Somewhere, in the deep creases of my mind-the folds where hope gets caught-I believed that whatever was wrong between Sean and me was reparable. It had to be, because when you love someone-when you create a child with him-you don’t just suddenly lose that bond. Like any other energy, it can’t be destroyed, just channeled into something else. And maybe right now I’d turned the full spotlight of my attention on you. But that was normal; the levels of love within a family shifted and flowed all the time. Next week, it could be Amelia; next month, Sean. Once this lawsuit was over, he’d move back home. We’d go back to the way we used to be.
We had to, because I couldn’t really swallow the alternative: that I would be forced to choose between your future and my own.
The second letter I had to write was harder. Dear Willow, I wrote.
I don’t know when you’ll be reading this, or what will have happened by then. But I have to write it, because I owe you an explanation more than anyone else. You are the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me, and the most painful. Not because of your illness, but because I can’t fix it, and I hate seeing those moments when you realize that you might not be able to do what other kids do.
I love you, and I always will. Maybe more than I should. That’s the only reason I can give for all this. I thought that if I loved you hard enough, I could move mountains for you; I could make you fly. It didn’t matter to me how that happened-just as long as it did. I wasn’t thinking of who I might hurt, only who I could rescue.
The first time you broke in my arms, I couldn’t stop crying. I think I’ve spent all these years trying to make up for that moment. That’s why I can’t stop now, even though there are times I want to. I can’t stop, but there isn’t a moment I don’t worry about what you’ll remember in the long run. Will it be the arguments I had with your father? The way your sister turned into someone we didn’t recognize? Or will you remember the way you and I once spent an hour watching a snail cross our porch? Or how I cut your lunch-box sandwiches into your initials? Will you remember how, when I wrapped you in a towel after your bath, I held you a moment longer than it took to dry you?
I have always had a dream of you living on your own. I see you as a doctor, and I wonder if that’s because I’ve seen you with so many. I imagine a man who will love you like crazy, maybe even a baby. I bet you’ll fight for her as fiercely as I tried to fight for you.
What I could never puzzle out, however, was how you’d get from where you are to where you might one day be-until I was given the materials to make a bridge. Too late I learned that that bridge was made of thorns, that it might not be strong enough to hold us all.
When it comes to memories, the good and the bad never balance. I am not sure how I came to measure your life by the mo ments when it’s fallen apart-surgeries, breaks, emergencies-instead of the moments in between. Maybe that makes me a pessimist, maybe it makes me a realist. Or maybe it just makes me a mother.
You will hear people saying things about me. Some are lies, some are truth. There’s only one fact that matters: I don’t want you to ever suffer another break.
Especially one between you and me, because that might never set properly.
Sean
I was hemorrhaging money.
Not only was my paycheck being stretched to cover the mortgage and the car payment and the credit card finance charges but now any cash I might have been able to sock away was being poured, forty-nine dollars per night, into the Sleep Inn motel, where I’d been living since the day Charlotte came to ream me out at the highway construction detail.
This is why, when Charlotte told me she was leaving one Friday to take the girls to an OI convention for the weekend, I checked out of the Sleep Inn and let myself into my own house.
It’s a weird thing, coming back home as a stranger. You know how, when you go into someone else’s house, it smells-sometimes like fresh laundry, sometimes like pine needles, but distinct from any other? You don’t notice it where you live until you haven’t been there for a while. The first night, I’d walked around soaking in the familiar: the newel post on the banister that still popped off because I’d never gotten around to fixing it; the herd of stuffed animals on your bed; the baseball I’d caught while on a trip to Fenway with a bunch of other cops back in ’90, a Tom Brunansky homer to center field in a game that put the Sox in first place over Toronto for the season.
I went into my bedroom, too, and sat down on Charlotte’s side of the bed. That night, I slept on her pillow.
The next morning, as I packed up my toiletries, I wondered if Charlotte would go to wash her face and be able to smell the scent of me on the towels. If she’d notice that I’d finished off the loaf of bread and the roast beef. If she’d care.
It was my day off, and I knew what I had to do.
The church was quiet at this time on a Saturday morning. I sat down in a pew, looking up at a stained-glass window that reached long, blue fingers down the aisle.
Forgive me, Charlotte, for I have sinned.
Father Grady, who was close to the altar, noticed me. “Sean,” he said. “Is Willow all right?”
He probably thought the only time I’d willingly set foot in a church was if I had to pray hard for my daughter’s failing health. “She’s doing okay, Father. I actually was hoping I could talk to you for a minute.”
“Sure.” He sank down into the pew in front of me, turning sideways.
“It’s about Charlotte,” I said slowly. “We’re having some problems seeing eye to eye.”
“I’m happy to talk to both of you,” the priest said.
“It’s been months. I think we’re past that point.”
“I hope you’re not talking about divorce, Sean. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church. It’s a mortal sin. God made your marriage, not some piece of paper.” He smiled at me. “Things that look impossible suddenly seem a lot better, once you get God onboard.”
“God’s got to make exceptions every now and then.”
“No way. If He did, people would go into marriage thinking there was a way out when the going got tough.”
“My wife,” I said flatly, “plans to swear on a Bible in court and then say she wishes she’d aborted Willow. Do you think God would want me married to someone like that?”
“Yes,” the priest said immediately. “The biggest purpose of marriage, after having children, is to support and help your spouse. You might be the one who manages to make Charlotte see she’s wrong.”
“I tried. I can’t.”