Chapter 7 – Cora
CORA
I’m turning into a ghost. Part of it comes from avoiding Adrian. He’s been staying up later and getting up earlier, which makes it more challenging to duck him, but apparently, dodging a man is like riding a bike.
When he comes by the nursery, I take the opportunity to go pump while he watches the girls.
He’s always been too gentlemanly or squeamish to watch me do it.
He’s kind of uptight about me breastfeeding in general.
He approves—it’s natural, after all—but if I don’t cover up, he looks past my ear while I’m doing it.
He’s stopped sending Vera to invite me to dinner, and now he comes to ask me himself.
Sometimes I tell him I’ve already eaten.
Sometimes I ignore him until he goes away.
If he comes outside when I’m playing with the girls, I say it’s naptime, or time for a snack, and if he follows along, I say I have to go get something and leave him on daddy duty.
He knows what I’m doing. He gets pissed, but he won’t let on in front of the girls, and when he tries to corner me later, if he manages to find me alone, I call for whatever staff is in range of my voice, and ask them questions until Adrian gets frustrated and stalks away.
I haven’t gotten to a pawnshop yet. I’m without a personal vehicle again, and I can’t trust the drivers or guards. Pence is gone, thank God, but so are Schmidt and Tiller. I want to know what happened to them, but not enough to willingly talk to Adrian.
Mostly I feel like a ghost because my body is drifting away from me. All my limbs are strangely light. My breath is shallow. My walks with the children are aimless. My brain drifts, and Pearl has taken to tugging my shirt to get my attention.
I’m not pregnant. My period came the day after the showdown in the library. I cried. If there was a gun to my head, I couldn’t say whether it was grief or relief.
The leaves are changing. The geese are flying south, which is one of my favorite things, but I didn’t even notice until Pearl pointed them out to me in the garden the other day. I’d been staring at the sky and saw nothing.
It’s not good. I’m in trouble, but I don’t see what I can do to help myself.
I miss Mrs. Flowers. She always did more good for me than all the shrinks and meds and groups.
Take a shower. If you can’t, brush your teeth.
If you can’t brush your teeth, brush your hair.
If you can’t do that, get out of bed and sit on the sofa.
Forward momentum is the thing. If you can’t do it now, try again later. If not today, then tomorrow.
She was good at her job. She understood that there’s no sense in poking your finger in an open wound. Sometimes, you have to slap a Band-Aid on it and get on with your life.
Michelle did set up a couples therapy session with a counselor in the city. I didn’t show, and Adrian didn’t come home that night. Did he go to Delaney out of spite? I think of her all the time, randomly. She haunts me like I’m haunting my life.
About three weeks after our confrontation in the library, Adrian finally runs me down in the kitchen.
Pearl wanted to make pies for Thanksgiving, so I arranged with Minh to borrow his domain for the afternoon.
We’re not making real pies, just a dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar that one of my foster moms taught me to make.
Pearl and I are wearing our matching aprons with apples and frills, and Winnie is down for her nap.
I’ve got the baby monitor on the counter, and Vera said she’d pinch hit if Winnie wakes up while we’re elbow deep in dough.
I’m actually feeling okay when Adrian walks in, and once again, ruins everything.
“Daddy!” Pearl squeals, racing toward him with flour-coated hands.
Pearl halts a few centimeters short of colliding with his legs. She adores her father, but she’s cautious of him, too. She raises her arms and waits for him to pick her up and then cradles his face with her floury palms. “Why aren’t you at work?”
I’d like to know that, too. Is there trouble in paradise?
“I came home to talk to Mommy,” he says, glancing at me over her head.
My stomach twists into a knot. There goes that okay feeling.
“I don’t want to interrupt the bakers, though. What are you making?”
“Pie!”
“Pie is my favorite.”
“Your favorite is vanilla ice cream.” Pearl judgmentally wrinkles her nose. She’s made it clear on multiple occasions that she thinks that’s a poor choice.
“Can I sit here and watch the cooks in action?” Adrian asks, sliding onto a stool behind the butcher block island.
“Of course, Daddy.” Pearl beams. This is a rare treat for her—Daddy home during the day and letting her show off for him.
Adrian isn’t an absent father, but he is a busy man with a long commute, and his idea of spending time with the children is outings.
On the weekends, before he nuked our life to hell, we’d do hikes or berry picking or historical sites or children’s museums, and then, when we got home, he’d disappear into his office to catch up on work. We never just hung out at home.
Except, that’s not exactly true. After Winnie was born, during those first weeks when she was struggling to latch, and I was on the verge of losing it from sleep deprivation, he started to make a real effort to get home in time to help with Pearl’s bedtime.
He took over reading her story, and we’d all pile into her little princess bed, me tucked under one of his arms, Pearl under the other, and Winnie snuggled to my chest.
It was clear from the tension in his muscles that the cuddle puddle didn’t feel natural to him, but for a few months there, he’d gamely climb onto the pink bed, fluff the pillows behind him, and open his arms for us to climb in.
Thinking back, it was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
I turn my back to him and say to Pearl, “We’re almost done. Help Mommy roll out the last of this dough.”
Pearl races back over and climbs up on her foot stool.
I show her again how to sprinkle flour on the roller and get the rolling started for her. “Here, sweetie. Remember—start in the middle and push toward the edges.”
During our first few attempts, she rolled so hard, she pushed the whole mat across the counter. Now, she’s so gentle that I’m not sure the roller is even touching the dough. She’s a very conscientious kid. She wants to do things right, and she tends to overcorrect.
“Now the sugar,” Pearl says when she’s decided the dough is flat enough.
After an earlier mishap that left me scooping a cup of sugar back into the bowl, we’ve decided that sugar is my job. I heap a tablespoon on our dough and smooth it around, painfully aware of Adrian’s eyes on my back. For once, I wish he’d get on his phone.
“Okay, you’re up,” I say to Pearl.
She carefully sprinkles the cinnamon.
“Do you want to roll?” I ask.
“You start. I finish.”
I use my nails to free the edge from the mat and roll it once. “Your turn.”
Pearl carefully rolls the rest until we have a log. I cut it into pieces with a butter knife, and Pearl arranges them on a small tray I’ve lined with aluminum foil.
“I thought we were making pie,” Adrian pipes up from the island.
“This is pie,” Pearl tells him, putting on a large oven mitt.
I open the toaster oven. She slides the tray in. The oven is cool, but the mitt is fun, and it’s a good habit for her to learn. I turn the knob to five minutes.
“I thought pie was round.”
“It is round. See?” Pearl brings him the plate with our previous efforts. Some of the bite-sized disks are a little crispy around the edges. We’ve fine-tuned our process with each batch.
“Oh, yes. So they are.” Adrian pops one in his mouth.
Pearl looks at him expectantly.
“Delicious,” he says.
She grins with pure delight.
A few weeks ago, my insides would be as melty as a warm chocolate chip cookie at this point. I’d store the memory, and later, when Adrian and I were in bed, him on his laptop, me scrolling my phone, I’d summon it up.
I’d catch his eye somehow, and he’d read my face. The corners of his mouth would curve in a bemused smile, and his dark eyes would glitter. He’d put his work aside, roll over on top of me, and kiss me while I’d sink into the mattress under his weight, feeling safe and delicate and wanted.
I remember it all perfectly, but I can’t feel it anymore. There’s nothing in my chest but cold air, nothing in my veins but ice.
He ruined everything, and now he’s smiling at our daughter and helping himself to our pies like he has every right, and my eyes burn, but I can’t cry in front of her. Or him. The pressure growing in my head threatens to explode.
“Pearl, it’s quiet time.” I don’t mean to sound so sharp, and I immediately smile to erase the sting, but Pearl still blinks at me, thrown. Quiet time isn’t for another hour, and she can’t read a clock yet, but she knows her schedule.
“But, Mommy, Daddy’s home.”
“And I’m sure he’ll be here when you get up.” I’m actually not sure. I don’t know what he’s doing here in the middle of the day in the first place, but my nose is burning, too, and I don’t want to lose it now when I’ve held it together around her so far.
“But Mommy—”
“No arguments,” Adrian interrupts in the firm but calm way that usually has us all falling in line, Winnie included. “I’ll tuck you in while Mommy straightens up.”
“And you’ll be here when quiet time is over?”
“Absolutely. I’m home for the day.”
Shit. For a second, I thought I could give him the slip while he’s taking Pearl upstairs and keep a low profile until he heads back out. What is he planning on doing around the house on a weekday afternoon? Probably work in his office.