Or maybe I had. I’d taken one of those psycho pills. I was wide awake, my heart slamming against my rib cage. I took another pill and passed out and slept until Nicky woke me the next morning.
Daylight streamed in through the windows. I was in Nicky’s bed. I’d fallen asleep with all my clothes on. Sunlight splashed onto the bedroom floor.
“Good morning, Mom,” Nicky said.
I kissed his damp, smooth forehead, and we snuggled under the covers. It was bliss.
I want Nicky to have a father. I’ll stay in touch with Sean. Meanwhile I’ll file for divorce. For full custody. Just in case. These international transatlantic lawsuits can take ages to settle.
I don’t know what Stephanie expected from me. Perhaps she imagined we’d become real best friends now. That we’d pool our resources and children and live together in some experimental cooperative-kibbutz kind of thing, dividing up childcare and laundry.
That was never going to happen. Even living with Sean would have been better than that.
I went back to Dennis Nylon and negotiated a substantial raise which I used to hire a full-time nanny. I persuaded Dennis to support a foundation that rescues and shelters street kids, and we named it after my sister. I’ve also worked out more flextime that I can spend with Nicky and that allows me to work part-time from home. I suppose that sometimes you have to leave to make people appreciate you, though this approach can backfire as I discovered with Sean.
I never would have imagined that I could be satisfied with a life like the one I’m leading now. Home, motherhood, work—minus that terrifying boredom, that unstoppable urge to cause trouble, to make something dramatic and awful happen for myself and for everyone around me. I’m doing a pretty good job of fending off that sense that I’m not fully alive unless I’m in control, in flight, or in danger. Maybe all the suffering I’ve been through—losing my sister, being separated from Nicky—has taught me a lesson and brought me some sort of wisdom. Or maybe not. It remains to be seen how long this truce with my demons can last. But for now it seems to be holding. Who knows how long I can keep this up—or what the future will bring.
Nicky and Miles are still friendly, but they don’t have many playdates. Our new nanny, Sarah, drops Nicky off and picks him up at Stephanie’s house.
I’m in occasional contact with Sean. I plan to set up a time in the (not-so-near) future when he can fly over and see Nicky, but that will have to wait until I feel that he is sufficiently sorry for what he did, for forcing me to disappear and to pretend that I was dead—and for contributing to my twin sister’s death.
I haven’t yet decided how—and how much—I plan to make Sean suffer. At the very least I still want him to suffer as much as I have.
I like being back at Dennis Nylon. Everyone there seems glad to have me back after all my adventures. I like being home to have dinner with Nicky or at least to put him to bed. I like my privacy, my solitude.
I couldn’t be more pleased with the way things have worked out.
44
Stephanie's Blog
All Is Well
Hi, moms!
All’s well that ends well. Though of course motherhood never ends as long as we and our kids are on this earth—and it lasts longer than that, as I’ve blogged about in the past.
Emily and I are neighbors again, raising our sons to be the happiest, healthiest little people we can. Sean is out of the country, and it’s not clear when (or if) he’ll return. I assume, though the details of this are beyond me, that he might be facing some kind of legal trouble when (and if) he comes back. And knowing Emily, I’m sure she plans to make him pay—pay dearly—for what he’s done.
I don’t see Emily as much as I’d like. She’s working so hard and being such a great mom, making up for lost time. But friendships wax and wane, and I know a time will come when we’ll again hang out on her big, comfy couch, if she still has it. Miles tells me that Nicky has some new stuff in his house, different from when we lived there. I don’t press him for details. There are some things, plenty of things, I don’t want to think about.
Miles is doing splendidly at school, Nicky trailing only slightly behind.
We’ve all been through a lot. But little Nicky is the one my heart goes out to. He paid the highest price. Losing his mother and getting her back and then losing his dad. How will he ever learn to trust?
The only comfort is how strong kids are. How brave and tough and resilient. Nicky will survive this and grow from it—and grow up into an even more thoughtful, compassionate, wise adult. A more interesting person.
There will come a time when each one of us will be able to move on and put this behind us, when we learn to live with our secrets, to value them. Because they are a part of us too.
I couldn’t have gotten through this challenging time without the love and support of the moms community.
God bless you, moms everywhere. Keep strong. Stay beautiful. And if you have a story like this, I encourage you to post it.
More soon.
Love,
Stephanie
45
Emily
A month or so after I moved back into my own house, a police car crawled up the driveway and stopped in front of our door.
I told myself: This means nothing.
Two plainclothes cops got out and rang the doorbell.
The woman extended her hand first. “I’m Detective Meany,” she said. “And this is my partner, Detective Fortas.”
I said, “I’m Emily Nelson.”
“Yes, we know,” said Detective Meany.
“Would you like to come in?” I said. I had nothing to hide.
They came in and sat on the new couch I’d bought to replace the one Stephanie sat on.
“I don’t think we ever officially met,” said Detective Fortas. “But we worked on your case. We met your husband—”
“My about-to-be-former husband is in the UK at the moment.”
“I see,” said Detective Meany. “That probably shouldn’t have happened. Someone will probably need to interview him at some point . . .”
I was curious to know at what “point” that would be. But I kept my curiosity in check. I assumed I would find out, sooner rather than later.
“Look,” I said, “I want to say . . . I’m so sorry I put you to all that trouble. It wasn’t entirely my fault. My husband worked himself into a frenzy, pushed the panic button when I went off the radar. But all I needed was a little time off to mourn my sister’s death. I really needed to unplug, to get way off the grid. It was a huge miscommunication that unfortunately intersected with an insurance policy I’d forgotten Sean had taken out.” I smiled.
“I remember,” said Detective Fortas. “We also interviewed a young woman, a friend, the mother of one of your son’s friends . . .”
“Good memory,” I said. “That would have been Stephanie. Not my least neurotic friend, if you know what I mean.”
Detective Meany smiled. She’d met Stephanie. She knew what I meant. The two cops laughed mirthlessly, as if they weren’t sure why they were laughing or if they should laugh at all.
I said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but can I ask why you are here?”
“Just a conversation,” said Detective Fortas. “A preliminary conversation. Over the last few days, someone found a wrecked and burned-out car not far from the interstate. Not that far from here. And in the car were the cremains of a man we believe to have been a Mr. Isaac Prager. This house was on the list of calls he made in the weeks before he disappeared. And naturally we connected this with your apparent disappearance, which, as we said, we investigated.”
“How amazing!” I said. “What a coincidence!” I was flirting with both of them. I needed them to believe me.
Detective Meany said, “There wasn’t much evidence left in the wreckage. Most likely, it was an accident. But there are some suspicious and . . . intriguing aspects here. And they did find a piece of jewelry at the scene that seems unlikely to have belonged to Mr. Prager.”