She left us the next day.

84

The morning after we visited Mrs. Ellington, I heard Violet call Gemma from the bathroom while she ran the shower to muffle her words. I didn’t linger outside to eavesdrop—I went to the kitchen and made her breakfast. I sat across from her with a cup of coffee and watched her eat.

“What?” She lifted her spoon up, annoyed, dripping milk on the table. She hadn’t spoken to me since we were in the car. I noticed a thin bra strap on her shoulder peek out from the neck of her sweater.

“I’m glad you have Gemma in your life. I brought you to meet Mrs. Ellington so you could see that I understand. I want you to feel loved by someone you trust. Someone you can turn to. And that person doesn’t have to be me, if you don’t want it to be.”

She dropped the spoon in her cereal bowl and then shoved her chair out from the table, spilling my coffee. I caught her just as the front door was closing.

“Wait. You forgot your coat. I’ll drive you,” I said, trying to turn her around. I hadn’t expected her to react like this—I thought I’d extended an olive branch, a mutual understanding: I was not who she wanted and I had conceded.

“Of course you’re happy to hand me over to Gemma. You wish you never had me, don’t you?”

“You know that’s not true.”

“You’re a liar. You hate me.” She tried to pull her arm from me, but my grip was strong. I thought of Sam. Of his crushed body in the stroller. I could feel the pain of that day, and every day of missing him since. I could feel the years of crippling blame and terror and doubt. And then I could feel my mother. I yanked her closer, twisting her arm harder than I should have. Adrenaline shot up my legs and I jerked her hard again, pulling her closer to my face. I’d never experienced the physical rush of hurting her like this before. I promise you.

I realized then how satisfied she looked. The corner of her lips turned up slowly as she winced. Go ahead. Keep hurting me. Leave a mark. I let go of her. And then she ran.

She wasn’t there on the steps when I went to get her after school. I idled the car and went into the office to see where she was. They told me she’d gone home sick. That you had picked her up.

I texted you. I thought we had an agreement on the schedule.

You replied. I don’t think it’s going to work.

* * *

? ? ?

That night there was a soft knock on the front door, so soft that I almost didn’t get out of bed to answer it. I slipped on my robe and walked carefully down the stairs in the dark. I opened the door. Nobody was there. But there was a large bubble-wrapped package with a note taped to it. I opened it on the cold floor. The painting. Sam’s painting. The note was from Gemma.

    You deserve to have this. It’s been hanging in Violet’s room since Fox gave it to her, but she took it down this afternoon. The frame is cracked. And she punctured the canvas. I’m sorry for that.

I didn’t know how much it meant to you.

Please, give her space.

I hope you understand.

Merry Christmas.

Gemma

You hadn’t yet made it back to your car. I would recognize the shape of you anywhere, the round of your shoulders, the slight lift in your elbows while you walked. I didn’t think before I called your name. You didn’t think before you turned around. And so there we were, staring at each other. Strangers, family. I waited for you to turn away toward your car. But instead you came back. To the porch you rebuilt, to the home you had loved. The home we still shared on paper. You looked up to where the trim around the door had spliced, a shard of wood jutting out like a blade.

“You should get that fixed.”

“Thank you. For bringing this back.” I gestured behind me to the painting, half unwrapped in the entryway.

“Thank Gemma.”

I nodded.

“You can’t call my wife anymore. You have to move on with your life. You know this, right? For the good of everyone.”

I knew. But I didn’t want to hear it from you.

You turned away from me, and I thought you might leave then. I stared at the side of your face, trying to decide what I felt for you now. It had been so long since we’d been near each other. You didn’t feel real to me, you felt like a character in a life that had never been mine. I wanted to reach for your chin, to touch you, to see how you felt between my fingers now that you loved someone else, now that you were a father to a child who was not ours.

“What?” you asked, feeling my eyes on you.

I shook my head. We shook our heads at each other. And then you closed your eyes and you started to chuckle.

“You know what, I thought of something on the way over here.” You took a seat on the top stair and spoke toward the road. I sat next to you and wrapped my housecoat tight. “There was this thing I never told you about.” You chuckled again and let your shoulders fall. I had no idea what you would say.

“Do you remember that time, just after Sam was born, when all of your nice clothes from the closet disappeared? And we couldn’t find them anywhere?”

“It was that cleaning service you hired, that stupid discount place.” I scoffed. I remembered. I thought I was going crazy; all of my nice blouses and sweaters had disappeared at some point. I had lived in my oversized sweats for months after his birth, so I couldn’t say for sure when it had happened, but their disappearance was the strangest thing. We had done a trial with a new cleaning company in the neighborhood and it was the only possible explanation I could think of. I was too tired and preoccupied to care much at the time. You told me not to worry, that we’d replace everything.