Chapter Sixteen
ANN MARIE
Chicago, 2008
“It’s a good day,” I say to my friend Jen on the phone. “No, it’s a great day.” The November air is crisp and cool, but the sun still shines brightly without an ugly winter fog to contend with.
“I’m so happy for you. For us, really. But no one deserves a weekend away more than you do,” she says.
Jen is one of those awesome women. When she isn’t working, she runs a neighborhood book club so her friends can drink wine and stick their husbands with the children for a few hours. She has five kids in the school district, so she has the scoop on every single person in the community. She yells and honks at other parents in the pickup line when they’re on their cell phones and not moving forward, and she volunteers at a local animal shelter and guilts everyone she knows into adopting a pet. Her youngest child is a close friend of Ryan’s, and she’s always offering to take him in when I need some extra help.
“What day is your mom coming?” she asks me.
“My mom arrives today, so that gives me two days to get her acclimated with the boys and the house and their schedules before we leave Saturday morning.”
“Well, don’t worry about soccer and tae kwon do. I have both of those covered. Howie can run carpool while I’m away. We didn’t buy him a car last year for nothing,” she said of her eldest son. “And Ryan can sleep over here on Saturday or Sunday if he’d like. That could take some of the pressure off your mom.”
“Thank you for everything, Jen. I mean it. Especially for encouraging me to go. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too. Make sure your mom has all my husband’s contact info. I’ll talk to you later.”
We hang up the phone, and I finish making the bed in the guest bedroom. Mom likes a high thread count, so I ran to Bed Bath & Beyond yesterday to make sure she’d be willing to visit me again in the future. A couple of years ago, I’d helped get her settled into a new condo not far from her cousin Laura and Laura’s husband. She’s not an enthusiastic flyer, preferring to stay home and socialize with her family and close friends in Greenwich.
I’ve had the boys with me all day, so I wasn’t able to get her from the airport. At about 6:00 p.m. I see a Town Car pull into my driveway. “Nana is here!” I yell to the boys, but they can’t be bothered to look away from SpongeBob SquarePants. I shake my head and run out the front door. Seeing even a glimpse of her makes me wish she lived closer. The driver is already at the trunk retrieving her bags. She stands on ceremony and waits for him to open her door. God, I love this woman. I slowly approach the vehicle, giddy with anticipation, and then she gets out. She is regal and immaculately dressed, with her blonde hair in a tidy bun. Her slacks are creased, her pearls are polished, but something is amiss, and I sense it immediately.
She smiles at me.
“Hi, Mom.” We embrace. The scent of her perfume, Chanel No 5, puts me in a state of childhood euphoria. Even now, when I’m walking through a department store, I will stop at the fragrance counter just to spray it in the air so I can be with her for a moment.
“Hello, my darling, how are you?” she says, tired.
“I’m good. How was the flight?”
“I was able to upgrade to first class, so all crises were avoided.”
“Thank the good Lord for that.” I roll my eyes.
She laughs and reaches for her bag.
“I’ll get that,” I say.
She stands straight and looks at me. It takes just an extra second or two for her to respond, but the delay is troubling. “OK, thanks,” she says.
I lift her canvas carry-on onto my shoulder and grab the handle of her rolling bag. “Are you all right?” I ask.
She places a hand on my shoulder as we walk to the front door. “Of course. I’m fine. Just a little drained. Traveling always makes for a long day, even when you’re not going very far.”
Mom goes to the boys while I take her things upstairs. I’m so thrilled to have her with us—almost as thrilled as I am at the thought of sipping margaritas on the beach—but something doesn’t feel right. There is a strange pit in my stomach. I take my phone out of my pocket and text Jen.
I don’t think we’re going to Cabo.
Once Mom and I tuck the boys in, we each grab a light coat and take a glass of wine out on the front porch. I’m convinced something is wrong with her other than traveler’s fatigue, but she insists I stop asking.
“Tell me about you. I’m worried about you,” she says, and we each take a seat in one of the two white Adirondack chairs.
I let out a colossal sigh, one that I would only burden my mother with, and take a sip of wine. It’s a clear sky above us with a full moon and a smattering of glittery stars accompanied by the occasional airplane. “I don’t know how you did it,” I say. “Divorce is so hard. Tell me how you managed.”
“Oh, my sweet girl. It breaks my heart to hear you say that.”
“I don’t mean to upset you.”
“I know, and you will pull through this stronger and better than ever.” She pats my leg and then buttons her coat.
“If it were just me, I would sign whatever papers he wanted me to sign and get a job and sell this house and move the hell on with my life.” I take a breath. “But my babies are still so little, and they don’t deserve this. They didn’t ask to be a part of this mess. When I look at Luke, just barely two years old, I want to cry. How could Todd have done this to us? How could he be so callous?”
“I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t know why men cheat,” Mom says and crosses her legs. “Sometimes they’re unhappy with their lives, sometimes they’re unhappy with their wives, and sometimes they just think they won’t get caught.”
“I think about that every day,” I say. “That maybe my marriage would still be alive if I’d never come home early from the aquarium. That Todd would still be driving Ryan and Jimmy to soccer on the weekends, still giving Luke a bath after work, still screwing women on the side, and then kissing me good night.” I shrug. “I’ll never know how long it was going on before I found them.” I shiver at the thought.
“Do you really want to know?” she asks.
I nod. “I kind of do. I feel like I deserve to know if he ever loved me.”
Mom places her glass on the small wicker table between us and rubs her eyes.
“Let’s go inside,” I say. “I can tell you’re not feeling well.”
She lifts a hand. “I’m fine.” She positions herself so she’s facing me. “I know I haven’t been entirely up front about what your father and I went through. I also know that my own parents had a complicated marriage. But in both twisted relationships, there was love.”
I smile.
“And I’m so disappointed in the choices Todd has made, but I know that he loved you.”
“How do you know?”
She leans back in her chair. “Because when the two of you first met, he used to look at you the way I look at you. I remember the first time you both came to Greenwich for a visit during your senior-year spring break, and he was smitten. You both were.” She leans over to give me a hug. “A mother knows.”
My throat goes tight, and I have to hold back my tears as we embrace. “I love you, Mom,” I say into her ear.
“You’ll find someone who looks at you that way again, I promise,” she says, but she never found it again after my father. There were times when my mother would date when I was growing up, but she never made much effort. I recall her cousin Laura trying to play matchmaker a couple of times, to no avail. There was a gentleman who was a widower, a member of the Belle Haven Club, who had taken Mom to dinner a few times until she stopped returning his calls. Whatever happened in her marriage obviously made her hesitant to fall in love and be vulnerable again. I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t relate. Being deceived by the man I’d trusted with my heart and my children has been the most frightening experience of my life. So I thought.
I pull away from her, and she startles me with a gasp. “It’s a full moon.” She points, and we look up at the sky. “I think that means your mother knows best.”
“I think you’re right.”
Mom has some relatives who live in the Chicago area, not far from where I live in Wilmette, so the next day I invite some family and friends over for pizza, including Jen and her kids.
“I can see where Ann Marie gets her natural beauty,” Jen says to my mom.
She blushes. “Thank you.”
“Jen is Wonder Woman,” I say to Mom. “She volunteers for every damn thing, runs the block party every summer, carpools my boys, and works in advertising sales for the Chicago Tribune.”
Mom’s face lights up. “The Chicago Tribune? I almost worked there myself a lifetime ago.”
“No kidding?” Jen says.
“In fact, I wrote one article for them when I was pregnant with Ann Marie.” She pauses, and the memories of what might’ve been glow behind her blue eyes. “There was a young gal named Abigail who was taken with me and my family. She hired me on the spot after reading only one sample article I’d written for the Greenwich Times.”
I raise a brow and interject, “You did?”
Mom nods proudly. “It was nothing but a holiday fluff piece, but I still have the article back home in a drawer.”
Jen chimes in, “That’s funny. The editor’s name is Abigail. Was it Abigail Rushton?”
We look to Mom for her response, and it takes an extra second or two, like the day before outside in the driveway.
“Yes,” Mom says with a shred of enthusiasm, the most I have seen from her in twenty-four hours. Even Jimmy’s portrait of her in solid red Sharpie—he likes monotones—didn’t elicit such a reaction. “Oh my, Jen. You’ve made my day. She is the head editor?”
“Editor in chief,” she says.
“I don’t expect she’ll remember me, but would you send her my love? I can never thank her enough for her kindness back then.”
“I absolutely will.”
Jen helps me serve the food and then clean up while the rest of the people visit with each other in the family room. When we’re about through with the dishes, I peek my head around the corner and notice my mother sitting quietly with her hands in her lap, not being her talkative self. Once everyone is gone, I tuck the boys in and rush back downstairs, hoping to bend her ear for a while, but she’s gone up to bed.
That night, I can’t fall asleep. Images of Mom sitting quietly on the couch as the kids and guests conversed around her are haunting me. She’s always the loudest in the room, and she was eerily reserved tonight. Jen was doing her best to convince me to go to Mexico, and despite Mom’s insistence as well, I know something is wrong with her that requires my attention. I feel it in my gut.
The next morning, after Ryan and Jimmy are off to school, I invite my cousin Rory over for breakfast because she wasn’t able to make dinner last night, and prep her before she comes inside. “I know I haven’t seen my mom in a couple of months, but she seems off to me,” I tell Rory at the door. “I’m supposed to leave for Mexico this weekend, and I need another opinion.”
Rory steps inside. She’s my aunt Margaret’s eldest daughter, and she lives with her fiancé in the Lincoln Square neighborhood. “I can look in on her when you’re gone. How long will you be in Mexico?”
“Just four days.”
“She’ll be fine,” Rory tries to reassure me. “It’s weird when we start to realize our parents are getting older.”
“Just come in the kitchen.” I yank her hand.
Mom is sitting at the small square table near the window, lost in thought and looking out at the yard.
“Rory is here, Mom,” I say, and she turns to face us.
“Hi, Aunt CC.” Rory kisses her cheek.
“You look beautiful,” Mom tells her.
The three of us chat for a few minutes while she and Rory catch up, and then Mom excuses herself to go to her bedroom.
“I hate myself for asking this,” Rory starts, “but do you think she’s on something? Like, maybe taking some pills she shouldn’t be taking? Painkillers or sleeping pills, or some bad prescription?” She looks at me. “I can see what you mean about her not being herself.”
I reach for Rory’s hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m going to talk to her. Can you sit with Luke in the front yard? Just make sure he doesn’t chase any squirrels into the street.”
I knock on my mom’s door. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” she says.
I take a seat next to her on the bed. “Do you feel OK?”
My mom clasps her hands together and looks at me. “No, I don’t.”