On Grace (22 page)

“Hold it together, Gracie!” Kiki says, laughing.

“It’s okay, Grace,” Jake says, handing me a napkin across the table.

“We all are who we are today for a lot of different reasons. The type of family we grew up in, the type of parents we had, all sorts of things. But so much of who we all are is because of our friends. There’s something precious about old friends. I just want you all to know how much I cherish each of you and our individual and shared histories. I know I’m getting a little sentimental, but living so far away also makes me distant from these feelings, so when I’m home, they come up. Anyway, I’m not even making sense anymore. I just want you all to know I love you.”

Arden turns to me and gives me a hug, while the rest of the table erupts in shouts of “Awww” and “Gracie!” I sneak a look at Jake, but he’s already back in conversation with Scotty. I’m not angry at him for what he did. Not even a little. I’m flattered that he wanted to kiss me. Ecstatic even. Like in Darren’s email when he wrote, “It felt good to have an attractive woman flirt with me and to have her want me.” I get it. No matter how old you get, no matter how comfortable in your relationship, it still feels good to know you’re attractive to another person. Especially one you’re attracted to in return. The central point rests on what you do next.

“Welcome Home Mommy!!!” the signs taped to the mudroom door read. Henry’s newly perfected bubble letters combined with James’s green (he’s in a green phase) scribbles welcome me to a dark and quiet, but not empty, home. I feel like I’ve been gone for weeks, and the house feels different. As if while I was gone, another family moved in with their belongings, their scent, their rhythms. There are lacrosse sticks and new cleats strewn across the mudroom floor, and new jerseys stuffed into their cubbies, evidence of Darren’s trip to the sporting goods store with the boys. My boys’ belongings, new to me, precious and familiar now to them. I quietly set my bags down and decide not to turn the lights on in the kitchen. The Darren-clean, as we call it, which takes great effort from him and receives vocalized appreciation with silent derision from me, can be dealt with in the morning.

I walk up the back staircase to peek into the boys’ rooms. This ritual, my nightly rounds, is usually just an end-cap to the day, like brushing my teeth and removing the decorative pillows from my bed, one more thing I
just
do before I go to sleep. It always brings me great happiness to see my boys sleeping peacefully. And it’s not just about their inability to ask me for one more baseball pitch, one more book, one more glass of water. It’s seeing them safe, and knowing that it was me who was the one mostly responsible for returning them unharmed to their beds for yet another night. That I was the one who successfully managed to mother them appropriately for yet another day in this seemingly endless journey of parenting. But doing the nightly rounds, well, nightly, steals a bit of sweetness from the routine and makes it, well, routine. Having been away from the boys for two nights, I am excited tonight to do my rounds.

I open Henry’s door and turn the light on while pushing the dimmer switch all the way down. He’s sleeping with Matt Christopher’s
Lacrosse Face-Off
open on his chest. Apparently, while I was away exploring the world of infidelity in L.A., my family was taking up lacrosse. I close the book, put it on his nightstand, kiss him on his forehead, and leave, switching off the light as I go. There is a light coming through the door to James’s room, and I find him asleep gripping his new lacrosse stick, his favorite stuffed animal discarded to the foot of his bed. I have an urge, which I indulge, to take off my shoes and curl up next to James in his bed. I stroke his hair and inhale his innocent boy smell. I realize I’m easing my way back into connecting with my family with a kiss for Henry, a cuddle with James. Hopefully, by the time I reach my bedroom, where my husband will be in bed waiting for me, (his text when I landed letting me know the door was unlocked and he was still awake), I will feel comfortable enough back in my duty as mother to resume the role of wife.

Dinner last night ended anti-climactically. My aborted kiss with Jake, the big dramatic climax of the weekend, gave way to a boring-by-comparison end of Act Two. Jake gave me a few searching glances across the dinner table that I interpreted to mean either that he was sorry that he went in for the kill or that he was sorry that the vulnerable cub’s overprotective mother lion appeared at the most inopportune moment. I returned those glances with my own, trying to convey with a squint of the eyes and a hint of a smile that what he did was okay, that I’m okay. That if I weren’t so tethered to my station in New York, despite the fact that I’m mostly happy I am thus tethered, then I would have further explored that outside-the-bathroom-door kiss. I would have even followed it up with a request to leave the restaurant that instant so I could spend the next few blissful hours doing things with him that would hopefully leave us both breathless and in love. But, being a man, Jake was probably baffled by my telepathic communiqué and most likely just thought I had something in my eyes.

We all hugged and chatted around the valet parking station outside, saying our goodbyes, laughing, making optimistic plans for a sequel, while I tried to nonchalantly inch closer to Jake so I could have a quick word.

“No need to be sorry,” I said, replying at last to the quick apology he had delivered when he returned to the table after I left him by the bathroom. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I said, deciding it was best to leave out the part where, had things been different in my life, I would have taken that kiss along with whatever was behind doors one, two,
and
three.

“I know I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want to have any regrets in my life.”

“I think I’m going to go back to Darren,” I said, for the first time even believing it myself.

“I think that’s great,” Jake said smiling, staring into my eyes.

“I hope you’re right.” I said, and I was able to hold his gaze without feeling myself blush, realizing that the anticipation of the zip line careening through the forest is much more exciting than the actual ride itself. I disembark at the end of the line and realize I’m stronger for having experienced it and ready to get on with the rest of my life.

“It was really nice seeing you, Gracie.”

“It was really nice seeing you, Jake,” I said and gave him a kiss on the cheek and a long hug.

Then Scotty grabbed me and started in with the Scotty hugs and sentiments, and before I knew it, Arden and I were back in Kiki’s car, Madonna’s “Over And Over” giving way to “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.”

My mom and sister woke me up at ten o’clock on Sunday morning, piling on my bed with large cappuccinos my sister brought from The Coffee Bean and a tray stacked high with warm
Barefoot Contessa
strawberry scones that she must have woken up early that morning to make. They asked me about the night, and I told them all about dinner, Arden’s presentation to Abigail of the who-loved-whom of our set, and what Scotty was planning for his wedding. I left out all mentions of Jake, especially the part where I almost cheated on my husband, still trying to convince myself—at times, unsuccessfully—that I didn’t really cheat. That I didn’t even come close. We talked and ate and before I knew it, I was in the shower, packing up, and then driving down the 405 with my mom to LAX to catch my flight back to JFK.

I had a glass of wine on the flight, curled up in a blanket, and listened to the soundtrack from
Once
over and over again. The melodies were haunting but my mind was, for the first time in a while, crystal clear. I led myself back through Darren’s and my relationship, from when we first met to the early days of falling in love, through our carefree days without kids as we built our careers in the city, through those exciting and utterly exhausting days of having babies, to our easing into suburban life. I didn’t go as far as the night he told me he cheated. I lingered in the feelings and atmosphere of life before The Bandit. Like loitering in the bridal room right before the wedding, knowing that outside that door waited something a bit scary and as soon as you entered that place, your life would never be the same. And though the experience of my wedding and the thought of Darren unceremoniously banging The Bandit are, clearly, two entirely different animals, they both changed things forever.

In my mind, I wanted to just be Grace and Darren again. The Darren without the cheater asterisk by his name. Pure Grace and Darren. The couple who could still trust each other, whose business trips weren’t second-guessed. I luxuriated in the memories of the looks he used to give me, the conversations we used to have, the sex that would go on all weekend long. I spent a lot of time on that flight perilously near the edge of Darren’s indiscretion but not going there. I needed to remind myself why it was worth it to go back to him. So that if I ended up going through with my decision to
actually
go back to him, I would be excited to jump back into, or maybe, more appropriately,
fall
back into that place of my marriage before I knew about The Bandit.

And I decided that I didn’t even come close to doing what he did. Yes, I flirted with Jake. Yes, I entertained thoughts in my mind of being with Jake. And, yes, I, kissed him. But I stopped it right away. Well, almost right away. I couldn’t get rid of a sinking feeling in my stomach that I had done something wrong. But, I stopped it. And that means everything. I chalked up the small feelings of doubt to my overanalytical brain.

After all that, I made a decision. A moment of clarity as the flight attendant handed me my snack box filled with dried fruit, crackers, cheese spread, and sliced salami. After the last couple weeks of confusion and indecision and humiliation and all manner of what if, I realized that one unfortunate night did not my marriage make. I would not simplify what he did by calling it a mistake, but in essence that’s really what it was. A really nasty mistake. And I saw personally, with Jake, how easy it was to make a mistake like that. I also realized that I have to give Darren a little credit for telling me about it. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Jake. Maybe we both needed a little pick-me-up, a little shot of espresso to get us through the rest of the marriage.

“Hey there,” Darren says, as I enter our bedroom. “Welcome home.”

I walk over to his side of the bed, sit on the edge, and bury my head in his neck, wrapping my arms around his back and starting to cry. Darren hugs me back, but when my crying gets heavier, he pulls away.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks me, gently wiping tears from my cheeks.

“I’m just happy to be home and happy to be with you, and I don’t want us to be apart,” I say, sobbing harder as I bury myself in Darren’s neck again.

“Oh, Gracie. I’m so happy to hear you say that.”

I pull away and look him straight in the eyes, “Just don’t
ever
do that again.”

“I won’t,” he says, hugging me. “I won’t. I love you so much.”

“I know,” I say sadly.

“You still can’t say it?” he asks.

I look at him. His eyes are smiling at me. I feel like I’m seeing him for the first time. “We still have a lot of work to do to get through this,” I say. “But for the first time since you told me, I can say with certainty that I’m willing to do that work. I don’t want the alternative.”

After a while of lying together quietly, I go into the bathroom to wash up and then return to bed.

“So how was your trip?” Darren asks, grinning at me and lying on his side. I can tell he is relieved that we’re moving on, that I’ve let him back in. Something light in his personality has been absent since he told me, actually since he cheated on me, and I’m happy to see the old Darren back.

“It was great, actually. I had a lot of fun with my mom and sister and such a nice time out with my friends last night.” I tell him more about the weekend and the dinner, leaving out any mention of Jake, his appearance at lunch and dinner completely deleted from the story.

“And what made you decide to forgive me?”

“I didn’t say I forgave you,” I say sarcastically with a half smile.

“Okay, fair enough. Let me rephrase. What made you decide to allow me to retain the position of your lucky husband?” he asks, returning the half smile.

“I don’t know. It was a lot of things, I guess. I just realized that I can allow what you did to be just small enough not to ruin us. I decided to not let your mistake—which I do believe didn’t mean anything however much it hurts—destroy us. All that’s good about you and me, our history, our relationship, our family, is so much bigger than that night. It may not be bigger than one more night though, so don’t get any ideas!” I say punching him lightly in the arm.

“No ideas. None.”

“It’s like a crack in a really great vase. The crack is there and it’s not going away, but you can kind of turn the vase around and after a while you might even forget the crack is there. And it’s worth trying to forget about the crack, because the vase is so beautiful.”

Darren kisses me gently, hesitantly.

“And,” I continue, not one to be of few words when it comes to explaining how I feel, “I also appreciate very much the fact that you told me. You could have kept it secret. If you hadn’t told me, I think it would have shown that you didn’t think it was a big deal, that you could live with it. By telling me, I almost think you showed more respect to me. That our marriage was worth the honesty.”

“That’s why I told you,” he says, holding both of my hands in his. “I don’t understand how men do those things and keep it a secret. I don’t know how they live with themselves. I was dishonest in what I did, and I realized the only way I could attempt to make that up to you was by being honest and telling you. But when I did tell you, I wasn’t so sure I had made the right decision. Now that I see how this whole process has made us stronger, I know I needed to have told you. I’m glad I did. No secrets, Grace. I promise, no secrets.”

“Me neither,” I say. “No secrets.”