When We Were Sisters: An unputdownable book club read about that bonds that can bind or break a family. Emilie Richards
watched as he realized what he’d said. Without thinking he’d just thrown himself on a bomb that was about to scatter body parts to the four winds.
“We did,” I said. “Just ask your parents how well that turned out.”
* * *
Pet’s room is painted a color our painter calls kimono purple, as luscious as a Concord grape. She has a fluffy white area rug and billowy curtains, and she collects metallic gold accessories. Picture frames, a spray-painted bamboo tray on top of her white dresser, a beige bedspread covered with gold and silver flowers pulled neatly over her trundle bed. She’s ten. I look forward to seeing her talent for design blossom, because the room is beautiful, and all the ideas were hers.
Ida believes Pet’s artistic gift comes from Gus, who is far too modest to say so. Pet likes art classes, but right now her first love is set design. The theater camp she’s attended for several years recognized her talents this past summer and put her to work designing the Emerald City.
When I went to say good-night—we no longer call this tucking in—my daughter was on her knees saying bedtime prayers. Kris’s mother is Catholic, and Kris attended Catholic school as a boy, Notre Dame as an undergraduate and finally Georgetown Law School. We were married in his family’s church and I converted afterward. I wanted us to attend church as a family, and we do. On Easter and Christmas Eve.
At the moment Nik has no interest in religion, but Pet, whose given name, Petra, is a feminine version of Peter, takes religion seriously. She’s already talking about attending a Catholic high school in nearby Fairfax when the time comes.
I waited until she crossed herself and got into bed before I went to perch on the edge beside her. I ask the same question every night. “Homework all done and everything ready for the morning?”
“Who’s going to ask that when you’re not here?”
“Well, Daddy, for one. And I’ll call most nights to ask you myself.”
“That won’t be the same.”
“Change isn’t bad—it’s just different.”
“Different isn’t always good.”
I reminded her of a promise I had already made. “Don’t forget, I’ll come home whenever I can, but the moment the timing works out, I’m going to whisk you to wherever we’re filming so you can watch. That’ll be fun, don’t you think?”
“Nik won’t come? You promise?”
“Nik will come at a different time.”
“Daddy doesn’t want you to leave.”
Children pick up on everything. “Daddy’s going to miss me, too,” I said.
“He doesn’t want to do the things you do for us.”
“I think he’s a little afraid he won’t do them well enough, don’t you?”
She considered. Then she shook her head, her long brown hair fanning over the pillow. “He’s probably right.”
“You have to help him, Pet. Let Daddy know if he forgets something, and don’t expect him to be perfect right off the bat, okay?”
I didn’t want to drag this out. The longer I stayed, the more my own ambivalence would infect the room. I love my children, and spending this much time away suddenly seemed impossible. Still, my childhood was one long series of goodbyes, and I know how to make them.
I stood and bent over. “I know you’re ten, but may I kiss you good-night anyway?”
She sat up and hugged me hard as I kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.
“I love you, and I’ll be home for Thanksgiving if not before. We’ll do all our favorites. If you want, you can make the pumpkin pie all by yourself.”
She sniffed, and I kissed her again. Then I left the room without looking back. I learned that in foster care, too.
Nik’s room was across the hall from Pet’s. About three months ago he push-pinned a sign to his door, a skull and crossbones and the words Stay Out On Pain of Death. Kris wanted to remove the sign, but we aren’t raising a serial killer. We’re raising a normal twelve-year-old boy who values a little privacy in a life filled with family demands and social interactions. I compromised and let him have the skull and crossbones but not the threat.
I knocked. Almost a minute passed, but after my second attempt he mumbled something close to “come in.”
“Just saying good-night,” I said after I opened the door. While Pet keeps her room so neat it looks as if she’s planning a photo shoot for Architectural Digest, Nik’s is always strewn with projects and clothing. My son’s childhood has been spent flitting from one great idea to another. He takes up and abandons hobbies at an awesome rate. He collected coins, built entire villages out of Popsicle sticks, created sculptures from clay, raised gerbils and kept a garter snake named Walt, who happily moved back to my garden after a month in captivity.
The one hobby that seems to have ridden the wave is music. My son’s gray walls are covered with rock-star posters, most signed to Nikola Lenhart from friends of Cecilia’s. He has an electronic keyboard on a stand in the corner and a guitar in the opposite corner. So far, unlike Pet, who is making steady progress on the piano, Nik has shown not an ounce of talent. But Cecilia has pointed out how many music industry jobs only require a love of music and an assortment of other abilities. When Donny was here after the accident, he and Nik chatted about the skills needed to manage an artist or an act. Nik looked a little interested, which, these days, means he was totally captivated.
I saw he was sitting at his desk wearing an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms with tattered cuffs, and I joined him, peeking over his shoulder. “Homework all done?”
“Everything but this stupid essay.”
Nik’s a good student and likes his classes. When he momentarily forgets he doesn’t like me anymore, we actually enjoy discussing what he’s learning.
“The one about talking to people whose political ideas are different from yours?”
“Yeah, how lame is that. Like I care.”
I messed up his hair. “You’d better care.”
He swatted my hand away. “Miss Greene wants me to say I should listen with respect and talk about my feelings.”
“But you don’t want to do that?”
“I’d rather tell an idiot to stop spouting garbage and then go talk to somebody who has a brain.”
“That’ll get you an F on the essay and no friends, because eventually you’ll run out of people who agree with you.”
He shrugged, but I’m not worried. Nik will find a way to complete the assignment that works for him. And what twelve-year-old boy wants to politely agree with anybody? Especially his mother?
I changed the subject. “I’m leaving early tomorrow. You know I’ll miss you, right?”
He shrugged again. “Miss Elena says she’ll make tacos.”
“I bet they’ll be amazing.”
“Maybe she won’t try to sneak in vegetables, like you do.”
“That’s me, sneak extraordinaire.”
“You don’t have to call all the time.”
“I’ll remember that. Maybe I’ll just call once a day.”
“Aunt Cecilia told me she couldn’t do this without you, and she hoped I didn’t mind loaning you to her.”
I was touched Cecilia had managed to get Nik aside and tell him that on the one afternoon she was with us. “Do you? Mind, I mean?”
“Why should I?”
“Such