“Uh, I think you were already drunk when I hooked up with you tonight.”
She was poised with her fork up over her plate, a long string of linguine with pesto sauce hanging off it. She then pointed the fork at me.
“Good point. So what about our daughter?”
I wasn’t expecting her to remember that. I shrugged.
“I think what you said last week is right. She needs her father more in her life.”
“And?”
“And I want to play a bigger part. I like watching her. Like when I took her to that movie on Saturday. I was sort of sitting sideways so I could watch her watching the movie. Watch her eyes, you know?”
“Welcome to the club.”
“So I don’t know. I was thinking maybe we should set up a schedule, you know? Like make it a regular thing. She could even stay overnight sometimes—I mean, if she wanted.”
“Are you sure about all of that? This is new from you.”
“It’s new because I didn’t know about it before. When she was smaller and I couldn’t really communicate with her, I didn’t really know what to do with her. I felt awkward. Now I don’t. I like talking to her. Being with her. I learn more from her than she does from me, that’s for sure.”
I suddenly felt her hand on my leg under the table.
“This is great,” she said. “I am so happy to hear you say that. But let’s move slow. You haven’t been around her much for four years and I am not going to let her build up her hopes only to have you pull a disappearing act.”
“I understand. We can take it any way you want. I’m just telling you I am going to be there. I promise.”
She smiled, wanting to believe. And I made the same promise I just made to her to myself.
“Well, great,” she said. “I’m really glad you want to do this. Let’s get a calendar and work out some dates and see how it goes.”
She took her hand away and we continued eating in silence until we both had almost finished. Then Maggie surprised me once again.
“I don’t think I can drive my car tonight,” she said.
I nodded.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“You seem all right. You only had half a pint at—”
“No, I mean I was thinking the same thing about you. But don’t worry, I’ll drive you home.”
“Thank you.”
Then she reached across the table and put her hand on my wrist.
“And will you take me back to get my car in the morning?”
She smiled sweetly at me. I looked at her, trying to read this woman who had told me to hit the road four years before. The woman I had never been able to get by or get over, whose rejection sent me reeling into a relationship I knew from the beginning couldn’t go the distance.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take you.”
Seventeen
Friday, March 18
In the morning I awoke to find my eight-year-old daughter sleeping between me and my ex-wife. Light was leaking in from a cathedral window high up on the wall. When I had lived here that window had always bothered me because it let in too much light too early in the mornings. Looking up at the pattern it threw on the inclined ceiling, I reviewed what had happened the night before and remembered that I had ended up drinking all but one glass of the bottle of wine at the restaurant. I remembered taking Maggie home to the apartment and coming in to find our daughter had already fallen asleep for the night—in her own bed.
