I gesture behind me, conveying the very recent past. “Dinner. Reid. All of it. How do you feel about it?”
Emme hikes her canvas bag up her shoulder. I don’t know what she has in there, but it looks heavy. “Should I feel some type of way about it?”
So she’s playing coy. She does this when she wants to skirt an issue, or she wantsmeto admit I’m skirting an issue.
I have to be more direct. That’s the rule of the game.
“I’m guessing you gathered that Reid and I dated. It was right before my junior year of college. I don’t even know if you could call it a relationship—we knew each other for about a week. It was short, but I had very strong feelings for him.”
“A situationship,” Emme offers.
“Yes, that. I know it’s probably weird to see me... interact with a man who’s not your dad.”
I’ve only gone on a handful of dates since the divorce, mainly at the urging of Nisha and my therapist, who hold eerily similar opinions about how I need to push past my romantic comfort zone. How I need to stop putting my own needs and desires on hold until Emme leaves home. The ways in which I’ve supplanted those needs and desires entirely with things that require little emotional risk. None of my previous dates were terrible, but none of them felt worth making things more complicated for Emme. James was already a pro at that.
Now Emme shrugs. “I mean, OK, fine, it’s a little weird.” We pause at the carts of bargain books outside the Strand. Emme thumbs through a row of travel books, all of them at least fifteen years out of date. “Do you still like him?”
“I liked him thirty years ago. But people change. I don’t really know who he is now.”
“But you’re looking forward to spending more time with him. Tomorrow, I mean.”
Before we left the restaurant, Reid and I made a plan to meet for lunch at a bistro in the West Village, a decisionthat pleased all four of us. It was far enough away from where the girls would be that we wouldn’t risk running into them but close enough to make Reid feel comfortable. A break-in-case-of-emergency thing.
Emme is flipping through the books more quickly now, distracted or anxious. I put a hand on her arm, nudging her to look at me. “Emme. If you don’t feel comfortable with me seeing Reid again, I won’t do it, and I won’t have any regrets about it. You will always come first. OK?”
Emme releases a labored sigh, like I’m not getting something. “I like Reid, Mom. He paid attention to you when you talked. He actually asked you questions, and then he listened when you answered.” My heart fractures. “I like Gracie too. She wants people to think she’s a bitch, but she’s actually a very thoughtful person. You know, she only supports cruelty-free beauty brands. And she really cares about her dad.”
“I also like Gracie. And I like that Reid asked you questions too.”
“Yeah, he didn’t treat me like a seen-and-not-heard kind of kid.” She looks at me earnestly. “You have to go,” she says, but then pauses, like she’s cutting herself off. I pluck the book from her hand—a brick-sized, age-softened anthology of vampire literature.
“I’ll get this for you if you tell me what else is on your mind,” I say. One thing it took me too long to learn about parenting is the power of a well-timed bribe.
She ruminates for a moment. “Can I get a hardcover too?”
“Absolutely.”
“I want you to be careful.”
Alarm bells. “Careful how?”
“Careful like, I don’t want your heart to get stomped on again.” She waves a hand toward me. “The postdivorce-sad-mom thing sucked. I honestly don’t want either of us to go through that again.”
It never ceases to be surprising, the labor of creating a person, followed by the miracle of watching them morph, slowly and also all at once, into someone you have never met. And the delicious pain of your heart expanding beyond its known borders each time you encounter a new iteration.
This is an Emme I haven’t yet known, protective and wise. But I still need to guard her feelings more than she needs to guard mine.
“That won’t happen,” I say. “I can promise you that.”
Another thing I’ve learned about parenting: the power of a white lie.
IX
I arrive at the restaurant with time to spare, needing a moment to settle in before Reid appears. The hostess leads me to a sunny table tucked into the corner, and I order a peppermint tea. My body is already electric, and more caffeine would tip me over the edge. I’m surprised by the jangle of my nerves. I keep reminding myself that I was in this man’s presence just last night. That Reid and I maybe even loved each other once, that he’s not some stranger whose approval I’m courting. That he has, in fact, seen me naked. Though my pulse only kicks up more in response to all of it.
When Reid walks in, his eyes sweep the room until they find me. He greets me with a smile, warm and familiar, and it’s like the light pulses through the window with an even gentler glow. He looks good in a white cotton T-shirt that brings out the bronze of his skin. The thin silver chain of a necklace is barely visible above the neckline. I wish I had my camera with me, and that it wouldn’t be strange to ask to take his portrait.
Maybe we can work up to that.
