Life and Other Inconveniences(57)

April’s regular doctor prescribed antidepressants. That helped. She took good care of Emma, and Emma was a happy enough kid.

But the sunshiny, fun, optimistic girl he’d met and married was a long way off from this pale, tired version who only seemed happy from 3:35 to 8:00 p.m. . . . the hours when Emma was home and not asleep. Weekends were tough, because April was in overdrive—make a fort! do crafts! go ice skating!—and it exhausted her. He told her to take it easy, that Emma would be fine just reading or watching TV.

“I have to make up for you,” she snarled.

They never talked anymore. She didn’t ask when the movie of his (unpublished, unwritten) book would come out. Sometimes he would catch her looking out the window, and her eyes were so sad it made him want a divorce.

Yeah. A divorce. That would help. She’d get a big fat settlement (from Genevieve, because the trust fund was, hello, almost gone). Free from April’s moods, he’d really come into his own. Write that book, or get that job as a travel columnist, penning witty observations from faraway places.

When he couldn’t take home another minute, Clark booked a trip to Seattle. Such an awesome, artsy city, a place where he really belonged, not like flat, predictable Chicago. A week there, he told April. Scouting sets. Yes, he had to go; he was a consulting producer.

The city smelled so good, all that seafood, the fresh air from the Pacific, the dark, rich scent of freshly ground coffee. He booked himself into the Fairmont Olympic, told the bartender he was a movie producer, and found himself with a bunch of new friends, a lot of good weed and seemingly endless possibilities. He was thirty-four, and he felt both young and mature in this city of perpetual men-children. It was the money, he decided. His success, or at least the perception of his success. His last name. His legacy.

At the last minute, Clark decided to change his flight, choosing a ten p.m. flight instead of the morning flight he’d scheduled. Just one more day before he went back home, one more round of sex with Moira, a street artist who, aside from not shaving anywhere—not even armpits—was stunning (and a wild, furry animal in bed). So what if he came home at night instead of at noon?

It was one day. Hours, really. He’d tell April that his flight was canceled or, better, his cab had a flat tire, because she couldn’t track that one. But he wouldn’t call her, because then she’d be mad or sad or depressed or all three, and he just didn’t want to hear it. He’d been gone twelve days; what was twelve more hours? He totally deserved some extra fun.

So he stayed.

Obviously, if he had known his wife was planning to commit suicide, he would’ve come home earlier. It was horrible that Emma had been the one to find her. Horrible. So selfish of April, he was surprised. Yeah, yeah, if he hadn’t bumped his flight for one more fuck with Moira, he would’ve been there to find her, but April should’ve planned on something coming up.

Her note said she couldn’t keep going, and she wanted to leave when Emma would still have good memories of her. That she was sorry but this was the only choice she had. That Emma would be better off without her. That she couldn’t let her daughter watch her fade away, and the fading just wouldn’t stop. That she’d been drowning, and dying felt like a life raft. It was as if she didn’t exist anymore, and she was terrified something would happen to Emma and she wouldn’t be able to help her. That, by April dying, Emma would be safer, and though she’d be sad now, it would be better for her in the long run. Her parents would understand, and her father needed to focus on her mother now, and she was so sorry.

No mention of Clark.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? Talk about having the rug yanked out from under you! His wife had been suicidal, and she hadn’t even said anything? Who did that? Oh, and now Paul was telling him she’d struggled with depression since she was a teenager. Nice to know now, after ten goddamn years of marriage!

That’s when his father-in-law punched him in the face, and God, it hurt!

“Maybe if you’d been around more, you would’ve noticed,” Paul growled, shaking his hand. “You think she didn’t know what you were doing out there, when you were supposedly writing a book or making a movie or any one of your damn lies?”

So. His fault again, same as he’d been blamed for not being the one who went away.

A month of single parenthood, a tear-stained little kid with snarls in her hair, the Rileys’ palpable grief for April and hatred for Clark . . . it was impossible. A widowed father who had to do everything? Being the parent was hard! Emma was supposed to see a shrink and go to the regular doctor and get shots and do projects for school, and she was a Girl Scout and also played soccer. (Did eight-year-olds really have to do this much?) Then there was the homework, the laundry, the notes from the teachers talking about how Emma was struggling, the school counselor who wanted to talk, the other moms who had loved April. There were groceries and cooking and cleaning up and bills and taxes to be paid and, frankly, fuck it.

This was not who he was. This was not good for anyone. If his mother-in-law hadn’t been shriveling away; if the Rileys had had any money; if they hadn’t been so fucking sad and ruined, maybe Clark would’ve left Emma with them. Maybe, if Paul hadn’t punched him in the face, he would have, even with Joan dying in bits and pieces. If he could’ve hired a nanny, a cleaning service, a chef, a lawn service and not have to do the grunt work of life, maybe he would’ve kept his child.