All Adults Here(42)
“I’m going to figure it out,” Elliot said. He swallowed a pocket of air.
“Let me read it. And why don’t you talk to your mom about it? It’s your decision, but you don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”
“Why the fuck would I ask my mother? Jesus, Wendy!” Elliot’s cheeks were blotchy, and his nostrils flared. “It’s my decision!”
“Yikes, okay,” Wendy said, putting up her hands in surrender.
“It’s my decision!” Elliot said again, as if she could have misheard him the first time.
Over their heads, Wendy heard one set of feet turn into two sets, a small herd. She could see the rest of the day: Elliot locked in his office, making phone calls, or maybe just tapping golf balls in the backyard, his Bluetooth headset on, while she wrangled Aidan and Zachary from nap until bedtime, with Daddy swooping in for a good-night kiss. If he wanted to live somewhere else, they could have lived somewhere else.
One of the boys—it sounded like Aidan—let out a full-throated scream.
“Are you going to go see what the hell is going on up there?” Elliot asked her.
“No,” Wendy said, now loving the sound of the word in her mouth. “Give me the proposal, show me what they actually said. I’ll go read it.”
“What the fuck? It’s a workday, Wen!” He was still sitting, an impatient customer at a restaurant.
Wendy picked up his keys from the table. “I’m doing you a favor, you can just say thank you.”
Elliot’s mouth fell open with such stupid shock—the insult!—that Wendy laughed. “If I had to guess, it would be that Aidan had to poop. Check the potty when you get upstairs, unless you want to spend the next hour cleaning waste off the walls and the floor while two children climb all over you. I will be home soon, to help. Definitely by bedtime.”
Elliot sputtered. He was scared, Wendy realized, of his own children.
“You’ll be fine,” she said, and was out the door.
Chapter 18
Family Meal
Astrid believed in a proper dinner, she always had. First, when it was just her and Russell, it had felt like playing house, with cloth napkins and candlesticks; and then with baby Elliot, who had been a solemn, reedy creature, like a tonsured monk, content to gnaw on a single hunk of bread for fifteen minutes; then Porter, who squawked and sometimes threw handfuls of peas but would eat anything within reach, even slippery oysters; then baby Nicky, who loved the feeling of soft food mashed against his skin and so had to be bathed after every meal, Astrid rinsing off the pureed carrots, the peanut butter, the creamed corn, whatever it was that they’d put on his plate. Those were the best years, the years when the children were all growing, when the differences between them were so vast (one learning to do multiplication tables, one sorting out the rabbit ears of shoelaces, one walking, on two feet, all the way across a rug) that Astrid and Russell were filled with genuine marvel for at least five minutes each day, no matter how hectic and frustrating the other one thousand four hundred and thirty-five minutes were. When Elliot left for college and Porter and Nicky were teenagers, that was when the roller coaster ducked into a dark tunnel, and before they could come out the other end, Russell was gone and the tunnel was permanent. Astrid had been looking forward to coming out the other side—flying to foreign countries and huddling around a tour guide holding aloft a colorful flag, renting a houseboat, who knows. It was easy to say it would have been a wonderful and exciting chapter in their lives now that it was purely hypothetical.
Adding Birdie and Cecelia felt good, a return to form. Astrid had tired of cooking only for herself—so many things seemed no longer worth the trouble. Goodbye, short ribs, goodbye, coq au vin. Each configuration had fit around the same two tables, the massive dining room rectangle or, more often, the small kitchen table tucked into the corner. Cloth napkins at every place setting. She wasn’t sorry when the children got big enough to help clean up, and when they stopped throwing food on the floor. Every parent had spent enough time on their knees trying to scrape day-old pieces of elbow pasta off their floor.
Why hadn’t Barbara Baker had children? Astrid had always thought it was strange—not that a woman could or would choose not to, though it was less common when they were young, harder to defy expectations. But Barbara in particular had always stooped over to talk to her small charges as they crossed the street, she’d put M&M’s in her homemade Rice Krispies treats for town hall events, she’d dressed up for Halloween. Not to mention all the pets. In many ways, Astrid thought that Barbara seemed better suited to parenthood than she was—more patient, probably, more willing to have endless conversations about dinosaurs, more dexterous with child-friendly scissors. Astrid knew her limits—of course she did. Limits were important. That was why her children were polite to strangers.
Cecelia was reading at the table. Astrid was surprised they still taught J. D. Salinger in school—he had slept with a teenager, hadn’t he? They should just be reading Toni Morrison. It seemed so easy, to cut out the creeps and sexual predators, just by cutting out all the men. Sure, you’d lose some decent people, but the net result would be so positive, who would complain? Still, it was nice to see a small face tucked behind a paperback, elbows splayed on the wood. Astrid paused at the counter and just watched. This was what she’d wanted—this was what everyone wanted. To have your children’s children around, to be young enough to watch them grow, and for them to be self-sufficient, within reason. Grandparenting wasn’t the same as parenting, thank god, even in cases like this. She couldn’t quite imagine Elliot’s sons getting to this point—she’d be old, or dead, by the time they could sit still and read books. But Cecelia was right here, an easy guest. It meant that she’d done something right with Nicky after all, whether he’d admit it or not. She looked so young to Astrid, clearly still a child—when Porter was thirteen, Astrid had seen her as a young woman, closer, as she was then and now, to Astrid’s own age. When Porter was a teenager, Astrid’s own teenage memories still felt like a relevant part of her DNA, whereas now, those same memories seemed like a sad, dull movie whose plot she couldn’t quite remember. Cecelia was a kid. Astrid hoped that she had known that when her children were teenagers, though she didn’t think she had. Everything was so much easier with distance.