"Jackie, I don"t want to put any more pressure on you. I"m okay leading a celibate life."
My jaw dropped. "A celibate life? But that"s so sad!"
"You"ve had so much to deal with. I don"t want to add one more thing."
"You"re not attracted to me anymore. That must be it," I said. I couldn"t really blame him. I hadn"t been that much fun to live with for the last couple of years. On the other hand, my mood had improved and even I could see that I had a certain sparkle back.
"Of course I"m attracted to you," Warren said.
"How would I know that?"
"I"ve always been attracted to you. That won"t change. But you don"t care about all that anymore."
"I work really hard to stay in shape, Warren. And it"s not just for me, it"s for you. I still want to look good for you. Don"t you want to look good for me?"
Talk about feeling sixteen. We sounded like two teenagers struggling to regain our s.e.xual confidence. But at least we had started the conversation. That afternoon, Warren called me from work.
"I just want you to know that I joined a gym. I want you to be as attracted to me as I am to you."
Ready for a night to reconnect, we dropped Kasey off at Melissa and Brad"s. We didn"t have time for my start-the-night-with-s.e.x plan, but we had fun at the dinner, holding hands under the table and flirting. Warren let his hands linger on the back of my black one-shouldered dress as we danced. We had a baby, we had each other, we had a date. And, late that night, Warren made a convincing case that neither of us needed to lead a celibate life.
As Kasey got bigger and Warren and I wanted to go out more, my mom started coming over regularly to babysit. Emma, Alyson, and Katie had made her feel special and needed, especially after my dad died. I"d often call her and say "Hey, Mom, I need a babysitter tomorrow"-and she"d happily rush to Floral Park.
Warren liked having her around and so did I. She had a purpose. She felt useful. And now she doted on Kasey, just as she had on Emma, Alyson, and Katie.
"Why is she crying?" my mom asked one time when Kasey seemed unusually fussy.
"She"s tired," I said without any hesitation. "She only cries if she"s hungry or tired, and I can tell the difference."
"So what do I do?" she asked. Warren and I were heading out later and she wanted to know all the tricks.
"Put her in her baby seat, turn the TV to Nick Jr., give her her pacy, blanky, and her lamby," I said, reeling off the nicknames of her favorite blankets and stuffed animals. "I guarantee she"ll fall asleep."
Mom followed the routine, and in a few minutes, Kasey was snoozing soundly.
"You know your baby," she said admiringly.
"I do," I said proudly.
"Katie is just beautiful," she said, looking into the crib. And then she gasped and gave a sharp intake of air. "I mean Kasey. Not Katie, Kasey. Oh, Jackie, I"m so sorry. Why did I say that?"
"It"s okay," I said. "I"ve done it, too."
The first time I confused the names, I had gotten incredibly upset. Why had I given Kasey a name that sounded so similar to her sister"s? But then I relaxed, and now I gave my mom the benefit of my wisdom.
"It"s not such a bad thing to get the name confused. Remember you used to call Emma Alyson sometimes by mistake? It"s just the same. They"re sisters. And I love both of them."
My mom looked worried for a few minutes, but then she smiled.
"Kasey," she whispered, gently tucking the blanky around her. "Katie"s sister Kasey."
In our circle, most of the women had two or three or even four kids by the time they reached their mid-thirties, and now here I was at forty, with a new baby. We had all been used to sharing parenting experiences, and I felt slightly out of step. While Isabelle and Jeannine cheered for their daughters doing flips at gymnastics compet.i.tions, I clapped when Kasey sat up on her own. Instead of buying Emma her first bra and getting her a dress for sixth-grade graduation, I was making bottles and pushing a baby carriage. I didn"t expect to be watching Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer again at this point in my life, and I sometimes closed my eyes and pictured the conversations I should be having with Emma about boys and dates. But that part of my life had been derailed. I was on a new track, starting the ride again. Though the train was different, I might as well take advantage of the unexpected view.
When my friends" kids were at school, we could connect as grown-ups. But on school vacations, they went off bowling with their children or to museums in the city or to preteen movies, while I stayed home with Kasey. Thinking of our disparate positions reminded me that in the real-life version of Monopoly, I had been sent back to Go.
But at least I could still play the game. I had more chances to roll the dice, and for that I was grateful.
I also quickly realized that however h.o.m.ogenous our little group, women outside our circle maintained varied life plans. They did different things at different ages. Walking home from Isabelle"s house one day, I noticed a woman on the street with a jogger stroller similar to mine. I waved and she stopped.
"Are you Jackie Hance?" she asked.
I nodded, not sure where this would be going.
"Oh, I"m so glad to meet you," she said, introducing herself. "I have a ten-month-old. Happy fortieth birthday to me."
I laughed. "Surprise baby?"
"Let"s just say I also have a ten- and twelve-year-old. There aren"t too many of us older moms with babies around here."
"I"m glad we met," I said, warmed by her good humor. "We"ll make a plan to go to the park sometime."
When I got home, I immediately called Isabelle. "I made a friend!" I said.
I told her the story and she laughed.
"She seemed nice, but this is just the beginning," I said. "I can"t believe that I"m starting all over again. Every place I take Kasey, I"ll be with a new group of moms who"ll mostly be twenty-six and have nothing in common with me."
"You don"t always have to be best friends with your kids" friends" mothers," Isabelle reminded me. "It just happened that all of us fit together."
"Fit together perfectly," I said mournfully. Our children had overlapped so completely that Denine, whose youngest was a year younger than Katie, sometimes complained that she felt like something was off. And that was only a year.
But I already understood that my new phase of life wasn"t going to be a repeat of the previous one. New mom at forty? You play the cards you"re dealt. Emma and Alyson had been so close in age that they could always entertain each other, and when Katie came along, they loved to plop her in their laps and make her laugh. Now mine was the only lap for plopping.
With Emma, Alyson, and Katie, I dedicated myself to motherhood to such an extreme that I had no other ident.i.ty. I cherished every minute, but when the role ended, the shock was beyond imagining. No wonder I continued to shop for them after the accident and celebrate birthdays and holidays and tell myself that I would always be their mother. I had nothing else to turn to, no other meaning or purpose. If I hadn"t gotten pregnant again, would I have had any reason to exist on this earth at all?
With Kasey, Warren expected me to return to being a full-time, fully devoted mom. I agreed with "fully devoted," but I couldn"t risk giving up the things that had pulled me through the worst times-from Tuesdays with Karen to the Thursday bowling league. Having activities scheduled and someplace to go had helped me get to the positive place I was in now, and I certainly wouldn"t give them up.
I still got aggravated if Warren lay on the couch too much, and he could get overwhelmed by my energy and endless planning. We worried too much about each other. I wanted to make sure he had slept and he cared that I felt well. We stayed excessively sensitive to each other"s moods. So many people marveled that we had remained together that we sometimes wondered about it, too.
One night we came home from therapy and Warren looked like he"d been through a war zone. The sessions always. .h.i.t him harder than me because he felt less comfortable revealing his soul. Emotionally spent, he went upstairs and got into bed.
I still had plenty of energy and wanted to do something positive for myself. Figuring Warren had fallen asleep, I popped Kasey in the car and headed out to prayer group.