The Last Housewife (60)

For some reason, that made her angrier. She wrestled out of her jacket, threw it on the floor, and said, “A work trip. Let me tell you a secret about Peter Herazen. Peter Herazen has better people to spend time with than us. More beautiful, sophisticated women. Your dad’s not on a trip, Shay. He left us. Because you and me are small potatoes.”

I said, “He didn’t.”

My mom always hated when I was soft. She said, “News flash. Welcome to men. This is what they do. They take your heart and your body, use it all up. And in return, they refuse to marry you. No Herazen name for us, oh no, god forbid. And they step out. Every time. They’re the ones who get to come and go. We’re the ones who are stuck.”

I was acutely aware she meant she’d been stuck with me.

She started rooting around in her purse and said, “Here I am, mending a broken heart, and they want me to volunteer for the f-ing PTA?”

I was certain of one thing: my dad might leave my mom—they did argue a lot—but he wouldn’t leave me. He and I had a tradition. Whenever he got home from a trip, the first thing he’d do was take my hand and walk me across the street to the park. He’d play any game I made up. For hours, I got his undivided attention. Most of the games I invented ended with him chasing me. He’d give me a head start, count until ten, then sprint after me around the park. I can still feel my heart pounding, my feet slapping the grass, that joy and the tiniest sliver of fear every time he caught me. I always screamed.

I loved it. For a few hours, I was my dad’s sole pursuit. We usually stayed at the park until the sun went down and the air was blue and dense like water. I can picture it so clearly.

JAMIE: So can I.

SHAY: Then he’d put me on his shoulders and carry me home. I was always a little scared up there, so he’d tease me, call me Shay, Queen of the Playground, to make me feel better.

He loved me. He would never leave.

I told my mom that, and she stopped searching in her purse for a cigarette and bent over until we were eye level. She said, “It’s hard now, but one day you’ll thank me for ripping off the Band-Aid. Your dad never wanted us, Shay. He used to leave for months at a time, and I wouldn’t know if it was for work or for play. When he came home, all he wanted was someone to wait on him. I had to beg him to spend time with you. Beg him to take you to the park, because you adored it. If your father did ever love us, it was never enough.”

It was 9:38 at night. I know that because I couldn’t look at my mom, so I stared at the clock on the VCR. Nine thirty-eight on a Tuesday night, ten years old. That’s when my life carved into a before and an after.

JAMIE: You never told me.

SHAY: Imagine meaning so little to your dad that he left and never came back. Not once, even to see who you grew into.

JAMIE: I can’t.

SHAY: My mom called Mrs. Carroll, and I don’t know what she said to her, but I got to go to the lock-in. I spent the whole night in my sleeping bag with my book, watching the chaperones with their kids. Rolling their eyes, shouting after them, laughing. And I thought, What makes some people worth loving, but not others?

JAMIE: I remember now. You wouldn’t leave your sleeping bag, even for the scavenger hunt.

SHAY: After they turned out the lights, you and I lay in the dark, listening to kids giggling, and you whispered, “What’s wrong?”

JAMIE: You said you were sad because your dad had to leave. But it was okay because he was on some secret mission. Practically a hero.

SHAY: I invented a story that he left because he had to do something important. It was a stupid lie.

JAMIE: You could’ve told me the truth.

SHAY: I wasn’t lying for you. It was the only thing I could think of to keep my heart in one piece.

(Rustling.)

JAMIE: I have to ask. Do you think your dad leaving had anything to do with the pull you felt toward Don?

(Silence.)

SHAY: You’re the journalist, Jamie. You tell me.

JAMIE: Okay. I don’t see how it couldn’t have.

SHAY: Yeah, well. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Everything tied in a neat little bow.

End of transcript.





Chapter Twenty


Two nights later, the hotel restaurant was near closing when I rested my elbows on the edge of the bar. A bartender was with me in seconds.

“Manhattan.” I handed him my card and turned to watch the servers close up, glancing at the front door and remembering what Jamie had looked like stepping through it. So different, yet so much the same. Maybe I was, too.

“Ma’am.”

I turned to find the bartender frowning. “Your card’s been declined.” He slid it over the countertop. “Do you have another?”

Cal, that motherfucker—he’d actually done it.

I picked up the card and dropped it in my purse. “No, I don’t.” I’d let my husband hold all the power like a fool.

The bartender shot me a pitying look and slid over the manhattan, the crystal glass catching like a diamond in the light. “Here. Either you’re drinking it, or I am. You look like you need it more.” His eyes ran down me. “Nice dress, by the way. Don’t see that every day. Old school.”

“Thanks.” I slugged the drink, wiping my mouth. “I mean it.”

When he turned away, I called Jamie, who answered breathlessly. “I’m just finishing a run.”