The Objects of Her Affection (24 page)

9.
I’ve been reading “
Mary
Poppins
”
to Lucy. We’re about halfway through it; she can summarize the first part for you.

10.
Sometimes, right after their bath, when they’re shivering in their pajamas, we pile into Lucy’s bed together and get warm under the blankets. Sometimes we’ll pretend the blanket is an igloo, and we’re Eskimos trying to stay warm during a blizzard. We’ll give each other Eskimo kisses and wrap ourselves in pretend seal fur, although Lucy prefers if we use pretend faux fur. Sometimes Elliot will pretend he’s a penguin, which is very cute.

11.
I realize this is all my fault, and I understand why you hate me. And I know it’s a huge burden for you to be on your own with the kids now. When you said, “I don’t even know who you are, and I can’t let my kids be raised by a stranger,” well, that makes total sense. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been completely sure who I am since the kids were born. It’s simultaneously the most defining and most alienating experience I’ve ever had.

12.
This list was supposed to be more helpful. Sorry.

Sophie shyly handed the notebook to Brian when he came to get the kids after their next visit. “It’s just some stuff I haven’t had time to explain,” she said. Brian absently stuck it into his laptop bag, and she wondered if he would actually read it. But when he brought the kids by a few days later, he handed the notebook back. His handwriting—small but messy—filled the page after Sophie’s list.

1.
Elliot pooped in the potty twice this week, and once in his pants.

2.
Lucy got in trouble at day care for hitting some kid. She said he deserved it. We had a talk.

3.
Lucy hit Elliot, right in front of me. I don’t even know why. He was just sitting there. We had another talk.

4.
Lucy hit me when I said she couldn’t stay home from day care. We were late, so we couldn’t have a talk, but anyway I’m not sure the talks are working.

5.
I need to get the zoo membership card from you.

6.
Keith called. What did you say to Amy?

7.
Lucy wants to have a Dora-themed party at the Smith Playhouse. I called and booked it for the 27th at 2:00.

8.
I have a two-day ride this weekend so I was wondering if you could come home and stay with the kids. If not, that’s fine; I don’t need to go on the ride.

9.
The kids won’t let me read “
Mary
Poppins”
to them because they say I read it wrong.

10.
I’m thinking about moving their bedtime up because they don’t nap at day care, and they’re totally exhausted by the end of the day.

11.
It’s not a burden for me to have the kids, I like spending time with them. And believe it or not, I do know what I’m doing.

Sophie came home for the weekend so Brian could go on his ride. Entering the house as a visitor felt odd. It smelled different; not bad, necessarily, just not familiar: a combination of rubber, fabric softener, and toast. She busied herself putting away some CDs that had been left on the coffee table and putting the armchairs back at right angles with the rug.

“Look, Mommy. I can tie my shoes,” Lucy said, untying them so she could demonstrate. “Watch.” Her chubby fingers worked the laces slowly, struggling to keep a loop pinched between the fingers of each hand and then to tie the loops in a knot. One hand was always losing its grip on one of the loops, though, so she had to keep starting over.

“That’s the hard way, honey,” Sophie said, reaching for the laces. “Just make one loop, like this, then wrap the string around and push it through.”

“That’s not how Daddy does it.”

“I know, but it’s easier. Here, try it.”

“No.” Lucy yanked her foot away from Sophie’s hands and started over with the double loops. “I can do it. Watch.”

Sophie watched for a while, clenching her hands to stop herself from grabbing the laces. But every time Lucy fumbled, her fingers became more frantic, and her face turned a deeper shade of scarlet, until finally Sophie said, “Why don’t I hold that loop,” which caused Lucy to rip off her shoe, throw it across the room, and scream,

“NOOOOO! I can do it when Daddy’s here!”

Sophie stood up and went into the kitchen, where she stood for a moment, hands flat against her belly, taking deep breaths through her nose. It has to get worse before it gets better, she reminded herself. But just how much worse could it get? She noticed that Brian had hung up an old dish towel she had long ago consigned to the rag pile. She shook her head and replaced it with a clean one, then opened the fridge. Fluorescent colors blared from the shelves. She picked up a “yogurt on the go” package and read the ingredients, then tossed it into the trash. She studied a package of lunch meat. Nitrates
and
nitrites. She threw it away, along with a bottle of juice cocktail, a jar of maraschino cherries, and an assortment of individually packaged puddings. She slammed the refrigerator door and went upstairs.

She surveyed the kids’ rooms with a prick of disappointment. The house was actually neat; the kids’ bedding was clean. She peeked into Elliot’s dresser. His clothes were folded, but completely mixed up: socks and underwear in the same drawer as T-shirts, pants sandwiched between sweatshirts and pajamas. How could anyone find anything? She pulled out all the clothes and began sorting them properly, feeling her thoughts slow down as she worked. Some of the pants were definitely too small. She made a pile to go to Goodwill, and made a mental note to get some more next time she was at Target.

Upstairs, their own bedroom—Brian’s bedroom—was also clean. The bed had been stripped; a pile of clean sheets sat folded at the foot of the mattress, polite and cruel. Sophie sat on the edge of the bed and held the square stack in her lap. The sheets smelled like chemical sunshine and baby powder. She set them aside and lay down, her cheek against the mattress, and breathed in all that she could find of Brian, and herself, and their tangled togetherness. It was ghostly but still recognizable, like an old photograph bleached by the sun. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she and Brian had woken up together in this ginkgo-dappled room, the morning before she called Agent Chandler, before she made her rambling confessions and packed her bags. But those final, innocent hours were a blur. She hadn’t thought to savor the last moments of being loved, to memorize their texture and shape. She ran her hands over the mattress, and then she let go, allowing all her fear and regret and embarrassment and grief to pour down the satiny mounds and puddle in the mattress’s tufted depths.

After a while she got up, dried her cheeks, and opened the windows. The air was just beginning to crisp; the ginkgo leaves had taken on a faint golden cast. Sophie stood at the window for a moment, tasting the breeze, then went downstairs and pulled the discarded food out of the kitchen trash. She washed off the packages, dried them, and arranged them on the refrigerator shelves. Then she collapsed on the couch with Lucy and Elliot, who crawled into the spaces under her arms.

***

That night, after putting the kids to bed, Sophie poured herself a glass of wine and pulled out the composition notebook.

1.
Elliot needs bigger pants; I’ll pick some up at Target.

2.
I think the earlier bedtime is a good idea.

3.
I tried to read “
Charlotte’s Web”
to them tonight, but they wouldn’t let me because they said you do it better.

4.
I got a big freelance job from one of my old clients. Three months on retainer. Yay.

5.
The house looks great. You’re obviously doing fine without me.

6.
I know my biggest mistake was not coming to you when I first realized we were in trouble. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just felt responsible, and embarrassed, and I thought I could handle everything. It has been pointed out to me that I am a control freak.

7.
I also realize that on some level, I created the problems between us, or aggravated them, to justify what I was doing. You didn’t stand a chance.

8.
I’m sure the museum will realize you had nothing to do with any of this. They have to.

9.
I’m just so sorry.

10.
I miss you.

11.
Phone call.

Brian’s response came the following Friday.

1.
Thanks for getting Elliot pants.

2.
The museum would feel a lot better about things if they could get their stuff back.

***

The trial was fast approaching, and Sophie managed her nervousness by plunging into work. A large hospital was reorganizing its website: an unruly collection of mismatched pages and microsites administered by marketing managers scattered throughout the organization’s network. The agency had asked for her exclusive availability during the next three months so that she could respond to changes and join conference calls at a moment’s notice. The job fit her suddenly empty schedule perfectly. Carly was working on-site at another agency, so she let Sophie use her home equipment—a setup as luxurious as anything else in the condo, with four high-res monitors, Mac and PC towers, an assortment of laptops, and an external hard drive array. In the evenings, after dinner, Carly would help her puzzle through awkward stretches of code, and the two of them would work late into the night, drinking wine and talking in the blue and green glow of the machines.

“I guess I should start looking at apartments,” said Sophie late one night, saving her files and shutting down the computer.

“Did Brian say that?” Carly was sitting on the love seat in the office, a laptop on her bony knees.

“No. But he’s not showing any signs of wanting to fix things. For all I know, he’s planning to stay mad at me forever. You can’t blame him, really.”

“Well…” Carly typed a few more words, then snapped her laptop shut. “He has a lot to be mad about. But I wouldn’t go signing a lease any time soon.”

“I can’t stay here forever.”

“Just give it a little while longer.”

“And do what in the meantime?”

“What you’re doing. Work.”

“But what about Brian? What should I do? Should I suggest couples therapy? I thought maybe I could go to a few appointments first, check it out—”

Carly threw a throw pillow at her. “Can you stop? Can you just stop and be passive for once in your damn life? Wait for him.”

“But this is all my fault. I have to do something. What if I wait and wait and nothing happens?”

“Wait. For. Him.”

Sophie hugged the pillow. “You’re so bossy.”

“I’m so right.”

***

Carly didn’t say she couldn’t go see Harry. Agent Chandler cleared her for one more visit, and she went to the detention center on the pretext of making Harry talk. She didn’t expect him to tell her anything, really; she just felt an intense need to see him, to make sure he was all right, to try to figure out why she still cared.

When Harry was brought into the visiting room, Sophie’s stomach clenched. He’d lost weight; his skin seemed slack. She could read a full account of his ordeal in his eyes, brow, and hollow cheeks. “Harry,” she pleaded. “Why are you letting this happen to you?”

But Harry wouldn’t answer this, or any of her other halfhearted questions about his client, or about his mule-headed refusal to make a deal. Finally Sophie sank back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, which was veined with exposed cables and ductwork. “Did you just see me as someone you could use?” she asked finally. “Were we ever friends?”

“If we were friends, would I be here?”

Sophie snapped her head upright; it was the first time she’d heard Harry speak since he’d called her a bitch at the tavern. “You didn’t really give me a choice,” she said. “You were trying to force me to do something…”

“To help me. To save my ass.”

“You didn’t exactly come to me like a friend in need, hat in hand. You threatened me. You were so
mean
to me.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say; I learned from the best.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie thought for a moment. “Your father?”

Harry shrugged. There was color in his cheeks now.

“You can’t use your shitty father as an excuse,” Sophie said. “You’re your own person.”

“Like you?” Harry sneered.

It was Sophie’s turn to flush. “Yes, like me! I’ve tried hard to be different…to do the right thing for my kids.”

“Oh really.” Harry was coming to life now. He sat up and leaned toward Sophie across the table. “Come on. Admit it, love. You enjoyed yourself.”

“No!”

“It fills a hole, right? That feeling of power, that glorious ‘fuck you’ to the universe. Looking out for yourself, doing what has to be done, taking care of business. It’s delicious.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Listen, love. The sooner you admit this about yourself, the better. Then you either embrace it”—Harry gestured toward himself with a flourish—“or control it. But you’d best not ignore it.”

Sophie ran her hand along the cool edge of the steel table that separated them. This was not the conversation she had come here to have. She didn’t need to hear Harry’s thoughts on her character; as if he were one to judge! “Look,” she said. “I want you to know how sorry I am. My intention—honestly—was for you to make a deal so they could put your guy away and we could both get on with our lives. You’re the one who isn’t playing along. But Chandler told me the maximum sentence is forty months, so don’t worry—”

“I’m not worried,” Harry laughed. “I’ll still have a shred of honor left when I get out. It’s snitches who have trouble sleeping at night.”

“That’s what this is about? Honor among thieves?”

“My dad worked too hard to build this business for me to tear it down. I have to protect his name as well as my own.”

“What business? How deep into this are you?”