staying?”
“Now don’t go to too much trouble, will you? You know Donald and me: hot water and a clean bed and we’ll be right as rain.”
9:40 P.M. Upstairs, Emily is still awake but wild-eyed with tiredness after her big day. She has shucked off both duvet and nightie as usual and lies there on the sheet, her body casting a mother-of-pearl sheen in the darkened room. Over the past year — can it really be a whole twelve months since she turned five? — her distended baby’s potbelly has disappeared; her tummy dips now and rises towards the contours of the woman she will become. More beautiful for not knowing she is beautiful. Want to love and protect and never ever hurt her. Make silent vow to be a better mother.
“Mummy?”
“Yes, Em.”
“Next birthday, I will be seven! Then I will be eight, nine, ten, ’leven, twelve, fourteen, twenty!”
“That’s right. But you don’t want to grow up too soon, sweetheart.”
“I do.” She juts that chin of hers. “When you’re a adult you can go to Morantic.”
“What’s Morantic?”
She rolls her eyes in incredulity, my world-weary sophisticate of six. “You know,
“Oh.
She nods, pleased I’ve heard of it. “Yes, Morantic!”
“Who told you about Morantic?”
“Hannah. And anyway you have to go with boys, only sometimes they’re too naughty.”
I stand here in the thick hot dark thinking of all the conversations we will have on this subject in the years ahead and of the ones we won’t have, because she will need to have secrets in order to grow away from me and I will need to have secrets to keep her close. As I bend to kiss her, I say, “Morantic is a fantastic country. And you know what? When you’re ready to go there, Mummy and Emily will choose some lovely dresses together and we’ll pack you a bag.”
Perhaps seeing something sorrowful in my expression, my daughter reaches out and takes my hand in her small one; it triggers a flicker, no more, of holding my own mother’s hand, its coolness, the meshing of its bones.
“You can come to Morantic too, Mummy,” she says. “It’s not very far.”
“No, love,” I say, leaning down to extinguish the Cinderella light. “Mummy’s too old.”
To: Kate Reddy
From: Jack Abelhammer
Dearest Katharine,
Perfectly understand your reservations about our meeting again in this life and appreciate the suggestion that your esteemed colleague Brian Somebody might take over the handling of my business. Weirdly, I find myself unwilling to do without you, Kate. Reddiness is all.
Good news, however. Found this great restaurant in a parallel universe. No veal and they can do us a corner table. How are you fixed?
love, Jack
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
The twelfth of Never looks good for me. Can we sit by the window?
K xxxxx
Out in the garden, through a night as dense and soft as cloth, I swear I can hear Jack calling to me. When I was young I left men like I left clothes, in heaps on the floor. It seemed better that way. You see, I had figured out that it was hard for someone to leave you when you’d gone already. Emotionally, I always had my suitcase packed. A therapist, if I ever had time to consult one, would probably say it was something to do with my dad walking out on us. Besides, I took the Groucho Marx line: Why would I want to be in a relationship with anyone dumb enough to be in a relationship with me? It took Richard to show me that love could be an investment, something which could silently accrue and promised long-term returns instead of a gamble that would leave you broke and broken.
Before Richard, and before children, leaving was easy. Leaving now would be nothing but grief. To the kids, Richard and I are an all-purpose love hybrid called mum’n’dad. To split that unit in half, to teach them there are two people they must learn to love separately — I just don’t feel I have the right to ask my children to do that. Men leave their children because they can; women, in general, don’t leave because they can’t. A mother’s life is no longer her own to leave.
To be with Jack, I would have to go into exile from my homeland. To find the courage to do it, I would need to be so unhappy that staying was harder than jumping. And I’m not there yet.
Debt you owe to your children. Debt you owe to yourself. Figure out how to reconcile the two. Minutes of meeting to be written up (Secretary Lorraine says she’s off sick, but Lorraine always off sick in heat wave). Self-tan must; look like Morticia Adams’s younger sister. Grovel to clients over completely disastrously hideous performance for May (–9 percent versus index of –6 percent). May has wiped out all hard work for previous four months; great results now drowned in sea of red. Suggest to clients that performance is only temporary and am taking measures to address it. Think of measures to address it. Deflate bouncy castle, confront Rod over shameful sexist/racist treatment of Momo. Stair carpet??? Book stress-busting spa day, including protein facial as recommended by ace
30 The Patter of Tiny Feet
THURSDAY, 11:29 P.M. Impending visit from the parents-in-law fills the air with apprehension like the thunder of distant wildebeest. “Don’t go to any trouble, darling,” says my husband. “What have you got planned for Sunday lunch?”
“Don’t go to any trouble, Katharine,” says Barbara, calling for the third time. So then you don’t go to any trouble and she takes one look in the fridge when they arrive, tugs on her string of pearls as though it were a rosary and drags Donald out to the car. They return with the entire contents of Sainsbury’s, “So we have a bit in for emergencies.”
Everything is under control this time, however. I will not be found wanting. There are clean sheets on the guest bed and clean white towels snatched up in M&S at lunchtime. I have even put a nodding sprig of lily of the valley in a bedside vase for that graceful, womanly touch of the sort practiced by Cheryl, my
Watercolor of sunset over Coniston by “the celebrated local artist Pamela Anderson” (no relation, alas)
Royal Worcester egg coddlers (4)
Electric wok
Dick Francis novel in
Beatrix Potter commemorative cake stand
Also—
