CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tabitha walked directly home and, as soon as she put all the leftover Chinese food in her empty refrigerator, went right to her computer. She googled, “abandonment,” and tons of varying but similar definitions came up, basically describing her life for the last few months. She knew this, and it didn’t help. She googled, “legal abandonment,” and it was pretty much the same, just with fancier words until she got to the phrase “with the intention of not reclaiming it.” Huh. That stopped her. There was no question that Stuart had voluntarily left everything—the apartment, his things, his children, her—but did he plan to come back and reclaim it? That was the big question, right? But there must be a limit to how long someone had to wait to see. She was just googling, “abandonment limit,” when she got a text. It was from Toby.
You home?
Yes
Can I call you?
Sure
Two seconds later, the phone rang.
“Hi!” she said, clicking the images off her screen. She didn’t want to talk to Toby and think about abandonment at the same time. “I was going to call you later. Thanks for lunch. It was really nice.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, and she wondered if the call had dropped.
“Yeah,” he said, just as she was taking the phone away from her ear to see if it was still live. “It was really nice. That’s sort of why I’m calling. I have a crazy idea.”
“What is it?”
“Well, I think the first question is, how much time do you have?” he asked.
For some reason, it seemed to her that whatever answer she gave would be important. And while she thought he meant how much time did she have now, before the kids came home, she couldn’t help but also think about how much time she had before Stuart came back to reclaim things or until enough time would have gone by before she would be free. She wished she’d had just a few more minutes to do more research and figure that out.
“How much time do I have?” she repeated the question back to him. “Do you mean now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean now.”
She looked at the clock on the wall, but its batteries had died, so it had stopped at seven o’clock, and she knew it was not seven o’clock. She glanced at the clock on the oven. It was just before two thirty. Both kids had clubs after school, so she wouldn’t have to get them until five thirty, even later if she pushed it. She could go right at six o’clock, just as the doors were closing for the night, and get them then—reclaim them, as the case may be.
“I have about three hours,” she said.
“Okay, this might sound crazy, and if it does, please don’t let it ruin things, just say—‘that is crazy’—okay?”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word.
“Let’s go to a hotel.”
“What?” she said, letting out an awkward guffaw, which she wished she could take back. It was the least sexy noise she had ever made. Well, that wasn’t true, but it was not an attractive noise. “That’s crazy!”
“I told you it was.”
“Which hotel?”
“I don’t know, the Rittenhouse?”
“No, I can’t do that. Someone will see me. Also, do you mean, like, for the night?”
“Okay, so here’s my idea,” he said, sounding like a little kid. “We take one hour, one hour away from everything, and we pretend it’s separate from everything else. I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to be with you.”
She closed her eyes, because she wanted to be with him. She wanted it so much.
“Well, I can’t just walk out of my apartment building, across the Square, and into a hotel room. That just isn’t done.”
“How about the Kimpton on Seventeenth? There’s a restaurant there. Walk into the restaurant like that’s where you’re going and, if you don’t run into anyone, walk through to the lobby and take the elevator to the room. I’ll go right now. I’ll text you the room number.”
“Toby, I can’t do this,” she said, thinking of Fern and Levi at school. “I just can’t.”
“You can,” Toby said gently. “I think you can.”
She didn’t say anything.
“How about this? I’ll head over there and see if this is even possible. Then I’ll text you. What do you say?”
She still didn’t say anything.
“We can just sit and talk if you want,” he said. “Or, can I come there?”
“Fine, go to the hotel, see what they say.”
“I’ll text you soon,” he said quickly, and hung up. She laughed out loud; he so clearly didn’t want her to change her mind. She put her computer into sleep mode, though the information about abandonment might be particularly useful right now, and went into the bathroom. She thought about a shower, then she thought about powder and makeup, then she thought about putting on nicer underwear. In the end, she brushed her teeth and went into the foyer to wait. Her heart was beating so fast it made her feel a little sick. Five minutes went by. Seven minutes went by. Her phone binged. It was Levi.
Drums are canceled, can I just come home?
Before she had a chance to answer another text came through. Room 336 was all it said.
To Levi she texted back Just go to the afterschool program and do homework. I’ll be there at the usual time. Normally, she would ask if that was okay or let him negotiate a little, but she waited, and there was no response. All she could do was hope he followed her directions.
She didn’t text Toby back. She put on a coat and headed out the door, feeling like everyone in the lobby was looking at her, which was ridiculous, of course. She walked up to Locust and over to Seventeenth, and finally north to the Kimpton. She didn’t do as Toby suggested but instead walked right into the small lobby, where she didn’t see anyone she knew, but she didn’t look too hard, walked to the elevator, and pushed “3.” She still thought she might not do this. She might take the elevator back down, or she might get off and walk to the stairs to go down. There were many things she could do that didn’t involve a hotel room with a man and a bed. The doors opened, she got out and turned right and there it was—room 336. She did not walk by it. She did not ignore it. She knocked on the door and waited. Toby answered right away. As soon as she saw him, she didn’t care about any of it—what people would think, what her legal rights were as an abandoned person, what her kids would think. None of it. She was reminded of that scene in thirtysomething, toward the end of the series, when Michael almost had an affair. He was with the other woman, were they in a hotel room? They were so drawn to each other, but they knew it wasn’t the right thing, or at least he knew. He wanted this other woman, but he didn’t want to cheat on Hope; he knew he didn’t want to. It looked like actual work to not touch, to remain separate. Tabitha was so mesmerized by that scene because, while she believed it, she had never felt anything like that, never not been able to resist someone. But now, now she understood.
She followed Toby into the nice room. There was a big king-size bed and he sat on the edge of the crisp white cover, smiling.
“I considered putting on the robe that’s in the closet. They have very nice robes here. But I thought I might scare you off.”
“Good thinking,” she said. She took off her coat and let it drop to the floor. Then stepped out of her shoes. She eased off her pants. He was watching her. “But I doubt you could scare me off at this point.” She wanted to say other things, like she meant this exact point. Five minutes ago, she was still in danger of being scared off, but not now. She wanted to make sure that he meant what he said, that this hour was apart from everything else, and when did the hour begin and end? But she didn’t say any of it.
The next fifty-nine minutes were a sensual blur, and when a tiny alarm went off she wanted to cry.
“Really, you set an alarm?” she said.
“I promised you an hour, that was an hour.”
“Can I have another hour?”
“If you can spare it. The room is ours until tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I should go. The kids. Are you going to stay?”
“Not without you,” he said. “It will be too lonely.”
They got dressed quietly. Crazy things ran through her mind. They could meet back here later—or in the middle of the night! But she couldn’t, she knew she couldn’t.
“Hey,” he said. “Can you come back in the morning? After the kids go to school? We could order room service.”
“I’ll see you here at eight fifteen.”
Tabitha was shocked to find that Levi didn’t mind going to see the rabbi. It was almost like he felt he deserved the punishment of it, or at least that was what Tabitha gathered when he nodded once at being told they had a meeting that afternoon. She told him before he left for school, before she went back to the hotel to meet Toby for another wonderful hour full of sex and room-service pancakes and bacon. But now that they were here, sitting in the rabbi’s office, Tabitha could see it was something else.
“I just don’t want to do it,” Levi said, leaning forward in his chair, his hands on his lap. His voice was clear and strong, not that mumbling sort of response that a young teenager often gave in the presence of authority.
“I hear what you’re saying,” the rabbi said gently. He leaned back in his chair. “But can you explain to me why, so I can understand it better?”
Levi looked at Tabitha. She had to pull herself back to the moment. She was thinking about Toby and how he focused on her for most of their time that morning, completely undemanding, wanting only to know what made Tabitha feel the best. Her cheeks flushed red now as she nodded toward Levi.
“Well, my dad has been gone for a long time,” Levi said. “And I don’t know when he’s coming back. He always works a lot, and I thought this would be something we could do together. I tried, I really did. I’ve even started my mitzvah project, the one he suggested, but without him here, I just don’t want to do it.”
“What about your mom?” the rabbi said, nodding toward Tabitha. “What if she helps you? What if you can do it with her?”
“It’s not the same,” Levi said, sounding more like a whiny teenager.
“It’s not the same,” Tabitha agreed, backing him up. “I never had a bat mitzvah—I’m learning as he does it. Stuart had a bar mitzvah. This is something he always wanted for Levi.”
“Well, let me ask you the obvious question,” Rabbi Rosen said. “What does Stuart have to say about this? Is he willing to have Levi give it all up so he can continue to stay away taking care of business? Might he consider cutting his trip short, or at least making a few trips home here and there to help? We’re not that far away from the big day.”
Levi looked at Tabitha again and raised his eyebrows. Yes, yes, she wanted to say, These are all very good, obvious questions. I just don’t have the answers.
“Well,” she said after a too-long pause. “He is extremely hard to reach.”
She did not want to blatantly lie to the rabbi. She thought, at this point, he would see through her and know she was lying. He probably already thought she was nuts and undependable, if rabbis thought things like that.
“Can I give it a try?” Rabbi Rosen asked.
Tabitha wondered if Stuart would answer his cell phone if the rabbi called. She doubted it. She flashed back to the other day and Fern’s strange conversation with Stuart, still not at all sure what was going on there.
“Look,” Tabitha said, after she ran three other sentences through her mind: I’ll try him again. Let’s give him more time. I don’t think it will make a difference. “To be perfectly honest, as far as I can tell, he is unreachable.”
It was the first time she’d said anything like that in front of Levi. He didn’t even flinch or look up at her. Was this not a surprise to him?
“Well, he must be pretty caught up in whatever he is doing,” the rabbi said in his gentle voice. “Here’s what I propose. Levi, let me know if this might work for you. You are so close. You know your Torah portion, you’ve probably already done plenty for your project. Let’s keep it simple. Don’t even think about a party or celebration if you don’t want to. You can do that down the road—when everyone you want to be here is here.” He paused, and Tabitha took note that he didn’t say, “When your dad is here.” But he also didn’t not say it.
“I’ll call you to the Torah, we will do the barest minimum. You don’t even have to give your D’var Torah. But once I call you to the bima, and you have read from the Torah, you will officially become a bar mitzvah—anything else you want to do or don’t want to do is up to you. And that will be something that can’t be taken away from you. Believe me, it isn’t easy to get back to this place, learn a whole new Torah portion. Once people let it go, they rarely do it again.”
“Fine,” Levi said, looking up from his lap. “That sounds okay.”
“Great,” Rabbi Rosen said. “I’m so glad to hear it. And I’ll work with you from here on out. No need to set up appointments with the cantor. Just come to me. We’ll keep it very simple.”
“Thank you, Rabbi,” Tabitha said. It was just dawning on her what this meant. No invitations, no party. It was such good news. But then she looked over at Levi, and he was crying. He didn’t even try to hide it. Tabitha leaned toward him at the same time the rabbi did, so she leaned back, hoping he’d have something better and wiser to say than she did.
“I know this is hard,” the rabbi said to Levi. “I wish I had more answers for you. But please know, I am here for you if you want to talk or if you need anything. Here is my cell number, call me anytime.”
He handed Levi a card, which he took and stuffed into his pocket, sniffling. The tears seemed to be subsiding.
911—I need you. Our son is CRYING—he hasn’t cried in front of me since he was eight.
Tabitha put her hand on Levi’s knee. She didn’t touch him much anymore, she realized. Why did people stop touching each other? She half expected him to brush her away, or to stand up, so her hand would be forced to move. But he just sat there, letting her touch him, and it made her feel so sorry for him, she could barely stand it. Much worse than when his room was neat, so much worse than the time he knocked out his front tooth when he was three, too old to have a pacifier still but did anyway, and the dentist said he couldn’t have it anymore, that was it, cold turkey. He had turned in the dentist chair and cried, serious, sad tears, and for a minute, Tabitha thought she might never be mad at him again. She felt that way now, times twenty.
“Monkey,” she said gently. “I promise, I’m never going to leave you.”
He nodded, sniffed a little, then stood slowly, so her hand was moved but not aggressively; it was a natural falling away. She stood, too. The rabbi stood, then, and reached out to shake Levi’s hand but instead hugged him. Tabitha thought this might make him start to cry again, but it didn’t.
“Thanks, Rabbi,” he said.
“Anytime, Levi,” Rabbi Rosen said. Tabitha wondered if she could ask him to come home with them. His presence was so ridiculously soothing.
“Tabitha, please know I’m here if you need anything,” he said, turning to her. She felt like she didn’t deserve his attention—she wasn’t really Jewish—but she wanted it.
“Thank you,” she said. She wanted to add that she was going to try to sort this out, she would bring Levi’s father home for him, but that was all so silly. Obviously, if she could have, she would have.
When Levi was out the door but Tabitha was still inside, she felt the rabbi’s gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Is Fern doing okay?” he asked. “With all of this?”
Tabitha shook her head and then nodded, one after the other.
“She seems okay,” Tabitha said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Can you drop me at Butch’s?” Levi asked, once they were in the car and the doors were closed. All signs of the tears were gone.
“It’s dinnertime, and Fern is . . .”
“Please?”
“Fine,” she said, going right instead of left, so she could go to Butch’s house.
Ten minutes later, Levi was dropped off and she was alone in the car. She called Rachel.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about you,” Rachel said in her warm voice.
Tabitha immediately began to cry.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are the kids okay?”
Tabitha couldn’t get a word out. She worried about Rachel’s worrying in the time it was taking her to speak.
“Yes,” she finally spit out. “Pretty much.”
“Where are you?”
Again, it was a long few seconds before she could talk.
“I . . . just . . . dropped . . . Levi . . . off,” she sobbed. “Now . . . I’m . . . going . . . home . . . to . . . Fern.”
“I’m just getting off,” Rachel said. “Can I meet you at your apartment?”
“No, no,” Tabitha said, thinking of the state of the place. There were eleven burned-out light bulbs in the kitchen and only one that still worked. Now, though, now she could start to replace them. She had Nora’s money. She pictured herself reaching into that strange jar and pulling out the bills, and her crying reached a whole new level.
“I’m coming whether you want me to or not,” Rachel said. “I have some stuff to talk about, too. Are you okay to drive?”
“I think so.”
“Have you guys eaten?” Rachel asked, but before Tabitha could answer she added, “I’ll bring dinner.”