“How about the girls?” Andi had asked. “How is she with them?”
Ethan’s eyes clouded over with sadness. “Distant,” he had said. “And disinterested, although she would never admit it. She prides herself on not having a babysitter, on being there for her kids, but when she’s not at work she’s out with her drinking buddies.”
“She drinks?”
Ethan had nodded.
“You didn’t go for sole custody?”
“I wanted to,” he said. “I tried. But she cleaned up her act for a while, and I agreed to joint. The girls want to be with me all the time, but she won’t let them. She’ll scream at them and guilt them into staying, even if she’s going out.”
“You can’t do anything?” Andi was horrified.
He shrugged. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying to provide a loving, stable home for them, and they know they are welcome here all the time. They’re both reaching ages where Brooke won’t be able to control them, and if they want to stay here, she won’t be able to stop them.”
They need love, Andi had thought. Love, and care, and a happy family. And I will make them happy. I will create the home they have always wanted. I will create the perfect family.
* * *
Even when Emily had been rude, and difficult, and squinty-eyed that first meeting, Andi had known she could get through to her.
Children loved Andi. It helped that she looked vaguely like a fairy-tale princess, or at least, had the correct hair and eye color. She was fun, and bubbly, and cool, and kids had always gravitated toward her.
But Andi loved children more. As a little girl, she couldn’t wait to be a mother. Couldn’t wait to have a family of her own, wanted to fill the house with children. Ethan’s already having two children of his own was a bonus, and when he said, initially, he would have more children, better still.
On their next family date, Ethan had made the mistake of quietly taking Andi’s hand as they walked side by side, the girls walking in front of them, Emily scuffing the pavement as she walked, hunched over to hide the changes puberty was bringing her.
Emily had turned around briefly, and had seen them holding hands. Ethan dropped Andi’s hand like a hot stone, but Emily came whirling back and literally, physically, shoved Andi aside and grabbed her father’s hand.
Andi, shocked, waited for Ethan to say something, but he merely looked adoringly at his daughter and gave a resigned smile to Andi.
Other times there were tantrums. Many of them. Emily would explode in anger, with a rage that left Andi shaking in fear and bewilderment.
“I hate her,” she would hear Emily scream. “She’s ruined our life. Why? Why, Daddy? Why, Daddy? Why, Daddy? Whhhhhhhhyyyyyy?” Her voice would become a plaintive moan, rising to shrieks and wails. “If she stays, I’m going,” she would shout.
Ethan, bewildered and guilty at his child’s pain, would sit and talk her through as Andi sat alone in bed, quaking, wondering why no one stood up to this child, no one stated that this behavior was unacceptable. And then she understood.
Ethan was as scared of the screaming as she was.
Emily had all the power.
And yet … and yet. Amidst the tantrums, the screaming, the slamming doors, and those first, tumultuous years, were moments of glory. Moments when Emily would come and sit next to Andi on the sofa and lean her head on Andi’s shoulder, when Andi would feel herself overcome with love to the point of crying.
Moments when Emily knocked gently on the door of their bedroom and asked to snuggle. Ethan would be in the shower, and she and Andi would watch funny animal videos on YouTube, and giggle together, tucked up in bed.
Andi would take the girls shopping, and buy them anything they wanted, within reason. She spoiled them: American Girl dolls for Sophia, and cool teenage clothes for Emily. All Andi wanted was for them to be happy.
And to have children of her own.
They married two years ago and stopped using protection on their wedding night. Ironically, that was the first night Andi woke up drenched.
Her next period hadn’t arrived, and she had never been late. Andi had run out to the pharmacy and come back with a pregnancy test, knowing the pink lines would indicate pregnancy. She peed on the stick with a huge smile on her face, staring at the stick in disbelief when it came back negative.
Twenty-four sticks later, all negative, her period came. She had looked at the blood and burst into tears, at a client’s house, in the small half bathroom to one side of the mudroom. She hadn’t wanted to come out, and the client had eventually knocked on the door and asked if everything was okay.
It wasn’t.
They kept trying. Several months later, Andi, who hated going to the doctor unless she thought she was truly dying, went to the doctor. The night sweats, she had decided, after spending an afternoon on the Internet on various medical websites, were cancer.
She wasn’t sure which kind, but she was sure it was cancer. Ever since her mother’s diagnosis, every ailment, every mole, every headache was something more.
It was the fear that always hung over Andi. A headache was never just a headache, it was a brain tumor. A stomachache was pancreatic cancer, and so on. Except Andi never actually went to a doctor about it, instead using the Internet as her unofficial diagnostician. She would convince herself she had something terrible but would not go and see a doctor, and after a few days, she would have forgotten about it entirely.
But these night sweats were bad. Usually whatever symptom it was she was worried about would go away, but this was happening more and more often.
“Will you just go to the doctor?” Ethan had finally said. “If nothing else, it will just put your mind at ease.”
And so she had.
* * *
Dr. Kurrish had peered over her glasses at Andi and asked a series of questions. Had her periods changed? Yes, Andi had admitted. They either came every two weeks, or sometimes not for six, and when they did, they were shockingly heavy.
How were her moods? Dr. Kurrish had asked. Terrible, Andi had said, but that was largely due to a stepdaughter who hated her most of the time, who had started coming back drunk at fifteen (although she didn’t actually tell the doctor that part), and to a husband who refused to do anything other than tell his daughter he understood her pain.
Any unusual changes in hair? Her hair had become thinner, she said and, with embarrassment, admitted she had taken to plucking out a few stray whiskers on her chin.
“I think,” Dr. Kurrish had said, “you are going through perimenopause.”
“Menopause!” Andi had exclaimed, louder than she intended. “But I’m only forty-one. I’m trying to have children. How am I going through menopause?”
“Not menopause.” Dr. Kurrish smiled. “Perimenopause, the period leading up to menopause, and it can happen to women even in their thirties. It doesn’t mean you
can’t
get pregnant,” she said gently, although the expression on her face told a different story, “but it’s unlikely. Your ovulation is much more erratic, and it becomes harder…”
She stopped at that point, as Andi started to sob.
* * *
She and Ethan talked about IVF, but the chances of its being successful, given her age and the added bonus of the perimenopause, were slim, and not worth the vast expense.
They talked adoption, although vaguely. Ethan wasn’t a fan, and eventually he pointed out that they already had two children, that although Emily was difficult at times, Sophia loved and adored Andi, and perhaps … wouldn’t it be better … might she find a way to be happy with the family she had rather than the one she didn’t?
She agreed to try to reconcile herself, still hoping that she would be one of the lucky ones, that despite the advancing menopause, it would still happen, but the hope was fading. She would wake up in the middle of the night, particularly those nights when she woke up cold and wet, feeling an empty hole in her heart.
They hadn’t used protection ever, and still, every month brought disappointment. There were times she cried; couldn’t stop herself gazing longingly at the young mothers in town, with newborn babies cradled in slings around their necks. She felt a physical pang of loss.
She loves the girls, Sophia particularly, but the longing for a child hasn’t gone, and these nights, as she moves quietly around the house, looking in on the girls, she feels it more strongly than ever.
Andi moves quietly from Sophia’s room, stands for a while outside Emily’s. Emily is seventeen now. She drives. The tantrums have lessened, but there have been other problems.
Last month she lost her car for a week, for coming home drunk. She wasn’t driving, was a passenger that night, but still, there had to be a consequence.
“I hate you!” she’d screamed, this time at her father. “You can’t tell me what to do! I’m almost eighteen! I’m an adult, not a fucking child!”
“Don’t swear at me,” Ethan said, sounding calm, although the muscle in his left cheek was twitching, always a giveaway. “And I am your father. While you are living in this house, you will follow the house rules.”
“Fuck you!” she shouted, throwing the car keys at her father, who ducked, so they hit the door frame, leaving a small chip and a grey mark. Emily stormed out while Ethan just sank down on the sofa, looking dazed.
“You can’t let her speak to you like that,” hissed Andi, standing at the bottom of the stairs with her arms crossed. “It’s disgusting. I’ve never heard of a child speaking to a parent like that.”
“What am I supposed to do?” His voice rose in anger. “You’re always telling me how to deal with my child, but you have no idea what it’s like.”
There was an icy silence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Andi asked slowly. Her voice was cold.
“Nothing.” He shook his head, burying his face in his hands. “I didn’t mean anything. I just mean I don’t know what else to do.”
“You did the right thing,” Andi said eventually, breathing through her anger, for she knew what he meant: she wasn’t a mother. She couldn’t understand. “You took the car away for a week. Now you have to stick to it.”
Ethan nodded. “I know.”
“Really,” Andi warned. “When she comes to you tomorrow, crying and saying how sorry she is and she’ll never do it again, you can’t do what you did last time, you can’t give her the car back.”
Ethan looks up at her sharply. “Last time? I’ve never done this before.”
“No, but last time she was drunk you told her she couldn’t go to Michaela’s party, and when she apologized, you said she could.”
Ethan sighed. “I’m trying,” he said eventually. “I’m just doing the best I can.”
The latest transgression resulted in a curfew being imposed. Midnight. This is for two weeks. Starting three days ago.
* * *
Some of the time, when Andi wakes up drenched, she changes and goes straight back to sleep. Tonight is not one of those nights. Back in bed she tosses and turns before sighing deeply and reaching over to click on the bedside light.
Next to her, Ethan moans slightly and rolls over to face away from the light, but he doesn’t wake up. Damn. Her book is downstairs.
Reluctantly—sleep is no longer an option, and what else will she do—she climbs out of bed again, padding out of the bedroom to go downstairs.
The woven wool carpet is warm and comfortable, and she braces herself for the cool wood floors of the hallway, making yet another mental note to buy some slippers.
At the far end of the hallway, Andi notices a light coming from Emily’s bedroom. Strange. Surely she should have been asleep by now. Perhaps she has fallen asleep with the light on. Andi moves down the hallway and gently pushes open the door, shaking her head in dismay as she surveys the chaos.
Crumpled clothes are strewn all over the floor. A pyramid of makeup, with a fine dusting of face powder covering the carpet, lies by the mirror. The comforter on the bed is scrunched up, and it is hard to tell whether there is anyone in it until Andi, gingerly stepping over odd shoes, bowls half-filled with days-old encrusted food, draws closer.
The bed is empty. Emily is nowhere to be seen.
Two
As if on cue, downstairs, the sliding door to the yard creaks open, and there are slow, uneven footsteps. Emily. Home.
Andi freezes. With her own children, she knows she would go straight down and confront, but this is not her own child, and she isn’t sure that, at four thirty in the morning, she is ready to take on the tantrum that will undoubtedly ensue.
If she does go down, Emily will beg her not to tell her father, but how can Andi not tell him? He has to know. This is not okay, and she cannot withhold it from him, not least because she is worried for Emily, terrified that her life is spinning out of control, and the only person who may be able to stop it is her father.
Through the balusters, Andi sees Emily weave through the hallway, a smile on her face. Andi tiptoes back to her bedroom, pulling the door until there is just a crack, and watches as Emily trips up the stairs, recognizing the smell as soon as Emily drifts past the door.
This time, she is stoned.
Again.
* * *
This isn’t within Andi’s frame of reference. She wasn’t a kid who did such things. Perhaps if she had been, she wouldn’t be so discombobulated by Emily’s increasing preference for alcohol, or drugs, when she goes out. The only kids Andi knew in high school who were potheads dropped out, then went on to … nothing.
Other than Gary Marks, who became an Internet bazillionaire.
But Emily is still a child. She is seventeen, young for her grade, and has decided not to go to college this year, but to take a year off instead, a year in which to mature.
Thus far, she hasn’t applied anywhere; the more time that passes, the more Andi realizes that Emily’s throwing her life away is a very clear, and terrifying, possibility, increasingly becoming a probability.
Emily is clever. And funny. She is the sort of girl whom everyone thought would always be at the head of the class, but the teenage years derailed her, and the rebellions seem to be more than the classic teenage kind.
The friends Emily had when Andi first met them have long since disappeared. Samantha, and Becky, and Charlotte are still the golden popular girls, the girls Emily once whispered with and went to dance class with. The same girls Emily now hates.