Dying Breath. Wendy Corsi Staub

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      “…Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth on a beautiful night here in the Bronx…” the radio sportscaster is saying as, driving past the stately mansions of Montclair, Mike fights the urge to make a U-turn and go back and…

      What?

      Knock on the door and demand that Tess make a decision about where she wants to spend the Fourth of July?

      What would that accomplish?

      She’s not in a reasonable mood. She hasn’t been in a reasonable mood since she turned fourteen and he moved out.

      Nice timing, you selfish jerk.

      Cam didn’t say that, but she wanted to. He could tell. He’s said it to himself enough times since he made what now feels like a stupid, spontaneous decision to jump off what he’d decided was a sinking ship.

      “…The pitcher winds, kicks, and deals…outside, ball one.”

      Poor Tess.

      Never in a million years did Mike ever believe his own daughter would become the product of a broken home. Divorce happens to other people. Not him and Cam.

      Or so he thought, until he woke up one day and asked himself whether he’d be happier with her…or without her.

      The answer seemed so damn clear at the time. As far as he was concerned, they’d hit an all-time low when she refused to accompany him on the February ski trip with his side of the family, an annual Christmas gift from his parents.

      She claimed it was because she didn’t want to take Tess out of school for a week.

      “We’ve always done that, and it’s no big deal.”

      “Now that she’s in high school, she can’t just miss all those days, Mike.”

      “She can take the work with her.”

      “They won’t do that. They’re trying to discourage parents from pulling their kids out for illegal absences.”

      “That’s ridiculous. She’s our kid; we can take her out of school if we want to.”

      “And have her fall behind, and maybe jeopardize her grades? Uh-uh. Let’s just ask your parents to wait until March this year for a change, since that’s when her break is.”

      “Can’t. I’ve got to be in Prague that week,” he said.

      The truth was, Mike hadn’t yet scheduled that particular business trip; he just knew it was coming up.

      But Mike knew how the suggestion that they postpone the ski trip till Tess’s March break would go over with his father. Mike Sr. wasn’t thrilled with Cam’s decision to enroll their daughter in a public high school. He’s a big believer in private school.

      Back when they were living on a shoestring budget in Manhattan, he was aghast that his grandchild was attending PS 42. He even offered to pay for private tuition, but you can’t just walk into a private school in Manhattan, where kids are wait-listed from the time they’re born.

      When they moved to the suburbs, though, they got Tess right into prestigious Cortland Academy, a private day school two towns over, and Mike’s salary easily covered tuition.

      Cam never liked the private school crowd, though. Especially as Tess got older. She wanted her daughter to hang around with “normal kids,” as she put it, as opposed to worldly rich kids. Anyway, the local public high school has a terrific reputation—even wealthy families send their kids there.

      It doesn’t matter how many times Mike has defended to his parents the decision—a joint one between him and Cam—to switch Tess from private school to public freshman year. Dad still doesn’t get it, and he still blames Cam.

      For a lot of things.

      “…Here’s the pitch…”

      Looking back, Mike wonders if things might be different now if he’d decided to forego the annual skiing trip over President’s Day. Instead, for Valentine’s Day, he gave Cam the biggest box of Godiva chocolate he could find, and Tess a camera that cost a small fortune. Then he broke the news that he was going away without them.

      Tess cried.

      Cam retreated emotionally—surprise, surprise.

      He tried not to care, flying solo out to Utah to meet his parents and his older brothers—Dave, who lives in Chicago, and Jeff, in Los Angeles.

      They all seemed so content with their lives—Dad, newly retired, and Mom, a doting wife and grandmother, and Dave and Jeff, with their wholesome wives, large families, big plans, bright futures.

      It made Mike’s life back home in Jersey seem all the more isolating.

      “…cut on and missed.”

      A few weeks after he got back, he told Cam he was leaving.

      One look at her face when he broke the news, and he wanted to take it back. But he forced himself to hold his ground, forced himself to remember the advice his father had given him one day on the slopes.

      “Ask yourself where you’ll be in ten years, son, if you two stay together. Do you expect things to get better—or worse?”

      Looking into the future on that blustery day, Mike envisioned himself and Cam, middle-aged and living in a household without Tess, who by then would be out of college.

      What would they even have to talk about? They could barely keep a conversation going now, even with Tess between them to share the burden.

      Mike pictured himself and Cam coasting into their retirement years sitting at the dinner table alone together, night after night, forks clinking against china the only sound in the room.

      That, and the ice cubes dropping into Cam’s glass as she refilled it yet again.

      “…and the count is one and one. He’s two-for-four tonight, with a double and an RBI…”

      Mike hasn’t been able to shake the image of Cam, ten years older, ten years lonelier, angrier, with the drawn, angular face and bloodshot eyes of a longtime drinker. Like her father.

      He didn’t—doesn’t—want himself and Cam to become those people. Workaholic, alcoholic.

      Maybe apart, they’ll have a chance to escape that fate. Together, it seems inevitable.

      At least, that’s what he managed to convince himself after talking to his father back in February.

      Tess told him that, within days of his leaving Cam threw away every bottle of liquor in the house. She’s supposedly gone cold turkey on the booze, which may prove that Mike was right to leave and that his father really does—as he always claims—know best.

      “…Here’s the pitch, fastball, in there for strike two.”

      Yet Dad never was crazy about Cam. Conservative and old-fashioned, he had judged her before he even met her. He took issue with СКАЧАТЬ