Renata and the Fall from Grace

by Becky Doughty

  Finally, curiosity got the best of her. She drew the lapels of John's robe together and she opened the door from the kitchen into the garage.

  Tim.

  She hadn't seen him since the funeral almost two weeks ago. He'd been by the house almost every day since that terrible night in the hospital; not to see her, but to make sure there wasn't anything that needed to be done around the place.

  Tim had taken it upon himself to arrange with McCain to have John's truck and tools delivered to the house. He'd contacted the clients on John's schedules, and he'd organized their hunting buddies to be pallbearers alongside Victor, Reuben, and Simon, who had both insisted on helping to carry their father's casket. On the one dry day last week, she'd peered out the window to find him mowing her lawn, and just a few days ago, he'd come to Gia's rescue, unbeknownst to Renata, when Judah had flushed a Hot Wheels car down the toilet.

  He froze when he saw her standing in the doorway.

  "What are you doing here, Tim?" She wasn't interested in niceties and instead of looking at him directly, she stared at the cab of John's truck, parked on the far side of the two-car garage. If she squinted, she could almost picture him sitting there, listening to the last few minutes of a song or message on one of his favorite radio stations before coming in. She balled her hands into fists inside the deep pockets of his robe.

  "Renata." Tim was standing near John's workbench, his hand resting on one of her husband's toolboxes. "Sorry to have bothered you."

  "What are you doing here?" she asked again. It was cold in the garage, especially with the big door up, and she shivered. "And why is it okay that you just walked in without knocking?"

  "I didn't want to disturb you, that's all. I thought I could get in here, take care of business and get out. Again, my apologies." He held up both hands in surrender. "The mower was running a little rough last week. Needs a tune-up. And the trimmer was out of line." He snatched up a spool of thick plastic line from the workbench and held it up for her.

  She stared at her toes for a few moments, the socks she wore stretched out and twisted upside down on her feet. She knew she should thank him for his efforts, but she felt weird about taking favors from him. He was John's friend, not hers, and she didn't want or need his pity right now. In fact, she didn't really want to see him at all. His face, his very presence, brought back the events and the emotions of that night like a kick in the gut.

  "You shouldn't be here," she finally ground out, lifting her eyes to his face for the first time.

  He didn't say anything. He didn't leave, either. He slowly set the line back on the workbench, but didn't look away from her. His eyes beneath his broad brow seemed deeper than usual, but she didn't want to think about his grief. Hers was more than she could handle already, and she had her children to think about, too, once she could manage to take on a little more. In the meantime, the kids were leaning heavily on Gia and Granny G, and Juliette and Victor continued to help out as much as their schedules would allow after school. Even Phoebe had been by a few times, poking her head into the bedroom to whisper a gentle 'hi' to Renata. But that's what family did.

  Tim had his own family. Tim had a brother who lived close by, a whole group of friends that John had been a part of, and his own parents, alive and well, who thought the world of John. Why did he have to come here and burden Renata with his grief? Why couldn't he go somewhere else for solace? His presence was more than she could bear.

  She turned and went back inside, closing the door softly behind her. Maybe after her shower he'd be gone and she wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Renata glanced at the clock on the wall. It was Friday, and the kids would be here any minute, dropping off backpacks and lunch boxes before changing into play clothes. They'd greet her with hurried hugs, then bolt back out through the garage to the truck parked in the driveway, Tim waiting patiently at the wheel. He never set foot in the house when he came, not even to use the bathroom, and Renata knew it was out of respect for her obvious resistance to his presence.

  She got up, straightened the throw on the sofa, and refilled her glass of soda water. She could handle her sisters when they came, greeting them politely, if a little distantly. They'd each picked a day to help her; Gia on Mondays, Phoebe on Wednesdays, and Juliette on Thursdays with Victor. She tolerated Victor because the boys were always so thrilled when he picked them up from school in his cruiser.

  Her favorite days were Tuesdays when Grandpa and Granny G came early to help her get the boys ready for school. Grandpa would drop the kids off, then return, and the three of them would putter around the house together, cleaning bedrooms and washing sheets, even walking the dogs up to the end of the block and back. For whatever reason, Renata could talk freely about John with her grandparents, crying inconsolably or not at all. Perhaps it was because they'd never once uttered the words, 'It will be okay,' to her.

  Tim had insisted on picking up the boys from school on Fridays, and because Simon, especially, seemed to respond well to Tim's stoic personality, she didn't make a stink about it. But that didn't mean she needed to greet him when he arrived. Just because her boys liked being around him didn't mean she had to.

  Two months, three weeks, one day, and almost eight hours had crawled by since John left her. Their lives had taken on a new version of reality, one encased in a house of glass. During the week, except for on Tuesdays when her grandparents spent the day with her, they all got up and ready for the day, including Renata, then she delivered them to their respective places, even Judah, who now attended daycare every week day. Then she returned home to await their return.

  Some days John's absence came at her from the most unexpected places and it was all she could do to breathe, no less be productive. When that happened, she usually ended up crawling back into bed, crying until she fell asleep or threw up, her stomach roiling with her grief. Before the boys and whichever of her family showed up with their eyes full of concern, she'd wash her face, freshen up her makeup, and head to the kitchen to cook.

  Except for Tuesdays when her grandparents came, and Sundays when they all went to the grandparents for a family dinner, on the days she wasn't catatonic in bed, Renata cooked. Over the length of her thirteen-year marriage, she'd collected a box full of recipes she'd had every intention cooking one day, and now, she was determined to try every single one of them. Mondays she cooked with chicken. Chicken cacciatore, chicken parmesan, chicken and dumplings, roast chicken, barbecue chicken, Kung Pao chicken, coconut curry chicken.

  On Wednesdays, she cooked with seafood. Fish tacos, grilled salmon with dill sauce, crab salad, seafood chowder, shrimp linguine, tuna pot pie.

  On Thursdays, it was beef or pork. Spaghetti and meatballs, pork tenderloin, pork chops and gravy, beef stew, beef stroganoff, beef wellington, French dip sandwiches, sweet and sour Pork, beef and broccoli, hamburgers and fries.

  Fridays she tried her hand at desserts, knowing Tim would most likely feed the boys and they'd come home in the evening, satiated, worn out from an afternoon at the park or wherever else he took them. Lemon meringue pie, melt in your mouth brownies, chocolate Daquois cake, molasses crinkle cookies, mixed berry tarts, apple Ccobbler, orange upside-down cake, French silk Ccream pie. They'd be thrilled for another dose of dessert, and she always had Simon run out through the garage to give Tim a sampling of whatever she'd made, where he waited in his truck in the driveway. Again, he wouldn't come in, but he wouldn't leave, either, until she'd come to the door and given him a wave of assurance that the boys were safe inside and all was well.

  Saturdays were a free for all. Whatever she felt like cooking. Quiche, baked potatoes, eggplant Parmesan, French onion soup.

  No one complained, especially not her sisters, who either stayed to eat with them, or took meals home. Sure, sometimes the boys didn't care for her more exotic experiments, but Renata didn't take it personally. If the recipe was a winner, she kept it. If it didn't
fly, it ended up in the trash, along with whatever leftovers there were.

  She was standing at the counter, reading over the recipe for a layered strawberry Napoleon dish when the troop surged through the door to drop off backpacks and change their clothes. She turned to greet them but her smile faded when Tim filed inside behind them. Her hand flew to her hair and she felt a hot flush creep up her chest and neck.

  Renata knew she looked fine; that wasn't it. She no longer hung around her house in her flannel pajamas and John's bathrobe. She made a point to get up each morning and get dressed, partly so the boys wouldn't worry so much, and partly because, even though everything else had changed in her life, Renata was still a creature of habit and order.

  But ever since John had died, her chopped hair had been like a mark of shame. It was absurd, she knew, but she'd become obsessed with it, worrying it with her fingers while she lay in bed at night, wondering in the dark if John's shock over it in the hospital had somehow contributed to his demise. Then she'd berate herself for being so silly, so self-focused, but every time she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she grimaced, hating it. How long before it grew back, she wondered.

  Seeing her sisters almost every day, Juliette and Phoebe with their sleek black waves so like hers had once been, Gia's copper curls tumbling down her back, was a constant reminder of what now felt like an inadequacy in her. Like she was somehow less of a woman without her hair. A woman's hair is her crown of beauty, the Bible said. She couldn't agree more, and without it, without John there to assure her she was beautiful to him, she felt a little like Rapunzel, no longer knowing her place in the world.

  So she stayed home. Except to take her boys to school, and to her grandparents' house for Sunday dinner down the block, she stayed home and cooked and cleaned. She didn't know if she'd ever leave the house again.

  "Renata," Tim said, pausing just inside the open door. The sight of him taking up too much space in her made her want to flee down the hall to the sanctuary of her room, slamming the door behind her.

  "Come in, please," she said instead. "You're letting the cold air in." She hugged the boys as they blew past, and then turned back to her recipe, prepared to ignore Tim. Whatever he'd come inside to do, he could just do it and be on his way.

  "Renata, I'd like to talk to you." He'd closed the door behind him but he hadn't moved any closer. The boys had all disappeared to their bedrooms to change. "Before the boys get back, if possible."

  She nodded, not wanting to look at him.

  "I'd like to plan a fishing trip next month after school gets out, maybe take Reuben and Simon hunting small game. A couple weeks up at my folks' place," he said without preamble. There was something to be said about a guy like Tim. He didn't beat around the bush or play games. Because he used so few words, he made the ones he did speak count.

  But the idea of the boys being gone for a week or more was more than she wanted to think about. During the day, while they were in school, and even in the hours they were out with her family and Tim, those hours were tolerable because she had things to do, new recipes to try, laundry and dishes and bathrooms to clean. At night, however, when the house was too quiet, she took comfort in getting up to check on them, laying a hand on their young chests, feeling the rise and fall beneath her palms, the butterfly tremor of hearts in motion beneath thin-skinned rib cages.

  "No. They can't go."

  He didn't respond, so she expounded. "I don't care if you all take them from me during the day, but you can't have them at night, too." She closed her eyes, hating the way her voice sounded, how it squeezed out from her tight throat in a flattened, pinched quality. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Tim. I know they'd like it. But I—I'm not ready for that yet."

  "Renata, I'd like you to come with us. My parents would love to have you."

  If he'd said anything else, Renata would have just shaken her head and stuck with her answer. But Tim's words shook her to the core. Not only was he asking her to accompany him on a trip doing an activity she'd never enjoyed with her husband, but he wanted her to leave her home, leave John behind, leave his bed, his pillow, his clothes, his presence.

  "Are you crazy?" She turned around and glared at him. "Look at me, Tim. Look at me!" She stood with her hands out to the side, her ruffled apron hanging limply from her too-thin frame. "Do I look like a woman who wants to go fishing? Hunting?"

  A movement down the hall caught her eye; the boys were listening. She lowered her voice. "Listen to me, Tim. Do not, I repeat, do not put any notions into those boys' heads, you understand?" She raised a finger and pointed at him. "We're not leaving this house this summer, and that's final."

  Tim, to his credit, stood his ground. He didn't cross his arms or shake his head. He didn't roll his eyes or even grunt. His short beard didn't hide the clenching of his jaw, though, and she got some satisfaction out of that. Until he spoke.

  In a voice steady and sure, like he was talking to a spooked horse, he said, "That's what I'm afraid of, Renata."

  ~ ~ ~

  No one spoke to her that evening. Reuben and Simon muttered quietly back and forth, giving her the evil eye every time she looked their way.

  Judah refused to eat at the table with her, instead, opting to eat under the table, crying loudly the whole time because she wouldn't let him eat in his room. After banishing Tim without her boys and without his weekly portion of dessert, she'd opened up a couple cans of ravioli, steamed some broccoli, which the boys all really liked, and found a box of Goldfish at the back of the pantry.

  Levi didn't say anything, but he wasn't smiling over his dinner, or the dessert that had turned out so deliciously with the fresh strawberries and real whipped cream.

  No one was. Even though they practically licked their plates clean, when she asked if they liked the strawberry Napoleon dessert, Reuben raised an eyebrow in an expression so like John's it hurt to look at him, but his words hit even harder.

  "Wasn't Napoleon a traitor?"

  The offer of a big bowl of popcorn and a Netflix movie didn't help matters.

  "Tim was going to take us to a movie tonight. He always lets us have our own popcorn." That was Levi, his voice not unkind, but the disappointment obvious. Judah finally agreed, climbing onto the couch beside Renata and proceeding to wipe his snotty nose on her sleeve.

  Reuben and Simon disappeared to their room, Levi waffled back and forth for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to watch Tarzan for the hundredth time per Judah's request, or join the other profligates who were probably plotting their revenge. He finally drifted down the hall.

  Renata was surprised to find that she was relieved. Then she grimaced, her stomach churning a little in shame. And indigestion. She'd been a mess ever since she'd come home from the hospital, taking antacids with every meal. She wasn't ever hungry and hardly ate anything in spite of all the cooking she did because eating made her nauseated, and she slept terribly, although she was tired all the time—

  She suddenly stiffened, her heart racing. Nausea. Fatigue. Food cravings. Heartburn. She used the bathroom a lot, too, but that was because she drank so much soda water to soothe her stomach. Wasn't it?

  But no. No, no, no. Chills swept down her body from the roots of her cropped hair to the tips of her toes inside her slippers. She hadn't had a period since John's accident. In fact, she hadn't had a period since the first week of February, two weeks before his fall, and now it was May.

  "I'll be right back, Judah. Lay your head on the armrest, okay?" Judah had calmed down considerably and turned to curl his little body around the bowl of popcorn she handed him, his eyes never leaving the television screen where the young Tarzan teased his ape mother.

  Renata walked as calmly as she could down the hall, past the boys' room, not wanting to alarm anyone. Their door was closed anyway, but she was pretty sure they'd be listening for her footsteps. In her bathroom, she rooted around in the cupboard under the sink, afraid to hope, afrai
d to think what this might mean, afraid to know what her heart already told her was true.

  "Happy Mother's Day," she whispered giddily to herself in the mirror a few minutes later. She had no one else to tell, no one else she wanted to tell right now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  For the next three weeks, Renata waited to tell anyone lest it not be real. Lest she lose this one, too. It had always been between the second and third month before. If she was still pregnant by the end of May, she'd be four months along.

  It was like her little secret spring of joy in the dark valley she walked. She knew she should go to the doctor, but she didn't want to hear that her home tests weren't accurate, that her body was lying, that she had fooled herself into believing it was possible. She'd wait until the end of May, then go.

  Much to Harry and Sally's delight, she started walking the dogs twice a day while the boys were at school. It was only two loops around the block, but it was enough to get out and get some fresh air, a little exercise.

  Her recipes changed dramatically. She threw out anything that was unhealthy and fattening, and although she didn't flip out and go health nut crazy, she made certain that the meals she prepared were nutritious and vitamin rich. Even her Friday desserts were lighter, more fresh fruit and less butter and sugar and heavy cream.

  She forced herself to eat what she cooked, and eat more regularly. She went to bed at a decent hour instead of staying up until she couldn't hold her head up. No longer hating bedtime, with great anticipation, she climbed in on John's side so she could talk to him, so she could acknowledge their baby growing inside her. Feeling enveloped by him, his scent, his presence, her hands cupping her still flat abdomen, she whispered her words of hope only to him. "Do you know about this one, John? Is this our baby girl? Will she have red hair like yours? Pale skin like mine? Freckles?" She wept still, but the tears of grief now mingled with a rising courage in her.