Would Remi find someone to trust? And then would someone else, someone lurking in the shadows, take her away? Betsy pulled her daughter closer.
“Daddy said that we can have pancakes today,” said Remi, wiggling out of her grip and slipping back onto the floor.
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, I for one cannot wait to taste the pancakes Daddy is making this morning, in the next forty minutes, before we have to leave for school.”
Gavin was waiting at the door when she came home Sunday night, and Betsy, embarrassed, worn out, unable to keep it together a minute longer, wept as soon as she spotted him at the end of the hall. Graying at the temples, so much older than the man she first met, still not as lumpy around the middle as Betsy had predicted on their first trip to the lake. Gavin was the one she needed to see. They had arrived in New York with hopes that the constant thrum of life there would drown out their shared sadness, erase the blight on their past. She was slowly starting to understand that the blight was what made them. Without that premature reminder that life was often tragically short, would they have squandered even more precious time? Would they have made it as a couple for a few months and then drifted away after graduation, not feeling the urgency, neither one allowing the other to look at their weaknesses, the ugly parts, head-on?
Post-pancakes (which, to appease Betsy, were made with spelt flour but still drenched with syrup), Remi excused herself and announced that she would be getting dressed on her own. Minutes later, Remi emerged in her favorite purple striped dress, topped with a turquoise cardigan and accented with a fringed vest that was part of last year’s failed “cowpoke” costume and gold high-tops.
“Perfect,” said Betsy. She dug out a pair of rhinestone earrings, shaped like clusters of leaf-shaped stones, from her jewelry box and slid on her patent leather pumps with hopes that Remi would notice.
“You’re so shiny today!” she said, with a clear stamp of approval.
By the time Betsy and Remi rounded the block closest to school, Remi had counted to ten in Mandarin a dozen times. Betsy drew a deep breath, crossed the threshold to school, and greeted Elodie with a smile.
“Betsy! I’m delighted to see you!” Elodie said. “And Remi. Don’t you look happy today?”
Betsy knelt down to give her daughter a hug.
“OK, Rem. Go get ’em.”
Remi pecked her mother’s cheek before she darted into the classroom.
Before Elodie could speak, Betsy waved goodbye, with the briefest “See you tomorrow,” and turned to leave.
Outside on the sidewalk, the air felt crisp on her flushed cheeks. She looked up at the cloudless sky, infinite blue over the tops of the low buildings that lined the street. The clear morning light filtered through the tiny trees and reflected off of the windshields of cars parked along the curb. She wiped away the first tear, then the second. And then she started to laugh. She realized how ridiculous she looked in her sparkly earrings and heels, frozen in front of a preschool, her face wet and red with tears, and hunched over with laughter. People walked past her on the sidewalk, unfazed, expertly dodging the potentially insane woman on the sidewalk with barely a raised brow. Her phone buzzed in her bag. Gavin, she thought. She dug for it, but the call had gone to voice mail. For a few seconds, she debated calling him back, but decided it could wait until she got to the office. She texted Caroline instead.
I have a story you are going to love, Betsy tapped with her thumbs.
She looked down the sidewalk in the direction of the subway station. Maybe she’d take the M20 instead? If she needed to, she could hop off of the bus at any time. Once she got to work, she could hail a cab from the office and get back to the school in minutes, if she needed to, she thought. She just had to move her legs, put one foot in front of the other. Betsy took a few deep breaths, relieved she finally knew, instinctively, which way was north, summoning all of the forward momentum she could to move that way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS