The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer Read Free Book Online Page A

love somebody with all your heart. And then, he’ll die on you, too.”
    “If I’m very lucky,” Jay said, crossing his fingers.
    On the long list of people to tell. You have to tell your child.

6
    How to Tell Your Kid
    (Pour yourself a drink, first.)
    On second thought, pour two. You won’t be driving tonight. You got somewhere better to go? Go ahead. Pour another. Nobody’s carding.
    John loved kids. Even before Ellie was born, you could find him at his friends’ kids’ Little League playoffs, Pee Wee football games, or ballet recitals, cheering from the sidelines. Not that he knew anything about football, or ballet, or much about baseball. Didn’t matter. He’d cheer on every child—kids from opposing teams, as well. He owned a padded seat for long waits on the cold metal stands. He bought a folding chair that looked like a La-Z-Boy recliner. Kids loved him, too. They’d spot him in a crowd of parents. Maybe it was his smile, his boyishness. Maybe because he’d remember their names. John was always up to play catch, to guess Silly Bandz shapes, to hold one end of a jump rope.
    I loved children, too—on other people. Since college, I’d been so busy with my career I couldn’t even keep my Yoplait from going bad. The point is, I’d forgotten to have children. Or, you know, date.
    And then I met John. I spent eight of my nine months of pregnancy seasick to give John the one gift he’d never received: EleanorParker Bernal. She weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces, was born at 5:38 in the morning after twelve hours of labor … and the first person to hold her was her daddy.
    “Eleanor,” he said, putting his nose to her tiny one. “Ellie … I’ve been waiting for you …”
    “Can I see her?” I said. I was still groggy from the drugs, but I was pretty sure I’d just given birth.
    “You’re gonna love Mommy,” John said, as he handed me this squirmy bundle in a pink blanket. “Mommy’s the funniest girl I know. Just don’t ask her to cook anything, ever, okay, El?”
    The baby yawned. Already, she was bored with me. Then, she started crying. Mother and daughter were getting off to a great start.
    “She doesn’t even know me well enough to hate me,” I said, as I handed her to John, who pressed his face to her cheek and started singing softly. Meanwhile, my seasickness had ended and the thought of French toast had begun.
    The baby stopped crying.
    “Oh, he’s good,” the nurse had said. “Daddy has the touch.”
    Weeks later, I was sitting in our backyard under our avocado tree, nursing our baby. Nursing was the only thing John couldn’t do with Ellie, but trust me, I think he tried when I wasn’t looking.
    John was feeding me rigatoni bolognese, to keep up my strength to breast-feed; even I was jealous of myself.
    “What were you singing to Ellie the morning she was born? ‘You Are My Sunshine’?”
    “Um, no,” John said, putting a forkful of pasta in my mouth. Sometimes, he fed me just to keep me quiet. Worked.
    “ ‘Hey, Jude’?” I said, my mouth full.
    “You’re not going to guess,” John said. “Eat.”
    “ ‘Don’t Worry, Baby’?”
    “ ‘I’m a Flirt,’ ” he said. “R. Kelly. Told you you couldn’t guess. It was the first thing that came to me.” He stuffed another bite of rigatoni in my mouth, making it impossible for me to object.
    From birth, John took his little shadow, Ellie, everywhere. Whole Foods, the library, bookstores, corner market, post office, the Brentwood Country Mart for BBQ chicken, Montana Avenue for a strolland an espresso, the Promenade to watch a matinee. Was I jealous? No. I was relieved. John was born to raise Ellie; she was born to complete him. Me, I spent her first three years petrified that I would choke her with a half a grape. I needed a buffer.
    Then there were Mommy and Me classes, which should have been renamed Mommy, Hot Daddy, and Me. African Music Mommy and Me, Pre-Ballet Movement Mommy and Me, Cooking Lebanese Mommy