Big Summer(2)
That night, after Aidan fell asleep, Christina wrapped herself in a soft fringed cashmere shawl, poured a glass of wine, and stepped through the door and onto the deck, barefoot, to listen to the wind. In the darkness, the breeze was strong off the sea, with an icy edge. It had been almost seventy degrees that afternoon, warm enough for swimming, but she could feel winter in the wind.
She walked back inside, through the cluttered kitchen, past the rows of Mason jars that she’d spent the morning filling while Aidan was in preschool, putting up the tomatoes and green beans and pickles she’d grown herself; through the living room, its crooked bookshelves filled with fading, water-swollen paperbacks, and wicker baskets that held Aidan’s Legos and Lincoln Logs. Her writing desk, one of the handful of good antiques that came with the house, stood in the corner, with her laptop closed in its center, abandoned beneath a framed vintage poster of Paris.
In the bedroom, she made sure Aidan was sleeping, then bent close to trace her thumb along the curve of his cheek. He’d just turned four, but already, he had started to lose the sweet babyish plumpness that made squeezing him feel like embracing a warm loaf of bread. Still, the skin on his cheek was as soft as it had been the day she’d first held him. My treasure, she thought, as her eyes prickled with tears. When Aidan was first born, and she was half-crazed with loneliness and hormones, when her stitches ached and her breasts dripped when he cried, everything made her weep, including her predicament. Especially her predicament. You chose this, Aidan’s father would remind her when he’d found time to come around. You had a choice. It was true. She’d gone into the situation completely aware, telling herself that the glass was half-full, not half-empty, and that a piece of someone else’s husband was better than no man at all. When she’d found out she was pregnant, it had felt like an unexpected gift, like a miracle. Who was she to say no to the possibility of this life, or the way it would remake her own?
Once, when she was still with Aidan’s father, he’d told her he would leave his wife for her. She had let herself picture every part of the life they would have together, a grand, bold-faced life in New York City, but by Aidan’s fourth year she was long past that fantasy. She’d never believed him; not really. Deep down, in the place where she could be honest with herself, she always knew the score. He’d wanted escape, fun, a fling: nothing permanent. He would never leave his wife, and her money.
But she had Aidan. Her prince, her pearl, her heart’s delight. Even if the two of them had been starving on the streets, she would have been happy. Aidan brought her daisies and Queen Anne’s lace clutched in his grubby fist, and pails with glittering lady slipper shells, still gritty with sand rattling at the bottom. Aidan smacked soft, honey-smeared kisses on her cheeks after breakfast and called her his beautiful mama.
Someday, she’d go back to the city, and gather up the threads of the life she’d left behind. She’d hunt down her old editors and pitch them stories; she’d reconnect with her old friends, and send Aidan to school there. Maybe she’d fall in love again, maybe not. But if, in the end, she never lived the glittering, rich-lady life of her youthful imaginings, she’d have a life that made her happy.
Christina bent down and started to sing. “Blackbird, singing in the dead of night; take these broken wings and learn to fly; all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.” Her story was almost at its end, but, that night, she had no idea. That night, as she sat in her son’s darkened bedroom, with her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, listening to the wind whine at the corners of the cottage, she thought, I never knew that I could be so happy. She thought, This is the way it was always meant to be.
Part One
Chapter One
2018
“OhmyGod, I am so sorry. Am I late?” Leela Thakoon hurried into the coffee shop with a cross-body bag hanging high on one hip, a zippered garment bag draped over her right arm, and an apologetic look on her face. With her silvery-lavender hair in a high ponytail, her round face and petite figure, and her emphatic red lipstick, she looked exactly the way she did on her Instagram, only a little bit older and a little bit more tired, which was true of every mortal, I supposed, who had to move through the world without the benefit of filters.
“You weren’t late. I was early,” I said, and shook her hand. For me, there was nothing worse than showing up for a meeting feeling flustered and hot and out of breath. In addition to the physical discomfort, there was the knowledge that I was confirming everyone’s worst suspicions about fat ladies—lazy, couch potatoes, can’t climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.
Today I had wanted to look my best, so I’d worked out at six in the morning and cooled down for an hour, unhappy experience having taught me that, for every hour I exercised, I’d need thirty minutes to stop sweating. I’d arrived at the coffee shop Leela had chosen twenty minutes ahead of time, so that I could scope out the venue, choose an advantageous seat, and attempt to best project an aura of cool, collected competence—#freelancehustle, I thought. But if I landed this collaboration, it would mean that the money I earned as an influencer would be more than the money I made doing my regular twenty-hour-a-week babysitting gig, and possibly even more than my dog’s account was bringing in. I wouldn’t be supporting myself with my online work, but I’d be closer to that goal. In yoga that morning, when we’d set our intention, I’d thought, Please. Please let this happen. Please let this work out.