CHAPTER 4

The Summer of My Discontent

Lately, I’ve come to believe that having a child jumbles our sense of time, stirring together past and present as if in an electric mixer. Whenever I looked at London, the past was often propelled to the front of my thoughts as memories took hold.

“Why are you smiling, Daddy?” London would ask me.

“Because I’m thinking about you,” I’d answer, and in my mind’s eye, I would see her as an infant asleep in my arms, or her revelatory first smile, or even the first time she rolled over. She was a little more than five months old and I’d put her down for a nap on her tummy while Vivian went to a yoga class. When London woke, I did a double take while I realized she was lying on her back and smiling up at me.

Other times, I would remember her as a toddler and the cautious way she crawled or held the table as ballast while she was learning how to stand; I remember holding her hands as we paraded up and down the hallway before she could walk on her own.

There is much, however, that I missed, especially when it came to firsts. I missed her first word, for instance, and was out of town when London lost her first baby tooth. I missed the first time she ate baby food from a jar, and yet, it didn’t much change my excitement when I eventually witnessed those things. For me, after all, it was still a first.

Sadly, though, there is much that I don’t remember. Not everything can be reduced to a single event. When exactly did she move from toddling to walking? Or how did she move from that first word to speaking in short sentences? Those periods of incremental and inevitable improvement now seem to blur together and it sometimes feels as though I turned my back for an instant, only to discover a new version of London had taken the place of the old one.

Nor am I sure when her room and toys and games changed. I can visualize the nursery in amazing detail, right down to the wallpaper border that featured images of baby ducks. But when were the blocks and stuffed animals in the shape of caterpillars put back into a box that now sits in the corner? When did the first Barbie make her appearance, and how did London begin to imagine Barbie’s fantasy life, one that included the color of clothing Barbie must wear when she’s in the kitchen? When did London begin to change from being a daughter named London, to London, my daughter?

I occasionally find myself aching for the infant and toddler I’d once known and loved. She’s been replaced now with a little girl who had opinions about her hair, asked her mom to paint her nails, and would soon be spending most of her day at school, under the care of a teacher I had yet to meet. These days, I find myself wishing I could turn back the clock so I could more fully experience London’s first five years: I’d work fewer hours, spend more time playing on the floor with her, and share her wonder as she focused on the flight path of butterflies. I wanted London to know how much joy she added to my life and to tell her that I did the best I could. I wanted her to understand that even though her mother was always with her, I loved her as much as any father could possibly love a daughter.

Why then, I sometimes wonder, do I feel as if that’s not enough?

The phone didn’t ring.

Not in the first week, nor the second, nor even the third. While I’d met with more than a dozen different potential clients and all had expressed initial interest, my office phone remained mute. Even worse, as the month neared its end, none of them would make additional time to speak with me when I reached out to them, and their secretaries eventually reached the point where they asked me to stop calling.

Peters.

His fingerprints were all over this, and I thought again about Vivian’s warning to me. “If he thinks you’re trying to poach his clients, he’ll do whatever it takes to run you out of business.”

By the beginning of July, I was both depressed and worried, a situation made worse by the most recent credit card bill. Vivian had obviously taken my words to heart about her life not changing; she’d been running errands like crazy, and since I’d let the cleaning lady go, the house had become a regular disaster. After work, I’d have to spend an hour picking up around the house, doing laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning the kitchen. I had the sense that Vivian seemed to view my taking over of the domestic duties – and the credit card bill – as some kind of worthwhile penance.

Our conversations since I’d started my business had been superficial. I said little about work; she casually mentioned once that she’d begun putting out feelers about finding some part-time work. We talked about our families and made small talk about friends and neighbors. Mostly, though, we talked about London, always a safe topic. We both sensed that the slightest offense or misspoken word might lead to an argument.

The Fourth of July fell on a Saturday, and I wanted nothing more than to spend the day decompressing. I wanted to tune out concerns about money or bills or clients who ignored my calls; I wanted to stop the little voice in my head that had begun to wonder whether I should get a second job or start looking for jobs in other cities again. What I wanted was to escape adulthood for a day and then cap the holiday weekend off with a romantic evening with Vivian, because it would make me feel like she still believed in me, even if her faith was getting wobbly.

But holiday or not, Saturday morning was Vivian’s Me Time, and soon after waking, she was out the door to yoga class, after which she would go to the gym. I gave London some cereal and the two of us went to the park; in the afternoon, the three of us attended a neighborhood block party. There were games for the kids, and Vivian hung with other mothers while I sipped on a couple of beers with the fathers. I didn’t know them well; like me, until recently, they’d tended to work long hours, and my thoughts continually wandered to my looming financial fiasco, even as they spoke.