Chapter 64

64

I’d never been avoided before, at least not that I could remember or knew about. But it would have been easier to meet face-to-face with the queen than to have seen you in person the year after you left. You only ever wanted to hand Violet off at school drop-off and pickup, and your text messages were curt. I wanted to meet the woman you left me for, the woman who was living in the same apartment where my daughter would spend half of her time. I wanted to know how we compared. I wanted to be able to picture you two together. We were avoiding courts and legal counsel at your request, and so I had something of an upper hand in our stilted negotiations. But this one you were adamant about—you would introduce us when you were ready and there was no room for discussion otherwise.

“I’d love to meet Dad’s new girlfriend,” I said to Violet after she told me the woman had dropped her off at school that morning. It was Friday and I had her for the weekend.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to meet you.”

“Maybe.”

Violet buckled her seat belt and looked at the key in the ignition, desperate for me to start the car and get her one step closer to not being in the seat behind me. I glanced in the rearview mirror and her face changed—a look of pity. I didn’t know if it was genuine or not.

“There’s a reason Dad doesn’t want you to meet her.” Her voice lowered, like she was telling me a secret, giving me a clue to a mystery I hadn’t yet known I was solving. She looked out the window at the familiar row of brownstone walk-ups that we passed on the way home. She barely spoke to me for the rest of the evening.

And so I’m not sure you left me much choice but to do what I did.

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•   •   •Violet told me you were going to the ballet together, just you and her, the following week; the woman couldn’t go, she had standing Wednesday night plans at the same time. I’d looked up the show online and saw it began at 7:00 p.m. I knew you’d take Violet for pizza first.

Your low-rise apartment building was in a quaint part of the city that I knew well. I took a taxi over and got out a few blocks away. It was six thirty and traffic was still heavy. The driver stared at me in the rearview mirror like he could sense my nerves, see my fingers pulling over and over at the stray thread in the hem of my coat. I tipped him too much, not wanting to wait for the change, and pulled up the hood of my coat so the fur shielded most of my face. Walking was good for my nerves. I calmed down and watched my feet, one in front of the other, until I approached your building. I leaned casually against the redbrick wall and took my gloves off and pulled my phone from my pocket. I didn’t really have a plan, but it made sense to look busy, distracted by texts, like any other person on the street.

I watched the door to the lobby from the corner of my eye—it became easier to see inside as the sky darkened. A few women came and went but I knew they weren’t her—too old, too big, too many dogs. And then a woman in a puffy down jacket walked out of the building, phone in hand, and smiled at the doorman. She had long curly hair pulled to the side and a diamond earring that twinkled under the lights of the lobby overhang. She reached her arms up to put a cross-body purse over her head and then pulled on leopard-print gloves—it had quickly become a cold, blustery night. I was pretty sure it was her. So I took my chances and I followed her.

It was easy to keep up. Her suede ankle boots had a low, thick heel and she walked at a slow pace, like she hadn’t grown up in the city. She hit every crosswalk button even though most people knew they were useless. I thought I’d be nervous about being caught doing something like this, but following her felt so easy. She made a quick phone call as I stood several feet back from her at a set of streetlights, and then she hustled to catch the green she’d nearly missed, distracted. Half a block later she turned into a place I’d gone to many times when I was in the neighborhood—a small bookstore with ornately carved wall-to-wall shelving and huge milky-glass spheres that swayed ever so slightly from the soaring twenty-foot ceiling every time the door opened.

I double-checked the sign on the window—it closed at six o’clock on Wednesdays, which I vaguely recollected. But the lights were on. I put my hands up to the glass to block the glare from the streetlamp and get a better look. The store had forty, maybe fifty people inside. All women. Coats were spread on a couple of old church benches and there was a table of serve-yourself wine at the side with a cupcake tower sponsored by the bakery next door. Nobody seemed to be taking tickets or names. I expected to see signs about an author appearance or a table piled with books for a signing. Everyone looked younger than I was, many in the same boots she’d been wearing—yours was a high-rent neighborhood where all the boutiques carried the same things. The two women standing next to the window had fresh new babies wrapped to their chests in swathes of striped fabric. They swayed from side to side as they chatted, in exactly the same rhythm, and I remembered that feeling, that tick of metronome that never quite leaves your hips when the weight of your baby is against you.

She was near the back, smoothing her thick, dark hair as someone put a hand on her shoulder to say hello. They hugged, her blushed cheek pressed against her tall, blond friend. She had a bright face, huge dark eyes wreathed with heavy mascara, and her mouth was locked in a smile. She seemed to remember what she’d brought for the blond woman—she reached in her purse quickly and pulled out something gray and knitted, and the friend pressed it against her chest in thanks. Another woman joined and handed them each a glass of wine.

The room began to fill and soon I couldn’t see her from outside anymore. My heart sank. I needed more. I should have been terrified to walk through that door—surely she must have seen a picture of me at some point and knew what I looked like—but I went inside and added my coat to the heap. I recognized the staff person closing the till and leaned in to speak quietly to her.

“Do you know where the host of this party is?”

“It’s not really a party. It’s a moms’ group. Just a drop-in thing. Sometimes they have speakers come or brands give them free stuff. We just lend our space and hope to get a few sales out of it.”

“So everyone here is a mom?”

“I guess they don’t have to be, but not sure why else they’d come.” She shrugged and excused herself to the back with a tray of cash. I looked around and suddenly heard the symphony of mom problems around me—sleep training, starting solids, sleepers with zippers instead of snaps, preschool waiting lists. I poured wine into a small plastic cup and meandered to the opposite side of the room, to a spot where I could still see her. I looked at my phone, hoping nobody would speak to me, and glanced up to watch her every few seconds. She seemed to be telling a story, using her free hand to make tiny, panicked flutters, like butterfly wings. The two other women nodded and laughed. One of the others leaned in and rolled her eyes as she spoke and they laughed again. She touched people a lot, I noticed. Their arms, their hands, their waists. She was affectionate, I could tell. I thought of your bare feet under the sheets, always trying to find mine at night, always trying to rub against my calves, to feel my warmth, and of the way I pulled away across the bed. Farther and farther and farther away.

“Your first time?”

Someone with a very high ponytail and bright red lipstick popped up in front of me holding a postcard that said Mom’s Night Out with a collection of small business logos.

“Yes, actually. Thanks.”

“Great! I can introduce you to some people. How’d you hear about us?”

She put her arm at the small of my back and led me toward the middle of the room, not interested in the answer.

“Sydney, she’s new,” she said loudly, and pointed to me urgently above the crowd as though I needed a tag stapled to my ear so they could keep track of me. Sydney’s eyes lifted and she squeezed through the crowd to come over and introduce herself.

“And you’re . . . ?”

“Cecilia.” It was the only name that came to me. I looked over their heads toward the back, where she had been, but I couldn’t see her—she wasn’t with the other two women anymore. I scanned the room and started to feel sick.

“Well, welcome, Cecilia! Congrats for getting yourself out of the house tonight! How old is your little one?”

“Thanks—you know what, I just wanted to stop by and get some information. I’ll try to stay next time.” I lifted my phone, as though someone had been texting me, as though I were a person who was needed. “I’ve got to run.”

“Of course. Come back again.” She took a sip of her wine and turned around to squeal hello to someone else.

My coat was still at the top of the pile but I dug through them anyway, buying time, looking over my shoulder to find her in the thick crowd. I had to go—I had been there long enough. I pulled my hood up and went outside where the snow flurries whipped around the street. I sat on a bench across from the bookstore and put my head between my knees.

She was a mother. You had found a better mother for our daughter. The kind of woman you always wanted.