Chapter 10 Training Montage
TRAINING MONTAGE
When I offered to let Nick stay with us, I was worried it would lead to Hannah trying to get us back together, like some low-rent Brooklyn version of The Parent Trap.
That’s not what happens, though. After a few days together, Hannah begins squabbling with her father over TV shows and bedtime.
She gets annoyed at his unwillingness to leave the house every time she wants to visit a playground or go out for ice cream, and I have to remind her that he is letting his hand heal so he can get back to work.
It reminds me of what it was like to live together in Atlanta; Nick and Hannah had a lot of friction then, too.
As an only child, Hannah can be pushy when she doesn’t get her way, like one of those high-strung movie stars who is charming as long as you are bringing her matcha lattes and highly unpleasant when you are not.
And Nick can get grouchy when he is hungry or it’s early in the morning, which Hannah likes to turn into an epic crisis.
Within a few days, Hannah is talking about how much she’s looking forward to staying with her Aunt Tabby in Canada once school is over, not how pleased she is to have her dad around.
I can sense that she’s been happy to have Nick visit but is equally happy to let him leave again.
It feels like an unexpected gift, this reminder that we don’t quite work as a family.
Maybe if Nick had been here all along, we would have found our way to an equilibrium, with both parents setting the ground rules.
As it is, Hannah and I are the family unit, and Nick is our charming but troublesome houseguest. I wonder if Nick feels it, too.
The night before Nick is going to switch out his wrist brace for something more flexible, I hear him swearing in the bathroom.
I knock softly and he grumbles for me to enter.
He stands there with his t-shirt caught over his head, half twisted up in his arm.
He was clearly in the process of getting undressed when something got twisted the wrong way.
“Would you like me to take your shirt off again?” I offer, amused.
“If you have a moment.” His voice is dry, and I pull off the shirt and hand it to him, feeling a rush of affection. He’s much more appealing when he’s not trying to be appealing, much sexier when he isn’t giving me long, slow glances.
There’s a brief moment between us that I manage to shake off; it’s only because we’re standing so close. He doesn’t tempt me the way he used to. It’s like when I stopped drinking alcohol: after a while, you can miss something but not crave it, because you know your life is better off without it.
When I turn to leave him, I almost miss him saying my name. “Hey, Laura?”
I turn around. “What’s up?”
He gives me a tired smile. “Thanks for helping me.”
I smile gently, feeling my heart wrench. “No problem.”
He nods. “When you left Atlanta, I thought things were still open for us to try again.”
“They were. Then,” I reply. I don’t know when the window closed. Maybe Christmas. Maybe Hannah’s April break.
“But not now?”
I look away.
“Laura.”
I sigh and shake my head. I watch as an awareness dawns in his eyes.
“You really like that guy.”
My heart lurches a little. “I’m barely dating him. Don’t get worked up.”
“So can he make money at that? As a dance teacher?” Nick gives me a dry smile, trying to get me to admit the apparent irony that I’ve picked another unreliable artist who can’t support me, just at the moment that Nick is finally doing well.
“He teaches in the evenings. He works as a tax attorney at Murano.”
“Fuck.” Nick grimaces. “Now I want to date him.”
I laugh, feeling a well of affection for Nick, some hopeful vision of what it would be like if we were actually friends instead of whatever we are now: tortured soulmates turned disappointed co-parents.
Maybe we can get to the kind of friendship where we can laugh together.
Maybe. Maybe all it takes is not expecting anything and he will stop letting me down.
His laughter attenuates into something painful. I loved him so much, for so long, and I can feel it in the air: this is the last time I will ever have a chance to kiss him. He is still handsome, and he is right there, and I don’t want to kiss him. Not even a little.
As Hannah and I wait outside our building with Nick for his ride to the airport, I can sense that he is happy to get on the road again, to be somewhere that he gets to play ‘Dad’ to a bunch of cool young rock musicians instead of being ‘Daddy’ to an eight-year-old who already suspects that he’s a screw-up.
It must be nice to be somewhere that your strengths are visible and your flaws won’t be; it’s why politicians seem happiest when shaking hands and kissing babies.
“Two minutes until my ride,” Nick says, glancing at an app on his phone, and then turns to Hannah and gives her a huge hug that turns into a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin. Once she is wobbling back on her feet, he smiles, sets her right, and then leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks again.” There’s an unexpected amount of sadness in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He glances at Hannah, who is a few feet away now, watching for the taxi, and says quietly, “You’re going to end up marrying that guy, aren’t you?”
I ignore the pain at the words. “Almost definitely not.”
A taxi pulls up, and he looks back at me. “I wish I’d done things better. I’m sorry.” It’s the most honest apology I ever remember getting from him.
I clear my throat. “You’re going to be amazing on that tour. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks.” He smiles once, that old, crooked smile that once sent me reeling, and then kisses Hannah on her head and turns to get in the car.
When he is gone, Hannah looks up at me. “Do you still love Daddy?” Her insightful streak has its usual annoying timing.
“Of course. But he and I are not going to be a couple again. You know that, right?”
Hannah considers this. “You could marry him again if you want to. But you should only do what you want to do,” she says. It’s the eight-year-old’s version of wisdom, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
The next weekend, I fly up with Hannah to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to drop her off with my sister, and I spend the weekend with Abby and her fiancé Paul in Paul’s adorable yellow townhouse in the middle of the downtown.
Everything about St. John’s feels foreign to me.
It looks like some Irish or Scandinavian port city, remote and quietly adorable, but I let Abby try to convince me that it feels like Brooklyn.
“We can walk to two different coffee shops!” she insists —and I pretend to agree.
I know she’s more in love with Paul than with anything else here, but it’s nice to see her happy and reassuring to see that she and Hannah are immediately on solid ground.
Within ten minutes of arriving, they are racing down the sidewalks singing Disney songs together.
It makes me feel less guilty for leaving Hannah with Abby for three weeks.
When I return home by myself two days later, I get my courage together and finally text Ollie.
Hey, I write, Nick is back on tour, and Hannah is in Canada with my sister for a couple of weeks. I am free if you want to meet up or talk.
He calls me an hour later.
“Hi!” I try to sound cheerful.
“How is your ex doing?” Ollie asks, his voice sounding distant and polite. “He’s recovered?”
“Yes, he’s fine. You could drag a touring musician behind an 18-wheeler, and they’d still be on their feet to do the next show.
He has to wear a brace on his wrist, but he’s totally fine.
I know that whole thing had terrible timing, but I want to tell you again that nothing is going on with him. It didn’t, it hasn’t, and it won’t.”
There is a long pause. “Laura.” Another pause, so long and deep that it feels like I’m walking through a tunnel. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Oh.” I feel a gust of terror rising in my chest, ready to blow through me.
“It’s not even…it’s not that I think anything happened with him, but I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with you. You’re too involved with him, and you have a kid together…”
“No.” My voice sounds shaky. “This was Nick pulling his usual bullshit, but I can assure you it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. And I would not have asked him if Hannah hadn’t overheard me talking about how he was injured.
She gets so little time with her father.
I had trouble saying no to her, not to him. ”
“But that’s my point. With Hannah involved, it’s complicated.
And if I were in a different place, and not going through my own stuff, I could handle it, but I was talking to a friend of mine, and I think that maybe I’m not ready for dating.
I know we…” He pauses. His voice sounds unsteady, full of feeling.
“I know we talked about that as a joke, but maybe we both were being more truthful than we realized.”
“Okay.” I’m trying not to react.
“After the way my marriage ended, I can’t be in a situation where…it just feels like any second this will blow up.”
I can’t help but be angry; I don’t want to be angry.
“Ollie, you pushed me away. You told me not to call you until Nick was gone. And now you’re acting like I’m the one who withdrew from you.
I did what you asked me to. I could have called you every day, every day, and told you I wasn’t in love with him, but you wouldn’t talk to me. ”
“I know. It’s my problem, not yours.”
As soon as someone pulls out, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ the discussion is over. That’s why it’s the greatest hit in break-ups. You can’t respond to it. It draws an uncrossable line in the sand.