One True Loves(53)

“You’re a fighter,” my dad says. “You get back up after you’ve been knocked down. That is my favorite part about you.”

I laugh and say, in a jovial tone, “Not that I run the bookstore?”

I’m joking but I’m not joking.

“Not even close. There are so many things to love about you that, honestly, that’s not even in the top ten.”

I put my head on his shoulder and rest there for a moment. I watch my mom’s eyes droop. I hear my dad’s breathing slow down.

“OK, go back to bed,” I tell them. “I’ll be OK. Thank you. Sorry again about scaring you.”

They each give me a hug and then go.

I lie on my old mattress and I try to fall asleep, but I was a fool to ever think that sleep would come.

Just before six a.m., I see a light come on in Marie’s house.

I take off my engagement ring and put it in my purse. And then I throw on some pants, grab my boots, and walk right out the front door.





Marie is with Ava in the bathroom with the door open. Ava is sitting on the toilet and Marie is coaxing her to relax. The twins are potty trained, but as of a few weeks ago, Ava has started backsliding. She will only go if Marie is with her. I have decided to hang back and stand by the door, as is my right as an aunt.

“You can go ahead and take a seat,” Marie says to me as she sits down on the slate gray tile of the bathroom floor. “We’re gonna be here a while.”

The girls’ cochlear implants mean that they have learned to talk only a few months behind other children. And Marie and Mike both use sign language to communicate with them, too. My nieces, whom we were all so worried about, may just end up speaking two languages. And that is in large part because Marie is a phenomenal, attentive, unstoppable motherly force.

At this point, she knows more about American Sign Language, the Deaf community, hearing aids, cochlear implants, and the inner working of the ear than possibly anything else, including all of the things she used to love, things like literature, poetry, and figuring out what authors use what pseudonyms.

But she’s also exhausted. It’s six thirty in the morning and she’s both talking and signing to her daughter to please “go pee in the potty for Mommy.”

The bags under her eyes look like the pocket on a kangaroo.

When Ava is finally done, Marie brings her to Mike, who is lying in bed with Sophie. As I’m standing in the hallway, I get a glimpse of Mike under the covers, half asleep, holding Sophie’s hand. For a moment, I get a flash of what sort of man I’d want to be the father of my own children and I’m embarrassed to say that the figure is only vague and blurry.

Marie comes back out of the bedroom and we head toward the kitchen.

“Tea?” she says as I sit down at her island.

I’m not much of a tea drinker, but it’s cold in here and something warm sounds nice. I’d ask for coffee, but I know that Marie doesn’t keep coffee in the house. “Sure, that sounds great,” I say.

Marie smiles and nods. She starts the kettle. Marie’s kitchen island is bigger than my dining room table. Our dining room table. Mine and Sam’s.

I am, instantaneously, overcome with certainty.

I don’t want to leave Sam. I don’t want to lose the life I’ve built. Not again. I love Sam. I love him. I don’t want to leave him. I want to sit down together at the piano and play “Chopsticks.”

That’s what I want to do.

Then I remember that way Jesse looked when he got off that plane. All of my certainty disappears.

“Ugh,” I say, slouching my body forward, resting my head in the nest I’ve made with my arms. “Marie, what am I going to do?”

She doesn’t stop pulling various teas out of the cupboard. She pulls them all out and puts them in front of me.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I can’t imagine being in your shoes. I feel like maybe both options are equally right and wrong. That’s probably not the answer you were looking for. But I just don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either.”

“Does it help to ask what your gut tells you?” she says. “Like, if you close your eyes, what do you see? Your life with Sam? Or your life with Jesse?”

I indulge her game, hoping that something as simple as closing my eyes might tell me what I want to do. But it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. I open my eyes to see Marie watching me. “That didn’t work.”

The kettle starts to whistle and Marie turns toward the stove to grab it. “You know, all you can do is just put one foot in front of the other,” she says. “This is exactly the sort of thing people are talking about when they say you have to take things one step at a time.” She pours hot water into the white mug she’s set out for me. I look up at her.

“Earl Grey?” she asks.

“English Breakfast?” I ask in return and then I start laughing and say, “I’m just messing with you. I have no idea what tea names mean.”

She laughs and picks up an English Breakfast packet, tearing off the top and pulling out a tea bag. “Here, now you’ll know what English Breakfast tastes like for next time.” She puts it in my mug and hands it to me. “Splenda?” she offers.

I shake my head. I stopped drinking artificial sweeteners six months ago and I feel entirely the same but I’m still convinced it’s for a good cause. “I’m off the sauce,” I say.