Another Piece of My Heart (18 page)

Her inability to work, because how on earth could she possibly get a job when the whole world is against her, is Ethan’s fault. Her subsequent inability to fly to Boston for her high school reunion and dreamed-of old boyfriend reunion is, naturally, Ethan’s fault.

And with such a terrible husband, and such high-maintenance goddamned needy children, is it any wonder she has a drink or two at night, just to ease her nerves?

*   *   *

It is a familiar feeling, Ethan’s heart jumping into his mouth as he stands on the doorstep waiting for Brooke to come to the door. Emily is in the car, refusing to get out, and there is not much he can do about it.

He just lost it in the driveway, roaring at Emily to get out of the damned car. She shook her head and sank farther down into her seat. Short of lifting her up, which he doubts he could even manage, there is nothing else he can do.

He notices that Brooke’s house looks more kempt than usual. The planters on either side of the front door have been planted with chrysanthemums to welcome the fall. For years they have been filled with overgrowing weeds, which Ethan, on his rare visits, cannot resist plucking out, but now they are properly planted. He is surprised.

The door opens, Brooke looks at him, leaning to one side to look past him to the car.

“I thought you were bringing Emily. Is she coming in?”

“No. She’s here, but she refuses to get out of the car.”

Brooke frowns. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

Ethan shakes his head. “I think she needs to be left on her own for a little while.” He highly doubts this, but Andi’s words echo through his head: that Emily creates these dramas for attention from her parents, that she doesn’t do it if her parents are not around, and right now he is too tired, too fearful of Brooke’s impending rage, to focus on indulging Emily’s tantrum.

Brooke seems different. He looks at her closely. Her eyes are clear and shining; she is neat and tidy. Usually, her hair is a mess of dry, tangled knots; unwashed, a mess. If she is wearing makeup, it is sloppy and wrong—a red lipstick that never seems to stay within the lines of her lips, clothes that neither flatter nor fit her.

Today she looks … lovely, like a completely different person. Her hair healthy and clean, clipped back in soft waves. She is not wearing makeup, her skin is clear.

Simple cargo pants and sneakers, and a clean white T-shirt. That’s it! She looks clean, and Brooke never looks clean. She even—he leans forward, taking a subtle sniff—yes! She even smells clean, which is something he hasn’t smelled for years.

It is Ethan’s turn to frown. Everything is different today, and it unsettles him. Andi has become the source of his stress, whereas Brooke is feeling like a refuge. This is upside down, the reverse of his usual life. It throws him off the speech he has prepared in his head, a speech designed to keep her calm, to redirect her inevitable rage.

“Come into the kitchen.” Brooke leads the way down the hall. Ethan stares at the house in amazement as he walks through. Usually it is filled with stuff. Brooke is disorganized, messy, a hoarder. There are always piles of magazines, of books, of clothes. Coats are flung down, never to be hung up. Bills disappear in piles on the kitchen counter. Dust collects on the surfaces of tables covered with tiny china animals that Brooke cannot bear to throw away.

She was never particularly domestic, but it became so much worse after they split up. One of the reasons he tries to avoid entering her house is because it upsets him so much: to think this is how his daughters are forced to live when they are not with him.

Sophia assures him her own bedroom is lovely, and he believes her. Not because of anything Brooke will have had to do with it but because Sophia is naturally neat and tidy. Her mother’s house might be in squalor, but she will ensure her bedroom is not.

That his children have to live in a filthy house, that they have to deal with a drunk mother, has been one of the biggest upsets of his life. At times he has thought of going back to court, fighting for sole custody, but he doesn’t want any further damage done to his daughters, and in truth they are with him far more than they are with their mother.

He looks around him. Today, everything is different. There are still piles, too much stuff in the house, but it feels clean. The house has been vacuumed, and dusted. There are no piles of filthy plates in the kitchen sink, encrusted food on the granite counter. Today, it is gleaming, with a jar of drying hydrangeas in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Can I get you some coffee?” Brooke asks nervously, gesturing to where a fresh pot of coffee is brewing.

“Sure,” Ethan says, looking around for her omnipresent glass of wine, but she pours herself a coffee instead, then joins him, sitting opposite him at the kitchen table.

“You look like you’re wondering what’s going on.” She attempts a smile.

“I guess I am. It looks great in here. Clean and fresh.”

“I’m sober, Ethan,” she says quietly.

“Great,” he says cautiously. “Good for you.” He doesn’t get too excited. He remembers when they first split up, how she would stop drinking for a week or two, announce she was sober, and as soon as he came back, he would find bottles hidden in the trash.

“I know. You’ve heard me say it before. But I’m forty-three days sober. In A.A. I have a sponsor and everything.”

Ethan looks at her closely, for suddenly he sees the difference. She is not announcing this with drama or flourish, but quietly and bashfully. And the evidence is all around them.

“That’s really great,” he says, and this time he means it.

Brooke gives a nervous giggle. “I feel great. Scared, but clear, for the first time in years. It’s really different this time. I am an alcoholic, and I’m taking it a day at a time.”

Ethan nods silently, looking up to find Brooke gazing at him intently.

“I’m really sorry,” she bursts out suddenly. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“What for?” He is shocked, hadn’t prepared in the least for this.

“For messing everything up. For everything I put you and the girls through. I know, I know, you’ve totally moved on, and you probably don’t even want to hear this, but I never meant to hurt all of you so much.”

“It’s fine,” Ethan says awkwardly. “We’re fine.”

“Things are good with … Andi?” Usually Brooke calls her “your wife,” with more than a hint of disdain.

“Great,” Ethan lies. Even before today, before their conversation about keeping the baby—a conversation he now suspects, with dread, will have consequences—Andi has been drifting away from him, and he doesn’t know how to bring her back. He is terrified he is losing her, for it feels as if that is exactly what is happening, but every time he broaches the subject or tries to talk to her, she says she is “fine,” in her curt, dismissive way, and he cannot get through to her.

Nor have they made love in a while. He reaches over only to have her sigh with the inevitable shake of the head, telling him she is tired, or not in the mood.

She is never in the mood these days, it seems.

She no longer reaches out in spontaneous displays of affection, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his neck, burying her nose in his shoulder because she “just loves the smell” of him.

When he reaches out, she recoils. He has now retreated, hurt and wounded. He doesn’t want to go through another divorce. He doesn’t want to lose Andi. He just doesn’t know how to make it all right.

“Emily’s being better with her?” Brooke asks, bringing him back from his reverie.

“She’s … Emily. Sometimes great, sometimes not.”

There is a silence, which Brooke eventually breaks:

“You said there is something you wanted to talk to me about. I presume it’s Emily?”

Ethan nods, a wave of nausea suddenly washing over him. God, how he is dreading this conversation.

“I don’t quite know how to tell you this,” he says, his prepared speech having long been forgotten. “We found out this week that Emily is … pregnant.” He can’t look Brooke in the eye until he realizes there is no shrieking, or screaming, and he raises his eyes to see what is going on.

Brooke’s eyes have welled up with tears, one of them trickling slowly down her cheek.

He waits for her to say something, and when nothing comes, he continues.

“We were hoping it was early enough for her to have an abortion, not let it ruin her life, but we took her to the OB/GYN yesterday, and she is seven months.”

Brooke gasps.

Forty-three days ago, she
would
have started screaming. Forty-three days ago she would have shrieked how dare they take her to the OB/GYN without telling Brooke, how dare they not tell her immediately; but newly sober, calm, able to react to things peacefully, Brooke feels only a huge wave of sadness.

“We have started looking at adoption agencies, which seems to be the only course of action open to us, but…” He sighs deeply. “Emily wants to keep this baby. She won’t listen to us. We don’t know what to do. I think she has no idea what being a mother entails, and having a baby now, at her age, will ruin her life forever.”

Brooke is now openly weeping as Ethan trails off. He would never have dreamed of this reaction, has no idea what it means or how to react to it.

He waits as she weeps, blindly grabbing a tissue from a box on the hutch behind the table, blowing her nose as the tears continue to fall.

“I can’t do this…” she sobs after a while. “I just … can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Ethan has no idea what she means.

“I can’t take care of Emily and take care of myself. I just can’t.”

“What are you saying?” Ethan is horrified. “I don’t understand.”

“Ethan.” The expression on her face is the most pained he has ever seen. “I love Emily, but my sobriety is too precious for me to let anything derail it, and especially Emily. I am devastated, but I can’t be there for her. Not now. I’m sorry.” She sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re … disowning her?”

“No! I just need some space. I can’t live my life wrapped up in whatever Emily’s latest drama happens to be. Even hearing it makes me want to reach for a bottle of wine. I can’t do it right now, Ethan. I want to, but I’m frightened of what will happen.”

“So … she’s not … you don’t want her sleeping here on her usual nights? You want the girls to live with me?”

Brooke nods. “You can’t understand. I know it seems like I’m being a terrible mother, but for now you and … Andi need to look after them. Please.”

“Okay.” Ethan stands up abruptly, pushing back his chair. Jesus. This was the very last thing he expected, and the one thing he has wanted for years. To have his girls to himself, but the victory feels hollow, and he doesn’t know what to do. “What do I tell them?”

“Tell them I love them. Tell them I’ve been sick, and I’m getting better. It’s not forever. It’s just … for now. I’ll be in touch.”

Ethan leaves Brooke sitting at the kitchen table, still sobbing. As soon as he closes the door, Brooke reaches for the phone and calls her sponsor as Ethan walks numbly over to the car, wondering how in the hell to explain to his daughters that their mother doesn’t want them anymore.

Twenty

Today, my dad started talking about condoms in the car, which completely freaked me out. It’s a bit late for that, right? I mean, I know I kind of wondered if I was pregnant, but I kept thinking it would be okay. I kept thinking that I would wake up, and I wouldn’t be, and if I refused to accept it, which I do, then it would all be fine.

I still can’t believe it’s not. I can’t believe I’m going to have a baby. Andi’s downstairs now, on the phone to adoption agencies. I stood at the top of the stairs a while back to listen to her. No one can believe I didn’t know, but they’re not in my shoes. How can they possibly know what it’s like?

The thing is, I know I have to give this baby up for adoption. Of course I do. I don’t know who the father is and, as my dad keeps telling me, I have my whole life ahead of me.

But it doesn’t feel like I have my whole life ahead of me. It feels like my life is pretty much over. I’ve got these stupid classes I have to take because of the underage drinking, and it’s a major pain, and the only thing that ever gives me hope, that makes me feel life is going to get better, is the thought of having a baby.

I try not to think about how I got here because it just freaks me out and makes me so mad I can hardly stand it, but my life was not supposed to be like this. If my parents hadn’t got divorced, and my mom wasn’t a nutcase alcoholic, and my dad hadn’t fallen in love at an age when he should have been more interested in raising his daughters, none of this would have happened.

I wouldn’t want to numb the pain of just being me by drinking and taking drugs and having sex with people I barely even know. Who knows, I might even be a normal, happy, well-adjusted teenager getting ready to go to college.

I screwed up my college applications this year, which is why I’m taking a year off although I’m a year ahead anyway, so this just evens things out. The thing is, I don’t even know that I want to go to college. Of course, that’s what every middle-class girl is supposed to do. How could I possibly think of doing anything else? But I just don’t see myself going to a college.

I like writing, sure, but the thought of being a literature major fills me with horror. What I really like is photography. I haven’t done it that much recently, and although art school is definitely more interesting to me, I don’t know if I’m any good at it, not really. I used to think I was, I used to think I had a real talent, when my mom gave me her old Nikon, and I’d take tons of pictures on proper film.

I’d use Sophia as my model. Sometimes I’d take pictures of her back with her clothes just kind of draped, because it looked more artsy, like something you might see in black and white, framed and hanging on the wall of a cool modern house.

I never totally understood the whole aperture and shutter-speed thing, but I experimented and ended up taking some amazing shots at the beach. Manzanita branches twisting on the sand, cool shells, that kind of thing.

Andi got them blown up and framed as a surprise. I walked into the house one day after school and four of these shots I took were hanging in the hallway. They looked totally professional, and I felt so proud. Everyone who came over commented on them, but now they’re not special anymore; they’re just part of the furniture.