Page 37

Nicole

I face absolutely zero repercussions following my somewhat-risky trip up north with the girls.

They had no complaints about the sleepover with Merry.

They asked no questions about my whereabouts.

And they said nothing to Kyle about Mommy leaving them.

Kyle’s stomach bug has passed, and he has been kinder than usual, probably because he enjoyed a weekend by himself in a quiet house.

Elijah and I continue to text our way to a deeper connection than I thought possible.

My latest daydream is divorcing Kyle and carrying on my relationship with Elijah whenever I don’t have the girls.

Kyle will blame my desire to separate solely on grief-induced madness, and I will say, “You might be right.” That will be the easiest pill for him to swallow.

I keep reminding myself that I was daydreaming of leaving Kyle before I even met Elijah. Elijah is just the catalyst.

I have the girls with me for a trip to the grocery store.

Once, I overheard a park mom say that she only runs errands without her children, that she counts this as “self-care.” I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they would get stuck in the back of my head and I’d see nothing but black for the rest of my life.

First of all, how does she have the option to run errands without her children?

Second of all, why is the bar so low for maternal self-care?

I was most perturbed by the fact that I understood what she was saying.

On the rare occasion Kyle watches the girls so I can run errands, it does feel like a luxury.

It’s like once we become mothers, we are told that any moment that does not involve complete sacrifice in deference to our children is a luxury, something we should count as a blessing.

I hated that mom for supporting this narrative. And I hated myself for doing the same.

“Mommy, can I get these?” Grace asks, pointing to a giant container of cheese balls that the manager of this establishment has chosen to place right at the entrance of the store.

“No, Grace. We don’t need a vat of cheese balls.”

“What’s a vat?”

“Hey, why don’t you get yourself a little cart?”

Half of parenting is redirection.

Grace goes to the little carts and takes one for herself.

Before I had kids, I despised mothers who let their children push these little carts through the aisles.

The children were always in the way, and the moms would just chirp “Sorry!” with this laugh that said I’m just a mom doing my best. Isn’t my kid cute?

I am the annoying mom now. The universe is constantly reprimanding me for my past judgments.

Liv sits in the front of the big cart that I’m pushing. Usually, she’s well behaved and giggly in this scenario because she thinks the grocery store is like a ride at Disneyland. Today, though, she is wiggling around and whining. It’s a special kind of whine. She might have an ear infection.

Grace likes to be helpful, so I tell her to get bananas. She goes to the bin of single bananas and puts eight of them, one at a time, in her cart. Most of them are already browning, but I don’t have the heart or patience to do anything about this.

“Do we need strawberries too?” she asks with enthusiasm.

We always need strawberries.

She picks up a container, but she does it by the top, so the container falls open, and all the strawberries tumble out onto the floor.

She looks at me, and as she takes in my complete annoyance with her mishap, her face transforms from shock at what’s happened to utter devastation. There is a precarious moment of silence before she erupts into a wail.

I set aside my annoyance so I can console her and get her to stop wailing.

“It was just an accident,” I tell her, stroking her back with my hand.

Please stop making a scene is what I’m thinking.

She calms down, and I start to put the strawberries back in the container when a guy who works there, some teenage kid, comes over and says, “Don’t bother with that. Not like we can sell them now.”

As he walks away, I hurl one of the strawberries at his back.

“Mommy!” Grace chastises me.

I miss hitting him, for better or worse, and mutter, “Asshole.” It’s possible he hears me. His head jerks back slightly, but he doesn’t turn around.

Grace and Liv have definitely heard me.

“Asshole!” Grace shrieks.

Now the kid looks at us, as do several others in the vicinity. I give him a tight smile.

With impeccable timing, Liv parrots her sister: “Asshole!”

And that’s how the shopping trip goes.

I stop by the pediatrician’s office on the way home, hoping they can see Liv because I’m quite sure something is going on with her right ear. It’s red and crusty, and she keeps putting her pinkie finger in it.

Hey you, how’s your day?

Elijah.

The dancing between two worlds has become less exhilarating and more exhausting. I want nothing more than to sit on a park bench and text him back and forth for the next hour, but I cannot, and this constraint makes me more irritable than I already was.

Too busy. You?

The woman at the front desk of the pediatrician’s office says she can see Liv in a half hour. I take the girls out into the courtyard of the building, hoping their imaginations will run wild enough to grant me a few minutes of peace.

Him: Busy here too. I notice I like texting you when I’m a bit stressed. You calm me, remind me what’s important

“Mommy, be the monster!” Grace yells, just as I sit on the edge of a planter box. She starts to run away from me. “Come get us!”

If I ever go back to working on my résumé, I’m going to put “the Monster” as my most recent job title.

“Grace, not right now,” I say.

“Monsta!” Liv shouts.

“Pleeeease,” Grace says with her little prayer hands.

“Go look at the pond,” I tell them, pointing to a koi pond that should interest them for at least five minutes.

They walk over, and I realize this is a horrible idea.

“Girls, please don’t touch the fish!” I yell.

This is why Elijah and I cannot have phone conversations. This is why we cannot FaceTime.

Me: You are the most pleasant distraction for me too

Grace takes off her shoes and socks and steps into the pond.

“Grace, no.”

She does not even lift her head to show she’s heard me.

“ Grace !”

Him: You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met

Liv is now copying her sister, taking off her shoes and socks. She sticks both her hands in the water. They have given me no choice but to intervene.

“Girls, I said No. Stop .”

I grab Grace by the arm, harder than necessary, maybe harder than I ever have.

“Oww!” she screams, insta-tears flooding her eyes.

She looks at me with the same terror Kyle did when I got in his face and told him not to tell me to calm down.

I am the Monster.

I release her arm, and she wraps her fingers around it, grimacing.

“Mommy hurt Gracie,” Liv says.

“Honey, Grace is fine,” I tell her. “Right, Grace?”

Grace is still holding her arm, looking at me with what can only be described as betrayal in her eyes.

“You girls weren’t listening,” I say, explaining myself. “That pond is full of bacteria.”

Grace continues sniffling.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” I say.

She nods, staring at her feet.

“Can you girls just play nicely?”

Grace nods. Liv copies her.

“I don’t want to play,” Grace says.

“Okay, then sit. Enjoy the sunshine.”

They sit.

As the guilt sets in and I wonder if I’ve damaged Grace forever, she says, “Mom, what’s bacteria?”

I sigh. “It’s gross. That’s what it is.”

Liv places her pinkie finger in her ear. So if it wasn’t infected before, it is now.

After the requisite half hour, we go back to the pediatrician’s office. They are not quite ready for us, so the girls make a game of jumping from one floor tile to the next in the waiting room.

Him: I have plans for you this weekend. I can’t wait to see you

It’s not always possible for me to respond to Elijah, so I just watch his messages come in, savoring each of them, composing responses in my head. This mental composition makes me feel like my brain has come alive again. The lights are now on in my frontal lobe.

My maternal intuition was right—Liv does have an ear infection.

When I was a new mom, I was impressed with this intuition thing.

It seemed like magic the way mothers just knew things about their babies.

Now I consider it somewhat handy in certain situations and burdensome in others.

Why do I have to be the one with the intuition?

It would be nice if Kyle had some, if he could help carry the responsibility of knowing things.

We stop at the pharmacy to pick up ear drops that cost $200 and antibiotics that cost $3. I do not understand American health care. I rack my brain for what else I need at the pharmacy, knowing full well that I’ll remember something essential just as we are parking in the garage back home.

I get a pack of overnight diapers for Liv because it’s all I can think of, and we wait in the checkout line, which is more of a gauntlet for parents of young children with its displays of knickknacks and candy.

“Mommy, can we have these?” Grace asks, holding up a pack of Skittles.

“No,” I say.

How many times a day do I say no? A thousand?

As they continue asking me to buy things and I continue to say no, my eye catches a pregnancy test box next to a display of Kleenex tissues.

It seems to be staring at me, sitting there by its lonesome.

I think of my still-achy boobs. Elijah and I use condoms. There are a couple of times we didn’t, but he pulled out.

And besides, it’s not like I’m of fertile age.

I cannot be pregnant. It’s just wacky hormones, the joys of being a woman in her forties.

But what if ?

I grab the test and put it under the pack of diapers. Just in case, I tell myself. My period will come any day, and I will feel foolish at the first sight of blood.

But what if ?