Chapter 28
A routine had been established between us.
The hot springs on Monday. The fish man on Thursday.
The pop-up market on Friday. On evenings when I knew Tom would be occupied until late, I would ask María to return after I’d put the children to bed, then drive to Louise’s.
Sometimes the house would be filled with people—Fabiola, Hector, artists whom the gallery represented.
We would banter in a dizzying mix of English and Spanish about chauvinism in Mexico, gun violence in the US, whether race was to North America what class was to South, whether monogamy was an antiquated idea.
On a few of these nights, I took the children, insisting to Tom if Ida or Henry let slip where we’d been that it lent them sophistication to be around Louise’s friends, as if I were taking them to gallery shows and lectures.
Henry would kick a half-deflated soccer ball with the neighborhood children or run up the street with them to the tiendita, his fist damply wrapping coins with which to buy a paleta.
If there were no other children about, he complained he was bored, he wanted his special blanket, he wanted to go home and take a bath with his toys.
Ida, never. She kept close to Louise, who encouraged her to participate in discussions, to argue her opinion alongside everyone else.
When there wasn’t a party, Ida would sit for hours at Louise’s small dining table, head bent studiously as she drew.
Louise periodically offered praise, though never with the warmth or lavishness with which adults customarily praise children.
She would push Ida to articulate her vision, saying bluntly, It’s impressionistic, is that the effect you wanted?
Or she would challenge her: Maybe you should quit for the day, you’re tired.
I’d feel the sting, the umbrage rising in me and in Ida.
Then, invariably, I’d see, above Ida’s trembling lip, a determined look come into her face, after which she would make something truly extraordinary that Louise would later show her friends with proprietary pride.
“Why not let me take her home from school a few afternoons a week?” Louise said one day, in Ida’s hearing. “It would be good for you to have some time to yourself. You could write.”
I took her suggestion as a veiled critique, not of my mothering but my writing.
I’d recently shared a vignette with her about walking Ida and Henry to school, something similar to the word sketches I’d sent Tom when he was away.
In other words, something preoccupied with its own prettiness, the cadence of its language, lacking any real emotional power.
Lowering her hand onto Ida’s head, the bracelet gleaming on her wrist, she said, “You should return to the love story between the girls. Hector was so impressed.” Meaning, Take another stab at it.
Maybe all your efforts won’t be worthless.
“Anyway, Tom is providing you with a great opportunity. You should take full advantage.”
That anyway annoyed me, as though she were referencing a complaint I had with Tom, that he was uninteresting, or only valuable for what I could extract from him. Her backhanded compliments. Her dubious generosity: I could write if she took Ida. And what about Henry? I thought but didn’t say.
“Where’s Ida?” Tom asked as we were sitting down to comida the first time without her.
“With Louise.”
“Doing what?” he said sharply.
“I think she was taking her to the Fábrica; don’t look at me like that, Tom.”
“Why would you let her spend time alone with someone we barely know?”
I could feel the insistence of his stare and didn’t lift my eyes to meet it. I had sensed a demand in his assertion that we barely knew her, an implicit mandate that I share his opinion of her.
“She wanted to.”
“So? You’d let her eat cake for breakfast?
Run around naked?” His voice had risen, less out of worry for Ida’s well-being, I suspected, than exasperation at me; that I’d defied him by not acceding to his concern—a feeling that was confirmed when he added, “You’re the adult, remember?
You’re the mother. Just so we’re both clear who’s in charge. ”
I glared at him, eyes brimming. In silence, we began to pass the dishes around.
But as quickly as it had risen, the tension between us began to ease.
There was something undeniably pleasant about it being the three of us, the magnetic pull of Ida’s thoughts and demands removed, no bickering between her and Henry to arbitrate.
Pleased by our undivided attention, Henry kept up a steady patter all the way through the clearing of the table, agreeably relieving us of the need to speak.