I picture Ruby, softly snoring, all twisted in her sheets, wild even in her sleep. Ruby, our precocious, fearless firstborn, four going on fourteen, with her bewitching smile, dark curls that she makes even tighter in her self-portraits, too young to know that as a girl she is supposed to want the hair she does not have, and those pale aquamarine eyes, a genetic feat for her brown-eyed parents. She has ruled our home and hearts since virtually the day she was born—in a way that both exhausts me and fills me with awe. She is exactly like her father—stubborn, passionate, breathtakingly beautiful. A daddy’s girl to the core.
And then there’s Frank, our satisfying baby boy with a cuteness and sweetness that exceeds the mere garden-variety-baby cute and sweet, so much so that strangers in the grocery store stop and remark. He is nearly two, but still loves to cuddle, nestling his smooth round cheek against my neck, fiercely devoted to his mama. He’s not my favorite, I swear to Nick in private when he smiles and accuses me of this parental transgression. I do not have a favorite, unless perhaps it is Nick himself. It is a different kind of love, of course. The love for my children is without condition or end, and I would most certainly save them over Nick, if, say, all three were bitten by rattlesnakes on a camping trip and I only had two antivenin shots in my backpack. And yet, there is nobody I’d rather talk to, be near, look at, than my husband, an unprecedented feeling that overcame me the moment we met.
Our dinner and check arrive moments later, and Nick and I stand and walk out of the restaurant into the star-filled, purple night. It is early October, but feels more like winter than fall—cold even by Boston standards—and I shiver beneath my long cashmere coat as Nick hands the valet our ticket and we get into our car. We leave the city and drive back to Wellesley with little conversation, listening to one of Nick’s many jazz CDs.
Thirty minutes later, we are pulling up our tree-lined driveway. “How late do you think you’ll be?”
“Hard to say,” Nick says, putting the car into park and leaning across the front seat to kiss my cheek. I turn my face toward him and our lips softly meet.
“Happy anniversary,” he whispers.
“Happy anniversary,” I say.
He pulls away, and our eyes lock as he says, “To be continued?”
“Always,” I say, forcing a smile and slipping out of the car.
Before I can close the door, Nick turns up the volume of his music, dramatically punctuating the end of one evening, the start of another. As I let myself in the house, Vince Guaraldi’s “Lullaby of the Leaves” echoes in my head where it remains long after I’ve paid the babysitter, checked on the kids, changed out of my backless black dress, and eaten cold steak at the kitchen counter.
Much later, having turned down Nick’s side of the bed and crawled into my own, I am alone in the dark, thinking of the call in the restaurant. I close my eyes, wondering whether we are ever truly blindsided by misfortune. Or, somehow, somewhere, in the form of empathy or worry or a premonition deep within ourselves, do we feel it coming?
I fall asleep, not knowing the answer. Not knowing that this will be the night I will return to, after all.
2
Valerie
Valerie knew she should’ve said no—or more accurately stuck to no, the answer she gave Charlie the first dozen times he begged her to go to the party. He had tried every angle, including the “I don’t have a daddy or a dog” guilt trip, and when that got him nowhere, he enlisted the support of his uncle Jason, who was longer on charm than anyone Valerie knew.
“Oh, come on, Val,” he said. “Let the kid have a little fun.”
Valerie shushed her twin brother, pointing toward the family room where Charlie was building an elaborate Lego dungeon. Jason repeated himself verbatim, this time in an exaggerated whisper as Valerie shook her head, declaring that six years old was too young for a sleepover, especially one outdoors in a tent. It was a familiar exchange as Jason habitually accused his sister of being overprotective and too strict with her only child.
“Right,” he said, smirking at her. “I’ve heard that bear attacks are on the rise in Boston.”
“Very funny,” Valerie said, going on to explain that she didn’t know the boy’s family well enough, and what she had gleaned of them, she didn’t much like.
“Lemme guess—they’re loaded?” Jason asked teasingly, pulling up his jeans, which had a way of sliding down his spindly frame, exposing the waistband of his boxers. “And you don’t want him mixing with that kind?”