Best Kept Secret (7 page)

His face popped around the doorway, his eyes darting from me to the wall. “What, Mama?”

I pointed at the wall. “Did you do this?”

“No.” He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Don’t lie to me, Charles Sutter.” I swore I wouldn’t be one of those mothers who used her child’s full name as a threat, but there I was.

“I’m
not.
” He stomped his little foot.

I went over to him and crouched down, taking one of his hands in mine. “Sweetie. No one else lives here but us, and Mommy knows
she
didn’t color on the wall. So I’ll ask you one more time. Did you do this?”

His dark head bobbed once, but he still didn’t meet my gaze. “Sorry.”

“I forgive you, Charlie bear, but please don’t do it again.” I sighed. “Now, let’s get you dressed so we can get to play group.” The Mommy
and Me group I’d been attending since Charlie was five months old was welcoming a new member, Hannah, a former stockbroker who had just adopted an adorable, chubby two-year-old girl from China. She had invited a few mothers over to her high-ceilinged, open-concept rambler for an introductory lunch and play time for the kids.

“I’ll do it
myself
!” he proclaimed. He dashed to his dresser and began yanking out handfuls of clothes I had just folded and put away the night before. He tossed the first batch to the floor, reaching in the drawer for another handful.

“Charlie, don’t!” I said, running over to stop him. He pulled on the T-shirt I attempted to take away from him.

“No!” he said. “It’s my shirt, Mama!”

Oh, dear Lord.
I took a deep breath and stepped back. “Charlie, I am going into the kitchen. I will see you there in two minutes, and whatever you have on, even if you’re still in your undies, we are going to play group.”

He giggled. “Even if I’m
naked
?”

“Yes.” Trying not to smile and thus completely undermine my threat, I gave him a stern look and walked out of the room.

An hour later, we arrived at Hannah’s place with me in jeans and a ratty blue sweatshirt and Charlie in too-tight purple swim trunks and a bright yellow sweater. Four women including myself showed up, and now stood around the marble-topped island in Hannah’s kitchen. Since it was unseasonably chilly, instead of being outside, our children were playing directly off the kitchen in the toy-laden, toddler-proofed “great room,” a space that when I was growing up would have been called the den.

“Cadence, you should come to my party on Friday,” said Brittany, whose daughter, Sierra, was born a few months before Charlie and seemed to hit every developmental milestone—rolling over, crawling, eating solid foods—well before my son. Brittany, like me, worked from home, which I originally thought would be a commonality that bonded us. I soon discovered that while I planned to make my freelance
work a career, Brittany saw hers as a scrapbook supply specialist as an excuse to kick her husband out of the house and throw a party. I genuinely liked the other women in the play group, but outside of our children being about the same age, we didn’t really have that much in common. Our relationships remained pretty much on the surface; our conversations centered around the kids. Most of the time, this was enough.

“Oh!” Renee squealed. “You totally should come, Cadence. The new flower hole punchers she has are super cute.” Renee was a former elementary schoolteacher, mother to three-year-old Juan, and prone to using the phrase “super cute” in just about every conversation she had.

“I would,” I said, trying not to visibly flinch, “but I’m on deadline. I don’t think I’ll have time.” When I first met Brittany, I had tried to forge a friendship with her, valiantly attending several of her parties over the past three years. I even purchased some of her company’s products to put together Charlie’s baby book, but only managed to complete the first four pages. And using the word “complete” might have been pushing it.

“What about Sunday’s knitting night?” Renee asked, as she dipped a strawberry into the cream cheese and Marshmallow Fluff dip Hannah had set out with a platter of fruit. “We’re working on a blanket for Hannah’s new edition.”

I gave a faltering smile to Hannah, who kept her eye on the children as they played. “I wish I could,” I said, “but Martin brings Charlie home on Sunday nights. I need to be there.” After watching so many of the other women find satisfaction—joy, even—in activities like these, I sometimes wondered what was wrong with me that I only found more excuses not to join them. I felt like I did back in high school, not wanting to be a cheerleader or head up the homecoming committee—I didn’t have a bubbly personality and didn’t care about the theme of a prom. And yet, I ached to fit in with the girls who did, like a hippo trying to fit in with a herd of gazelles.

“That’s too bad,” Brittany clucked. She smoothed her sleek blond pageboy. “It must be so
difficult
to work without Martin there to help out.”

“I manage.” I shrugged and looked down to the floor. These women knew that Martin and I had divorced, but I kept the details to myself. “I need to use the ladies’ room,” I said, rearranging my face into a cheery expression. “Will you excuse me?”

“Down the hall and on your left,” Hannah directed.

I stepped through the entryway and down the short hallway. In contrast to her modern kitchen, Hannah’s guest bathroom was a flashback to the mideighties, painted a pale shade of peach accented with a seashell wallpaper border and bright turquoise hand towels. As I put my hand on the doorknob to rejoin the group, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The space beneath my eyes was bruised from lack of sleep—my best hours for writing came after Charlie was in bed, and these days that time seemed to be getting later and later. My wild curls were pulled back in a clip, but I’d missed several strands and they spun out from the sides of my head like corkscrews. I let go of the doorknob and tried to smooth them, remembering a time when I checked myself in the mirror
before
I went out, not after I’d arrived at my destination.

I sighed. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be here. I should have stayed home and worked on the article about food allergies I needed to turn in to
Alpha Mom
magazine the following week. Play group was more for Charlie’s sake than for mine anyway. Still, I showed up, just like I had for Sign with Your Baby classes and Toddler Yoga. I remained ever-determined to do with my child the kinds of things my mother had never done with me. In September, he would start going to preschool five mornings a week instead of just three, so it was easy to reason we could stop coming to play group then. School would provide him all the play time with other kids he’d need.

Back in the kitchen, I walked past the women toward the great room. “I’m going to check on Charlie,” I said, and the women smiled
and nodded, continuing their conversation about the newest Pampered Chef knife set.

My son sat alone at the toddler table, scribbling away on a piece of paper with a thick, blue crayon. I dropped into the other tiny chair, a little horrified by how much of my hips hung over the seat.

“What are you drawing?” I asked, tilting my head so I could see the image on the page.

“ ’Pider-Man,” Charlie said. He was intent on his work and didn’t bother to look up.

“Of course you are.” I wasn’t sure where his obsession with the superhero came from; he’d never seen the movies or watched the cartoon. I blamed excessive product placement—did a three-year-old really
need
a toy cell phone emblazoned with Spider-Man’s face? Probably not, but I’d bought him one, nonetheless.

“Can I help you color?” I asked my son.

“No, I got it.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’re doing a good job coloring on the
paper
.” He gave me a mischievous grin, then went back to his picture—an abstract mess of red, blue, and black. Our refrigerator was covered in a multitude of similar depictions. I watched him for a minute, until he set his crayon down and held up the paper in a triumphant gesture.

“All done!” he announced. “It’s for you.”

“It is?” I took the paper and gave him a huge smile. “I love it. Thank you.”

“Welcome, Mama.” He jumped up and walked over to the corner where Leah, Hannah’s newly adopted little girl, was playing with a pile of blocks. He happily plopped to the floor and she pushed a few toward him. Again, I watched him, proud to see my child sharing the way I’d taught him.

There was a knock at the front door. Just as Hannah took a step to go answer it, the door swung open and in walked Susanne, one of the few women in our particular Mommy and Me group who still worked
full-time. Susanne’s husband, Brad, stayed home with their daughter so Susanne could run her highly successful insurance brokerage, but when her schedule allowed, she brought Anya to our meetings herself. Susanne was curvy, like me, with straight black hair, a ghostly white, creamy complexion, and was never seen in public without a slash of bloodred lipstick. Outside of my sister, she was also the person with whom I spent the most time. When Susanne wasn’t busy working and Charlie was with Martin, we occasionally got together for conversation and a bottle of wine. I admired her blunt nature and quick wit, not to mention her professional success. She was one of those women who seemed to balance it all, and part of me hoped by spending time with her, that particular skill might rub off on me.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said as she joined the women in the kitchen. She wore dark, pin-striped slacks and a royal purple button-down blouse. “I had a hard time getting out of the office.”

I stood up and went back to stand with the other women around the island, passing Anya as she shot past me to join the other children at play. I tucked the picture Charlie had drawn for me in my purse. “Hey, Susanne,” I said.

Her face brightened when she turned and saw me. “Hey!” She leaned over and gave me a quick, one-armed hug.

“Do you guys want a glass of wine?” Brittany asked.

I looked over and saw that she was already pouring chardonnay into thin-stemmed, silver-rimmed goblets. My mouth watered a bit seeing the cool liquid stream out of the bottle’s neck. I’d made myself a promise a month ago—no wine until after Charlie went to bed—and I’d managed to stick to it.

For the most part.

One afternoon the previous week, Charlie had woken from his nap and snuck down the hall. When he entered the kitchen, I spun around in my chair, caught with a glass of syrah in my hand. I had told myself napping counted as his being in bed.
Just a few minutes to take for myself. I don’t get pedicures or massages; I deserve
some
kind of escape.

“Can I have some of your wine, Mama?” he’d asked.

“No, monkey. Wine is for grown-ups,” I’d said. “I’ll make you some chocolate milk, though, okay?”

“Okay,” he’d said.

A few minutes later, we sat at the table together, each of us sipping our separate drinks. His gaze moved back and forth from my wineglass to my face a few times, his tiny eyebrows furrowed above the bridge of his nose. Unable to stand this scrutiny, I stood up and splashed the contents of my glass down the sink.

Now at Hannah’s, I glanced at the clock on the microwave—it was only 2:00 p.m. “It’s a little early for me, thanks,” I said, swallowing back an aching urge to join them.

“Oh, come on,” Renee said, raising her glass in a mock toast. “It’s five o’clock somewhere!”

“That’s true,” I said. With a hesitant smile, my resolve instantly vanished.
It’s only one glass. And it’s not like I’m sitting at home, drinking alone. I’m being social. It would be rude not to join them.

“Well, then, that settles it,” Brittany said. She poured a full goblet and held it out to me. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a
much
happier mommy after a cocktail. Or three.” She giggled.

“Me, too,” Renee agreed. “They don’t call it the ‘wine with dinner hour’ for nothing. Juan whines while I make dinner. Now, I just join him.” She gave her glass a little shake to emphasize her point.

I took the glass from Brittany’s hand and breathed the drink in—a light, slightly sweet, fruity bouquet filled my nose. The first swallow puckered my tongue and warmed my belly. Every cell in my body seemed to exhale.

“Well, if
everyone else
is having one,” Susanne said with a smile. Brittany poured her a glass, too.

“Thank you so much for the food you brought, Cadence,” Hannah said. “I can’t believe you made all of that for us. My husband will be thrilled.”

I smiled at her over my wineglass as I took another sip. “It was
my pleasure.” While I wasn’t into scrapbooking or knitting, I did love to cook, so every new mother in the group—whether it was their first child or their fourth—received a few days’ worth of my freezer-friendly lasagnas or vats of hearty beef stew. Hannah was no exception.

“Wow,” Renee had said when I showed up unexpectedly at her house with an ice chest full of foil-wrapped meals. Her body was ripe, about to give birth to her second baby any day. “What made you decide to do this?”

“Empathy, I guess,” I said, smiling shyly as I stood on her front porch. “There were so many times during Charlie’s first month that the idea of needing to get dinner on the table nearly brought me to tears. I was sleeping maybe three hours total a night. I could barely find time to shower, let alone defrost a roast.” I shrugged. “I figured a few ready-made meals might help alleviate that for you a bit.”

She laughed. “Let’s hope so. Thank you so much. It means a lot.”

The other women were appreciative of the gesture, as well. After a couple of months of doing it on my own, another member suggested that the idea become a regular practice. From then on, when one of the group’s members became pregnant or adopted, it wasn’t uncommon for her to have at least a month’s worth of meals in her freezer before the baby was due.

“Cadence’s food is amazing,” Brittany said. “She always brought the best appetizers to my parties. When I could get her to show up.”

I took another swallow of wine, almost emptying the glass, choosing to ignore her cloaked jab. “Oh, I see,” I said, feeling pleasantly engaged. “You just want me for my hot artichoke dip.”