At four o’clock Pru would walk home, back up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped to pick up Annali from preschool, then they’d take the puppy to the playground, where sometimes they’d find Fiona and her kids. Fiona wasn’t showing yet, but she looked pale, nauseous, and exhausted. They passed the time by pushing the kids on the swings and trying out baby names: Delia. Cornelius. Cady. Lionel. Then it was home to make dinner, listen to Patsy complain about the capitalist swine she worked for, and perform the extensive, rather exhausting ritual that was Annali’s bedtime routine. If she was lucky, she could fit in a swim there somewhere. If she was really lucky, she didn’t go through her whole day thinking constantly about John Owen.
ONE NIGHT WHEN SHE WAS HIDING IN THE BATHROOM, crying, she had a realization.
She hid in the bathroom to cry because she was still trying to keep it together in front of Patsy, who was just getting herself together. She’d always had the idea, as far back as she could remember, that she had to set an example for Patsy. She didn’t want Patsy to hear her cry, because she didn’t want her sister to start indulging her grief all over again, and because she didn’t want to have to answer any questions. The walls of the apartment were paper-thin. In the bathroom she clenched and unclenched her hands, and when it seemed unbearable, as though she was going to burst from not crying, she watched the girl inside her cry. Pru made her double over, hands over her eyes, going hell for leather with the weeping. Always in a gray belted dress, her hair in a forties-style up-do, a handkerchief clutched in her hands. She looked like she was crying for a dead soldier. Pru would watch her cry, and afterward come out to Annali and Patsy, who never seemed to notice anything strange about these extended bathroom retreats.
She missed John. She missed talking to him and seeing him every day. He never called her again, after that last phone call, asking her what he should do. She tormented herself, wondering whether McKay had been right. Maybe she should have let him glimpse her heartbreak. Maybe she should have yelled at him, scolded him for what he’d done to her. Since she hadn’t heard from him, she had to assume that he’d gotten back with Lila. But she couldn’t bear knowing, right now. She avoided his corner of Adams-Morgan, orienting her daily life in the other direction, westward, toward Dupont Circle. She even began shopping at the other Safeway, the smaller one, and took her clothes to a different dry cleaner, one that didn’t, unfortunately, take such good care with the buttons.
But one night, as she was staring into the bathtub, which had begun to crack around the drain, she had the realization that this was not what John would have chosen, if he could have chosen. If he felt he could have chosen. After all, what kind of life was he returning to? With Lila there had been abandonment. Sleeping with other people. The unhappiness that led to the separation in the first place. The yellow half-painted room. They still had to deal with all that. She’d been imagining them mostly in bed, or having breakfast together, smiling and happy. She imagined running into them at the movies, their arms comfortably around each other. But, in reality, maybe it wasn’t like that.
By the end of January she was able to walk past the café on her way home from swimming. Normally she would cross to the other side, the “safe” side. As she hurried by, she was torn between peeking into the big window and keeping her head ducked low, so he wouldn’t see her. She ended up keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her, but it was a start. When she got home, she went straight into the bathroom and sat on the lid of the toilet. She waited for the choking pressure in her chest to come and the tears to start, but nothing happened, so she went back out and started making dinner for Patsy and Annali.
The next time she passed the café, she forced herself to walk slowly, and then to glance inside. She returned to visiting Phan at the video store, and began using her favorite cleaners again. She risked seeing him. Them.
She was getting over it. She could feel it. Maybe she would never entirely be over him, but she thought she was beginning to see that a fairly normal future could be hers again.
She needed to see him, to make sure.
WHEN JOHN UNLOCKED THE DOORS EARLY ONE MORNING in late winter, she was standing there, waiting for him.
“Hi,” she said. He was surprised to see her, and jumped a little. But of course, it was still dark outside, so perhaps he’d mistaken her for a mugger.
Before he could say anything else, she said, “This is rehearsed, okay? Okay. So. Here goes.” Her heart was beating fast and she had to take a deep breath. “I’m really sorry for the way I
