I'm Fine and Neither Are You(47)

No sooner did I process all of this when Jenny’s voice echoed into my ears: Then what, Penny? What if your marriage does fail?

Unfortunately, I knew the answer to her question: Then my family fell apart. Then my children didn’t have the happy home I had sworn I would give them. Then I would have broken all of the promises I made myself as a child.

I didn’t know what might happen after that, but it couldn’t possibly be good.





EIGHTEEN

I’d just pulled into our driveway when my brother called. “Nick?” I had picked Cecily and the kids up from camp on the way home, and they scrambled out of the car. “Is everything okay?”

“Very funny, Penny.”

I hadn’t been joking. The last time my brother had called was Christmas. He’d emailed maybe twice in the interim, even though I messaged him every few weeks and sent pictures of Stevie and Miles. I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder as I opened the front door for the kids. The three of them went clambering into the house, leaving a trail of shoes and backpacks in their wake. “How are you?”

Sanjay was in the kitchen, arranging chicken nuggets on a baking tray. He cocked his head. “Nick,” I mouthed.

“Great. Just got back from Namibia,” Nick said.

“How nice,” I said.

My sarcasm was lost on him. “Dude, it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Landscape like a mother-trucking watercolor painting, and the people were beyond friendly.”

“Dude, I’m jealous.”

“Ha-ha. You should come with me sometime.”

I looked at the dining room table, which had a river of glue running down its center. “I’d love that.”

“So, Pen-Pen,” he said, using my childhood nickname, “have you talked to Dad lately?”

“Dad who?” I said.

Behind me, Sanjay snorted. In his mind, my father was but one small rung above my deadbeat mother. Which was fair—we barely heard from him. When I called he routinely took weeks to call back, so sometimes I just didn’t bother. He had been to visit us exactly one time since we’d moved from Brooklyn. Still, he was my only parent. I couldn’t just write him off.

“I’m serious,” said Nick. “He’s having a hard time.”

Yeah, well, my best friend just died, I thought. Which Nick knew—he’d sent me a sad-emoji-embellished text message after I finally posted something about Jenny’s death on Facebook. Maybe our shared DNA sent out some sort of distress signal, because he added, “Hey, speaking of, how are you doing? With your friend being gone?”

How was I doing? How long did he have? My heart broke at least five times a day, and that was when I was doing my damnedest to keep my focus entirely on work and family. I was desperate to get to the stage where the sight of Cecily—who was currently running through the backyard as Miles chased her and Stevie with a water gun—would not fill me with the kind of sadness that made me want to weep in bed for a week. And even though I was struggling with my marriage project, I felt guilty for the progress Sanjay and I were making. At least we still had a chance to fix our relationship.

“I don’t know, Nick. I’m doing all right. The kids are happy and healthy, and I’m getting a chance to spend a lot of time with Cecily.”

“Cecily?”

“Jenny’s daughter.”

“Right.”

I sighed. “So, what’s going on with Dad?”

“Well, he’s having some health problems.”

My heart lurched. “What kind of health problems?”

“That’s probably something you should talk to him about.”

“I don’t get it. If he called to tell you, why couldn’t he call me?”

Nick paused. “He didn’t call me. I was flying through Florida a couple of weeks ago, and I stopped to see him. He looked like hell, so I pushed and found out he’s got some stuff going on.”

This admission stung more than his forgetting Cecily’s name. Nick hadn’t been out to see us in several years, but he had managed to see our father, who hadn’t made enough time for him a day in his life. “I can’t fly to Florida right now, Nick. Do you think he’ll tell me if I call him?”

“Don’t know, Pen-Pen,” he said. “You know Dad—hard to get him to say much about anything other than the Orioles and the weather. But you should probably try.”

Through the kitchen window, a pair of small brown birds watched me from their perch on the fence. One pecked at the other for a few seconds, then the other craned its neck and returned the favor. One of the birds flew into the sky and then disappeared from sight.

I thought about my brother diving out of his bedroom window in first grade to see if he could fly. Immediately after, he’d come running to me to say that his arms hurt but he was sure he’d caught air. “Nick?” I said.

“Yeah, sis?”

“I’ll call Dad. Come see us sometime, okay?”

“Sure, Pen. That sounds great.”

“Love you,” I said to the dial tone.

When I set down the phone, Sanjay was looking at me.

“What?” I sounded as dispirited as I felt.

“What?” he repeated.