Page 44 of Woman on the Verge

“What, Mommy? What happened?” Grace asked, intrigued by my horror.

“Nothing. Let’s go. We have to go home.”

I resolved to make Liv rinse with mouthwash and then scrub her hands until they were red. Then I would chastise myself for not being abetter mother. Could Liv get a disease from a tampon applicator? How would I explain her having oral herpes to Kyle?

“I want toy,” Liv cried.

“What did you throw in the bushes?” Grace asked, starting to wander over there to investigate.

“Girls. Seriously. Mommy’s going to lose it.”

Grace climbed into the bushes, and Liv increased the volume of her crying. I felt my body getting hot, boiling from the inside. That’s when it happened. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, and out came the most primal scream of my life, matched in intensity only by the sounds I’d emitted during labor. It was long, requiring every last bit of oxygen in my lungs. I was sure the shipwreck mom, now a block or two away, could hear me.

When I stopped, my heart still pounding in my chest, I fell to my knees on the ground and opened my eyes, and the girls were staring at me, dumbstruck and afraid.

Grace blinked hard. “Mommy?”

“We need to go home,” I said, finger combing strands of now-damp hair behind my ears.

Neither of them protested. Apparently, the quickest way to get children to behave is to become mentally unhinged and scare the shit out of them.

They were silent in their double stroller for the entirety of the walk home. I wondered if they’d fallen asleep, but when I checked, they were both wide awake, bug eyed, looking at me as if I were a complete stranger.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” I said.

They both just nodded. It was possible I’d broken them and they would forever cower in my presence.

I made a vow to myself to hold it together over the next few days. I would have to do that impossible thing that every mother must do—forget myself completely, tend to them as if I had none of my own concerns.

When we got home, Kyle was in the kitchen getting himself a snack. If he were wired like me, or like any mother, he would have simultaneously made the girls lunch. Women are masters of efficiency, always considering how many birds they can kill with one measly stone. Men are accustomed to having all the stones in the world and none of the birds.

The girls played quietly with their baby dolls, and I could tell Kyle was temporarily impressed with my control over them. If he’d known what had inspired their good behavior, if he’d heard my outburst, he would have been horrified:Do you think the neighbors heard you? Did anyone see you?

“We heard from the doctor,” I said, standing close to him at the island, speaking softly.

The girls don’t see their grandparents enough to be very close to them, but I wasn’t prepared to talk to them about death as a concept. Grace, in particular, would have three thousand questions, and I worried I might die in the process of attempting to answer them.

He continued spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread and said, “Uh-huh?”

“My dad is dying.”

I really wanted to say “I was right” or “I knew it,” but I managed to be mature for once.

He paused his peanut butter spreading and set the knife down.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“It would be pretty messed up if I wasn’t.”

I told him the name of the disease. He said, “Man, that sucks,” which sounds like something a surfer would say in response to less-than-great waves, but that’s just the extent of Kyle’s language for unhappy events. At least he didn’t say “Bummer.” He looked appropriately upset. I have never seen Kyle cry, so I didn’t expect tears. He’s always had a civil relationship with my dad, but they aren’t, like,pals. They don’t play fantasy football together or talk politics or whatever else fathers andtheir sons-in-law are supposed to do. Kyle isn’t even close to his own dad, so there’s no way he can fully understand my devastation.

“I’ll go up there again on Friday,” I told him.

He resumed making his sandwich. “Yeah, okay. God, I’m sorry, babe.”

“Do you want me to call a sitter to help with the girls?”

“Don’t worry about the girls. Or me. Okay?”

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