Sister Ursula’s funeral this morning. Babbled. Sometimes she could hear herself doing it. Oh, well.

            Cecilia listened to the tinny sound of voices shouting something passionate and German from the YouTube video Esther was watching on the iPad.

            It was extraordinary how tumultuous historical moments could be replayed right here in this ordinary little moment as she drove down the Pacific Highway toward Hornsby, and yet, at the same time, it gave Cecilia a hazy sense of dissatisfaction. She longed to feel something momentous. Sometimes her life seemed so little.

            Did she want something huge and terrible to happen, like a wall being built across her city, so she could appreciate her ordinary life? Did she want to be a tragic figure like Rachel Crowley? Rachel seemed almost disfigured by the terrible thing that had happened to her daughter, so that Cecilia sometimes had to force herself not to look away, as if she were a burn victim, not a perfectly pleasant-looking, well-groomed woman with good cheekbones.

            Is that what you want, Cecilia? Some nice big exciting tragedy?

            Of course she didn’t.

            The German voices from Esther’s computer tickled irritatingly at her ear.

            “Can you please turn that off?” Cecilia said to Esther. “It’s distracting.”

            “Just let me—”

            “Turn it off! Couldn’t one of you children do what I ask just once, the first time? Without negotiating? Just once?”

            The sound went off.

            In the rearview mirror she saw Polly raise her eyebrows and Esther shrug and lift her palms. What’s with her? No idea. Cecilia could remember similar silent conversations with Bridget in the back of her mother’s car.

            “Sorry,” said Cecilia humbly after a few seconds. “I’m sorry, girls. I’m just . . .”

            Worried that your father is lying to me about something? In need of sex? Wishing I hadn’t babbled on the way I did to Tess O’Leary in the school yard this morning? Perimenopausal?

            “. . . missing Daddy,” she finished. “It will be nice when he’s home from America, won’t it? He’ll be so happy to see you girls!”

            “Yeah, he will,” said Polly, sighing. She paused. “And Isabel.”

            “Of course,” said Cecilia. “Isabel too, of course.”

            “Daddy looks at Isabel a funny way,” said Polly conversationally.

            That was way out of left field.

            “What do you mean?” asked Cecilia. Sometimes Polly came up with the strangest things.