“I don’t know,” Greg replies. “I guess it depends on my mood.”
The hint is subtle, but I get it immediately. I can’t tell if Drew gets it, but he falters. Time stops for a beat, then resumes. Greg picks up Drew’s bag and walks him out to the car; his hand is paternally clamped on Drew’s shoulder. I stand alone in the hallway, while Sarah waves from the doorway. She picks up on nothing. We shut the door and go into the living room with Hannah and Leah. Life continues as usual. The effect is imperceptible.
Except to me.
Chapter 22
During the spring, I did all I could do to keep up with the grass, the gardens, and basic repairs. I lost a gutter anyway, despite my clearing attempts. For the replacement, I hired someone. I was done with Pastor Joe’s ladder. The girls rode their new bikes in the driveway while I weeded, trimmed, and cleared fallen sticks from the yard. I mastered the riding mower after two or three mowings. I learned how to use the weed whacker. The lawn wasn’t going to look great, as I didn’t know Greg’s whole regime of overseeding, aeration, and grub treatment, but I was proud of myself and felt confident the rest would come in time. I had nothing if not time.
I no longer considered I wouldn’t need to learn those things. I no longer mentally added if Greg’s not home to the end of thoughts or sentences. After eight months, I had finally accepted that he was not coming home. I was still angry sometimes, but not frequently. When I focused on it, which wasn’t often, my anger was on behalf of the girls. If Greg had disappeared by choice, what he had done to them was unforgivable. I’d read that children were resilient, and I supposed that was true. I’d watched my kids adapt and move on in ways that amazed me—that part was Darwinian. What I didn’t read, or talk about, was that adaptation came at a price. The girls were irreversibly changed, and that thought haunted me, sneaking up at unexpected moments and breaking my heart all over again.
They no longer asked for Greg every day. But Hannah was wary of everyone. Her small, pure heart had become guarded. When I left her at school or at my parents’ house, she would ask me if I was definitely coming back. She had learned to see the world as unkind at too young an age. She smiled less frequently, and those smiles were hesitant, as though at any moment someone could snatch them away.
At Hannah’s insistence, we did adopt a cat from the ASPCA. He wasn’t a kitten, but he wasn’t full-grown either. He was gray-striped with small, delicate white feet. The cat really took to Hannah, following her around the house and sleeping on her bed at night, curled in a tight gray coil of fur. Hannah named him Sunshine. When I asked why, she shrugged and said, “He looks like a storm cloud, but that’s not a very happy name.” The cat seemed to be helping, at least with Hannah.
Leah was different, too, but not as much. She had always been more headstrong than Hannah. She resisted me in almost every way, simply to assert her independence. I couldn’t tell if her changes came from being parented from one perspective rather than two, or if she would have developed that way anyway. She was obstinate for the sake of being so, rather than for any real reason. Assertive to a fault, Leah fought discipline in a way that pliable Hannah never did. I roamed message boards at night, looking for disciplinary answers, when a year ago I would have bounced ideas off of Greg. Reward charts, time-outs, time-ins, and then more complicated, reverse reward charts, reverse time-outs, reverse time-ins, the suggestions made my head spin. When had raising a child gotten so complex? Or had it always been, but the complexity was divided in half, and therefore manageable?
One of those nights when I was scrolling through websites looking for help with potty training my stubborn Leah, my cell phone rang. Looking at the display, I noted a San Diego exchange, and for one crazy minute, I thought Greg. I immediately amended the thought. Will. I let it go to voicemail. My memories of our night together were precious to me. After I got back, I had considered calling him a few times, especially after a few glasses of wine in those quiet, lonely hours late at night. I didn’t do it, in part because I didn’t want to know the real Will. The Will in my mind was too perfect for any real flesh and blood human. I didn’t want more heartbreak in my life. For that reason, I also avoided Drew. Although, I convinced myself that I wasn’t actually avoiding Drew. Our conversations take hours. And with everything I have to do, I don’t have the time right now. I’ll call tomorrow.
I picked up my phone and dialed my voicemail. Hi, Claire. It’s Will Pierce. From San Diego. I hope you remember me. Anyway… uh… I was wondering how you were doing. I think of you. Call me sometime. Hope you’re well. Bye now.