After they got home, Sarah was too tired to eat more than a couple bites of a sandwich. Nora told her and Jake to get ready for bed and then she hugged Magpie, thanking her sister and promising to call later. Mags seemed off, not quite herself. Nora made a mental note to check in with her sister later.
Ben lingered in the kitchen, still wearing his coat. The betrayed, angry part of Nora wanted to kick him out, but the parent in her, who knew how scary those hours had been and how troubled their little girl was, couldn’t shut Ben out. He loved Sarah as much as Nora did, and it wouldn’t be fair to let their argument get in the way of him spending time with her.
“Why don’t you stay and help me put the kids to bed?” Nora said. “I think Sarah would like that.”
“Thanks.” He seemed grateful for the small request, and she felt like crap for not including him more in the last couple weeks. Ben loved his kids—keeping him from them would only hurt the kids.
She busied herself folding Sarah’s sweatshirt because it kept her from having to see the surprise and gratitude in her husband’s eyes. After they were divorced, they would be constantly doing this dance of holding on to the shreds of a family while still keeping that dividing line between them. Already, Ben’s presence had a degree of awkwardness. Part of it was the simmering tension from their argument; part of it was the environment. This wasn’t their house—wasn’t her house either—and this was no longer the family they used to have. Maybe someday she’d get used to that feeling of being out of place, but right now, she felt like she’d stepped into another country where she didn’t know the language or customs.
The two of them fell into step together as they walked down the hall to the guest bedroom. Years ago—before the poker and the horse races and the lies—putting the kids to bed together had bridged the gap between being Mommy and Daddy and shifting back into Ben and Nora. They would sit on either side of Sarah’s bed or stand beside Jake’s crib, giving kisses and stories and last-minute glasses of water and then tiptoe out and shut the door.
Then it would be just them again, and more times than not, Ben would take her hand on that return trip down the hall. Anticipation would build inside her for those moments on the couch when she curved into him. They’d watch a movie or split a bottle of wine or head to bed early to make love and fall asleep wrapped together in a human bow of legs and arms.
Those moments had eroded bit by bit until they were gone altogether. A part of Nora grieved that loss, missed the simplicity of those years. What had driven Ben to the casinos instead of their living room? And what had made her turn a blind eye, ignoring his distance, his mistakes, instead of confronting him? By the time she had finally said something, the money was gone and the damage done.
That day when she’d confronted him, she had lost everything. Her husband, her marriage, herself. She’d sat on the cold bench in the snow and watched Ben drive away, while the life inside her died.
The truth is, Nora, you’re just as screwed up as I am. Ben was right. She was screwed up. She had screwed up. She’d ignored and skirted and avoided, doing her level best to put a fresh coat of paint on a wall moldy with lies. You’re a good mother, Magpie had said. Ben had said the same thing more than once. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Jake was already in bed, holding a book and a stuffed dinosaur. Nora pasted on a smile when she saw her son. “Can we read Dinosaurs Sing tonight, Mommy?”
“Sure. Sarah, want to come sit on Jake’s bed and listen?”
“Is Daddy going to do the dinosaur voice?”
“Of course,” Ben said. “Because I’m a good dinosaur.” He bent his hands into claws and let out a “Rawwrr.”
Jake laughed and shifted to the side. Sarah climbed in the middle and Nora sat on the edge of the bed by the nightstand. Ben pulled up a chair and sat on the opposite side. Nora’s gaze connected with Ben’s across the divide of their children. He looked away first, nodding toward the book. “Let’s see what the dinosaurs are up to tonight.”
“Yeah, sure.” Nora opened the book, extending her arms so all four of them could see it. And so that she could read the book through blurred vision. “Once upon a time, there was a family of dinosaurs who lived in a big, deep, cool cave. There was a Mommy dinosaur and a Daddy dinosaur and a little baby dinosaur named Barry.”
Jake laughed. “Barry is a silly name.”
“I’ve never met a dinosaur named Barry,” Nora said as she turned the page. “Barry liked dinosaur school until one day when their music teacher, Mr. Brontosaurus, came in the classroom.”
Ben leaned forward and affected a deep, rumbly voice. “Children, today we are going to learn to sing. That way everyone will know we are nice dinosaurs.”
Sarah giggled. “Daddy, you are the best dinosaur ever.”
“Say it again, Daddy.” Jake bounced in place. “Please?”
The rest of the book went that way, with Nora narrating and Ben in recurring roles as every dinosaur in the story. By the time they finished, Sarah had curled up against her brother and Jake was nodding off.
“Let me put her in bed,” Ben said. He scooped Sarah up and transferred her to the twin bed across the room. He settled her on the sheets and then drew the pink and white plaid comforter to her chin, tucking it around her waist and legs. Like a burrito, Sarah had said when she was little. Ben pressed a tender kiss to Sarah’s forehead. “Good night, princess. Sleep tight.”
Tears stung Nora’s eyes. She crossed to Jake, settling the covers around him, knowing her restless, always busy boy would kick most of them off by the middle of the night. She kissed each of the kids, then tiptoed out of the room and leaned against the wall.
She could hear Ben whispering good night to Jake before he clicked off the light. Ben lingered in the room, and she could see him in her mind, the loving father watching over his children, cementing their sleepy faces in his heart. How many nights had they done that together? Holding hands, marveling at the amazing humans they had created.
When had it shifted? When had they stopped putting the kids to bed together? The chasm in their marriage had opened a little at a time. One night, she’d put the kids to bed alone, and a month later, she was doing it every night. Ben was “working late” or “caught in traffic” or any of the hundreds of excuses that covered for his stops at the off-track betting parlors and casinos.
“They’re down for the count,” Ben said. He left the door slightly ajar and then walked back down the hall with Nora.
She avoided the living room and swung right, into the kitchen, instead. Delaying saying goodbye to him but not wanting to re-create those nights in the living room together. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.” The words were as distant as a stranger’s.
She kept her back to him as she filled the carafe, added the grounds, and set the pot to brew. Too late, she realized offering coffee meant at least five minutes of waiting. The dishes were done, the countertops clean, and the options for avoiding Ben were minimal. A part of her hadn’t wanted to let go of the moments she remembered, and now she was stuck, caught between bittersweet memories and harsh reality. “Thanks again for helping tonight.”
“I’m her dad. Of course I’d help find her.” He shook his head. “Do you really think I’m that bad of a father?”
“No, no. I just…” She sighed. She was screwing up a simple thank you. “I don’t know what to say right now, Ben.”
“Neither do I, Nora.”
The coffeepot glub-glubbed, and the rich scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the air. Just enough to pour one mug, so she started with Ben’s, if only to have a reason to turn away and gather herself together. She could go back to their argument, but a part of her was so tired of fighting, of trying. Maybe it was best if she just kept things civil and simple. “How did you know Sarah would be at that playground?”
“That’s a story I’ve never told you.” He accepted the coffee from her and took a sip. “Thanks.”
Nora retrieved the cream from the refrigerator and took the sugar out of the cabinet before leaning against the counter to wait for the next cup to brew. “What story?”
He was quiet for a moment. The dog curled up at Ben’s feet and shut his eyes. “Do you remember that weekend you had to work an all-nighter? I think Sarah had just turned five and Jake was one. I was in charge overnight, for the first time.”
She nodded. “I remember that night. I accidentally dropped a five-tier wedding cake and had to stay all night at the bakery to make another one in time for the wedding. We cut that so close—I was literally wheeling the cake into the reception hall at the hotel while they were saying their vows outside on the lawn.”
Ben wrapped his hands around his mug and stared down into the cup. “Sarah ran away that night too.”
Anger roared through her. Typical Ben, keeping the truth to himself. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that? Jesus, Ben, that’s not the kind of thing you should keep from me.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. Because I knew you’d freak out and tell me I was completely inept as a father.”
Hurt shimmered in his eyes, and the anger that had peaked so quickly ebbed again. She, of all people, had no right to call him a bad parent. She poured her own coffee and sat across from him at the table. “That isn’t fair. I never told you that you were inept. Yeah, I took over for some things, but I didn’t want you to—”
“Do it wrong. You’ve always had trouble letting go of the reins, Nora, of letting the rest of us try and maybe even fail. You kept such a tight leash on everything in our lives that there was never any room for me.”
“What are you talking about? You were always there.” Until you weren’t, she added in her head.
“I was there, but I was an outsider.” The hurt flickered in his face again, in the wry smile that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “Frankly, I’m surprised the kids are as close to me as they are. You did everything, Nora. The laundry, the cooking, the baby care, working full-time, then running the baths and reading the stories.”
“It was just easier that way.” That was what she had told herself over and over again as she ran the wash or loaded the dishwasher. That it was easier to do it herself than to trust someone else. And now, she realized in an ironic twist, she was the one feeling like an outsider every time the kids asked for Ben or ran to him. Tonight was the first time in a long time that she’d felt included, wanted, by the kids. By Ben.
“Easier for who?” Ben said. “Because to me, you were always exhausted and crabby and busy. I had a family with you because I wanted it to be a family. The kind of family that lets the dishes stack up because we’re too busy playing in the yard. The kind of family that doesn’t care about a little mud on the floor or a bathtub overrun with bubbles. Because those things meant we were having fun. We didn’t have fun, Nora.”
“We had fun. We did stuff. We went on vacations.” Did he have different memories than she did? Different videos and pictures in his phone? Because she remembered trips to amusement parks and days at the museum and picnics in the park.
“Fun? We took one-day trips that were so well planned, they could have been executed by a four-star general. You wrote up itineraries and budgets and printed out the damned map, as if I was incapable of driving us to the aquarium. So it was never actually fun, Nora. We never truly got to just be and go with the flow.”
The argument they’d had earlier was still simmering at the edges of his words. All it would take was a couple cross words and they’d be right back there. She got to her feet and added more cream and sugar, just to avoid looking at Ben for a moment. “You still haven’t told me how you knew where Sarah was.”
He wrapped his hands around his mug and stared down into the coffee. “When she took off that night I was watching her, I found her at that playground down the street from us. Wasn’t much as playgrounds went, but Sarah loved it there. She was swinging when I found her, with a smile on her face the size of Texas. She told me she ran off because she wanted to have fun instead of do whatever it was that was on that list.”
Of course. Here it was—the blame-it-on-Nora excuse. If she’d been more fun, if she’d been more relaxed…
Didn’t he understand why she needed to keep things under control? Why she couldn’t let go?
“So basically you’re saying I’m a shitty mom, and that’s why our daughter is so angry that she ran away.” Nora cursed, got to her feet, and poured her coffee down the drain.
Ben set his mug on the table and rose to cross to her. He stood there, waiting until she turned away from the sink and faced him again. Ben’s eyes were soft and kind, not judgmental or hard. They were the eyes she had fallen in love with, the eyes that still knew her better than anyone else.
“I’m not saying you are a bad mom, Nora. Not at all. You’re a way better mom than any mom I know, including my own. You’re there for the kids when they need you most.”
I’m not, Ben. I’m not at all. “How can I believe that? They’re homeless now—”
“They’re not homeless. You’re living here; they have beds to sleep in. You did that; you made sure they had a place.” He waved toward the rooms above them, where their children were all tucked in and safe. “And all isn’t lost with our house.”
She shook her head. Just when she started to fall for him again, he went right back to the impossible odds argument. He kept betting on their future—and losing. “Good Lord, Ben, when will you give up? They are auctioning the house off in two weeks. It’s over. Let it go.”
“I’m not giving up, Nora.” He shifted closer to her. “You are.”
“I am not. I’m facing reality.” The reality that she had failed as a mother, failed as a wife, failed in general. Her daughter had run off not once but twice, because of what Nora had done. And the baby—
Guilt chased up her throat and caught on a sob. “It’s over, Ben. I…failed.”
“If anything, I did. I let all of you down. We had that night last year when we thought we’d try again, and, Lord, did I want to turn things around. I was going to quit gambling and be there for you and the kids. We even talked about having another baby, remember?”
She nodded, mute. Tears burned in her eyes.
“And a month later, I was back gambling again, like a fool. We had that huge fight and you told me to choose my family or the gambling and what did I do?”
“You left me, Ben. You left me there. And I…” She shook her head. What good would it do to tell him now? To resurrect the past? Nothing had changed. Nothing was going to change.
“You what?” He touched her, a tender caress along her hand, before his fingers rested along hers. His thumb skated back and forth over hers. “Tell me, Nora. Please, just tell me. Because even though I made the wrong choice that day, I started making the right ones the next day, and it was all because of what you said to me.”
Maybe once he knew, he would give up and see that there was nothing here to save. That they were done, their family was done, their future gone. That it was true—she was screwed up, and there was no fixing what had gone wrong.
“That night a year ago when we thought we’d try again…” It took her a minute to pull the words out of her gut, words she had buried so deep because she had never planned to speak them. They burned on the way up, scraping her throat, opening a wound that had barely scabbed. “I…I got pregnant.”
A flicker of joy danced in Ben’s eyes, then disappeared as he clearly realized a year had passed, and there was no baby. Ben, who had always wanted a big family. Who had told her once he wanted a house full of kids with her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She blew her bangs out of her face. “Why would I? You were never there, Ben. Not then, not when I finally decided to tell you. It was a month after I took the pregnancy test, and you’d been begging me to trust you again. That night, you came home from Foxwoods or wherever you were, and you had blown your entire paycheck at the casino. Again. You promised me you wouldn’t do that. You promised me, Ben. And I trusted that. Trusted you.”
“I’m sorry, Nora. I didn’t—”
“And I was so angry with you,” she said, the words coming faster now, that cold winter morning as fresh in her mind as if it were yesterday. “So, so angry. I chased you out of the house and I told you to leave and never come back, and you got in the car and you left. And then I changed my mind, because I still loved you, and I ran after the car and…” The tears spilled over her eyelashes and streamed down her face. The words scraped past her throat, and she knew, just knew, that her husband would never look at her the same way again after she said the rest. “And I slipped on the ice and…I…I lost the…the baby.”
Ben stood there for a long moment. His face crumpled and his eyes welled, grief for a child he’d never known existed until now. “You…you lost it?”
“It was my fault and I shouldn’t have gotten mad and I shouldn’t have run and—” She shook her head. “I can’t do this again, Ben. I can’t be what you want me to be. I’m not that woman. And I don’t want to be.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. The kitchen was silent, save for the dog scratching his neck and settling down again. “What happened in Truro?” Ben asked again.
“Nothing.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough.
“I don’t believe that. And if you do, you’re lying to yourself.” He shook his head. “You keep saying I’m the one who ruined our marriage. But you’re the one who stopped trying. You’re the one who gave up. I didn’t.” He cupped her jaw and met her gaze. As much as she wanted to pull away, the part of her that still cared deeply about him, still remembered what it had been like to be held by him, loved by him, couldn’t move. “Do you really want to throw all of this away? Over a loan?”
It would be so easy, too easy, to say, Let’s try again. To pick up where they had left off, as if the past year had been nothing more than a short detour.
“There you go again, taking years of issues and problems down to one simple thing. This is about more than the mortgage, and you know it. Ben, please just…stop trying to fix what is broken.” Please don’t tempt me to fall for you again when I’m just learning how to let you go. I can’t go through this again.
“Nora, if you would just try—”
She shook her head. It was too late. The wheels were already in motion. And when Ben had some time to think about it, he’d realize that they wanted different things from the future. “I can’t, Ben. Just let it go. Let us go. Please.”
His face hardened, and the brown eyes she loved so much turned icy. The warmth in his touch disappeared. “If that’s what you truly want, then I will. Goodbye, Nora.”
Ben had said goodbye a hundred times in the years she’d known him. But never had that one word held the same meaning that it held tonight.