Handle With Care (41 page)

I won’t I won’t I won’t.

You, apparently, weren’t feeling quite as optimistic. Mom said that since you’d come through the surgery, you kept crying and you didn’t want to eat anything. It was supposed to be the anesthesia in your system that was making you weepy, but I decided to make it my personal mission to cheer you up. “Hey, Wiki,” I said, “you want some M&M’s? They’re from my Easter candy stash.”

You shook your head.

“Want to use my iPod?”

“I don’t want to listen to music,” you murmured. “You don’t have to be nice to me just because I won’t be around here much longer.”

That sent a chill down my spine. Had someone not told me something about your surgery? Were you, like, dying? “What are you talking about?”

“Mom wants to get rid of me because things like this keep happening.” You swiped the tears from your eyes with your hands. “I’m not the kind of kid anyone wants.”

“What are you talking about? It’s not like you’re a serial killer. You don’t torture chipmunks or do anything revolting, except try to burp ‘God Bless America’ at the dinner table—”

“I only did that once,” you said. “But think about it, Amelia. Nobody keeps things that get broken. Sooner or later, they get thrown away.”

“Willow, you are not being sent off, believe me. And if you are, I’ll run away with you first.”

You hiccuped. “Pinkie promise?”

I hooked your pinkie with mine and tugged. “Promise.”

“I can’t go on a plane,” you said seriously, as if we needed to plot our itinerary now. “The doctor said I’ll set off metal detectors at the airport. He gave Mom a note.”

One that I would probably forget, like I forgot the other doctor’s note on our last vacation.

“Amelia,” you asked, “where would we go?”

Back, I thought immediately. But I couldn’t begin to tell you how to get there.

Maybe Budapest. I didn’t really know where Budapest was, but I liked the way the word exploded on my tongue. Or Shanghai. Or the Galápagos, or the isle of Skye. You and I could travel the globe together, our own little sisterly freak show: the girl who breaks, and the girl who can’t hold herself together.

“Willow,” my mother said. “I think we need to have a talk.” She’d been standing at the threshold of the bedroom, watching us, I wondered for how long. “Amelia, can you give us a minute?”

“Okay,” I said, and I slunk outside. But instead of going downstairs, which was what she meant, I hovered in the hallway, where I could hear everything.

“Wills,” I heard my mother say, “no one’s throwing you away.”

“I’m sorry about my leg,” you said, teary. “I thought if I didn’t break anything for a long time, you’d think I was just like any other kid—”

“Accidents happen, Willow.” I heard the bed creak as my mother sat down on it. “Nobody is blaming you.”

“You do. You wish you’d never had me. I heard you say it.”

What happened after that—well, it felt like a tornado in my head. I was thinking about this lawsuit, and how it had ruined our lives. I was thinking of my father, who was downstairs for maybe only seconds or minutes longer. I was thinking of a year ago, when my arms were scar-free, when I still had a best friend and wasn’t fat and could eat food without it feeling like lead in my stomach. I was thinking of the words my mother said in response to you, and how I must have heard them wrong.

Charlotte

“Charlotte?”

I had come to the laundry room to hide, figuring that the load of clothes spinning in the dryer would mask any sound I made while I was crying, but Sean was standing behind me. Quickly I wiped my eyes on my sleeves. “Sorry,” I said. “The girls?”

“They’re both fast asleep.” He took a step forward. “What’s wrong?”

What wasn’t wrong? I’d just had to persuade you that I loved you, breaks and all—something you’d never questioned until I undertook this lawsuit.

Didn’t everyone lie? And wasn’t there a difference between, for example, killing a person and telling the police you hadn’t and smiling down at a particularly ugly baby and telling her mother how cute she was? There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. There I went, fibbing again. I couldn’t tell Sean what you’d said to me; I couldn’t bear to hear his I told you so. But, my God, was everything that came out of my mouth a lie? “It’s just been a really hard few days.” I folded my arms tightly across my waist. “Did you, um, did you need me for something?”

He pointed to the top of the dryer. “I just came to get my bedding.”

I knew I should be practicing, but I didn’t understand formerly married couples who remained congenial. Yes, it was in the best interests of the children. Yes, it was less stressful. But how could you forget that this particular “friend” had seen you naked? Had carried your dreams when you were too tired to? You could paint your history over any way you
liked, but you’d always see those first few brushstrokes. “Sean? I’m glad you were here,” I said, honest at last. “It made everything…easier.”

“Well,” he said simply, “she’s my daughter, too.” He took a step toward me to reach the bedding, and I instinctively backed away. “Good night,” Sean said.

“Good night.”

He started to take the pillows and quilt into his arms and then turned. “If I were like Willow, and I needed someone to fight hard for me when I couldn’t? I’d pick you.”

“I’m not sure Willow would agree,” I whispered, blinking back tears.

“Hey,” he said, and I felt his arms come around me. His breath was warm on the crown of my hair. “What’s this?”

I tilted my face up to his. I wanted to tell him everything—what you had said to me, how tired I was, how much I was wavering—but instead we stared at each other, telegraphing messages that neither one of us was brave enough to speak out loud. And then, slowly, so that we both knew the mistake we were making, we kissed.

I could not tell you the last time I had kissed Sean, not like this, not beyond a see-you-later-honey peck over the kitchen sink. This was deep and rough and consuming, as if we both meant to be left in ashes when we were through. His beard stubble scraped my chin raw, his teeth bit down, his breath filled my lungs. The room glittered at the edge of my vision, and I broke away for air. “What are we doing?” I gasped.

Sean buried his face against my throat. “Who gives a damn, as long as we keep doing it.”

Then his hands were slipping underneath my shirt, branding me; my back was touching the humming metal-and-glass fishbowl of the dryer as Sean pushed me against it. I heard the clink of his belt buckle striking the floor and only then realized I had been the one to throw it aside. Wrapping myself around him, I became a vine, thriving, tangled. I threw back my head and burst into bloom.

It was over as quickly as it had started, and suddenly we were what we had been going into this: two middle-aged people who were lonely enough to be desperate. Sean’s jeans were puddled at his ankles; his hands were supporting my thighs. The handle of the dryer was cutting into my back. I let one leg fall to the floor and wrapped a sheet from his pile of bedding around my waist.

He was blushing, a deep, rootless red. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” I heard myself say.

“Maybe not,” he admitted.

I tried to finger-comb my hair back from the tangle on my face. “So what do we do now?”

“Well,” Sean said. “There’s no rewind button.”

“No.”

“And you’re wearing my top sheet around your…you know.”

I glanced down.

“And the couch is wicked uncomfortable,” he added.

“Sean,” I said, smiling. “Come to bed.”

I thought that, on the day of the trial, I’d wake up with butterflies in my stomach or a raging headache, but as my eyes slowly adjusted to the sunlight, all I could think was It’s going to be okay. It did not hurt that there were muscles in my body that were deliciously sore, that left me rolling over and stretching to hear the music of the shower running, and Sean in it.

“Mom?”

I slipped on a robe and ran into your bedroom. “Wills, how do you feel?”

“Itchy,” you said. “And I have to pee.”

I positioned myself to carry you. You were heavy, but this was a blessing compared with a spica cast, which was the alternative. I helped you lift up your nightgown and settled you on the toilet seat, then waited for you to call me back in so that I could help you wash your hands. I decided that I would buy you a big bottle of Purell on the way home from court today. Which reminded me—you weren’t going to be happy about the arrangements I’d made for you. After much debate with Marin about leaving you home while I was in the courtroom, she had let me interview and choose a private pediatric nurse to be with you for the duration of the trial. The astronomical cost, she said, would be deducted from whatever damages we won. It was not ideal, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about your safety. “Remember Paulette?” I said. “The nurse?”

“I don’t want her to come…”

“I know, baby, but we don’t have a choice. I have to go somewhere important today, and you can’t be by yourself.”

“What about Daddy?”

“What about me?” Sean said, and he plucked you out of my arms and carried you downstairs as if you didn’t weigh anything.

He was dressed in a coat and tie instead of his uniform. He’s coming to court with me, I thought, beginning to smile from the inside out.

“Amelia’s in the shower,” Sean said over his shoulder as he settled you on the couch. “I told her she has to take the bus in today. Willow—”

“A nurse is coming to stay with her.”

He looked down at you. “Well, that’ll be fun.”

You grimaced. “Yeah, right.”

“How about pancakes for breakfast, then, to make it up to you?”

“Is that all you can cook?” you asked. “Even I know how to make ramen noodles.”

“Do you want ramen noodles for breakfast?”

“No—”

“Then stop complaining about the pancakes,” Sean said, and then he looked up at me soberly. “Big day.”

I nodded and pulled the tie of my robe tighter. “I can be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”

Sean stilled in the process of covering you with a blanket. “I figured we’d take separate cars.” He hesitated. “I have to meet with Guy Booker beforehand.”

If he was meeting with Guy Booker, it meant that he was still planning to testify for Piper’s defense.

If he was meeting with Guy Booker, it meant nothing had changed.

I had been lying to myself, because it was easier than facing the truth: sex wasn’t love, and one single, stopgap Band-Aid of a night couldn’t fix a broken marriage.

“Charlotte?” Sean said, and I realized he’d asked me a question. “Do you want some pancakes?”

I was sure he did not know that pancakes were among the oldest types of baked goods in America; that in the 1700s, when there had been no baking powder or baking soda, they’d been leavened by beating air into the eggs. I was sure he did not know that pancakes went as far back as the Middle Ages, when they were served on Fat Tuesday, before Lent. That if the griddle was too hot, pancakes would get tough and chewy; if it was too cool, they’d turn out dry and tough.

I was also sure he did not remember that pancakes were the very first breakfast I ever cooked for him as his wife, when we returned from our honeymoon. I had made the batter and spooned it into a Baggie, cut off a bottom corner, and used it to shape the pancakes. I’d served Sean a stack of hearts.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

Amelia

So let me tell you why I didn’t take the bus that morning: no one had bothered to check outside the front door, and it wasn’t until Paulette the nurse arrived and totally freaked out when she had to beat off an army of photographers and reporters that we realized how many people had gathered to snap the coveted picture of my parents leaving for court.

“Amelia,” my father said tightly, “in the car. Now!”

For once, I just did what he said.

That would have been bad enough, but some of them followed us to my school. I kept an eye on them in the passenger mirror. “Isn’t this how Princess Diana died?”

My father hadn’t spoken a word, but his jaw was set so tight I thought he might crack a tooth. At a red light, he faced me. “I know it’s going to be hard, but you have to pretend this is any other normal day.”

I know what you’re thinking: this is the point where Amelia inserts a really snarky, inappropriate comment, like That’s what they said about 9/11, too, but I just didn’t have one in me. Instead, I found myself shaking so hard I had to slip my hands underneath my thighs. “I don’t know what normal is anymore,” I heard myself say, in the tiniest voice ever.

My father reached out and brushed my hair off my face. “When this is all over,” he said, “do you think you might like to live with me?”

Those words, they made my heart pump triple time. Someone wanted me; someone was choosing me. But I also sort of felt like throwing up. It was a nice fantasy, but if we were being totally realistic, what court would grant custody to a man who wasn’t even related to me by
blood? That meant I’d be stuck with my mother, who would know by then that she was my second choice. And besides, what about you? If I lived alone with Dad, maybe I’d finally get some attention, but I’d also be leaving you behind. Would you hate me for it?

When I didn’t answer and the light turned green, my father started driving again. “You can think about it,” he said, but I could tell he was a little bit hurt.

Five minutes later, we were at the circular driveway of my school. “Are the reporters going to follow me in?”

“They’re not allowed,” my father said.

“Well.” I pulled my backpack onto my lap. It weighed thirty-three pounds, which was a third of my body weight. I knew this for a fact because last week the school nurse had a scale set up where you could weigh your bag and yourself, since kids my age weren’t supposed to be hauling around bags that were too heavy. If you divided your backpack weight by your body weight and got more than 15 percent, you were going to wind up with scoliosis or rickets or hives or God knew what. Everyone’s pack had been too heavy, but that didn’t keep teachers from assigning the same amount of homework.