I Will Do Better, page 6
What I do remember thinking incessantly, in loops, returning to, using as a mantra, is that what I could do—what I was doing—was to keep on my grind. The apartment was rent-stabilized, so I didn’t have a huge overhead. We had health insurance for a while thanks to the Authors Guild, a little money still left from the advance for the new book, and my publishing house would cough up more, should two hundred new pages magically appear. I’d also become mobile enough to teach an undergraduate writing workshop in the fall, so that would mean a few more pennies. I had Mondays to Fridays, when Lily was with Nina, to teach and write and try and figure out how to pay the bills. Lily had Saturdays from 3:00 to 3:50 p.m. with Dr. Melfi to get deep. Sunday mornings the two of us trekked across town to the West Village: I kvetched to Crystal about my latest misadventures in fatherhood. She answered right back about being a mom to a young child and whether she’d ever be able to get auditions again. We snacked and supervised, laughed and unwound; Lily and her cousin, Declain, scarfed organic juice boxes from my sister’s fridge, chased each other around the block, and dug around in the local playground’s sandbox. In my mind’s eye, I still see Crystal pleasantly calling out something to Lily, my child listening, following instructions, looking to her aunt for more guidance.
On Sunday evenings, after we returned home and rested a bit, Susannah took over, coming by to get Lily and venture back out into the city, the two going out for dinner, maybe shopping for something fun, then returning, for now it was time for their special Skype sessions with Grandma Peg. Here were Peg’s snow-white hair and kind eyes coming into focus on my laptop.
Admittedly, proper etiquette would have been to chat with my dead wife’s mom, spend three whole minutes trading niceties. By that time of night, though, I was spent. I mumbled something toward the laptop, then stumbled into the bedroom. After all, tomorrow there were dance classes to get her to, gymnastics across town. Depending on how the calendar played out, there were friends stopping by, day trips needing coordination, museum visits, lollipop runs, Nina filling me in, rescheduled appointments, impromptu pop-ins from out of the fucking sky, all of us giving it every bit of what we were supposed to, trying to feed a child’s wonder and delight, filling in new areas of the jigsaw puzzle that was her sense of this world, in short, manifesting the idea of a mother’s love through our piece-by-piece effort, our growing infrastructure, and, okay, it wasn’t a replacement, not close, but still …
CHAPTER FIVE
That fall, we had what, on first, second, and fourth glance, appeared to be an upgrade to our circumstances.
Those letters of recommendation that Crystal had harassed me into chasing down, way back when I’d been on the couch, recovering from my accident? Those letters ended up unlocking doors to the administrative offices of no fewer than three pre-kindergarten and day care centers. And once these doors were unlocked, Lily must have done pretty well at her subsequent playdate interview things (in which said administrators watched her and other kids interacting). Probably the ins and outs of our super-sad sob story helped here and there. However it happened, the end result was Lily being enrolled in the preschool arm of the Third Street Music School Settlement.
Third Street Music School Settlement: the longest running community music school in the United States—servicing young and adult musicians alike since 1890-whenever. Actually located on East Eleventh Street and not its original Third Street location, meaning closer to us and easier to wheel Lily to and from (huzzah!). Four stories of red brick that looked transported straight from the nineteenth century, only with the building updated, the bricks scrubbed and welcoming, more like a gentrified Dickens and not a scary orphanage (another huzzah!). They also housed an elementary school, as well as kindergarten and toddler programs—which, let’s be honest, helped keep the lights on. We qualified for their toddler financial aid package, almost making Lily’s school year affordable.
It felt monumental, getting her to this moment, this place, providing her the chance to enter into a routine, to have an organized, socializing structure. I felt like I should be performing a live ritual sacrifice to show my thankfulness—although, now that I think of it, Lily in pre-K meant sacrificing Nina. There wouldn’t be enough hours to make employing her worthwhile. This was definitely a loss: Nina’s presence had added feminine joy and stability to Lily’s life. But it was also apparent, Nina had been exhausted by her summer; she was ready for something new.
From the department of self-interest, I was too. Most of the writers who’d published books around the time of my first novel had already published new books. They were winning awards, getting tenure, and selling television shows. In down moments, occasionally, I responded like any reasonable person and searched the magic Google machine for updates of my peers’ successes. I knew I wasn’t going to be on a career fast track anytime soon—most likely that dream was gone—but with Lily in school, at least I’d be able to designate set hours when I got to visit my writing space in Union Square, a third-floor communal area divvied into cubicles. (Figure, ink-stained wretches toiling on manuscripts and screenplays, also arguing—politely, fervently—about the best percentages for dark chocolate.) I’d be able to spread out at a desk, occupy my own head for a bit. I could commit to the process of writing, recovering this part of myself.
“What if I don’t make friends,” she asked. “What if the teacher doesn’t like me?”
I answered her concerns by showing her a picture book: the story of a longtime teacher who was nervous on the night before school started. I asked if she understood.
She cuddled into me, stayed there a long time.
“Another bedtime story,” she said.
“Which one, sweetheart?”
“Elefegg.”
“I keep telling you, I don’t know that one.”
“Hotor.”
“I’ll keep checking for Hotor.”
She studied me. I am so disappointed in you, Daddy, but keep trying to understand.
We sang our eighties medley. We stared up into the dark at our Day-Glo cosmos. We visualized waves, first crashing on the beach, then heading back out into the ocean. The next morning I slipped out of the new pack that I’d purchased, and onto her narrow body, a clean, new white pair of underpants with a small pink flower on the front. I helped her ease into the sleeves of a purple frock that I’d liberated from the dreck of a Daffy’s sale rack. We got on her glittery gray tights, Ugg-ish pink boots. Combing her hair, lightly, so it did not hurt too bad, I twisted her scrunchie so she had a neat ponytail.
Saved from my phone, pictures show Lily strapped into her stroller, staring up at me and the camera phone. Her eyes are doubtful, her mouth twisted in an expression that might be sarcastic, maybe a bit shy.
No school wants the little ones overwhelmed during that inaugural week. Which meant Lily’s first day at Third Street lasted all of one hour. To a child, though, it’s still the first day, still the unknown. At the cusp of the classroom, Lily waited, going quiet. Other kids were already in the classroom, gathered at different tables, grabbing things, talking. She’d only had that week of camp at the Y; was this too much for her? She took her time, walked into the room, soon enough sought out a table of art supplies. She did not look up at me, kept playing with the green clay, did not notice when I called her name or waved goodbye.
INSTEAD OF HEADING to the writing space—I had only an hour, what was the point?—I grabbed a bagel, returned to the school ten or so minutes early. The small courtyard in front was laid out with rubber carpeting, allowing the area to serve as a playground. Just inside the fenced perimeter, a new curveball caught me looking, buckled my knees.
Mommies. Maybe two dozen. Wearing light fall coats, fashionably large sweaters. Well-meaning. Caring. Occupying the wooden benches and standing around. Supremely competent in so many walks of life. Most were first-time parents and therefore on edge about their kids—their energy radiated, palpable, potentially ravenous, yet at the same time was being held back, for the moment translating into lots of plastic smiles, tight nodding.
These days, thanks to prestige TV shows like HBO’s Big Little Lies, the daily procession—all those mothers waiting at the schoolyard—has become a recognized cultural happening. I had no clue about it, but, suspicious, kept away from their gaggles, clutched the wilted cheese stick in my pocket.
The building doors opened outward. Leading the way were the teaching pair, each in her late fifties, one with dark curly hair, the other flowing white. Toddlers followed—a dozen, two dozen— toddling, stumbling, too cute for words, down the middle of a cement path in a polite, orderly, almost straight line. It seemed to me that each emerging child raised his or her head, seeking out Mommy. Then sprinted, hugged.
Of course, Lily was near the back.
When her eyes found me, her relief was transformative: “DADDY!”
Squishy cheese liquefied inside my grip. The tightness in my stomach turned golden. I opened my arms; Lily rushed to me, her words tumbling out—forward rolls, awkward attempted cartwheels, no phrase coming quickly enough: “I get a cubby, we sit at a table, there are four of us—”
She let me hug her, needed to tell me everything, also needed to break away, run around, play in the courtyard, be with her new friends.
HALCYON WEEKS UNFOLDED as if straight from a widower daddy’s wish list: Lily followed every instruction given by either of her two teachers; she showed herself as eager to please, kind to other children, enthusiastic about fitting in. At pickup time, my daughter took part in games, breaking off with girls to run, laugh, and chatter with other groups. She made friends, socialized, opening up.
Sitting on one of the benches of the courtyard perimeter, just enough distance from everyone to differentiate myself, mark myself as separate, I watched her from my natural, defensive hunch, unable to help myself, half anticipating things going wrong, rooting for her as if I’d bet my life savings on the results. The perimeter of that courtyard was scattered with sitters, there for pickup, some nannies as well. Now and then other dads showed up—invariably scruffy but well-kept, soft in their manners and on their best behavior, working to fit in with the otherwise maternal vibe. Really, though, that playground was a feminine space; specifically, it was a maternal space. Its great majority of occupants were indeed mothers, younger than me, usually. Upscale-ish, new transplants to the East Village, possessors of powerful jobs and faded ankle tattoos and other things to do with their time, but who were in this courtyard with their kiddies, talking shop with other moms, discussing Don Draper’s latest Sunday evening transgression.
I silently took in their fall jackets—designer fare manufactured to look more tattered than my legitimately beaten coat. I tossed a nod, gave smiles that I hoped were better than perfunctory.
While Lily was catching her breath, while she circled back on her jaunts, you just know she saw those mommies, too. You best believe she studied their mannerisms. As if pulled along by interior, magnetic forces, Lily gravitated toward their Tupperware containers of prepped pasta and fresh fruit, the care they displayed while delivering forkfuls into their kids’ waiting yaps.
LILY HAD BEEN, what, two months old when CUNY started its winter semester; Diana had been raring to go, refusing to take off the semester either for her own final classes or the teaching job that was part of her scholarship package. She was scheduled to instruct Intro to Comp, meaning incoming freshmen whose literacy marks had not measured up—mostly immigrants, first-in-their-families college students who, if they were to stay enrolled, needed the rudimentary elements of what goes into a sentence, a paragraph, an essay. With our baby strapped to her chest, Diana sat on our couch, up through the deepest parts of the night, alternating between feeding and jiggling the child and prepping and fine-tuning her lesson plans. Now and then she’d expound about the importance of doing well by her students, ideas for the opening lecture. I shit you not when I tell you she brought Lily with her, to her classes. I’d volunteered to take care of the little dumpling, but Diana saw that mine was an obligatory offering; she had good reason to doubt my ability to care for an infant, by myself, for an entire afternoon. More important, she did not want be away from Lily, refused to be away from her, instead loading a backpack full of diapers and bottles full of breast milk, taking the stroller with her. Diana hired an undergrad to push the stroller with baby Lily up and down the hallway outside class. At each hour mark during the three-hour class, she’d duck outside to check on them. As soon as the class was done, she came out, grabbed her baby, and resumed her mothering duties.
This was what it meant to be all in. It was what Lily saw from the mothers in that courtyard on a daily basis, what I watched Lily taking in: women with open arms, quick to call out, ready to embrace, eager with pasta, with the right organic juice box, anything that a child could possibly desire, could need, before the child even knew what that might be. I was not one for conscious grief. To be frank, it was hard to make time when there was this toddler to care for, when there was so much to figure out (how we were going to pay bills, deal with three percent of what goes into your average New York minute, yadda yadda yadda). There was a hole inside of me—I knew that much—but I just kept doing my Beckett imitation, shoving my head down, plowing onward, knowing that, fine, my core had this hole, this void. In the courtyard, sitting on the bench, registering Lily registering these mothers, I fell down that void. Just how much Diana would have wanted to be there. How much she would have loved being part of that courtyard, this klatch of mommy conversations. You see those women transcend themselves, elevating into these amazing, powerhouse mothers. I wished I would have gotten to see the powerhouse mom my wife would have become. Of all the people who’d wanted—no, who’d deserved—the experience, she had been at the top of the list. This loss, this absence, it overwhelmed me, hurling me further down the void. Who Lily would have grown into under Diana’s tutelage? It’s something I still wonder about. How the two of them would have been together. What people each of them would have become. All of it, ghost upon ghost. Diana would have done much better than I was doing.
Meanwhile the kids kept on with their cutesy mayhem; the otherwise mundane afternoon continued.
A few moms were grouping nearby. I could not help myself and eavesdropped.
Little Astrid had six stitches right along her right eyebrow from where she’d tumbled down the stairwell. Guthrie smacked his chin against a table edge. Mother after mother documented her kid’s scar.
“I feel responsible,” one admitted. “I shouldn’t, I just do.”
“Right,” another said. “It’s a normal part of being a parent.”
Still another: “But it’s so hard to give yourself a break. I can’t do it.”
I kept listening. Maybe scooted a bit toward them.
WOULDN’T IT BE a pleasure to report that the moms sensed my interest, took me into their klatch, walked me to a special backroom coffee shop where you needed a password to get all the billion-dollar mothering secrets? How awesome it would be to let you know, here, that the other kids not just accepted but anointed Lily, fighting over her, who among them was worthy of her deigning to attend their playdate, let alone their sleepover.
Yeah, let’s segue.
Third Street’s adult conservatory kicked into action and started performing weekly lunchtime concerts for the kiddies. Official-looking adults in black formal wear; mellifluous melodic performances. The combination had its desired effect, and overpowered Lily. Just as impressive to her: the sight of teenagers ambling the school hallways with their stickered cases. The violin didn’t simply present itself as a gorgeous instrument to Lily; it became an object of unending interest, one that looked supercool when all the people were jamming on it with those sticks. Possessing the wondrous confidence that comes with being a toddler, Lily had no doubt, she’d be awesome at violin. “I’m almost four. I’m a big girl,” she said. “I will practice. I promise.”
Today she was trying to keep that promise. The living room window was acting as her backdrop: stuffed bears and unicorns along its ledge, weak, fluttering snowfall on the other side of the pane. Lily was concentrating, fully occupied with her beginner’s violin, trying to balance it under her chin. Winter sky toward evening; afternoon’s remaining light along the perfect curvature of her cheek. I watched her strain to keep the instrument’s body steady. The lit outline of her profile; the structure of Lily’s skull appeared to me frail, perfect as an egg. Her head was lowered in such a way that her inherited Bock forehead all but leaped out. For long moments I appreciated all of her Bockiness. Except that, as I stared, the evening light shifted just a bit: Think of how clouds pass over a field and change the light on the grass. And with this shift, what jumped out at me were bits and pieces of her mother: the complexion so pale as to almost be transparent, the wild field of freckles blooming on her cheeks, the outlines of blue veins visible beneath the transparent, freckled skin near her temples.
My daughter appeared impossibly beautiful. Profoundly innocent. The kind of innocence that inspires, unlocking kindness in the human soul. One of those moments a parent knows he needs to cherish, appreciate. Maybe I needed to be getting the camera on my phone?
Except that by thinking about getting my phone, I wasn’t staying in the moment, but instead was concerning myself with an action that was, sorta, the opposite of appreciation.
Her jawline—square then pointed, also like her mom’s—was set, her front teeth clenched. Beneath her chin, her violin was trembling a little.
“Can I stop,” Lily asked. “My neck hurts.”
In the window, snow fell steadily, the day’s natural light all but disappeared.
“Almost done,” I said.
