If You Only Knew Read online

  So once again, the burden is on me. Planning the wedding, though it was a genuine joy, was on me. Once we figured out why we couldn't get pregnant, the burden was on me, too, with those horrible shots that made me so hormonal I had to go into the bathroom at work and cry, and everyone knew and was so nice, which made me cry more. All Adam had to do was switch to wearing boxers and have more sex. The pregnancy--me again. I'm the one with a four-inch scar and a pooch of skin. The house decorating, painting, hiring people to overhaul the plumbing and electric...me. His mother's birthday--also mine to remember. Holidays, vacations, weekend plans, all mine.

  And while I would never call my girls a burden, the huge responsibility of raising them is 99 percent mine.

  And now the future of our marriage is on me. I have to forgive him. I have to accept his apology. I have to get past this. That first night, I lay stiffly next to him. He gave me a meaningful basset-hound look and said, "Thank you, Rachel," and it was all I could do not to flip him off. In that moment, I hated our bed. The bed in the guest room was unsullied and smaller, perfect for one.

  But I have to take a step away from what happened. Otherwise, the fury will corrode me until I'm nothing.

  I think about Emmanuelle instead, the hatred for her untainted by love. I picture my vengeance on her, pushing her down an escalator at the mall--I don't know why, it just pops into my head--the red soles of her Christian Louboutin heels flashing over and over as she falls. I picture slapping her. I imagine her peering from behind a tree as the five of us picnic in the park, Adam so in love with me again that he can't take his eyes off me, the girls giggling and singing, and Emmanuelle is filled with yearning and longing to have what I have. She's choking on the knowledge that she was just a fuck and I'm a wife, and tears stream from her eyes, her face ugly and smeared with drippy globs of mascara as she sees all that I am and have.

  Sure. That could happen.

  She's still working at Triple B. That was another sucker punch to the stomach. Adam has absolutely no power over that, he says. "I guess you can tell Jared and see if he can fire her," Adam told me. "He's always been your friend, not mine." Again, the burden is on me. And Adam knows I won't tell Jared.

  So Adam and Emmanuelle still see each other. I imagine they still talk. I asked him to send out his CV and start looking for another job, and he just laughed and asked if I knew what the market was for lawyers these days. "You want us to keep this house, Rach?" he asked. "You want the girls to stay in their expensive little preschool and take ballet next year? Then you want me to stay at Triple B."

  There it was again, that faint threat. Yes, I've been a bad boy, but don't push it. I'll have to bring it up in counseling, though I swear to God, Laney likes him better than me.

  Thank God it's book club night, because I need to get out of the house and think about something other than this. Book club consists of Elle Birkman, Claudia Parvost, Mean Debbie and Nice Kathleen. Elle is hosting, and Adam makes a big show of coming home early so I can shower and change. He makes the girls dinner. Macaroni and cheese from the box again.

  "They need a vegetable," I tell him.

  "No, Mommy!" Grace pronounces. "We do not."

  "No, Mommy! No!" Rose and Charlotte second, and just like that, I'm the bad guy again. The burden of broccoli--on me.

  "Mommy's right," Adam says, underscoring the Mommy Is an Ogre theme.

  "Good night, sweethearts," I say. Grace stonily refuses to offer me her cheek, so I kiss her head.

  "You smell pretty," Rose says, smiling at me.

  "Thanks, angel."

  "Why you going out, Mommy? I want you home!" Charlotte says.

  "What?" Adam says. "I thought you loved Daddy Night! I guess if you don't love Daddy Night, we'll just have to have...Grizzly Bear Night!" The girls shriek and scream in terror and delight--Charlotte wets herself. I can already imagine them on the therapy couch twenty-five years from now. Mommy was always going off to drink with her friends. At least Daddy was fun.

  Book club meets every other month or so. Besides marriage counseling and the very occasional night out with my sister, I'm home twenty-nine nights out of thirty, and still the girls resent me. Not once have they ever complained about Adam's late meetings--which may or may not have been booty calls for amazing porno sex. Me, I go out to my stupid book club, and I'm punished for it.

  "Use Clorox Clean-Up on the pee," I tell Adam.

  "Girls, I'll be right back," he says, following me into the mudroom. "You gonna tell them?" he asks, his voice low.

  "Tell whom what, Adam?" I know what he wants to know. If I'm going to tell them about Emmanuelle.

  "Look," he murmurs. "I know I have no right to ask you anything, but I'm asking anyway. The more people who know about this, the harder it will be to make things better. Put things back to normal."

  "You should've thought about that, then."

  "Baby, I know," he says. He looks at me a long minute, and irritation flickers across his face. I know this face well by now. This is the "I said I was sorry" face. The "what more do you want from me" face.

  He must see something in my face. I'm pretty sure it's the "I hate you" face. A face that never existed until The Picture.

  "Tell them if you need to," he says wearily.

  "Daddy! Daddy! Come back!" Charlotte yells.

  "Have fun," I tell him.

  I won't tell. He knows it, and so do I.

  *

  An hour later, we've moved from the "I'm still so insightful" portion of book club to the lion's share of our nights--gossip. I listen with half an ear, consumed by thoughts of Adam. Is he sexting with Emmanuelle? Is he watching porn on the internet? Chatting with horny eighteen-year-olds? A few weeks ago, those thoughts wouldn't have even entered my blond little brain. Now I can't stop wondering if coming tonight was a mistake.

  "Here's the thing," Elle says. "I get that he wants her for sex." My head snaps up. "I mean, she advertises a certain bad-girl vibe. Guys like that."

  "Who are you talking about?" I ask.

  "Jared and his tattooed fiancee," Lucienne says.

  "Harmon doesn't go for that type," Claudia says proudly. "He only likes very classy women." Last month, when Claudia wasn't here, Elle and Debbie discussed Harmon's sexuality at length and found it to be lacking in the hetero department.

  "Rachel," Elle says, "you know them both. Tell us about them!"

  I swallow another mouthful of my red wine, which will give me a headache later tonight. "They're really in love," I say, eyeing the brie. So fattening. I take a healthy chunk and eat it.

  "Kind of a Cinderella story, isn't it?" Kathleen asks.

  "Her mother is a tattoo artist," Debbie says. "They're white trash."

  "No, Debbie, as usual, you're wrong," I say calmly. "Her mother is a nurse. Put herself through school in her forties, as a matter of fact."

  "I hear your sister is making her dress," Kathleen says. "The shop is beautiful, by the way."

  "Yes, she is," I answer. "And I'll tell her you think so."

  "Oh, Bliss? That one?" Debbie asks. "So what's Kimber's dress like? Whorish, I bet. Total slut?"

  "Debbie, don't be such a bitch," Kathleen snaps.

  "My sister doesn't make whorish, total-slut dresses, Debbie," I say, my voice uncharacteristically hard to my own ears. "So if you ever need another wedding dress, you'll have to shop elsewhere."

  "Oh! You just got served," Claudia crows in delight. She and Elle high-five each other.

  "Rachel, honestly," Debbie says, laughing though her eyes are cold. "What's gotten into you?" I can tell she hopes it's something lurid and horrible. Cancer. That would make her day.

  Of course, I won't tell them about Adam and Emmanuelle. They're not those types of friends. Kathleen could be, I guess, but not yet. Elle and Claudia, never. Forget Debbie; I knew her in high school, and she was mean as a snake then, too. No, they'd all side with the strongest social ties, and in my case, that's Adam. Look how many friends of Jenny's prac
tically trampled her to be even better friends with Ana-Sofia. And Jenny's the type of person who knows how to be a great friend. Me, I've always been too shy. I have Jenny. I had Adam. I have Mom.

  Maybe I need to make more friends. I look across at Kathleen, who smiles back, almost as if she knows something.

  Talk between the other three has turned to Jared's wedding, which will be huge, and if they'll be invited, which they'd kill for. Who's doing the cake? Cottage Confections, of course. Nothing but the best for Mrs. Brewster.

  "Is Adam a groomsman?" Elle asks.

  Adam is fucking a woman at work, I almost say. Was fucking. A technicality.

  "No, he's not," I say. "I'm sorry, ladies, I have to go. I forgot I have to make cupcakes for the nursery school play tomorrow."

  It's true. Never before have I forgotten such a monumental and life-giving responsibility. Cupcakes. "Rachel, we need you!" the director of the preschool had said. "No one else's cupcakes are gluten-free, nut-free and still delicious!" At the moment, I'd been thrilled. Validated. That's how pathetic I was.

  I go out to my car, and Kathleen follows. "Hey. We should have lunch or coffee sometime," she says.

  "That'd be great." I smile, and for the first time tonight, it feels a little genuine.

  "Everything okay, Rachel?" she asks.

  I pause. It would be awfully nice to unload on someone other than Jenny. But Kathleen and I don't know each other that well. "Yeah. Thanks, though."

  "You bet." She sighs. "Well. Back to the great works of literature." She rolls her eyes and goes back into Elle's.

  I get into the car and head for home. Time to bake the cupcakes and show the world who I am.

  *

  The next day, Adam surprises me by showing up at the girls' play. A stir goes through the assembled parents and grandparents... Sexism still reigns supreme at these types of events, and most of the parents here are mothers, with the exception of Gil Baines, who's a firefighter and has a flexible schedule, and Maury Benitz, who's running for mayor again this fall and is here to remind people how wonderful he is.

  Adam has never come to a nursery-school event before, unless it's after-hours, like the art show. But today, at ten-eleven in the morning, here he is.

  "Oh, my God, you're so lucky," Claudia murmurs. "Adam! Hey! How are you?"

  "Just here to see my little princesses," he says easily, sliding an arm around me. "And my queen, of course."

  "You two are sickening." She smiles and looks at the stage.

  "This is a surprise," I murmur, not quite looking at him.

  "I want to do better," he whispers, kissing my neck. My skin either crawls or breaks out in gooseflesh. Or both. Miss Cathy, the girls' teacher, gives us a wave. Look at the Carvers! Such a great couple!

  For the next half hour, we watch our daughters, who are each daisies, wriggle up from a brown blanket, demonstrating the growth cycle. They sing a song about sunshine and raindrops, and I feel my eyes watering, as they so often do at these kinds of things. The children are all so beautiful and innocent. Especially mine. I may be biased.

  They deserve a happy family. I grew up in the safe, warm embrace of just that until the day my father died. My girls deserve that, too.

  Adam hands me his handkerchief. He still carries one, every day. I should know. I wash and iron them. I wonder if he's ever had to give Emmanuelle one. Or why. I can't bring myself to use it. Picture her falling down the escalator again.

  Except women like Emmanuelle don't fall. Even if some spurned wife pushes them, they somehow make things work in their favor.

  The girls are so happy to see their father after the play. They wrap their sweet arms around him and ask if he could hear them, and if he wants to meet Tyrion or Jennasys, their friends, then drag him to visit the bathroom, which is one of the highlights of nursery school, since the toilets are tiny.

  "You're so lucky," Miss Cathy says. "What a wonderful guy."

  "Yes," I say automatically.

  "Not only is he gorgeous, he's here," Claudia murmurs. "If he's good in bed, I may have to kill you."

  "It's so nice that your husband came, dear," says an older woman, a grandmother, judging from the fervor with which she shoved her way to the front to film the entire performance. "In my day, husbands never did things like that."

  It's time to go; one of the frustrations about these special school events, of which there are at least three a month, is that they warrant early dismissal. No Me Time today. Good thing we pay thousands of dollars for the girls to come here.

  No one mentions my cupcakes. I was up till three last night, finishing them, taking care to sterilize the counters, the muffin tins, the bowls, the mixer, the spatulas, so Aria Temkowsi wouldn't go into anaphylactic shock, so Cash Boreas wouldn't get a rash. I frosted them in a swirl using my special Williams-Sonoma set, and they're beautiful, these damn cupcakes.

  But all anyone can do is make cow eyes at Adam in a rush of good-daddy hormones.

  "I have to run," he says as we go into the parking lot. "Girls, you were so wonderful!"

  "Who was best, Daddy?" Rose asks. This is something she's picked up recently. Competition. I wonder if she senses something from me, and my resentment toward Emmanuelle.

  "You're all my favorites," he says. "You're all the best." He kneels down and kisses and hugs them.

  He is a good father. I know that.

  "See you at home," he murmurs. Then he kisses me, gently, on the lips. "Love you."

  "See you later." His eyes flash disappointment that I didn't say the words back. Words I used to tell him four or ten times a day.

  His patience isn't going to last long. The thought hums like a tuning fork next to my ear.

  I buckle the girls into their seats, and get into the driver's seat. "Wait!" Grace bellows. "We didn't get cupcakes! Where are cupcakes!"

  "Nooo!" Rose wails.

  "Mommy! No!" Charlotte adds.

  There's no way I'm going back inside that building to hear more about how wonderful Adam is. "You know what?" I tell them. "We're getting ice cream instead! Who wants ice cream? I know I do! And guess what else? You can get whatever you want on top!"

  This stuns them into silence. "Really?" Grace asks.

  "Yes. Whatever you want. Two things, even!"

  They go a little crazy at Ben & Jerry's. Chunky Monkey with gummy bears and broken Oreos for Charlotte. Phish Food for Grace with chocolate-covered almonds and graham crackers. Cotton Candy for Rose, topped with rainbow sprinkles and more gummy bears.

  I ask them questions and say silly things while they eat, and they're clearly delighted with me, not wiping their hands or faces, not telling them to slow down--though it's a physical battle to stifle the words. No, I'm the fun parent now, that's for sure. Who cares about vegetables?

  We get back in the car after gleefully using way too much soap in the Ben & Jerry's bathroom, because Ben & Jerry's soap is much more fun than the soap from home. No need for lunch. I'll just run them around the yard a little bit, and you know what? It may be time for a puppy. I'll be the one to tell them that, and to take them to the pet store to pick one out--or three, so they can each have one--and I get to be the fun parent, thank you very much.

  And then, nap time. Me time. And today, maybe I'll actually do something for me. I'll order stuff online. Watch The Avengers for the eye candy. I'm almost forty. I'm not dead.

  "Mommy?" comes Charlotte's voice. "I don't feel good."

  And then comes the sound that every mother knows.

  The sound of a little stomach expelling its contents.

  They puke like falling dominoes, three in a row, bing, bang, boom.

  "Mommy! Charlotte threwed up and me, too!" Rose says, outraged. She gacks again.

  "Mommy! Mommy, help!" Grace commands. "Mommy! Make it stop!" Another very juicy-sounding vomit.

  I pull over as soon as I can, but I'm already dry-heaving myself. God, the smell, so thick I can taste it. Sour dairy and sugar and who knows what
else, oh, yes, oatmeal for breakfast and flecks of the carrot sticks, along with the hummus I packed for snack.

  "Oh, babies, Mommy is so sorry!" I say, leaning into the backseat. Grace vomits on my chest, almost on purpose, it seems.

  "Mommy!" she demands, outraged at the indignity.

  "Mommy! I sick!" Rose says.

  "Mommymommymommy," Charlotte moans, not to be outdone. She retches again, as if knowing I doubt her sincerity.

  I carry Wet-Naps at all times, so I mop up the girls. Rose is crying because she threw up on her favorite dress, and Grace is crying with rage because she's got puke in her lap and "it's too hot, Mommy!" and Charlotte is crying because one of her gummy bears came up whole, and this is freaking her out.

  "I'm so sorry, sweeties," I say, struggling not to cry myself. "We'll get home as soon as we can, okay?"

  I slide their door shut, and then I'm bawling, that dreadful Eh-heh-heh-hegggghhh kind of crying, and luckily, the girls can't hear me because they're still wailing, but I'm sobbing, my hands are shaking and I can't stop crying. Me, in a meltdown, covered with vomit on the side of Route 9. I can't drive like this. I think I may actually be hysterical, and the noises coming from my mouth and throat are horrible. My God, listen to me!

  I want things to be the way they were before. I miss Adam. I miss loving my husband. I can't deal with this. It's too hard. It's just too hard.

  Then a car pulls over, and a man gets out. "Rachel?" he says, coming closer.

  I'm still crying, so it takes me a minute to figure out who he is. Then he smiles, his eyes turning into merry little arcs, and I do know.

  "Gus... Hi," I sob. "It's so nice to see you. How've you been?"

  The girls' volume inside the van has risen to shrieks of rage.

  "I'm...I'm great," he says. "But you're not, I'm guessing? Unless you always wear vomit."

  "My girls... I gave them too...too much ice cream, and they...they threw up." My sobbing intensifies.

  He grimaces. "Nasty."

  I nod and try to control myself. I sound like a cat being slowly strangled to death.

  "Want some help?"

  "What?"

  "Want me to help? It sounds like you have rabid weasels in there."

  "Um...no. I mean, no, I've got it."

  "Can I open the van door?" he asks.