WHEN MY FATHER was in that despair of metastasized cancer and we were getting beyond any thoughts of good news, I would sit in sterile rooms, partly frozen, braced in locked-down position for more bad news. At these moments, when the weight felt so heavy as to push me deeper in the earth, my mind would yearn for a day of nondescription, a day like any other that got bunched and filed in my drawer under “previous life.” I yearned for normalcy and monotony, where conversations between my father and me could consist of music and weather. I wondered about times in our past when I was eager to get off the phone to rush to do something as mundane as answering a client’s call, or going to get lunch. I couldn’t remember those last times, before a chance diagnosis made cancer the only topic in the room. What did we talk about? If only I had known, how I would have savored that chat and stretched it out. I would have concentrated. I would have been present.
It is the same with the kids. When was the last time Brigid had ridden in a stroller? Was I frustrated on that last trip by her increasing size, or the fact her feet dragged on the ground because she had grown so tall? If I knew there was a very last time I was to push her, maybe I would have lingered in Central Park or bought that ice cream she wanted just to commemorate a final stage of infancy? When did Brigid stop saying “Weely, weely wuv wu” when I gave her a lollipop or read a story with energy, or snuggled with her while ignoring a ringing phone? When did it become “Thanks”?
Somewhere in the future, you may reach to remember something in your current everyday. You know there will be a final time you walk your daughter to school, or have the body that can nimbly ride a bike, or comfortably wear a bikini. Most things aren’t there for us as long as we think they will be. And that was confusing me these days with Henry oddly in my life again. Last times were supposed to be final.
Henry isn’t speaking as he stands in the doorway. I mumble something first, something awkward about being in a bathrobe, being confused about CeeV-TV, since I just heard the news. But he just stands there adjusting his dark hair, shaking his head in an amused, King-of-the-Hedge-Fund way. I know he bought CeeV-TV stock and put it into Cheetah’s fund. I know he bought about 2 million shares with us alone, and that the commissions from that will pay for the second-grade tuition for Kevin. Henry is well on his way to being a partner. Hedge fund partner, multimillionaire, father of three—my Henry is the whole package. He must be ecstatic and here to personally thank me, to tell me we’re all even on the preschool front, that he will no longer be such a moron in our professional lives. But instead his movements get curious, as if he is confused or about to cry or in a great deal of pain.
His beautiful smile twists, his brow furrows, and his hand that’s holding up his giant frame in the doorway goes to his forehead. I want to say something further, to ask him what’s wrong, but I don’t because I still know him well. I’m still fluent in his body language, having mastered it long ago. He can say whatever he wants with words but his body says so much more. He can show off in an investment meeting, he can sit looking rapt with his kids in preschool chapel, but still after all this time, I think I know everything he feels.
His silence makes me want to fill it responsibly—I’m the good girl, the enabler, and I should cover this awkward moment and be the leader here. But the leader is tired of being responsible for so many people. I feel some twinge of damsel, and it feels interesting to try to not take charge; it feels almost feminine. I let the awkward pause hang in the air, letting him deal with it.
His left hand reaches out and firmly goes around my neck. He has always liked my neck. It’s long but feels small clasped by his large hand and cold fingers.
“What?” I whisper, even though I know what.
He has no right to be touching my neck.
His other hand comes under my soapy hair. I briefly think how thin it must feel. My babies made my hair fall out, and it never returned to me—my follicles, shutting down and exhausted from thirty-six years of pushing out blond hair, and then brown hair that was abused into being blond again. When hormones pushed them out of my head, they surrendered, rolled over, and died. And now I was sure Henry would notice this. But I feel oddly proud. I have so much now, so much to show for my time away from Henry.
He pulls my wet hair away from my face in that way that tells me he doesn’t care that my hair is wet or thin or that it’s messing up his shirt. I know if I let him kiss me, it’ll be that kiss I’ll always compare Bruce’s to. Henry’s are soulful and deep and they take me somewhere otherworldly. For just a small minute I let him do it, telling myself this will only happen once, and then I make him stop.
? ? ?
In the morning he is gone. I wake up and I’m alone with a lingering smell of soap and Henry in the air. I’m certain he slipped out of bed, scrubbed meticulously, and headed to the gym. He showers before working out. I’ll next see him at the conference, where I will already be in second place. Henry will have exercised; Henry will have read the paper and every news site. Henry will have all the details about CeeV-TV down cold. Henry will be ahead of me.