I’m not sure when I started using the term ‘past-Miranda,’ but it made my daughter laugh so I kept it up. I’d blame past-Miranda for forgetting to reorder milk or neglecting to sync my iPhone 20X before bed. Only sometimes did I feel a twinge of guilt for blaming someone else, even if it was just an earlier version of me.
But when I told Adam I had past-Miranda to thank for my trim figure (because she was so good at working out every day), his smile twitched. I didn’t want him to think I was poking fun at his less-than-trim waistline, so I’d leaned in for a kiss on his nose to make sure he knew I was just being silly-Miranda, not a pestering wife.
Some days later I mentioned past-Miranda again (I blamed her for buying cookies, knowing they’d be hard to resist after Emily went to bed), and this time I was certain Adam’s ears turned red and he looked away. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked with an upbeat smile, but he shook his head and went back to programming the dishwasher, so I couldn’t see his face.
When Emily picked up my joke during dinner and said ‘past-Mama’ was naughty because she forgot to feed the dog again, Adam choked on his pasta. I jumped up from the table to get him a glass of water. When I returned from the kitchen, he had recovered and our four-year-old’s joke was forgotten—except this time I knew; there was something wrong about past-Miranda.
That night I sat on the edge of my daughter’s bed, brushing her hair before bedtime. ‘Honey, do you remember the trip to England we took last year?’
‘Yeah, kinda.’ Emily was trying to force a doll’s hat onto her stuffed Paddington bear.
‘What do you remember? Did anything unusual happen?’ I slowed my brushing, prolonging the ritual.
‘I remember the plane, and the fruit gummies we got at the funny grocery store.’
I smiled. ‘Those were good, weren’t they? But honey, do you remember what happened to Mama?’
Emily shook her head, absorbed in dressing her bear.
‘Honey, it’s important.’ I set the hairbrush on her side table and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Do you remember the car that hit Mama? And how Mama had to go to the hospital in London? You remember that, right?’
‘Not really.’ Emily pulled the hat off her bear’s head and flung it across the room. I gave up and kissed her goodnight.
I pulled up our photos on my tablet that night, when Adam was taking his shower. They were organized by month, and I struggled for a moment to remember when we’d taken the trip. June, it must have been June.
April, May… July. There was no June. My fingertips quivered on the screen. Maybe the pictures were misfiled. I opened May and scrolled down, opened July and scrolled down. Not a single photo from our trip to England, our daughter’s first international trip. On an impulse, I logged into our online banking site and found the charges for our hotel. And a $37,000 charge from something called NuTech UK.
Adam came wandering into the living room, wearing his flannel pajama pants and robe. He flashed me a smile and settled on the other end of the couch, already scrolling through his Twitter feed. I took a deep breath. ‘Hey, do you know where all our England photos went?’ I paused, scrutinizing his face. ‘And what’s this NuTech UK charge?’
His shoulders tensed, but he kept his eyes glued to his phone. ‘Hmmmm?’ He feigned distraction.
‘Adam, I’m serious.’ I set down my tablet, heart pounding, and turned towards him. ‘Why aren’t the photos there anymore?’
He stared at his phone so long it went into sleep mode, but his expression didn’t change.
‘Adam? What really–’
‘Does it really matter, Miranda?’ His eyes were glued to his blank phone, his voice faint. Finally he turned toward me, looked me in the eye.
‘Isn’t it just enough that you’re here with us? That Emily has her Mama, and I have the woman I love, and we’re all together and we’re happy? Isn’t that enough?’ His eyes pleaded, his hand on my leg.
‘Yeah,’ I whispered. ‘Of course it is.’ I smiled, but I knew my lips wavered and I could only hold back the tears for a few seconds. I patted his hand, cleared my throat. ‘I’m going to grab a beer. Want one?’
He nodded and looked back at his phone, but he didn’t turn it on.
I headed into the kitchen, saw the milk sitting out on the counter next to the fridge. But I didn’t want to blame past-Miranda for my troubles anymore. Past-Miranda was dead.
Amber A. Logan is an author and university instructor. She holds a Creative Writing PhD from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England and is represented by Northbank Talent Management in London–although she lives in Kansas. Find Amber on Twitter at @AmberAnnLogan and at www.AmberALogan.com.
Photo by Mathilde Langevin.
