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43

Marina

In parenting circles, they called this “the morning from hell.” Right after her mother had called to cancel, Archie had taken a tumble off the sofa and landed on his face. He was fine, but he’d given himself a bloody nose and that had frightened him so badly that he was still crying twenty minutes after Marina had stopped the bleeding. Then it turned out that Lucy Rose had been yelling “poopy!” at the top of her lungs for about an hour not, as Marina had assumed, because she had decided that she liked the sound of that better than her real name, but because while Marina had been busy with Archie, Ewan had such a horrific poo in his diaper that it had flowed over the top and at the sides of each leg and he had been leaving a snail trail of watery child-feces across most of the first-floor hallway carpet. Ewan had no problem with this whatsoever; in fact, he was remarkably cheerful, if unbelievably smelly. By the time Marina had given him a bath and scrubbed the poo off the carpet and the blood off the sofa and was wondering how she was going to find the stomach to make anyone lunch, and why baby poo was so much worse than actual corpse desecration, Lucy Rose was tugging at her skirt, looking frantic.

“What is it, Luce?” Marina asked, trying her best to sound as if she had infinite patience.

“I lost Godzilla!”

“You lost him? How?”

Sure enough, the cage was empty. No wonder it had been quieter than usual.

“Did you take him out, Lucy Rose?”

“I put him in his ball and then he disappeared!”

Not for the first time, Marina regretted buying the hamster one of those plastic balls that he could run in and propel himself around the entire ground floor of the house. She’d thought maybe the extra exercise would wear him out and keep him a little quieter, since she had no need for him to drown out any noises from the basement anymore. But Godzilla was indefatigable.

“I just have to make a phone call, Lucy Rose, and then I’ll look for him.”

“Look for him now!”

“Where’s Godzilla, Mommy?” asked Archie, wandering in with a carrot.

“Zilla!” yelled Ewan.

It was then that the doorbell rang.

Marina was surprised to see Opal standing on her doorstep. She was wearing workout gear and breathing slightly hard.

“Come in!” cried Marina, delighted. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

“I know this is unexpected,” said Opal, “and I know it’s not what we said, but do you think it would be okay for me to stay with you for a few days?”

“Of course! You’re very welcome. I’ve missed you. You can stay in the same room as before. I just changed the sheets.”

She noticed that Opal didn’t have any bags with her, but before she could ask about that, Lucy Rose was pulling at her skirt again.

“Godzilla’s in heaven with Nana Sylvia,” Lucy Rose said.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure he isn’t.”

“What’s up with the hamster from hell?” Opal eyed Lucy Rose. “I mean...hamster from heck.”

“He’s rolled off in his ball. He’s probably under a chair. Oh my goodness, it’s so great to see you. I haven’t spoken to an adult in real life for three days.”

Lucy Rose abandoned her mother and tugged at Opal’s hand instead. “Come help look.”

“...Okay.”

With Opal’s help, they found the hamster under the piano in under five minutes.

“That hamster looks fatter than he did before,” said Opal, extracting the ball and holding it up to the delight of the children. Lucy Rose and Archie bore him off, Ewan toddling behind them. Opal straightened up and brushed her knees.

“You’re all dressed up,” she said, looking Marina up and down.

“I was meant to be going out for an hour or so. But my mom rang to say she’s got a cold and can’t babysit.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Really? I thought you hated kids.”

“I do, but I can stand anything for a few hours.”

Marina beamed. “You are literally a godsend, do you know that? I shouldn’t be long. There’s plenty of food in the fridge for their lunch, and we made cookies so the tin is full, and if you’re lucky at least one of them might go down for a nap. From the looks of what he did before, Ewan shouldn’t need changing until I’m back.”

“You’re not going on a date, are you? If you are, make sure you get a full and verifiable history out of him before you get too involved.”

Marina winked. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

* * *

On her way to the bubble tea shop, she wondered why Opal hadn’t had any luggage with her. She’d turned up looking as if she were mid-run. Was she in trouble of some sort? She’d been the one who was so vehement about the three of them not staying in touch.

Regardless, it felt good to know that she’d be there when Marina got home. It made her feel less lonely, less like everything depending just on her. It made her feel a little braver about what she was about to do.

She paused in the doorway of the bubble tea shop, looking for Freya. Everyone else here seemed to be a teenager, sucking up bubbles through wide straws while expertly scrolling their phones. She spotted Freya sitting at a pastel-colored table by herself. Her hair was in bunches, and she was wearing a pair of dungarees that made her look almost as young as the teens slurping tea, except for her pregnant belly. How old was she, anyway? In her twenties? A good fifteen years younger than Jake. Younger than Marina had been when she had Archie.

She did not seem to be all that that pleased to be here, and when she spotted Marina, she frowned.

Marina ordered a brown sugar milk tea and went over. “Hi. Ooh, you’ve got a purple one. What’s that?”

“Taro without the tea.”

“Is it good? I want to try everything on the menu, it all looks delicious. Do you want to try some of mine?”

“I’m not drinking caffeine, because of the baby.”

“Oh, fair enough, good for you. I was never able to give up tea when I was expecting mine.”

“Why did you ring me?” Freya asked. “I thought you hated me. I tried being friendly the other day when I dropped the kids and you totally shut me down.”

Marina put down her cup. She had rehearsed this, late at night when the children were asleep.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t know you. I’ve been angry at you, because Jake left me for you.”

“But that’s not my fault! Jake—”

“I know. Jake was the one who broke up the marriage, not you.”

“I was going to say, Jake told me everything. You were separated anyway, so I don’t know why you’d be angry.”

Marina’s eyes widened. “He told you that?”

“Yes, before we even got together. He said you slept in separate rooms, and you didn’t even talk. He said that your family had a weird thing about divorce, so he was letting you decide how to tell everyone. He said you were relieved when he told you he and I had fallen in love.”

Oh Jake, you weasel.

“We weren’t separated. And we didn’t sleep in separate rooms. Our sex life was terrible, and I’ll admit I wasn’t enjoying being married to him, but I had no idea he was having an affair until I found out you were pregnant.”

“Oh.”

This wasn’t the response Marina had expected. She remembered how Lilah had reacted when she’d heard the truth about Zachary. She’d expected, if not a slap, then at least a little bit of arguing and denial.

“You’re...not surprised about this?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I really...the whole thing about your family hating divorce seemed a little far-fetched.”

Marina decided to let that go without explanation.

“Jake and I weren’t close anymore,” Marina said. “That part is true. We weren’t happy. So no, I don’t hate you, and I’m not angry with you anymore, either. I don’t know if I ever really was, or if I just thought that I should be. It’s such a cliché, the spurned wife hating the younger mistress, women in rivalry with each other over a man. It’s hard to resist these expectations sometimes.”

Freya sighed. She pointed at Marina’s bubble tea. “Can I try that? It’s my favorite. You can try my taro.”

Marina pushed it over.

“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” Freya said, and took a sip. “Oh, you’re right, this is really good. I’ve had to give up everything I like, and some websites say you shouldn’t have caffeine and some say it doesn’t matter and it’s impossible to find out which one is the truth.”

“Welcome to motherhood,” said Marina. “Everything you decide is wrong.” She tried the taro, and decided she liked hers better, even though it wasn’t as colorful.

“Anyway, I never planned to have a baby so early. I love my career, and none of my friends are having babies yet. It’s all a lot, you know. I was hoping that, like, if our kids were going to be half-siblings, that you and I could maybe get along at least.”

“It is a lot,” she agreed. “And I’d like to get along with you, if only because it’s better for the children, and also it’s spitting in the face of misogynistic stereotypes.”

“Hear hear,” said Freya, going back to her taro without much enthusiasm. She chewed on a tapioca bubble.

“But also,” said Marina, “I need to tell you something that you need to know, before it’s too late for you to make a choice. When I married Jake, I also loved my career. I loved who I was when I was at work. I loved myself, too, and I thought that I could keep loving myself while I loved him. But I couldn’t. There is something about Jake that made it impossible. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s just men in general, maybe it’s not men on their own but actually the patriarchy, whatever that means. And I’m not blaming him, I’m blaming myself. But the truth is that within my marriage, when I was in it, I found myself getting smaller, day by day.”

Freya was watching her with wide eyes.

“I got smaller and smaller with every baby I had. Not my ass and my boobs, those got bigger. I mean myself, who I am. I got smaller. And that’s not right, because having children should make you bigger, happier. It should make you love yourself more, because you’ve done this amazing thing. You’re doing this amazing thing right now. And yet, looking at you...I’m not sure you feel that way.”

Freya blinked. There were suddenly tears in her eyes.

“You don’t know how I feel,” Freya said.

“You’re right, I don’t,” said Marina. “My marriage failed, so I am not the best person to listen to. But I do know, because I’ve seen it, that Jake is taking you for granted already. He is already putting his own needs before yours. I’m guessing that he is already talking about you giving up your career, which is one of the things that makes you, you. I’m guessing this, because he told me that you remind him of me when I was your age, and that he loves your independence and your spark. But those were the very things that he said he loved about me, and that he then did his best to destroy.”

“What are you trying to say?” Even though a tear had rolled down her cheek, Freya still sounded defiant. Marina thought this was a good thing.

“I’m trying to say that you should do exactly what you want.”

“I will. You are literally a stranger. I don’t need to do what you tell me to do.”

“Good. Your choices might be a lot better than mine. And anyway, I can’t regret my choices, because they led me to having three great kids who I love more than anything in the world. And I don’t think that Jake is a bad man. I don’t think he’s much worse than a lot of other men out there. I think he is just a man, who behaves the way he does because he thinks that he is entitled to behave that way. I don’t think you’re going to change him, but if you want to try, then go ahead. But go ahead with your eyes open. Mostly I want to say that when a man shows you who he is, you should believe him. It will save you a lot of cleanup later.”