Page 144 of Woman on the Verge

She goes to her nightstand, scribbles something on a piece of paper—a phone number and a name: Amber.

“So that’s your name,” I say, finding it funny that neither of us has cared to inquire about the other’s real name until now. We’ve been content pretending all this time.

“Amber Marie,” she says.

“Nice to meet you, Amber,” I say. “I’m Nicole.”

Chapter 28

Nicole

The recommended stay atComeis ninety days, just like at centers for recovery from alcoholism and other addictions. Apparently, ninety days is the agreed-upon time it takes to establish meaningful change. Apparently, a self can be reinvented in ninety days.

I’m not so sure I feel reinvented. I am still me. But now, at day 90, I feel, well, less likely to invent an entire person. I’ve started taking a low-dose antidepressant. I’ve gotten my hormones under control thanks to the very same birth control pill I took in my twenties. With therapy and time and space to myself, I am calmer, saner. I am someone who says things like “I feel very in my body.”

I am ready to go home.

Well, not home, exactly.

Kyle has come in for multiple sessions—once a week since that first one. We have discussed the state of our marriage and come to the agreement to stay separated for now. Crystal says that with any type of infidelity or breach of trust, the old relationship must die. It must be grieved. And then both parties must decide if a new relationship will emerge. “To paraphrase Esther Perel,” she said, “many of us will have multiple marriages in our lives. Some of us will have them with the same person.”

Crystal is a big fan of Esther Perel.

Kyle and I are still grieving. There is so much we don’t know yet, so much we are still understanding about why we chose each other twenty years ago, how we strayed from each other over all these years, what’s possible in all the years yet to come. Kyle has said, “I don’t get why you’re unhappy. I’m the same guy I was when we first met. I haven’t changed.” To that, I said, “But I have.”

It was Kyle’s idea to lease a condo for me. We perused listings when he visited and selected a unit just a few blocks from our family home. We both use the wordtemporarywhen describing this arrangement. He says, “until you get on your feet,” and I say, “to set myself up for success.” It’s only nine hundred square feet, but there are two bedrooms—one for me, one for the girls when they visit.

The girls.

Starting in week 4, I got phone privileges and was allowed to FaceTime them a few times a week. I cried each time. I have not seen them in person or touched their skin for three months, and I feel a clenching in my chest when I think about this. Kyle assures me they are doing well. They are back in day care five days a week. I don’t know how we’re affording all this—the condo lease, day care, my recovery bills. Kyle says not to worry. I assume Merry is helping. She doesn’t know the Elijah component of my breakdown, but she knows enough. She checks in often. She’s in the midst of her own “process,” as Crystal would say. She goes to a grief group once a week and has taken up tai chi, which is incredibly random in the best way possible. She has dinner with Jim and Alice several nights a week. She is trying to feel better. It is a herculean effort. I admire it. Some people just give up, resign themselves to misery.

The girls think I am still recovering from the accident, which isn’t completely false. When we FaceTime, they always ask, “Are you feeling better, Mommy?” and press their snot-filled noses to the screen, so close that every other part of their faces blurs. “Better and better,” I tell them every time, and they cheer.

Everyone says kids are resilient. I think it’s more that they are less attached than adults to any definition ofnormal, more accepting of the cards dealt to them because they have so little knowledge of other possible hands. Their mother was in an accident. She was not well. She had to be away to heal. She is “better and better.” She is coming home. This is what they know. I wonder if I’ll ever tell them the whole truth, or if I’ll keep it from them, like my dad kept truths from me. I cannot judge him now. I find myself standing here in shoes similar to his, and I cannot say for certain I will walk a different path.

There is no formal ceremony to send me off, but everyone atComesigns an oversize card with their well wishes. Phoebe does an exit interview with me in which she says, “I’m not supposed to say this, but you are one of my favorites.” I assume she says this to everyone, but then she starts dabbing her eyes with a tissue, and I’m left to wonder.

Crystal brings me flowers and carries my bag as we make our way to the front of the building, where Kyle is waiting in the car. It’s not goodbye with Crystal. She has a private practice a few miles away and will remain my therapist on an outpatient basis, thank god.

“Call or text if you need to,” she says, giving me a hug. “I mean it.”

I nod, unable to manage words because I can feel my throat tightening. This place has made me afeelerand I have mixedfeelingsabout this.

Kyle puts my bag in the back seat and opens my door for me.

“You ready?” he asks.

“I have no idea.”

Crystal leans in: “She’s ready.”

We decide I’ll reunite with the girls at the house, then talk to them about the condo situation. The tentative plan is for Kyle and me to each keep the girls for two days at a time, though we will take turns with day care drop-offs and pickups so we each see them every day. In our minds, it seems like a rather idyllic, albeit unconventional, arrangement. We each get time with the girls, time to show up as our very best parental selves, and we each get time alone to indulge our nonparental selves. I’m sure reality will be less idyllic than what we envision, but I am cautiously optimistic, which Crystal says is progress.

When we pull into the driveway, I see Merry in the window, likely the lookout for the girls. Kyle said she wanted to be here for my homecoming. I can hear the girls squealing before I even get to the front door, and I start to cry the happiest tears I have ever cried. Merry opens the door, and they barrel toward me, a flurry of limbs and wild hair. They launch their bodies at mine, and I stumble backward, sit on my butt, then lie flat on my back, face to the sky. The girls jump on top of me, and Kyle says, “Girls! Careful!” but they do not care. They will not be pleased until every inch of their bodies is in contact with mine. I kiss their faces—not just their lips but also their cheeks and noses and foreheads and chins and eyelids and earlobes. They breathe hard and say, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” their hearts beating like hummingbird wings.

I do not move. I stay still. I let them confirm for themselves that I am here, that I am back. I breathe deeply, in a way that would make everyone atComeproud, and I start to feel their breathing match mine, our bodies moving up and down in unison.

“It appears you all missed each other,” Merry says finally, and we laugh, Grace and Liv giggling in the hysterical, almost maniacal way people do when whatever they fear does not come to pass, when theboogeyman is not in the closet, when the ghost is not under the bed, when the sound in the kitchen turns out to be nothing.

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