Page 23

Nicole

“Mommmmm, can you push me on the swing?” Grace calls.

We are at a park (again), and I have just sat at a picnic table, hoping for a few minutes of quiet while the girls play. So much for that.

I’m back to being the aggravated, bitter person that I am accustomed to being.

When Elijah and I parted ways yesterday, I was very clear.

I told him I couldn’t see him again, despite everything in my body resisting this declaration.

Ending it felt like a betrayal of self more than a betrayal of him.

He was disappointed—“I’m gonna miss you, Kit Kat”—and in denial: “Maybe you’ll change your mind in a couple days.

” I let him (and myself) hope for that when I said, “Maybe.” But at the first red light I came to after driving away, I deleted him from my phone (his number and all our messages), because that’s the right thing to do, because I have to focus on my dying father and my needy children and my troubled marriage.

Now that I’m at the park, being summoned, I regret deleting him.

I crave his messages, crave the boost they gave me.

Last week, there was nothing the girls could do to bring me down.

Did they want me to diaper and rediaper their dolls for hours?

Sure! Did they require a completely different breakfast?

No problem! Their whining was like white noise, barely audible over the chirping birds in my head.

How am I supposed to get through my days now?

“Mommmmmm,” Grace calls again.

Liv is playing with the wood chips on the ground under the swing set, throwing them up in the air like confetti. A piece hits a little boy near her, and the boy’s mom looks at me like Are you going to do something about this?

“Liv, honey, let’s not throw that around,” I say in a singsong voice, doing my best impression of the meditation teachers in the Calm app that I’ve used exactly once.

The mom takes her little boy to the other side of the park, not wanting to expose him to my heathens. I give the middle finger to her back because it feels good. I am tragically juvenile.

I put Liv in the bucket swing, which is right next to the swing Grace is in, a tiny miracle that may keep me from a nervous breakdown (for today, at least).

I push Grace with one arm and Liv with the other.

The rhythm is meditative until they both tell me they want to go higher.

Because nothing is ever good enough. Last week, when I had Elijah to look forward to, I shrieked with glee along with them while I pushed.

I said things like “You’re going to go to the moon!

” Not today. We are all trapped on Earth today.

An email notification dings on my phone:

New test results available in your health chart

It’s my dad’s test result, the one we’ve been waiting on to confirm if he actually has this one-in-a-million disease.

I registered my dad’s medical account to my email, told Merry I would handle all of that.

In the two weeks since the doctor told us they were quite certain of a prion disease, Merry and I have flirted with the idea that the doctors are wrong. It has felt good to flirt.

“Girls, just a sec,” I say, ceasing my swing-pushing.

When I open the email, there is a report in front of me. I scan it.

Likelihood of prion disease: 98%

There are other things, medical terms that mean nothing to me: T-tau protein (CSF), 14-3-3 protein (CSF), RT-QuIC (CSF) . At the bottom, it says:

The NPDPSC is able to offer a no-cost autopsy for this patient.

We are already discussing autopsies.

I google NPDPSC because I don’t know what that is. National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center.

“Mommmm, higher!” Grace demands.

“Grace, just a sec.”

The familiar rush of heat moves through my body. I push up the sleeves of the sweatshirt I’m wearing, wanting to take it off completely, to stand there braless and bare, throwing wood chips with reckless abandon, to the horror of all bystanders.

“Mommmm, I’m almost stopped,” Grace says.

“Kick your legs. You have legs!”

The heat within is so intense I think I might pass out.

Then it fades, and a gust of wind cools the sweat on my body, making me suddenly cold.

I push down the sleeves of my sweatshirt and curse the fact that I cannot trust something as simple as my bodily thermostat. Nothing in this life is reliable.

“I can’t kick!”

She is about to melt down, so I shove her as hard as I can. There is an immediate rush, a release. Then I panic as I picture her flying out of the swing, landing past the wood chips on the hard cement. She shrieks, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or delight, they sound so similar.

“Mom, that was higher than ever,” she says. It’s delight.

“Higher, higher,” Liv says.

I shove her too. This is all I can do right now—shove them, direct the currents of fear and grief and rage running through my body into my arms, into these damn swings.

Thankfully, they both succumb to the Car Nap after our park outing.

I drive around confused by a beeping noise until I realize, a half hour in, that the beeping noise is alerting me to put on my seat belt.

I have never forgotten my seat belt before.

It is as automatic as breathing. Am I going to stop breathing too?

Is this what happens when the psyche is taxed, emitting smoke like an overheated appliance?

Sometimes, on dark days (today being one of those days), I hum the tune to that Sugar Ray song, “Fly,” but in my head, the lyrics are “I just wanna die.” I don’t actually want to die.

I don’t need to call a suicide hotline. I’m just exhausted.

In a rut or a funk or whatever. Another Instagram meme making the rounds:

My autopsy report: This woman was just very tired.

The girls sleep a full hour—another one of the sanity-saving tiny miracles that all mothers need.

When we get home, it’s about three o’clock, and Kyle is still working, so I tell the girls we’re going to play with chalk on the driveway.

This will kill about seven minutes, and then it’ll be on to another activity.

“Hey,” Kyle says, coming outside, squinting in the light like a bear emerging from a cave after a long hibernation. He stretches his arms over his head.

“Taking a break?” I ask.

“Yeah. It’s been a hell of a day.”

I try to muster a sympathetic look, but I probably just look constipated.

“Daddy, do chalk with us!” Grace says.

“I’m just taking a short break, girls, then back to work for a couple hours.”

Grace pouts for thirty seconds, then snaps back to her cheerful self upon realizing that Kyle does not care about her pouting. Sometimes I think he’s an emotionally empty asshole, and other times I think he’s doing parenting way better than me.

Things have been weird between Kyle and me ever since my fling with Elijah.

Things have been weird between us for a while, but now I’ve lost any and all interest in pretending that they aren’t weird.

I can’t even look Kyle in the eye. I’ve never been a good liar, for one.

If Kyle and I take a moment to really look at each other, will he see my deceit?

Maybe he should see it so we can talk about the bigger issues we keep avoiding.

The crux of my angst is that Elijah has heightened my awareness of the chasm between Kyle and me.

It’s not that Kyle no longer makes me feel like Elijah does; it’s that he never made me feel that way.

I chose Kyle because I didn’t think it was possible to feel that way.

I got home around ten last night, and Kyle was still up, which could only mean one thing—he wanted sex.

I took my time in the bathroom, brushing my teeth with more care than I ever have, washing my face with the slow, circular motions they demonstrate with lotions and potions on infomercials.

I put on my rattiest sweatpants and a T-shirt with pit stains.

I couldn’t fathom having sex with him. I’d had sex with Elijah that morning.

Predictably, Kyle rolled toward me and put his hand under my disgusting T-shirt.

I froze, body stiff and awkward. He didn’t seem to notice, just kept going forth with his own carnal wish list, a determined bull in a china shop.

He kissed my neck, and I stared at the ceiling, wide eyed.

Soon, he was pressing his body on top of mine, whispering in my ear that he missed me, still apparently oblivious to the fact that I was completely still, unresponsive to his advances.

When he started to pull off my sweatpants, I said the thing women say too often:

“I’m sorry.”

He kept kissing my neck, said, “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so tired from the drive, and—”

He sighed heavily and rolled off me. The man whispering sweet nothings was gone; a rejected ego took his place.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

Turned away from me, he muttered, “Whatever” like a sullen teenager.

The people pleaser in me wanted to make a litany of promises— we’ll have sex tomorrow, we’ll set a schedule, we’ll plan date nights .

But those promises would just be more lies, so I said nothing, promised nothing.

This morning, we didn’t talk about it. But I have noticed he’s having a hard time looking me in the eye too.

The girls are pleasantly busy with their chalk. Grace is showing Liv how to draw a heart, and I praise their cooperation: “Such sweet sisters, you two!”

Kyle watches. He doesn’t usually come hang with us during his workday, even just for a few minutes. Maybe he does want to talk about last night, or wants to say something, but can’t formulate the words. Much of our marriage has involved me waiting for him to formulate words.

“What’s for dinner?” he asks.

“You already hungry?” I nearly offer him a snack, as I would the girls.

He shrugs. “Just curious.”

“Lasagna.”

“You know I love your lasagna.”