Chapter 9
CHAPTER
There’s noise coming from the bathroom—plink, plink, plink.
Slowly, I approach the sliding door and ease it open.
Cracked tiles are cold beneath my bare feet.
On the far side of the room, the window is open.
A plastic cord from the metal blinds blows against peeling wallpaper covered in red, yellow, and blue fish.
Plink, plink, plink. Standing on tippy-toes, I pull the window shut, then turn to go back to our shared bed.
But Mama J is in the empty bathtub, her scrawny body naked, a syringe in her arm, eyes fixed.
A rope of yellow vomit is dried to her lips and chest …
brUCE IS ALREADY in the shower when I wake, gasping from an old nightmare. My head throbs. All I want to do is pull up the covers, push away what comes next. Life will now forever be divided—the day before I knew about Bruce’s affair, and the day after.
How did I get here?
I was twenty-one. Six months into my graduate program.
Beginning to believe I might do something with my life after being nominated for the Henry Johnson Fellowship.
Then Bruce ran out of condoms from the school’s health clinic.
We’d split a bottle of cheap wine, took the risk.
I should’ve been on birth control, but I didn’t want to take any pills.
One month later, I barfed three mornings in a row and bought a test. Two blue lines.
I didn’t tell Bruce. Instead, I climbed onto a bus headed to a free women’s clinic down on the Peninsula.
I’d finally earned a real chance at a different life, couldn’t throw it away.
A well-dressed lady beside me was listening to a small radio on her lap.
The host of the program on air was a psychologist named Dr. Beth.
The way she spoke, tough but kind, drew me in, and one call changed the trajectory of my life.
My name is Henrietta and I’m calling to thank you. When I was in my early twenties, I was lost, had no parents for guidance, and you gave me great direction that set me on the right track.
That’s wonderful to hear, Dr. Beth said. How are things now?
Well, I went to community college, found meaningful work, eventually met a great guy, got married, and we have wonderful kids. I still listen to your show most days—you’re the mom I never had.
When I reached the clinic, I sat on the curb, dialed the station, talked to a screener who tried to help me formulate my mess of a life into a coherent question.
A few minutes later, Dr. Beth took my call.
She listened to my family history, asked insightful questions, then inquired what I really wanted.
This baby, I replied, shocking myself. But I can’t lose what I’ve worked so hard to get.
No one can have it all, Dr. Beth said. Life is about making hard choices, living with the consequences. What was your dream when you were a little girl?
I wanted to live in a real house with a loving mom and dad who never yelled, have enough food, and feel safe.
And then?
To someday create my own family, give a child everything I never had. But now isn’t the right time.
Life doesn’t unfold on a calendar, Dr. Beth explained. This is your choice, but talk to the father before you make any decisions, okay? That’s only fair, right?
I took the bus back to campus and told Bruce.
We’d only been dating about three months, and a week prior I’d shared that I didn’t want to be exclusive.
That was another way to say “let’s ultimately break up.
” I liked Bruce but wanted to focus on my studies, date other guys, keep things light until I got my PhD, launched into a career.
But I love you, Bruce had said, his voice earnest.
He was the first man who’d ever said those three words to me. I agreed to stay together.
After I told him about the pregnancy, Bruce paced around my small dorm room. When he finally spoke, his voice shook. Marry me.
I was floored. Marriage doesn’t seem like the right answer. We don’t know each other that well. I’ve just begun my PhD; you need to finish your MBA. And we don’t have enough money to raise a child. Plus, we were just talking about breaking up.
You were talking about it, Bruce said. He took my hands, his palms sweaty. We can do this. You’ll have to drop out and get a job until the baby comes to support us while I finish my master’s. Then I’ll take over and provide for you and our child.
My stomach plummeted at the idea of giving up my dream, but also because I didn’t have the experience or skills to be a mom—not yet anyway.
When Dr. Beth had asked what I wanted, I’d said the baby, but that was in a world where I hadn’t come from homelessness; wasn’t the child of an addict; had a supportive family waiting in the wings.
It was an imaginary place where I could right all of Mama J’s wrongs.
You don’t understand, I said to Bruce, pulling free.
We’ll love our child and give him or her an incredible life, all the things we never had, create a legacy.
I know I’m punching up, okay? But Penn, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I’m good for you, too. Marry me. I promise, we can be a happy family, an unbeatable team.
And you can still have your career down the road.
Feeling cornered, I admitted that I wasn’t in love with him.
That was only fair. Bruce was sure that would come.
Then I shared my real past. Something I’d never done before.
Maybe I was looking for a way out. But Bruce still wanted to marry me.
Having someone hear the worst about you—things you believe make you other, ugly, hard to like, unacceptable—and still love you was incredibly compelling. I said yes.
From that moment on, my family was everything. Unsure how to care for a baby, build a strong marriage, Dr. Beth became one of my surrogate mothers, along with Olivia, Maddie, Bonnie Roy, Tanya Decker, and a host of other celebrity gurus.
Now, the urge to stay in bed, wrap arms around my knees, and sob hits.
But there’s Circe. I get dressed, retrieve the gray cardigan, count the stairs down to the kitchen—twenty-six—and focus on breakfast. Waffles topped with a dollop of Chantilly cream and blueberries.
I set two plates down for Circe and Bruce, then drown a leftover waffle in maple syrup, stuff the overly sweet, spongy bread into my mouth.
What now?
On some kind of bizarre cruise control, I make Bruce’s cappuccino and a latte for Circe with a heart drawn in the foam. When I look up, my daughter is already at the table, on her second bite. Waffles are her favorite. I hand her the latte.
“Thanks,” she says, mouth full. “All good?”
She probably thinks she’s in trouble for missing curfew. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You have syrup on your chin.”
I wipe away the stickiness. Circe wears jean overalls today with a white bodysuit beneath. She gobbles the rest of her breakfast, oblivious to the Category Five hurricane whipping through my body. I won’t let it hurt her.
“Morning,” Bruce says and sits at the breakfast table.
My hands shake as I pass him a cappuccino, hot liquid sloshing over the edge of the cup and puddling in the saucer. You’re having an affair. Bruce, on autopilot, doesn’t notice and opens the New York Times that he still refuses to read digitally, preferring the feel and smell of a real newspaper.
Circe gives me a hug before heading out to the bus. That’s a rarity these days and I hold on a little too long. I will protect her. When the door closes, I sit at the kitchen table.
Bruce looks up from his newspaper. “What’s the plan for tonight? I can be home by six. We could take Circe to her favorite Thai place?”
He’s wearing the lavender tie I bought him last Christmas. “We were supposed to go out last night, or at least have a late dinner, for our anniversary.”
Bruck sets the paper down. “Damn. Sorry, Penn. Work has been over-the-top. I forgot. Rain check?”
My jaw clenches as the lies pile up. I reach onto the chair beside me, put the size extra-small gray cardigan on the table. He doesn’t deny it when I lay out the facts, though he is startled that I unlocked his phone and offended at the trickery.
“It’s a breach of trust,” he says, indignant.
I want to cry out at his hypocrisy. But that won’t help.
And there’s still love here. It didn’t happen until after Circe was born.
Bruce adored her and I finally let go of my fears, let him into my heart.
We became a team. Now he reaches for my hand and hope flutters.
He made a very bad mistake. He’s sorry. It’ll take time but we can rebuild.
“I want a divorce.”
My ears pop like there’s been a massive pressure shift. But I’m not on an airplane. I’m sitting at the kitchen table in our home. “Who is she?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Bruce says and crosses his arm. “She’s a symptom. She’s not the problem.”
Now our marriage is a disease. “What does that even mean?”
“Penn, we raised a beautiful daughter. You should be proud of that.”
It’s like he’s offering me some sort of consolation prize at the county fair.
Sorry, lady, you didn’t win enough tickets for the giant stuffed bear, but here’s a wind-up tin mouse.
The idea that Circe will be forever impacted by his betrayal, our divorce, makes bile rise. I swallow down the sick and my pride.
“We can go to couples therapy,” I offer, a supplicant at his feet.
“It’s too late,” Bruce says. “Sometimes the love … it just runs out.” He shrugs, like he’s lost a game of dominoes, there’s traffic on the road to Tahoe, or he can’t find one of his socks.
How do I respond to this man who promised forever but now is informing me that his love is finite? How do I fight for our daughter and family when he says that sometime between our first kiss and right now, his love for me ran out like the charge in my Tesla?
“I’m going to take Circe up to Tahoe for the weekend. On the drive back, I’ll explain we’ve decided to split amicably.”
He’s really doing this. “How long have you been cheating?”
Bruce looks away. “We’ve been seeing each other for eight months.”
“Eight months?” I gasp. The truth ricochets through my body like a bullet. That’s more than half a year of lies. But of course it’s been ongoing. Hell, he put her name in his contacts as Potential Spam to make sure I didn’t suspect anything.
“I’ve hired an attorney to make this go as smoothly as possible, for both of us.”
He’s been planning this for a while. “We tell Circe together, after the weekend.” I refuse to let him control that narrative.
“Fine.” Bruce reaches for the gray sweater balled on the table between us, then walks toward the mudroom.
“Are you going to live with that home-wrecker?” I demand. But I already know the answer. Bruce isn’t the kind of man who wants to take care of the day-to-day. He hesitates in the garage doorway. A candle in the tiniest corner of my heart flickers … and then he’s gone, and it blows out.
You flew too close to the sun, Mama J points out.
She’s right.