I went into labor two weeks early, but all my superstitious behavior paid off. Meret was born plump and perfect.Her lungs were fully developed, and even when I stayed awake for hours to watch the rise and fall of the tiny cage of her chest, it was steady and infallible.You see,Brian told me, already in love with his daughter.You had nothing to worry about.
—
MERET IS INher bedroom, bent over some kind of science experiment with swabs and vials, when I return from Win’s house. “Do you want to take a walk? The humidity finally broke.”
It’s funny, you think as a mother that the very act of giving someone life should be enough to bind you to them. But just because you love someone unconditionally doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it. I remember how, when Meret was first born, she would turn to the sound of my voice as if it were a lodestone. Since every conversation I had while I was pregnant was a soundtrack to her, that instant recognition was guaranteed. On the other hand, Brian started at a disadvantage. He had to spend hours talking to her, not like she was a baby, but like she was a very tiny adult. He carried her around in a backpack as he mowed the lawn; he fed her strained peaches as he described what he was doing in his lab. He saw the distance between them and he coaxed and beckoned and engaged until she came closer.
What I did not realize at the time is that every step she took toward him was one further away from me.
Do not get me wrong—I would not erase the bond Meret and Brian have, not for the world. But I have made a career out of being with people who, by definition, are going to leave me. Sometimes I wonder if I am destined for that in all my relationships.
She looks at me suspiciously. “You want to take a walk.”
“Yeah. I’ve been sitting for hours. And you’ve been at camp, so we haven’t spent a lot of time together.” I hesitate. “I miss you.”
“I don’t see how. I’m pretty big to overlook.”
Her words fall like an ax. “Meret—”
“We could go to a movie. Or start a mother-daughter book club. There’s a lot we could do that doesn’t involve me exercising so you don’t have to look at your disgusting, fat pig of a daughter—”
“Meret!” Hearing her break her own heart is breaking mine. “Stop it!”
When I was pregnant with Meret, she would kick so fiercely that sometimes I had to lean against a wall or take deep breaths. I used to tell Brian she clearly wasn’t comfortable in my skin. She still isn’t, in her own.
“I love you,” I tell her fiercely, and I hope it’s every bit as loud as she’s screaming, silently, that she hates herself. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”
For a second, I feel her soften. I feel her on that threshold, deciding what would happen if we weren’t squaring off, but side by side. Then she turns away, her attention focused on the vial in her hand. “Why don’tyoutellme?” Meret says. “You’re so good at it.”
—
THERE IS Aguest bedroom in our house that doubles as my home office. I keep my laptop there, and files on my clients, and a futon couch. When I am with someone who’s very close to the end of life, and my hours are round-the-clock or inconsistent, I move into the guest room so that I don’t wake Brian up by crawling into bed in the middle of the night.
Tonight, though, I take my pillows and some extra bedding and settle myself in there just because.
I’m not sure what my endgame is here. Getting rid of Gita won’t erase her; it’s like the way the television burns like a phantom behind your lids even after you turn it off. It’s possible, too, that Brian is telling the truth—he was on the committee to choose postdocs, but he may not have the individual power to remove one.
Or maybe this isn’t about Gita and Brian at all.
Maybe this is about me and Brian.
Meret stomps her way through a silent dinner, where she picks at her food but doesn’t seem to eat any of it—which makes me wonder if she’ll sneak down to binge in the middle of the night, which makes me embarrassed to admit I was wondering. Brian doesn’t come home and doesn’t text. The house is quiet as a tomb.
In four years Meret will be at college and Brian and I will be rattling around here, forced to have conversations when there is nothing left to say.
Once I had a client whose husband had had an affair, yet they’d stayed married for thirty-five years afterward. She was ready to leave him but he swore if she stayed, he would do anything she asked. She thought it over and told him she needed to be able to ask him, at any time of the day,Where are you?and to have him answer. That was the only way she could get reassurance, and without that bridge, she couldn’t reach the far shore of forgiveness. There were some days she asked him twenty times. There were other weeks where she didn’t ask at all.
Although I am so tired I expect to fall asleep right away, I find myself staring at my watch as it ticks past midnight, 1:00, 2:00A.M. At 2:30, when I hear the front door click open softly, I get out of bed and stand like an avenging angel at the top of the stairs. Brian looks up at me, purple shadows beneath his eyes. He hesitates, and then starts to climb, as if daring me to block him.
I don’t. I fall away, like mist.
“Where have you been?” I hear myself say.
He doesn’t turn around. “Does it matter? Aren’t you going to believe what you want anyway?”
He sees the light on in the spare bedroom and his step falters almost imperceptibly. When he reaches our room, he closes the door.
I lean against it, palms pressed flat. I try to pretend that on the other side, Brian is doing the same.
