“Cassie told me.”
“You said nothing happened,” Cassie says.
“Nothing did.”
“You kissed him.”
“I did. He kissed me, and I didn’t stop it.”
“I like Teo,” Henry says with a bit of defiance.
“We all like Teo,” I say. “But this isn’t about him. This is about us. And about what happened last night.”
“This is such bullshit.”
“Cassie. Enough.”
“Who was that guy outside, Mom?” Henry asks. “Was he the same guy who tried to get in the house?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why did he do that? Why do they care?” Cassie asks.
“It’s because of that photograph. The one Teo took.”
“That’s right, Henry. The one Teo took. You know how much attention that photograph brought me. Us. People are interested in our family. I wish they weren’t, but they are.”
“It’s so stupid,” Cassie says. “Like we’re these celebrities because our dad died.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“Can’t you make them stop?”
“It’ll go away eventually—soon, probably, now that the memorial’s over.”
Cassie crosses her arms over her breasts. “How come you didn’t try? I mean, you, like, say you don’t like the attention, but you’re on all these committees, and you’re in that documentary, and if you wanted them to go away, why didn’t you just say no to all that stuff?”
Cassie’s words are crushing. She sounds exactly like my inner voice, the one I’ve only been able to respond to with because, because, because.
“I thought it was the best thing to do given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances, Mom? We’re not the only family who lost someone.”
“There are things . . . I was worried that if I didn’t go along, they might come looking.”
“Who might come looking? For what?”
“The press. Journalists.”
“Why? And who cares? You have the most boring life ever.”
I smile. “I wish I did. I wish there was nothing to find.”
“Do you do drugs, Mom?” Henry asks, looking serious, all those school assemblies having an impact.
“Mom doing drugs? That’s a laugh.”
Isn’t it funny, how little your kids know you? Not that I do drugs now, but back in the day, in college and the years after? For a while, Tom grew pot in his closet.
“No, Henry. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
I look back and forth between my children. They have a view of me, of their father. It’s like that photograph Teo took—true enough but not the whole truth. And like my initial decision to keep all this hidden, the idea of telling them, of changing that image for good, seems like the wrong choice. But they’ve learned enough about life from another source, so I take a deep breath, and then I confess.
20
LIFE AS A HOUSE
KATE
“Did you see this?” Andrea asked, pushing her iPad under Kate’s nose later that morning as she was trying to cut up the twins’ bananas into even circles. It was cold out, closer to winter than fall, and there was frost on the windows.
“I’m not sure. What is it?”
“It’s about that woman. You know, the one they took that photo of? In Chicago? That blond one who looks a bit like the woman who dated Ellen. The one who went crazy?”
“Anne Heche?”
“Right. She was on Another World, the soap opera, wasn’t she?”
“I think so.”
“Can you believe it?”
“That Anne Heche went crazy?”
“No. About the Chicago woman . . . Cecily . . .”
“Grayson?”
“Yes, her. She was this picture-perfect widow, and now she’s all over the place, kissing some other guy.”
Kate put the knife down and scooped the banana circles into a bowl.
“Boys! Breakfast.”
Kate watched Andrea. Her face was flushed as she stabbed at her iPad, scrolling from one news story to the next. She was dressed for a session with her trainer. A man who was good-looking enough to cause all kinds of trouble with the stay-at-home moms of Westmount. But Andrea seemed sexless, almost. Androgynous despite the long blond curls and fake semipermanent eyelashes.
“Who cares who she’s dating?” Kate asked. “Her husband’s been dead for a year.”
“It takes two years to mourn properly.”
“Really?”
“I had to read all this research once on the stages of grief. It takes two years to go through them.”
“Okay, but still—”
Willie and Steven tottered into the kitchen. Kate helped them into their seats and fastened them tight. She put the bowl of bananas in front of them, admonishing them to share. Steven reached into the bowl and took out three circles, placing them in front of his brother.
“These are yours.”
Willie gave him a thumbs-up.
“Just because she kissed a man doesn’t mean she’s through grieving,” Kate said, unsure of why she was arguing this point. “Besides, maybe it doesn’t take that long for everyone. Maybe it’s just an average? Or maybe he wasn’t a very good husband.”
Andrea’s head rose. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then. It isn’t right.”
“Why do you care?”
Kate immediately regretted her tone. But who was Andrea to judge? She didn’t know anything about grief. Sure, she had a husband who wasn’t around much. She was bored and wished she could go back to work without actually having to do so. But she didn’t know. She didn’t know how it cut you in half. How even when you were past it, you were never over it. You were always in it. Always.
“It’s just . . . wrong.”
Andrea was clearly daring Kate to defy her. To give her an excuse to direct her anger somewhere. Kate turned away and went to the coffee machine. Maybe she needed to switch out Andrea’s coffee for decaf.
Kate’s own grief had hit her for real when she woke twenty-four hours after crashing out in her seedy hotel room, not sure where she was. Not sure who she was. Lying in a lumpy bed in clothes she’d worn for too long in a city where she knew no one after having run away from her life (her kids!)—that wasn’t like her. The her she’d worked hard to become. She’d spent twenty years as one kind of person. Someone who did what was expected. Who showed up. Who had nothing mysterious about her. A good-enough mother. A good-enough wife and friend. And now she was another kind of person. A sneak. A
