‘A trip.’ That’s what Kedar had called it. A detour. And now it was over.
Kedar had toldme not to go to the office on Monday because he was fighting to allow us to work from home and it would undermine his efforts if I went in anyway, so I spent the day with Hannah while Laura ran around trying to get their life back in order and get Hannah enrolled back in a New York City school.
Hannah was not excited that she’d already been in school for over a week, and none of it ‘counted,’ but Laura had explained that she needed to start back again in New York with the other kids.
“It’s not fair,” she wailed.
“Well, you’ll have at least a few days with me before you go back,” I said. “Let’s do something fun before I have to go back to getting work done.”
We walked to a playground together, but Hannah only spent a couple of minutes running around before she came to sit with me on a bench.
“You remember this playground?” I asked.
“OfcourseI remember it,” she said, like I was being silly. “It’s not my favorite anymore.”
“You like the one in Central Park with the big rock.”
“There’s a sprinkler playground in Atlanta,” she said. “That one is my favorite now.”
“I’m glad you had fun.”
“I want to move back to Georgia,” Hannah said. “I didn’t realize I had to start school over again. It’s not fair.”
“I know, sweetie.”
Hannah turned to watch the other kids on the playground with a wary expression. I realized that Hannah looked different. She had gotten new clothes and a new haircut, and I could glimpse the tween that she was going to become. Eight years old was going to be different than seven. I wondered if nine would see her sipping martinis and complaining about her third ex-husband. My time with her was slipping away.
“How was it,” I asked her, “down there in Georgia? Was it nice to see your dad?”
“Daddy and Mommy would have all thesediscussions.”
“Discussions?”
“Yes,” she said wearily. “You should have come. You could have told them to stop.” Then she wrapped an arm around me and hugged me.
“Push me on the swing!” she cried.
“What am I? Your servant?”
“Yes! Come, servant! Obey my commands!”
It was an old gag we had together, and she snapped her fingers for me to catch up. Something in my heart hurt as I stood up. I wondered again whether the time for me to have kids had passed forever. For the last few years, I had been telling myself that I probably couldn’t even have kids anymore, like my uterus had closed up shop. Better that than to think my negativity would doom me to spinsterhood. I used to joke to Laura that I was going to pull a Miss Havisham on Hannah and raise her to punish the world of men.
“Push me higher!”
“Okay, okay.”
I stood behind the swing and took the thick chain cords in my hands as Hannah adjusted herself, then lifted them toward me and gave her a nice, solid push. Then a gentle shove on her back. I watched her swinging higher, her legs pumping. When I was little, I used to believe that if you pumped your legs hard enough, you could keep going. Nobody was pushing me back then, but it didn’t matter because I could pump harder and harder, trying to reach liftoff.
Maybe that was the fundamental truth that you realized as you became an adult: that you would always come back to earth.
I had tried to escape my life in New York, but I had landed right back here: still single, still cynical, still the type who got hit on by married men. I had jumped onto an improv stage, and tried things I was scared of, and gone right back to my old life afterwards. I had tried to find love, and then ended things, too afraid to find out whether he loved me back.
I pushed Hannah harder than I intended.
“Too high!” Hannah called.
My heart in my chest, I let her come down slowly.
