Always the Last to Know(102)

“Like, am I a good mother? Have I been helpful and kind today? Will everyone I love be okay? Can I be doing more?”

“That’s a lot.” Brianna sat down next to her and picked up one of Juliet’s shoes, fiddling with the strap.

“It is.”

“Is being a grown-up hard?”

“Sometimes.”

Brianna started to cry, her sweet little face crumpling. “I don’t want to grow up, Mom. I hate all this, the periods and zits and boobs and boys and the drama. I want to be eight again. Eight was really fun.” Her voice squeaked on the last word, and Juliet gathered her up against her, every molecule in her body wanting to wrap around her child and protect her from every hurt, every bad feeling.

“I understand, honey. I do. I remember how hard it is.” She kissed Brianna’s hair. “But you know what? You’re going to like your body pretty soon. It’s so weird, but you will. This is the hardest time. You’ll get through it. Daddy and I are with you every step of the way.”

“Is there anything good about being a grown-up?”

Juliet laughed. “Sure. You can pick someone really great, like your dad, to be your best friend, and you get to live with each other. You can find a job that you love doing.”

“I don’t know what I want to do. I hate when grown-ups ask me that.”

“You’re not supposed to know. Tell them that. Say, ‘Hey, I’m twelve. Give me some room here.’”

Brianna laughed a little.

“You know what the best part of being a grown-up is?” Juliet asked.

“No.”

“You get to be a mommy if you want.”

“I thought I was a pain in the ass,” Brianna muttered.

“You are. But you’re my pain in the ass. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

Brianna didn’t answer, didn’t hug her any tighter, didn’t say, I love you so much, or You always make me feel better, as Juliet would have said to her own mom.

Brianna didn’t have to. Juliet already knew.

A few hours later, when the girls were in bed, and Oliver was “thoroughly shagged” and sound asleep, Juliet went to her computer and typed an e-mail.

    To: [email protected] Subject: job offer

The firm’s name will be Frost/Alexander. I’ll get 33% ownership, the tie-breaking vote if one is needed, head of design. Take it or leave it.

Juliet



A few minutes later, the one-word answer came.

    Done.





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE





John


Dog. Daw. Baby. Bay . . . bee. Barb. Baahr. Juliet. Zhool. Sadie. Say. Tired. Tahr.

No. No. He has this one down.

These are the words he can say now, though the effort makes him feel foolish and old. Most times, words come out of his mouth wrong, sounding huge and shapeless, or like other words. He can look at a tree and think tree, but the word that comes out is roo, which means root. Sometimes he’s understood, most times he’s not. His mouth muscles are tired, and the bossy lady doesn’t care.

Sadie does, though. She can understand his connections. Not always, but sometimes.

He wants to say, I’m sorry, Barb. Because she knows about the hard-faced woman who has never been to see him. He knows this. Barb told him, and Barb doesn’t lie. He wants to talk about the flower, but he can’t, and he doesn’t remember why it’s so important, but it is, and he tries to pull it close.

Ted still comes to visit, and John is glad. Noah comes, too, sometimes to fix something for Barb, and sometimes to let him see the baby, who is solid and warm and harder to hold now because he is growing. His daughters come. Juliet doesn’t look at him much, which is better than Sadie with the hope in her eyes. John doesn’t know which is harder to see, the mad or the hope.

Janet comes, too. She knows about the flower. Sometimes she brings him flowers that she grows. She works in a place that grows plants or babies, but the word is long and hard for his mind to remember. She talks and talks, gentle words falling around him like warm rain.

He loves her. Not the way he loved Barb, or the hard-faced woman, but in a new way. She is the only one who wants nothing from him. She has no hope or sadness or disappointment or . . . what is the word? Tired. She has no tired on her face.

He is not getting better. John understands this. The words he says are so hard and the trying is so heavy that he won’t be able to do more. He wants to stop trying. The way he talked long ago, the way other people have the words tumble out of their mouths is not for him anymore. The doctor says words, and Sadie with hope in her eyes . . . no. He can feel it. He knows. He isn’t trapped inside his body. This is himself. He will be this way always. His now-self, not his old self.

With Janet, his now-self is fine.

What he has to do is make his wife understand. He has to be the husband again, just for a little while. The father.

Images flutter from the long-ago. John would come home from the place where he did the work. The office. He would drive the car into the driveway and go into the house. Sadie was little in the long-ago, and Juliet was bigger, and Sadie would run to him, and he would pick her up and smile, and Juliet would wait in the kitchen doorway, and he would remember to give her a hug, too.

Then he would kiss Barb on the cheek, not really listening as she talked, but smelling the good smells of the kitchen, feeling like a husband, a father. A man.