Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [117]
Hearing this, Charlie begins to choke up, his eyes growing huge, red, wet.
“So I can’t be friends with him, either?” Charlie asks.
Valerie shakes her head slowly, barely.
“Why not?” he says, now shouting and crying. “Why can’t I?”
“Charlie . . .” she says, knowing that there is no explanation she can give him to make sense of this. Knowing that all of this could have been avoided if she hadn’t been so selfish.
“I’m going to call him now!” Charlie says, pushing up to his knees and then feet. “He told me I could call him anytime!”
Her heart fills with guilt and sorrow as she reaches out for her son.
He angrily resists, swatting at her hand. “He gave me his number!” Charlie sobs, his scar now aglow in a new angle of light. “I have a present for him!”
She tries to hold him again, this time catching him, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she can.
“Sweetie,” she says, holding him to her. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I want a daddy,” he says, sobbing as he goes limp in her arms.
“I know, sweetie,” she says, her heart breaking even more—something she didn’t think possible.
“Why don’t I have a daddy?” he continues to cry, his sobs gradually losing their edge, turning into soft whimpers. “Where is my daddy?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.”
“He left us,” Charlie says. “Everybody leaves us.”
“No,” she says, breathing into his hair, now crying herself. “He left me. Not you.”
She isn’t sure who she is talking about, but she says it again, more firmly. “Not you, Charlie. Never you.”
“I wish I had a daddy,” he whispers. “I wish you could find my daddy.”
She opens her mouth to tell him what she always tells him—that families are all different and that he has so many people who love him. But she knows that it will not be good enough. Not now, maybe not ever. So she just says his name, again and again, holding on to him under their perfectly lit tree.
39
Tessa
I told him to go. I wanted him to go. But I still hate him for listening to me, for not staying and making me fight. I hate him for walking so calmly toward the door, and for the look on his face as he turned back toward me, his lips parted, as if he had one last thing to say. I waited for something profound, some indelible sentiment that I could replay in the hours, days, years to come. Something to help me make sense of what had just happened to me and our family. Yet he didn’t speak—perhaps because he changed his mind and thought better of it. More likely because he had nothing to say in the first place. Then he disappeared around the corner. Seconds later, I heard the door open and then shut again with a definite, final thud—the sound of someone leaving. A sound that has always made me fleetingly sad even when I know they’ll be coming right back, even when it’s a houseguest I am ready to see go. So it shouldn’t have surprised me that that moment and the eerie calm that followed were worse than the actual moment of Nick’s confession.
And there I stood, alone, dizzy and breathless, before turning to sit on the couch, waiting for the rage to overcome me, for the uncontrollable urge to go destroy something. Slash his favorite shirts or smash his framed Red Sox memorabilia or burn our wedding photos. React the way women are supposed to react in this situation. React the way my mother did when she smashed my father’s new car with a baseball bat. I could still hear the sound of glass exploding, see the carnage that remained in the driveway long after my father came to sweep and hose down the crime scene, how those stray shards glistened on sunny days as a reminder of our fractured family.
But I was way too exhausted for revenge, and more important, I wanted to believe that I was too good for it. Besides, I had children to feed, practical matters to attend to, and it took all my energy to head for the kitchen, set the table with the kids’ favorite Dr. Seuss place mats, prepare two plates of chicken nuggets and peas and mandarin oranges, then pour two glasses of milk, adding a dash of chocolate milk. When everything was ready, I turned toward the stairs,