Chapter 81

81

There had been half a bottle of wine consumed that night, yes. But I’d been thinking about calling you for days. I curled up on the couch while he slept upstairs. On your side of the bed. I wished he hadn’t stayed the night. It was nearly midnight.

I had talked myself through different versions of what I could say to you, but nothing felt right. I didn’t want to apologize for the mother I’d been to her—I wasn’t sorry. I didn’t want to say I was wrong—I didn’t know if I was. I just wanted you to know that something inside of me had changed. And I wanted to see our daughter more.

Gemma answered your phone the third time I called. “Is everything okay?”

Maybe it is, I wanted to reply. Maybe it finally is.

But instead I asked to speak to you. You were beside her in bed, I could hear the sheets move as you rolled over to take the phone.

“I need to see her more. I want to do better.”

I asked you about the painting, the one you took from our bedroom when you moved out. I hadn’t planned to ask you about this, I hadn’t even thought about it that night. But suddenly I wanted it desperately. I stood up and paced the room while you let me sit on the line in silence. I imagined it hanging on a stark white wall in the hallway of your beautiful new home, Gemma touching the gold frame gently while she walked by, thinking of her own small child and the way he touched her face.

“I don’t know where it is.”