On Grace (13 page)

So I chuckle to myself when he brings home another bouquet of flowers for me tonight, something he’s done a few times since he sprung his news on me. It’s as if Darren is pulling out all the tools in his romance toolbox to fix our marriage. It’s sweet, and I do appreciate the efforts. But flowers do not a marriage mend. It’s going to take less-tangible things than that, like time, regaining trust, and my ability to move on. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s something I’m capable of doing.

That night at dinner, we play Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, a game where everyone has to go around and say his or her best and worst parts of the day.

“My thumbs up is that I scored two goals at recess, and my thumbs down is that Janie sat next to me at lunch and told me I was cute,” Henry says, scrunching up his nose in disgust.

“That’s so sweet,” I say. “She probably likes you.”

“I know,” says Henry with a self-assuredness I envy. “But she’s not one of my girlfriends.”

Suddenly I’m living with Hugh Hefner. “Okay, James, how about you?”

“My thumbs up is I don’t know, and my thumbs down is I don’t know,” James says, returning to his chicken nuggets.

“Come on, buddy. There’s got to be something,” Darren says encouragingly.

“Hmmm. Well, nonebody at school wanted to play tag at recess so that was my thumbs down, and my thumbs up is that we have chicken nuggets for dinner.”

“Excellent,” I say, not wanting to correct his “nonebody” because I think it’s so cute. I’ve never been one to correct my boys when they say words wrong, like how James says “inficial” for “official” and how Henry still says “the Eastern bunny.” I know they’ll grow out of it sooner or later, and it’s just my way of holding on to their babyhood. I do correct grammar, however. That I can’t help.

“Your turn, Dad,” says Mr. Hefner.

“Let’s see. My thumbs down is that a mean businessman decided not to do a deal with my company today, and my thumbs up is that I’m so happy I have such a wonderful family with such a pretty mommy and such great boys,” Darren says, smiling at each of us.

“Okay, Mom, your turn,” Henry says, looking at me.

“Well, my thumbs up is that I think my interview went really well today, and I’m very happy about that. And my thumbs down is, hmmm, can’t think of one.”
I can think of a big one, but I’m not going to share it.

The phone rings. The caller ID shows Cameron and Jack’s house number. Little do I realize, but I’m about to have my thumbs down.

“Hey, Cam,” I say cheerfully.

She’s barely able to say my name she’s crying so hard.

“Are you okay?” I ask, panicked.

Still more crying.

“I’ll be right there,” I say and hang up the phone. I explain to Darren and rush out of the house. Cameron is not one to make something out of nothing. I can only imagine it’s the baby.

Unfortunately, I’m right. When I get to Cameron’s house, Jack opens the door with a solemn look on his face and tells me she’s in the bedroom. I quickly walk upstairs and find her in bed, tears streaming down her face.

“What happened?” I ask, reaching for her hand.

“I lost the baby,” she manages to get out between sobs.

“Oh, Cameron. I’m so sorry.” I start to cry, too, and then I get into the bed with her, and we sit there for a while.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She takes a deep breath and starts to talk, “I had some dull abdominal pain this morning, but I just wrote it off as a stomach ache because we had Mexican last night. Then the pain got stronger, and I felt wetness in my underwear. I went to the bathroom and—” she starts to cry again.

“Did you go to the doctor?”

“Yes,” she says calmly. “The baby’s gone.” And then she starts crying heavily again.

Jack comes in the room, and I get up to hug him. “I’m so sorry, Jack,” I say.

“Thanks, Grace. I am, too.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Cameron says, angrily. “I really felt differently this time. I really thought this time I was going to be able to do it. What’s wrong with me?” Cameron sinks down under the covers and buries her face in her pillow. Suddenly, she darts up. “All I know is I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. And I can’t go back to that office and take care of all those babies.”

“Take some time off, Cam. Your covering doctor can pick up some of the load for a while.”

“I guess it’s just not meant to be,” Cameron says in a high voice, and she stares at Jack. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

He comes over to hug her, and I suddenly feel like I need to leave this very private situation to them. In fact, I realize I rushed over without really asking if she wanted me to. But that’s what Cameron and I do. I stay a little while more, consoling my best friend who just lost the second-most-important thing in her life.

Jack walks me out, and as we stand at the doorway saying our goodbyes, he says, “Grace, about Darren. He told me what’s going on. I’m really so sorry you guys are going through this.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It totally sucks, but we’re trying to make our way through.”

“I know it’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I wouldn’t forgive myself if I never shared this with you.” He hesitates and runs his hands through his hair.

“What, Jack?”

“Cameron knows this, so it’s no secret, but I was in a similar situation myself at a medical conference once. A woman was coming on to me pretty strongly. Luckily, I was just sober enough to stay away. But I see how it could happen, Grace. And I see it happen with colleagues all the time, guys who are crazy about their wives. So, I’m not trying to excuse what Darren did, I’m just trying to give you a different perspective from a guy. It never means anything, Grace. Just a weakness men have.”

“But you held back, Jack. You weren’t weak. Darren was.”

“I was just lucky, and as I said, just sober enough.”

I laugh bitterly and turn to leave.

“He’s a mess, Grace. I spoke to him today. Please just give him the chance to show you how sorry he is.”

“Thanks, Jack. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I feel like I’m standing on a stool in quicksand, and I’m petrified that someone’s going to take my stool away.”

“Hang in there, Grace.”

“Thanks, Jack. You, too,” I say and give him a hug.

When I get home, the boys are asleep and Darren is in bed, reading the newspaper and watching TV. I tell him what happened, and he is crushed. After I wash up, I walk down the upstairs hallway, which is lined with framed family photos, to make my nightly rounds. I go into Henry’s room first and find him asleep with a
Harry Potter
book open on his chest, his reading light still on. I close the book and turn off the light. He makes a sound and rolls over, and I cover him with his blanket and give him a kiss. Then I go into James’s room across the hall. My “baby” is asleep, covers completely off, hair matted to his forehead with sweat. I lie next to him and start to cry. Tears for the fierce love I have for these two boys, tears for the fear I have that my marriage might not make it, and tears for the intense pain I feel for my best friend.

The next day after I’ve gotten the boys off to school, bellies full with French toast and a strawberry-banana smoothie, I call Cameron to see if she wants to go for a walk.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

“Never better,” Cameron says sarcastically.

“Sorry, Cam,” I say, unsure for the first time in our friendship how to handle her. We’ve been through the highest highs, the lowest lows, and past miscarriages, but I sense we’re treading on new ground.

“No, I’m sorry, Grace. I’m just a mess. I couldn’t sleep last night. I had Marjorie cancel all my appointments today, which you know I’ve never done before. I think I’m going to have a hard time with this one.”

“You’re entitled to,” I say. “Do you want to go for a walk? Maybe the fresh air will feel good.”

“No, but thanks. I’m just going to hang out with my remote and Oprah all day. Jack went into the office, but he’s going to come home after lunch so he’ll be with me.”

“Can I bring you anything? Hamburger soup?” Cameron’s mother invented the recipe for this hearty and delicious soup—a panacea for all illnesses and emotional crises. Cameron introduced me to it in college when she made me a batch after I got a really (really) bad grade on an English exam. Now, we even have a dedicated hamburger soup pot—an orange Le Creuset—that we use. I think it’s at my house from the time this past spring when my dad had his most recent heart attack and Cameron brought me a batch.

“No, I’m not hungry. And I have some stuff in the fridge. But thanks, Grace. Thanks for being a good friend.”

We talk a bit more and then say goodbye. Although I want to suggest she go to the doctor and figure out her options, or maybe look into adoption, I know that Cameron will do that when
she’s
ready to.

While on a quick power walk around my neighborhood, I decide to approach this Darren cheating situation the way I’ve approached every other difficult or unfamiliar situation in my life. I will research the hell out of it. After a quick shower and a bowl of instant oatmeal, I head to the local bastion of data, Barnes & Noble at the City Center in White Plains. At the last minute, I opt for the Yonkers store, which is farther away, because I’ll be less likely to see anyone I know in the self-help aisle. All I need is to run into Lorna while I’m balancing an armload of
He Cheated, He Lied
-type books in the checkout line. There she’ll be with the latest Jodi Picoult, telling me about how erudite the discussions in her book club are while she glances down at the spines of the books I’m holding and later broadcasts it to everyone in carrier-pigeon distance that yes, indeed, Darren May cheated on his wife.

Before I had left the house, I searched Amazon for “infidelity” and got 1,692 results. When I narrowed that down to paperbacks in their health, mind & body section, there were 382 results. I’m hoping Barnes & Noble just shelves the most indispensable of the lot.

I walk into the store and smell the calming aroma of Starbucks. I decide to fortify myself for this uncomfortable mission. A tall, no-foam, extra-hot, vanilla latte in hand, I’m ready to face the music. I find the long self-help aisle—its length a true commentary on our society—and then the subsection of relationships. I’m a little surprised that there’s even a sub-subsection called infidelity. I feel like they should have a special back room for shameful subjects, like porn at the video store. They should issue special Barnes & Noble paper bags that you wear over your head with two holes cut out for eyes so no one can see your face as you scan titles on a subject that you are hesitant to even discuss with your mother, let alone advertise to anyone who just happens to walk into the store.

But no such luck at this Barnes & Noble. My dirty laundry is hanging out to dry in full view of anyone who feels like coming into the self-help aisle, where the petite blonde woman is about to burst into tears as she fingers book spines with names like
Infidelity: A Survival Guide
and
The Myth of Monogamy.
I’ve spent hours of my life in Barnes & Noble stores, but never in aisles like this. Sure, they know me in literature & fiction, I have loads of buddies in children’s & parenting, and I’ve even been spotted a few times in diet & health and home & garden. But the self-help aisle is a bit foreign to me, and if it weren’t for The Bandit, I would still be a self-help virgin to this day.

I take a deep breath, a sip of my scalding coffee, and hunker down. I pass over the books that look scholarly and opt instead for the ones that look like they’re designed for people who want to have a little fun while they’re analyzing the possible disintegration of their marriage. The covers show couples who look like they’re done with the tears and they’ve come to some harmonious resolution, when in reality, he gets off the hook for sleeping around, and she just ends up paying a therapist to deal with her shame and a personal trainer to deal with her muffin top.

I alternate crying, drinking, and leafing through books as a small pile collects near my feet.

“Hi,” a woman with a Southern accent says.

“Oh, hi,” I say to the familiar-looking woman I didn’t even notice make her way down my aisle. I try to blink away the tears, and I tell her that some dust from the books must have gotten into my eyes.

“I’m Ainsley Covington, we met at the Midland School orientation?”

“Right, hi. Grace May. How does your little guy like kindergarten?”

“Yes, Grace. So nice to see you again,” she sounds so genuine. “Cody’s really happy, thanks for asking. And my daughter, Hutton, is in second grade. So far, they’re both adjusting really well. How is your son doing?”

“James loves it so far. And my third grader, Henry, is doing great, too. You’re new to the school, aren’t you?” I ask, switching my weight from heel to heel nervously, hoping she doesn’t notice
Love Affairs: Marriage and Infidelity,
which is basically right in front of her face. Unfortunately, because I have my coffee in my other hand, I can’t inconspicuously make my reading selection less obvious. I pray she minds her Southern manners and doesn’t look.

Ainsley tells me she moved to Rye from Dallas during the summer because she recently got remarried and her new husband was transferred to New York.

“So, here I am,” she says with a happy trill. Ainsley is statuesque and pretty in that beauty-queen-from-the-South kind of way. She has honest-looking brown eyes and thick brown hair she wears to her shoulders. And, being from the South (this is a stereotype that most Southern women I’ve met who move up North fulfill), she’s dressed to the nines with a fully made-up face and a substantial handbag that matches her expensive-looking, cognac leather pumps. Either Ainsley Covington has a wandering eye or her curiosity is too strong, because the next thing I know, she’s looking at the book I’m holding and glancing down at the little book hill I’ve started to erect. I see her register the situation, as I start to cry anew.

“Oh, honey,” she says consolingly, wrapping me up in a bear hug as I try not to spill my latte on her camel cashmere sweater.