Every hour over the next few days, and virtually every minute of every hour, is torture, marked by a range of emotions too varied to chart but all shades of bleak and bleaker. I am ashamed for what has happened to me, humiliated by Nick’s infidelity even as I look in the mirror, alone. I am furious when he calls (six times), e-mails (three), and drops off letters in the mailbox (twice). But I am frantic and filled with deep despair when a stretch of time goes by that he doesn’t. I scrutinize his silence, imagining them together, jealousy and insecurity pulsing inside me. I scrutinize his words even more, his apologies, his proclamations of love for me and our family, his pleas for a second chance.
But with Cate’s help, I remain vigilant and strong and do not contact him—not once. Not even in my weakest late-night moments when his messages are soft and sad, and my heart aches with loneliness. I am punishing him, of course—twisting the knife with every unreturned message. But I am also doing my best to prove to myself that I can survive without him. I am gearing up to tell him that I meant what I said. That we are done, and that he no longer has a place in my home or heart. Moving forward, he will be the father of my children, nothing more.
To this point, my first communication with him is two days before Christmas, an e-mail of precise instructions regarding the children and the visit I am granting him on Christmas Eve. I hate that I have to give him that much, that I have to contact him at all, for any reason, but I know he has a right to see the kids—and more important, they have a right to see him. I tell him that he may come to the house at three o’clock, that Carolyn will be here to let him in. I am paying her for four hours, but he is free to let her go, so long as she is back by seven when I return. I do not want to see him. I tell him to have the
kids fed, bathed, and dressed in their Christmas pajamas, and that I will put them to bed. He should retrieve any belongings he needs for the next few weeks, and that we will schedule a weekend in January for him to get the rest. I am all business. Ice-cold. I reread, fix a typo, hit send. Within seconds, his response appears:
Thank you, Tessa. Would you please tell me what you’ve told the kids, as I want to be consistent?
The e-mail stabs at my heart, not for what is there, but for what isn’t. He didn’t ask to see me. He didn’t ask for the four of us to be together. He didn’t ask to come over on Christmas morning and watch the kids open their presents. I am enraged that he seems to be throwing in the towel, but then tell myself that I would have refused him anyway, and that I didn’t leave him even a slight opening to ask for more. And that is because there is no opening. There is nothing he can say or do to change my mind. My hands shaking, I type:
I told them that you’ve been working very hard at the hospital because a little boy was badly hurt and that he needs you to make him better. They seem satisfied with this explanation for now. We will have to handle after the holidays, but I do not want their Christmas ruined by this.
There is no mistaking the little boy I am referring to, no mistaking the subtext: You put another child above your own. And because of that choice, our family is broken forever.
***
Later that afternoon, the doorbell rings. Expecting it to be the UPS man with a final delivery of catalogue-purchased Christmas gifts for the kids, I answer the door. But instead, I find April with a bag of presents and a tentative smile.
“Merry Christmas,” she says, her smile growing broader but no less uneasy.
“Merry Christmas,” I say, feeling conflicted as I force a smile of my own. On the one hand, I am still angry at her for handling things the way she did, and have the irrational feeling that she and Romy somehow made this happen to me. On the other hand, she has arrived at a very lonely moment, and I can’t help feeling relieved and a little bit happy to see my friend.
“Would you like to come in?” I ask, somewhere between formal and friendly.
She hesitates, as drop-in visits, even among close friends, are firmly on her list of faux pas, but then says, “I’d love to.”
I step aside and lead her through the foyer into my very messy kitchen, where she hands me a bag of beautifully wrapped presents.
“Thank you . . . You shouldn’t have,” I say, thinking that I didn’t this year, for the very first time deciding that gifts to friends and neighbors simply weren’t going to happen. And for once, I let it go, let myself off the hook with no feelings of guilt.
“It’s just my usual pound cake. Nothing fancy,” she says—although her pound cakes are a thing of beauty. “And a little something for the kids.” She glances around and asks where they are.
“Watching television,” I say, pointing toward the stairs. “In my room.
“Ah,” she says.
“There’s been a lot of television watching these days,” I admit.
“Television is crucial this time of year,” she agrees, a rare admission. “My kids are bouncing off the walls. And the threat of Santa Claus not showing up has really lost its teeth.”
I laugh and say, “Yeah. That one doesn’t work so well with Ruby, either. Nothing works with Ruby.”
Then, after one awkward beat, I ask if she’d like a cup of coffee.
“I’d love a cup,” she says. “Thank you.”