What We Leave Behind (33 page)

“I’m checking in.” As if that’s what husbands and wives did when there was an impasse and thousands of miles between them.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Good. Busy. How’s our little steam engine?”

“He’s right here, eating dinner. Looks like he might have stepped in the blender. Do you know how nicely carrots and noodles affix themselves to a television screen?”

I laughed at the visual. Yes, I knew.

“I miss him,” I said, my son’s laughter in the background taking me away from all the madness.

“He misses you too,” he said, and then, “so do I.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking maybe you could come out here.” I didn’t know that was going to come out of my mouth. It was partly a reflex, partly an admission of guilt, and then it felt like the right thing to say.

“Hello?” I asked. “Marty, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“We really need to talk.”

“About what?” he asked, pressing on.

“Not here. Not on the phone. I need to see you.”

“Then I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll call you when I get in.”

“Okay,” my voice said flatly. “Let me talk to Ari for a minute, please.”

His little voice crowded the empty space that was left between his parents. The sweet, innocent laughter, the way he’d enunciate the word
Mommy
. Children had a power that flowed from their little mouths. My heart was divided in so many different ways, but with Ari, it was whole. I felt one thing, love, no conflict. His declaration placed me under a deep spell. The next thing I heard was the familiar recording, “
If you’d like to make a call…
” This woman was heard all over the country, yet probably sat in her estate home in Greenwich counting her fortune. She would have never gotten into a mess like this.

The television sat before me, begging me to turn it on. I flipped through the channels. First CNN, then MSNBC, next Fox, and when I saw there was no breaking news, I turned to the lighter channels, HGTV, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, VH-1, MTV, and that’s where I stopped. Marty was on the screen. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me, but who was I to complain when I’d had enough secrets to fill a week’s worth of
Divorce Court
episodes?

I pressed the button for the volume, and for some reason it wouldn’t go any louder. It was mute. I watched as his lips moved up and down, probably discussing a new film or a soundtrack’s video. Smiling before a crowd of millions of viewers worldwide, my husband was doing what he did best.  His gray hair was longer than usual, and his tan made his eyes burst from his lids. He looked good. The silence became louder. His name was imposed on the bottom of the screen, but the once familiar words were those of someone I did not know. I recognized the sweep of his tongue, how his eyes blinked just so. Yet, he looked different than I remembered. The cameras panned on a scene from a recent video he had produced. It looked like one of those mansions we had visited when we first met. The artist was Stella, no last name, just Stella. I knew this because her name was there across the screen where Marty’s once had been. No last name was required when you had the looks, body, and voice that this barely twenty-something girl possessed. When the camera returned to Marty, he was discussing something of great importance. His eyes lit up, and then Stella was back, standing in front of her high school graduating class. “Valedictorian” the sign read. “Brown, here we come!” but the word
Brown
was crossed out and someone had written
Hollywood
instead. Maybe it was her friend, the girl she cavalierly had her arm thrown around.

And then I noticed it. It was subtle at first, but when it became clear, it became very clear. Marty touched the back of his neck. He sometimes did that when it was hot and the wisps tickled his skin. There was no way I was mistaken. He
never
took it off, never, but I got up, moving closer to the screen, and I waited, waited for the hand to reappear; and when it did, it confirmed my disbelief. The finger was bare. His wedding band was gone. All I saw was the imprint of the best years of my life, the white circle of skin that paled in comparison to the deep brown that covered his arms.

The talented MTV editor panned back to the video shoot, while I positioned myself in front of the screen scouring the footage for evidence of what remained of my marriage. With no one else to lash out at, I narrowed my eyes on the young, talented, and obviously intelligent Stella. I felt like Ari, who insisted he could talk with Big Bird on the one-way screen. He was too young for me to explain the whole television thing, how Ernie wasn’t
really
in the big box. Why did it seem like Marty and Stella and the rest of the crew were in there and could see me staring at them?

I saw him again. This time he was watching the shoot from the rear of the room. The lights were shining brightly on Stella. He was supposed to fade into the background, but he didn’t. His eyes were following her up and down the stage.

I’d seen that look before. I recognized it at once.

“Fuck you, Big Bird,” I screamed at the screen. “I know you can hear me in there!”

I climbed into the bath recalling Marty’s face. He had the same look as Santa Barbara, the first time we made love, and the beginning of all the lies. I didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to retrace the memory, but the bathroom was dark, my eyes drifted, and I let myself go, just like I did on that trip.

I had driven up the coast for a scene change when shooting ran late, and I was forced to spend the night at a local hotel. I wanted to leave, but Marty was in my ear insisting that I stay put until morning. Our relationship had turned serious, and the newness of each other drenched the days with anticipation and longing for the sensation that came with the first kiss, the first touch. We were on the brink of going further. Walking into the room, I should have guessed that something was going on around me. My CIA skills, however superior, were tested and they had failed me. I canvassed the room, and it was spectacular—the champagne flutes, lingerie, fresh fruit. They should have been the first clues, but I assumed the hotel management provided these treats for all their high-powered guests.

Lingerie?
I backtracked, picking up the silky material in my hands, laughing at the people that wore this stuff. Marty had said he would call the hotel to take care of anything I needed. “You need to sleep in something,” he said mischievously, “unless, of course, you’re the type that sleeps naked. Are you?” he asked.

I fingered the beautiful fabric, feeling silly and feminine all at the same time, and then decided to take a bath. My clothes were strewn at the foot of the bed, so when the knock at the door came, I
should’ve
known, but I didn’t.

Grabbing the hotel’s plush robe, I wrapped it around me, and there he was, walking into the room like he owned it.

I stepped back. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?”

“You sneak, I should have seen this coming a mile away.”

“But then it wouldn’t be nearly as fun seeing that expression on your face.”

He looked good. He looked better than good. I pulled the robe tighter, keenly aware that there was little between us. He walked around the room proudly, like an artist, surveying the masterpiece he had created. “You’re not going to make me drive all the way back, are you?” he asked.

I eyed him suspiciously. He moved closer to me, standing right in front of me. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

“I’ve missed you too.”

He turned toward the bar, opened the champagne, and poured it into two glasses. I watched how easily he handled the things around him, taking the glass he offered into my bare hand. There was no second-guessing, no speculation. I never thought it could be so easy to feel something so right, because that’s what it was like, being with Marty. We toasted to each other, sipped the champagne, and then he finally started kissing me, his hands up and down the thick robe. And then he stopped.

“Don’t be mad,” he said, backing away from me with a teasing grin. “It was a long drive, and I
really
need to go to the little boy’s room.”

“When I come back,” he whispered in my ear, “I want you to be naked.”

We didn’t indulge in the chocolates or fruits that lay before us, instead choosing to indulge in the things we had been anticipating for months.

“Have you thought about this?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How much?” he asked. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Say it.”

I looked him in the eyes and said, “Make love to me,” and there was little time between my words and his body on mine.

I remembered the morning, how I woke up exhausted. We barely slept, but when I rolled over and found him there next to me, the desire for more found its way between my legs and spread throughout my body. I touched the smoothness of his back, kissing the birthmark on his left shoulder. I wanted him to wake up and take me there again, but it was embarrassing, the insatiable urge to need someone like I needed him.

I whispered, hoping he would hear the longing in my voice, but he lay lifeless, enjoying the game of teasing me. So I took matters into my own hands, literally. I reached for him under the smooth sheets, feeling him stir, coming alive beneath my touch. He was soft and smooth and still evading me with silence, but I knew he wanted me. It was unmistakable. The arch of his back, his fingers running through my hair, the heavy groans that fell from his mouth.

I watched as his eyes fluttered open, transfixed on my body. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He just smiled at me with the most satisfied eyes I’d ever seen. And as romantic and peaceful as it all sounds, my patience was beginning to wear thin. “I want you inside of me.”

The words were enough, because I could see his look change from gentle to something else I wasn’t quite sure my body could handle. I wasn’t afraid. He got on top of me, holding my hand in his, staring deep into my eyes. And when he unleashed himself inside of me, he cradled me in his arms until I almost couldn’t breathe. He found my eyes again and said, “I’m falling in love with you, Jessica Parker.”

And it was pure and it was beautiful and it spoke volumes about what he felt inside about me. Except it was the same look he gave Stella tonight.

The phone rang early. I didn’t know the exact time, but it was somewhere between the sound of early-morning rush-hour traffic and the calm slumber that follows. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that it was 6:46 a.m.

“Hello,” I muttered into the phone.

It was Jonas.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Jess.”

He sounded hoarse and serious, as if he had slept as little as I had.

“You couldn’t wait an hour to tell me that?”

“No. I’ve been up all night with a patient. I waited as long as I could. I just left Michelle’s room. I sat there watching her sleep for the last hour. She looks so much like you. She’s so beautiful.”

I was too tired and stubborn to argue with that, so I held the phone to my ear, hugging it close while he rambled on. “You know how much I always wanted children. I just assumed she wanted them as much as I did. I mean, we never discussed
not
having them, even if every time I brought it up, she managed to change the subject. Maybe I never noticed.”

There was more. Jonas wasn’t finished. The clock said 6:49.

“When I decided to quit pathology, I suppose that was the final straw. She never got over it, and for a long time, our discussions about kids ceased. Quid pro quo, I spoiled her dreams, she could spoil mine.

“I never stopped hoping she’d change her mind. I never gave up on the possibility that maybe she would get pregnant—even if by accident. I’d be ecstatic, and she knew it, but she never once missed a day on that pill. It’s a little ironic, since I had a child all along.”

Maybe I should have said something right then. Maybe I should have interrupted. I was always so good at interrupting. But how could I tell him that Emily Cohen not wanting a child had nothing to do with him and more to do with her parents’ absence?

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I’m here.”

“It kills me to see my child like that, Jess. I feel so helpless. I feel like there’s something I could have done to save her, to stop this from happening. I feel like I failed her, and I don’t know how to make it right.”

“I don’t know either,” I said. “I don’t know how to make any of it right,” and I didn’t. I was busy trying to soak up his words, the way in which he poured himself out for me to drink.

“I don’t know her,” he began again. “She’s a stranger to me, but I look at her, and I feel as if I’ve known her all of my life.

“I understand,” I said.

“It’s killing me,” he continued. “And I’m a doctor. I was trained for situations like these, but nothing, nothing, prepared me for seeing my child laying there on a gurney with tubes helping her stay alive.”

He was talking to me, but it sounded as though he wasn’t talking to anyone at all, that he was just thinking out loud, and that if someone would hear what he was saying, they’d recognize the suffering. He was hoping, I figured, that they would make it all go away. In another time, another place, I would have dropped everything to comfort him and given him exactly what he had been asking for. I wanted to be there for him, but much was out of our control. I had given him everything once, and he hurt me more than any one person has the right. I didn’t want to let him know that I cared, that I was barely hanging by a thread when I heard his voice, that if I could, I’d do just about anything to save her, to save him, anything. I didn’t trust my words. The sheer size of the conversation threatened me, the anger toward Marty’s betrayal brewing.

“I’ll come to the hospital. We can talk then.”

“I have patients at ten. Meet me outside Michelle’s room around eight.”

The clock told me I had about fifty-five minutes to get myself ready. I had become obsessed with time. If I kept looking, maybe it would stop, maybe it wouldn’t keep traveling at such ridiculously fast speed. “That’s fine. I’ll see you there.”