All the Time in the World (32 page)

“Hello?” she says, but it's hard to hear her through the techno music blaring in the background.

“Claudine. Claudabell. Claudelia.”

“Hold on a second,” says Claudia.

“Where are you, a disco?” The music stops.

“Pal, nobody calls them discos. My friend DQ is spinning at a downtown bar. I told him I'd weed out the loser beats.”

“Do you think he was born in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen? Is that how his parents came to give him such an enchanting moniker?”

“It's short for Daiquiri,” says Claudia, and we both laugh. “I'm serious though; that's really his name.”

“I believe you,” I say. “Hey, want to come down and visit me in two weeks? I'll buy you a ticket.”

“I do want to visit you. But I'm shooting a film that week, so I have to stay in Boston,” she says.

“A
film
?”

“Yeah! I got picked to be an extra in these crazy pre–Revolutionary War crowd scenes. I have to get fitted for, like, bonnets and lace-up boots and shit. Isn't that awesome?”

“That
is
awesome,” I say. I open the container of cut strawberries that I just paid $10.95 for. “Did you tell Mom? Maybe it will be your claim to fame.”

“I don't really think that's how it works,” says Claudia.

“Scotty's going out of town,” I say.

“Why? Did something happen?”

For a minute, I panic and wonder what she knows. “What do you mean?”

“Is everyone okay? I don't think that man could take anything else,” she says.

“Oh. It's just for work.” I pull the shade on top of the stroller all the way out to shield Georgie from the sun. “He's been trying to take only day trips for work, but now he has to go to Berlin, and if I can't come up with another alternative, I'll be stuck with Mae the whole time,” I say.

“Mae's not so bad,” says Claudia. “I like her.”

“You've never met Mae,” I say.

“Yes, but everything you've ever said about her makes her sound amazing,” she says. “
You
don't like her because she makes you feel insecure.”

“The alternative isn't too appealing either,” I say. “Jeanne and George.”

“Right, George. Patrick the first.”

“I don't know if I could make it through two weeks of cocktail hours with Jeanne and George the Elder,” I say.

“Well, what about Uncle Patrick?” she asks, and her voice takes on a quality I don't like. “He's around, right? Maybe he can come over and check in after work or something.” I wish I hadn't broken down and told Claudia anything about Patrick, but there was no one else to confide in who wouldn't judge me. I'm sure she's told Jane by now. I'm not looking forward to that discussion.

“I will not be suggesting that course of action,” I say.

“Scotty will come to it on his own,” Claudia predicts. “It's pretty logical. Uncle Patrick is right here in town. And he's been insistent about helping.”

“Have I been drunk dialing you or something?” I pull out a pastry bag the wrong way and drop crumbs all over my lap. “How do you infer these things?”

“You're literally the most transparent person on the planet. You're the worst at keeping things close to the vest.”

“You're the worst at everything!”

“Ha. Hey, what are you eating?”

“A croissant.”

“Two croissants?”

“Yes. And a scone.”

“Nice.” DQ must be getting impatient. I hear his muffled voice in the background. “I'll come and visit you soon, honey bunny,” says Claudia. “I promise. Maybe we can even convince Janie to get on a plane.”

“Yeah, right,” I say. “Love you, Claud.”

“Love you too.”

“Claudia?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I crazy? I mean, Scotty should just stay put, right? We shouldn't even be having this conversation.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Okay. Bye, pigeon.”

“Bye, squirrel.”

May, fourteen weeks after

“Are you my mom now?” Matt asks me one morning a few weeks later, after Scotty has left for his business trip. His tone is casual as he steps into his jeans. If it were the first time he was asking me this question, I'd be freaking out. Unfortunately, it's not.

“Love bug, of course not,” I say. “Your mom will always be your mom, whether she's here or not.”

“Then why do you get to tell me what to do?” It's going to be one of those days.

“Other kids in your class have babysitters too,” I say. “Babysitters are around to help when parents can't be, because they have to work or do something else that's important.”

“Or because they died.”

“There are lots of reasons that babysitters help out.”

“But you live here now.”

“Yes.”

“Only families live together. Like I'm going to live with Ainsley when we get married. Are you going to marry Daddy?”

“No, sweetheart.” He is struggling with the button on his jeans, but he bats my hands away when I attempt to help him fasten it.

“Then why do you live with us?”

“Don't you know any other babysitters who live with the families they help?” I ask. I hold up a polo shirt, and he shakes his head. I hold up a pin-striped button-down and he vetoes that one too.

“The white one,” he says, and visions of bleaching out marker and lunch stains dance before my eyes. “Babysitters have their own houses,” he goes on as I button up his short-sleeved little man shirt.

“I have my own house.”

“But you're here at night.”

I stand up. “Matt, honey, we could talk about this for hours. You know that things have been hard around here without your mom, right? You know that. Everybody misses her. I'm around to help out for a while because your dad still has to go to work, and you still have to go to school.”

“And Georgie still has to go to school.”

“That's right.”

“But are you leaving?”

“What? No.”

“But you said a while.” He ignores the plain white socks that I hold out to him and instead picks a pair with tiny whales on them out of his drawer. Those socks make me think of the massive clothing orders that Gretchen used to put in from Lands' End. “What's a while? You're not going to leave, are you?”

“No, pal, not now.”

“When?”

“I'm not sure. But not anytime soon.”

“When you die?”

“Matt.” I am out of patience. “We need to eat breakfast. I bet George is already done. Would you like a waffle?”

“Can I have pancakes?”

“We don't have time, love,” I say, as we walk into the kitchen.

“Actually, Charlotte,” says Mae, holding a spatula and beaming at me. “That's exactly what I made for breakfast.” Matt looks at me triumphantly, like he's so satisfied by this outcome. It's such a Scotty look.

“Me hold it, Gramma?” says George, reaching for the spatula. She gives it to him, and he starts banging on the side of his booster seat.

“If you don't mind, Gramma,” I say over the noise, “I'm going to run back and make their beds really quickly.”

“Of course,” she says.

I'm terrible at making beds (Gretchen was perfect), but I attempt it every day anyway, maybe in tribute, maybe because my own mother would want me to, maybe because it just seems like something that should be done. I finish making George's, tucking the oddly angled flap of the top sheet in under the bedspread, where no one will know it's out of order. I arrange his pillows and animals on top of the bed, with Chickie in the middle, the king of them all. When I get into Matt's room, I have to reassemble his bed. The sheets and blankets are all untucked at one end, indicating the tossing and turning that have become the standard for him all through the night.

I retrieve several fallen stuffed compatriots from the pit between the bed and the wall, and pull the fitted sheet all the way off the mattress. I untwist the sheet and spread it out, tucking it back in around the edges. I notice a lump between the mattress and the box spring and think that it must be some unfortunate stuffed soul, a victim of the maelstrom formerly known as Matt. I reach in to rescue the little guy, and when I pull it back up, I can't believe what I'm holding in my hand.

Pup.

A few days earlier

Once the dreams descend, there is no stopping them. They've become more vicious since they first started a few weeks ago, in the sense that the details are only just to one side of what could actually be real.

I have a dream that my mother dies, and I miss her funeral. I come home three months later to find her gone and my father sitting in a recliner, watching the news and commenting on the reports. Jane and Claudia are arguing about different pieces in my mother's jewelry box as I stand there, crying with confusion. This isn't who they are. I don't know what's happening. I'm on the other side of the looking glass. I want to ask why, why, why didn't anyone think to tell me that my mother was dead?

I have a dream that Claudia doesn't exist. Jane is far away on the other coast, and I can never get her on the phone. Every time I call, her husband answers and tells me she is busy, to call someone else. But Claudia is not an option, because she is not my sister. I don't have another sister, only Jane. I don't know how I can even think the name
Claudia
, because she isn't real. Claudia was never born.

May, fourteen weeks after

Staring at Pup, clutched in my adrenaline-riddled fist—after having laid him to rest, after having made my peace with his departure—seeing him just
there
, as if maybe he's been there all along, is like seeing an apparition. It's a sudden lightness of mind and body that comes upon me; I feel untethered, like I'm floating, a balloon that a toddler just couldn't hang on to.

I asked Matt. I asked Matt more than once. And he looked me right in the face and said he had no idea. Yet here it is, George's security blanket, wedged deeply,
intentionally
between the mattress and the box spring.

I sit on the edge of Matt's bed and let all my baser impulses bounce around in my brain. It doesn't take me long, however, to come to the conclusion that I don't have any of the options I'm considering. I may not check out. I may not run away. I may not cease speaking to this grief-stricken five-year-old.

No. I have to
parent
him. Scotty is in the air somewhere between Istanbul and Berlin. I am the only parent available. Right now, I'm a single parent.

Passing this matter off to Mae is not on the table. It would take too much to get her to understand the significance. I wonder if even Scotty would truly understand.

Somehow, I get them where they need to be. I arrange a playdate for George that he only halfheartedly protests, and after I drop him off, I head back to the apartment. When I get there, I stand in the foyer, stand and stand, not knowing which direction to move. Finally, paranoia that Mae will catch me out here acting catatonic overtakes me, and I walk down the hall to Matt's bedroom and sit on the floor. I pull Pup out from his hiding spot and stare at him, and I'm thrown back in time. It's a feeling of immediacy, like coming out of a dreamless sleep or out from under anesthesia. Wasn't I just counting backward from ten? Did Gretchen know, when she started counting, that she would never come back to consciousness? Did she feel herself slide into oblivion, hear her soul leave her body, see the faces of George and Matt and Scotty as she went? Or was she unconscious from the moment she was struck by a few thousand pounds of metal, remaining in that state until it was all,
all
over? It's both morbid and satisfying, the contemplation of these things.

Next to the contemplation of mortality, the issue with Matt seems dramatic, like I've created something huge and crazy out of something that will sound meaningless when I say it out loud. Dimly, I recognize this as a sign that I am trying to detach, as is my instinct when I'm in danger of being powerless. Move on to the next thing.

I don't know what to do, so I call Jane, and when she says hello, all I can do is shake my head, which is not an effective strategy for phone communication.

“Are you there?”

“I'm here,” I say.

“Is everything okay?”

Pup's fur is all matted in one direction from his tenure under the mattress. He looks misshapen, a side effect of being constantly smushed. I do my best to ruffle his fur up with my fingers. I want him to look normal.

“Charlotte?”

“I don't know if I can do this anymore.”

She doesn't ask me what I'm talking about because she already knows. If the situation were less dire, I'm sure she'd be saying she told me so, but she knows that I know she told me so. She doesn't need to say it.

“Where are you?”

“Sitting on the floor of Matt's bedroom.”

“Something happened?”

“It's hard to explain.”

“Scotty?”

“No, Scotty's in Europe. It's the kids. Matt, I guess. Both of them. I just—I don't know what I'm doing. They need someone who
isn't me
. They need Gretchen. I mean, Jane, what the fuck. Seriously, what the fuck? You know?”

“Yes, love bug, I know.” I forgot that I got
love bug
from Jane.

“I have to go now.”

“I'll be worried if you hang up,” she says.

“No, it's fine. I'm fine. I think I need to call Scotty. I'll call you back later. Everything will be, well, not fine, but you know, everything will just, just
be
. I really will; I'll call you later.”

“No, don't hang—”

“Love you,” I say and hang up.

I text Scotty and ask him to call me, and he does, right away. “Is something wrong?”