Risking It All Read online

  “Yeah. It’s all done. How come there’s only two plates?” he asked. “There’s three of us.”

  “Not tonight,” she said. “It’s just us.”

  17

  It seemed to her as though fate was always against them. Just when Danny made his first friend and she had reason to hope this would help his adjustment, just when she had made resolutions aimed at easing the tensions between her and Jeff, Jeff had landed a big international case that kept him working way past dinner most nights and even on some weekends. When he mentioned that he would have to do some additional traveling back and forth to California on some weekends for the foreseeable future, she was bereft. She tried to tell him how she felt but he took it as a criticism and thus a provocation.

  “Are you going to turn this into another problem?” he asked angrily. “I mean, this case could take care of us for years, it could pay for Griffin’s college tuition.” He paused. “And if that doesn’t mean anything to you, how’s this? It could pay for Danny’s education too. That ought to make it all right with you.”

  She flinched. “Jesus, Jeff, why would you say something like that?”

  He looked away. “I’ll get the coffee,” he said.

  In accordance with her resolution to show more interest in his work, she tried to ask him about it, but he told her it was complicated and boring and would take too long to explain. Something about a new international airline. She didn’t press him because he obviously wasn’t interested in sharing the details and frankly, she was not very interested in hearing them. She had been proud of her resolutions aimed at repairing the trouble between them and now had little opportunity to implement them. Her table was set for two more frequently than ever, and while it had the advantage of much less tension at dinner, it left the situation between her and Jeff, and Jeff and Danny, more fraught than ever.

  One rare Friday when Jeff announced he didn’t have to work that weekend, she suggested they go to Woodstock. They hadn’t been in a long time and they used to be so happy there, she said. He agreed and they packed up the car and left that afternoon. She awoke early the next morning. Griffin, miraculously, was still asleep and Danny hadn’t stirred either, as far as she could tell. Jeff was reading the morning paper on his iPad and sipping a cup of coffee. “Good morning,” she said, indulging in a luxurious stretch. He mumbled a greeting and returned to his reading. In the old days, she thought, he’d have reached out and touched her. She’d always loved that, as if he was reassuring himself she was still there. Maybe he’d have even gotten up to pour her a coffee, she thought, remembering when he did that every day. No more.

  It was early February and the trees outside their window were heavy with snow, many of the boughs drooping under the weight. Marcia stared at the scene disconsolately. Soon she would bustle around making breakfast, but the distance between them had lengthened and she felt very much alone. For the first time in her adult life she was at a complete loss about how to fix things. No ideas, no optimistic plans on how to work on the problem. She didn’t even really understand it. Why was Jeff so hostile? She had tried everything on her list, as best she could in the time she had with him, and although sometimes things got better for a few days, he never really came around. Danny was a barrier between them that she couldn’t cross. They had resumed making love but unlike that period in her life that she had come to think of as “Before Los Angeles,” she always had to initiate it and he didn’t always go along. Now it was he who had a headache or was too busy or worried or preoccupied. She consoled herself with the thought that sex was always supposed to be difficult to reestablish with a new baby in the house, but still, it added to her general malaise.

  The only bright spot was Jeff’s obvious delight in Griffin. He would rush to him as soon as he came in and try to make up for all the time he was away by playing exclusively with him when he was at home. This was great, she thought, but the downside was that he had even less time for her and no time for Danny, no time to see how much better Danny seemed, how much more adjusted he was now that he had a friend. He had no time or interest in hearing stories about Raul and how Danny sometimes did his homework without supervision and had asked for guitar lessons. He did look up when she mentioned the guitar, however, pointing out that his own guitar was expensive and he didn’t want Danny using it. “Get him a beginner’s acoustic guitar,” he said, “and see how he does.” She was fine with that.

  Raul was key, she thought. He came over many days after school and the boys often did homework together. She always had a special snack for them and on the days she was home, she sometimes joined in their conversation. Because Raul liked to chat, she found out much more about what their school day was like from him than she did from Danny. It was Raul who told her about the school’s book fair. Delighted it was on an at-home day, she went to it and bought Danny some books as well as a few baby books for Griffin. It was also Raul who mentioned that Danny was working on the class play. Danny had shot him a warning look, but it was too late; Marcia learned that he was going to help make some of the scenery. Once she came into the living room and overheard a conversation they were having before they saw her.

  “Your mom is really cool,” Raul had said.

  Danny had whirled around. “She’s not my mom,” he’d said sharply.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “But she’s okay,” Danny added. And Marcia thought that was definite progress. She was beginning to know him. It was like looking at him through increasingly sharp lenses, his personality slowly, surely coming into focus. When they sat at dinner together, he’d tell her about the backdrop he was helping to construct for The Sound of Music and how lame the girl was who played Maria. Or he’d complain about his math homework but mention proudly that he got a seventy-five on the latest quiz, his best grade since he’d arrived at the school. Or he’d tell how he and Raul couldn’t stop laughing at lunch and he’d laughed so hard his apple juice had come running out through his nose. She invited Raul to come to Woodstock with them one weekend, but his mother wasn’t comfortable letting him go. Marcia was considering inviting his mother too, but when she checked that out with Jeff, his response was predictable but disappointing. “Save that for a weekend I’m working, okay?” he said with a laugh.

  At first Raul always came to Danny’s house for play dates. But after a while, he got a much-wished-for invitation to Raul’s house. Raul lived in Queens, a fifty-minute subway ride. Raul was allowed to take the train on his own, something Danny had not yet been permitted to try. His father, Juan, was at home with Raul’s baby sister, Teresa. Maria was usually working. Raul told Danny that his dad used to work in construction but he hurt his hip over a year ago and couldn’t do it anymore. Now he stayed home and his mom was the one who worked cleaning houses. Raul seemed ashamed that his dad didn’t work.

  “Nah,” Danny said. “You’re lucky you have a dad. And anyway, your mom would have to pay someone to take care of Teresa if your dad didn’t, so it works out, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Raul had an older half-brother named Julio, Juan’s son from a different mother, he said, but he didn’t live with them. “My mom doesn’t like him so much,” Raul said. “She says he was really smart, he did really good in high school and could have got a scholarship but then he dropped out right before graduation. Now he’s twenty-five and she says he doesn’t have a real job. I mean, he does have a job—he lives in his own place and everything—but my mom doesn’t want me to be like him.”

  “What’s his job?”

  “He says he gets people to pay what they owe.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t know. My mom doesn’t like it. But he’s really cool.”

  “Could I meet him?”

  “Maybe. She doesn’t usually let him come around unless she’s there, though.”

  Some days Maria was home, but that wasn’t as much fun. With Juan, they could just play the whole time Danny was there. They could go out an
d walk around or watch TV and play video games. Danny loved it. But when Maria was home, they had to do their homework first and then play Legos or Monopoly or Uno. It was as bad as going to Danny’s house, where Berta was under strict instructions to watch them like a hawk. A couple of times when Juan was home and Maria was at work, Julio was there. He’d play video games with them. Once they heard Julio in the other room fighting with his dad, asking for money. But usually, he’d just hang out with them. He’d even go out with them. He told them how when he was their age, he’d go out with his friends and they were really good at taking stuff from stores. “You just put it under your shirt when no one is looking,” he said. “It can’t be too bulky, of course. Then you don’t just leave. You walk around awhile, look at things and then buy something cheap on your way out.” Then he took them into the toy store and bought them both a small set of Star Wars Legos. They were nervous, but they didn’t see him put anything under his shirt, so they thought he’d just been kidding. When they got a few blocks away, he reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a bigger set.

  “You gotta share this,” Julio said. “Now I gotta go.” He winked at Raul and walked off.

  “I told you he was cool,” Raul said, when Julio left. “Don’t tell my mom he was here.”

  “I won’t.” Danny was conflicted. He did think Julio was cool, but he understood what the adults he knew would think. He wasn’t worried about Marcia or Jeff—he didn’t care that much what they thought. But he worried because he knew his mom would be crying if she thought he was hanging out with someone who stole things.

  “We could get in trouble,” he said. “I mean, if he got caught and we were with him, we’d be in big trouble.”

  Raul shrugged. “He won’t get caught.”

  Somehow, time passed, the way it does when there is a baby in the house. Life fell into a pattern that was less than perfect but repetitive and exhausting enough so that there was little time even to think about how to change things. Marcia had never gone back to her resolutions about Danny, because the problems with him were no longer foremost in her mind. Danny had become very helpful with Griffin. They adored each other—Griffin would smile and laugh and hold out his arms to him whenever Danny came home, and Danny would pick him up and play with him without being asked. If Griffin was crying and Danny was home, Danny would get to him before either Marcia or Berta, but never when Jeff was home. He knew, without being told, what the prohibitions were. It touched her to see the bond between the boys and she tried many times to share that with Jeff, but he was so unbelieving and unresponsive that finally, she just stopped telling him. He kept pressing her to make other arrangements for the boy. He even offered to send him to boarding school, but she put him off saying Danny was too young. Maybe high school, she’d said, in two or three more years. She had started to make inquiries about charter schools, but there had been no more complaints or calls from his current school and she was beginning to hope that maybe they would allow him to continue where he was.

  Danny’s twelfth birthday was coming up and she decided to throw him a party and buy him his own iPad. She knew Jeff was against this, but he was so clearly uninterested in Danny that she didn’t think she needed to clear it with him. She knew Danny would be thrilled. She asked him if he’d like to have a party. He shrugged and said he didn’t really want to, but she tried to persuade him. He seemed uncomfortable but finally he said he only wanted Raul, and she agreed. She ordered a birthday cake in the shape of a baseball field and put little plastic baseball players around it (she wanted to reignite his interest in the sport and had had some success since Raul was an avid Mets fan). The party was on a Saturday, and she invited Raul and his mother for cake and ice cream at three o’clock. Jeff went in to work in the morning and she begged him to come home in time to celebrate with them. He surprised her by saying he would.

  After Jeff left, she blew up balloons and decorated the dining room with streams of crepe paper. Danny helped. They put Griffin in his high chair with a few toys and he watched happily, banging a spoon against the tray. At one, after lunch, he refused his bottle and started fussing, so she put him down for a nap. She had been up late the night before working on a manuscript so she was exhausted. “I’m going to lie down for just half an hour,” she told Danny. “Please wake me if Griffin gets up.”

  She went into her bedroom and laid down, falling asleep almost immediately.

  Griffin started to cry about fifteen minutes later. Danny picked him up, but Griffin wasn’t mollified and kept crying. Danny changed his diaper, but he still complained, so he brought him into the kitchen and sat him in his high chair, thinking he might want his bottle. He had never given him a bottle on his own, but he had seen Marcia do it a hundred times and he was sure he could do it without having to wake her. He gave Griffin some toy plastic keys to distract him. Danny took Griffin’s formula out of the refrigerator and poured it into the bottle. Then, feeling proud of himself for remembering this, he took out a saucepan, ran some water into it and put it on the stove. He let it boil and when he saw the bubbles, he turned it off and put the bottle in it to warm. Then he took the bottle out of the boiling water and gave it to Griffin.

  Marcia woke up to the sound of piercing screams. She jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen to see Griffin wailing in Danny’s arms and Danny holding him, bouncing up and down, helplessly trying to comfort him, his eyes wide with fear. Before she could grab Griffin or find out what had happened, Jeff walked in the front door, ran to Griffin and grabbed him from Danny’s arms. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said, pushing Danny away. “What happened?” he thundered, scaring Griffin and making him cry harder. Danny stood at the door, his mouth agape, tears running down his face.

  “Danny, what happened?” Marcia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Danny said between sobs.

  “You have to tell us what happened so we know how to help him, Danny.”

  “He was hungry. I didn’t do anything bad. I did what you do. I just warmed the bottle and gave it to him and he started to scream.”

  “Shit, he burned his throat,” Jeff said. “Call an ambulance.”

  It turned out to be less severe than they feared. The formula hadn’t stayed long enough in the boiling water to really scald him, but it hurt his throat, which was red but not seriously injured. He had stopped crying by the time they got to the hospital, and the doctor told them to feed him lots of ice cream, so he was back at home two hours later, happily eating a dish of vanilla ice cream that Marcia had bought for Danny’s party. The party, however, was called off. She had called Raul’s mother from the hospital and told her what had happened. When they got home she barely registered that the decorations she had hung were torn down, the balloons busted and the crepe paper all over the floor. Danny came running out of his room.

  “Is Griff okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. Don’t worry,” Marcia said.

  Jeff was carrying Griffin and when Danny ran over to see him, Jeff hugged Griffin tighter and pushed past him. Danny looked helplessly at Marcia.

  “I didn’t want to hurt him. I’m sorry.” He sniffed hard.

  She reached for him and he put his arms around her waist. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know, Danny. Shhh. I know. And he’s fine. He’s just got a little sore throat, that’s all. But why didn’t you wake me? I told you to wake me when he woke up.”

  “I thought I could help. You said you were tired.”

  Marcia nodded. Her heart felt as if it would break.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t know. You just aren’t old enough to take care of him on your own yet, that’s all. You know that now, right, Danny? You must never try to take care of him yourself, okay?” He nodded. She noticed, as if for the first time, that the decorations were all scattered on the floor. “What happened here?”

  “I don’t want a party. I don’t want anything.”

  “I’m sorry, Danny. I had to call R
aul and tell him not to come.” She walked to the hall closet and retrieved a brightly wrapped package. “But here’s your present. Why don’t you take it in your room and play with it while I talk to Jeff?”

  Danny drew his breath in and looked nervously down the hallway toward Griffin’s room. He didn’t reach for the present.

  “It’s okay. I’ll handle it. Take the present and go into your room and we’ll talk later, okay? That’s the best thing to do right now.” She took a tissue from the box on the table and tried to wipe his eyes.

  “I’m okay,” he said, flinching. “I’m not crying.”

  “I know. Go on, now.”

  He slowly reached for the package and then walked quickly into his room and closed the door.

  She slipped into Griffin’s room. Jeff had put him down for a nap and he was settling in. He was in his favorite sleep position, one pacifier in his mouth, one next to him and a third tucked under his tummy, the plastic rim protruding slightly. Jeff was sitting in the chair watching him. She approached him and put her hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away. She wasn’t surprised. She was already girding herself for the onslaught she knew was imminent, though she had hoped that their shared relief that Griffin was okay would bring them together. He seemed about to say something, but she put her finger to her mouth to hush him and beckoned him to follow her out of the room. She walked to the kitchen, put some water on for coffee and sat at the table. Jeff didn’t sit and refused her offer of coffee. Instead, he poured himself a Scotch and turned to her.