“Mom!” Bennett yells again. “I can’t find my Cub Scout rope!”
Cub Scout rope? She has no idea what he’s talking about. Then it comes to her—at the last meeting, all the Cubs were sent home with a white, foot-long length of rope to practice their knots.
“Isn’t it in one of the baskets by the TV?” Marissa calls back.
She remembers Bennett attempting to tie square knots in the family room, chewing on the inside of his cheek the way he always does when he is concentrating.
Even now she can still hear the instructions he’d memorized:
Loop on top, rabbit runs up through the hole, back around the tree, down the hole again.
“No! I looked!”
“Sweetie, I’m making dinner, so—”
“I need it now!” Bennett’s voice hitches.
Marissa hurries into the family room and sees Bennett sitting in the middle of the rug, all of his toy bins emptied around him.
“It isn’t anywhere!” Bennett is on the verge of tears.
Marissa sinks to her knees and sorts through the puzzles, Marvel action figures, Star Wars lightsabers, and board games. She and Bennett peer under the chairs and the couch that Marissa deliberately stained. They even remove all of the cushions. But the rope is nowhere.
Finally Marissa says, “We’ll have to get another one.”
“But my test is tomorrow!” Bennett begins to cry, his face reddening.
“Honey—”
Bennett’s wail drowns her out. He throws a Harry Potter wand across the room, barely missing a lamp.
“Bennett!” Marissa can’t recall her mild-mannered son having a tantrum like this since he was a toddler and grew overtired at the Sesame Place Theme Park.
She reaches over and enfolds him in her arms, feeling his body shudder with sobs.
“I was supposed to be practicing. I’m going to fail.”
“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay.” She repeats the words as she rocks her son, attempting to soothe herself along with Bennett. She has tried so hard to conceal from her son the turbulent emotions she has been feeling, but clearly he’s absorbing some of the stress swirling inside their home.
She wishes Matthew were here, to join in their hug and then maybe run out to Home Depot to pick up another rope.
But Matthew will hardly see Bennett this week. Marissa will be the one to take Bennett to Cub Scouts again, and while some moms are always at the meetings and events, most of the boys are there with their fathers.
Bennett has never complained about this; still, Marissa wonders if it could be contributing to his pain.
Matthew made it to the pinewood derby last year, but it was the scoutmaster who’d helped Bennett build his little wooden race car. Matthew simply doesn’t have the time to take Bennett to Nationals games or nature centers or attend every school conference. Bennett must be missing a feeling of connection to Matthew, too.
Maybe fractures exist not only in her marriage, but in their family.
Instead of trying to put on a happy facade—the equivalent of a curated Instagram post—she should be more real with her son. That’s what Avery would recommend.
“I’ve been a little stressed lately, too.… You know how sometimes you and Charlie get into arguments, and then you make up?”
Bennett nods. “Yeah, like when he tried to feed Sam a Froot Loop, which could have been really dangerous.”
“Yes. Well, Dad and I have been arguing a little, but we’re doing better now.”
Bennett grows perfectly still, and Marissa wonders for a moment whether she’s made a mistake. Maybe this is too much information.
Then, in a small voice, Bennett asks, “Is that why he was sleeping in the elephant room?” It’s Bennett’s nickname for the guest room, which has a big painting of a majestic elephant on the wall.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to get divorced like Olivia’s parents?”
“Of course not. Daddy and I love each other very much. And we both really love you.”
Marissa remains on the floor, holding her son, knowing that despite everything else demanding her attention, nothing matters more than this.
Bennett sniffs. “Okay … Then can you tell Dad I don’t want to play baseball?”
“You don’t want to play baseball?”
Bennett has played since Matthew signed him up for a T-ball league when he was five. He complained about going to practice sometimes, but Marissa assumed he had a good time when he got there.
Bennett shakes his head. “It isn’t fun.”
“If you don’t like baseball, you don’t have to play baseball,” she finally says. “I’m sure Dad will understand.”
She knows Matthew won’t be happy about it, though. He lettered in three sports in high school and played club ice hockey and baseball in college. It’s only natural that he hoped their son would inherit that physical prowess and enjoy being on teams.
But Bennett isn’t built that way, emotionally or physically. He’s his own person.
And he’s certainly intuitive enough to know that Matthew will be disappointed.
Marissa hugs her son tighter. “I have an idea. How about we order pizza for dinner? Then maybe I can find something else for you to practice knots with.”
Bennett squeezes her back, his thin arms locked around her waist, then lets go. “I love you.”
“Love you more.” She kisses the top of his head. “Should we go pick toppings? You want pineapple and anchovies, right?”
“Ewwww!” Bennett pretends to throw up, then gets to his feet.
As he and Marissa walk back into the kitchen, Marissa spots the Transformers watch that Bennett left on the end table next to the sofa. She hesitates. Something about the way the fabric wristband is splayed across the wood table jars her memory, and it hits her: that’s the exact spot where she last saw the Cub Scout rope, on the night when Matthew was in New York and her life began to unravel.
“Mom?” Bennett calls, and Marissa is reminded that she has also betrayed her son.
Bennett is already sitting on his favorite stool at the granite island, clicking away on Marissa’s laptop—it’s a little frightening how adept he is with technology—and has called up the website for his favorite pizza place.
Marissa steps into the kitchen, expecting him to ask what size pie he should select or whether he can get a Sprite with dinner. She’s prepared to give him anything he wants.
But the question that comes from her son surprises and saddens her. It will reverberate through her mind the rest of the evening, fighting her attempts to sleep until, finally, at a little after 11:00 P.M., she takes a Xanax to quiet her brain.
Bennett asks, “If you and Dad do get divorced, can I live only with you?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AVERY
THE FAINT ODOR OF COOKED meat hits me when I walk into my house, as if someone is eating a hamburger in my kitchen.
I stand motionless in the doorway, my eyes roaming over the items littering the hallway and living room: torn paper towels, eggshells, an empty carton of Greek yogurt, and a mushy speckled-brown banana peel I threw away yesterday.
For a split second, I worry someone has broken in again. Then I identify the culprit.