Two by Two(10)

There is much, however, that I missed, especially when it came to  firsts. I missed her first word, for instance, and was out of town when  London lost her first baby tooth. I missed the first time she ate baby  food from a jar, and yet, it didn't much change my excitement when I  eventually witnessed those things. For me, after all, it was still a  first.

Sadly, though, there is much that I don't remember. Not everything can  be reduced to a single event. When exactly did she move from toddling to  walking? Or how did she move from that first word to speaking in short  sentences? Those periods of incremental and inevitable improvement now  seem to blur together and it sometimes feels as though I turned my back  for an instant, only to discover a new version of London had taken the  place of the old one.

Nor am I sure when her room and toys and games changed. I can visualize  the nursery in amazing detail, right down to the wallpaper border that  featured images of baby ducks. But when were the blocks and stuffed  animals in the shape of caterpillars put back into a box that now sits  in the corner? When did the first Barbie make her appearance, and how  did London begin to imagine Barbie's fantasy life, one that included the  color of clothing Barbie must wear when she's in the kitchen? When did  London begin to change from being a daughter named London, to London, my  daughter?         

     



 

I occasionally find myself aching for the infant and toddler I'd once  known and loved. She's been replaced now with a little girl who had  opinions about her hair, asked her mom to paint her nails, and would  soon be spending most of her day at school, under the care of a teacher I  had yet to meet. These days, I find myself wishing I could turn back  the clock so I could more fully experience London's first five years:  I'd work fewer hours, spend more time playing on the floor with her, and  share her wonder as she focused on the flight path of butterflies. I  wanted London to know how much joy she added to my life and to tell her  that I did the best I could. I wanted her to understand that even though  her mother was always with her, I loved her as much as any father could  possibly love a daughter.

Why then, I sometimes wonder, do I feel as if that's not enough?





The phone didn't ring.

Not in the first week, nor the second, nor even the third. While I'd met  with more than a dozen different potential clients and all had  expressed initial interest, my office phone remained mute. Even worse,  as the month neared its end, none of them would make additional time to  speak with me when I reached out to them, and their secretaries  eventually reached the point where they asked me to stop calling.

Peters.

His fingerprints were all over this, and I thought again about Vivian's  warning to me. "If he thinks you're trying to poach his clients, he'll  do whatever it takes to run you out of business."

By the beginning of July, I was both depressed and worried, a situation  made worse by the most recent credit card bill. Vivian had obviously  taken my words to heart about her life not changing; she'd been running  errands like crazy, and since I'd let the cleaning lady go, the house  had become a regular disaster. After work, I'd have to spend an hour  picking up around the house, doing laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning the  kitchen. I had the sense that Vivian seemed to view my taking over of  the domestic duties-and the credit card bill-as some kind of worthwhile  penance.

Our conversations since I'd started my business had been superficial. I  said little about work; she casually mentioned once that she'd begun  putting out feelers about finding some part-time work. We talked about  our families and made small talk about friends and neighbors. Mostly,  though, we talked about London, always a safe topic. We both sensed that  the slightest offense or misspoken word might lead to an argument.

The Fourth of July fell on a Saturday, and I wanted nothing more than to  spend the day decompressing. I wanted to tune out concerns about money  or bills or clients who ignored my calls; I wanted to stop the little  voice in my head that had begun to wonder whether I should get a second  job or start looking for jobs in other cities again. What I wanted was  to escape adulthood for a day and then cap the holiday weekend off with a  romantic evening with Vivian, because it would make me feel like she  still believed in me, even if her faith was getting wobbly.

But holiday or not, Saturday morning was Vivian's Me Time, and soon  after waking, she was out the door to yoga class, after which she would  go to the gym. I gave London some cereal and the two of us went to the  park; in the afternoon, the three of us attended a neighborhood block  party. There were games for the kids, and Vivian hung with other mothers  while I sipped on a couple of beers with the fathers. I didn't know  them well; like me, until recently, they'd tended to work long hours,  and my thoughts continually wandered to my looming financial fiasco,  even as they spoke.

Later, while the fireworks blossomed in the sky above the BB&T  Ballpark, I continued to feel the tension in my neck and shoulders.





On Sunday, I felt no better.

Again, I hoped for a day to unwind, but after breakfast, Vivian told me  she had some errands to run and would be gone most of the day. The tone  she used-both casual and defiant-made clear that she would be out of the  house for most of the day, and was more than ready for an argument if I  wanted one.

I didn't. Instead, with my stomach in knots, I watched her hop in the  SUV, wondering not only how I was going to hold myself together, but how  I was going to keep London entertained for an entire day. In that  moment, however, I remembered a slogan I'd conceived in the first year  of my advertising career.

When you're in trouble and need someone in your corner …

I'd written it into a commercial for a personal injury attorney and even  though the guy was disciplined by the bar and eventually lost his  license to practice, the ad had caused a flood of other local attorneys  to advertise with our firm. I was responsible for most of them; the  go-to guy when it came to any form of legal advertising and it made  Peters a ton of money. A couple of years later, an article appeared in  The Charlotte Observer and noted that the Peters Group was considered to  be the ambulance chasers of the advertising world, and a few banking  and real-estate executives began to balk at the association. Peters  reluctantly pulled the plug on those same clients, even though it pained  him, and years later, he would sometimes complain that he'd been  extorted by those same banks he had no trouble exploiting, at least when  it came to the fees he charged them.         

     



 

Still, I was in trouble and I needed someone in my corner …  and I made the spur-of-the-moment decision to visit my parents.

If they're not in your corner, you're in real trouble.





It's hard for me to imagine my mom without an apron. She seemed  convinced that aprons were as essential as a bra and panties when it  came to women's wear, at least when she was at home. Growing up, she'd  be wearing one when Marge and I came down to breakfast; she put one on  immediately after walking in the door after work, and she'd continue  wearing one long after dinner had been concluded and the kitchen had  been cleaned. When I'd ask her why, she'd say that she liked the  pockets, or that it kept her warm, or that she might have a cup of  decaffeinated coffee later and didn't want to spill it on her clothes.

Personally, I think it was just a quirk, but it made buying her  Christmas and birthday gifts easy, and over the years, her collection  had grown. She had aprons in every color, every length and style; she  had seasonal aprons, aprons with slogans, aprons that Marge and I had  made her when we were kids, aprons with the name "Gladys" stenciled onto  the fabric, and a couple of them even had lace, though she considered  those too racy to wear. I knew for a fact that there were seven boxes of  neatly folded aprons in the attic, and two entire cabinets in the  kitchen were dedicated to her collection. It had always been something  of a mystery to Marge and me how our mom went about selecting her Apron  of the Day, or even how she could find the one she wanted amidst all the  others.

Little about her apron-wearing habit had changed after she'd stopped  working. My mom had worked not because she loved her job but because our  family needed the money, and once she stepped away, she joined a  gardening club, volunteered at the senior center, and was an active  member of the Red Hat Society. Like Vivian and London, it seemed as  though she had something planned every day of the week, things that made  her happy, and it was my distinct impression that the aprons she'd been  selecting over the last few years reflected a more cheerful  disposition. Plain aprons had been banished to the bottom of the drawer;  at the top were aprons patterned with flowers and birds, and the  occasional slogan such as Retired: Young at Heart but Older in Other  Places.