Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

NOVA

“I want to play football,” Ben said, tossing his backpack on the floor and climbing onto a stool. The apartment was small—we’re talking a quarter of the size of our New York place—and it had no kitchen table, so we used stools at the counter Gigi had on hand. It worked for us. Alice went to the bedroom she shared with Ben, carrying her backpack, and closed the door.

I pulled an apple from the fridge to make an after-school snack and paused with the fruit over the sink. “Football,” I repeated. “Do you know what it is?”

“We play at recess,” he said defensively. “Pete’s on a team where you get to pull flags from the other kids. It sounds fun.”

“I bet the teams are already full, babe.”

Ben shook his head, his eyes widening. “No, Pete said I can still join them. His dad is the coach, and they haven’t started games yet.”

I stared at him. Was this a Texas thing? Him wanting to fit in? In Ben’s eight and a half years of life, he’d never once been interested in sports. I didn’t know if he even had the hand-eye coordination for it. “Do you want to see if the school has a LEGO club? Or maybe see if Pete wants to come over for a Star Wars movie night?”

On my laptop, since we still didn’t have a couch or a TV.

Ben looked at his hands.

I immediately knew I’d said the wrong thing. “If you want to try football, I can speak to the adults in charge, but I’m not making any promises. I don’t know what it will cost.” My voice gentled. “You know our situation has changed.”

Ben got down from the stool on a weary sigh that reached right through my ribcage and tore my heart in two.

I looked over his small frame, his sad brown eyes. Maybe flag football was a good way to introduce him to the game and make him realize it wasn’t really his cup of apple juice. “Will you ask Pete for his dad’s phone number tomorrow? Or give him mine?”

“I already did.” He dug around in his backpack and pulled out a piece of paper with a phone number in messy, childish handwriting.

Cold calling a stranger wasn’t on my list of comfortable situations, but Ben’s pleading eyes had a magic of their own. It was amazing what I would do for my kid. I took the paper. “Eat your snack and get started on your homework. I’ll look into this.”

Ben’s face lit up. He jumped like his body could not contain his excited energy, bouncing on his toes. “Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!”

“I haven’t made any promises,” I reminded him. “Just eat your snack, and we’ll see what Pete’s dad says.”

He grinned, diving into his sliced apples with peanut butter and ignoring his celery. I went to find Alice and pulled her from the Barbie wedding ceremony on her bedroom floor. The groom was a stuffed Minion, which was no surprise, since she’d been obsessed with them since I’d shown her the first Despicable Me at the age of three.

Alice made her way to the counter via a sequence of somersaults .

I watched her. “What are you doing?”

“Kendall taught me to roll, but I need more practice.” She stopped when she reached the kitchen’s linoleum floor and got to her feet.

“As long as you’re on the carpet, I suppose there isn’t anything wrong with it.”

I put her plate in front of her on the counter when my phone started to ring. An unknown number flashed across the screen, but it was a Texas area code, so I swiped it to answer and started toward my bedroom. “Hello?”

“Is this Ben’s mom?” a gruff male voice asked.

I closed the door. “It is. Can I ask who’s calling?”

“Jake Hart, ma’am. I’m Pete’s dad. He told me your son is interested in joining our flag football team.”

“Well, to be honest, we just moved here, and I’m not sure Ben understands exactly what he’s asking for. He’s never even watched a football game.”

There was a beat of silence before he asked, “Never?”

“His dad and I aren’t really sports people,” I told him. “Is there a way for Ben to watch a practice first and see what it’s all about before committing to it?”

Jake sounded like he was sucking air through his teeth. “Problem is, Thursday’s the last day to register, and our next practice is Friday. Pete told me they play at school.”

Ben had said the same. Was I holding him back because I didn’t think he would enjoy it or because I didn’t want to add another thing to my plate? I sank onto the edge of my air mattress and wore a smile so my voice would sound happier. “True, Ben mentioned that.”

“How about I send you the link to sign up? If I see your registration come through, I’ll text you details for the practice.”

My stomach felt unsettled. I pictured Ben running out on the field and having no idea what to do, feeling lost, getting embarrassed. “You don’t mind him joining if he doesn’t know much about the game?”

“Shoot, no.” He laughed. “You’re in Texas now, ma’am. Kid needs to learn, anyway, and we’ll teach him.”

This stereotype was turning out to be somewhat true—these people loved football—but they didn’t seem to take it as seriously as I imagined if he was willing to let a novice on the team. “Okay, I’ll look into it. Thanks for calling.”

“No problem. Reach out if you have any questions. I’ll send you the game schedule, too.”

“Great. Thanks.”

When we got off the phone, I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I pulled up Instagram and swiped through the happy, unchanged lives of so many people I knew in New York. My kids’ friends eating at our favorite deli or walking through the park now that spring was touching the trees. Perfect, beautiful Upper West Side homes curated specifically to look good on socials. My stomach panged, wishing to be back in the home where I’d brought two babies back from the hospital, cooking in the narrow kitchen with sunlight coming through the gauzy drapes, meeting friends at the park after school, bundled in scarves and hats with enough room for our eyes to peek through.

In all my memories, Carter wasn’t present in the ones I longed to slip back into like nothing had changed. He hadn’t been there a lot in our recent lives, which was why it hadn’t been terribly surprising, in retrospect, when he didn’t want to remain in our family unit any longer. Even then, when he’d said he wanted a divorce, it had surprised me. I didn’t realize his ultra long days at the office were a precursor to ending a ten-year relationship. He was willing to throw it away without attempting counseling or making any effort to reconnect. His apathy might have been what hurt the most.

Losing my life, my home, my friends—all that hurt second. Feeling like I wasn’t worth fighting for was a blow I’d yet to recover from.

I sat up, shoving my phone into my pocket because I wasn’t going to spend this time wallowing. My feet hurt and I smelled like greasy diner food, but I needed time with my kids and some fresh air.

“Who wants to go for a walk?” I asked, finding both of them chomping away on their apple slices.

Ben jumped down from his stool. “Can we go to the school playground? I want to show you the monkey bars.”

“Sure thing. Layer up.”

He abandoned his snack and went for his coat and gloves. Alice shoved her last apple slice along the inside of her lips and smiled before chewing her overly full bite. She somersaulted toward her bedroom again, and I had a feeling it was going to take much longer than usual to get out the door for the foreseeable future. I inhaled patience and went for my coat.

As expected, we were slow to get outside, but we made it. We walked down to the elementary school at the end of the road. Ben and Alice took off in a race across the lawn toward the play structure. I slid my hands into my pockets and followed them slowly, my sneakers tight after a full day on my feet. I wanted to sink onto the concrete edge of the playground, but a girl came out of the slide, surprising me.

“Kendall!” Alice squealed, jumping up and down with her in a giggly embrace. A woman stepped around the play structure and came into view, and I immediately regretted not changing out of my diner clothes. At the very least, I could have put mascara on.

“Hi!” she said loudly. She was dressed like she worked in an office, wearing slacks over boots and a long camel-colored coat. Her over-highlighted blonde hair was coiled into a perfect chignon and her smile was wide. She looked like she fit in with my New York friends more than the people I’d seen here .

Today, someone had come into the diner in a giant Bluey onesie and cowboy boots. He looked about seventeen, but still. No one had batted an eye. There were some strange people here.

I’d seen much stranger in the city, though. Like the woman who lived in the stairwell a block from the kids’ school who offered to paint our nails every time we passed. She didn’t seem to remember us specifically, so we just politely declined. Every day.

She also didn’t appear to have nail polish.

Fine. I would reserve judgment on Arcadia Creek a little longer.

The woman flashed straight white teeth. “I’m Kendall’s mom, Desi. You must be Alice’s mom.”

“Yes, Nova Walker,” I told her, reaching to shake her hand. She had a firm grip, reminding me of the lawyers in Carter’s firm. “We haven’t been here long. I’m so glad Alice and Kendall have seemed to hit it off.”

Desi looked at where our daughters were giggling together, practicing backbends on the grass. “Alice is sweet. I help out sometimes in class, so I’ve gotten to chat with her a few times.”

My neck prickled with an odd sense of awareness. Desi was still watching the girls, but her words felt loaded. Had she grilled Alice about our situation? Or my situation? More people than I could count had bombarded me for information after Carter left. They cloaked their questions in sympathy, but really they just wanted the tea. Married people were especially eager to know how everything came to an end between us.

“Mom! Watch me!” Ben called. I gave him a thumbs up, and he started across the monkey bars.

“Is Kendall a gymnast?”

“Yes,” Desi said with gravity. “She’s on a small break right now, recovering from a sprained wrist, but she’ll be back at it soon. In the meantime, we have cheer.”

Kendall was now demonstrating how to twist from a backbend to facing the ground on her hands and feet, then back to a backbend. It was a feat of flexibility. Alice dropped to the ground, awed.

“Should she be doing that with an injured wrist?” I asked.

Desi made a clicking sound. “She knows her limits.” Her gaze moved to me. “I hear you came from New York City.”

“We did.”

“I love it there. We try to go at least once a year. Big fan of Broadway,” she explained.

My entire life had been spent between Brooklyn and the Upper West Side, yet I had only gone to one Broadway show ever. It was during a school field trip, and our seats were on the highest row furthest to the right, so we didn’t have the best visibility. That was before Lasik, too, so I couldn’t see as it was. “I’ve seen Wicked , but that’s it.”

“You haven’t gone to Hamilton ?” she asked, like I’d made an egregious sin.

“No, but I watched it on TV once Disney put it up.” I could tell immediately this wasn’t the right answer. “The music is great,” I put in, hoping to appease her sense of disgruntledness.

Desi gave me a quick smile. “You can see them in Dallas sometimes, too.”

If I wasn’t going to take a twenty-minute subway ride to watch Hamilton , I wasn’t going to drive over an hour to watch it here, but she didn’t need to hear that. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Are you planning to join the PTA?”

“Do I have a choice?” I asked, laughing. “There is no one more persistent than a PTA president with a quota to fill.”

She blinked at me. “Well, I’m the president, but I promise not to pressure you too much.”

I should have known. The camel coat was too posh for anything less than Arcadia Creek Elementary’s It Mom. This whole conversation was just one strikeout after the next. I swallowed, my cheeks burning. “It would be kind of hard with my work schedule the way it is. I’m not sure I’d have the time.”

“Everyone says that, but it’s really not terribly involved. Let me know if you change your mind. We have a spring carnival coming up and we can always use parents to man the stations.”

“Of course. If I’m not working, I’m happy to help.”

In true PTA president fashion, she managed to get a commitment to commit out of me. How did that happen? Apparently PTA witch voodoo crossed state lines.

Desi checked her watch, one I couldn’t help but notice kind of resembled Carter’s—a smaller, feminine version, but equally expensive. As far as new friends went, I wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with this woman. She’d done nothing but remind me of my ex, and I could tell I hadn’t made a good impression on her either.

“We’d love to have Alice over for a playdate sometime.”

I looked at my daughter and the sheer joy on her face while she tried to do a handstand beside Kendall and fell on the grass. Her giggles floated on the cold breeze and filled my heart. “I think she’d love that.”

We exchanged phone numbers and watched the girls play for a few more minutes before Desi called Kendall over and they said their farewells. I convinced Ben to get off the monkey bars, where he’d climbed to the top and was trying to crawl across. “Let’s go home and get started on your homework. Aunt Blair is going to call later, so we better finish up if you want to chat with your cousins before bed.”

They obliged immediately. I put my hands in my pockets while my children skipped ahead, down the empty road toward our apartment. The air was cold and smelled fresh, the only sounds a car and some chatter on the other side of the row of buildings, where Main Street was, and a man watering his dead grass a few houses down.

After living amidst the hustle of the city that never sleeps, it was foreign to be surrounded by silence. The man watering his lawn waved, and I waved back. When was the last time a stranger had smiled at me on the sidewalk in the city? Probably a tourist, whenever it was.

This peaceful, slow way of living didn’t seem sustainable in the long term, but for this moment, I breathed in deeply. It was good for now.