by Pete Fromm
As their friends trickle in, Taz moves out back with Midge, hides on the porch swing. When Lauren comes looking, tells him he has to do this, has to come inside, he stands and says, “I’ll be right back.”
He retrieves the car seat, dodges back out, stops, looks at his truck, Marnie’s disintegrating Karmann Ghia. Neither one with a backseat. The truck at least has a top.
Windows down, her wispy hair lifts and falls, waves, and he has to remember to keep his eyes on the road, catch the turn up the Blackfoot. At the Clearwater, the sky, already murky, closes down completely, air as gray as a sock, a campfire gone feral, half the Scapegoat on fire. He leaves the pavement for the two track, slows way down, tries to lessen the pounding, same way as he had for Marn, jesus, a week and a half ago. He parks at the rocks, the ponderosa, the scrub of chokecherry and willow hiding their little scrap of beach.
“Remember this?” he whispers. “Your swim lessons?” But Midge is asleep until he unbuckles the car seat, her eyes snapping open at the click. “Midge,” he says, lifting her and turning toward the river. “Our favorite place.” He has to reach back in for the urn. “She’d kill me for waiting this long to bring you here.”
Cutting through the willows, he stops at the ancient ponderosa, dips his face toward the channeled jigsaw bark, breathes deep, the smell of butterscotch, one of Marn’s favorite things. He puts Midge’s nose close, too.
He walks to the water’s edge. “We swam here with you,” he tells Midge. “The whole time.”
He looks up and down the little stretch of hidden water. No tracks, people or grizzly, the water low. “You weren’t even the knot in the rope at first,” he says. “Man, it was cold. But it was something she wanted to do. And you know how she gets then.”
He squats down. “She was teaching you to swim,” he goes on, and dips her toes into the water. “I didn’t think it was quite necessary, what with you living in water at the time.”
He kneels in the river, waves her feet back and forth, making ripples. She kicks, waves her arms. “But the last time,” he says, “just before.” He can’t go on, but he can’t help a smile either. “Christ, she was ginormous,” he whispers. “Tight as a melon.”
He takes a breath.
He can’t remember when the nurse said to first expect a smile, but knows it is not yet.
“You will swim like an otter. She promised me that.”
With one hand he works the lid off the urn, tosses it back to the whitened cobble.
This low, this late, the river edges toward bathtub warm, and he stands and wades deeper, in his funeral clothes, up to his waist, beyond, turns and sinks in, rolling onto his back, holding her up against his chest, easing her into the water. She kicks and waves, makes a squawk, which is not a cry, not even close.
“Check her out, Marn,” he says. “Half amphibian already.”
He tips the urn little by little. The lightest ash drifts some on what breeze there is, but mostly it just sifts down into the water. Together, they wash around the eddy, the gray streaks sinking and dispersing, fading. He lets the urn sink away.
Still floating, holding Midge up, he tips his head back. Water over his forehead, then in his eyes, up his nose. It would be fast. For both of them. He’d have to hold her. Find some way to keep himself under. Wedge himself into a logjam.
He jerks his head up as if yanked by his hair, floats blinking in the brightness. He swears he heard her, his name shouted, that total no-nonsense pull-your-shit-together tone he’d only ever heard from her maybe once or twice before. He can’t help but look around for her.
The baby splashes her arms, makes that excited squawk, over and over.
“She’s swimming, Marn,” he says, “I mean, would you just look at her?”
You look at her, Marnie says. Don’t you dare take your eyes off of her.
Breathing hard, he kicks to hold their faces above the water, out in the heat of the day. He smiles, and whispers in Midge’s ear. “Don’t let her scare you,” he says, “all bark, no bite,” then ducks under the swat that would bring.
He drifts back into the quiet water and still whispering to Midge, says, “The first time I ever saw your mom was at the river. Just me and Rudy tubing after work. And here came the college girls, bobbing around the bend. Just that one look and Rudy damn near drowned. Me, I was hooked, too. Fish on.” He smiles, circling around the eddy, Midge on his chest. “The only word that came to mind was mermaid. Nothing else fit. Not even close.”
They drift round and round, Taz telling her everything he can think of about Marnie. He could go on forever.
When at last he returns, the house looks empty. But people stand up from chairs when he opens the door, only their truest friends left. He glances around, her mother nowhere to be seen. Hards’s boyfriend, Dan, tilts his head toward the bedroom. “She kind of gave out after a while,” he says. “How are you holding up?”
The heat, the rush of parched air, has dried his clothes, but his suit still looks swum in. “Where’ve you been?” Dan asks.
Hards touches him, her hand on his arm. “Taz, what can we do?”
Forcing what might be a smile, at best not frightening, he says, “Find me a beer?”
Hards slides his jacket off his shoulders. He has to set the car seat on the table. “Seriously,” she says. “It’s like a hundred out there.”
With the doors open all day, it’s not that far off inside. She fits his jacket across the back of a chair, and he sees the gray streaks sketched across it, water lines. “I,” he says. “I. We. You guys,” he looks around at all their friends. “Thanks for coming. Really.”
If the ceiling caved in, the walls toppled, he would not blink. He glances around for cracks, the first fissures opening in the sheetrock, listens for the splintering of the rough-cut studs. “I was,” he says. “I was . . . christ on a bike, I was going for beer. You guys must be dying.”
They look around him, near him. Not one of them has reached thirty. No one here is dying. Every one of them holds a beer. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “There’s some booze under the stairs in the basement.”
Rudy follows him to the door, takes his elbow in his hand before he can get past the porch. Turns him back. He leans in, whispers, “You really think I’d throw a party without beer?” They’re all standing there, looking at him, and Hards, Midge in one arm, puts a beer into his hand, folds his fingers around it. Her three other college roommates, part of that first-ever tubing trip, who Rudy still calls the Sirens, lift their bottles, raise them like closed fists, and say, in unison, “For Marn, forever.” Taz’s arm goes up, too, as if controlled by strings. “See,” Rudy says, “that wasn’t so hard.” He gives him a little push from behind and says, “Now go get Moms out of her room, and let’s get this thing rolling.”
Someone cranks the music, a playlist so close to Marn’s he can’t imagine where they got it, and Rudy keeps the pressure on his back until he’s standing in the hallway, their bedroom door gleaming a few steps away.
He knocks, then turns the knob, pushes it in just far enough to see her feet at the end of the bed, and says, “Lauren?”
Her feet move, toward the edge of the bed, and he barely hears her say, “Ted?”
“It’s me,” he says, and he takes one step in.
She sits up, wipes at her eyes, rearranges her hair.
“You okay?” he asks.
She glances toward the mirror, away. “May have to borrow your shades,” she says.
He feels for them against his chest, starts to swing the Croakie strap over his head, but she smiles, kind of, says, “No, ‘the future’s so bright,’ you know?”
“Oh,” he says, tries to smile back, drops his shades.
“But,” Lauren says, “these eyes, they might actually be a good idea.”
He lifts them off again, holds them out to her. She puts them on, his Ray-Bans, and looks at the mirror again. “Jackie fricking O,” she says.
“They said—” he
starts, but stops, holds the beer out to her instead. She takes it from him, takes a pull, gives an exaggerated “Aah,” just like Marnie.
“If I can do this,” Taz says, “you can.”
She reaches back with the beer, but he says, “It’s yours. There’s no shortage.”
She holds her other hand out, and before he can think, he takes it, gives her the pull up off the bed, again, the same as Marn, as she got bigger and bigger.
“We can do this,” she says. “We have to.”
When they step out, everyone raises their glasses and bottles again, as if they’re the stars of the show. Another bottle’s slipped into Taz’s hand. The music gets turned up, Rudy starts to tell about the Sirens, how they came round the bend in the river, a paradise of bikinis. They toast Marnie. Then Midge, her eyes barely open in Hards’s arms. Taz can’t take his eyes from his ash-streaked jacket.
Rudy puts his arm around Taz’s shoulders. Squeezes. Twists him away from the jacket. Hards, like it’s nothing, lifts the jacket from the chair and drops it behind the couch, out of sight. The Sirens beg to hold Midge, even as she fusses, headed for the crib. Rudy watches, mesmerized.
Later, standing in the doorway, Lauren calling it a night having opened the floodgates, a round of hugging and a few more tears, he watches them all leave. Even Rudy, walking down the sidewalk, his over-the-shoulder wave. After the last taillights disappear beyond the end of the block, he stands watching the darkness, the empty street, a beer bottle still dangling from his hand. He turns back inside, looks at Midge, asleep on the couch, somehow now on top of his jacket.
Marnie gives her big Whew, and says, You made it. And even Mom, in your shades.
Taz nods.
And, really, it was a pretty good party. But, well, you know, let’s not do that again.
He can see her looking around the room, the after-party wreckage, though, really, the place is pretty well cleaned up, and she blows out her breath, starts the first tug toward the bedroom, says, We’ll get all this later.
Later, he thinks. Later.
DAY 8
Taz dozes through the morning feed in the rocker, never quite going out, but surprised to find Midge asleep, mouth hanging open around the nipple. He settles her into the bassinet, used to the little jerk she gives when separated from his chest.
He can smell the bacon, the coffee, and steps into the clothes he finds on the floor.
She sets his plate down before he’s reached the table. Pancakes this morning. Blueberries. The cup of coffee. No cream. No sugar.
“Good morning,” he says, and pulls back his chair.
She stands behind hers, both hands around her cup. Cream. Sugar. Two spoons. He knows it by heart.
She gives him a minute, just watching, then takes a breath and says, “That was nice last night. Being included. Thank you.”
Taz can’t think what to say.
“But, boy, it hurts this morning.” She smiles, sips her coffee.
He wonders if it’ll ever stop hurting.
She sets her coffee down. “You think I don’t like you.”
Taz takes his own breath, lets it out. “Lauren, there’s no—”
“At first, I’ll admit.” She taps her fingers against her cup. “Well, let’s just say I thought Marnie could do better.”
“Marnie could do anything she wanted.”
“And what she wanted was you.”
Taz looks at his plate, the perfectly crisped bacon.
“It just took me a little longer to see why,” she goes on. “To see how the two of you worked together. Both of you always thought I hated this house, and you whined to her about how I thought you were dragging her down.”
Taz looks up, starts to say “Lauren” again, but she says, “You were so wrong. I looked at you here, saw neither one of you the least bit afraid, not a doubt in your lives.” She shakes her head. “If her father,” she starts, “if he had half the—” She almost laughs. “Well, let’s just say that Marnie picked way better than I did.”
Taz hears Marnie whisper, Who is this person? and Taz manages to say, “Lauren, stop.”
“No,” she says. “It’s time for you to listen now. No matter what you said, or thought, I never went after you behind your back. I respected what you were doing. Hell, I even admired it.”
“You don’t have to say—”
“But you’ve got to find that again, Ted. Even if it was Marnie who brought it out, or the two of you together, whatever. Grieve, of course—god, we’ll be doing that for the rest of our lives—but . . .” She lifts her arm, points straight toward Midge in the bassinet, as if she can see through walls. “It’s about her now. Everything is.”
“I—”
“And I know a thing or two about being a single parent, so if there’s anything, at all, you call. No matter what you think, I’ll do every single thing in my power to help.”
“Lauren,” he finally squeezes in. “Are you done?”
She smiles. “Just one more thing.”
He sits back, gives her the floor.
“I’ve got my ticket. This afternoon. It’s time for you now.”
He blinks, looks back down at his plate, then all around the room, and finally up at her.
“There’s at least a month’s worth of diapers in the bathroom,” she says. “And your friends have brought more formula than four babies could ever go through. It’s all stacked in the kitchen cupboards. The refrigerator’s packed, the freezer full, the laundry done.” She stops, looks straight at him. “It’s your life now.”
Taz lifts his hands, lets them fall. “Thank you,” he says. “And, I’m sorry, you know, for being an ass.”
She sits down. Lets go of her coffee. She smiles. Tiny. Waves her hand between them as if clearing smoke. “It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t know anyone who would be good at this.”
He sees again the first hint of graying hair, the skin starting to slacken, just some lines, not jowls or anything. All a Marnie he’ll never see. “Wouldn’t want to know them if they were.”
She gives a nod, then sighs. “You know, I . . .” She tries to keep her smile going. “I’ve been working on that speech all morning. And now I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“Me either.”
“You have more to do than you’ll ever know.”
Taz looks at the bacon plate, eight slices left on the paper towel. For the two of them. He wonders how many more pancakes are in the oven, keeping warm.
He takes a piece of bacon. Then holds the plate out to her. “Thank you,” he says again. “For everything.”
Sitting alone after she leaves, Taz sees Rudy back out on the porch, the same kind of radar he’s had since he was five, six. Elbows on knees, hands dangling. Like he could wait forever. All the time in the world.
Midge is asleep in the car seat, his kind of portable bassinet, and Taz opens the door, and sits down beside Rudy on the steps, facing out toward the street, the maples shading them, the heat still fierce, the air itself singed, smoked.
“Would not want to be fighting fire today,” Rudy says.
Taz nods, and they look out at the street.
“So,” Rudy says. “I was sort of wondering if you, you know, like need a hand or anything?”
“A hand?”
“Babysitting? Or work, if you’ve got any.”
Taz glances toward him. “Babysitting? There’s laws, Rude. Protective services.”
Rudy smiles. “And you just know how jazzed they’ve got to be looking over your resume.”
Rudy reaches his finger toward Midge’s hand, his favorite trick, the reflex grab, but stops short of touching. “She’s asleep,” he says.
“I know.”
“See,” he says, “we’re experts.”
“No doubt,” Taz says. “The basics, the bottles and stuff, the diapers. Even we can do that. And Lauren left us enough to get through the apocalypse. Cabinets look like we’re Mormons.”
“What els
e is there?”
“Sleeping.”
“You don’t look like you’ve ever slept.”
“Yeah, that one’s been tougher.” Behind him the house yawns empty.
“Well,” Rudy says, “I’m going to miss her cooking.”
“Right,” Taz says.
“And she’s not bad-looking, either.”
“Rude!”
“You know, for an older gal.”
“Just flat creepy, Rude.”
“The Rude cannot be choosy. Guy could do worse than those meals.”
“She’s Marn’s mom.”
Rudy rubs his belly. “Like I said, miss her already.”
Taz stands and Rudy follows him up. “So, where do we start?” he asks.
Taz turns toward the door. “Rude,” he says. “She’s actually sleeping. I better try to get me some of that, too. While I’ve got the chance.”
Rudy looks down the street, says something not loud enough to be heard.
“Rudy,” Taz says. “We’re going to be fine.”
Rudy pushes up to his feet. He reaches out, touches Taz on the arm as he drops down off the porch, then walks off, giving his wave.
Taz watches until Rudy’s out of sight down the block, then lifts the car seat, Midge’s eyes opening at the first touch. He glances down, Midge watching him steadily. He pushes open the front door, the car seat in one hand, and swivels through. He carries Midge over the threshold, something he can’t keep from narrating to himself, “He carries her over the threshold.” The first time they set foot in the house, the mortgage all theirs, he and Marnie’d been laughing so hard he’d nearly dropped her.
He puts the car seat on the table and undoes the buckle, the house emptier than outer space, even the mother’s ghost whisking around now, too, stepping out of the kitchen, something cooking. He bites his lips, squints, gives his head a quick shake, a rush of bile and desolation so fierce he’s afraid he’ll throw up.
“Well, here we are,” he says.
It’s what Marnie had said that first time, when they’d slid to the floor, barely making it over the threshold, her fingers working at his buckle, the house a wreck just waiting for them.