“Why don’t you just say it, then?”
“I don’t have time.”
“You don’t have time forwhat?”
“I don’t have time to tell you how fucking weird this whole situation is. It was fine when you were on leave and needed a friend, whatever, but now they’re alone together all day…”
“Yeah, I have ajob, kind of like the one you’re rushing to get back to. I’dloveto quit…” We both know that I can’t quit. We need the money and Roman needs to work twelve-hour days because if he lost his job, we’d lose our health insurance—and even if it isn’t exactly the Cadillac of coverage, it’s better than COBRA or Elevate’s subpar benefits.
“Well, you’d have more time for kombucha and napping pods,” Roman says.
“You think it’s funny that I’m finally taking care of myself?”
“No, I think it’s fucking terrifying.”
“You don’t get it. You get dressed, get beers, talk balance sheets—”
“Who even are you right now?”
“—You still get to be…you.”
“You never used to give a shit about any of that materialistic bullshit. What happened to the girl who used to drag me to open mic nights in Greenpoint and thought brunch was a capitalist scam and shared a fifth-floor walk-up with a mime and his Grindr dates, and wanted us to both quit our jobs so we could ride motorbikes around Cambodia?”
I wait for him to finish and then I say, “She bled out in childbirth.”
The food arrives. I smile too brightly at the waiter, then let it fall the second he’s gone. I can’t tell Roman that the only good thing I’ve had since I had Holden is the thing I have with Daisy, with the community we’ve built at 527 Park. Daisy isn’t some kind of childcare bargain basement. She is a blessing. Not just to me, but to Holden, toall the moms and babies who have found refuge in that Sing Sing for the superrich. He should thank me. I found another way. Holden has free quality childcare, stimulating classes, social interaction, wooden Montessori toys—all the milks.
Roman touches my hand, barely there, like he isn’t sure he should. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t.”
He picks around at his salmon bowl, does his Roman thing, trying to find a solution. “Maybe my mom could come, if Gigi…” He trails off. Two weeks after Roman went back to work, he flew to Melbourne to say goodbye to Gigi. That’s when I really started my Daisy search—when the days bled into nights and I was all alone with a newborn who never napped, a pump that felt like an iron lung. Throbbing pain. A renovation on my head. Seven months later, Gigi was still slowly dying, and I’d still be unraveling if I hadn’t found Daisy. Roman has that look on his face again, a chamber I’m not allowed to enter. We feel too sick with guilt to ever say it aloud, but I know that he wants his grandmother to die. We both do. But she won’t die, and Sue couldn’t live with herself if she wasn’t at her mom’s side when it happened. So here we are.
The tension between us lifts as quickly as it came. That is when I notice Roman noticing me. He is looking at me in his Levi’s, which I folded up and cinched with a brown leather belt, balloon pants that hang just beneath my hip bones. On top, I’ve got on a holey rugby jersey that he’s had since college, tied tight with a scrunchie in the back. He is looking at me in a different way. He is looking at me like he wants to plow me hard right there on the communal table over the quiche lorraine and tuna tartines.
“You look like a teenage rugby thug,” he says. “It’s hot.”
I wink at him. The fight is forgotten.
On the way back to his office, we park at a pocket-sized playgroundwedged between two office buildings. For a moment, Roman forgets the time. He places Holden at an activity board bolted to the playground wall, showing him how to twist the jumble of bright gears, the sliding beads through a maze, until they solve the puzzle. They’re both locked in fierce focus, Holden still babbling “Dada. Dada.” One thing about Roman is that he is good with his hands. He built an actual working drawbridge when he was seven that Sue has assiduously preserved in the backyard, so that his own son could play on it one day. If Roman weren’t an accountant, he’d make bespoke furniture in a shed in the Hudson Valley, or somewhere even farther afield. Maine? Appalachia?
I watch the two of them together, and for the first time, I see that Holden has inherited this gift—and what a gift to inherit. To be able to fix anything. To solve the puzzle. To be able to get back to the basics. To work with your hands. Something no algorithm can do.
Roman looks up, startled. “Shit. What time is it?” He checks his phone. “I was supposed to be back ten minutes ago.”
He picks Holden up and puts him in the stroller. We walk back to his office. A couple of security guards check credentials. Roman kisses Holden, then me, goodbye.
“That was nice,” Roman says.
“That was nice.”
He disappears through the revolving doors into the bright, art-filled lobby. I lean my head into the Yoyo. “Ma-MA. I’m Ma-MA.”
“Daaaadaaaaa,” Holden babbles.
“Fucking men.”
—
