Life and Other Inconveniences(86)

“Thank you,” whispered the mom. “Does anyone get okay with this? Do you know any of the family members here?”

“Actually,” I said, “my sister’s a resident here.” The director and I had talked about bringing up my own issues, which I felt would only be okay if asked directly. “She’s fourteen and has been here since she was three. She’s really a happy kid, and this place has been great for her.”

Their faces brightened a little, and I knew it had been the right thing to say.

I’d always been tentative around my clients when they were in extreme pain. And what could be more painful than leaving your child, no matter how beautiful the facility, how wonderful the staff? It was brave and horrible, acknowledging that, in some cases, your child needed more than you could give.

Some parents, like my own father and whoever Hope’s mother was, were relieved not to care for their kids anymore. Clark might not have signed away his rights the way Hope’s mother had, but he was a nonperson to my sister. I did wonder why he hadn’t abdicated his rights, too. He’d always been more than happy to foist his children off on Genevieve. Not that I was bitter. (Hint. I was.)

On Friday afternoon, I left Rose Hill after smooching up Hope, who was a little sleepy from her meds, and headed back to Stoningham. My grip tightened on the steering wheel as I followed the car’s directions. I was going to Jamilah’s, because Riley was having a sleepover weekend there. Both nights. Helga had gone to visit her sister—I pictured them in a dark forest together, their house on chicken legs, like Baba Yaga’s, surrounded by a fence made of bones.

Not only that—Genevieve and Donelle had decided to go to the city (I wasn’t invited) for “one last pub crawl,” in the words of Donelle. When I asked Genevieve if she was up for the trip, she predictably snapped at me, told me to mind my own business, not to bury her just yet, etc.

But I was getting used to her ways. Being an adult (and a therapist) let me see her differently—a woman fearful of losing her status and power, afraid of acknowledging her mortality. I could sympathize, even if I still didn’t like her a whole heck of a lot.

But she was wonderful with Riley. Maybe it was the generational difference. I had to admit I kind of loved seeing them together, my daughter amiably sparring with the woman I’d once called the Gorgon, and more than holding her own. Gigi was more affectionate with Riley, too; she’d smooth her hand over Riley’s hair, and Riley would say, “I should charge for this.”

At any rate, Sheerwater was mine for the weekend. Me, and twenty-some-odd rooms at my disposal. The upshot of this was I was having my own sleepover party. But first, I had to talk to Jamilah.

Jason and I had had dinner the other night, just the two of us. It had been nice . . . sort of. We talked mostly about Riley and her wonderfulness, how good she was with her brothers. I told him she’d been helping Miller’s nanny with Tess, and he said yes, Riley had texted him a picture of her and Tess. I hadn’t gotten that picture, but hey. I’d always been glad my daughter and her father had a solid relationship. If he wasn’t in her life enough to be a proper role model, he liked and loved her, and that was more than a lot of people got, myself included.

I steered the conversation to college, and he said he’d give whatever he could. “I was kind of hoping for a number, Jase,” I said. “We’ll be filling out the forms soon, and they ask for that kind of thing.”

“Gotcha,” he said. “Well, we’ll see what kind of scholarships she gets first, right?”

“Wrong. First they determine need, so we won’t know how much we need until we know how much she has.”

“I meant academic scholarships. Or sports! I mean, she’s good at soccer. We played with the boys the other night down at the high school.”

“She’s not good enough to get a D1 scholarship, Jason. And even if she gets a merit scholarship—”

“Why don’t we talk about it when I’m at my computer?” he said. “It’s hard to know where I’ll be next year, financially speaking. Of course I want my daughter to go to college, and of course I’ll help, Em. Don’t worry so much.”

That was a line he’d said a lot in the past sixteen and a half years, and as usual, it irritated me.

Then again, the therapist side of me murmured in the gentle, soothing voice that he had a point. The mother part of me wanted to kick him and demand a check for a quarter mil, but what could you do?

But then he leaned forward and filled me in on some gossip about one of our classmates. He was a good storyteller and bore more than a passing resemblance to Jake Gyllenhaal, and we were coparents.

And now my daughter was staying with his not-quite ex-wife. I turned onto their road, drove up to the top of the hill and pulled into their driveway.

Jason had neglected to tell me he lived in paradise. Sure, I’d Google-stalked their address, but as Jamilah worked for Google, the picture was blurred out for privacy reasons.

It was a sharply modern house, white stucco and lots of glass. Perched on the hill as it was, it had killer views of Long Island Sound. The front yard was landscaped with precisely trimmed boxwoods and a single Japanese maple bearing rich red leaves. The walk was blue flagstone set in polished cement, and the light fixtures were art deco. On the porch hung three huge Boston ferns. Not a dead leaf on them.