Keep Me Posted (24 page)

“You’re sure you aren’t mad? I think I’d be a little mad.” I was trying to comprehend the gulf between hers and Leo’s reactions. True, Leo had the kicker of minor adultery to contend with, but those were her letters, her private thoughts, and I’d shown them to the world.

“You’re all I’ve got right now. I can’t afford to be mad at you.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

She shrugged and turned back to her suitcase, withdrawing a small pile of clothes before zipping the case back up and hoisting it back to the top of the pile. Then she got Lulu a sippy cup of milk and plopped on the sofa. “Do you want to talk about Leo, or do you need to sleep?” she asked.

I sat on the opposite end of the couch, turning my whole body to face her.

“No. I don’t want to sleep yet. I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“Oh, Cass. He’s just gone because we’re here. He’s not
gone-gone
.”

“I mean, maybe that’s part of it, but he’s pissed. He’s never left just because my family is here. He loves packing this place with people, and he loves you guys. He’d sleep on the floor—he doesn’t care.”

“Well, he’s allowed to be mad. Give him a little time. You’re just going to have to wait and see what he decides to do,” she said.

“That seems a little passive,” I said.

It occurred to me then that Sid had probably always been too passive. All her life, she’s been presented with an endless stream of opportunities: People are constantly wanting to take her places or introduce her to people. As a side effect, she was never selective enough with her boyfriends. Being the kind of person who sees the good in everyone combined with a weakness for romantic gestures meant that she usually ended up with the guy who made the strongest play. Had she ever fought for anyone? Would she even know how? She’d always been larger than life, mythical and perfect to me, even as an adult. I’d chalked up her romantic hardships to bad luck. But could it be that I was better at relationships? This revelation—while immature and competitive—steeled my resolve to save my marriage. Not the noblest of motivators, perhaps, but I would take all the help I could get.

Lulu came over and handed Sid a book. We rearranged ourselves on the couch to make room for Lu, who sat on my lap as Sid read
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
When she finished the book, Sid said, “All right, let’s get you ready for bed.”

“No bed!” came Lulu’s reply. To her credit, it was about ten in the morning in Singapore and she had napped until dinnertime. I didn’t see her going to sleep anytime soon, although Sid looked exhausted.

“Maybe a bath first.” Sid scooped her up and carried her off to the bathroom.

Now all alone and midway through my second screwdriver, I was feeling helpless and frustrated about the Leo situation, but also buzzy from the globe-trotting and booze and sisterly forgiveness.

I texted Leo,
Make it to Stevie’s?

Instead of staring at my phone, hoping for a response, I opened the rejected letter. There was no sign that he’d read it, so I sat at my tiny hallway desk right outside of the bathroom listening to Sid and Lulu sing “I’m a Little Teapot,” and scanned it in. If he didn’t respond to my text or become open to contact by tomorrow, I’d e-mail it to him.

I did a “Slow News Sisters” search and skimmed the articles and message boards. Nothing much new, but still a disconcerting amount of chatter and speculation.

Sid and Lulu came out of the bathroom, and I quickly switched to the
New York Times
, so Sid wouldn’t see what I was looking at. I kissed them both good night and stayed at the computer, skimming the headlines. In an effort to gain a modicum of perspective, I forced myself to read an article about sex trafficking and one about a couple of firefighters in Minnesota who died on their very first call. It was heartrending. They were kids—twenty-two and twenty-three years old. One of them was engaged to be married and the other had recently lost his father to cancer. I pushed all of my selfish interests out of my head for a minute and tried to imagine what their families must be feeling.

The buzz from my phone made me stop breathing for a second as my mind lurched back into my own particular mess. The phone was on the kitchen counter, only about four steps away, but as I strode across the room, I processed a dozen or so thoughts, from best to worst possible responses, while also telling myself to just calm down because it might not even be from him.

It was from Leo.
Y
(for “yes”) was all it said. So he had made it to Stevie’s. Accepting the one-letter response as progress, I drained my screwdriver and went to sleep on the couch.

Leo texted me again the next morning to say he’d stop by to visit the boys after work and before going to Stevie’s, a routine he kept up for the next few days. He would come in and wrestle with the boys and play dinosaurs while I tried to interact at an appropriate level for someone being punished. After a while, he’d take them and River for pie at the Hudson and then bring them home, keeping his interactions with me purely perfunctory. In fact, he barely looked at me when he came and went. I’d been telling myself his absence was due to our overfull house, but I knew in my heart that was merely an excuse for him to avoid me. I had twice convinced Sid to stay a few days longer, fearing the hard truth I’d have to face if her exit didn’t immediately lead to his homecoming.

Before long, the cold shoulder started to wear on me, and I half seriously thought about having Sid pass him a note with “Yes” and “No” check boxes, junior-high style.
Are you open to reconciliation? Will you come home? Are we getting divorced? Do you still love me?

One morning three days into Leo’s absence, Sid and I leaned against the windowsill in the children’s room of the Hudson Park Library while Lulu and the twins played with the little slide, rocking horse, and assorted cast-off toys donated by neighbors.

“Mom keeps sending me listings for houses in their neighborhood,” she said.

“So you’re really going back to Ohio?”

“Well, yeah. Where else am I going to go?”

“Stay here!” I couldn’t believe that anyone who’d spent time in New York wouldn’t do everything they could to stay.

“Cass, oh my gosh, we have way overstayed our welcome. Your poor little apartment is bursting at the seams.”

“You have not. I love having you here. I mean, don’t get me wrong—an extra bedroom or two would make it a whole lot easier, but you can stay as long as you want.”

“Thanks, hon. That’s sweet. But we need to get going—and pretty soon. I’m looking forward to getting back. I’ve missed working.”

“Couldn’t you work here? Midwives and home births are all the rage—you’d probably be delivering celebrity babies over on Charles Street in no time.”

“I’m just not a city girl, Cass. I move at a totally different pace than you do.”

“I guess.”

“Plus, if we leave, then Leo can come back.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Oh, honey,” she said, squeezing my arm. “This is hard. I know.”

My phone buzzed. It was a rare message from Leo. He had some free time in an hour and wanted to see the boys. Could we meet him at Bleecker Playground?

Sure
, I responded, resigned to my role as social secretary.

We went to the park a bit early so the kids could eat their snack—rice cakes and grapes—before Leo arrived. I wanted the boys to be at their best each time they saw Leo that week, so I always made sure their hands were clean, their noses were wiped, and they weren’t hungry—hoping that their adorableness would outshine my failings and lure him home.

When he arrived, the boys both wanted to swing, so Leo and I stood beside each other pushing in silence. After an awkward minute, I told him about the plan Sid and I had set in motion the day
before. “Hey, we were thinking about getting out of the city this weekend.”

“Cool,” he said.

“Yeah, the walls are kind of closing in on us at home. Sid’s luggage alone is taking up half of the living room. She’s headed back to Ohio next week, so we thought it would be a fun thing to do before she goes.”

“Sounds good. You guys should go,” he answered.

“Well, I was thinking we could
all
go.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He was being so aloof, and while part of me understood that he needed time to process or heal or think or whatever, most of me wanted to burst into tears and hash it all out right then and there. Instead, we continued pushing in silence until it was time for him to get back to work. He said his goodbyes—extra warm for the boys, cool for me—and headed off.

That night after the kids were in bed, Sid and I ate a late pasta dinner and drank a bottle of red wine. Just as we sat down, my phone buzzed with good news from Jill, the broker I’d been e-mailing with for months about homes in Westchester County. I told her I needed a better feel for the area, and asked if she knew of anyone who would rent us their house for the weekend.

While we ate, Sid asked me about seeing Leo earlier, and in retelling it, my impatience and frustration with his inaccessibility grew stronger.

“What about that letter? Did you ever e-mail it to him?”

“No. I was sort of waiting for a glimmer of hope.”

Lulu woke up crying then, and Sid went into the bedroom to comfort her. I sat and finished my wine, thinking about the letter. I needed to get it to him, I’d decided, but the energy between us
was so stiff and formal that it became a nerve-racking decision, almost like confessing to a work colleague that you were in love with him.

I opened another bottle of wine and poured myself a glass, wishing Sid would reappear to cheer me on. As I sipped and waited, I began to feel less vulnerable and more agitated.

I took the bottle to the hallway desk and found the scanned letter I’d saved on my laptop.
Be bold
, I coached myself. And then, perhaps going a little too bold, I did something I’d thought about once or twice but quickly dismissed as too risky, too foolish: I uploaded the letter to the blog, made it public again, and sent Leo an urgent e-mail with the link. To be safe, I sent him a text that said,
Check your e-mail. Thx.

I got up from the desk, feeling a bit shaky, and stood in the middle of the living room and finished my wine.

Dear Leo,

I’m sorry about so many things.

First, I deeply regret betraying you. Please know that kissing Jake wasn’t about him or me having feelings for him. It was about me being a ridiculous, needy mess. And—while I arguably still am—I know that with you by my side, I’ll come out of it.

I can see now that I’ve been in a downward spiral since I lost my job, and to a lesser extent since I had the boys. Being a mom to these two wild, amazing, beautiful creatures is hard work—and when I started doing it full-time, I was surprised (and embarrassed, to be honest) at just how unsuited I felt for the job.

I wasted so much time and energy being aggravated that my prekids marriage, lifestyle, body, career . . . all of it . . . was just gone. The irony is that I thought I wanted a change; what I didn’t realize was everything had changed, yet there I was, trying like mad to cram my fatter, messier, truly altered self into my old life. Like an idiot fish, I was swimming upstream, fighting the natural current of life.

No wonder I was always exhausted and cranky. What I should have been doing was growing with you into a life that makes sense for who I’ve become—and am still becoming. (It’s clear to me now that you’ve been doing this gracefully all along.)

God, what a loser I’ve been . . . Don’t you worry though. Your wife’s glory days are not behind her! I feel a second act coming on. If you’ll give me the chance to build a loving, grown-up marriage with you, I can promise you that I will come out of this a better wife, a stronger mom, a wiser soul.

Also, I think maybe I got my midlife crisis out of the way a bit early. So there’s that.

Please forgive me.

Your loving wife,

Cassie

Posting that letter was hard, and not just because I knew other people would read it and that it might backfire, but also because I wasn’t sure I was saying the best things in order to win him back. I worried it was too much about me and wondered if I should have made it more of a love letter. But I wasn’t firing on all
cylinders when I wrote it, and I didn’t want to wait until I was, because who knew when that might be?

Within thirty minutes, I had four comments, including: “Good luck, Cassie! Xoxo”; “Don’t believe her, Leo. She only cares about herself. She obviously just doesn’t want to be a single mom”; “You have a beautiful soul, and you deserve happiness. Everyone makes mistakes. If he is smart, Leo will forgive you”; and “Cassie, have you tried asking the Lord for help? See my blog
jesussaves
for helpful tips.”

I was so spooked by the responses that I deleted all of the letters except mine to Leo. I nearly deleted that, too, but in my panicked (and slightly inebriated) state, I had convinced myself to at least try to achieve salvation through the thing that had brought me so much grief. I had even begun to wonder if the blog was what had alerted the authorities to Sid’s bank operation. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this blog owed me something.
Give me back my marriage, stupid!
I wanted to yell at the computer.