Acts of Contrition (30 page)

Dom finishes, washes, and then heads to his bedroom with his brother. The room is nearly the size of a walk-in closet, but it holds a bunk bed, which in the boys’ estimation is the equivalent of a roller coaster. Both climb the ladder and lie on their bellies, arranging their dinosaurs on the top rim like protectors of a fortress.

Once the girls have made their rounds, they’re back at my feet begging for the beach. And while the mom in me would rather tinker about the house, unpacking and cleaning, getting the kitchen organized and planning dinner, I know it’s not fair to make the kids wait. The first trip to the beach is akin to Christmas morning. The anticipation is electric, and nothing will ground them until their toes are wet.

Tom sees me scrambling to get the cold food in the refrigerator. “I’ll take them,” he says. “If you want to hang back.”

My heart constricts. Post-crisis Tom is too polite, too helpful. He gives me a wide berth and I despise it. I want old Tom, my husband who would holler at me to hurry up, who would tell me that the beach was waiting, that I could organize the fridge later. I want old Tom, my husband who took liberties with me because he had the confidence to do so, a confidence that came from the propriety of knowing I was his alone.

“No way!” I say in a voice that’s meant to sound perky but just sounds false, like I’m trying too hard. “I want to go, too.”

So we pack up our totes and head down to the footpath that leads to the beach. The distance to the sand is just tolerable. Any farther and the kids would complain. Any closer and we wouldn’t have been able to afford the house, shack or not.

Once we crest the grassy dune, Sally takes off running, plowing straight into the waves, as grateful to feel the water on her skin as a dolphin that had been drying up on the shore. It seems like it was only a few years ago when she was still holding tight to Tom, lifting her legs, clinging to his body, adhered to his chest like cellophane. Now she enters the water alone, full of too much confidence and too little fear. I have just recently read an article about the development of children’s brains: how their propensity for risk grows faster than the reasoned
logic to temper it. That’s where we are with Sally: the invincible stage.

Emily’s eager to get into the water, too, but she needs to do it in stages, holding her arms up high, standing on tippy-toes, and squealing each time a wave breaks on her back. She swivels around every few seconds or so, checking in with me, the exaggerated emotion on her face relaying her every feeling.

“Just come in!” Sally urges her sister, so sure of the superiority of her method of getting wet all at once.

“It’s
cold
!” Emily screams, and then takes another step toward Sally.

Meanwhile, the boys dash back and forth, just barely getting their feet wet. It’ll take them a few days to get used to the water, but by the time we’re ready to go home, they’ll be begging Tom to take them in again. I’m thankful the boys aren’t overzealous, that they somehow sense the danger of the water. My nerves are tested enough as I keep a watchful eye on the girls.

I remember last year, watching Tom hold the boys, one on each biceps, like Poseidon emerging from a great storm, plowing through the water with the strength of a horse. And I remember how Danny got scared, and how Tom cradled him against his chest, as tender and loving as a person can be. I remember sitting on the beach watching, my toes pressing into the sand, thinking it through. How a guy, so big and strong, the product of a nearly alcoholic father and a sometimes distant mother, could yield the perfect blend of strength and compassion.

An hour later, the girls are tuckered out. Emily’s lips have turned blue and she’s shivering atop my lap. I’m rubbing the towel and
shimmying my arms tighter around her, kissing the top of her head. Tomorrow we’ll come for the entire morning.

Tom grills hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, and we eat on the deck while we watch the sun set over the sound. Afterward I mash fresh peaches from the farmers’ market into vanilla ice cream and brew a pot of decaf for Tom and me. I pour a shot of Baileys into our mugs, a treat we have only at the beach. A shot of whiskey would make it even better, but I wouldn’t dare.

By the time we’re finished with dessert, it’s nearly dark. I ask the girls to ready themselves for bedtime and they head to their room without a fuss. It’s different from home, which makes it an adventure. My kids are easy at the beach.

The boys choose their jammies. Dom’s in Spider-Man and Danny’s in dinosaurs. We brush teeth, dab a warm washcloth across their faces, clap when they pee. Then we flip a coin to see who has first dibs on the top bunk. Technically the boys aren’t old enough to sleep in a top bunk, but this bunk bed is unusually small, not very high, and the boys sleep like rocks. So with extra pillows lining the floor in case of a fall, Tom and I feel they’re okay.

“Can we
both
sleep on the top bunk?” Dom asks before I’ve even flipped.

“It’s fine with me,” I say, looking at Danny. Danny nods wildly in agreement and I tuck them in tightly next to each other, with their dinosaurs scattered around them. The boys are as different as can be, in their personalities, in their temperaments. Two batches of cookies baked with the same exact ingredients, yet with completely different results. But the twin bond is undeniable. They’re magnets pulled toward each other.

“I love you, Dom. I love you, Dan.”

“We love Mommy!” they cheer, and I kiss them again before easing out of their room, wondering if that will ever get old: mommy adoration.

Sally’s in bed reading Percy Jackson and Emily is beside her, listening to her iPod. Some moms would fret over her daughter listening to Lady Gaga, but I don’t have to worry about Emily, whose tastes run more toward Andrew Lloyd Webber and Leonard Bernstein.

After the kids are down, Tom and I return to the deck. I refill our coffee. We sit on the patio chairs with our feet up.

“My brother,” Tom says. “Patrick.”

“What about him?”

“After high school, you know, he was offered baseball scholarships from a lot of colleges.”

“I know.”

“And he was also drafted by a big-league team.”

“Yeah,” I say, wondering why Tom is telling me all this history I already know.

“Everyone—me included—told him, ‘Take the scholarships and go to college.’ ”

“I know, but he didn’t listen to you.”

“That’s because I pulled him aside one day, away from Mom and Dad. I told him that he could go to college anytime. That he should try for his big shot. I convinced him to sign with the Diamondbacks, shoot for the big leagues. He listened to me because he always listened to me.”

“I never knew,” I say.

“He should have gone to college. His whole life would have been different…better, if he’d gone to college.”

“You feel that now, because you have the benefit of hindsight,
but you didn’t know what was going to happen. He was an amazing ballplayer. None of us can see the future.”

“My best mind knew,” Tom says. “But my best mind was lured into the promise of something else.”

“You feel responsible for his drinking because you urged him to follow his dream?” I ask. “That’s not fair to you, Tom. There’s a good chance that he would have fallen no matter what direction he went. It’s not like a college campus would have been such a good place for a guy with alcoholic tendencies.”

“Maybe,” Tom says. “But I led him in the wrong direction. There wouldn’t have been the devastation if he hadn’t tried. The rise and the fall is what killed him. I’ve always regretted my advice.”

“It’s better that he tried,” I say. “None of us can avoid devastation from time to time, right?”

“We haven’t,” Tom says.

“I’m glad you told me, Tom. Really, I’m glad you told me.”

“It’s nice to talk,” he says. “I’ve missed it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For everything.”

“Let’s be done with apologies, okay?” he says, and then slides his legs along the length of the couch, pulling me onto him. We kiss like we did when we first met, back when kissing was an activity in itself, not a prelude to sex. Back when our ears weren’t pricked for the sounds of wandering children. We kiss, we stare into each other’s eyes, and we kiss more. Then Tom eases himself off the sofa, lifts me, and carries me to our bedroom. We make love, slowly and tenderly, and when it’s over I turn my head away from Tom and for the first time ever—since the day I married Tom—I’m not burdened. Our life—our bond—is for once in the open light. Our truth is known. We know who we are. We’ve taken our first step in
our recovery. The relief in not carrying the load any longer is featherlight. For the first time in recent memory, I fall asleep peacefully.

On Sunday morning I wake up with Dom and Danny burrowed into my sides. Tom’s gone, out for a jog, I’m guessing. I finger the black hair that spikes across Dom’s forehead and drape my arm around Danny’s bony frame. My precious twins—a single egg, split.

A half hour later Emily snuggles into bed with me, positioning the length of her soft body along my side, her knee resting over my thigh. “You’re smiley this morning,” Emily says, and I squeeze her tight because that’s exactly how I’m feeling. Sally, the bedheaded preteen, ambles her way in soon after.

We nuzzle and cuddle and snuggle and watch an episode of
Happy Days.
It’s a frozen moment where arms and legs are crisscrossed and entwined and I wish I had a special mechanism that would store it and keep it forever. A jar with a lid that could hold memories, recall scents, feelings, flutters of the heart. It seems unfathomable that time will someday fade—if not erase—this memory from me, but I know that it will. Memories are fleeting, and even a mother’s heart isn’t keen enough to recall indefinitely the silky texture of a nine-year-old’s hair or the earnest gaze from a ten-year-old who is on the brink of growing into her own person yet still trusts her mother implicitly.

“Mass is at ten o’clock,” I say, checking the time.

“I
love
the beach church,” Emily sings. “Last year they played guitar! Up on the altar!” She says it as though it’s a scandal, to think the Catholic Church would allow guitar.

“And there were doughnuts in the lobby after Mass!” Sally joins in. The girls have sat in the pews of our church, St. Andrew’s, their entire lives, following the strict convention of Mass, the sidelong glances of the stuffy elderly ladies, the stern homily. The beachside church is like a party and concert in comparison.

Just as I’m sliding pancakes onto the children’s plates, my phone rings. Figuring it’s Angie, I answer it with a cheery “Good morning!”

“Well, good morning to you, too,” Landon James says.

I duck out onto the deck, close the sliding glass door, and look left, look right, look for Tom in every direction. “Why are you calling?”

“I won the primary,” Landon says like a little boy who wants attention for getting an A on his math test.

“I know, Landon. Obviously, I know. Congratulations.”

“So, that’s good.”

“You don’t sound particularly happy,” I say, my eyes still darting.

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” he says. “Yet I feel like crawling into bed for a month.”

“Well, good luck with that, Landon. We can’t be having this conversation,” I say. “I’m hanging up.”

“I’m surrounded by people,” he says. “But I’ve never been so lonely.”

The self-pity in his voice takes me right back. I never wished for Landon to fail, but in his times of defeat, he wanted me more. His loss was my gain, but only temporarily, no different from getting high. “There has to be someone you can talk to,” I say, doing all I can to send the message that that someone is not me.

“They all want something from me: a job, a recommendation, a relationship. No one knew me back when I was just a law student and some nobody idealist with big dreams. Except you.”

“Landon, come on.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not really why I’m depressed, anyway.”

“I’m hanging up,” I say, and pull the phone from my ear.

“Sally,” I hear him say, and when he does, a shiver snakes down my back. I return the phone to my ear.

“What?”