Kristan Higgins - If You Only Knew

Even if I never get to be a mommy, at least I’m a beloved aunt.

I unpack a pretty wooden bowl I got in Australia when I was doing an internship down under. The red-and-orange polka-dot chicken I bought at Target; not exactly an irreplaceable artifact, but so cheerful and happy. Another pair of misplaced panties. A picture of Rachel and me, which I place in the living room in the built-in bookcase.

I really love this place. I can make curtains for the big windows, lace panels that would look perfect and still let in light. A big old Oriental carpet for in front of the gas fireplace. My red velvet couch and leather club chair look as if they were made for this living room. I think I’ll buy a butler’s table and get a few orchid plants. Rach will tell me how to keep them alive.

Some movement on the street catches my eye. Oh, hooray! Speaking of my sister, she’s here, standing in front of her minivan. She looks a little…strange. Her hair is in a messy ponytail, as is mine, but for me, it’s normal.

Also, she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. As someone who wears a uniform to work—I own five black pencil skirts, five sleeveless black silk shirts, five long-sleeve black silk shirts and four pairs of black Jimmy Choo pointy-toe heels—the first thing I do every day when I get home is rip off my sleek clothes and get into pajamas or jeans. My days off—Sunday and Monday—are for sloth, I’ve always felt.

But Rachel is always turned out, as Mom says, usually in a dress and cute shoes. I don’t know how she does it, to be honest, raising the girls, keeping that house so beautiful and still looking great.

I knock on the window and wave, but she doesn’t hear me, so I head out onto my stoop. I should get some pansies or something for out here. A planter full of flowers would make it look so cheerful.

“Hey, Rachel!” I call.

She looks up, and I realize she’s been talking to Leo, who is now sitting on his lawn chair, drinking a beer. A multicolored lump of fur lies beside him. I presume it’s a dog, as it is dog-sized. Seems like I wasn’t too far off in my mental image of a super.

I go down the steps to give my sister a hug. “Hi! Thanks for coming!”

“Sorry I’m late.”

I glance at Leo, who’s petting the dog with one hand. His expression is…naughty. “You okay? Did he say something to you?” I ask my sister in a low voice.

“Who?”

“Him. Leo. The super.”

“Oh, no. He’s very nice.”

“Well, come on in. The movers were great, and I’m just putting stuff in drawers. Want some tea?”

“Do you have any wine?”

“Shoot, no. I can run downtown and get some, though.”

“I have wine,” Leo says.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “But thanks.”

“That would be great,” Rachel says.

“My pleasure.” He unfolds himself from the chair. Six-three, I’d guess. “Loki, stay,” he orders. The dog, who looks rather close to death, doesn’t twitch.

My sister looks a little pale. “Are you okay, Rachel?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, just goes up the stairs into the little foyer. “This is great,” she says unconvincingly. And the thing about Rachel is, she loves home decorating and all that stuff. It’s her art form. She’s Martha Stewart meets Maria Von Trapp; in fact, she found me this place, and when we came here with the Realtor a month ago, Rachel raced around like a kid at Christmas.

“Thanks,” I say. “Rach, you seem weird, hon.”

Then she takes out her phone and taps a button. “Do you know what this is? Is this a tree? With some kind of disease or blight or something?”

I look, then flinch. “No. It’s… Where did you get this?” Because, shit.

“What is it?”

I swallow. “It’s…um, it’s a va—It’s girl parts. A crotch shot.” Hey. Owen and I watched a little porn from time to time, back in the day. The picture is blurry and super close-up, which is quite icky, so yeah, I guess I could see how Rachel, who is very innocent, could think it was a diseased tree. “Who sent this to you?”

But my sister doesn’t answer, because now her face is the color of chalk, and her legs buckle, and Leo catches her just as he comes in the door.

Chapter 4: Rachel

A DISTANT PART of me is so, so embarrassed that a total stranger has seen me faint. I’ve never fainted before. I mean, I’ve wanted to, a thousand times, usually when I’m at a party, trying to pretend that I’m having fun, and trying to eat when no one else is looking. I’m always worried about how I look when I’m eating. I think people who throw parties should offer private little carrels where guests can go and eat in private. So I generally don’t eat at parties, then the wine goes right to my head, like now, and that makes me feel even more self-conscious, because I’m afraid people will say, “That Rachel got so drunk at our party last night!” so in the end, I neither eat nor drink. I just stand around, hoping to faint, because leaving the party, even by ambulance, would be preferable to trying to look like I’m having a good time.

But I suppose I really earned the faint today. And Jenny’s friend is very kind. He has sad eyes. Sad for me, because I’m an idiot.

I guess I knew what the picture was. All morning long, I smothered the thought, watched as Adam read on his iPad and accepted gifts from the girls—a picture from Rose, drawn in nursery school, a tulip head from Charlotte, a rubber band from Grace. Charlotte was chattering, Grace sitting at his feet with a notepad and pen, pretending to write a book, all three girls content to bask in his half attention. Before, I never would’ve faulted him for that, those delayed responses and absentminded pats on the head. He works hard. He deserves time to relax.

But this morning, I wondered what he was looking at. Who might be messaging him. And, as ever, his phone was on the table next to him. That’s nothing new. I wouldn’t let myself read into it. It was a tree sent by mistake. I didn’t look at the picture again.

Instead, I went to the computer and looked up that hotel again. The soothing colors, chocolate and cream and white. The lobby bar, with its palm trees and beautiful clock. Looked at that for a long time after he took the kids to the museum, and though I had to go to my sister’s, all I did was sit there, looking at the penthouse suite, imagining how calm and confident I’d feel there, sipping that martini and looking out over the city.

“Rachel. Drink some more water, honey.” My sister’s dark eyes are worried. I obey. I’m sitting on Jenny’s lovely, soft old couch, and my sister is teary-eyed and furious at the same time. Leo—that’s his name, Leo Killian, a nice Irish name—is looking at me too sympathetically. Tears are leaking out of my eyes, but they’re faraway tears, tears I’m not really even aware of, except Jenny keeps handing me tissues.

Adam loves me. I know he loves me.

To think I thought it was a tree. A knothole. Some kind of hole, yes, but really, I am such an idiot. Almost forty, and pathetically naive.

I hope he’s not giving the girls macaroni and cheese for supper. Yes, it’s organic, but I like to save it for when I’ve had a really hard day. If he uses it, he preempts me. And you know what? He should never make macaroni and cheese from a box! I’m the one who gets to do that. I stay home with them all day, every day. I get to be lazy once in a while. He should make them chicken and broccoli and…and…

Oh, God, he’s cheating.

My thoughts surge and roll like a riptide, crashing into each other from all directions, then shushing back before I can figure out the current. I just… I just don’t know what to think or where to swim.

Leo hands me a glass of wine. “Thank you,” I say.