Keep Me Posted (25 page)

When Sid finally came out of the bedroom, I was pacing. She looked like she had fallen asleep in there and didn’t have plans for remaining awake much longer.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

When I told her what I’d done, her eyes went wide.

“Should I take it down?” I asked her imploringly, showing her the page open on my computer.

Blinking, she considered this, and in a groggy voice said, “Give him a chance to read it. It’s kind of awesome and romantic.”

I liked that thought, and I had convinced myself that it was necessary—desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

Sid and I sat together on the same little desk chair and watched in amazement as more comments rolled in, my mood brightening
considerably, thanks to the mostly supportive remarks. I half expected to see a reciprocal comment appear from Leo himself.

Ten minutes later we were still sitting there in silence, staring at the screen. In the quiet, after the freaking out stopped, two realizations set in. One was that this public letter to Leo wasn’t going to be the thing that won him back. The second was that something awesome was happening nonetheless. Goose bumps appeared on my arms as it came to me: These people
knew
me. That I never invited them in suddenly didn’t matter. They were in, and they were rooting for me. I stopped feeling violated and started feeling validated. I had witnesses to my pain and my growth, and that was a powerful feeling. The vulnerability increased, yes, but as it did, a great love and acceptance welled up from deep inside of me. After what I’d been through, to find anything other than misery and embarrassment in a blog’s comments section—a place most people rightfully think of as the Internet’s seedy underbelly—was a shock. It was disorienting, this sensation of entering a physical place of peace, like stumbling onto a magnificent church in the middle of a war zone. And I was a sinner ready to join the saved. I could have climbed onto its altar and cried,
Here I am. I’m flawed and ugly and beautiful, too, but I’m doing my best and I will be okay.
I wanted to be sure Sid was feeling it, too, but I didn’t know how to explain it to her without sounding completely nuts, so I poured us each another glass and said, “You know, I think our people here deserve to know you left Adrian.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Come on. I did it!”

“You’re drunk.”

“A little bit.”

She looked at me skeptically while I stared back at her with the
slightly crazy, glassy gaze of a zealot. With a look more mischievous than anything else, she took out her phone and e-mailed me the photo of the letter.

“I never even gave this to him, you know. I only wrote it in case he didn’t come home before we left.”

Adrian,

You shouldn’t find it a surprise that Lulu and River and I have left. We’ll stay with Cassie and I’ll be in touch. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to say goodbye to the kids. You are, of course, welcome to visit them anytime, but as you know, I can’t stay in Singapore, and our marriage is over anyway. I assume you can transfer back to the Columbus office if you want to be closer to us.

Thank you for Lulu, who is a beautiful, beautiful gift. She is part you, so I could never hate you. I still have love for you and respect the way you faced the music when everything happened. But please know there is no chance of us getting back together. I wish you peace.

Love,

Sid

I posted that, and within an hour, we had fifty-some comments. The most amusing ones included marriage proposals to Sid, offers to “mess up” Adrian, you-go-girl notes, how-dare-you-take-a-man’s-child-away comments, a handful of sob stories, and all kinds of advice. I watched her, to see if she would have the same reaction that I did. To my surprise, she started writing back to a
few of the commenters, something I couldn’t bring myself to do. We stayed up until two a.m., drinking wine and reading and responding to comments.

At one point we searched Twitter and discovered that
#SlowNews
was trending. It wasn’t so much about our blog, though; people were snapping shots of their own handwritten letters and tagging them as
#SlowNews
.

The next day, despite four hours of sleep plus jet lag and a vague hangover, I had an idea. It had been stewing for a while—this notion that I should make lemonade out of the extraordinary lemon that was the
Slow News Sisters
. And in some ways I already had, but I wanted to pass along the gift I’d received. To widen the circle, so to speak. In many of the comments, I sensed a yearning to share. People poured out little pieces of their hearts under the guise of offering me advice or support or even criticism, but really they just wanted to be heard, to be seen. Other commenters wrote about how much they loved handwritten letters—the “art form,” so many called it, and then, of course, the whole
Slow News
hashtag really got me thinking.

I walked to the dreaded post office on Varick Street, remembering to bring two forms of ID and two proofs of address, and signed up for a PO box. Back at home I deleted the letter to Leo and, with Sid’s permission, hers to Adrian.

I put up a new post, explaining that we were turning the blog over: Anyone who wanted to say they were sorry could do it here. I couldn’t guarantee clemency, but I could promise a safe space for admitting mistakes and asking forgiveness. At the very least, it could provide a few virtual nods of encouragement. To a person in deep trouble, that’s an attractive offer. What I didn’t admit was I had an inkling that if this became a thing, the biggest beneficiary
of all would be me. It hardly seemed fair that this could be the case, but perhaps my punishment was complete.

While I was sitting at the computer, I received a text from Leo:
Thx for the letter. Take it down now, okay?

Already did,
I texted him back. Posting the letter had served an important purpose, if not the one I’d originally had in mind. Now it was time to officially close that public chapter of my life and do some making up—and growing up—outside the spotlight. I had no way of knowing whether Leo read the responses and how he felt if he had. But it didn’t matter, because his experience with this whole thing was his own. Whether or not to forgive me was his choice alone, and I didn’t want him to feel ganged up on. Those comments were for me, and they would hold me up, whispering in my ear that I could do it, while I went about the business of rebuilding my family.

O
n Friday we pulled up to the Westchester house in our rented minivan. It was a big refurbished barn with an attached silo sitting on a piece of land at least as big as Bleecker and Leroy Street playgrounds put together, and the boys immediately went nuts. River stayed outside with them while Sid and I found the key under the mat and unloaded the car.

The entry looked down onto a sunken living room with a fireplace and huge windows showing off the woods behind the house. It was even better than in the pictures Jill had sent. We plunked our bags down and walked through the open dining area to our right, which led to a big warm kitchen, where a cluster of copper pots hung from a rack over a cooking island. The kitchen led back to the living room. Although everything was open and bright, the wall of trees encircling the property gave the house a cozy and enclosed feeling. Immediately glad we’d decided to rent the house for the entire week, I looked forward to settling in.

The silo was actually a separate house with its own entrance. It had a circular living room, bathroom, kitchenette, and two bedrooms, all stacked atop one another. River was taken with it immediately, so Sid and Lulu took one bedroom while he took the other, which the boys were delighted to discover was accessible via a “secret” tunnel on the second-story landing of the main house.

We explored the house and woods, then all had dinner together. Once bedtime for the kids was done and River was in his room, Sid and I dumped a big bag of mail out on the living room floor and lost ourselves in other people’s problems. In the four days since I’d posted the invitation to send letters in for the blog, I’d received close to three hundred responses.

Some of the apologies made us laugh, a few made us cry, and several made us cringe with discomfort. I’d heard Sid gasp, groan, and giggle through the letters, and she, me. We decided to curate them after reading a few we suspected to be rejected
Penthouse
submissions, describing adulterous trysts in graphic detail.

Sighing, I added to the to-scan pile one from a seventeen-year-old who’d cheated on his true love when he went on a college visit. When I glanced at Sid, she was sitting up straight and gripping a letter with both hands. She didn’t appear to be breathing.

“Got yourself a good one there?” I said.

She didn’t answer, and in fact didn’t even seem to hear me. I kept watching her, and when she finally folded the paper back up, she said quietly, “It’s from Kenny.”

“Who’s Kenny?” I said.

She said nothing but looked at me, waiting for it to sink in.

“Oh my God,
Kenny
.”

“Yep.” She nodded in slow motion.

“Holy shit. What does he say?”

She handed me the letter and lay on the ground in what I now know as corpse pose.

Dear Sid,

I bet you never thought you’d hear from me again. This is an apology. I am sorry for so many things. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, and about our child. I thought about calling you so many times, but the years slipped by and now here we are. You might want to throw this letter away, and I wouldn’t blame you. You may have heard, but in case you’re curious about me, I toured for the next year and then right around the time Jerry died, I spent seven months in jail after getting busted with just the wrong amount of LSD, and then six years working as a bison observer, counting and charting alone in the woods in Wyoming. I found great comfort in silence, and I studied meditation at a center in Montana. I married a nice woman I met at a silent retreat and we have a ten-year-old daughter named Robin. We divorced four years ago and she moved to New York with her new husband, so I moved out there to be closer to Robin. I’ve been writing music for a long time, and I run the occasional retreat at a meditation center in the Catskills.

Some famous singers recorded a few of my songs, and I’ve been able to make a living that way. You may have heard some—you know that song on the Subaru commercial where
the family is driving through the woods at night? It’s about you, actually. I’ve thought about you every day. I don’t know why I ran away; I think it had something to do with how terrible a dad my father was. He died this year, and I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else but you and our son (I ran into Kelly Krieger at a show a year after I split and she told me you had a boy). I should have been there for you. I’m sure you have been an awesome mom, and maybe he has someone he knows as Dad—I don’t know—but I would love to meet him. I understand if you can’t allow that. I have a college fund for him that I’d like to give you. He doesn’t need to know where it came from if you don’t want him to.

My ex-wife told me about this blog and said that the women in it had the same names as you and your sister (yes, my ex knows all about you), but when I finally went to check it out, I saw this open call for apologies, and so I took it as a sign that I should write this and hope it finds you. I’m sorry for any hard times you’ve had that I might have helped with. I wish I had done things differently.

With love,

Kenny Fisher

The next day I asked Sid if she wanted me to post the letter.

“I don’t know. We’d have to ask River,” she said.

“Good point. So what did he say about the news?”

“He’s intrigued. It’s hard to say, really. He said he’d meet him. Kenny’s coming here on Sunday.”

She showed me the e-mail she sent him, which, like Kenny’s letter, never did end up on the blog.

Kenny,

You’re right. I never thought I’d hear from you. It was hard not to Google you over the years, but I didn’t let myself do that. I let go of any anger I had toward you a long time ago. As it turns out, I’m good at forgiveness.

River is amazing. You really missed out, and I think that’s punishment enough for a less-than-mature reaction to a big surprise many years ago. It sounds like you spent a lot of years searching and drifting. I feel sad about that, because I think knowing River might have saved you a lot of trouble. Being his mom has brought purpose and great love into my life. He is a kind and mature and open-minded young man, so maybe I did all right all by myself after all. Of course, Mom and Dad and Joe and Margie were incredible partners in raising him, so he and I are both fortunate that way.

I spoke to him about it and he said he’d meet you. And—surprise—we’re renting a house not too far from where you live. There’s a lovely hiking trail right out back, and I’ve always been big on walking when you need to have a difficult conversation. Don’t feel the need to explain things to him unless he asks you to. Just take it slow. You have my blessing to enter River’s life, but I don’t presume to make decisions for him—and River knows that I’ll support whatever kind of relationship (or non-relationship) he chooses to have with you.

—Sid

I spent Sunday morning working on the blog, and by lunchtime I’d scanned and uploaded sixty-some letters, none of them having anything to do with me. Good news for Leo and me, but many of my readers posted that they were disappointed that my correspondence with Sid would no longer be part of the site. Still, most people were supportive of the new direction, and new commenters were chiming in all the time, with seemingly no connection to the old blog. A handful of meanies forced me to post some rules, and I even banned a couple particularly nasty posters. It had consumed almost all of my time for the past three days, a welcome distraction from my own marital woes.

Kenny showed up right on time, at three o’clock. Sid noticed his car pulling up and went outside to meet him while River and I watched from the window.

“So that’s him?” he said.

“That’s him.”

“Do you think I look like him?”

“Yeah—I’ve always thought so.”

“It’s weird that you know my dad and I don’t.”

“It is weird,” was all I could think of to say.

We watched Sid and Kenny hug for a long time. It was a sober hug, like one you’d give a close friend at a funeral. Then they talked for a moment and Sid led Kenny up to the house.

“Ready?” I asked River.

“I guess so,” he said.

Kenny’s bigness filled the room immediately. He was slimmer, his face more angular, but his blue eyes were just as bright as I
remembered. He seemed taller, and his thick, coarse hair had remained completely white, if a duller gray version of the yellowish mane he’d had when I knew him. There was something natty and put together about his casual outfit—blue corduroys with the wales going horizontally, a beat-up brown leather belt, and a plain white T-shirt. As he and Sid stood there beside each other, their energy and warmth compounded and added a charge to the air.

With a big soulful smile, he said in his gravelly voice, “Hi, River.”

“Hi,” River said.

“I’m Kenny. I’m your dad.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding his head and looking at his shoes.

A lump formed in my throat, and I looked over at Sid, whose eyes glistened.

“Riv, do you want to show Kenny the trails out back?” she said.

“Okay. Sure.” River glanced at Kenny and said, “Uh. Follow me.”

It was the first time I was ever aware of his teenagerness, and I felt a strong urge to go hug him, but I just stood there.

Kenny turned, beaming to Sid on his way out, his gratitude palpable. I felt myself being swept up in a tide of love and family togetherness, forgetting for a moment that my own little family wasn’t doing so great. Sid and I stood in the front room and watched through the windows as Kenny and River walked out on the porch and turned toward the trails. Watching them go, I had an irrational internal alarm go off that Sid had just sent her son into the
woods with a former drug dealer and inmate whom we really didn’t know that much about. I looked over at her, wondering what she was thinking, but not wanting to puncture the silence with the wrong thing. We stood there even though there was nothing to see until a car appeared, turning in and pulling slowly up the gravel drive.

“Looks like Stevie’s car,” I said. When it stopped and Leo stepped out, I felt my heart growing and straining against its little shell like the Grinch’s does when he finally grasps the real meaning of Christmas.

Sid kissed me on the cheek and said, “I’ll go see how the boys are doing with those Legos.”

I walked out to the front porch and waved hello to Leo.

“Hey, Cass,” he said.

“Hi, honey. I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Where are the boys?” he asked.

“Playing Legos with Sid upstairs. They are going to be so happy to see you.”

“Me too—I miss them.”

“We all miss you.”

“So I thought I’d stay here tonight,” he said.

I immediately felt lighter. “Great. Listen, I’m not assuming anything, but I would really love to hug you right now,” I said.

He opened his arms, and I went to him, turning my face sideways to rest against his chest. He smelled like different laundry detergent and Altoids. I wondered if he’d been smoking again. When he stroked my hair with one hand, I thought,
Okay. Everything
is
going to be okay.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked him.

“I don’t think so,” he said, releasing me. But then he started
talking anyway. “I really don’t want to read your letters, Cass. So don’t ask me about that again, okay?”

I nodded.

He continued. “But I fucking hate it that a million other people have read them. If you were having such a hard time, you should have talked to me about it. Not cheated with your ex. God, Cass, I fucking hate that you did that.”

When someone uses the term “fucking hate” twice in ten seconds, it’s not generally a good sign. Without speaking, I tried to convey with my eyes how much I agreed with everything he was saying.

He was looking over my head at the house now.

“Do you want to go in?” I asked.

We walked up the stairs in silence, but once we were inside, the tension began to fade and we both behaved seminormally.

“Cool place,” Leo said.

“Isn’t it great? The boys are loving all the hiding places.”

“They’re upstairs?” he asked, motioning to the staircase.