A Window Opens: A Novel (40 page)

I watched, too. It was the longest wait of my life. One word popped into my head:
empty-handed
.

With a screaming symphony of brakes, the car came to a halt three inches from Oliver. The sound brought him back to life, and he ran back to the curb he’d come from, the one closer to home, instead of running straight into my arms. It was an odd choice, a reflex, but I noticed.

The driver of the car was a man in his sixties: thin face, gray crew cut, thick old-fashioned glasses, a modern version of the scientists who
narrated reel-to-reel films about the solar system when I was in grade school (
Can we watch it backward? 
). The window projected a map of naked tree branches onto the driver’s face. But I could still see him, shaking his head at me, tight-lipped. Then he drove away.

Without looking both ways, I crossed over and gathered my boy in my arms.

T
he rest was easy.

No, actually, it wasn’t easy.

But it was clear: the motherhood equivalent of love at first sight. Sometimes you just
know
. And so you rearrange your life around what you glimpsed through a little window that opened for one second to show you a glimpse of something you might never get to see again. Even so, you know you will never forget the view.

Oliver and I held hands and walked home. Margot came bounding down the stairs and I realized another thing: she needed a bra. My mind started to dance the familiar outsourcing jig—would Nicholas have time, could I ask Jessie to take her? And then I thought,
No, this is my job
. I remembered my mom’s cool hands on my back, adjusting thin straps in the dressing room at a Lord & Taylor that is now a Gold’s Gym. Not a happy memory, exactly, but a necessary one; more of a transaction than an occasion. My daughter deserved the same.

“Mommy, how was your trip?

“Did you bring presents?”

“Did you see Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Did you know we have a turtle in our classroom?”

•  •  •

We said good-bye to Jessie. The plan was for my mom to watch the kids while we looked for a new sitter. Jessie had to take her flying leap into the next phase of life, but first, I rested my chin on the shoulder where all three of my kids had rested theirs.

“How can I possibly thank you for all you’ve—”

“Alice, don’t. It’s too much.” She pressed a finger against her lips and shook her head, gesturing toward Margot, Oliver, and Georgie. They were silent, lined up at the bottom of the stairs with glum looks on their faces. I knew they resented me for encouraging Jessie to take the new job, but I hoped they would understand someday that it wouldn’t have been right to hold her back.

Someday they’ll understand.
How many times does this phrase run through a mother’s head?

“But, seriously, I want you to know, I’m incredibly grateful for—”

“I know you are. I am, too.” She brushed a strand of half blue, half sandy-brown hair out of her face. I knew she was trying to cultivate a more professional look, letting her hair go back to its natural color. This seemed like a prudent idea, but I couldn’t shake the image of a colorful parrot with its wings clipped.

Jessie spread her arms out wide and gestured for all three kids to pile in. Then she wrapped her arms around them and squeezed them together until they squealed in protest. “Jessie, you’re suffercating us!” From the back, all I could see were six hands clutching Jessie’s back. I had to look away.

When it was my turn, I followed her lead and tried to keep it simple. “I love you, Jessie.”

“I love you, Alice.”

The feeling was remarkably similar to the one I had when I broke up with my first boyfriend in a diner parking lot: brokenhearted, but with the
perspective to be grateful for all the events that had led to this moment. In both cases, I had been certain we’d stay close. In this case, that turned out to be true.

•  •  •

Nicholas came home late Saturday night. The kids were already asleep when I heard the familiar clomp of his feet on the front steps. I met him at the door wearing his brown North Face sweatshirt, holding Cornelius’s collar so he wouldn’t lick Nicholas’s face raw. I was so happy to see his wide smile and the beloved, friendly crinkles around his eyes. Beyond happy.

“Well, hello! I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow!”

He wrapped me in his arms in the exact spot I’d said my good-byes to Jessie twelve hours earlier. “We lost our game, and I didn’t feel like going out. One night was enough. Also, it sounded like you . . . ?”

We still hadn’t had a thorough debrief on my conversation with Greg, but I’d delivered the gist via text.

“It sounded like what?”

“It sounded like the Cleveland trip didn’t go so well.”

“I wouldn’t say it went
badly
. It was just . . . eye-opening.”

“In what way?”

Now we were sitting on the couch next to each other, feet up on the coffee table, with Cornelius lying contentedly underneath. I took a deep breath. “Let’s see, I don’t even know where to start. To begin with, I hate my job.” I figured I’d begin the conversation on neutral territory.

He chuckled and nodded. “You know, on my drive to AC, I was thinking I can’t remember the last time I saw you read a book. That’s not normal.”

“I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking I’m just sad about my dad or worried about you, but it’s more than that.”

“I wish you wouldn’t worry about me. I’m—”

“But that’s the thing, how can I
not
worry?” Okay, so we were
going to dive right in. Cornelius lifted his nose off his paws and gave me a heavy-lidded stare. The look on his face said,
My God, woman! This again?
“Nicholas, I get it that you’ve had some huge changes in your life. So have I. But you went from being a guy who had one or two beers at a party or maybe a little bourbon with your dad, to a guy drinking hard liquor in the middle of the afternoon. In our unfinished, disgusting basement!” I tried to keep my tone light—I really, really didn’t want this to turn into a fight—but the weight on my shoulders reminded me of the stocks Will and I once posed in at Old Sturbridge Village.

“Alice, that will. Never. Happen. Again. It’s been—what? Three weeks? I’ve turned over a new leaf, I swear—”

“I know. I believe you. I guess what I don’t understand is, if you could quit cold turkey like that, why didn’t you do it months ago? Why did you ever get started in the first place? When I first met you, you barely even drank.
That
was the guy I fell in love with!” I hesitated, hoping he wouldn’t point out that the girl he fell in love with weighed 125 pounds and pretended to like reggae.

Nicholas stared straight ahead at the row of blue and yellow tiles above the fireplace. We’d laid them ourselves while our kids napped, then built a fire and fell asleep in each other’s arms on the couch.

Now he turned his eyes to meet mine. “Here’s the thing. My job situation was disappointing, then stressful, but then just as I started to realize it was a good thing—maybe the best thing, to be out on my own—your dad—” He stopped. His eyes were red and a little watery; for a fraction of a second, I wondered if he was high. But then I recognized the look on Nicholas’s face: pain. Those were tears in his eyes.

“Wait, what about my dad?”

“Well, he got sick again and that was awful, to see what you were going through. But also—Alice, I loved him, too.”

“I know that.” I stopped.
Of course
he had loved my dad, the same way I loved his. We’d known each other’s parents since we were barely adults ourselves. I pictured Elliott’s face as he told a funny story, the puckish O
of his mouth while he waited for his audience’s laughter to subside. He wasn’t my dad, but he was pretty close. How would I feel if he were sick? (Knock wood a million times.)

“Can you let me finish? My point is, I wanted to be there for you; I tried to be there for you, and I think I was. But the drinking—it was a way to lighten my own load, and then it just got . . . out of hand, I guess. I feel terrible about it, and embarrassed, especially about the time with Georgie. That was the end.”

I’d known Nicholas for twenty years; we’d been married for thirteen. I could count on two hands all the times he’d been unreliable or unpredictable during that time—and at least one hand’s worth had occurred in the six months leading up to this conversation. I’d been prepared to give Nicholas the benefit of the doubt, but now I realized, he deserved total absolution. Given the miracles he’d performed as a son-in-law, he might have qualified for canonization.

“Nicholas, I believe you. And I feel terrible that I was so wrapped up.” I smoothed a still-black wave of hair behind his ear. “I never really stopped to think how much you’d miss my dad, too.”

He grabbed my left hand and held it between his in an impromptu, late-night, middle-aged approximation of a vow renewal. “We can do better. Let’s promise.”

“I promise.”

“Me, too.” He leaned to pet Cornelius, who looked relieved that the discussion hadn’t escalated into a fight. “Alice, on a more mundane note, can we please get back to your job?”

I groaned. “Yes. What about it?”

“I think you should start looking for a new one.”

“The problem is, I have no idea what I want to do next.”

“Then I think you should quit and take some time to figure it out.”

This option hovered in front of me like a mirage. “I feel like I can’t. We need the money. Then, on the other hand, the equation doesn’t add up. This is not a job worth missing out on life for.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

He laughed. I loved the way his face looked from where I was sitting: still every inch the boy I’d fallen in love with, but also the face of a man who would crawl through a window to shovel his in-laws’ roof on the way to work.

“I just know. For what it’s worth, not to kick you while you’re down, but it hasn’t exactly been easy living with you lately.”

I fought the urge to dispute his claim. “What about our finances?”

“We’ll figure it out. Our straits are not as dire as you seem to think they are. I’m building my business. It takes time. But it’s going well so far. And if we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that life is short. You need to be happy.”

“I know. It’s just . . . I was so proud when I got this job. It makes me sad to think how wrong it turned out to be.”

“There are other places.”

“I know.” I paused. “Nicholas? I hope you know how much I adore you.”

He smiled. “I adore you, too.”

The next thing was hard to say without crying. “Also, I hope it goes without saying, but my dad loved you. He loved you like a son, and a dear friend.”

“I know, Al. I never doubted that.”

I laid my head in his lap and he gently slid the elastic out of my ponytail.

M
onday morning was sunny and warm, and the crocuses were out. The train conductor called out the name of each station in a deep baritone that sounded almost operatic. When I bought a single ticket, he waived the usual surcharge for making a purchase on the train and reminded me to get my new monthly ticket on the way home.

Genevieve was late for our 1:1, but she swooped past my office on her way in from the elevator and gestured for me to follow. When I closed her door behind us—click—she paused, trench coat in one hand, hanger in the other.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I am.”

“You’re
not
.”

“Genevieve, I think we both know this isn’t working. I’m not the person you need for this job.”

She sighed. She had become so hard-nosed—the antithesis of the
chatty bookworm I’d fallen for at the Union Square Café—but she was still just the messenger delivering tidings from Cleveland. “I know how hard it’s been for you to make this all work, with your family and everything.”

The shred of sympathy I had for Genevieve began to evaporate. Suddenly I knew that we would never break Ethiopian bread together, and this realization came as a relief.

“I don’t want to give the impression that I’m leaving to spend more time with my family, like some sort of disgraced politician. Genevieve, I’m leaving because the position you hired me for doesn’t exist.”

Her glare didn’t scare me anymore.

“And I’m not naïve enough to think that my job needs to align one hundred percent with my sense of self. I’ve never had that in a job, or expected it. But I know what my talents are and they’re not needed here. I’d like to find a place where they are needed. This isn’t that place.”

Genevieve nodded. “You know, you’d be a natural in sales, Alice. All the work you’ve done here has underscored that.”

She wasn’t my friend. Never had been; never would be.

“Thanks.” (No exclamation point.) I noticed that her nails were dull, bitten to the quick. There was a greenish cast to her skin, as if she hadn’t been outside in weeks.

We talked logistics.

There was a departure protocol, of course. I would be contacted by my human resources representative—alas, not Chris Pawlowski, who had offered me the job; he had been fired in the interim and was now suing Scroll for wrongful termination. I would have an exit interview. My computer would be collected and scrubbed clean. My outstanding expenses would be paid. My blue badge would be surrendered. I would be referred to the Employee Resource Center if my final paycheck didn’t materialize within a specified amount of time.

Finally, I held up my hand to stop Genevieve’s litany, which was starting to have the ring of Miranda rights. “I appreciate all this. I’m sure we’ll figure it all out.”

“If you have any questions, you can look for answers in Gathering-Place or the wiki. And Alice, I’m sad about this. I wanted to make it work.”

“I know.”

•  •  •

At lunchtime, I bought pears from the fruit guy and ate them on a marble slab bench by the LOVE sculpture on the corner of 55th Street and Sixth Avenue. While tourists posed for pictures—shyly, outrageously, one guy sticking his tongue out of his mouth into the V of his index and middle finger—I called Nicholas. “It’s done.”