Litchfield that has fabulous antique chronographs—’”
“What?”
“Those watches with all the little dials on the faces. Classics. Très popular right now. And maybe that means you should be calling hospitals in Connecticut because—”
“Do you honestly think that after a hideously long day, he’d drive up to Connecticut?”
“No. I was just making up an example.”
“Jonah would never collect—”
“Susie, listen to me.” She set her elbow on the table. Instead of resting her chin on her hand, like most people do, she stuck out her thumb and put the deep cleft of her chin on it: Andrea’s “I’m deep in thought” pose. Finally, she said, “If you keep saying Jonah wouldn’t do this or that, you’re closing your mind. Am I right?” I didn’t answer. “Am I being logical?”
“Yes.”
“So you shouldn’t decide not to listen to something that could be useful simply because it doesn’t jive with your version of your husband.”
“But my version is the right one.” I said it in almost a whisper.
I shuffled into the small office that took up part of the space between our reception area and the workroom. Then I returned with a pen and a piece of our billing stationery . Make it first-rate with Florabella, it said along the bottom. When I got back, I jotted down a few talking points along with Andrea’s cell number. I knew I’d be needing a script.
After a half hour, I got good at leaving voice mails and getting past secretaries and nurses by saying, “This is an urgent call about Jonah Gersten, and I need to speak with whoever now.” Then I’d immediately add, softening my voice from powerful to genteel, “if that’s possible.” I got through right away to a fair number of the names, but by the time I began the D’s, I’d learned only two things I hadn’t known before. Jonah wished he’d taken clarinet instead of piano lessons as a kid. And about a month earlier, when he’d run into a friend from Yale, he’d said the biggest change with having triplets was that there never was a time he wasn’t exhausted. I chewed on my knuckles for half a second as I listened to this, then got up the courage to ask, “Did he sound depressed?” Not at all. In good humor, actually, accepting perpetual fatigue as a fact of life.
Between each call, I’d close my eyes to blank out reality, but itwas there anyway: I kept picturing the boys. Today would be all right, not counting the trauma I could be inflicting on them by playing down the terror I’d felt about Jonah not being in bed and them seeing through my act. Everyone said kids were so smart that even toddlers knew when their parents were faking emotion. They’d grow up not trusting me.
I worried about them in triplicate: as a threesome, as individual boys, and how each would affect the others. Closing my eyes, I got an image of Jonah and me making triplet sandwiches, snuggling the boys between us. If he didn’t come back, would I have to explain those open-faced sandwiches with teeny fronds of dill they always serve at Wasp weddings, and wouldn’t a Mommy canapé be fun? Would they think I was pathetic? I pictured furrowed-brow Evan growing closer with Mason, who would resume his thumb-sucking but still have enough security to give Evan a little boost, and Dashiell, who’d try to swagger through it all, being ostracized by the other two because they’d think he didn’t care.
What could I do for my kids that I wasn’t doing? That second, I wanted to embrace them, soothe them, though truthfully, part of me wished they could go visit Norway with Ida and Ingvild and milk reindeer until this nightmare blew over.
Except if Jonah didn’t come back, it would never blow over. At that moment, I had a selfish or even depraved thought, which was: Did Jonah have enough insurance? I might even have worried that I’d have to sell the house, move to a garden apartment, and buy store-label toilet paper instead of Charmin Ultra, but then I
“What?”
“Those watches with all the little dials on the faces. Classics. Très popular right now. And maybe that means you should be calling hospitals in Connecticut because—”
“Do you honestly think that after a hideously long day, he’d drive up to Connecticut?”
“No. I was just making up an example.”
“Jonah would never collect—”
“Susie, listen to me.” She set her elbow on the table. Instead of resting her chin on her hand, like most people do, she stuck out her thumb and put the deep cleft of her chin on it: Andrea’s “I’m deep in thought” pose. Finally, she said, “If you keep saying Jonah wouldn’t do this or that, you’re closing your mind. Am I right?” I didn’t answer. “Am I being logical?”
“Yes.”
“So you shouldn’t decide not to listen to something that could be useful simply because it doesn’t jive with your version of your husband.”
“But my version is the right one.” I said it in almost a whisper.
I shuffled into the small office that took up part of the space between our reception area and the workroom. Then I returned with a pen and a piece of our billing stationery . Make it first-rate with Florabella, it said along the bottom. When I got back, I jotted down a few talking points along with Andrea’s cell number. I knew I’d be needing a script.
After a half hour, I got good at leaving voice mails and getting past secretaries and nurses by saying, “This is an urgent call about Jonah Gersten, and I need to speak with whoever now.” Then I’d immediately add, softening my voice from powerful to genteel, “if that’s possible.” I got through right away to a fair number of the names, but by the time I began the D’s, I’d learned only two things I hadn’t known before. Jonah wished he’d taken clarinet instead of piano lessons as a kid. And about a month earlier, when he’d run into a friend from Yale, he’d said the biggest change with having triplets was that there never was a time he wasn’t exhausted. I chewed on my knuckles for half a second as I listened to this, then got up the courage to ask, “Did he sound depressed?” Not at all. In good humor, actually, accepting perpetual fatigue as a fact of life.
Between each call, I’d close my eyes to blank out reality, but itwas there anyway: I kept picturing the boys. Today would be all right, not counting the trauma I could be inflicting on them by playing down the terror I’d felt about Jonah not being in bed and them seeing through my act. Everyone said kids were so smart that even toddlers knew when their parents were faking emotion. They’d grow up not trusting me.
I worried about them in triplicate: as a threesome, as individual boys, and how each would affect the others. Closing my eyes, I got an image of Jonah and me making triplet sandwiches, snuggling the boys between us. If he didn’t come back, would I have to explain those open-faced sandwiches with teeny fronds of dill they always serve at Wasp weddings, and wouldn’t a Mommy canapé be fun? Would they think I was pathetic? I pictured furrowed-brow Evan growing closer with Mason, who would resume his thumb-sucking but still have enough security to give Evan a little boost, and Dashiell, who’d try to swagger through it all, being ostracized by the other two because they’d think he didn’t care.
What could I do for my kids that I wasn’t doing? That second, I wanted to embrace them, soothe them, though truthfully, part of me wished they could go visit Norway with Ida and Ingvild and milk reindeer until this nightmare blew over.
Except if Jonah didn’t come back, it would never blow over. At that moment, I had a selfish or even depraved thought, which was: Did Jonah have enough insurance? I might even have worried that I’d have to sell the house, move to a garden apartment, and buy store-label toilet paper instead of Charmin Ultra, but then I
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