The Transformation of Things (16 page)

Shit,
I thought,
I’m going to dream about her.
And in the seconds before sleep, this annoyed me.

I was standing in Kelly’s kitchen. I opened the oven door with my hands, which were covered in roosters. Hideous potholders that Beverly gave me as a gift for my birthday last year. I saw them and I thought of you, she’d said. As if she knew anything about me. Anything at all.

“Can I help, dear?” Beverly asked from behind me. I closed my eyes and spun around. Her face was tight and smooth—too much Botox—I could tell from her voice she was frowning, but there was an absence of emotion on her face, except just right around her eyes.

I wished I had my camera, so I could capture her, in this moment, with this exact nonexpression on her face, that still somehow to me conveyed disdain, disappointment. Dave never believed that I saw it there, never could see it the way I did. Maybe a picture would prove it to him.

“My mother loves you,” he always said. “Just like you were her own daughter.” No, not true. Her own daughter, Kathleen, could do no wrong, even when she did, even when she drank herself into a stupor and collapsed on the couch for an entire weekend. Even then, I’d never seen the look on Beverly’s face that I saw when she looked at me.

“No,” I told her. “I have everything under control. And Jen is bringing the pies.”

“Jen is coming? “

“Of course,” I said, “Jen always comes.” Beverly rarely did. Beverly liked to spend the holidays with her daughter and her real grandchildren, my two little twin terror nieces. Who could blame them? If I had a mother like Kathleen, I’d probably try to set the kitchen curtains on fire, too. Or throw the contents of the sandbox down the toilet. Or any of their other various indiscretions since they’d been born five years ago.

“She’s not bringing that man with her? Is she?”

“Her husband, Will?” I said, though I was positive she knew his name.

“You won’t let him around the children?”

“Beverly, Jen says he’s innocent. And there’s nothing wrong with letting him around the children. He’s not a child molester or something.”

“Kelly, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Mother?” She sounded vaguely annoyed.

I nodded. “Sorry. I—I will.” Mother, you are not my fucking mother. Mother. When I closed my eyes, I could see her, standing right there in front of me, her hair up in a bun, wearing the string of pearls myfather-in-law bought her for some anniversary, telling me that whatever is meant to be will be.

“And I still wouldn’t want him around the children if I were you. You have to teach them good values, Kelly. Morals.” She waved her hand in the air.

“Yes, Mother. You’re right,” I said. I swallowed back the lump in my throat. As if she would know anything about morals, wearing a dead animal around her shoulders.

When I woke up the next morning, Will was already gone, and there were four voice mail messages on my cell. Three from Kelly, which all basically said,
We need to talk. Call me back.
I thought about my dream, about the way Beverly got under Kelly’s skin—and instead of feeling sorry for her, I felt even madder. She’d sold me out last night, for what, for her mother-in-law? For Dave? I didn’t call her back.

The fourth message was from my father, with Sharon’s whiny voice echoing in the background. He said they were flying back to Florida this afternoon, and Sharon thought it might be nice if we got lunch and … talked.

I was sure if I went to lunch with them he would be frowning while she would be swilling her rum and Coke, and telling me, with absolute certainty, that I should indeed not have Will’s baby, that his swimmers were probably little schemers, just like him, and that I should leave him.

So I deleted all four messages, and went off to take a shower.

Once I stopped talking to Kelly, I couldn’t stop dreaming about her. I had two dreams about her the week after Thanksgiving. I remembered only pieces of them when I woke up
in the morning, but what I did remember, I wrote in my reporter’s notebook.

Beverly was insisting on Caleb going to private school next year. I wanted him in public school. Dave threw his hands up in the air. If she wants to pay for it, just send him to private school, he said.

That’s not the point, I said. I was angry, so mad that my insides wanted to boil over, that I wanted to slap Dave.

Then, the next night,
I was Kelly lying in bed, alone, staring at the clock. I felt this intense sense of loneliness that threatened to suffocate me. Dave came in at ten-thirty. I heard the sound of his footsteps, and then felt his breath on my neck, felt the wash of relief swarm over my body. “Sorry I’m so late,” he whispered. I leaned into him.

She called me a few more times, but I still didn’t return her calls.

“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually,” Will said one night, when she called during dinner.

I heard Beverly’s voice.
You can’t let Will around the children.
And I felt the anger that welled up inside Kelly when she and Dave fought about his mother. “It’s not that,” I said to Will. “I just don’t feel like talking to her right now.”

“She’s your sister,” he said quietly.

“I know,” I said, but I didn’t pick up the phone.

Eighteen

O
n Saturday morning, Will and I took the train down to the city, and then we walked the four blocks to Kat and Danny’s apartment. It was chilly outside, and Will and I hung on to each other’s arms for warmth. “This is going to be interesting,” I said as we walked up the steps to their historic-looking duplex.

“Yes.” Will nodded, blowing into his hands to warm them. I rang the bell, and Sarah Lynne flung open the door, her almost three-year-old sister, Arabella, behind her, clinging to her skirt.

“Hey there.” Will bent down to their level and patted each girl on the head. “Are we going to have a fun weekend?” Sarah Lynne shrugged. Arabella retreated further. Will reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two Hershey’s Kisses. He handed one to each girl. Their eyes looked back at him, wide with something, wonder maybe? And I wondered why I hadn’t thought to bring candy.

“Girls,” Kat called out. “Don’t bother them, or they’ll change their minds.”

She opened the door wider and ushered us inside. “No we won’t,” Will said, emphatically.

Kat hugged him, then leaned in to hug me. “Are you sure about this? We don’t have to stay the night.”

I pictured Grant’s hand on her arm. “Yes you do,” I said. “You have a good time, and don’t worry about us.”

“I owe you.” She squeezed my hand.

Danny walked out of their bedroom, a suitcase in tow. “The numbers are on the fridge. In case you need us.”

“We won’t,” Will said. I nodded, in awe of the way he actually seemed comfortable in this situation, whereas I felt totally out of my element, trying to put on a show so Kat and Danny could get back to a good place. I knew it was silly, that the two things really weren’t connected, but still, I kept thinking if they could fix things, then Will and I could, too.

“But if you do,” Kat echoed, “the numbers are there.”

They leaned down and hugged and kissed the girls, and Kat immediately put her sunglasses on and looked away from me.
She’s sad,
I thought.
She’s going to miss them.

Three games of Candy Land, two hours of Barbies, and four episodes of
The Wiggles
later I was exhausted. During episode four of
The Wiggles,
Sarah Lynne dragged Will around the room, dancing and singing to all the songs, while Ara climbed up into my lap on the couch and started sucking her thumb. It was starting to get dark outside, and I knew it was almost time for dinner, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from him: Will hopping around, all six feet of him, wild and wacky like the crazy Australians on TV. Was this what parenthood was all about? I wondered. Acting like the Wiggles? If that’s
what it was, then maybe Will
was
ready to be a father.

Ara leaned into me, her warm little head against my chest. It was a strange feeling, the way she’d attached herself to me so easily, so quickly. I’d played with Caleb and Jack and Hannah before, but never alone, without Kelly, and never for more than half an hour at a time.

Ara put her hand on my arm and twisted my watch—delicate and gold—a present from Will on a birthday a few years back, in what felt like another lifetime. “Aunt Jen,” she whispered. She leaned back and looked at me. “You’re so pretty. I like your curly hair.”

I laughed. “Thank you,” I said.

“I want to look just like you when I grow up.”

I took a look at her straight red hair and her freckles, her tiny little pug nose, and her rosy cheeks, and I knew she was going to look mostly like Danny, with just a little smidgen of Kat. “Okay,” I told her, because I didn’t want to ruin it, that little-girl innocence that still allowed her to believe that anything was possible.

Later that night, after pizza and baths for the girls and bedtime stories for both of them—
The Berenstain Bears
for Sarah Lynne, and
The Cat in the Hat
for Ara—Will and I moved around quietly in Kat and Danny’s guest room.

Will lay down on the bed, his clothes still on. “I’m exhausted,” he whispered. “I don’t know how the Wiggles do it.”

I laughed and sat down on the bed next to him. “You were great with them,” I said. He nodded. “How did you get to be so good with kids?”

“I’m just a natural, I guess.” He paused. “Didn’t I ever tell you that I used to be a camp counselor when I was in high school?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” I tried to remember if he had, and I knew that even if he had I’d tucked it away in the back of my mind, filed away under something I’d thought of as trivial, though now it seemed fairly important, who Will was, who he’d been.

“My parents were friends with the owners of the camp,” he said. “I had the five-year-old bunk. Two summers.” He paused. “There you have it, my child care résumé.”

“It’s more impressive than mine,” I said. I wondered what might have happened if Will’s parents hadn’t died, if he might’ve kept at advertising or kept up at the camp and decided to become a teacher or something. I wondered if maybe the law hadn’t really defined who he was at all, but only in the ways he’d let it, in the ways he’d needed it to, to allow himself to grieve.

“Jen,” he whispered, reaching for me, pulling me close to him. “You were great with them. Ara loved you. Sarah Lynne renamed one of her Barbies after you.” His voice drifted off, and I could tell he was falling asleep, just like that, with his arm around me. I shifted onto my side, and I snuggled into him, the way Kelly had into Dave in my dream. And I had the notion that I should feel happy, and yet, as I closed my eyes, I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread.

I was standing outside, on the back patio, the cool wind whipping against my cheeks. I held up my camera, and I zoomed in on the lilacs against the snow. Pale purple and white, a swirl of cream and light.

I heard banging on the window, and I looked up and saw Caleb and Jack, their little faces pressed to the glass. I waved and blew them a kiss, but the banging continued. Where the hell was Dave?

I focused the camera on the flower, turning, turning, turning the lens until the shot was perfect, until the petal of the lilac hung just the right way against the snow. This is the January shot, I thought. The perfect photograph to stare at during the bleakest month—cold, yet hopeful. And just as I was about to press the button, the boys burst through the patio door, shouting my name, calling for me. I put the camera down and closed my eyes. If I could just have five minutes. Five minutes.

“Wake up.” I heard Ara’s small voice, felt her body jump next to me on the bed.

“Five minutes,” I whispered, my voice, my head, thick with Kelly, Kelly feeling overwhelmed.

“I have to go potty,” she announced. I opened my eyes and looked at the clock: seven-fifteen. I looked at Will, lying on his back, breathing evenly.

“Okay,” I whispered, and I dragged my tired and aching body out of bed, and helped her find her way to the bathroom.

Ara stomped on the tile floor, doing a little dance before she sat on the toilet, which promptly awakened Sarah Lynne, who also really had to use the bathroom, and screamed for Ara to hurry up. “I’m going as fast as I can,” Ara yelled.