26 Aren’t We a Cautionary Tale?

26

aren’t we a cautionary tale?

Danielle

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying the spectacle of Alex digging himself a Grand Canyon–sized hole right now. His judgment must be clouded by all the amazing sex they’re having. I can’t believe he brought her to Thanksgiving. What was he thinking? When he told me at the house a week and a half ago, I was only a little surprised. Honestly, I kinda thought he was bluffing just to see my reaction.

The truth is that at first, seeing the three of them across from me—Tristan, Alex, and Kate, like the new and improved, more wholesome family—was making me nauseous. Now I’m thoroughly enjoying it because Alex has not stopped fumbling since he sat down. I wonder if Kate even noticed that Alex didn’t say he was thankful for her or Tristan.

We’re all eating, everyone is talking, and Alex has stopped digging, for now anyway. He’s talking to his dad and Josh about the merits of composting. Amanda has given up on conversing with Kate, and Brenda is doing a really good job of pretending Tristan doesn’t exist. Later, she’ll say it’s because she’s a kindergarten teacher and she needs a break from talking to little kids, though she never treated Ethan or Noah that way.

Kate is awkwardly working her way into the conversation. She’s just shifted the topic from composting to bicycle riding, and Alex Sr. looks like he’s running to catch up. Kate seems really…nice. I don’t want to say dumb, but…she’s dumb.

Even though Alex doesn’t sit around philosophizing esoteric mumbo jumbo, I know he is intellectually present and capable of thinking deeply and of adding important or relevant statements to a conversation. I know the type of person Kate seems to be used to irritate him, but he’s been more than tolerant of her this whole day. Maybe he’s in love. No, he’s not in love. Maybe he thinks he is.

I look from Kate to Alex. He’s now sitting perfectly still and staring at me. He arches his eyebrows and mouths the words, “I’m thankful for you too.”

My expression must be one of curiosity. I smile with a closed mouth. He’s blinking like he’s waiting for me to say something. “I know,” I mouth back.

He laughs quietly and shakes his head.

Dinner is wrapping up when Amanda clears her throat and says without hesitation, “Listen, you guys, me and Josh are getting married.”

“Josh and I,” Brenda corrects her instantly.

“Well, it’s about time,” Alex Sr. says loudly.

Amanda and Josh are like Alex and me in that they’re not into flare. Frankly, I thought they would never get married. They don’t want kids, so what’s the point? Anyway, as of late, aren’t Alex and I a very clear warning about marriage?

“That’s great! Congratulations,” I say as I side hug Amanda.

“Congrats, you guys,” Alex says. “So, when is this happening? ”

“And where is your engagement ring?” Brenda adds.

“Mom,” Amanda whines. “We’re not doing that.”

“Why not?” Brenda says like she’s just sucked on a lemon.

“We got tattoos,” Josh says in his dopey way. It was clearly a secret. Amanda jerks her head back and glares at him.

“Spill the details, Amanda!” Brenda barks. Everyone else around the table is silent.

“We’re getting married on New Year’s Eve in Vail. We want you all to be there. It’s gonna be small, only our families and a few friends. Just get your flights and we’ll cover everything else.” I wonder if Amanda realizes that she’s just invited Alex’s fling…and the kid.

“Vail?” Brenda says. Her face is still puckered.

“It’ll be beautiful. We wanted a winter wedding,” Amanda whines.

“I think it’s great, you guys,” Alex says, trying to pull his mom off the ledge.

“Well, show us the tattoos,” Brenda says.

“We’re not showing you. We just got each other’s names.”

“Where?” Brenda is pressing and Amanda looks perturbed.

Amanda bursts out, “Near our genitals, Mother! We are not showing you.”

“Oh, for the love of Jesus,” Alex Sr. says.

Brenda picks up her glass of wine and downs it in one gulp.

“Speaking of Jesus,” I say in a low voice, “I’m about to reverse Jesus you, Brenda, and turn that wine into water.”

I was whispering, but Brenda directs her response to the whole table. “Am I being unreasonable for asking?” No one responds. Brenda resigns. “I’m happy for you guys. I knew eventually you would come around…but I just hoped…Never mind. It’ll be great!”

Finally it feels like the table has settled .

“Dani, Amanda, will you girls get the pies and bring them out here?”

As Amanda and I both stand to retrieve the pies, Kate says to the whole room, “I’m excited! I’ve never been to Vail.”

Alex is as white as a ghost. For a moment, I feel sorry for him…but the feeling passes quickly.

Inside the kitchen I’m alone with Amanda, gathering plates, flatware, and pies.

“I can’t believe he brought her,” she says.

“Well, he did. And you invited both of them to your wedding.”

When I look across the center island to Amanda, I see realization finally shine into her eyes. “I did, didn’t I? He’ll never bring her, will he? All the way to Vail? On New Year’s?”

“Are you asking me if I think Alex will bring her?”

“I don’t think he would. Do you?”

“It’s less than a month and a half away? If he’s still dating her, he’ll bring her. He won’t be able to tell her no because he’s still learning how to use his big boy words.”

I hate insulting Alex to Amanda, but I’m exhausted by the whole situation. I’m tired of pretending to Alex’s family that he’s perfect, which is what I’ve always done, which is actually the reason they like me so much. Because I never put down their precious Alex. I know deep down they think the divorce was my fault, due to some affair that wasn’t an affair at all.

“Whoa, Dani.”

“Whoa what, Amanda? Bringing her here on Thanksgiving…with her kid? It’s confusing for everyone. It’s confusing for the boys especially.”

“Maybe he’s actually in love with her?” One thing that is undeniable about everyone in Alex’s family is that they’re loyal. Her expression isn’t antagonistic, it’s more inscrutable. Almost like she’s playing devil’s advocate. “Maybe he’ll eventually marry her.”

I’m just blinking across the island at Amanda, debating on how to respond to this. “I know this is hard to believe, Amanda, but you don’t know your brother as well as I do.”

“What? Of course I do. Look, Dani, I know this is hard for you.” She pauses. Her expression changes from speculative to sympathetic. “I know Alex. I’m not sure what you meant, but I know this can’t be easy for you.”

“I’m fine. I really am. I just meant that I know he’s not going to marry her…and I know he’s not in love with her. I’ve seen Alex in love before, remember?”

Brenda enters the kitchen. “What’s taking so long? That girl is on her own planet out there. I have no idea what she’s talking about.” We both know Brenda is referring to Kate.

“We were actually just talking about that,” Amanda says.

“About why your brother has his head up his ass?” Brenda spits back. I’m shocked. She’s never talked about Alex that way, and she rarely curses.

“Wow, Mom,” Amanda says.

“Well, we all know Alex isn’t serious about her. Why would he bring her to Thanksgiving? Just to confuse the kids?”

I look at Amanda and raise my eyebrows.

“I don’t think Alex realizes,” I say. “Maybe he does now, but I don’t think he thought about it when he asked her to come.” Not quite sure why I’m defending him.

Later that night, Alex offers to stay with the boys to give me a couple of extra days since he knows I’m slammed with the show. The clinic is closed for the long holiday weekend, so it makes sense anyway. He also made a point to mention that he’d be taking Kate home first. I don’t really know how serious they are, but I know Alex doesn’t want to push the envelope, which would be taking his girlfriend to our family home with our children. Though we’ve never said it, that house is off-limits. He knows that.

I’m at the apartment alone now. Even though I did a stellar job of looking like I didn’t care, today has been emotionally draining. I’ve felt inside-out all day. Kate aside, Alex and I were still trying to adjust to being a divorced couple.

There are feelings and memories attached to every holiday. And those memories are compounding the loneliness I feel in the apartment right now. Usually on Thanksgiving, we always ended up having a late-night second dinner with the leftovers. When the boys were young, we’d put them to bed, steal off to our bedroom with a plate of pie, a bottle of wine, and we’d stay up late, feeding each other, talking, rolling around naked, laughing about family dramatics, kissing, exemplifying true intimacy…proving to ourselves once again that we needed only each other. I wonder if he’s doing that with Kate right now.

I go to the record collection and pull an album out blindly. When I see the cover of Eric Clapton’s Slowhand, I know there’s a message written on the sleeve because I can easily remember writing it. It’s not a holiday memory, but one I’ve held on to and thought about many times over the years. I remove the sleeve:

Song 2 “Wonderful Tonight”

Tonight I was obsessing over my post-baby body. I cried at my own image in the mirror and then felt terribly vain for it later. Noah was sleeping. You put this record on, pulled me close, and we danced slowly in the living room.

Earlier that night, Alex and I were arguing about Noah and how to get him to sleep. He was only a couple of months old. I rocked him to sleep every single night in those early days and sometimes it would take two hours of rocking and shushing him. Afterward, I would be exhausted. Alex thought we should sleep train him and let him “cry it out” in his crib.

We put Noah in the crib and let him cry for fifteen minutes before I went back in and started rocking him. When I finally reemerged, Alex was sitting on the couch in the living room, smiling. “Quitter.”

“I’ll try again tomorrow. It’s too hard.”

He followed me into the bedroom, where I was changing out of a breast milk–drenched T-shirt into another shirt, which I knew would be in the same state in a few hours. I looked at my body in the mirror and cringed. Alex tried to wrap his arms around me from behind. I was shirtless and braless, wearing a pair of sweats. Pulling my arms up over my breasts, I tried to cover myself.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful.” We hadn’t been together yet since I had Noah, and I still didn’t feel ready. I started crying. “What, Dani?”

“I’m so gross and ugly. I don’t want to do this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re beautiful, even more beautiful now.” It seemed like he understood. I believed him.

“I want to put a shirt on,” I told him.

He let go of me. “Put a shirt on. Come out to living room when you’re ready. Let’s have a glass of wine.”

“But—” I was about to argue that I was breastfeeding.

“You can have a glass of wine, Dani.” He smiled and then chuckled, “Maybe he’ll sleep better.”

I laughed and it was a relief. “That’s terrible. I’ll pump and dump. ”

“Whatever you gotta do.”

He walked out of the room. I took a two-minute shower and threw on the nicest pair of sweats I could find. I brushed my hair and put on a dab of lip gloss.

The song “Wonderful Tonight ” was playing. “Come dance with me,” he said, in a low, playful voice.

As we were dancing, my head on his chest, I said, “This part is harder than I thought.”

“What part is that?”

“The part where I care about my body. I imagined that I wouldn’t. I imagined I’d be proud of my stretch marks, you know? Like a stronger woman, not so shallow. I don’t feel like a woman at all. I feel like a vessel that should be sunk out in the middle of the Pacific.”

Alex’s body shook with laughter. “Oh my god, Dani. You are not a shallow person. You’re being so hard on yourself right now, and then you’re being hard on yourself for being hard on yourself! It’s only been two months. For the record…you look absolutely beautiful to me. I want you just like this. I don’t care what you’re wearing or how many stretch marks you have, or if your hair is done, long, short, makeup, no makeup, fat, skinny, none of it matters.”

“How can you say that? You must have a preference.”

“Because I’m in love with your brain, Dani. I actually really like you, which I think is just as important as loving you. You’re funny and clever, smart, kind…loving. You’re good at loving me and Noah. Truly, I think you have a rare gift for making people feel loved. You’re exceptional at it.”

The tears came again. I remember I was so emotional. Alex held me for a long time that night as we danced to “Wonderful Tonight.” He said all the right words, and for that moment I believed him, and that’s all that mattered.

—

It’s two days before New Year’s Eve. I’ve been absolutely exhausted lately. Getting ready for the premier of the show has been taxing on everybody, including the kids and Alex. They’ve all had to do their parts picking up the slack. I cannot wait to get some time off. There were a couple of weeks before Christmas when the boys were with their dad all but two days, while I was either at the office, the set, or in the apartment writing like a madwoman. Christmas came and went. The four of us spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning together, and Alex and I got along well. He reserved Christmas night for Kate and Tristan, which was fine. I was just happy he didn’t bring them to the house.

Now I’m packing for Amanda’s wedding while the boys are golfing with their dad. For a while, I wondered if I should even go, but Amanda is like a sister to me and everyone in Alex’s family said it would be weird if I didn’t. Kate and Tristan are, in fact, going, as I predicted.

Alex and I are flying with the boys out of LA tonight and Kate and Tristan are coming tomorrow night because she couldn’t get out of work tomorrow. Alex said she was irritated that he wouldn’t wait for her, but he explained that he wanted to fly with his kids, and she’d just have to deal with it. I’m glad, because I think it’s important for Noah and Ethan to see Alex making them a priority.

We are his family. I am his family still. Married, divorced, separated, or dead, I am still his family. She’ll have to grow up and accept it.