🎧 Chapter Forty | Through a Child's Eyes

On Protection and What Pierces It

What you need to know:

In a day that goes from the recommendation to file a complaint with the state about Dr. Rick’s actions as her health care provider, Jennifer tries to maintain normalcy for her children—supervising swim class and managing homework concerns—but also comes to the clear realization of how all this drama in her own life impacts her kids.

Chapter Forty

Through a Child's Eyes

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My job, every other week, is to corral third grade girls into the locker room, cheer them on while they change from day clothes to swimsuits, rubber band their hair in ponytails, and then stand attentively next to Mr. Trent for the duration of swim-time.

This is where I am now, the dense smell of chlorine all around and in the pool, boys and girls shrieking and splashing in a frenzied competition over inner tubes and Styrofoam noodles. The sounds ping off the walls and roof of the enclosed space.

“Is the math getting any better for Jo?” I ask Mr. Trent, voice raised over the din.

He wears a light blue button-up shirt tucked into the belted waist of his brown slacks and is a shorter, tightly wound guy. Tanned. Military short hair. Chiseled jaw.

“The thing is,” he says, rubbing that jaw now. “I thought so…for a while…but then she left blanks on her worksheet again.” He cuts a quick glance my way. Clear blue eyes. “She’s crazy smart but I cannot get her to ask a question during the lessons.”

Jo sits at the far edge of the pool, legs crossed at the knee. In her favorite polka-dot bikini, she’s engrossed in a conversation with three other girls who tread water while listening to whatever she says. My introvert become extrovert.

“Call on her during the lesson,” I say. “Put her on the spot.”

“I hate to do that,” he says, glances over at me again. “Shy kids like Jo tend to turn more inward when put on the spot.”

“I think it’s more that she thinks math is beyond her—a girl,” I say. “She’s too bright for that kind of stinken’ thinkin’.”

“Stinken’ thinkin’,” he says with a chuckle, “I like that. But, if you don’t mind me saying, she has the reserve of someone with other things on her mind.” He looks at me full-on now. “How are things at home?”

I’m about to say that “stinken thinkin’” isn’t my creation but rather belongs to her dad, but the way he looks at me, waiting, I can only look over at Jo who slides off the edge and into the pool in one fluid move. Then treads water with the other girls.

“I’m, ah, getting a divorce…” I finally manage to say, “but not from her dad, and uh, I had a car accident in September. So there’s that.”

He studies me while I talk, then looks at the pool again. “There you go,” he says.

I cut a quick look at him again. Feel a mix of irritation. Jerk. What do you know? But then comes embarrassment at my defensiveness because he probably knows a lot. Teachers see everything about their students, and the parents, and of course Jo would have “other things” on her mind. She’s a sensitive kid. They both are but while Spencer deals by asking a thousand questions, Jo watches everything, and absorbs emotions like a sponge. Even the ones I repress.

Breaking away from her girl pod, Jo splashes a boy. Sam? Or is that Sean?

The boy, surprised, turns. Laughs. Splashes back. Jo ducks under the surface, swims to the edge, pops her head out of the water like a seal pup.

Totally normal. Totally happy. But not.

She looks toward me, waves.

I wave back.

On the walk home, I laugh at Jo’s stories about the kids in her class, including the one she splashed. She calls him a goofy guy but “kind of cute, too.” Inside, I am a firestorm of resolution and plans. She needs the calmer routines of our Feather House days. We all do. I will try harder. I will do better, I tell myself.

Once home, I get them both into the hot tub, carry my phone and computer to my room, and close the door. No more calls within hearing range of little ears, I tell myself.

With the laptop on the low altar where I used to meditate, and still do—now and again—I tilt open the screen. Type in my password. Click. Scroll. Scan.

In a moment, all my plans to be in control vanish and I take up the phone, call the Merrill’s private number.

“That took long enough,” he says. Voice crisp.  

I almost snap about how I have kids but instead focus on the letter from Cal: “Rick wants me to pay him twenty grand? And his legal fees?”

“He also wants to be reimbursed for your wedding ring,” Merrill says, musing now, or maybe amused. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

“And to sell the house? Right now?” I say. “You said we hadn’t been married long enough for me to ask for a settlement. But he’s asking for one? This isn’t a counter offer. This is an assault.”

“Speaking of assault…” Merrill says then, leaves the sentence hanging. “Cal says you went after this guy. Said you beat him up.”

Outside, the sound of the kids splashing, laughing only now there’s no roof to contain the noise and it rises into the day, mixing with the other sounds of life; dogs barking, chickens clucking, cars honking.

Inside, I close my eyes on this blow that I should have seen coming but honestly, didn’t. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid woman, I think.

“Were the police called?” he asks. “A report filed?”

I open my eyes and peer about the big bedroom that I once shared with Rick. The double hung windows, the view of those horse chestnut trees, power lines, sky. And in here, the big bed, the side tables, the throw rug. The side chairs. This meditation table where I’ve sat for hours trying to…what? Reach enlightenment? Transform? What am I missing? How am I getting this all so wrong…still?

“Hello?” he says. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” I say, rub into my forehead as if that will stop the pounding headache coming on. “I’m here,” and then detail the whole situation to the point of pushing Rick that fateful night.

“This is not good,” Merrill says. “If we have to take this case before a judge…”

“Look,” I say. “He’s six-four. I’m five-ten. Do you honestly believe I could beat him up?”

“Hmmm,” Merrill says. “Okay. You have a point. I suppose it’s your word against his.” Through the line a clatter sound and then a click-click. I imagine him picking up his pen. Clicking the top like he did that day in his office. “Everyone says and does crazy shit when a marriage ends…” he continues.

“Mommy?” comes Jo’s sweet voice from downstairs. That slap slap sound of wet feet. And here comes my little mermaid picking up on a strange vibe. Up the steps, down the hall, and she opens the door.

“You coming?” she asks.

Her saucer blue eyes, her hair plastered to her head, that undercurrent of worry etched into her features more clear to me now because of what Mr. Trent pointed out. I see it, but more, I see me as that worried child in years gone by…worried over a mother who wasn’t as well as she needed to care for me way back when. Worried when my dad died eighteen months later. Worried at that summer camp…worried…always worried but the difference is that Jo isn’t Jennifer. That was my life and this in hers and how I wish I could tell little Jo Jo about all the complexities of this life we’ve been gifted and that yes, this is a struggle right now but that we’ll all be okay, soon-ish. But that’s not how it works with mothers and children in moments like this one. They feel everything we feel. That’s the way humans are wired. And the work of a lifetime is how we integrate the intensity of what we feel into our innocence, allowing both to exist side-by-side.

Big thoughts. Big ideas. Big truths. Too big for this moment. I cover the phone, “I’ll be right there, sweets, I promise. Give me another minute.” Hold up the one-more-minute finger. Force a smile.

She nods, backs up, and closes the door. Slap. Slap. Down the hall.

“Now what?” I ask Merrill.

“I can push Cal’s deadline back until the New Year,” Merrill says, “but you need to figure out what you can accept.”

“None of it,” I say. “I want the house.”

“The house is off the table,” he says. “This assault changes everything. You should have told me. I look like an idiot without all the facts.”

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t ‘assault’ him,” I say. “I was provoked. Please go back to the original offer. The house is all I want.”

“You’re not going to get it,” he says, but in that click, click sound, I can tell he’s wavering.

“But you’ll try?”

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll try.”  

Next:

Chapter Forty-One - Gut Work

Back to Abrams for a wrap of the promised three sessions and a decision about filing a complaint. No way! Abrams plays his own final card that Jennifer might not be able to afford.