Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [70]
Although my fever has been gone for twenty-four hours, I haven’t been able to shake the malaise. A weariness has settled in and taken root, helped along by the gray and frigid weather and the aftermath of a headache, a blousy, bilious feeling, dense as pound cake. I actually planned on taking Chloe to Gymboree today, even went so far as to get myself and Chloe dressed—right down to Chloe’s snowsuit—but it was her mittens that finally did me in. Bending low over Chloe, struggling to separate her fingers and coax her tiny thumbs into the pink woolen casings, I’d sunk to my knees, exhausted by the effort. The thought of having to undress her, only to have to redress her again an hour later, made me so tired I wept right there on the kitchen floor.
Later, Ruth leaves me a voice mail message on my cell phone. “Hi, Mira. Listen, I’ve been meaning to call you, to thank you for, wow, all this wonderful food. Everything’s been great and, jeez, what a help! Anyway, Carlos and I missed you guys at class today. Oh, hey, big news. A guy showed up at Gymboree today. An actual dad—cute and no ring,” Ruth whispers giddily into the phone. “Give me a call, and I’ll fill you in. Better come back next week, or I’m staking claim.”
Actually, I was right here when Ruth called but didn’t answer the phone. I was back in bed, still feeling tired, despite the fact that I’d slept while Chloe napped. Immune to Ruth’s enthusiasm over the sudden presence of a man at Gymboree, I lay there listening to her message and staring at the crack in the ceiling, all the while wondering what Jake was serving for lunch at Grappa.
Suddenly, I sit up in bed. I can’t remember if I fed Chloe lunch. I look over where she’s playing on the rug by the television, studying her for signs of malnutrition. Had I fed her? Or, was it breakfast I was remembering? I looked at the clock by the bedside table. Four fifteen. Had we been in this room all day?
That evening I’m in the kitchen heating up a can of soup for Chloe’s dinner when Fiona breezes in. “Lookie, lookie, who’s got a cookie?” she says, pulling a small, wax paper bag from her purse.
Chloe squeals delightedly as Fiona unwraps a large, iced cookie with a blue smiley face and hands it to her. Without asking me.
“Don’t you think Eat’n Park makes the best cookies? When was the last time you had one, Mira?” Fiona asks, digging in her purse. “I got one for you, too,” she says, handing me another small bag. Mine is red, a hastily iced cookie with a crooked gash of a grin.
“I had dinner there tonight with a girlfriend,” Fiona tells me. “I just love their chicken potpie.” Fiona sits down at the table, and Chloe brightens instantly; she even abandons her assault on the cookie to smile at her.
Fiona says that, as long as she’s here, she might as well stick around to see my father, whose class should be over soon. She knows it’s his night to teach, and I have the distinct feeling that she’s come to spy on me, as if she thinks my recent bout of flu has rendered me permanently incapable of taking decent care of Chloe. When she volunteers to read Chloe a story while I finish cleaning up, I don’t argue with her. “She fell right to sleep in my arms, sweet thing. I put her in the porta-crib in your father’s bedroom,” Fiona reports when she comes downstairs a while later. I want to protest that I wanted to put Chloe to bed myself, but it seems petty to complain to someone who’s just done you a favor. So even though it’s only eight thirty, I go to bed. What else is there to do?
I’m hardly surprised then, to find myself awake at three fifteen in the morning, alone in the attic bedroom. I lie there for quite a while thinking of Chloe, wondering if she misses me as much as I miss her, or if it’s possible I’ve disappeared from her life unnoticed. It’s a morose thought, and deep down one I know is irrational, but over the last few weeks and months I’ve been