All of These Things (18 page)

Chapter Twenty

PASSAGES

Nathaniel:
Girlfriend
. I mull the word over, striding past Charlotte Landry’s garden—my garden, really, since I own the apartment house and pay my long-time tenant for sprucing up the semi-detached property. It’s absurd to me that a man my age, fifty-seven years old, to be exact, even had a girlfriend. I want a
wife
. Sandrine is an amazing life-partner, an ideal companion, but I’m a parasite for having latched onto her accessibility and kindness. Maybe one day she’ll forgive me, but I can’t blame her if she doesn’t.

I cannot help but smile when I look up at the building. It reminds me I had a hand in raising somewhat of a perfectionist, and it’s been my greatest joy. Caroline impeccably covered all corners, putting matters at ease with specific instructions for my associate’s nanny this week. And who knows? This summer fling might be a good experience for her, and under my niece’s dominant eye, I’m sure Caroline is doing fine. I hope so, anyway. I’ve been eagerly clutching my phone to hear more about this fellow, contemplating to call her, but I’ve decided she’s the kind of kid that’ll reach out to her dad if she really needs to. I’m going to try to keep my nose out of this one, although she never did straight out tell me about Ryan when he first entered her life. I stop in my tracks, surveying Charlotte’s garden.

This is
our
thing—Amalia and me. After completely moving out when Caroline was six, I’ve walked around to the back of the house to visit or collect our daughter. Doorbells don’t startle Amalia as much when Caroline’s home, so I’ve geared up with the proper precautions before turning up. The lawn has sprouted thick and vigorously, and the distinct, neat lines of Charlotte’s tending cuts through the plush grass of
la petit cour
. I inspect the area, manipulating my joints and pop knuckles to stall for time. I glance over to Charlotte’s red daylilies and notice the hydrangeas are filling up magnificently. The house is my smallest acquisition but undoubtedly the most valuable for the people living in it. After Caroline graduated from a Business and Accounting program, she joined me at the firm, maintaining forty-hour weeks and dedicating evenings and weekends to Amalia’s treatment.

I remained on the governing board after my ex-wife’s ninety-day residency, casually contriving ways to support my daughter’s fees for continued private care. Sandrine had an idea, but I managed to reroute many
tête-à-têtes
with her on that. To a certain extent, it was callous on my part, but my family is not up for discussion—not even with Sandrine. In the end, it’s all for Caroline, and Amalia goes without saying in my daughter’s life.

I feel fortunate that Sandrine’s ex-husband is a stable, unwavering provider to her boys, and I never had to be implicated in our time together, or caught up in fathering them. There was an underlying friendship or comradery, but I only have room for one child in my heart. I start up the path again, the trail leading to a boxy backyard with mostly paved grounds under a shadowing lilac tree. There’s evidence of Charlotte’s fancy work here, too. I snuff out a laugh, remembering an ancient discourse with Amalia when she accused me of cheating on her with our downstairs neighbor. Amalia even threatened to take our daughter away from me, the only father Caroline knew, and remains disparaging even today of Charlotte Landry. Yet, Caroline buffers their interactions brilliantly. I marvel at how well-adjusted she is to the miserable situation she was born in, and ultimately I adore my little perfectionist.

I climb two black, spiral stairways to Amalia’s gallery, skimming Caroline’s potted herbs and the African Daisies at the center of a small patio set. I glance inside the apartment from the window of a single patio door and notice an opening. I make five halting thumps followed by three swift raps. After the divorce, Amalia decided on that particular calling card for me, and it did prove to be less surprising or alarming than a doorbell. I lower my head to the gap below the raised window.

“Amalia?” I call. “Angel Mae? It’s Nathaniel. I’m back here,” I continue, expecting to hear Amalia call from her treasured dressing room.

I’m surprised, and even smitten, to see her exit instead, and she readies herself to approach me. She’s glorious, standing there at the threshold of her bedroom and the kitchen, but something’s off. She’s always dressed to impress by this time in the morning, and her hair isn’t as neat as she usually wears it. She’s wearing her bright lipstick, but the rest of her face isn’t right. Her eyes are not lined, and her cheeks aren’t rosy. Amalia tilts her head to her shoulder. It’s a squeeze to my heart, and that unrelenting hold she can have on me is already in effect.

She shimmies past the round, white stained table to reach me. I’ve already caught a whiff of her splendid scent, so I turn my head away, straining to focus on something else. I slip my hands into my trouser pockets and make an embarrassed grin.

We’re due back at Catherine’s House tomorrow for 10 am circle, and getting a feel of her mood is always a smart idea. The first time I drove Amalia there, I pushed the passenger seat back as far as it went, and all but laid her in. It was as if the world knew and rose to greet us with golden clouds hovering low with protective wings across the sky. They trailed behind my car like angels over the icy highway on a winter’s solstice. I honestly tried waiting as long as I could so Caroline could have her mother for Christmas, but it was urgent for Amalia to go.

She hated seatbelts even then—something about the constriction and the decreased chance of escaping a wreckage. She snuggled, clasping my arm above the elbow and kissing it frantically over and over, drying out her lips against the sleeve of my pinstriped shirt. She smacked kisses, pecked roughly, squeezed, and dug small bites into my arm. It was a wild, unyielding fear. She was insisting on getting her fill of me, wanting to take her stock and stash me. I still don’t really understand what all that was about, but obviously she needed me closer than was humanly possible.

Amalia went on that way, marking me, and I let her. She bruised me, scraped me up under her finger nails, and grazed her teeth through the hair on my arm, pulling at them.

“Come with me,” she pleaded, finally settling her head in my lap. She was so tired but could not manage sleep.

The elevation changed at that point, the road winding between ski towns and glacial lakes. I worried about her empty, acidic stomach.

“Stay with me,” she said, and I strategized my protest.

“We can’t leave Caroline alone. I need to talk to her about this.”

Amalia grimaced.

“
No
,” she said. “Caroline is fine. Lock the door and just tell Charlotte to check up on her. She’s home. I’m not!
You
need to stay with
me
.”

“Amalia, we can never leave our daughter alone. Never,” I contested. “And I won’t leave you until later. We have the entire day,
amore mio
.” She always did love to hear me mix in my Italian. I miss her asking me to do so.

“Besides,” I lingered on, “they told me I can stay as long as you wish.” I stroked her ear lobe between my fingers. “My mother’s with Caroline for now, and Mara will bring Sofie by. If you need to call after I’ve gone, they will let you call me,” I encouraged, wringing her hair into a bun. “I’ve made a list of rules that I expect them to follow. I’ve arranged for very specific things for you, so you’re to be pampered as they help you. Think of this place as a retreat, Amalia—like a spa. They’ll help you relax and show you how to help yourself when you’re not thinking slowly, or how to make out what’s real and know if you’re becoming too sad or too nervous.”

“Next time, you’re coming with me,” she said, biting inside my thigh. I flinched, my hand pulling back at her shoulder so she could release the flesh from her mouth. “Next time, you’re coming with me,” she repeated.

“Let them help you, Amalia, that way there won’t be a next time. I want us to go on vacation this year, maybe rent a home in Maine just like my sister does with her kids.”

“This is too far,” she interrupted, passing over what I was trying to say. “You’re leaving me here with the bears and the wolves.”

I managed a chuckle. “Hardly. Besides, I don’t want you in a hospital. This place is run by good people with better programs, and it’s pretty. I want a nice place for you, and I want it to be nice for Caroline, too, when we drive out to see you.”

“Oh my God!
Oh my God
. We have to go back!” Amalia shrieked. “I didn’t hide my lipsticks from that little brat. She’ll steal them! She’ll make a mess.”

“Caroline has never once gone through your things, and if anything, she’ll make sure they’re perfect for when you come back.”

“I don’t want her touching my vanity! She’ll mix everything up. Don’t go back, Natey. Stay with me. Stay with me! She doesn’t need you. You said Sarafina and Mara are helping out.”

“Yes, but—”

“There. Caroline has your mother, your sister,
and
your niece. I bet Sara will fill her up with a feast every day. She’s with your family. She doesn’t need you. That
brat
. She’s taking everything. You know… she’s not even
your
daughter.”

Hearing that made my heartbeat thrash in my ear. It was never an easy one to tolerate, and I couldn’t ignore it, especially when Amalia attacked me this way.

“Don’t say that. You know how much I can’t stand that. You don’t want to hurt me.”

“Yes, I do. I asked you to leave, but your things are still at home.”

“You asked me to leave, but sometimes you still want me there. And Caroline needs her father.”

“You’re not her father!”

“Don’t! I warned you—don’t say that. You will go to this place and work on getting better. Then we’ll be able to spend time by the sea this summer, and before Caroline starts the first grade, you can tell me if you want me to get all of my things out of the apartment. We’ll talk to Caroline together, and we’ll figure out how we can raise her together.”

“No. I hate her!”

My muscles bunched.

“Don’t say that. I swear to God, Amalia, don’t say that. She’s just a little girl. For Christ’s sake she barely talks anymore. You’re scaring her. This thing is scaring her. You can’t be mean to our little girl. You can’t,” I cried like a wolf to the moon, gnashing my teeth and gripping the wheel.

“The day I met you, I decided I loved you,” I started, “that I loved you both. I have never looked at anyone like I looked at you that day. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful, and Caroline… Caroline is so perfect and beautiful like her mother.”

I knew the words to calm her down, and Amalia lay her head on my lap.

“More beautiful than Princess Grace of Monaco?”

“Of course,” I said, running my tongue across my lip, catching tears. “Do you remember when we decided to name Caroline after her daughter? That was a beautiful idea you had. Caroline’s our princess, now, don’t you think?”

Amalia commenced to tug and gnaw at my flesh again. She yearned to possess me—for my love to possess her. How does anyone get over that?

I turned my Toyota onto the gravel road lined by evergreens, and in the clearing was Catherine’s House.

“It’s pretty isn’t it?” I asked, and more wayward tears slid passed my nose, dying at the corners of my mouth. “It sort of reminds me of Caroline’s doll house.” I rubbed my eyes.

Amalia scrambled onto my lap, folding herself up into a fetus. I enclosed her in my arms and wept in her hair.

“I hate you,” she said, hiking up against my chest until she was almost floating. Her arms and hands locked around my neck that was streaked with salty, splotchy skin. I cried in her ear and worked on regaining my courage as best I could.

“I love you, wife,” I whispered. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

I let her sit there, coiled against me, for as long as she needed because I needed not to let her go. Dr. Toussaint appeared in a bulky parka and a bonnet, with an orderly by her side, and she let me sit there, too, weeping on the love of my life who had finally fallen asleep.

Earlier today, Sofie and I weaved through strips of stores and parking lots in search of bargains and must-haves. I bought a pencil skirt and a crop top for Alec’s exhibition and heels that Sofie promptly nicknamed
fuck-me-pumps
. In fact, she straight out scribbled it on the box right by the cash register, and I was the recipient of dirty looks in the process.

Damn her.

We ironed out the nude painting fiasco, agreeing that she didn’t know Alec and I would get on with each other when she commissioned him, and that perhaps she does assume the worst of me. I acknowledged my shortcomings, too, admitting I still carry some qualms about Alec.

Jason was over when Alec drove me back to the cottage, and I think the guys possibly needed
guy time
as much as we required
girl time
, and so we adjourned, separating in the night. I continued my streak of despicable human being by finally remembering to reach out to Ryan. I hinted at my pensive but relaxed state here in Maine, making it gently clear that I intend to holiday with Sofie again in the near future. His tone held evidence that he was not comfortable with my revelation, but it didn’t ripen a pang of self-reproach for me, which is an accomplishment in itself. This trip was overdue, and now that I’ve had a taste, I’m not about to miss out anymore. Of course, the mystery that is Alecsander Vaughn remained unspoken of, and that’s the part drenching me in remorse.