Chapter Four
ANN MARIE
Chicago, 2008
As I come to life after a restless night’s sleep, my therapist’s voice rings in my head along with my son’s cries through the baby monitor. “Every morning, write down five things you’re grateful for,” she would say. Hurriedly, I sit on the edge of my bed and grab the pink spiral-bound notebook she forced on me a month ago. Unlike my mother, I loathe writing in journals or anything else for that matter. I open to yesterday’s page.
1) My health
2) My boys
3) Our home
4) My mom
5) That revenge is possible
I grab a pen and try to write quickly before Luke wakes Jimmy and Ryan, and I have three cranky kids on my hands.
1) My health
2) My boys
3) Our home
4) My mom
5) That revenge is possible
Luke gets quiet as soon as I enter his room. The lights are dim, and he’s standing clutching the bars of the crib, his hair a sweaty mop of sticky golden locks. The room smells of lavender and poop.
“Hi, sweet boy,” I whisper, and lift him out, kissing his cheeks. “Momma’s here.” He buries his face in my shoulder as I carry him to the changing table. I lay him down and reach for a clean diaper as he eagerly begins chewing his foot. Once he’s in a fresh pair of footie pajamas, I carry him downstairs to the kitchen, latching the child gate behind me at the top of the stairs. Our home is nestled on a cul-de-sac in Wilmette, a suburb about fifteen miles north of downtown Chicago. When I was pregnant with Ryan, we had an apartment in the city, and we’d drive up every Sunday for months, going to open houses and looking for the perfect home. I cried tears of joy when we found this one, a yellow Cape Cod with a cedar shake roof and a covered wraparound porch, two weeks before my water broke.
Todd knows how much I love this house, and that only makes him more enthusiastic to sell it. I spent months picking out paint colors and cabinet pulls and carpet weaves. I gave birth to two more beautiful boys and had countless holiday parties and birthday parties over the years in this house, only to find Todd naked and underneath his equally nude coworker on the five-hundred-thread-count sateen sheets I’d ordered for the guest room. Even worse, I’d decorated that room especially for my mother.
My mom lives in Connecticut and doesn’t visit too often, but when she does, my heart is full and my home feels complete. Like the frayed strands that make up the fabric of who I am get snipped and tailored back to perfection. The summer I left for college, it was hard for me to leave her. She and I have always been very close, and after I graduated from Purdue University in Indiana, I had a choice. Go back to Greenwich, move back in with my mom, and hope to find a job in Manhattan. Or follow Todd and my heart back to Chicago, where most of my new Midwestern college friends were headed. But by that time I was smitten with Todd, so it wasn’t a difficult decision.
We’d met at a fraternity party my sophomore year. He was tall and good-looking, with wispy sandy-blond hair, and he was ambitious as all hell. Todd was an only child, and if there was something he wanted, he couldn’t conceive of not getting it. His teeth were white and his eyes were green, and he had me charmed out of my clothes and into his bed the first night we met—a detail I’d left out when gushing to my mother about him.
She supported my decision and me, as she always has. That’s why it’s important for me to have a comfortable place for her in my home. She loves the color yellow, so I have two lemon-colored swivel chairs upholstered in linen tweed, under the window in the guest bedroom. On the opposite corner is a desk that belonged to my grandmother so Mom can sit and read or write before bed. The sheets have since been burned, but everything else is as she likes it.
It’s never been a drama-free relationship between us; we have our disagreements like any mother and daughter, but she’s my biggest supporter and my biggest critic rolled into one, and I can’t imagine not having her as a sounding board.
My chest tightens when I think about discussing the divorce with her. The hardest phone call I ever had to make was telling her about Todd, and how horribly cliché the demise of my marriage is turning out to be. She burst into tears when she found out he’d been cheating on me with so many different women. I think she’d rather I have a third eye in the center of my forehead than have a man disrespect me that way.
As I’m thinking about her, I realize she hasn’t returned my phone call from two days ago.
“Moooooooom!” Jimmy screams from the top of the stairs, just as I’m getting Luke’s bottle. “I can’t find my gym shoes!”
“I’ll be right there.” I look around for a spot to put Luke. Where on earth has the high chair gone?
“Mom!” I can hear Ryan now. “Jimmy woke me!”
I shift Luke onto my other hip and hand him his bottle. “Oh, Ryan, you have to get up anyway. Could you please help Jimmy find his shoes?”
“No! He woke me.”
“Please, honey,” I beg, and locate the high chair by the bay window in the family room. “How on earth?” I mumble to myself. After rolling it back to the kitchen, putting Luke in the seat, and placing the chair smack-dab in front of the television, I grab a coffee mug from the cabinet and feel a tug on my sweatpants.
“I’m starving,” Jimmy says, shoulders slumped and clearly defeated by morning hunger pains.
I place the empty mug on the counter. “Do you want some eggs?”
He shakes his head no.
“I can make them scrambled with cheddar cheese?”
“No.”
“How about cereal?”
“I don’t want cereal.”
I take a breath and look at the clock on the microwave. Six thirty-five a.m. “Have some cereal.”
He shakes his head again and crosses his arms for good measure.
“Do you want some apple slices with peanut butter?”
“No.”
Luke drops his bottle, so I go to retrieve it. “Well, Jimmy, for someone who is as starving as you say you are, you’re certainly rejecting lots of delicious options.”
“I want pancakes.”
Luke points at the television, squealing, trying to engage me with the singing backpack that has him enthralled on today’s episode of Dora the Explorer, but all I can muster is a quick smile in his direction. “I don’t have the mix. We ran out over the weekend, and I haven’t been to the store.”
“I want pancakes.” He begins to cry, which gets Luke’s attention away from the TV. Nothing seems to fascinate my boys more than one of their own brothers in tears.
I kneel in front of Jimmy. “I’m not going to have you crying over pancakes. That is unacceptable. I’ve offered you eggs, cheesy eggs, apple slices, and cereal. So pick one of those foods, and go sit down at the table.” I ruffle his hair.
He huffs and stomps his foot before grumbling, “Cheesy eggs.”
I glance at my coffee mug, wishing it would magically fill itself with a warm foamy latte as I pull a nonstick pan from the drawer beneath the stove. Our house has been on the market for two months, and now that the school year has recently started, it’s impossible to keep the place clean and presentable. Today some potential buyers are coming at 11:00 a.m. for a second showing, and my Realtor has insisted I have it sparkling like the Chrysler Building. I think about purposely flooding the basement as a deterrent instead, but imagine no less than a four-hour tongue-lashing from Todd if I do anything to screw this up.
Had I ever thought about it before, I would have assumed that having a spouse (the Cheater) cheat on you would give you (the Cheatee) at least some sort of leg up in the divorce proceedings. You know, as a bit of a consolation prize. But that’s not the case. No one gives a shit which role you play, and in my case, least of all Todd. It’s a funny thing, having your spouse cheat on you and then make you feel like you’re the one who’s done something wrong. He’s constantly questioning my parenting, constantly berating me about keeping the house clean, and continues to come and go as he pleases without ever giving me notice. Even though he moved into an apartment, as long as we own this house together, there is nothing I can do to keep him out. The only way for me to have any peace from him is to sell the house and move, or buy him out of his half, which would be a little more than $400,000.
I feel the urge to write in my goddamn pink notebook, but I just don’t have the time.
Ryan walks in the kitchen and trips over a box of LEGO bricks, sending them flying like confetti and causing Jimmy to laugh uncontrollably.
6:42 a.m.
Once everyone is dressed, fed, teeth brushed, lunches packed, faces wiped, and shoes tied, I wave goodbye to my still-empty coffee mug, and we all pile into the minivan and head for school. Ryan is in second grade, and Jimmy is in all-day kindergarten this year, so Luke is the only one left at home during the day. A widowed neighbor of mine, Edith Stern, has begun sitting for him in her home three mornings a week. All I have to do in return is drag her garbage bins to the curb on collection day and bring her fresh pumpernickel bagels from Barnum & Bagel every Monday. She’s a retired schoolteacher with six grandchildren of her own, but they all live out of state. She dotes on my boys when she has the chance, which, if I had my way, would be more often.
“Come, come.” She waves a toy rake in the air as I stand in her driveway, pulling Luke out of his car seat and realizing he’s still in pajamas. My head is throbbing from caffeine deprivation.
“Good morning, Edith! How are you today?” I shout, always assuming the woman is hard of hearing, although she’s never once told me she was.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my friend. We have a lovely fall morning and lots to do in the backyard. Lots!”
Luke curls his sweet little face under my chin but keeps his eyes on her. His routine is to play shy upon arrival, then throw a fit when I come to pick him up later. I love this woman for making him want to live with her. Once on the ground, he takes her hand, and the three of us walk into the foyer. He isn’t as verbal as he should be for his age, which leads me to blame the divorce for his shortcomings and everything else that is wrong—and normal, for that matter—in my children’s lives. Typical things like Ryan struggling with reading, or Jimmy throwing a tantrum at recess, all come flooding back to the divorce. It’s the landing pad for everything these days. My therapist, Monica, charges $110 an hour to convince me otherwise, but so far she has failed to do so.
“Sorry we’re late. Jimmy dropped his water bottle in the car, and it rolled under one of the seats and took us almost ten minutes to find.” I wipe some sweat from my brow. “But we did manage to locate every lost McDonald’s french fry, so there’s that. You’d be surprised at how completely void of mold they—”
“Say goodbye to Mommy and give her a big kiss,” Edith interjects. Instead, he gives my leg a side hug and allows me to kiss the top of his head.
“Thank you. I have to run home, clean the house, get dressed, and then head downtown. I have my second meeting with the divorce attorney.”
That piques her interest. “What time?”
“Eleven thirty.”
“Anything happen with the boy that took you out on a date last week? The one from the Internet?”
“God, no.” I shake my head.
Despite my knowing that there’s nothing less attractive than a thirty-six-year-old woman going through a divorce, with three small children and a stalled marketing career, I’ve recently begun dipping my toes into the cesspool that is online dating. Yet no matter how thin I am, how much makeup I wear, or how much Botox I get, nothing can mask my reality. The gem of a suitor that Edith is referring to met me for drinks last week, showed up an hour late, and told me the only reason he’d agreed to go out with me was because I have sons. “Girls are crazy bitches,” the guy said.
Edith gently latches onto my forearm. She’s a tiny woman, maybe five foot two, and I have easily four inches on her, but she’s emotionally larger than I am in every way. Her demeanor, her confidence, her pride. “Love will find you again. Pretty young thing like yourself.” She squeezes my arm. “You’ll be just fine.”
God, I love when people tell me that. I press my lips together and give her a hug. One day, maybe I’ll believe it. “I certainly hope so,” I say, and look down at Luke, who is still holding her hand and staring up at me with his big brown eyes and no choice in life besides doing exactly what he’s told. All I want is to take him home, snuggle in bed together, fall asleep watching The Little Mermaid with his mop of curls against my face, and stay there until the proverbial sun comes up for all of us.
“I may be taking a very short girls trip soon. I know it’s the worst possible time to leave town, but my friend and our neighbor, Jen Engel, has been begging me to join her,” I say. “I’m considering going if my mom can come in and stay with the boys for the weekend.”
“Sometimes there’s never a good time, so you should go and enjoy yourself when you have the chance. If I can be of any help, just let me know.”
“Thank you.”
Even though the image of Todd humping another woman in my home is still fresh in my mind, the fact that I’m even considering a weekend away from my kids means I’m making progress.
The day I walked in on them was a Saturday afternoon. Todd and I had planned to take the boys downtown to the Shedd Aquarium to meet up with some friends. I had packed the double stroller, picnic lunch, snacks, water bottles, pacifiers, portable DVD player for the car, and filled the tank for what was to be a fun family day. At the last minute, Todd had bowed out because of work.
“It’s fine,” I’d said, gritting my teeth, not wanting to disappoint our boys or the other family. “We’ll just go without you.”
Traffic turned out to be a nightmare, and it had taken us forty minutes just to get from Old Orchard Road to the junction. Even though I’d remembered extra juice boxes and Goldfish crackers, I’d forgotten an extra change of clothes on the one day Luke decided to have explosive diarrhea in his car seat.
Needless to say, I had to call my friend and tell her we wouldn’t make it, cursing myself for not rescheduling in the first place. By the time I got home, every single one of my kids had had no fewer than three nervous breakdowns each. Ryan and Jimmy because the trip to the aquarium had been canceled, and Luke because of the obvious. There’s only so much a stack of McDonald’s napkins can do in a pinch. I’d pulled in the driveway and told the boys they could get out of the car, but they had to stay in the garage and keep an eye on Luke until I got back. When I’d walked into the kitchen, I’d known something was amiss.
There’s a certain sense to a home when it’s empty, and I could tell immediately it wasn’t. I grabbed the cordless phone and dialed “9,” then “1,” then hovered my thumb over the “1” as I climbed the stairs. When I heard noises coming from the guest room, I knew. I stood in that doorway a good forty seconds before they noticed me.
“Holy shit,” was all Todd said, and later admitted to having sex with at least five other women over a twelve-month period after connecting with them on Facebook. After hours of amateur investigative reporting on my part, I discovered that he worked with two of them and had gone to high school with the other three. At first, I blamed myself, like maybe if I’d been more sexual with him, he wouldn’t have cheated. Maybe if the kids didn’t occupy so much of my time, he wouldn’t have cheated. I wallowed in self-pity and promised to change if he would give us a chance, but it didn’t matter. He’d grown tired of crying babies and a tired spouse and a cluttered home. He lost all appreciation for his family and the things that matter in life. His ego prevailed over all of us.
I cry as I drive away from Edith Stern’s house. Nothing outlandish. No runny nose, no convulsions, no squawking bird noises, just my typical I’ve-failed-everyone-in-my-life-especially-my-children-and-haven’t-had-an-ounce-of-caffeine-in-thirty-hours cry.
Once I’m home, I brew a pot of coffee, vacuum the floors, pick up the toys, and make the beds. When I’m done, I fill my mug and dial my mother’s number.
“Hello?” she answers.
“Hi, Mom. I left you a message on Monday.”
“Huh,” she says. “I thought I got back to you. How are you, honey?”
Just as I’m about to speak, the floodgates open. She lets me cry for a moment until I catch my breath. “I’m just having one of those days.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Everything. I’m scrubbing this place like Little Orphan Annie, trying to sell this house, and yet I have no idea where we’re going to live. The boys have so many friends in the neighborhood, and I want them to stay in this school district. I’m going to have to go back to work, and after doing the math, I’ll make just enough money to pay for day care, assuming any company wants to hire someone who’s been out of the workforce for eight years.” I sip my coffee and wipe my face. She was silent. “Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for hanging up on me.”
“I’m going to come stay with you.”
“I’m fine. The Mexico trip isn’t for a few weeks, and I’m feeling horribly guilty about leaving with everything going on.”
“A few days by yourself might do you some good. You know I always say that the sun heals everything. I want to be there for you, regardless. I should’ve gotten on a plane a long time ago.”
The knots in my shoulders loosen a bit, and my neck relaxes forward. “I would really love to see you,” I say. “I have another meeting with the attorney today.” I rub my forehead. “I can’t believe I haven’t talked to you since I met with him last week. That’s what I was calling about.”
“How did it go?”
“Does the name Stewart Fishman ring a bell?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Mom?”
“It does, yes.”
“He said he was one of your divorce attorneys,” I say. “Can that possibly be true?”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Actually, he seemed to think you had one of the worst cases in his entire career. Tragic, he called it. I wasn’t sure if he had you mixed up with another client.”
I hear a soft sigh through the phone. “I think maybe he does.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Is there any way you can reschedule your meeting with him?” she asks.
I lift my head. “Why would I do that?”
“There are some things I need to tell you.”