What Remains True Page 14

  “Hurry up, guys,” she tells them. She glances at me, her expression unreadable, then she turns back to them. “We can’t be late for school today.”

  “I’ve, like, heard that a million times already,” Eden snipes. Honestly, I don’t understand kids’ obsession with the word like.

  And dude. Dude, it seems, is a cross-generational word. We used it when I was growing up, and kids use it today. Thankfully, Eden hasn’t embraced it, but I know, sooner or later, it will become a major part of Jonah’s vocabulary.

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” Rachel says. “Will you still be here?”

  I glance at my watch, even though I already know the answer. “I have to leave in ten.”

  She looks disappointed. “You sure you’re okay? Do you want to meet for lunch to talk?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve got a lunch meeting.” Even as the words come out of my mouth, my stomach turns over. I kiss the top of her head. “I’m okay, honey. Really.” Not really.

  “Mom. Hair.”

  She gives me a last speculative glance, then turns to Eden. “You could say please.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t want to be late,” Eden reminds her.

  Rachel gives Eden a wide-eyed look. “And it’s your hair not mine, missy. I don’t expect you to grovel, but please would be appropriate.”

  “What’s grovel?” Eden and Jonah say at the same time, then they both laugh.

  “It’s what your dad does when he wants a special kiss.”

  “Funny,” I say. “It’s what your mom does when she wants a new piece of furniture.”

  Rachel throws the dish towel at me, and we both laugh.

  “I still don’t know what that means,” Jonah says.

  “It’s when you get down on your knees and beg because you want something so much,” Rachel tells him.

  “I’m not doing that,” Eden says.

  “I’m not asking you to,” Rachel says. She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting.”

  Eden sighs. “Will you please do my hair, Mom? Pretty please with a cherry on top.”

  “And whipped cream!” Jonah chimes in. “And almonds and chocolate sauce.”

  “Yes, my lady, your wish is my command.”

  This is the Davenport dynamic at work, jokes and questions and laughter. I love the interplay of my family. I know I would miss it if I didn’t have it.

  Rachel follows Eden out of the kitchen. I finish my coffee and rinse the mug in the sink as Jonah gets up from the table. I watch him take the crust from his toast and hold it out to Shadow. Very gently, Shadow takes the crust, then trots to his bed, where he proceeds to devour it. Jonah brings his plate over, sets it on the counter, and looks up at me.

  “I’ll find some eggs for you, too, Daddy. And for Mommy and Auntie Ruth. I’ll find so many, we can all have them.”

  His brown eyes are twinkling, and his wide grin makes his dimples look huge. My heart gives a tug. I reach down and ruffle his hair.

  “Thank you, little man.”

  “I’m not a man,” he says, then giggles.

  I pretend to be very serious. “Not yet, you’re right. But you will be very soon.”

  He throws his arms around my waist and squeezes my middle. “Love you, Daddy.”

  I bend over and hug him back. “Love you, too, Buster Brown.”

  He pulls away. “I gotta go, Daddy.”

  “I know. You can’t be late.”

  He races toward the living room, then stops and turns to me. “What’s your favorite kind of egg?”

  I think for a moment. “Peanut butter.”

  He smiles. “That’s good. You can have ’em all.”

  “How very generous of you.”

  “What’s generous?” he asks.

  “It’s when you give a lot of what you have to someone else.”

  He contemplates this then gives me a doubtful look. For a five-year-old, he’s got the doubtful look down. “I don’t think it’s me being ge-ner-ous, Daddy. ’Cause I don’t like the peanut butter eggs.”

  I smile at him. “But you like the cookies-and-cream eggs.” He nods vehemently. “And you’re going to share them with your sister.” He nods again. “I would say, my guy, that you are extremely generous. The proof’s in the pudding.”

  He nods back at me. “Okay. Good. I’m glad we got that settled.” He races out of the room before he can hear my laughter.

  When they’re gone, the house is quiet. I take my mug from the dish drain and pour half a cup, leaving the rest of the pot for Rachel. I carry the mug to the table and sit down. For a moment, I’m lost in my thoughts. I love my family. I do. So much it hurts sometimes. But. But. No, there is no but. Except, there are temptations. And possibilities.

  Shadow watches me from his bed. As if sensing my conflicting thoughts, he rises and pads over to me and lays his head on my thigh. His soulful eyes dart up at me, then dart away, then dart back to me. Ordinarily, I would shove him off my work slacks, worrying that his hair will leave a trail. But his warmth and sensitivity soothes me, so I stroke the fur of his head and neck instead.

  “Good boy, Shadow. You’re a good dog.” He licks my hand in agreement.

  I check my watch and realize that Rachel will be home in a few minutes. I don’t want to be here when she gets back. She’ll pepper me with more questions, questions for which I have no answers. Not yet, anyway. I nudge Shadow aside, and he seems to take it in stride, trotting off to the back door, where he moves through his doggy hatch to the backyard.

  For the second time, I rinse my mug and set it in the dish drain, then head for the living room. I grab my tweed jacket from where I hung it on the banister, pick my briefcase up off the floor of the foyer, and leave the house.

  The day is bright and sunny, a perfect spring morning. Easter is two days away, and we’ll celebrate it here. Ruth is coming, of course, and Rachel wanted me to invite my client Joel Conrad as a kind of setup. I told her I didn’t think Easter was an ideal blind date venue, and she gave her typical Rachel look—exasperation coupled with disbelief and amusement. I didn’t mention that Joel Conrad is not a suitable prospect for her sister because his idea of the perfect woman is an eighteen-year-old with triple-E breasts.

  As I get into the car, I check my watch. I turn the ignition and back out of the driveway. Before I reach the asphalt, a shiny new red Accord rockets past as if the driver is trying to break the sound barrier. Our street is long, with not a single curve, and often drivers step on the pedal, oblivious to the fact that there might be children playing. Our community started a campaign to install speed bumps, but the initiative has yet to reach the city council.

  When all is clear, I reverse into the street. Just as I shift into drive, I see the minivan coming toward me. Rachel slows as if to stop, but I only wave at her as I step on the accelerator. I see the look of puzzlement on her face as I pass, and I carry that image with me as I make my way to work.

  Toward the possibilities.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  RACHEL

  I drop the kids at the valet and slowly pull away so the cars behind me can move up. As I wait at the exit to make the turn, I glance in my rearview mirror and see Eden and Jonah walking hand in hand toward the kindergarten gate. I’ve watched them do this every day since the start of the school year, but it still makes me smile. I know that in a few years, when Eden’s a teenager and Jonah is in middle school, they won’t want anything to do with each other, so I make sure to hold this image in my mind and in my heart where I can cherish it.

  I circle to the back of the school, where Lisa Grant is waiting for me by her behemoth Sequoia. I double-park next to her and roll down the passenger window and grab the sheaf of papers on the seat.

  “Morning, lady,” she says.

  “Hey.” I hand her the papers. “We’ve got a ton of donations for the gala.”

  “Awesome sauce,” she says. “Time for coffee?”

  Ordinarily, I would accept the in
vitation. I love coffee with Lisa. We chat about everything and nothing, and because she is snarky and hilarious, I spend a good deal of the time choking on my latte because I’m laughing so hard. But I want to get home and catch Sam before he leaves for the office.

  “Rain check?” I ask, and she nods.

  “Next week for sure,” she says.

  I pull away and head for home, hoping my husband will still be there.

  Something’s going on with Sam, and I can’t figure out what it is. He’s still the same guy. He isn’t acting strangely. He still jokes with the kids and helps Eden with her homework and asks them both questions about school. He still strokes my back in bed and kisses me hello and goodbye and helps with the dishes and talks to me about annoying or high-maintenance clients. But for the past week, I’ve sensed something, a shift, just below the surface. He’s not wearing a sign. No one else would even notice. But we’ve been married for thirteen years, and I can tell he’s not entirely himself.

  I hope it’s not a midlife crisis. Sam’s a little too young for that, but you never know. Maybe his business is in trouble. Maybe he wants to switch careers. Just before I got pregnant with Jonah, we had a conversation about that. I think we’d been drinking, and he told me that he’d always seen himself as a high school teacher, teaching wood shop and coaching the football team. I’d been surprised. In all the time we’d been together, he’d never mentioned anything like that. But I told him I would support him if he really wanted to make a change.

  Then Jonah came along and we had a family of four, and when I brought it up to him again, he said it wasn’t practical to make a career change, what with two kids and a mortgage. He wasn’t angry or resentful when he said it, just matter-of-fact. And then he admitted that he knew he was a good architect and he would probably suck as a high school teacher, and we never discussed it again.

  It might not be about work or his age. It might be something small and stupid, like he just discovered gray hair in his pubes or a wart between his toes. I just wish I knew. What’s that line from The Matrix? It’s the not knowing that drives you mad.

  Maybe Sam and I need a little alone time. We haven’t had a date night in a while. Usually we’re good about carving out couple time, but both of our schedules have been crazy lately.

  I decide to call Ruth when I get home to see if she can watch the kids tonight. It’s their first night of vacation, and we always do something as a family to celebrate, like dinner and a kid-friendly movie or an hour at the nickel arcade. But we can push that off until tomorrow night. Ruth might not be available at such short notice, although I can’t imagine my sister having any big Friday night plans. Anyway, I can ask. I just want to give Sam an opportunity to talk about whatever it is that’s going on before it gets any bigger.

  When I make the turn onto our street, I see Sam pulling out of the driveway. He shifts into drive and I make to stop so we can chat through our open windows, but he doesn’t even slow down, just smiles and waves at me as he passes. Disappointed, I pull into my spot on the left side of the driveway.

  I don’t have a lot of time to worry about Sam. I need to get focused. I only have a few hours before I have to pick up Jonah from school, and I need to do my blog. The kids are going to be on vacation next week, so I want to make sure I have all of my posts for the next seven days ready to go. My sponsors pay me to be consistent, after all. It’s not much, but the money I make pays a bill or two and gives me a little extra cash to play with.

  Sam was funny about me starting a blog. He thought there were other ways I could more effectively spend my time, and he pointed out that 90 percent of blogs never gain any kind of following to speak of and are mostly just the stream of consciousness (aka masturbation) of people who have too much time on their hands. He didn’t tell me not to do it. He would never tell me not to do something I really wanted to do. He told me to go for it. But he was surprised when my blog took off and downright shocked when I started making money on it.

  “So, companies pay you to review their products? And women read your reviews? And then, if a woman reads your review on a particular brand of diapers and buys those diapers by clicking on a link from your blog, you get a percentage of the sale?”

  “Yep.” I tried not to be smug, and to his credit, Sam was happy for me and told me over and over again how proud he was of me.

  “I have to do something with my time,” I told him. “Lounging on the couch eating bonbons gets boring after a while.”

  We laughed at that, because we both knew that a mom’s life leaves little room for couch lounging and the consumption of chocolate-covered ice-cream bites.

  When I walk in the door, Shadow greets me, tail wagging enthusiastically. He kisses my hands, and when I bend down, he jumps up to kiss my cheeks.

  “Good boy, good boy.”

  He circles around me and glances out the open front door, sniffing the air. When I close it, he crosses to the living room window and looks outside, then looks at me and gives me a strident bark. Our usual morning routine.

  “The kids are at school, Shadow,” I tell him. “Don’t worry. They’ll be home soon.”

  He cocks his head to the side as if he doesn’t believe me. “They’re fine, I promise.” He barks again, then trots behind me as I go the kitchen.

  I hand him a Milk-Bone, and he carries it to his bed and lies down to eat it.

  I set my cell phone on the kitchen table next to my laptop, then boot up the computer. I have the impulse to text Sam about our possible date night but figure I should check with Ruth first. I pick up the cell and call her landline, knowing full well that if she’s home, she won’t answer her cell. When she doesn’t pick up, I try her mobile, and when she doesn’t answer that, I leave a message.

  “Hi, Ruth, it’s me. Where the heck are you at eight thirty on a Friday morning? Anyway, give me a call back when you have a minute. Thanks, ’bye.”

  Sam was good enough to leave some coffee behind. I grab my mug from the dish drain and pour myself a cup, cream and sugar it, and take it to the table. I spend the next thirty minutes checking my personal e-mails and the messages on my blog server. When I’m finished, I glance at my phone, surprised I haven’t heard back from Ruth yet. I shoot her a quick text, set my phone down, then open the folder on my desktop that has all my new blog posts for the coming week.

  Halfway through the final polish on the third post, my cell phone rings. My sister’s face appears on the screen, and I chuckle, as I do every time she calls and I see her picture. Her expression is exasperation and mock disdain. She disapproved of my taking her picture to put into my contacts and would not give me a smile, no matter how much I pleaded with her. I took the pic anyway, and she was so mortified that this was the face I would see every time she called, she offered to smile for me. I refused. She called me a brat, and I stuck my tongue out at her. No matter that we’re in our thirties and forties—that sister thing never completely goes away.

  “Hi, sis,” I say upon answering. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

  “It’s not even ten thirty yet, Rachel. ‘All morning’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

  I mouth the word whatever to myself.

  “I had therapy this morning,” she tells me, as if I should have known.

  “Sorry, Ruth. I thought that was Wednesday.”

  “It is, usually. Dr. Moore had to switch it this week.”

  “How was it?” I ask.

  “Good,” she says. “I think we’re making progress.”

  “I’m so glad,” I tell her, as I always do.

  I know why Ruth sees a therapist, and I support her 100 percent. She’s had a tough time, what with Charlie leaving and starting a new family. I can’t imagine how that must have been for her, to be abandoned for another woman, and to know that woman stole her life, the life Ruth was supposed to have. My life, if I think about it, or one that closely resembles mine. When it first happened, I wanted to wring Charlie’s neck
. He was like the big brother I never had, and it felt like he betrayed me, too. But my pain was nothing compared to my sister’s.

  Ruth has been seeing this doctor for over a year now, but I haven’t noticed a discernible difference in her behavior or her actions. She still locks herself away in her apartment night after night, never goes out with friends, and she still hates all men on the face of the planet, including my husband and our father, who’s been dead for twenty-five years.

  “So, what’s up?” she asks. “You called for a reason or just to say hello?”

  “Both. Um, do you have plans tonight?”

  “No. Just catching up on my TiVo, as usual. Is this an invitation or a babysitting request?”

  “Babysitting request. Sam and I need some alone time. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. I’d love to,” she says, and I smile. I can always count on Ruth. “What time do you need me?”

  “Let’s say six? And I’ll order you guys a pizza.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll bring a lasagna. I can make it this afternoon.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I tell her, even though my kids love her lasagna.

  “I know, but I will. See you later.”

  “Thanks, Ruth. I appreciate it.”

  I hang up and immediately shoot a text to Sam. Fancy a date tonight? Ruth can sit for us.

  I watch my screen, waiting for a reply. After a couple of minutes, I set the phone down. He’s probably in a meeting. I return my attention to the blog post, which is a review of a new eco-friendly fabric softener with no dyes and no artificial perfumes that doesn’t make your laundry smell like dirt, which I’m definitely in favor of. I’ve even agreed to highlight the product on the top banner of my webpage for a month—for a small advertising fee, of course.

  As soon as I move on to the next post, my phone beeps. I swipe the screen and see a text from Sam.

  Was going to call, babe. Carson wants to take a run out to the Hewitt project. He’s worried about the deadline. You know the drive. I could be pretty late. Rain check?