—
MERET IS WAITINGfor me in the kitchen the next morning. She doesn’t meet my gaze but bashfully asks, “Do you want to go for a quick walk?”
She needs to get ready for camp. I have a pounding headache from lack of sleep. But I turn in to her enthusiasm like a flower finding sunlight. “Yes,” I say. “Yes!Just let me get my sneakers.”
As we start along the reservoir, I hold up my end of the conversation, wondering what precipitated her change of heart. We talk about what we’d do if we won a million dollars in the lottery. Meret chatters about Sarah, about how their STEM contraption meant to shield an egg from a two-story fall won a competition, about a rumor that one of the counselors was related to Princess Kate. I tell her the story of Marina Abramovicand the Great Wall.
“So what happened?” she asks.
I shrug. “They hugged. And that was that.”
“That issosad. I mean, you go all that way for nothing.”
I look at her. “Do you think she should have taken him back?”
“No,” Meret scoffs. “He cheated on her.”
“You believe it’s that black and white?”
“Don’tyou?”
Apparently, I do, because I’m still not speaking to Brian.
“I wouldn’t walk three thousand kilometers for a guy,” Meret says.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
When she turns back to me, her cheeks are flushed, her chestnut hair is unraveling from its braid. Her eyes are gray, nearly silver, sometimes blue, storming along with her moods. “Mom,” she says, biting her lower lip. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
In elementary school, when Meret was throwing tantrums at home, Brian and I went to a parent-teacher conference. We expected the worst, but we were told that Meret was the model of good behavior; never a problem in class.Well,Brian said,if she has to have a meltdown, I’d rather it be with us.
There’s something to be said for being someone’s safety zone. Even if, sometimes, it means a kick or a punch or a rush of angry words.
I slip my arm around Meret’s shoulders. “Bitch away,” I say lightly. “I can take it.”
She starts walking again and looks at me from under her lashes. “I want to ask you something but I’m scared to say it out loud.”
“You can ask me anything, baby.”
“Are you and Dad going to get divorced?”
Well. That answers the question of how much she has overheard. I realize how silly I was to assume that, under this roof, she might not know that Brian and I have been fighting. I wonder if this is the reason Meret has been pushing me away, and then pulling me back, as if she can’t decide between the two extremes. Is she so scared of losing me that she thinks letting go would be less painful?
I want to ask her how much she knows. But I can’t do that without throwing Brian under a bus, and that wouldn’t be fair.
I stop walking and put my hands on her shoulders. “Meret. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you left.”
You knew?I think.
“Your father and I had a fight,” I tell her. “But everything’s going to be fine.”
She scrutinizes me, as if to divine whether or not I’m telling the truth.
“Was it about me?”
“No!” I blurt out. “Never.”
