Mommy Tracked (30 page)

Grace’s anger, contained until that moment, suddenly flowered. “You know, Alice, it’s not exactly like you’re blameless in this,” Grace said slowly.

Alice’s face puckered in surprise. “
Me?
I fail to see how any of this is
my
fault.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you? So the fact that you spent pretty much my entire childhood lecturing me about my weight, and putting me on one diet after another, and
weighing
me, and then making me feel worthless for not being stick-thin—that wasn’t your doing?”

“What I’ve always told you is that staying thin requires discipline. You need to exercise and be careful about what you eat. I never suggested that you could lose weight just by drinking some tea,” Alice said scornfully.

“Actually, yes, you did. You were the one who told me about that tea in the first place.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. Christ, Alice, you never let it go. You have this way of always making me feel worthless just because I don’t measure up to your standards. So if I have weight and body-image issues, well, I lay at least some of the blame at your feet.”

Alice sighed dramatically. “Oh, Grace. You always have to paint me as the evil stepmother. I would have thought you’d have grown out of that by now.”

“And I would have thought you’d have stopped being such an insufferable, hypercritical bitch by now!” Grace retorted.

“Grace!” Victor Fowler strode into the living room, his face pale with shock. “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”

Alice, predictably, burst into tears. It had been her favorite move back when Grace was a teenager and Victor caught the two feuding. Alice would cry, and Victor—always uncomfortable with conflict—would take his wife’s side.

“She’s
not
my mother,” Grace said flatly.

“I’m not staying here. She’s always hated me…never appreciated me…has always resented me…,” Alice said between great heaving sobs. She stood and threw herself in Victor’s arms, burying her head on his shoulder. “I want…to go home…not staying another minute in this house…”

“Shhh. Shhh.” Victor patted Alice on the back. Grace swallowed hard and crossed her arms.

“Grace, I think you should apologize,” Victor finally said.

Of everything her father could have said at that moment, this was the one thing that made Grace the angriest. Flashes of the injustices, large and small, that had scarred her childhood came rushing back to her. Alice counting out the number of baby carrots Grace was allowed for lunch every day. Alice refusing to buy Grace the bikini she wanted, insisting that with Grace’s hips, she was better off in a one-piece. Alice turning away two of Grace’s classmates who were selling Girl Scout cookies door to door, saying with a tinkly little laugh, “Grace doesn’t need the extra calories.”

No, Alice hadn’t always been awful, not all of the time. There were some good memories too, wedged in among the painful ones: Alice taking her to the Breakers for tea when Grace was eleven, just the two of them, as a special treat. Alice in attendance at Grace’s dance recitals, jumping to her feet to applaud Grace’s solo. Alice on Grace’s wedding day, doing up the satin buttons that ran down the back of the gown and then, when Grace spun around, announcing that she’d never seen a more beautiful bride. (Although this last memory was a bit marred by the fact that Alice had suddenly narrowed her eyes and said, “The dress is a bit tight in the bust, though. Have you put on weight since your last fitting?”)

But the inconsistency was almost worse; it had just given Grace false hope that Alice would suddenly look on her with softer eyes and hand over the one thing Grace had always wanted from her stepmother: her approval.

“I’m not sorry. In fact, if anyone is owed an apology around here, it’s me. She,” Grace pointed at Alice’s back, “owes me an apology for belittling me for years. And you,” Grace turned her finger to her father, “owe me an apology for inflicting her on me.”

At this, Alice sobbed even louder and then turned and rushed dramatically from the room. Victor stood and watched his wife go, before turning to face his daughter. Grace had expected his expression to be thunderous, but instead he just looked tired. Resigned. Defeated.

When Victor finally spoke again, his voice was quiet and controlled. “I know she can be inflexible. I know that, Gracie. I’m not blind. And I know…I know she didn’t always make things easy for you when you were growing up.”

These words jolted Grace. He
knew
? He
knew
what Alice had put her through,
knew
how unkind she’d been,
knew
that she’d spent years—
years
—picking at Grace, tearing her down, undermining her self-esteem? Yet he’d never once stuck up for Grace. Not once. He’d always taken Alice’s side after every fight. Alice would cry, Victor would calm her, and then Grace would be forced to apologize. Time and time and time again.

“But she’s my wife,” Victor said simply, raising his hands and then dropping them to his side. “She’s my wife.”

That was his explanation. Brief, but complete. And Grace knew it was all she’d ever get out of him.

“Then I suppose you’d better go after her,” Grace said quietly.

Later that night, after Victor and Alice had left—the latter making a dramatic, tearful exit—Grace lay in bed, trying to read a paperback novel. But the story wasn’t holding her attention, and her mind kept drifting back to Alice and their conversation.

“Nat’s down, the girls are asleep. My work here is done,” Louis announced, as he walked into the bedroom.

“I should feel more upset,” Grace said distractedly, flinging her book aside.

“Are you having one of those conversations in your head again?” Louis said. “Because it sounds like I’m coming in on the middle of it.”

“I’m talking about Alice. Usually she makes me nuts. I mean, she makes me crazy even when she’s not saying anything, when she’s just sitting there, twitching silently. Fighting with her should make me insane, right? Especially since she pulled the whole drama-queen routine and my dad took her side, yet again. I should feel upset. But I don’t. It’s weird. I actually feel sort of…peaceful.”

“It must be the drugs. Didn’t they load you up on painkillers at the hospital?” Louis said, climbing into bed next to her. He stretched and then turned over on his side to face her.

“No, that’s not it. I think I’ve just finally started to reach a place where she doesn’t get to me anymore. Or at least not as much as she used to.”

Louis didn’t say anything, although his eyebrows arched in a way that made it clear he found this hard to believe.

“I’m serious,” Grace insisted. “I spent my teens hating her, and my twenties mad and resentful that my father married her, but now I’m tired of feeling angry. I don’t like her, and I probably never will, but not liking her doesn’t have to control my life,” Grace explained.

In reply, Louis leaned forward and kissed her gently. “Good,” he said.

“Not that I’m giving up the right to complain about her from time to time,” Grace added quickly. “Because she is still the most annoying woman to ever live.”

Louis laughed and kissed her again, this time letting his lips linger against hers. Grace reached up and gently rested the palm of her hand against his cheek as she kissed him back. There was a knock at the door. Grace’s lips, still pressed against her husband’s, curved into a smile.

“Which one of the munchkins is that?” she whispered.

“Shhh. If we stay quiet, maybe they won’t hear us,” Louis said.

“Mama,” a voice piped up, muffled through the door. “Daddy?”

It was Hannah. Their middle daughter had never been a good sleeper, from the time she was a colicky infant.

Does any of us ever really change?
Grace wondered.
Or are we just born the way we’re born and carry that personality with us through our lives?

And then Grace wondered where she would have ended up had her mother lived and had been the one to raise her, instead of Alice. Would she be a happier person? More secure? Thinner? Would she have married Louis, had the girls? Maybe—but, then again, maybe not.

Mothers matter. This much I know
, Grace thought.
For better or worse, we matter.

“Come in, baby,” Grace called back.

The door swung open, and their pink-pajama-clad daughter came running in, her mess of brown curls streaming behind her. She climbed up on the bed.

“Hi,” Hannah said brightly. She looked alarmingly wide awake. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So I see. Do you want to lie down with Mama?” Grace asked.

Hannah grinned in reply and then climbed over her mother, snuggling in between Louis and Grace.

Grace wrapped her arms around Hannah, closed her eyes, and breathed in her little-girl scent, luxuriating in the deliciously solid feel of her daughter pressed against her. Someday these nighttime visits would stop, and the girls wouldn’t let her cuddle them. The realization caused Grace a sharp jab of pain. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Louis was smiling in the direction of the door.

“We have another visitor,” he said.

Grace looked over, and Molly—grumpy and half-asleep, her dark hair sticking up in every direction—was standing in the doorway.

“What’s everyone doing in here?” Molly asked sleepily. And then, without waiting for an invitation, she clambered up over the end of the bed, settled down next to her sister, and closed her eyes. She seemed to fall asleep instantly.

“That’s two of the Three Stooges,” Louis said. As if on cue, Natalie started to fuss, her cries clearly audible over the baby monitor. They both waited to see if she’d settle back down, as she sometimes did, but the grizzling turned into a squall. Louis sighed and stood up.

“Might as well bring her in here,” Grace said. She rolled her eyes upward in mock exasperation but was secretly enchanted with the idea of having all of her family around her, lying close.

Louis returned a few minutes later with the baby in his arms. Natalie grinned when she saw her mother. Grace reached out, and Louis gently laid Nat in her arms.

“Do you think she’s hungry?” he asked, as he climbed back in bed with a groan. “I could go get her a bottle.”

Grace felt a momentary pang of guilt. She hadn’t been able to nurse while she was in the hospital, and Nat ended up having to wean much earlier than Grace had planned. She’d nursed the other two girls until their first birthdays.

“No, I think she was just lonely. She knew her sisters were here with us, and Nat didn’t want to miss out on the fun,” Grace said fondly. Nat gave her mother another gummy smile.

“I missed you, baby doll,” Grace said softly, kissing her youngest daughter on her downy head. “I missed you like crazy.” Her two older daughters were now both asleep, curled up side by side, their heads close together. “This is sort of nice. Usually when the two of them are together, all hell is breaking loose.”

And when Grace looked up at her husband, a grin on her face, she saw that he was smiling down at her, at all of them curled up together in the bed. For a moment she could have sworn that there were tears glinting in his eyes. Maybe he, too, was realizing that the days when they’d be together like this, as a family, were finite, and that one day the girls would grow up and move away.

And what then?
Grace wondered.
What will our lives be like without them?

Louis leaned over and kissed Hannah and Molly lightly on the head.

“Are you okay?” Grace asked. She reached out and touched her husband’s cheek.

“Better than okay,” he said. He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his mouth. “I’m perfect. And really, really glad that you’re home.”

“Me too,” Grace said, snuggling back against the pillows, Natalie nestled in her arms. “Me too.”

eighteen

Juliet

D
ing-dong!

Juliet ignored the doorbell. It was probably just the UPS man, and anyway, she was too busy painting the upstairs hallway a serene shade of celadon. Grace had recommended the color, insisting it would go nicely with the maple hardwood floor. Juliet hadn’t been at all sure, concerned that the color might be too wishy-washy, but it turned out Grace was right; it was the perfect shade.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Juliet snapped. She rested the roller on its orange plastic pan, marched down the stairs, and yanked the front door open.

Anna and Chloe, with baby William strapped to Chloe’s chest in a carrier, were standing there. Chloe had her head down, staring at her shoes like a schoolgirl about to be yelled at by the principal. Anna was smiling, although that faltered when she saw Juliet.

“Jesus,” Anna said. “What happened to you?”

Chloe looked up at this, and her face registered surprise, her mouth forming an O.

“What are you talking about?” Juliet asked.

“You’re a mess,” Anna said bluntly.

“You’ve got paint on your…,” Chloe began, touching her own cheek, but she trailed off when Juliet glared at her.

“Well, I was painting, so…” Juliet said impatiently. She glanced down at herself, and her voice trailed away. She was
covered
in paint. Patches of pink from the girls’ bathroom mixed with the cerulean blue from the kitchen, topped with splotches of white from the downstairs bathroom, and, finally, the celadon.

“May we come in?” Anna asked gently. Then, without waiting for Juliet’s reply—which was going to be a firm
no;
she still had lots more painting to do—Anna walked in. Chloe hesitated for a minute and then followed Anna.

“This actually isn’t a great time for me,” Juliet said.

“Well, I tried calling, but you haven’t answered any of the eight billion messages I left for you. When was the last time you ate something?” Anna asked.

“Um…” Juliet tried to remember but couldn’t. There had been some saltines, somewhere between the pink and cerulean blue.

“I’ll make some tea,” Chloe said, and hurried off toward the kitchen.

“Why did you bring her with you?” Juliet hissed at Anna.

“Because she was worried about you too,” Anna said simply. “You haven’t returned her messages either. She’s been wanting to apologize to you.”

“I don’t want an apology,” Juliet said, knowing that she sounded like a petulant five-year-old but not caring. Maybe it wasn’t entirely Chloe’s fault that Patrick had left, but that damned article certainly hadn’t helped matters.

“Good. Then we can just move on and spend our time catching up instead,” Anna said. She turned and followed Chloe’s path to the kitchen. “Do you have anything to eat?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Juliet called after her.

When Juliet got to the kitchen, Chloe had already put on the kettle and was searching for tea bags, while Anna rummaged through the freezer, letting out a cry of triumph when she uncovered a bag of frozen muffins. Juliet watched them, her arms crossed indignantly. She didn’t want company, not now, not when she still had so much painting to do, and she sure as hell didn’t want to sit around and chat over tea. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?

“Sit down,” Anna ordered, as she arranged the muffins on a plate and popped them in the microwave. “Do you have any milk for the tea? Wait, here it is.” Anna sniffed it doubtfully, then checked the sell-by date. “Is it any good?”

“Anna,” Juliet said, her voice steely. “Why are you in my kitchen sniffing my milk?”

Anna and Chloe exchanged a meaningful look.

“Why do you think we’re here?” Anna asked. “We’re worried about you. Louis said you haven’t been at the office all week and that no one there has heard from you either.”

“Oh,” Juliet said dully. She’d meant to call in to work but somehow kept forgetting. She pulled back one of the kitchen chairs and sat down, belatedly wondering if she’d get paint on the chair, then deciding she didn’t care if she did.

“And then we get here and find you covered in paint, looking like you haven’t slept or eaten in a month,” Anna continued, setting the plate of warmed muffins on the table in front of Juliet. “So you can imagine we’re a bit worried.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Juliet said defensively.

“Of course we do,” Chloe said gently, setting a steaming mug of tea down next to the muffins. “You’re our friend.”

Juliet looked at her, raising her eyebrows skeptically. Chloe colored.

“Juliet, I am so, so sorry,” Chloe said, sitting down across the table from Juliet. “I truly didn’t mean to hurt you. And I never meant to cause trouble in your marriage. I just feel terrible about everything.”

“Well, obviously our marriage was in serious trouble before that article came out, or else that on its own wouldn’t have been enough to make Patrick leave,” Juliet said grudgingly. In truth, her anger at Chloe had been receding. Maybe it was just that she was suddenly so tired, too exhausted to hold on to it. Or maybe it was that she knew, deep down, Chloe hadn’t really meant any harm.

“Is there anything I can do to help? Anything to make it up to you?” Chloe asked hopefully.

“No,” Juliet said dully. “There’s nothing to do.”

“So—” Chloe began, before stopping. “Are we…are we okay?”

Juliet sighed, and then nodded once. “We’re okay.”

“Good,” Anna said. She settled down at the head of the table. “Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to the next matter of business.”

“Which is?” Juliet asked.

“What’s going on with you?” Anna asked. “What’s with the painting? And why do you look like a drug addict who’s hit rock bottom?”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Juliet said sarcastically. But then she drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, which were so scratchy, it felt like sand had been rubbed into her corneas. Another wave of exhaustion swept over her. She hadn’t slept in two days, not since she’d started painting on Tuesday afternoon.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that Chloe and Anna were watching her closely.

“I just wanted to get the painting finished,” Juliet said, knowing this response sounded feeble.

“Why?” Chloe asked.

“Because…because…” And suddenly, Juliet felt tears, hot and salty, stinging at her eyes. When she finally did speak, her voice was a husky whisper. “I want the house to look nice for when Patrick and the twins come home.”

“When are they coming back?” Anna asked gently.

Juliet was immensely grateful that she hadn’t phrased the question as,
Are they coming home?
Which was, of course, exactly what was scaring the crap out of her.

“I don’t know,” Juliet said. Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t even know if they will. If they want to.”

Then Juliet, who had always prided herself on her ability to keep her own counsel, told them everything: How she and Patrick had been fighting for months. The long hours she’d been working in the hope of making partner. The crushing pressure she’d been feeling over money. Her fear that she was missing out on the twins’ childhood. Her flirtation with Alex. And, finally, what had happened between her and Alex at the Sands.

Juliet had expected her friends to be horrified by her actions, especially Anna, since her marriage had ended over an infidelity. But they didn’t look away, their faces etched with revulsion. They just listened and nodded, and gradually, as Juliet unburdened herself, she felt…well, not better, exactly. But lighter. Like she could draw in a deep breath for the first time in days. When she’d finally talked herself out, she was surprised to see that she’d drained the cup of tea and eaten an entire muffin.

“Does Patrick know about Alex?” Chloe asked.

“No. And I don’t want him to find out, so don’t go sticking that in one of your articles,” Juliet said, although she tempered the sharpness of her words with a wan smile.

Chloe blushed. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“I know,” Juliet said.

“And the painting?” Anna asked.

“And the painting…well, maybe the painting was me hitting rock bottom,” Juliet admitted. “I was just itching for something to do, and I thought—I know this sounds stupid, considering all that’s happened—maybe it would make a difference with Patrick. That he’d see this new domesticated me”—she looked down at her paint-splattered clothes and smiled ruefully—“and want me back.”

“
Juliet
. I’m sure Patrick doesn’t want a new you. I think he wants the old you—the you who was, yes, a self-reliant career woman. But the you who was also reachable,” Anna said softly. She leaned forward and rested her hand on Juliet’s. “I don’t think he’s angry that you’ve been working too hard—more that you’ve been working to the exclusion of everything else in your life.”

“Except when I’m checking in to hotels with my boss,” Juliet said bitterly.

“Well, okay, that wasn’t the best idea you’ve ever had,” Anna said.

But Chloe cut in. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I can see how something like that could happen. Sometimes when you’re under a lot of stress and you bottle it all up inside, the pressure just grows and grows until it has to burst out somewhere. I think that’s what Alex was, maybe. A pressure valve. Not,” she hurried to add, “that it was a good decision to go to the hotel with him. Obviously, that was self-destructive. But it was understandable, considering the pressure you’ve been under.”

But Juliet was not quite so ready to forgive herself. She stared down at her tea mug and said, “I have to quit my job.”

“Quit?” Anna exclaimed. “But what about partnership? Everything you’ve worked toward?”

“I can’t work for Alex. Not now. Not after what happened—what almost happened—between us. No.” Juliet shook her head. “My marriage is more important than my job. Besides, I won’t have a problem finding another position.” She smiled wryly. “Alex wouldn’t dare give me a bad reference now.”

Once Anna and Chloe left—which they did only after Juliet swore up and down that she wouldn’t go back to painting—Juliet stripped off her grimy, paint-splattered clothes and got into the shower. She turned the water on as hot as she could stand and stood with her face turned up, letting the water stream down over her. She washed and conditioned her hair and soaped her body over and over and over again, scrubbing the paint off her skin.

Finally, when the water started to turn cold, she got out and toweled herself off with a clean, fluffy white towel. And then, with the towel wrapped around her, she climbed into bed and almost instantly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It was a long-standing tradition at the law firm of Little & Frost to begin the weekend as soon as the bosses cleared out of the office on Friday afternoons. Paul Little, who was semiretired, rarely even came in on Fridays. Alex usually cut out at around four, as did the other partners—Orson Smith, Gerald Pitt, Steven Spitzer, Farley Robard—and the associates began emptying out of their offices about ten minutes later. (Any earlier and they’d risk running into one of their bosses in the parking garage.) Even Richard, the most dedicated of ass kissers, was out the door by six. Neil usually stayed late but he rarely left his office, so Juliet was reasonably sure that she wouldn’t run into anyone when she showed up at seven o’clock on Friday night to clean out her desk.

She brought two empty document boxes in with her, and as soon as she got to her office she set about packing up her personal files, calendar, the potted cactus garden Patrick had given her for Valentine’s Day, remembering how he’d joked it was the only plant she couldn’t kill. She took her framed diplomas and license down off the wall and gathered up the detritus of her professional life—the spare black suit jacket she kept at the office, a travel umbrella, allergy medicine—and piled it into a box. She worked quickly but methodically until everything was packed, with the exception of the larger framed items, which would have to be carried down separately.

It wasn’t until she got to the snapshots of her family in spare silver frames that she felt the first tug of emotion. Juliet looked down at the smiling faces of her husband and two daughters as they mugged for the camera on Christmas morning. A second photo showed the twins frolicking on the beach. In the third, taken on the day Emma and Izzy were born, Patrick was sitting in a chair in the hospital nursery, a tightly swaddled twin in each arm and grinning so broadly it looked like his face would split in two.

My family
, she thought. Suddenly she was missing them so much, it hurt to breathe.

Then she heard Alex’s voice, and froze.

“Neil, I want to talk Monday about the Steele Insurance case,” he was saying from out in the hallway. She could tell he was coming this way and, from his jovial tone, seemed to be in a very good mood.

And then he was there, about to pass by her office, his hands thrust casually into his pants pockets, his face bright, when he saw Juliet and stopped.

“You’re here,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder—probably checking to make sure that Neil hadn’t ventured out—and then stepped into Juliet’s office. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been at home,” Juliet said.

Alex’s eyes flickered toward the boxes on her desk. “You’re leaving?”

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

“Of course I’m surprised. Why would you leave?”

Juliet tucked her hair behind her ears. “Because I can’t continue working with you, Alex. Not after—well. You know. Here.” She handed him the letter of resignation she’d typed out. Alex stared down at it.

“I told you that wouldn’t affect our working relationship,” he said.

Juliet raised her eyebrows. “How could it not?” she said simply.

“Look. It was…well, I’m not going to say it was a mistake, because I don’t regret it.” Alex smiled then, looking rather wolfish for a moment. “But if you don’t want to get personally involved with me, I’ll respect your decision. Besides, I have good news.”