The Push

One day he brought two older people with him, one of them with his very large nose and the other one his very dark eyes. He invited them to sit down and brought them coffee from the counter and a croissant to share. He placed two napkins gently on the table, one in front of each of them, like he was serving long-standing customers at a fine-dining establishment.

He had bought his first house! This news thrilled me. I listened as he explained each of the listing photos on his phone. The kitchen entrance is there, and this leads to the powder room, and oh, this will be the baby’s room. He would be having a baby! Like my Sam. I wanted him to look at me so I could smile, so I could acknowledge that I cared about his future, that I had worried about whether this nice young man had someone in his life who loved him.

They talked about property taxes and a roof replacement and how long his new commute would be. And then the mother asked about her son’s plans for when the baby was born in just a month’s time.

“I can come back to the city for the week to help, whatever you need. Dishes, laundry. It’s no problem for me, I’ve got the time. I can bring the cot from the spare room at our house.” Her voice was so hopeful, and I knew before the son replied that it would be one of the hardest things she ever had to hear. He explained that Sara’s mother would come instead. That it would just be better for Sara that way. That she could visit afterward, once they were settled, once they’d had some time together, just the three of them. And Sara’s mom. He would let her know when she could come. Maybe a few weeks or so later. They’d have to see how things went.

The mother’s head moved slowly forward and then back and she mustered the words, “Of course, honey,” and she put her hand on his for the most fleeting moment before she tucked it back beneath her thighs under the table.

A mother’s heart breaks a million ways in her lifetime.

I left then—I didn’t want to eavesdrop anymore. I walked the long way home.



52



There was a moment in the car on our way home, I can’t remember where from. We turned to look at each other in the front seat, muffling laughs and locking eyes, the same reflex we used to share when Violet said something funny. That was all that mattered—that we shared this intimate knowing of each other. That we’d created her together and now here she was, saying these impossibly grown-up things she’d learned from us in her twiggy, eight-year-old voice. How had I been able to find that moment of perfectly typical joy with you? With her? Not a day went by that I didn’t replay what had happened at that intersection.

But life was moving on, I realized as I looked away from you, whether I wanted it to or not. We were together, the three of us, in the car without him, looking at one another like we had before. He had been gone for more than a year.

I missed him desperately. I wanted to say his name in the car so that you both had to hear it. He should have been there with us.

I reached down to the bag at my feet and pulled out a small package of tissues. I looked back at Violet in the seat behind you. I pulled one out and tossed it over my head into the backseat. She watched the tissue float up and then land on her lap. I pulled another one, and then another, and another. You looked away from the road and glanced at me once, and then again, and then to your rearview mirror to watch her. Violet’s eyes met yours, and then she stared quietly out her window as the tissues sailed around the backseat.

We used to do this with Sam sometimes when he cried in the car. We used to toss the tissues all around him until his long, sad sobs became a crescendo of laughter. He loved them. We’d go through a whole big box sometimes, mad with giggles, the soft white parachutes filing the car, the children’s squeals heightening, our tired, relieved faces grinning aimlessly ahead.

Neither of you said a thing while I did this for him that afternoon. I turned away from you when the package was empty, and I placed it on the dashboard, so that you’d have to see it as you drove. There were fields, I think, outside the window. I remember looking out and wanting to run through them until you caught me by the hood of my sweatshirt. If you ran after me at all.

* * *

? ? ?

That night I asked you if Violet should see someone. A child psychologist to help with the grief. She seemed so reluctant to talk about him.

“I think she seems to be coping pretty well. I’m not sure she needs it.”

“Then what about us? Together. Couples therapy.” We couldn’t seem to talk about him either. You hadn’t even mentioned what I’d done in the car.

“I think we’re coping pretty well, too.” You’d kissed me on the forehead. “But you should go. By yourself. You should try again.”

I walked aimlessly through our quiet house.

You’d been building a model in your den and your things were spread across the desk under the swing arm of the lamp. Superglue and a cutting mat and a set of knives with interchangeable blades. The tiny foam-board walls were lined up at the side. Violet loved to watch you build models of your work.

I picked up the blades one by one and dropped them into the tin. They shouldn’t have been lying out. I’d asked you to be careful about them before. I picked up the last one and ran it over my finger and flinched at the sharpness. How easily they could cut. How easily I could cut. I touched the scar beneath my shirt, the raised line of skin that had formed on my stomach. How good the blood had felt. I closed my eyes.