When We Were Sisters (8 page)

“Oh, I heard you. I was waffling a little, but now, you know what? I'm not. I have your permission to hire the housekeeper I like best?”

“Do what you want.”

“I'd suggest eating dinner before you come home because I'm not cooking tonight. I'm going to let the kids sit in on the interviews, and we can make our choice over dinner. See, I actually do have a family, and I'm going to make a memorable moment with them on my own. Without you. You have a nice evening.”

She hung up and I stared out the window that had been my reward when I made partner the first time. How much bigger would the next one be?

Would it be worth everything I would have to do to earn it?

9

Robin

Of the two women I interviewed for the second time, Elena Martinez was my favorite, and the hands-down favorite of Nik and Pet. I offered her the job, and she accepted.

Elena is young and attractive, with curly dark hair that bounces over her cheeks and eyes the color of cocoa. She's also the single mother of a four-year-old son, which might be a complicating factor, but Elena's own mother lives near her apartment, and Elena says her mother will take Raoul if he's too sick for day care.

Her references are excellent, too excellent for a temporary job. It turns out that when this position ends, her plan is to move to California to be near Raoul's father. She doesn't want her son growing up without a role model.

I can certainly relate to that.

Elena arrived about an hour ago to go over everything one more time and meet Kris. While we waited for him we went over schedules and food preferences. I showed her where to find every cooking and cleaning utensil, as well as my extensive lists of the children's friends and the professionals we use for everything from steam cleaning carpets to filling cavities. I'll carry my cell phone, but I want as few questions as possible.

Tomorrow the airport shuttle picks me up at the crack of dawn. I could have asked Kris to drive me, but starting tomorrow he has new responsibilities. Somebody will have to get the children to school every morning. Most days Elena won't come in until noon.

Now Elena and I were strolling through the yard, and she was admiring the last gasp of my roses. “Your garden is so pretty.”

“The landscaping crew will come and do whatever's needed. If you look out the window and see men in bright blue shirts mowing and trimming, pay no mind.”

“That's good, because I don't know a thing about plants.”

“And I know way too much, as you can see.”

I would miss my garden. Late October was definitely not a peak, but I still had the roses in bloom and clouds of windflowers, along with bright Peruvian lilies and late-blooming daisies.

“Can we ever have too much to love?” she asked.

“I used to have garden parties out here with my friends. Little tables with sandwiches and cakes, everyone in skirts and floppy hats. Silly but fun.”

“No more?”

“Our children grew—we got too busy.” I thought of Talya, who had always helped me pour tea. “Some of us are gone now.”

“New friends will take their place.”

In this case I knew better. As I had predicted, the Weinberg house was already on the market, and no matter who moved in, things in the neighborhood would never be the same. Michael had already closed on a new town house in our school district, and he would probably be moved in by the time I returned. When I had gently questioned his haste, he'd claimed Channa was looking forward to the change, as well, but I wondered. At the conversation's end he had offered me Talya's dressing table. I hope he hasn't banished everything that's a reminder of the woman he and his daughter have lost. I'll cherish the table and keep it for Channa, just in case.

“Do you have any questions?” I asked. “About anything we went over?”

“Mr. Lenhart knows I must pick up Raoul from day care at six-thirty? They will charge for every minute I'm late.”

“If something does happen, you'll bill him for those minutes, right?”

“I will, but my time with Raoul is precious. I don't want to miss any of it.”

“Don't forget, in an emergency you can call the women I've highlighted on my list.”

She shook her head. “That will be Mr. Lenhart's job.”

I realized how far ahead of me she was. “You're right. If
he
has an emergency, he can fix it. The list is just in case he doesn't.”

She smiled, showing pretty, even teeth, but I thought the smile said,
he'd better
.

As if in emphasis, Elena glanced at her watch. “I'm sorry, but I need to leave in a few minutes.”

Luckily Kris took that moment to walk out to the back deck, then down the steps toward us.

I smiled at him when he reached us, but his was only for show. He's still angry with me, and I try not to be reminded of my grandmother, whose anger destroyed my childhood. Luckily I'm an adult, and this time I haven't lost the power of speech.

I made the introduction, and Elena offered her hand. Kris's smile was warmer when he focused it on her, as if he realized
she
wasn't the culprit.

“I hope you'll enjoy working for us,” he said.

“Miss Robin made a list of all your expectations, Mr. Lenhart.”

“Call me Kris.”

She smiled, but I knew that he would be
Mr.
Kris no matter what he told her. When I asked Elena to call me Robin, she'd told me that in Colombia, where she had lived for the first part of her life, there was a useful line between domestic help and employers, and she planned to observe it here. In turn I had told Nik and Pet to call her Miss Elena.

“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked, as I had earlier.

“I explained to Miss Robin I have to leave here at six, not a moment later.”

“Pet and Nik should be fine for a little while if I'm not home right on time.”

She was still smiling politely. “I can't leave them without supervision. If there was a problem, I would blame myself.”

Kris looked taken aback. “Could you just leave them for a few minutes while you fetch your son and bring him here?”

“His day care is half an hour away.”

He recovered. “I'll do my best.”

She examined him much the way I remember examining algae under my ninth grade microscope. “I'm sure your best is perfect.” She said goodbye and left to pick up her son. Kris watched her go.

“You couldn't find somebody more flexible?” he asked after she disappeared from sight.

“Kris, if you really can't get home on time, feel free to hire someone to come in when Elena leaves. But the other woman I interviewed refused to stay beyond five-thirty. I bought you an extra half hour to make it back from work.”

“We're paying her enough to make some exceptions.”

“She has a life and a son.” I couldn't help adding, “Sometimes there's not enough money in the world to convince a parent anything in life is more important than their child.”

“And apparently sometimes there
is.
You know, like a job you can't say no to?”
He let that rest a moment before he added. “So what about
your
life?”

He had turned my salvo around and aimed it right at me. “Me? I've been busy setting everything up to make our transition as easy as possible. So I'd appreciate a moratorium on criticism. See how Elena does. If you're not happy, feel free to make arrangements that suit you better.”

“Are you packed and ready?”

“I guess I was saying goodbye to the garden.”

“It's on its way out, isn't it?”

I wanted to stand here with Kris's arms around me and start our goodbyes. I wanted us to forgive each other and move on. Distance in miles doesn't have to mean emotional distance. I'm not leaving forever. But he was a yard away, arms folded against his chest. The signs were clear he didn't want to move closer.

“It's on the way out. I'm glad I'll be back in time to get it in shape for the spring.”

“I wonder—would you have been as willing to go off with Cecilia if the garden was in full bloom?”

I watched my windflowers dance in the breeze. “Please don't make this opportunity sound like an extended vacation and shopping trip with my sister, okay? I'm jump-starting my career.”

“You could do that right here.”

“Which part of ‘this is important to me' eludes you, Kris?”

“How much of ‘you need to spend more time with your kids' factors into your decision, Robin?”

“You
do
need to. While they're still around.”

“Wouldn't it have been simpler to just plan a family vacation?”

I watched as he realized what he'd said. Without thinking he'd just thrown himself on a bomb that was about to scatter body parts to the four winds.

“We did,” I said. “Just ask your parents how well that turned out.”

* * *

Pet's room is painted a color our painter calls kimono purple, as luscious as a Concord grape. She has a fluffy white area rug and billowy curtains, and she collects metallic gold accessories. Picture frames, a spray-painted bamboo tray on top of her white dresser, a beige bedspread covered with gold and silver flowers pulled neatly over her trundle bed. She's ten. I look forward to seeing her talent for design blossom, because the room is beautiful, and all the ideas were hers.

Ida believes Pet's artistic gift comes from Gus, who is far too modest to say so. Pet likes art classes, but right now her first love is set design. The theater camp she's attended for several years recognized her talents this past summer and put her to work designing the Emerald City.

When I went to say good-night—we no longer call this tucking in—my daughter was on her knees saying bedtime prayers. Kris's mother is Catholic, and Kris attended Catholic school as a boy, Notre Dame as an undergraduate and finally Georgetown Law School. We were married in his family's church and I converted afterward. I wanted us to attend church as a family, and we do. On Easter and Christmas Eve.

At the moment Nik has no interest in religion, but Pet, whose given name, Petra, is a feminine version of Peter, takes religion seriously. She's already talking about attending a Catholic high school in nearby Fairfax when the time comes.

I waited until she crossed herself and got into bed before I went to perch on the edge beside her. I ask the same question every night. “Homework all done and everything ready for the morning?”

“Who's going to ask that when you're not here?”

“Well, Daddy, for one. And I'll call most nights to ask you myself.”

“That won't be the same.”

“Change isn't bad—it's just different.”

“Different isn't always good.”

I reminded her of a promise I had already made. “Don't forget, I'll come home whenever I can, but the moment the timing works out, I'm going to whisk you to wherever we're filming so you can watch. That'll be fun, don't you think?”

“Nik won't come? You promise?”

“Nik will come at a different time.”

“Daddy doesn't want you to leave.”

Children pick up on everything. “Daddy's going to miss me, too,” I said.

“He doesn't want to do the things you do for us.”

“I think he's a little afraid he won't do them well enough, don't you?”

She considered. Then she shook her head, her long brown hair fanning over the pillow. “He's probably right.”

“You have to help him, Pet. Let Daddy know if he forgets something, and don't expect him to be perfect right off the bat, okay?”

I didn't want to drag this out. The longer I stayed, the more my own ambivalence would infect the room. I love my children, and spending this much time away suddenly seemed impossible. Still, my childhood was one long series of goodbyes, and I know how to make them.

I stood and bent over. “I know you're ten, but may I kiss you good-night anyway?”

She sat up and hugged me hard as I kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.

“I love you, and I'll be home for Thanksgiving if not before. We'll do all our favorites. If you want, you can make the pumpkin pie all by yourself.”

She sniffed, and I kissed her again. Then I left the room without looking back. I learned that in foster care, too.

Nik's room was across the hall from Pet's. About three months ago he push-pinned a sign to his door, a skull and crossbones and the words
Stay Out On Pain of Death
. Kris wanted to remove the sign, but we aren't raising a serial killer. We're raising a normal twelve-year-old boy who values a little privacy in a life filled with family demands and social interactions. I compromised and let him have the skull and crossbones but not the threat.

I knocked. Almost a minute passed, but after my second attempt he mumbled something close to “come in.”

“Just saying good-night,” I said after I opened the door. While Pet keeps her room so neat it looks as if she's planning a photo shoot for
Architectural Digest
, Nik's is always strewn with projects and clothing. My son's childhood has been spent flitting from one great idea to another. He takes up and abandons hobbies at an awesome rate. He collected coins, built entire villages out of Popsicle sticks, created sculptures from clay, raised gerbils and kept a garter snake named Walt, who happily moved back to my garden after a month in captivity.

The one hobby that seems to have ridden the wave is music. My son's gray walls are covered with rock-star posters, most signed to Nikola Lenhart from friends of Cecilia's. He has an electronic keyboard on a stand in the corner and a guitar in the opposite corner. So far, unlike Pet, who is making steady progress on the piano, Nik has shown not an ounce of talent. But Cecilia has pointed out how many music industry jobs only require a love of music and an assortment of other abilities. When Donny was here after the accident, he and Nik chatted about the skills needed to manage an artist or an act. Nik looked a little interested, which, these days, means he was totally captivated.

I saw he was sitting at his desk wearing an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms with tattered cuffs, and I joined him, peeking over his shoulder. “Homework all done?”

“Everything but this stupid essay.”

Nik's a good student and likes his classes. When he momentarily forgets he doesn't like
me
anymore, we actually enjoy discussing what he's learning.

“The one about talking to people whose political ideas are different from yours?”