Back In the Game (30 page)

Chapter 68

Laura

“I don't know why you don't listen when I'm talking to you. Matt! Look at me!”

Matt unglued his eyes from the screen and the football game showing on it. “What?” he said with a scowl. “I'm busy, Laura. You just can't start talking to me and expect me to hear you.”

“You're always busy,” I complained. “It's like I have to raise my hand and wait patiently until you notice me, until it's convenient for you, before I'm allowed to say anything.”

Matt's eyes drifted back to the screen.

“Forget it!” I shouted. I stomped out of the living room and headed for the kitchen. There was half a chocolate cake left over from last night, and though it was supposed to be Matt's half because I'd already eaten mine, it suddenly seemed very important that I eat all of it, every last crumb, and leave nothing for Matt. He couldn't listen to me? Fine. Then I'd eat his cake!

I sat down at the small round kitchen table and stabbed the cake with a fork. Lots of icing, just the way I liked it. Just the way Matt liked it, too, but he wasn't going to get any!

Sometimes he drives me so crazy I swear I think I could kill him and not care. Except, of course, there's my baby to consider, and no child wants to grow up with his mother in jail.

My baby. I wonder if he's going to like chocolate icing when he grows up.

So, I got pregnant after all, about a year after Matt and I got married. There were a lot of problems and I had to have two surgeries before the doctors realized the only way I had a chance of getting pregnant would be if I was injected, you know, in vitro. Well, that didn't work the first two times, but it worked the third time, you know, the time they say is the charm.

I got pregnant with twins. Matt wasn't too happy about that, but I was thrilled. He told me we couldn't afford two children at once, but I said pooh. Four people can live just as cheaply as three. Matt pointed out that since I'd quit my job and insisted on going through all the infertility treatments and in buying a house in Jamaica Plain—okay, not Cape Point, where I really wanted to move, but nice enough for now—that our financial situation was strained.

Twins. A boy and a girl. I was so excited. I would finally be able to use that adorable pink sweater and leggings set I'd bought at that fancy shop.

Well, Matt got his wish for just one child in the end. Alice lived only a few days. She was seriously small even though she was born at full term; of course, the doctors had warned me she might not be okay, after doing sonograms and all where they could see her. But size wasn't what made her so weak. The real problem was with her heart, some congenital heart defect.

I went into a really bad depression when Alice died, and nothing Matt or the nurses or the doctors could say helped me, not even the bouncing baby boy who did survive, Alexander, whom we call Alex. I didn't even want to touch him at first, but the nurses kind of forced me to, though neither of us took to the breast-feeding thing, which was just fine with me as lots of people had told me it hurts.

Anyway, Matt got me to see a therapist and while I was clawing my way out of the pit, he hired a live-in nanny to help me. I don't know what he thought I was going to do to Alex, forget to feed him or something? Let him drown in the baby bathtub? Anyway, in the end the nanny was okay and after about seven months we were able to let her go as I was feeling much better and was even allowed to stop taking the pills. Well, the therapist wanted me to stay on them for a while longer, but I thought I was fine and since she couldn't force me to take the pills, that was that.

Matt shouted from the living room. Someone must have scored a touchdown or something. In the first months of our relationship and up until the babies were born, Matt used to talk all the time about football. I pretended to listen and to care, nodding and saying things like “wow” and “oh, yeah?”

But since Alex, Matt doesn't bother to talk to me about football. Well, about much of anything, really. Which is fine because with Alex, I'm very, very busy. Not that Matt notices . . .

I know Matt loves Alex, but he never seems to want to help me with him. He likes to say good night to Alex because then he's all scrubbed and in his clean jammies, but forget about cleaning up vomit or changing diapers. He has almost no patience reading books to his son or trying to understand him when he talks, which I admit is hard, but if you really listen, you can make out some of what Alex is saying. Matt doesn't come right out and say it, but it's pretty clear to me he considers babies women's work.

Which is fine, really, because I love hanging out with Alex all day and Matt does have to work long hours at the office. Sometimes he doesn't even get home until almost midnight. It's a little strange that I haven't seen any big change in his paycheck these past two years, and you would think that for all the extra hours he's been putting in, they would have given him a raise or a promotion or something.

But I don't complain about his not being home. Honestly, I prefer to be alone with Alex, just us two, and even though the pediatrician says I should probably put Alex in some sort of day care thing so he can learn how to socialize and stuff, I'm going to keep him home for as long as possible. I'd keep him home forever and ever if I could, but at some point the law says he has to go to school.

Anyway, what I do complain about is when Matt is here and I have to take a number to talk to him! He'll look right at me and I think he's listening and then he'll say, “What?” And I'll say, “Weren't you listening?” And he'll laugh and say, “No,” or maybe, “I was thinking about something. You need to get my attention before you just start yammering at me.”

Yammering? I don't even know what that means!

Sometimes I'm tempted to just give up and stop trying to get his attention. Because let's face it, even when he does listen—or says he's listening—he forgets what I've said like three minutes later. So, why bother?

But I haven't given up yet, though now it sounds like I'm nagging all the time when I'm just trying to be heard!

I put the last bite of cake in my mouth. I remembered that Nell and Oscar and Jess had gone up to Ogunquit to spend the weekend with Richard and Bob. They hadn't asked me to come, but I understood. The whole Jess and Matt thing probably made them uncomfortable and some people don't like having a baby around and . . .

“What are you doing?”

I looked up and there was Matt, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a scowl on his handsome, boy-next-door face.

I put the fork down on the empty plate.

“Was that my cake?” he demanded.

I couldn't talk with my mouth full, so I just nodded.

“That was my dessert,” he said. “You had your half last night. You know I was saving that.”

I swallowed. I didn't feel bad, not at all. But I said, “Sorry.”

Matt continued to glare at me.

“What?” I said.

“You're fat, Laura. You eat too much. You should go on a diet. It's not healthy.”

And then he walked out of the room.

You know what? I wasn't even mad. Really. I felt—nothing. I remember just sitting there at the kitchen table with the empty plate and smeared fork and feeling nothing.

I sat there for a long time.

I heard the front door open and slam shut.

I heard a delivery truck pull up and my neighbor, Mrs. White, laughing.

I heard the beating of my own heart.

And then Alex cried out from his room.

Chapter 69

Grace

“Thanks, Evan.”

I reached up to take the glass of Prosecco from Evan's hand. I let my fingers linger on his for a moment.

“To us,” he said, raising his glass.

“To us. And to vacation. I'm so happy we were able to get out of the city this weekend.”

Evan and I had been invited to Ogunquit with Nell, Oscar, and Jess, to spend a long weekend at Richard and Bob's new three-season home. As tempting as the offer was, we decided to sneak off on our own for a few days to Nantucket. Evan has a friend who owns a small but charming house there. He and his wife were traveling to see family and offered us the use of their home.

Now, enjoying the twilight from the house's front porch, I was very glad we'd made the choice we had.

As if reading my mind, Evan asked, “No regrets about not joining the others?”

“No regrets. Besides, there'll be other gatherings.”

“I wonder why Richard and Bob didn't invite Laura and Matt,” Evan said. “You did tell me they weren't invited, right?”

I nodded. The mention of Laura always makes me sad.

I last saw Laura about a month earlier. I was walking along Newbury Street on my way to the gallery when a woman up ahead caught my eye. She was standing just to the left of the entrance to a high-end clothing store, holding a bundle in her arms and staring into the middle distance.

My first impression was one of sadness. I felt that I should look away but I couldn't. I slowed my pace just a bit as I approached, wondering for a moment if the woman was homeless—her hair was long and unkempt, she was overweight in the way life on the streets can make some people, and maybe, I thought, that bundle in her arms contained her only possessions.

Just as I was within a few yards of the woman, a young teenager on a skateboard came out of nowhere from behind me and passed within a foot or two of the woman. This served to startle her; she jerked and stepped back against the glass window of the store.

And in that moment I recognized her as Laura.

I felt sick to my stomach with grief.

I came to a dead halt on the sidewalk and watched as she whispered down to the bundle. And I realized that her son, Alex, too old to be carried like an infant, was wrapped in that blue blanket.

Her only, her most important possession, indeed.

I knew I had to go up to Laura, preferably before she became aware of my staring at her. And just as I was unlocking my knees to take a step, Laura turned and almost ran down the street.

I could have called out to her, but I didn't. I just watched her go.

When I got to the gallery, I went immediately into Evan's office and called Nell. I told her what I'd seen. With a sigh, Nell promised to check in with her sister. Laura had experienced several setbacks since the crippling depression she'd experienced after Alex's birth and Alice's death. So far, she'd recovered from each one, but what I'd seen that day on Newbury Street scared me.

Since then I've sent Laura a few e-mails and a card for her birthday, but I haven't heard anything back. I just hope that Nell, as far as I know Laura's only living family member, is taking her sister's predicament seriously. In my opinion, Nell too often dismisses Laura as a fool or a dimwit, almost a cartoon of a person, and fails to see that Laura is not a figure of fun but a real woman with valid thoughts and feelings.

“I think,” I said finally to Evan, “I think that Laura is happiest when she's with Alex.”

Evan frowned. “But couldn't she have brought him with her?”

I reached for Evan's hand. “Evan, I guess Richard and Bob had their reasons.”

My answer seemed to satisfy Evan, at least for the moment. He picked up a magazine and resumed reading the article he'd started earlier.

Several months ago the magazine had carried an article about Simon.

As I predicted back at the opening of his first show at the Auster Gallery, Simon is doing just fine. About a year ago he married a woman named Cassandra Cole. Cassandra is sixty-five if she's a day, fabulously wealthy, and deeply eccentric. Let's face it, she bought Simon and he allowed himself to be bought and obviously, he's enjoying his new life. Recently, Evan and I ran into Simon and his new bride at an opening. Simon was clean shaven. He'd put on a few pounds and looked healthier than I'd ever seen him look. And he was dressed in designer clothes from leather blazer to Italian loafers.

Simon's work has garnered a lot of attention since he joined forces with Cassandra. Her connections are paying off nicely and I'm glad. Simon is a good artist, maybe even a great artist, and deserves to be seen and known.

I looked at Evan. His profile in the fading light brought a smile to my face. He hasn't revealed himself to be Simon's complete opposite, a control freak, someone who tries to live my life for me. Instead he's proved to be a real partner, supportive but not intrusive, especially when it comes to my painting.

All on my own, without any help from Evan, I managed to get a small show in a South End gallery. It's a group show but four of my paintings are going to be hung and if I'm lucky, at least one will be sold. But the money's not the point—though money is a good thing—the painting is the point. Some of my students are all excited to have their parents bring them into “the city” to see their teacher's work. I'm very happy about that.

I'm happy about a lot of things these days.

Evan and I have been living together for a year. Last month he proposed with a simple platinum band in which is set an utterly clear diamond; he had it custom made for me.

Of course, I said yes and we're planning to tie the knot next spring. I know I'm probably too old to make a big fuss about a wedding, but given the fact that my first wedding was such a washout, I'm going to make this one really special. I won't wear a white dress, but I will have lots of flowers and a big, beautiful cake, and there'll be music and I'll walk down the aisle. Jess is my maid of honor and Evan's nephew is his best man. A professional photographer will take pictures and I'll put the best ones in a leather-bound album. Simon and Cassandra will be invited to the wedding. Why not? He's no threat to me now—and I'm no threat to me, either.

I'll invite Nell and Oscar, of course, as well as Richard and Bob. And I'll also invite Laura and Matt. I hope they can be there; at least, I hope that Laura is in good enough shape to be there.

I miss her.

“Interested in dinner?” Evan asked, bringing me back to the moment.

A summer night on Nantucket with the man I loved.

“I'm starved,” I said. “Will you start the grill?”