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“Thursday?” he asks, distracted. The noise of the crowd around him gets louder.
“He’s showing the class the robotic arm?”
“Right,” he says. “Sorry. It’s on my calendar—I swear. Nothing will stop me from being there.”
I wish I believed that.
ONWEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, I’m showered and ready to see Caleb long before his flight lands. Molly’s going to watch the twins so I can sneak next door for our first overnight since we went to the hotel. I bought the black lace garter thing as a surprise—when you’ve only had quickies for the past month, it warrants a small celebration.
He calls just as we’re sitting down to dinner.
“I’ve got some bad news,” he says, and my teeth clench. It feels like he does nothing but call with bad news of late.
I walk toward the front of the house so the twins won’t overhear. “Is your flight delayed?”
He sighs. “I wish that’s all it was. The COO got held up, so we’re getting together tomorrow instead.”
The disappointment swings into me hard, like an unexpected door.But...you promised. Henry was counting on it. This is the kind of thing Jeremy would do, but you were supposed to be different.
Except he never promised he’d be different. He never said he’d work less. I just wanted tobelievehe would, given the right circumstances. I wanted to believe that when it really mattered, he’d put us first.
“You can’t meet with him by video?” I ask, though I already know it’s too late.
“Lucie, that’s not how a meeting like this takes place. I’m trying to woo these guys. We’re having lunch, and I’ll catch the five o’clock flight back.”
Unless the meeting goes long. Unless the COO decides you should discuss it over drinks instead. “Well, I’d better let Henry know,” I say.
“I really am sorry, Lucie, but this meeting—”
“Stop,” I snap. “When you saybutin a sentence, you invalidate all the words you said before it. So please don’t.”
He sighs again. “I knew this was going to be a problem. I knew my job was going to be an issue eventually.”
I can’t believe he’s usingthismoment to scold me about my expectations. Jeremy’s words ring in my head, though I wish they wouldn’t:you think I was a disappointment as a father? Wait until you’re depending on someone who isn’t even related to them. “What an excellent time to sayI told you so, Caleb. Anything else you want to add before I go talk to Henry?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m just tired.”
“Me too,” I reply.
I’m tired, and I’m lonely, and I’m sick of being unsure where we stand and having to keep it all to myself. I’ve spent my entire life coming in a distant second or worse to the people who were supposed to care.
I’m not sure I can keep doing it. And I’m not sure I should be setting my kids up for that kind of life either.
THE NEXT MORNING, I drive the twins to school. Henry refused to carry the robotic arm that Molly helped him complete, as if it’s tainted somehow now that Caleb won’t be there. I take it into the school for him, hoping he changes his mind.
The show is small and informal—the parents take seats along the perimeter of the room while the kids sit cross-legged in a circle on the floor.
Henry’s classmates attempt to juggle, dance or—in Sophie’s case—sing inappropriate pop songs. But when Henry’s name is called, he remains still and silent, refusing to even glance at the project I laid on the display table.
“Henry,” says the teacher, singing his name the second time, as if that’s going to induce him to do anything at all, “it’s your turn. Are you going to show us your creation?”
I hold my breath, waiting and praying. Henry stares straight ahead as if she hasn’t spoken, and I suspected he would, butwhen she gives up and moves on to the next kid, I want to weep until I have no more tears left.
The kids are sent home after the presentation concludes, because St. Ignatius assumes that all of us have nannies, or don’t work in the first place. I’ve arranged for Abby, a girl from our old neighborhood, to babysit.
She meets us at the house with a bag full of art projects and ingredients for cookies. I’m grateful and at the same time I hate that I’m paying someone to do things I’d love to do with them myself.
I stall at the front door. “Don’t let them go down to the lake without you,” I tell her. “And Henry probably won’t ask you for things, so anything you give Sophie, just give him the same. And feel free to call at any time. Honestly. There’s nothing—”
