The Year We Turned Forty (11 page)

“Actually, scratch that. I'm not apologizing to
you
because I made you late for a shopping trip—especially not one with
Anna
, who I'm not a fan of by the way. It's you who should be
saying sorry for taking that tone with me,” Claire said sharply, and Emily's large eyes widened.

“Sorry,” Emily said obediently, and Claire felt a surge of hopefulness as she made eye contact with Mona, who was nodding her head in approval. Maybe taking a stand against Emily's attitude was exactly what her daughter needed. “So, Aunt Jess had a boy, right? What did they name him? I bet the twins are excited to have a little brother!”

“Lucas,” Claire responded, taking a strand of Emily's hair and playing with it the way she used to, wrapping it into a knot, and Emily shaking it free reflexively. Claire had forgotten how beautiful her long dark blond hair had been at this age, cascading down her back in natural waves. In just a few years, Claire knew Emily would spend the night at a friend's house, hack off several inches, and cut severe, uneven bangs that fell into her eyes, then color it black in a tiny pedestal sink, the ugly green undertones of her cheap dye job always a reminder to Claire that she had completely lost control of her daughter.

“Will you stop? I
hate
when you do that!” Emily yanked her head away, and just like that, Claire's hope was sucked out of her.

Claire stepped back and watched as Emily pulled a pink Nintendo DS from her pocket, her eyes dropping away from Claire as she stared at the tiny screen, remembering how she'd regretted the purchase, wishing she'd been firmer when Emily had whined that she was the only kid in her grade that didn't own one.

“Please put that thing away. It's time for us to go.”

“Wait a sec, I just started a new race on Mario Kart.”

As Claire watched Emily's metallic purple nails rhythmically move over the arrows, she knew if she said nothing, Emily would
continue to play the game for as long as it took, never stopping to do what she'd been asked.

She pried the device out of Emily's hands and stuffed it into her purse. “I said, it's time to go. Now say good-bye to your grandmother and thank her for taking care of you.
Now
.”

Claire raised her hand as Emily began to protest. “One word and you won't get it back for a week.”

“Whatever,” Emily huffed, finally squeaking out a bye and thanks and stomping toward the front door past Claire's father, who was clearly tuning them out as he watched TV in his leather La-Z-Boy.

Claire smiled at her father, who winked at her when he caught her eye. Claire hadn't realized how good it would be to see him like this, when ignoring the squabbles of his female family members was his biggest problem.

“What's gotten into you?” Mona said, coughing loudly as she appraised her daughter.

“I don't know, I guess I'm just tired of her attitude,” Claire responded, thinking she was actually exhausted by it, having dealt with it for the better part of a decade, gently rubbing her hand in circles on her mom's back as she hacked. “You okay?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Mona nodded. “Just a bad cough I can't seem to shake. I'll be fine.”

“You should see a doctor,” Claire said, trying to sound nonchalant, willing the tears in the back of her eyes to disappear.

“Don't be silly. It's nothing.”

“Probably. But let's get it checked out anyway. Please?”

“Fine. I'll think about it. Are you sure you're okay? First, you bring the hammer down on Emily and now you're acting like I have cancer or something?” Mona laughed deeply and waved
good-bye as Claire made her way down the steps of her childhood home, the tears she'd been holding exploding from her eyes like missiles.

You
do
have cancer, Mom. I'm just hoping this time we can catch it before it's too late.

Jessie shot up in bed as a baby's cries woke her, her heart pounding, disoriented as she tried to figure out where she was. She squinted at the clock—it was just after 1 a.m., and as she started to drift back to sleep, she realized it was Lucas who was wailing because he needed to be fed. She'd forgotten how hard it was to make that transition from hospital to home, where you aren't just taking care of your baby, you're caring for your entire family. And there's no kind-eyed nurse to take your bundle to the nursery whenever you need a break. Jessie had been looking forward to the benefits of being ten years younger, but had conveniently forgotten how exhausting a newborn could be—how her bones would ache from lack of sleep, how her breasts would throb when they got too full. That even though her skin glowed and her metabolism was still working properly, she was just as exhausted as she'd been at fifty, maybe even more so.

She rose to feed Lucas, rocking in the yellow chenille glider, calming her breathing to match Lucas' as she lifted his mouth to her breast, closing her eyes and attempting to melt the past away.

When they'd returned from the hospital and Grant swung the front door open as the handle of Lucas' car seat pulled on the crook of her arm, she'd gasped. She hadn't seen her home,
their
home, the way it was with Grant, in years. After he'd been gone six months, making it very clear he had no plans to move back in, she'd redecorated, not wanting the house to resemble
them.
It was too painful to look at anything—the worn oversized chair they'd once made haphazard love in, the framed watercolor painting they'd purchased while on a weekend at a bed-and-breakfast, and even the dishes. Every mug, every plate, every spatula had a memory attached to it. Whatever Grant hadn't taken with him, she'd replaced. But it wasn't until the twins had returned from a weekend at their dad's, and she showed them the final transformation, that she'd regretted what she'd done. Instead of giggling and jumping up and down when they saw their new rooms, their eyes had gone cold. Their dad was gone, and now their familiar surroundings were too. Again, Jessie had failed them.

That first night home from the hospital with Lucas in a sling against her chest, Jessie had run her fingers across picture frames, tabletops, and tchotchkes throughout the house. She bit back the tears as she remembered frantically calling Goodwill and Salvation Army, where she'd sent most of their items, only to be told they were either purchased or shipped away to another location. Jessie winced as she ran her hand over the oak desk that she'd once sat at signing thank-you cards for the baby gifts she'd received for the girls. That was one of the many pieces she'd asked the movers she'd hired to put on the curb along with a cardboard sign with the word
Free
written in black Sharpie. It was her way of distancing herself from the person she had been. If only her heart could be mended as easily as replacing furniture.

Grant had caught her staring at a lamp and pulling at the fringe on a rug, and laughed. “You've only been gone a few days.”

She hugged him. “It feels like years. I missed you.”

Grant laughed again and kissed the top of her head. “You sure all those meds are out of your system?”

“Just promise me you won't go anywhere. I need you,” Jessie said, keeping her grasp tight.

“I've got the whole week off,” Grant said.

That hadn't been what Jessie was asking, but she stayed silent.

Jessie struggled to settle back into a routine she'd forgotten long ago; jogging through the aisles of Vons like a contestant on
Supermarket Sweep
, tossing whatever she could into the cart knowing Lucas could wake at any moment and scream for his milk; preparing the girls' lunches and filling their cereal bowls while Lucas yelled from his vibrating chair, his arms outstretched for her. She had assumed her baby memory would kick in the way a muscle might after it healed from an injury. And in some ways it had—like how she could clean up a diaper blowout with only one wipe, or the way breast-feeding felt like second nature. But there were still things she felt like she was relearning, like how to keep from getting pissed off at Grant when he wasn't around to help after that initial week at home with her. She realized being back here again just how much she'd romanticized her relationship with Grant in his ten-year absence. She'd buried the memory of how the deep lines around his eyes and slumped shoulders kept her from thrusting Lucas at him the second he walked in the door, so she could get a few minutes of reprieve. She was tired too, but he didn't seem to notice.

It was a miracle she survived after Grant left, still
postpartum and grieving his alienation. Each day felt like climbing a mountain, finally reaching the peak every night, only to do it all over again the next day. She'd become a hard, hollow shell, smiling on cue when the girls jumped into the car after school, when their teacher asked if she was okay, when she and Grant showed up to parent-teacher conferences separately then shoved themselves into the child-sized chairs, something they used to laugh about. Jessie had tried to make a joke the first time, but Grant had remained stoic, refusing to acknowledge their shared history.

The divorce hadn't just been hard on Jessie, but on the twins too. Madison had always been an overachiever—reading more books than required and reluctant to stay home from school even when she had the flu—but she started refusing to do her homework and turning in incomplete tests in class. Her grades had dropped steadily, and Jessie had tried to get her to open up about it. “Talk to me,” Jessie would plead. “Tell me what's going on in your head.”

“Trust me, Mom. You do
not
want to know,” Madison would yell before slamming her bedroom door—the poster of a spiky-haired Drake Bell from Madison's favorite Disney show staring her in the face. But Jessie did want to know—no matter how ugly her daughter's thoughts were. She'd knock lightly, waiting for Madison to answer, wishing she could make everything better, but knowing she was responsible.

And Morgan—their sweet little girl who wanted to help every stray animal she came across and was constantly setting up lemonade stands or offering to pull a neighbor's weeds so she could make money to donate to charity—had become sullen since Grant's departure. She didn't argue with Jessie the way Madison did. In fact, she didn't say much of anything, and that
silence was almost worse. Morgan would come out of her room at night and see Jessie standing in the hallway between their two rooms, and simply shake her head at her mom. Sometimes Jessie wondered if she knew the truth, if she was silently scolding her for what she'd done to their family.

Jessie was petrified that the twins' initial response to their parents' breakup would become even more serious. They were already so mad at her and Grant. Every time she thought of the possibility of them knowing that she had been the one to shatter their family into shards of what it had been, a shiver ran through her.

She'd gone to Claire for advice. “How do you do it? I feel like the guilt is going to kill me.” Jessie had just dropped the girls off at Grant's and they'd exited the car without saying good-bye, ignoring Jessie when she called out that she loved them.

“You're asking me?” Claire chuckled. “You know how much I struggle to say no to Emily.”

Jessie pondered how to respond. Emily was bitter and treated Claire like a doormat and Jessie feared the twins could do the same to her. She hoped Claire hadn't noticed that she'd kept the girls away from Emily recently, coming up with excuses for why she couldn't go over to Claire's. She knew it was ridiculous, that Emily wouldn't corrupt them, but she was desperate to hold on to the frayed connection she still had with her daughters.

“You're doing your best,” Jessie said gently. “But if you could do it all over again, what would you change?”

“Everything!” Claire said, and they erupted in laughter.

Jessie had finally called Grant late one night and begged him to move back in just for their daughters. He'd only released a long sigh, his silence speaking volumes. She knew it was a desperately bad idea—that even if he had come back home, his
anger toward Jessie would have slowly infected them all. But she would've done anything to help her twins become the carefree children they had been just months before. After she'd hung up with Grant, she'd walked into the nursery and stared at Lucas fast asleep with his thumb in his mouth, and she'd thought,
I wish I could go back and fix this mess, but then I'd lose you. And how could I live without you?

When she found out she was pregnant with Lucas, it was a steamy afternoon, rain uncharacteristically pooling in the streets in Redondo Beach. After missing her period, then throwing up for the second morning in a row, her breasts tender, her body exhausted,
she knew
.

But still, she had dragged herself into Rite-Aid, purchased four different tests, then frantically peed on stick after stick in a Starbucks bathroom after downing two venti green teas. She'd said a prayer with each new test she opened, that the line would fade from pink back to white, from
yes
to
no
. She knew in her gut that if she was pregnant, it was most likely Peter's. She and Grant had sex a few weeks after she'd slept with Peter, when she'd stayed true to the promise she'd made to herself to be a better wife. One night after she'd talked to Grant about his stress at work, he'd grabbed her and started kissing her in a way he hadn't in a very long time, and her chest had tightened. Had that been all he'd needed? For her to listen? But still, she knew the baby couldn't be his. Because once she'd missed her period and started feeling those symptoms she remembered all too well from the twins, she'd frantically done the math and figured out her night with Peter had occurred smack in the middle of her ovulation—and that he must have pulled out just a second too late. At the time, Jessie had been sure their lack of protection wouldn't matter. Her lazy ovaries had made
it difficult to get pregnant with the twins, and that had been ten years ago.