Valerie takes a deep breath and nods, having no idea what to say in response.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” she finally says, wondering if her words now, and what she is doing generally, make her a good mother or a decidedly bad one. She feels sure it is one extreme or the other, and even more certain that only time will tell which camp she’s in.
35
Tessa
Thirty minutes before Carolyn is due to arrive, and just after I’ve put the kids to bed, I find Nick in the family room, sound asleep in a pair of old scrubs. I have a flashback to his residency, how he routinely fell asleep everywhere but our bed—on the couch, at the table, once even standing in the kitchen. He was making a cup of tea and nodded off in mid-sentence, awakening as his chin hit the counter. Despite more blood than I’d ever seen in real life, he refused to go back to the hospital where he had just completed a thirty-six-hour rotation. Instead, I took him to bed, holding a bandage to his chin for most of the night.
I sit on the edge of the couch now, listening to him snore for a moment before gently shaking him awake. “They wear you out, don’t they?” I ask as his eyes flutter open.
He yawns and says, “Yeah. Frankie got up before six this morning. And your daughter—
” He shakes his head fondly.
“My daughter?”
“Yes, your daughter,” he says. “She’s too much.”
We both smile as he continues, “She is one particular little girl.”
“That’s a delicate way to put it,” I say.
He runs his hands through his hair and says, “She just about had a meltdown at the museum when her apple slices grazed her ketchup. And my God . . . to get that girl to wear socks. You’d think I was suggesting a straitjacket.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What does she have against socks, anyway?” he asks. “I don’t get it.”
“She says socks are for boys,” I say.
“So bizarre,” he mumbles. Then, through an exaggerated yawn, he says, “Would you be upset if we stayed in tonight?”
“You don’t want to go out?” I say, doing my best not to take his position as an affront, a difficult thing to do given that he went out last night, and had planned to go to a movie tonight, solo or otherwise.
“I want to ... I’m just so damn tired,” he says.
Although I am also exhausted, and still have a residual headache, I believe that Nick will take the conversation more seriously if we are in a nice setting—or, at the very least, stay awake, which is only a fifty-fifty proposition if we stay in. But I resist making this inflammatory point, instead blaming Carolyn, telling him I don’t feel comfortable canceling on her last-minute.
“So give her fifty bucks for the opportunity cost,” Nick says, folding his hands on his chest. “I’d pay fifty bucks not to go out right now.”
I look at him, wondering how much he would pay to avoid our discussion altogether. He stares back up at me, unyielding.
“Okay. We’ll stay in,” I relent. “But can we eat in the dining room? Open a good bottle of wine? Maybe get dressed a bit?” I say, eyeing his scrubs again, once a turn-on, now a grim reminder of one of the possible suspects in our rough patch. If I’m lucky, that is.
He gives me a look that conveys both annoyance and amusement, and I can’t decide which offends me more. “Sure thing,” he says. “Would you like me to wear a suit and tie? Perhaps a sweater vest?”
“You don’t own a sweater vest,” I say.
“Okay. So I guess that’s out,” he says, slowly standing and stretching. I study the lines of his back, feeling the sudden urge to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his neck, and confess my every worry. But something keeps me at a distance. Wondering if it is fear, pride, or resentment, I remain in my most efficient mode, informing him that I’ll handle calling Carolyn and ordering dinner—and that he should go upstairs and change. “Relax a bit,” I add with a strategic, indulgent smile. “Get your second wind.”
He gives me a circumspect look, then turns toward the stairs.
“Sushi okay with you?” I call after him.
“That’s fine,” he says with a shrug. “Whatever you want.”
***
A short time later, our sushi has arrived and we have reconvened in the dining room. Nick, wearing gray flannel slacks and a black rollneck sweater, appears to be in a good mood yet shows signs of nervousness, cracking his knuckles twice before opening a bottle of wine and pouring two glasses.
“So,” he says as he sits and gazes down in his miso soup. “Tell me about last night. Did you have fun?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Until I started to worry . . .”
With a trace of scorn, he says, “What are you worried about now?”
I take a deep breath and a sip of wine before saying, “Our relationship.”