Love and Other Impossible Pursuits Read Online Free PDF Page B

her feet and convinced her to drop out of college and marry him. Despite the fact that my mother proceeded to devote her life to taking care of Lucy and Allison, aged eight and ten, driving them to band practice and skating lessons, making their dentist appointments, packing their lunches, washing their clothes, affixing their perfect spelling tests and SAT results to the door of the fridge, they never changed their minds about her. They never stopped despising her, and they never stopped telling her so.
    They were, in fact, so relieved when my parents divorced after almost thirty bitter years that they were even willing to acknowledge their own role in the disaster that was my parents' marriage. Lucy said to me, “It can't have been easy for your mom, taking care of two kids who never wanted her around.” Then she asked if my mother had gained a lot of weight since the divorce and wondered if I'd met our father's new girlfriend yet, who was, Lucy said, “Just fabulous. And beautiful. Really thin.” And then she laughed.
    So when my mother says I shouldn't let Jack know that spending time with William makes me so tired that I feel a headache forming deep in the center of my skull, I listen. I allow myself the ludicrous fantasy that each day will be the day that William and I will magically connect, that this is the day we will find ourselves speaking the same language. My other fantasy involves hiring some pleasant young Columbia student to hang out with William in the afternoons while I go to the movies. When I was working full time William went to his mother's apartment with Sonia on Wednesdays and Jack picked him up after work. But then I quit my job, and we changed the schedule, giving Sonia a free day. It doesn't seem fair to take Sonia's day off away from her just because I find amusing her charge to be unbearably difficult. Especially since I am determined that Jack will never know of my grotesque and unacceptable inability to love his child.
    â€œDo you know what eBay is?” William says, interrupting my thoughts. As usual, we are having a snack instead of a nap. William is swirling his spoon around in his bowl of nonfat, dairy-free sorbet. William is lactose intolerant, according to his mother. He drinks soy milk, and eats Tofutti and dairy-free sorbet.
    â€œYes,” I say, vaguely.
    â€œMy friend Bailey's dad sells things on eBay.”
    â€œHmm.”
    â€œBailey says his dad takes all their old stuff and sells it on eBay. Everything they don't want anymore. Like Bailey's old bike, and his dad's skis from when he was in college.”
    I nod, but I am not paying much attention.
    â€œEmilia?”
    â€œYes, William.”
    â€œBailey's dad makes a lot of money on eBay. A lot.”
    â€œGood for Bailey's dad.”
    â€œDo you ever go to eBay?”
    I sigh and look at him. “No, not really.”
    â€œMaybe you should.”
    â€œOr I could just ask Bailey's dad. I'm sure he'd sell me a pair of old skis if I needed them.”
    William wrinkles his brow. “No, no. I mean, you should
sell
stuff. To make money, like Bailey's dad. Don't you have any old stuff?”
    â€œWe could sell your dad's skis. Or just one of them. How about that? One Völkl ski. Two years old. And one pole.”
    William shakes his head. “That's silly. Nobody would buy one ski. We should sell the baby's stuff.”
    I do not answer. I sit on the other side of the kitchen table and clutch my coffee cup so tightly that I cannot believe it doesn't shatter beneath my fingers.
    â€œWe can sell the crib,” he says. “The crib cost one thousand three hundred and eleven dollars.” William likes to know what things cost. “So if we sold it on eBay we would get two thousand dollars. Or maybe even ten thousand dollars.”
    â€œNo, we wouldn't,” I say.
    â€œThat's how eBay works,” he says, patiently. “You take all the stuff you don't need anymore and