What We Leave Behind (38 page)

I reached for her hand. It was cold and clammy. I could practically feel her bones through the thin skin, but she held on tightly, squeezing my palm in her own. Her resilience amazed me; and although she might have worn me down with her resolve, I knew a different path, remembering the grave sadness of the day a little boy was taken up to the heavens. My daughter’s courageous battle had now become my own.

Beth looked more beautiful than when we were kids. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight knot, and she was wearing John Lennon frames that suggested sexy schoolteacher. I don’t know what it was. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but when she approached me with her casual smile as I stepped out of the cab the next day, all I could see was her glow.

“I finally got over you not being at our wedding, but being in New York without calling is unforgivable,” she said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, hugging me close. It was comfortable and nostalgic to be with Beth again.  She pulled away first, stepping back, reaching for my hands and studying my face.

“Where did the time go?” she asked.

“Have I aged that much?” I scoffed.

“A little skinny. Let’s go fatten you up,” she said, taking my arm in hers as we strolled down Cornelia Street to one of her favorite lunch spots.

Beth has always had a gift that I have never been able to master. She can sit through a glass of wine, a basket of bread, conversation about marriages and careers, a Cobb salad, and then dessert without letting on that she already knows what I’m about to tell her. It was only when she returned to the table after a trip to the little girls’ room that she looked at me pointedly and said, “I already know about Michelle.”

I leaned forward in my chair, clasping my hands like an obedient child. The need to protect everyone was exhausting and ineffectual. With no wine or food in front of me as a distraction, I had only Beth and her wide-eyed expression to face.

“How come you couldn’t tell me?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re my best friend. How could you have kept something like that from me?”

If I could have just stared at the table and not looked into her eyes, I wouldn’t have had to see the disappointment there. “There are some things you can’t even tell your best friend,” I said. “Or a gossipy mother,” I added.

“She’s worried about you.”

Beth got right to the point, just as Amy Levy had. Everyone I cared about seemed to hold a position. “Are you really going to have this baby?”

“Either that or a nervous breakdown, whichever comes first.”

She sat there not saying a word, her arms crossed in front of her. “This must have come as a real shock to Marty.”

“Let’s just say he wasn’t expecting it.”

“He loves you.”

“I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Even in Marty’s fast-paced, playboy-driven life, everyone knows he’s crazy about his wife. Everyone.”

“I doubt Marty cares about the sanctity of our marriage vows right now.”

“You don’t mean that,” she said. “You’re just feeling badly about what you feel you need to do.”

I looked up at grown-up Beth, the other half of the
Be Fri
necklace I kept locked up in my jewelry drawer.
St ends
. She was always reliable
St ends
. This was going to tear her heart out. “Needing to do this is logical. Wanting it as much as I do is what’s breaking me up inside.”

“How
is
the infamous Jonas Levy?”

I turned from her when she said his name, while the giant elephant in the room sat between us. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like how?”

“Cynical, untrusting.”

She sat there, mouth partially open. “You’re still protecting him. After all this time, after everything he’s done to you, you’re still putting Jonas Levy before you and what’s important.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. Why are you so blind when it comes to him?”

“And why are you so misguided when it comes to him?”

“I was there, Jess. I saw how he destroyed you. Everything about you changed.”

“I knew what he could give me, and it was my choice to expect more.”

“Naïve words spoken by the other woman.”

“We were different,” I said, thinking we were distinguishable from the thousands of star-crossed lovers in the world.

“I can’t believe you haven’t gotten over him,” she shook her head. “You find a good solid man who worships you and supports you through the most hellacious times, and you fall into your old patterns.”

“I thought you were a lawyer, not a psychiatrist.”

“You could use a good psychiatrist.”

“It’s not what you think,” I refuted.

“Then explain it to me.”

I told her about the signs, thinking they would be enough to convince her, but she shook her head in disbelief, dismissing the string of coincidences with a wave of her hand. I said, “He looks so good. He’s so much more grown-up than when we were kids. He’s this deep, caring doctor, and he says these things to me.”

“Does he know he’s gotten under your skin again?”

“Maybe. I’m doing my best to hide it.”

“Just like you did at sixteen,” she said.

“Which reminds me,” I said, reaching into my bag and handing her the book she’d given me that summer when Jonas left, the one she thought would comfort me. “Here,” I said, shoving it in her direction.

“If he comes back to you, he’s yours, and if he doesn’t, he never was,” Beth repeated, like she had a dozen times before. “Are we going to argue this point again?” she asked.

“It was a bird, Beth. How could you have compared what happened between us to a bird?”

“It was a metaphor,” she said. “The bird was analogous to people. Why are we rehashing this now?”

“Because I want to know what it means when the bird comes back after all these years. I want to know what the other bird would do.”

“Look,” she said, “whatever it is you’re feeling, you’re not going to find the answer in a book or a movie script. You’ve got to find a way to look inside yourself and figure this out, because this affair, whether it’s mental or physical, is not going to wind up being some widescreen romantic comedy. It’s going to end up ugly for all of you.”

The waiter dropped our check on the table, the escalation of our voices sending him scampering away.

“But wasn’t your whole point that if the bird came back, he was yours to keep?”

She was getting annoyed. “The rule only applies to the good birds, not the ones that have pooped all over you.”

“It was vomit,” I hit back.

“Even better.” And with that, she stood up and announced she was going to the bathroom.

“Again?” I asked, and she was off, leaving me to pay, something we’d always fought about in the past.

When she reappeared, I observed her as she walked toward me and took her seat. I had put the book back in my bag and had forgotten how unsettled I was. “There’s something different about you,” I said. “When did you get glasses?”

“I’ve had them forever.”

“Somethings’s different. Did you change the color of your hair?”

“Jess,” she said, resting her chin on her hands as she ignored what I was saying, “Please be careful. Think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

“You’re pregnant!” I shouted. “That’s it! I can’t believe it. How could it have taken me so long to figure out? You’re definitely pregnant. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Her face burst into a full-toothed smile. “Someone hasn’t been refining her detective skills.” I jumped up and ran to her side of the table while she raised herself from her chair. “Hello in there,” I bent down to her tummy, introducing myself and then, taking its mother in my arms.

“Sixteen weeks today,” she said.

“Talk about secrets,” I laughed.

“We were waiting for the results of the amnio. It’s a healthy boy!”

Beth looked perfect and happy, and I made it my business to tell her so. I hugged her again, while she detailed every symptom and every craving. When she was finished, I threaded my arm through hers, and we left the restaurant. For a brief time, neither of us thought about birds or secrets.

The house was quiet when I entered, except for the sounds of Ari frolicking in the bathtub and my mother begging him to simmer down. It was seven thirty and I peeked in on them, marveling at how beautiful he looked, how much he had grown in the short time I was gone. My attempts to speak with him every day were thwarted by time zones and unforeseen events.

He looked so much like Marty, it was uncanny. When he saw me there, his full-toothed grin was all I needed to feel at home and joined to him. I ran over, throwing my arms around his neck, and nuzzled the sweet bubbles that saturated his body. If I thought I had made the right decision before, holding my son further validated my cause. Life was too precious to turn from our children.

My mother could have pretended to be happier to see me, and if I weren’t so exhausted, we might have engaged in some raucous banter. There would be plenty of time to discuss my marriage with her, or lack thereof, and plenty of time for the world’s critique of my state of affairs.

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked, disguising my annoyance that he wasn’t there to bathe his son.

“He’s working late,” my mother called from the other room. “He got back from New York, and we haven’t seen much of him since.” My mother eyed me scrupulously and questioned me with perilous eyes. I would have preferred the flittering.

Getting Ari squired off for bed was delightful. I so enjoyed this time with him, reading to him, lying next to him on the floor, smelling the fresh scent of his warm body. He was a real chatterbox and loved to talk. We were going through the “why stage.” Everything beginning and ending with why. “Why do I love you?” I answered his last query. “That’s easy, because you’re the sweetest most delicious boy in the world.” He clasped my hand in his, resting his head on my shoulder, and I kissed his forehead, happy to be there sharing in our special ritual.

Watching him climb over the railing into his big boy bed, I sighed, aware that the insulated days would soon be over. His blankie was his comfort now, and he curled the delicate blue fabric in his arms until the heaviness of the overactive day pulled him into a deep sleep. I patted him softly on the back, feeling each breath he took, knowing that each one was as special and significant as the last. My eyes lingered a little while longer on the nape of his neck, the round cheek, perfect little nose. He was an angel, for sure, an angel sent to me from heaven. I was amazed that the creation of someone unique was so universally known to all mothers.

Marty never came home that night. I was in the shower when he called to check on Ari. My mother had presumably told him that I had returned. Whether or not that was why he chose to stay away, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps he had made that decision sometime earlier in the day.

I got into our bed, large and empty without him there, and closed my eyes.

The streaming smells of my mother’s cooking woke me in the morning. By the time I made it downstairs, she had a complete breakfast awaiting me. I could hear Ari through the monitor talking to his animals, asking them what they were doing and why. When the babbling turned into a loud, wailing “Mommy,” only then did I head to his room to retrieve him.

Walking into the kitchen with my son straddled around my waist, I said, “Mom, you’ve outdone yourself with breakfast. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for everything.” Ari released himself from my grasp, finding something on the floor to play with. As I spoke to my mother, I reminded myself of Michelle. Then I asked, “Are you sure you’re going to have a job to go back to in Phoenix?”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said, kissing my cheek and smoothing my rumpled hair with her hands.

We ate together like that, Ari in his booster seat fingering the eggs, patting them into shapes he would then toss onto the floor, while my mother remarked on how much weight I had lost. Hunger found its way back into my starving body as I finished off a plate of eggs, a stack of bacon and sausage, two biscuits, and two cups of coffee. Food was fuel, and I hadn’t remembered the last time I had replenished. Ari wanted out of the kitchen, so I let him run off to the playroom, where he busily played with Legos and toy trucks, which left my mother and me alone to discuss my decision to get pregnant.

“I’m disappointed in you,” she said.

“It’s not the first time.”

“You’re destroying your marriage.”

Whether she was waiting for my response or giving me a moment to digest my food, I didn’t know. I wasn’t ready for her criticisms, her partial, uninformed accusations.

“This has nothing to do with your decision and all to do with how you’re handling Marty. I would do the same thing for my child. I would…”

“You would?” I asked, becoming the little girl who had leaned on her in the past, the one who had needed her mother’s approval.

She nodded yes, as if knowing that if she opened her mouth, the vastness of it all would come rolling out.

“I just worry that your marriage won’t be able to sustain it.”

“What can I do?” I asked, relying on my mother’s insight to guide where I’d somehow lost my way.

“First it was the baby. Now it’s Jonas. Find something that will keep you and your husband together instead of pulling you apart. He loves you, Jess. You just have to reassure him, love him, listen to him, and pay attention, because he’s giving you signals I’m afraid you’re missing.”

“Everyone’s so sure he loves me,” I said. I was convinced that they were wrong. I saw the missing wedding band.

“No one knows how they’d react under these circumstances. I’d like to think we’d all find it in ourselves to do the right thing, even if it’s not always the best thing. He’ll come around. You know why? Because you’re everything to him. You and that little boy in there.”

I wanted to believe that, but it scared the shit out of me.

“I think he’s seeing someone.”

“I don’t,” she answered, giving absolutely no credence to the possibility.

“I know things about him, you don’t. I’ve seen things.”