I keep searching the car, finding thirty-eight cents forgotten in a cup holder, a wad of chewed gum swaddled in the wrapper beneath a seat, piquing my interest. What else might be hiding beneath the seat?
I reach my hand as far as it will go under the passenger’s and then the driver’s seats, scratching a forearm on the jagged parts beneath that seat, feeling blindly and coming up empty, or almost empty until a single finger grazes something cold and flat beneath the chair, a thin slice of metal no bigger than a key chain or a pocket mirror. I pinch it awkwardly between my fingertips and pull, coming up with far more than I’d ever expected to discover.
I gather the item in a hand before stepping out into the dim light of the garage to see, like an archaeologist peeking through a sieve, looking for treasure.
But this isn’t treasure.
At the sight of it, my fingers and legs go lame, unable to move. My heart beats its wings inside my chest, in a panic, quickly taking fright, a trapped bird unable to fly as a predator watches on from a distance. The afternoon sunlight smuggles its way into the garage and hits the object square on, refracting its light toward me, and just like that, I am blind. I lose the ability to see. The world around me becomes a shiny, golden yellow before it fades to black.
My head can no longer think straight, my eyes can no longer see as I realize that the answer to my question lies there, clear as day in the palm of my hand.
NICK
BEFORE
The dance studio is located in an old furniture factory in the town next to ours. It’s a three-story redbrick building that lines the railroad tracks. It’s been refurbished and flaunts all those exposed beams and ductwork that people want these days. The floors are a dark wood, the office spaces bound by glass. The upper floor of the building is loft apartments, but down below are a photographer’s studio, a home decorator, attorneys, dentists and more. And a dance studio, of course. I can’t help but wonder what the lease payment is on a place like this, though I also wonder how much traffic comes and goes through. The building is off the beaten path; without a devoted client base, there’s no chance in the world of ever being found.
The whole way to ballet, for fifteen miles and nearly thirty minutes, I stared in my rearview mirror, searching for signs of Theo and his Beemer. Nearly every black car I saw scared the daylights out of me, as I was half sure it was Theo coming to get even with Maisie and me in case we weren’t already even. I’m not the only one who’s scared. In the back seat, Maisie sits with her eyes pinned to glass, quiet like Maisie is never quiet. She holds tightly to my hand as we walk inside, peering over her shoulder. I can feel my eye start to swell, a shiner taking form.
Inside the building, in the common space, there are signs posted—No tap shoes in the hall—and yet a group of girls scurry down the corridor, tapping their toes and giggling. As we walk down the hallway, Maisie becomes giddy with anticipation, forgetting about Theo as she skips along.
The other mothers eye me as I step inside the lobby of the dance studio, looking me up and down before they smile. They say a soft hello to Maisie as I help her into her ballet slippers, and she disappears with her friends behind a closed door, where I stand and watch through a pane of glass as the teacher, a pretty woman no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, leads the ten girls and one boy through their ballet positions. The women make small talk while we wait, asking me how Clara is feeling and whether or not the baby has arrived. I pull up photos on my phone, and they pass it around, oohing and aahing as they gaze at my boy. “He looks just like you,” says one of the women, and another says that he’s a cutie-pie.
As I stand and watch the ballet class, I feel the week start to weigh heavily on me. I’m tired, and yet I have no good reason to complain. Clara is the one who has tackled all those late night feedings while I’ve tried to keep her company—tried and failed. But still, I’m tired. I find a couple of quarters in the pocket of my jeans and step toward a vending machine, pressing in the code for a Mountain Dew. I’m not one to drink soda—I know exactly what all those sugar byproducts do to the teeth—but right now, a jolt of caffeine is just what I need. I watch as the plastic bottle falls down into the chute, twist the cap off and quaff half the bottle in a single gulp, sliding the cap into my pocket beside Gus’s abandoned green army man that I picked up the other day. There’s also a couple Halcion pills stuffed in there, which I plan to flush just as soon as I get home. That’s something I no longer want or need.
I wonder when I will find out if Gus is my son.
It’s a sinking feeling, knowing that if he is I’ll have to confess to Clara about it. I’ll have to come clean. I didn’t do anything wrong—I didn’t even know Clara twelve years ago—and yet this little boy will change the future of our marriage together. There will always be a reminder that before Clara, I’d been with another woman. Clara wasn’t the only one.
For the last five minutes of ballet, we’re allowed inside the classroom so we can watch the kids perform. The mothers and I line up against a mirrored wall as our children begin to twirl gracelessly to the sound of a Disney soundtrack. I can’t take my eyes off Maisie, the awkward and yet adorable way her spindly arms rise up above her head, the way her knees buckle as she bends down to plié, the torn knee of her tights reminding me of Theo, though I try to push his face from my mind and to focus on Maisie and only Maisie. She smiles at me, feeling like a princess, like all eyes are on her and none of the other children. It’s spellbinding; I’m hypnotized by my little girl as she peers behind me to see her own reflection in the studio mirror. She waves, and the little figure in the mirror waves back. The other mothers take notice and smile. I pull my phone from my pocket and take a video, thinking how I will show this to Clara when I get home, and then I silently thank Felix for his fussiness this afternoon, knowing that if it hadn’t been for Felix and his ravenous appetite, I would have missed out on this moment of my life. Watching Maisie dance.
Back in the lobby, I tell Maisie to sit so I can help her with her shoes. “Miss Becca says we’re going to have a recital,” she’s telling me as I remove the slippers and force her foot into the pink sandal. “She says we get to dance on a big, big stage and wear a pretty dress.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, and Maisie says, “Yeah.” I ask when, but all she does is shrug. She says she’s hoping for a pink dress. Pink or purple or bright blue. With sequins and a fluffy tutu.
My stomach grumbles, and Maisie’s stomach grumbles, and I realize then that it’s nearly five o’clock. Traffic will be a mess on the way home. “I’m hungry, Daddy,” says Maisie, and I say to her, “Me, too.”