Handle With Care Read online

  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 moments 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.'

  'A sacrament - like marriage - means living a life better than your natural instincts, so that you're modeling God. And God never gives up.'

  That, I thought to myself, wasn't entirely true. There were plenty of places in the Bible where God backed Himself into a corner and, instead of toughing it out, simply started over. Look at the great flood, at Sodom and Gomorrah.

  'Jesus didn't get to drop that Cross,' Father Grady said. 'He carried it all the way uphill.'

  Well, in one respect the priest was right. If I stayed in this marriage, either Charlotte or I was going to wind up being crucified.

  'How about you and Charlotte come see me together sometime next week?' Father Grady said. 'We'll figure this out.'

  I nodded, and he patted my hand and headed toward the altar again.

  Lying to a priest was a sin, too, but that was the least of my worries.

  Adina Nettle's office was nothing like Guy Booker's, although they apparently had gone to law school together. Adina, Guy said, was the one you wanted if you were getting a divorce. He'd used her twice now himself.

  She had overstuffed couches with those lacy things that look like they belong on valentines draped over the backs. She served tea but not coffee. And she looked like everybody's grandmother.

  Maybe that's why she got what she wanted in settlements.

  'You're not too cold, Sean? I can turn down the air-conditioning . . .'

  'I'm fine,' I said. For the past half hour, I'd drunk three cups of Earl Grey and told Adina about our family. 'We go back and forth to different hospitals, depending on what the problem is,' I said. 'Omaha, for orthopedics. Boston, for pamidronate. Local hospitals for most breaks.'

  'It must be very difficult, not knowing what's going to happen.'

  'No one knows what's going to happen,' I said soberly. 'We just have emergencies more often than most folks.'

  'Your wife must not be able to work, then,' Adina said.

  'No. We've been trying to make ends meet ever since Willow was born.' I hesitated. 'And I can't say it's any easier with me living in a motel.'

  Adina made a note on her legal pad. 'Sean, divorce is financially devastating to most people, and it's going to be even more so for you, because you and Charlotte are living from paycheck to paycheck - plus you've got the added stressor of your daughter's illness. And there's a strange catch-22 here, too - if you want custody, that means you're going to be working less, making even less money. When you're not working, your children are with you. You won't have any free time anymore.'

  'That doesn't matter,' I said.

  Adina nodded. 'Does Charlotte have job skills?'

  'She used to be a pastry chef,' I said. 'She hasn't worked since Willow was born, but last winter she started a little stand at the end of the driveway.'

  'A stand?'

  'Like a vegetable stand. But with cupcakes.'

  'If you cut back on your hours to be with the children, will you be able to afford to keep the house? Or will it have to be sold so that you can have two smaller households?'

  'I . . . I don't know.' Our savings were shot to hell, that much was clear.

  'Based on what you've told me, with all of Willow's adaptive equipment and her schedule, it seems that keeping her in one location would be easier for everyone involved . . . even when it comes to visitation . . .' Adina glanced up at me. 'There is one other option. You could live at the house until the divorce is finalized.'

  'Wouldn't that be - a little uncomfortable?'

  'Yes. It's also cheaper, which is why a majority of couples who are in the process of divorcing choose to do it. And it's easier on the children.'

  'I don't get it--'

  'It's very simple. We draw up a negotiated plan, so that you're in the house when your wife isn't and vice versa. That way you each have time with the girls while the divorce is pending, and the household expenses are no greater than they are right now.'

  I looked down