All the Difference (4 page)

She'd thought it was going to be okay.

Molly looked back down at Scott, who had shifted his weight off of his knee and onto his other foot. He repeated the words.

“Will you marry me?”

Scott dropped the ring a little and raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

January

If She'd Said No

S
he heard the rumbling sound like it was an echo from another life, rolling in on soft waves at first, then growing louder as she became more aware of it. Her eyes were closed, she realized, and she kept them shut, staring at the absolute blackness in front of her. It was so calm here, so peaceful, and she didn't want to leave this spot. The rumble grew, though, thrashing around between her ears now with a determined force. Molly's eyes flew open.

She'd been snoring.

Molly blinked a few times, then turned her head to the right to see the other women in the class coming out of corpse pose. Without moving, she watched the yoga instructor across the room give her a serene smile before she touched her palms together in front of her bird-frail chest. The lithe woman bowed to the group facing her.

“Namaste,”
the teacher said. Her soft voice floated across the room and over the faint rumbles still resonating in Molly's head.
The other students were sitting up now, legs crossed with measured grace in front of them, mirroring the instructor's movements.

“Namaste,”
they replied. As if they'd uttered a secret code, the relaxed atmosphere of the room disintegrated. The students began rolling up their mats, chatting to each other in subdued voices. Molly continued to lie in place on her back, her legs splayed in
savasana
, her palms thrown open to the ceiling in a gesture of hopeless resignation. She stared upward, lying in the back of the room while the rest of the class filed out, throwing her curious glances on the way.

She was so tired. The muscles in her body were heavy against her bones, and she felt like she couldn't move them if she tried. But she didn't want to try. She didn't want to leave this darkened room and walk back into the cold daylight of a noisy street. She didn't want to go home to her empty house. It was too quiet there. Way too quiet.

The yoga instructor unplugged her phone from the speaker system and the music came to an abrupt stop. Molly sensed her hop down from the stage in the front of the room and heard her whisper something like
good-bye
as she padded away. The door clicked shut, and she was alone.

Molly rolled over to her side and closed her eyes again.

A week later, Center City was noisier than Molly expected it to be on a Saturday afternoon. The sidewalks were filled with people scurrying along, weighed down with the holiday packages they were returning and the groceries they needed to replenish now that their refrigerators were empty of leftover turkey and
half-eaten pie. Couples strode hand-in-hand against the breeze while parents steered their children through the crosswalks. Occasional office workers, work bags thrown over their shoulders, trudged out of offices on their way underground to catch SEPTA trains to the suburbs. Molly was rooted to the sidewalk, working her way through a bag of M&M's while the rest of Philadelphia moved around her. She was staring at the window display of the store in front of her with a sort of curious fascination when its door swung open. The mechanical bell sang a weak alarm.

“Why, Molly Sullivan, is that you?”

Molly heard the voice, the bright tones of it tripping across the frigid air of Chestnut Street like a stone skipping across a shallow lake. Molly didn't turn her head. She chewed the last bit of chocolate until it was nearly liquid and shoved the empty bag deep into a pocket of her peacoat, all the while keeping her gaze straight ahead of her, buying time.

The voice belonged to Scott's mother.

Molly was standing in front of a maternity store.

“Shit.”
Resigned, she whispered the word, then turned to face her would-be mother-in-law.

“Monica!” Molly's voice was loud and high, and she stopped to take a breath, the smile on her face so artificially wide she could feel her eyes squinting closed. “Yes, yes, it's me!”

Molly reached forward to grasp Monica's elbows with her hands when she approached. Scott's mother kissed both of her cheeks, and Molly recognized the scents of hair spray and Chanel No. 5 that the statuesque woman wore like a suit of armor.

“Well, just look at you,” Monica said, and stood back to hold Molly at arm's length. “My goodness, darling, you just get more
beautiful every time I see you. I swear, you're positively
glowing
. Tell me, what's your secret?”

The skin on the back of Molly's neck flushed hot.

“Oh,” Molly said. “Um, thanks? It's probably just this new yoga class I've been trying out.”

“Well, I must be doing something wrong, then,” Monica laughed, “because I've been doing yoga for
years
, and I don't look as healthy as you do right now. My Lord, girl, even your
hair
is radiant!” She shook her head in delight. “I
must
get the name of your studio. Whoever's responsible for doing that to you must be able to work wonders with a middle-aged lady like me, right?”

Molly pressed her lips together to stop a hysterical giggle from rising out of her throat. She felt like she'd walked onto the stage of a very bad play.

“Well, Molly, I can't tell you how
happy
I am to see you.” Scott's mother stood straighter, throwing her shoulders back so that her Burberry coat fell from them in a straight, well-tailored line. Molly found herself mirroring her actions, and sucked in her bloated stomach as best she could. She was regretting the last of those M&M's.

“I was afraid I'd never see you again,” Monica continued. “What brings you here today? Has that best friend of yours finally decided to settle down and have children?”

Molly glanced toward the clothes in the window beside them. She'd been looking at an expensive sweater dress, imagining what it would be like to see the swell of her own belly outlined by the narrow coffee-colored cable-knit.

“No, no, Jenny's not pregnant yet, though I've been wondering that myself. I'm just preparing for the day it happens, I
suppose.” Molly tried to laugh, but the sound got lost in the cold air. She shifted her weight. She wanted to lie down.

Monica took a gloved hand to her hair, patting the straight blond bob. She looked at the dress Molly had been admiring, then let her gaze fall over the other winter-weather outfits on display. The faceless mannequins stood poised in the window like they owned it, their round, symmetrical stomachs perched on too-tall, too-thin frames like balloons taped to street signs. She turned back to Molly.

“I couldn't wait for the day it was you.” Monica tilted her head, as if waiting for the words to meet Molly's consciousness. “I was just thinking that, the whole time I was in there, getting a little something for my niece's girl. I wished it was you.”

Molly's glance fell on a diamond bracelet clasped over the kid leather gloves covering Monica's wrists. The flashing jewels winked at her in the harsh sunlight.

“It's not too late, you know,” she continued, and when Molly looked back at her, she was shocked to see a plea in Monica's eyes. Molly had never known Monica to beg for anything. This was the woman who'd maneuvered her way to the top of the best architectural firm in the city before she'd turned forty. Monica usually got what she wanted. “I'm sure you and Scott just had a silly misunderstanding. You could patch it up, couldn't you?”

Molly shook her head. She had her reasons for walking away from Scott, even if she wasn't ready to articulate them to the intimidating woman standing in front of her.

She glanced at the window display again. She really liked that dress.

“Monica . . .”

“No, don't tell me.” Monica held up her hand. “I can't imagine that you two could really be over for good. Just think about it, okay? About coming back to my son?” She reached forward and took hold of Molly's bare fingers in her own.

“I miss you.” She looked at Molly with a sad smile. “It was nice having a daughter around.”

Molly nodded. She felt like a tourist who'd gotten lost and couldn't understand the accent of the person giving her directions. She'd stepped into a country that seemed an awful lot like the place she'd come from, but was still foreign enough to make her homesick. It was an unsettling feeling, being surrounded by everything familiar, but not belonging to any of it. Her eyelid started to twitch.

“Well.” Monica dropped Molly's hand and sighed. “In the meantime, how about I take you out for a cappuccino? What about that lovely café we used to always go to after our shopping trips? Just for old times' sake? I drove the Jag in today, the blasted old thing, but it's parked right around the corner. What do you say?”

Molly looked down at her shoes. A young man with a scruffy beard passed by very close to them. Monica shifted her purse to the other shoulder, her gaze still on Molly, waiting.

“I—I can't, Monica. I'm sorry.” Molly's mouth had gone dry, and the words caught in her throat. She longed for a cappuccino, with extra foam and a design swirled into the top by a trained barista. But coffee would have led to dinner, with wine by the bottle and desserts with French names, and the platinum credit card always, always, being passed to the server without ever a glance at the check's total.

Molly thought about the empty rooms waiting for her at home. There was a Chinese take-out menu lying on the kitchen counter. She'd ordered an old Cary Grant–Audrey Hepburn movie, which was resting on a table next to the TV.

“I have to get back,” she said. “I have plans tonight.”

After they said their good-byes Molly turned around, headed to wait for the bus to Rittenhouse. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and watched the cracks in the sidewalk, careful to avoid the tree roots that had broken though the surface. Doubt filled her mind like water seeping into the compartments of a sinking ship. Molly knew what she was steering away from. What she didn't know was what was ahead of her, and if she could stay afloat.

“Molly . . . here! Let me get that for you!”

Jenny rushed up the wide stairs that led to the front door of Molly's rented brownstone just as Molly lost her grip on two of the full grocery bags she'd been trying to shift in her arms.

“Damn it,” Molly breathed. Jenny stood beside her as they watched the bags hit the edge of the steps and burst open like romaine-filled piñatas over the concrete sidewalk. At least fifty dollars in wasted produce scattered around Molly's parked car. With an angry swipe of her hand, Molly pushed back the long bangs that had fallen over her eyes.

“You know you're too stubborn, right?” Jenny turned her gaze away from a pigeon pecking at a smashed banana to look at Molly. “You're not at the gym, girl. No need to balance all that weight like you're Jillian Michaels.”

“But she has such good arms,” Molly said. She was shivering. The sun peeking through the few clouds overhead did nothing to warm up the bitter air sitting over Rittenhouse Square this Sunday afternoon. Jenny skipped down the stairs to pick up a shattered wine bottle and deposited the pieces into a nearby trash can.