The Sweetness of Forgetting (32 page)

I stare at her. “He told her about the conversation you had with him?” I ask.

Annie nods. “And then bought her a
present,
” she says, spitting the last word out like it tastes bad. “A
present
. To make her feel better. And then what does she go and do? She leaves the present in
my
bathroom, like it’s some kind of a mistake. But I know what she was doing. She was, like, trying to show me that Dad would always choose her over me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” I murmur. But of course it is. Sunshine sounds like a manipulative shrew. And that’s fine if she wants to manipulate my ex-husband. I’m done looking out for him, and to be honest, he deserves to be the one manipulated and used for once. But I draw the line at a woman who goes out of her way to hurt a twelve-year-old girl. And when that twelve-year-old girl is mine, I see red. “What did your dad say?” I ask Annie. “Did you tell him about finding the necklace?”

She nods slowly. She looks down. “He said I shouldn’t be looking through Sunshine’s things,” she says. “I tried to tell him she left it sitting out in
my
bathroom, but he didn’t believe me. He thought I was, like, going through her purse or something.”

“I see,” I say tightly. I take a deep breath. “Okay. Well, first of all, honey, your father has obviously lost his mind. There’s no reason in the world to put
anyone
ahead of your child. And particularly not a bitch named Sunshine.”

Annie looks shocked. “You just called her a bitch?”

“I just called her a bitch,” I confirm. “Because she obviously is one. And I will have a talk with your father about this. I know this is hard for you to understand, but this isn’t about you. This is about your father being insecure and foolish. Six months from now, I guarantee you, Sunshine isn’t going to be in the picture anymore. Your dad’s interests are fleeting, trust me. But in the meantime, there’s no excuse for him treating
you
this way, or letting some bimbo treat you this way. And I’m going to take care of it. Okay?”

Annie stares at me, as if she’s not sure whether to believe me or not. “Okay,” she says finally. “You’re really going to talk to him?”

“Yes,” I say. “But what’s with blaming everything on me, Annie? That’s got to stop. I know you’re upset. But I’m not your punching bag.”

“I know,” she mutters.

“And the divorce
wasn’t
my fault,” I say. “Your dad and I just fell out of love. It was pretty equal. Okay?” Actually, it didn’t feel equal at all. It felt like I’d been used as a doormat for a decade, and I’d finally realized it and decided to stand up for myself. And it turned out that the person walking all over me hadn’t particularly liked it when his doormat developed some self-respect. But Annie doesn’t need to know all that. I want her to keep loving her father, even if I don’t anymore.

“That’s not what Dad says,” Annie mutters, looking down. “Dad and Sunshine.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “And what is it that Dad and Sunshine say?”

“Just that you changed,” she says. “And that you weren’t the same person anymore. And that when you changed, you stopped loving Dad.”

Of course her father’s right in a way; I
did
change. But that still doesn’t mean the divorce is my fault. But I don’t say any of this to Annie. Instead, I just say, “Yeah, well, believing a couple of idiots is pretty idiotic, don’t you think?”

She laughs. “Yeah.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll talk to your dad. I’m sorry that he and his girlfriend are hurting you. And I’m sorry you’re upset about Mamie right now. But Annie, none of those things give you the right to say hateful things to me.”

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

“I know,” I say. I take a deep breath. I hate being the bad guy, especially when she’s getting it from all sides, but as her mom, I also can’t let that kind of behavior stand. “Kiddo, I’m afraid you’re grounded for the next two days. No phone either.”

“You’re
grounding
me?” She’s incredulous.

“You know better than to talk to me like that,” I say, “or to take things out on me. The next time you’re upset about something, just come talk to me, Annie. I’ve always been here for you.”

“I know.” She pauses and looks at me in anguish. “Wait, does this mean I can’t call any more Levys?”

“Not for the next two days,” I say. “You can start again Tuesday afternoon.”

Her jaw drops. “You are
so
mean,” she says.

“So I’ve heard,” I say.

She glares at me. “I hate you!” she tells me.

I sigh. “Yeah, and you’re a real peach too,” I reply. “Go to your room. I’m going to go have a talk with your dad.”

As I pull up to the house I used to live in, the first thing I notice is that the pink salt spray roses in the front garden, the ones that I carefully and lovingly tended for eight years, are gone. All of them. They were here just weeks ago when I was here last.

The second thing I notice is that there’s a woman in the garden wearing a pink bikini top and denim cutoff shorts, despite the fact that it can’t be more than fifty-five degrees out. She’s at least a decade younger than I am, and her long, blonde hair is gathered into a high ponytail that looks like it should be giving her a massive headache. I
hope
it’s giving her a headache. I can only assume that she’s Sunshine, recent torturer of my daughter. I suddenly want, more than anything in the world, to gun the engine and flatten her against the soil. Thankfully, I am not actually a murderess, so I refrain. But at the very least, I sure would like to pull her perky ponytail until she screams.

I put the car in Park and take the keys out of the ignition. She stands up and looks at me as I step out of the car. “Who are you?” she asks.

Wow, an A plus for manners,
I think. “I’m Annie’s mother,” I reply crisply. “You must be, what is it, Raincloud?”

“Sunshine,” she corrects.

“Ah, of course,” I say. “Is Rob in?”

She tosses her ponytail over her right shoulder and then her left. “Yeah,” she says finally. “He’s, like, inside.”

Well, she talks like a twelve-year-old. No wonder she feels as if she has to compete with my daughter; they’re obviously at the same maturity level. I sigh and head for the door.

“Aren’t you even going to say thank you?” she calls after me.

I turn and smile at her. “No. No, I’m not.”

I ring the doorbell, and Rob comes to the door a moment later, wearing only a pair of swim trunks. What is this, naked day? Do they not realize the temperatures are dipping into the low forties tonight? To his credit, he looks somewhat flustered when he realizes it’s me.

“Oh, hey, Hope,” he says. He takes a few steps back and grabs a T-shirt from the basket of laundry that sits beside the laundry room off the front hall. He pulls it on quickly. “I wasn’t expecting you. How’s, uh, your grandmother?”

His concern, feigned or otherwise, surprises me momentarily. “She’s fine,” I say quickly. Then I shake my head. “No, she’s not. I don’t know why I just said that. She’s still in a coma.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rob says.

“Thanks,” I say.

We stand there for a moment, staring at each other, before Rob remembers his manners. “Sorry, you want to come in?”

I nod and he steps aside to let me pass. Walking into my old house feels like entering a
Twilight Zone
version of my former life. Everything’s the same, but different. Same view of the bay out the back picture windows, but different curtains hanging from the windows. Same curving staircase up to the second floor, but another woman’s purse sitting on the landing. I shake my head and follow him into the kitchen.

“Want some iced tea or a soda or something?” he offers.

“No, thanks.” I shake my head. “I’m not staying. I need to go see Mamie. I just need to talk to you about something first.”

Rob sighs and scratches his head. “Look, is this about the makeup again? I think you’re overreacting, but I’ve been trying to be strict about it, okay? She came home the other day with lipstick on, and I made her wipe it off and give me the tube.”

“I appreciate that,” I say. “But that’s not what this is about.”

“Then what?” he asks, spreading his arms wide. We stand there for a moment and stare at each other, neither of us making a move to sit down or relax.

“Sunshine,” I say flatly.

He blinks a few times, and I know, just from that simple reaction, that he realizes what I’m about to say, and he knows I’m right. It’s funny how spending a dozen years with a person lets you learn all their tells.

He laughs uneasily. “Hope, c’mon, it’s over between me and you,” he says. “You can’t be jealous that I’ve moved on.”

I just stare at him. “Rob, seriously? That’s what you think I’m here about?”

He smirks at me for a moment, but when I don’t drop my gaze, the smarmy expression falls from his face and he shrugs. “I don’t know. What are you here about?”

“Look,” I say, “I don’t care who you date. But when it impacts Annie negatively, that’s when I get involved. And you’re dating a woman who apparently feels like she has to compete with Annie for your affections.”

“They’re not competing for my affections,” Rob says, but from the tiny upturn of his mouth at the corners, I wonder for a moment whether, in fact, he’s completely aware of what’s going on and is getting some sort of sick egotistical rush out of it. I wish for the zillionth time that I’d realized in my early twenties that having a baby with a selfish man meant that my child would always have to deal with that selfishness too. I’d been too naive to realize then that you can’t change a man. And my daughter is paying for that mistake.

I close my eyes for a moment, trying to summon some
patience. “Annie told me about the silver necklace,” I say, “which she found sitting out on the counter in
her
bathroom, where Sunshine obviously left it—along with your note—to rub it in Annie’s face that you’re choosing her.”

“I’m not choosing anyone,” Rob protests, but he looks embarrassed.

“Yeah,” I say, “and that’s the problem. You’re Annie’s father. And that counts for so much more than whatever you are to the girl you’ve been dating for thirty-five seconds. You should be choosing Annie. Always. In every situation. And when Annie’s wrong, yes, you have to let her know, but not in a way that makes her feel like you’re picking someone else over her. You’re her father, Rob. And if you don’t start acting like it, you’re going to crush her.”

“I’m not trying to hurt her,” he says. And from the slight whine to his voice, I know he means it, for whatever that’s worth.

“You also have to be aware of how the people you let into your life treat her,” I continue. “If you’re dating someone who’s going out of her way to hurt your daughter, don’t you think there’s maybe something wrong with that? On a few different levels?”

Rob looks down and shakes his head. “There’s no way for you to know the whole situation.” He scratches the back of his neck and turns to look out the picture window for a long time. I follow his gaze to a gaggle of white sailboats bobbing on the perfectly blue horizon, and I wonder whether he’s thinking, as I am, about the days early in our marriage, when he and I used to take the boat out on the water near Boston without a care in the world. Then again, it occurs to me that I was pregnant at that time, and very apt to get seasick, and Rob would just look away as I threw up over the side of the boat. He always got what he wanted—his pliable, willing wife alongside him, creating a picture-perfect couple—and I always pasted a smile on and made it work. Had that been the nature of our whole marriage? Could it be summed up that easily, in the image of me vomiting off the side of a sailboat while Rob pretended not to notice?

We turn back to each other at the same moment, and I wonder whether, on some level, he’s aware of what I’m thinking. He surprises me by bowing his head and saying, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

I’m so startled that I can’t even find the words to respond. I’m not sure he’s conceded to anything in the entire time I’ve known him. “Okay,” I say finally.

“I’ll take care of it,” he says. “I’m sorry I hurt her.”

“Okay,” I say, and I really am grateful. Not to him, because he’s the one who screwed up and inflicted harm on my daughter in the first place. But I’m grateful for the fact that Annie won’t have to suffer anymore, and that she still has a father who cares at least a little bit, even if he has to be nudged in the right direction in order to do the right thing.

I’m also grateful, more so than I’d previously realized, to be out of this life with my ex-husband. My mistake wasn’t in letting the marriage end; it was in fooling myself into believing that marrying him was a good idea in the first place.

I think suddenly of the stories Alain has told me about Mamie and Jacob, and I realize, with a crushing clarity, that I’ve never had anything even close to that. Not with Rob, not with anyone. I’m not sure I even believed in it before, so it never felt like I was missing anything. Alain’s stories are making me sad, not just for Mamie but for myself.

I smile at Rob, and as I do, I realize I’m grateful for something else too. I’m grateful that he let me go. I’m grateful that he felt it necessary to have an affair with a twenty-two-year-old. I’m grateful that he took it upon himself to end our marriage. Because that means that there’s a tiny chance, however small, that it’s not too late for me after all. Now I just have to find a way to believe in the kind of love Alain’s talking about.