Chapter 2

Eric and Alex followed their usual routine the next day. Carmen’s departure for Miami the night before didn’t change much for them. She never got up in the morning, and Eric always let her sleep late. He cooked Alex’s breakfast of oatmeal, toast, and bacon, and on the weekends he made pancakes or eggs. Elena left dinner for them when she went home at night. Carmen had never tried to learn to cook. Her repertoire included a few Cuban dishes that were too spicy for Alex, and Eric didn’t like them either.

He made Alex’s lunch and put it in her Wonder Woman lunch box with a snack. Pattie, their neighbor, was picking her up after school, and Alex was going to their house to play. They had four children, two older and two younger than Alex, and Pattie often brought Alex home with them. Alex liked going to their house, there was always something to do. Her own house was so quiet until her dad got home. He picked her up at Pattie’s on the way, and then they went back to their house to eat the dinner Elena had left for them. They had a whole system worked out, and Carmen’s absences didn’t alter anything, except that Alex was subdued when her mother was away. She was always worried about when she would come back.

“How is she?” Eric asked Pattie in an undertone, when he got to their house to pick her up that night. The two boys were chasing each other, and he could hear the TV blaring in the playroom downstairs while Pattie cooked dinner. Her husband was a lawyer and worked late a lot of nights. She was a nice woman and Eric was grateful for her help.

“She seems okay, a little quiet.” But they both knew that wasn’t unusual for Alex, who was an introverted child. She liked being with other children, but as an only child who spent a lot of time with her father, she was more accustomed to the company of adults. “But she always is when Carmen’s gone.”

Pattie guessed correctly that it had to be stressful for Alex, even though she didn’t say much about it. But Pattie and her husband had heard Carmen and Eric’s fights on warm nights when the windows were open. It wasn’t a happy atmosphere for a child. Pattie had never hit it off with Carmen, who had no interest in getting to know other mothers, organizing playdates, or inviting Alex’s friends to their house. She seemed more interested in herself than anyone else, including her daughter. And she didn’t look or act like anyone’s mother. Pattie was considerably older. Carmen was only thirty then but didn’t look it. She acted and dressed more like twenty, and was a pretty girl. Pattie couldn’t help thinking Carmen and Eric were an odd couple, and it was easy to see that he had been dazzled by her looks, married her in haste, and lived to regret it. Their eight-year marriage had been turbulent and troubled from the first, which was no secret in the neighborhood. And Elena gave Pattie an earful, whenever she was willing to listen, which she tried not to do often. She didn’t want to intrude, but she was happy to help with Alex whenever she could. She felt sorry for the little girl.

Eric and Alex went home then, and he warmed up dinner while she did her homework at the kitchen table. She took a bath on her own after dinner, and her father helped her wash her hair. He told her he had gone to the bookstore that day and picked up some new books by his favorite writers, and they were going to read her Nancy Drew book again that night.

They spent two weeks following all their usual routines, waiting for Carmen to come home. She didn’t call at all this time, but she’d done that before, usually when she was involved with a new man. But to Alex, Eric pretended not to be concerned. Finally Carmen called him at the office, because she knew it was hard for him to talk around their daughter, and she had something important to tell him and didn’t want to be the one to tell Alex.

He was distracted when he picked up the phone.

“I’m not coming back,” Carmen said in a flat voice.

“This week?” He assumed that was what she meant.

“Never,” she said simply. “I can’t do it anymore. I wasted my best years in Boston. I don’t know how you stand it. It’s the most boring city in the world.” Or maybe it was just his life, or him, but she had grown up with the music and lively Caribbean atmosphere of Cuba, where people talked and laughed and danced and drank rum. It was a sensual world. When she was with Eric in Boston, she felt dead. Miami felt like the center of the universe to her.

“You’re staying in Miami?” He was worried and sad about it, but not surprised. He had feared this happening for years. In some ways it would be a relief to him from the constant fighting, but an agony for their little girl.

“For a while. I got booked for two trade shows, and I met someone who said he can set me up with an agency in Vegas, and I can find modeling work there all the time.” Probably topless, but she didn’t mind.

“That’s not a wholesome place for a child,” he told her seriously. He didn’t want his daughter growing up in Las Vegas, not with the kind of people Carmen hung out with. Her plan was worse than he had envisioned in all the years he had worried about her leaving. He wasn’t in love with her anymore. Living with her was just too difficult, but he didn’t want to lose Alex, even half the time, if they shared custody. This was his worst nightmare come true. His heart had skipped a beat when she told him what she wanted to do, and he didn’t think he could stop her.

“I’m not taking her with me,” Carmen said, without any sign of regret. “She’s better off in Boston with you. She can come to visit me when I get settled. I’ll see how I like Vegas, or I might go to L.A. You’re right, it’s no life for a kid. And I need to be free.”

She knew herself well, and as far as Eric was concerned, she had been as good as free for years. She had never really acted like a wife to him. Their sex life had been fabulous at first, but once that cooled down after the baby, she acted like a stranger. She couldn’t wait to leave at every opportunity, and they hadn’t had sex with each other in almost five years. She had made it seem like an obligation for two years before that. The fire had gone out of their marriage within a year. It had been a colossal mistake. He had been a fool to marry her and he knew it. She was almost thirty years younger, hated everything about his life, and their marriage was a farce.

“Maybe I’ll come to visit her sometime,” Carmen said vaguely, as his heart ached for his child. However irresponsible a mother Carmen was, Alex still had some illusions about her. She was the only mother Alex had, and the child loved her.

“You’re welcome to visit whenever you want. She’s going to miss you,” he said sadly. “Having just a father is not the same.”

“You’re better with her than I am,” Carmen said honestly. “I felt like I was in prison when I was at home with the two of you.”

“I know, but that’s not going to be easy for her to understand.” And then he asked her the question on his mind. Although it no longer made any difference, he was curious why she was leaving now. “Is there someone else?”

She hesitated for a long time, and then answered, “Yes, I guess there is. It’s probably not serious, but we have a good time together. He’s got connections in Vegas and L.A.,” which was something Eric couldn’t offer her with his quiet, mundane existence. He had hoped to give her stability and provide a good life for her, but nothing about his life was appealing to her, not even their child. She just didn’t seem to have it in her to be a mother. She was too selfish and immature and wanted to be part of a flashy world, and there was no place in it for Eric or Alex. “I want a divorce,” she said, adding the icing on the cake. “I’m done.” He didn’t expect her to come back, but he’d thought she’d wait a while before asking for a divorce. It was a lot to tell Alex all at once, and he wondered if he should, or tell her that part later. “You can have full custody,” she added. That much was good news to him, it was what he had always wanted if she left for good.

“Thank you. Do you want any kind of regular visitation?” He hoped not, but thought it only fair to ask. She was definitely off and running with her own life, with no regard for him or their daughter. She wasn’t evil, just a totally irresponsible person, which he couldn’t explain to a child of seven, although in her own way, Alex knew it.

“No, let’s just see how it goes until I get settled. I’ll let you know where I am.” And then she broached a delicate subject, not sure how he’d react, although he’d always been generous while she lived with him. “Could I have some kind of support, like for a year or two, until I get a good job?” He hesitated, but she was his child’s mother. He respected that even if she didn’t.

“Yes. We’ll figure it out, as long as it’s a reasonable amount.”

“Are you going to call her?” he asked, sounding worried. He thought she should. She couldn’t just disappear out of their daughter’s life, and he was afraid now that she would.

“Thank you for the support money. I’m not going to call her for a while. Why don’t you explain things to her for now?” Carmen said, knowing she could count on him and escape her responsibilities entirely. He hadn’t expected her to be this extreme, and to sever her ties with them almost completely, and he knew he was right to assume it was about a man. “I’ll let you know where to send the check,” she said blithely.

“You should call her from time to time,” he urged the woman who no longer wanted to be his wife, or even Alex’s mother.

“Yeah,” she said vaguely, “I’ll try…and Eric…I’m sorry…I just couldn’t do it. It was killing me.” He almost felt sorry for her when she said it, because he knew it was true. It was killing him too. After eight years of torture, he felt dead inside.

“I know,” he said in a low tone. And now their daughter was the one who would be hurt, essentially losing her mother at seven. She wouldn’t understand that it had to do with her mother and what she was incapable of doing, and not with anything Alex had done wrong. Those were complicated, subtle concepts for a child her age.

After he hung up, he sat staring out the window, thinking about the conversation. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was in a way. It had gone badly for so long that he was used to it, and hadn’t really expected it to change for better or worse, although he had known in his heart of hearts that she might leave one day. And now she had. At least he no longer had to dread it, or fear he would lose Alex.

He left work early that day and picked Alex up at school himself. He called Pattie to let her know, and she heard an odd tone in his voice immediately.

“Is something wrong?” She liked him and thought he was a good father and compensated well for Carmen’s failings with the child.

“No…yes…” He took a breath. “Carmen wants a divorce.”

“Is she back?”

“No, she’s in Miami. She’s thinking about moving to Vegas or L.A. I guess she has a new man in her life. But it was only a matter of time before she did this anyway. I hoped she’d wait till Alex was older, but she’s made up her mind. She’s not coming back.”

It dawned on him that she hadn’t asked him to send her clothes. Maybe she didn’t want the respectable things she wore in Boston. Maybe she wanted to throw away everything about that life, including him and their daughter.

Pattie had expected it for years, but she sounded worried. “Does she want custody?”

“No, she’s giving me full custody.” Pattie was relieved as soon as he said it. “I’m glad, but it’s going to be tough on Alex. Being abandoned by your mother at her age is a lot to try to understand.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Pattie said kindly.

“We’ll be okay,” he said as much to reassure himself.

“I know you will. But Alex may react to it for a while.” She was young for such a major blow, even though Pattie had always felt that Carmen was an inadequate mother, and she had proven it to all of them now, without a backward glance.

Eric was waiting outside school in his Volvo station wagon when Alex got out with the others. She didn’t see him at first, and then he called out to her and waved and she ran toward him and got into the car. She looked at him solemnly for a moment, and a sixth sense told her what he hadn’t said yet. He was still searching for the right words to break the news.

“Mom’s not coming back, is she?” she said immediately. She could read it in his eyes. He hesitated, and then he nodded. There was no escaping the truth, and he didn’t want to lie to her. In some ways it was like a death, except she’d said she would come back for a visit one day, but he didn’t want to promise that either, knowing Carmen as he did. She was unreliable and flighty and might not even miss Alex. Out of sight, out of mind. “Will I ever see her again?” Alex said, white-faced with a look of panic.

“Yes,” he said clearly, “but I don’t know when. She doesn’t know where she’s going to live, but she said you could come to visit when she settles down, or maybe she’ll come to visit here.”

“Will I live with you?” Alex asked, as tears filled her eyes for a woman who had never been a mother to her, but she loved anyway.

“Of course. You’re stuck with me forever,” he said as he leaned over and put his arms around her. “I love you. Mom just needs her own life, that’s the way she is. It’s not about you or anything you did wrong or could have done differently.” He wanted desperately to get the point across to Alex, and hoped he was.

“I know,” Alex said bravely, wiping the tears off her cheeks as he started the car. “Maybe she wasn’t ready to be a mom.” She was trying to find a reason why it hadn’t worked out, for either of them.

“Maybe. But we have each other, Al. We’re going to do fun things together, read lots of books, go to baseball games, we can take some trips.”

“Can we go to visit Mom, wherever she is?”

“Sure,” he said as he drove home. “And for now, let’s read all the Nancy Drews, the whole series. How about that?” Even at her age, she knew what he was doing, he was trying to make the best of it and cheer her up. She smiled at her father and nodded.

“I’d like that. And then can I read some of your mystery books?” She knew how much he enjoyed them, and he told her about them sometimes.

“Maybe when you’re a little older.” He listed all the things they were going to do together in the immediate future and the coming months, and tried to make her mother’s defection sound like an opportunity and a blessing.

“Are you getting divorced?” She startled him with the question. “Sally Portman’s parents got divorced last year. Now she spends weekends and Wednesday nights at her dad’s.”

“I think that could happen, not the weekends and Wednesdays, but maybe Mom and I will get divorced since she doesn’t want to live here with us anymore.”

Alex nodded sagely, trying to absorb it. “Do you think she’ll get married again?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“Will you?”

He laughed at the question. “I don’t think so, Miss Alex. Let’s just concentrate on each other for now. We can’t solve all the mysteries at once.” She had taken the news well, even though he knew she was very sad about it. They finished The Secret at Shadow Ranch that night. Alex loved the way it turned out, and the book suddenly had new meaning to her. As she listened to her father’s voice tell the story, she realized now that she lived alone with her father, just like Nancy. Nancy Drew didn’t have a mother either. Maybe one day she and her father could solve mysteries too. She wondered what had happened to Nancy Drew’s mom.

“You never know how a mystery is going to end,” she said thoughtfully when they finished the last page, but she had guessed the ending, or almost. She liked trying to figure it out along the way, and she was good at it.

“Life is a little bit like that too. Always full of surprises, sometimes good, sometimes not so good,” her father said quietly.

“I like the guessing part,” she commented.

“So do I,” he said, as he kissed her good night and tucked her into bed. “That’s why I like mystery books so much.”

She nodded, and he left the room after he turned off the light. She lay in bed, not knowing where her mother was and if she missed her at all, and if she was thinking about her. Two tears slid down her cheeks and into her pillow. Wondering when she would see her mother again, she said a little prayer for her and then drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of Carmen. She looked beautiful in the dream, and she had come back to live with them. She hoped her mother would too one day.