After an emotional phone session with Amy on Sunday afternoon, we agree that I should spend a final night or two in New York—that it might be the last chance to really reflect on everything in solitude. So I spend the next forty-eight hours thinking, praying, crying, and replaying the events of the last few days, as well as the last fifteen years.
When I arrive home, late Tuesday afternoon, I find Nolan and Harper in our disastrously messy kitchen, making cookies and listening to “The Little Drummer Boy.” Their backs are to me, and for a moment I watch the two of them, undetected. As he lifts her up to preheat the oven, I am mesmerized by the cozy scene set to the rhythm of pa rum pa pum pums—so much so that I nearly forget how much I dislike Christmas carols before Thanksgiving. I nearly forget everything, in fact, other than the love I feel for my daughter. Then, as Nolan puts her back down, they both turn and see me and my trance is broken. To my enormous relief, Harper’s eyes immediately light up, pure joy on her face.
“Mommy!” she shouts, running toward me, falling into my arms, melting me.
“Harper,” I say, holding on to her for as long as she’ll let me.
Finally, she squirms away, returning to her step stool at the counter, talking a mile a minute, telling me that they’re making sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles, as a “practice run” (one of Nolan’s expressions) for the batch they’ll make for Santa next month. I listen and nod, hanging on her every word, wondering how she could look older after only a week and a half, vowing to never be gone from her this long again. Determined to be more present, patient, grateful. All the while, I avoid eye contact with Nolan, and can feel that he’s doing the same with me.
“Oh, Mommy. Guess what?” Harper asks, her trademark preamble.
“What?” I say, walking over to the counter and watching her awkwardly wield a wooden spoon, her tiny arm not strong enough to cut through the still-floury mixture.
“Daddy says we are allowed to eat raw cookie dough.” Her eyes sparkle with victory.
I start to protest, pointing out the risks of salmonella in raw eggs and batter, the way I always do. But instead I nod and say, “Okay. This once.”
“Living on the edge,” I hear Nolan mumble.
I finally glance his way, flashing him a tight-lipped smile, my heart twisting with so many competing emotions. “Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says back, smiling back at me just as tensely. “How was your trip? Fun?”
I try to interpret his tone, wondering if it’s more flippant or furtive, but can’t tell for sure. “The trip was fine…but I wouldn’t call it fun….I missed Harper too much to have fun,” I say.
“And you missed Daddy, too?” Harper asks.
I look into her eyes, wondering if she is really this intuitive and insightful—or if the question is simply part of her constant stream of babble.
“Yes. I missed Daddy,” I lie, although a very small part of me actually did miss him. At least the part of him that is inextricably tied to our daughter.
“Will you help us make cookies?” Harper asks.
“I’d love to,” I say, rolling up my sleeves, preparing to wash my hands.
Harper beats me to the punch, pointing at me with her spoon, her face stern. “Wash your hands first, Mommy,” she says. “Airplanes are filthy.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nolan smile. “That’s your daughter, all right.”
“Yes,” I reply on my way to the sink. “She most certainly is.”
—
THREE DOZEN BAKED and decorated cookies later, Nolan and I have barely exchanged as many words, at least not directly with each other. We stick to breezy statements, using Harper as our conduit, such as “Tell Mommy about your visit to the dentist” and “Can you and Daddy guess who came to visit me in New York?”
With the latter question, I stare at Nolan, feeling certain that Josie has already tipped him off and that he knows that I now know the truth about the night Daniel died. When he shoots me a remorseful glance, my hunch feels confirmed.
“Aunt Josie,” Harper either states or guesses.
I tell her yes, watching Nolan prod at an oversize cookie with a spatula. It has clearly not cooled long enough, but he continues anyway, breaking it. He throws one half in his mouth and finally addresses me directly. “So how did the visit go?” he asks.
“Don’t you already know how it went?” I say, my anger bubbling to the surface.
Nolan opens his mouth to reply, then closes it. He might as well have just pleaded the Fifth, and I tell him as much.
“We’ll talk in a minute,” he says, gesturing toward Harper, now making her way to the family room with cookies in both of her hands.
I shake my head. “Not with Harper awake,” I say, thinking that there is no way we can have this conversation without raising our voices. At least I can’t.
“My parents are coming to get her,” he says, glancing at the clock on the microwave. “In about an hour.”
“What?” I say. “Why? I just got home. I want to spend time with her.”
“Yeah. Well, you didn’t inform us of your itinerary. And I already asked if they would babysit for me.”