But he still had the power to surprise her, as it turned out. One last time. By screwing Twyla.
Oh, you think she didn’t know? Please. She knew.
* * *
If I’m being honest, Alex, the only reason I’m still standing here now is to make sure he’s gone for good.
* * *
Neither of them could get work. They were too old—at last she could recognize that word as applicable to herself and not just him. And she wouldn’t have worked anyway. It was too late now for the both of them. It had been fifty years since she held a job. What did she know how to do? They had to survive on what they had.
And yet, somehow, paperwork began to accumulate on the desk he had insisted on having, even though there was no room for it. What could he possibly be working on? she wondered. What did he have left to do? When she glanced at the papers, all she saw were credit card applications, information on interest rates. All harmless enough, she thought.
Then she noticed an extra set of keys. This was a month ago. She wasn’t snooping, she was just living. There they were on his nightstand. A real estate agent’s promotional key ring, gold lettering on the attached bottle opener. Inappropriate for a business, she thought offhandedly. But what doors did those keys unlock? She had learned a long time ago not to ask him for the truth. And his desk was empty now, a ghost desk, save for an electricity bill, which he intended to argue with Entergy. He couldn’t fathom how high it was for such a small apartment. “I thought everything was cheaper down here,” he’d said. He’d never bothered to sweat an electricity bill in his life before. Is this what it had come to?
He was gone most days, and she realized she didn’t know where he went. To a bar, to a café, to the pool downstairs, who knew. For a while they were supposed to be helping out with their grandchild, but that so-called quality time had quietly ceased, Victor reporting back that they weren’t needed as much around the house, Twyla had told him so, and that was fine with Barbra; it seemed enough that they did family dinners every few weeks, hauling themselves across the bridge to the Westbank, Victor cheerfully smoking his cigar as he drove.
Once in the spring they’d gone to a crawfish boil at the home of a neighbor of her son—this was when Gary was still in town—and Barbra took one look at the grinning, exuberant group of people lined up on either side of a long table, piles and piles of steaming crawfish, corn on the cob, and sausage, and said, “Are you kidding me?” She sat in the corner with a plastic cup of beer poured from a keg and watched as her husband and everyone else greedily dug into the spicy crustaceans before them. Victor with his shirtsleeves rolled up, sweating and happy. Barbra with her legs crossed, her linen coat swinging in the breeze. Even if she wasn’t having any fun, the rest of her family was. A minor success, she supposed.
In the midst of it all she noticed Victor talking to Twyla. What was that face he was making. That goofy grin, those wild, animated hand gestures. Did he . . . have a crush on her?
Months after, the keys in her hand, she called Twyla and asked her if she’d seen Victor.
“He just walked out the door, Barbra,” she said. “But give him a call. You might catch him on his cell.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake, she thought.
It was nothing after that. A phone call to the real estate agent, wondering where to send the gift she had bought her husband as a surprise, she was so forgetful at this age. And then a theft of his keys on her early-morning walk, a copy made at the hardware store, all the while she was simmering, simmering. It was one thing to do it in another city, as he had when they lived in Connecticut, but she had checked Google Maps, and this was ten minutes away. A nondescript apartment in the Warehouse District, which she saw an hour later, while Victor was still sleeping off whatever he had drunk the night before at home. And it was the same as it had been in Manhattan, always the same, a mattress on the floor, a table, a chair, like a prisoner’s cell, only she knew this room meant freedom to him. There were his papers again, more credit card applications, and an unfinished love letter, too, to Twyla. She read only, “When I touched you—” and dropped the paper. She could have murdered him, she really could have, if he had been there, and there had been a gun in her hand, she would have done it.
Can you believe she lived fifty years like this with this man? Even at the end he couldn’t be anything but bad. There would be no rehabilitation for him, no redemption. Some people are just bad forever. He would never have learned, ever. But she could learn. Couldn’t she?
* * *
Forget about the fall. Think only about the rise. This is what I must do. I must rise.
* * *
Outside his room, Barbra paused. From inside, she heard a flat beep.
Barbra thought about going in to say goodbye, but instead she just floated the word in the air in his direction. See you later, sweetheart.
She supposed there would be papers to sign, a funeral to plan. But then again, she was under no obligation to do anything for this man. She didn’t want to stand at a grave dressed in black, mourning him. She had nothing left in her heart for him.
Keep walking, Barbra, she thought. So she did, down the hall, to the elevator, which opened on a breathless, racing auburn-haired woman with brown skin spotted with feathery white, freckled patches, and wide amber eyes, which were panicked and darting, her head turning both ways before she took off down the hall.
Downstairs at last, in front of the hospital, Barbra stood, a bit dizzy. She was reacquainting herself with the world. Now it was night, and it was cooler, but still warm and muggy, thick and pregnant.
Home, I want to go home, she thought. But whatever that used to be, home, didn’t exist for her anymore. She would have to invent it anew.
22
Nowhere to go but home, Twyla thought. Where no one was. She walked down Canal to the ferry terminal, the sky nearly dark, rush hour past, the street empty, though its bulbous streetlamps were lit up beneath the palm trees, and it felt as if it were waiting for party guests that hadn’t arrived yet. The ferry was still making its way across the water. She leaned her head woozily against the fence that separated the landing and the pier. The water emitted quiet sounds as it struck against the pilings. Like little licks. Otherwise it was silent. It was the silence that would murder her. She would be alone in her empty house. Just me and my mistakes, she thought. Which was all she’d been thinking about the past two weeks.
That was when Gary had left. He was present for one night, and then he was gone for good. He had come home from his trip to Los Angeles, and he was happy to be home, handling her as he walked in the door, a hug, affection, a grope, a smack on the ass, and then he had moved through the house possessively, running his hand across the kitchen table, the bookshelf, before splaying himself across the couch, grinning. LA hadn’t been a success, but it had given him hope. He’d had good meetings. He saw potential.
He asked when their daughter was coming back from camp.
“A few more weeks,” said Twyla. She was hesitant to join him, and instead leaned against the kitchen island. She was full of lies, and she didn’t know how to manage them, to hide them or redirect them to a secure location. “The twenty-second, and then school starts two weeks after that.” She started reciting her daughter’s schedule, absent-mindedly at first, and then eagerly. There would be constraints again. Rules. Everything would go back to normal, she hoped. She could ignore Victor. She could probably push him out of their lives entirely. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to make Victor disappear.
* * *
Did I wish this death upon him? Maybe, she thought as she slid down to the concrete at the ferry terminal.
* * *
“Should we take advantage of this moment?” said Gary that last night.
He meant sex, she could see that now, but right then she was distracted by the lie that was in the way. It lingered in front of her face, a black blinking dot, a cursor of grief and guilt.
“I was thinking that the back
yard needed some work,” she said. He gave her a funny look. “Or do you mean you want to go out to dinner? That’d be nice.”
“I meant you and me in bed,” he said. “Doing it.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh! Oh. I’m sorry.” Something hung in the air for a second, and then there were instant apologies on both sides—there would always be a gentleness between them, no matter how angry either got in the future, because he refused to be an angry man like his father was, and even if he deserved her anger, she’d feel defused by her guilt for the rest of her life—and then together they went to bed, awkwardly initially, as if they were first-time lovers, and not in a thrilling way, where everything was new and electric, but with a tentative, uncomfortable shyness. Twyla accidentally poked him in the eye and he yelped and she apologized again (how many times had she apologized today, and yet still not for the right thing), and he said, “I thought I was supposed to be poking you with something, not the other way around,” and that helped, a dumb joke helped, and after that they were moving on each other, determined to make it work, his cock springing to life, running his hands all over her, exhausted, grateful sex. He’d grown a beard, and she kept scratching it with her nails, and she scratched his chest and back, too, and he moaned and was done, and they loved each other again, everything was going to be fine, she thought as she held him against her chest.
But the next morning, it all turned. She was up before him. She’d made coffee, she’d showered, then unpacked his suitcase and put in a load of laundry. Now she was flattening an omelet with the back of a spatula. Everything was humming again. All she needed was Avery back home to complete the scene. If he had to travel back and forth between the two cities, they’d make it work. She and Avery could come visit him sometimes. If the whole family needed to move back to Los Angeles, even better. She was prepared for everything to be altered in all the best ways, and she would accept a few of the worst ways if that’s what was necessary to keep their life going. Whatever it took, she would do it. My second chance is upon me, she thought, and stood there nodding, determined, until her husband walked into the kitchen. He was freshly shaven, and he looked younger and slimmer, but also pale and worried, and his hands were shaking. His shirt was wrinkled. I’ll iron it later, she thought.
Without preamble, he kissed her neck, and then down her body, and she stood there, astonished, and then relinquished herself to him against the kitchen island. Quickly, and with focus, he licked her until she came.
“Phew,” she said and laughed, but when he stood, he still looked concerned.
“Yeah. You’re different. Just like I thought.”
“What are you talking about?” She laughed at him nervously. “Do you want some coffee? Have some coffee. Between last night and this morning, you’ve earned it.” She started to pour a cup.
“We’ve been together a long time, Twyla. Give me little credit here. I know when something’s off. Your body felt different last night, the way you moved. And you’re acting funny right now, that look you’re giving me, that one, right there!”
What was she doing? What was her face doing? Twyla began to freak out.
He narrowed his eyes, then spoke this last indictment slowly and cruelly: “And you taste different.”
Twyla was horrified.
“Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking kidding?”
He was calm, even though he had cursed. He pressed her efficiently. He had no evidence except for a gut instinct. She cracked soon enough. She wasn’t born to lie. She was born to soothe, yes, to placate. To please, to delight. But not to lie. There had been a man, and she would not say who. And as Gary raged and stormed and cried, she stared out the window behind him, at the river, and as he packed all his bags, barge ships passed and she dreamed of hopping on one, and as he left for the airport without saying goodbye, she thought: I could make it to Alabama, I could make it home. Then she remembered: she didn’t have a home there anymore. Sold to Darcy’s parents.
* * *
Something stung Twyla at the ferry terminal. She slapped at her leg. She recognized the sensation: fire ants. She’d be stuck with a blister for weeks. The least of her problems.
I’ll call him one last time, she thought, and pulled out her cell phone. He has to talk to me eventually. We’re married.
This time, he picked up.
“What?” he said.
“Hold on one second,” she said.
Two people exited the ferry, and Twyla drunkenly stumbled on board. It was the last ride of the night, and she was the lone passenger. Twyla shoved two wrinkled dollars at the conductor, and he straightened the bills slowly in front of her while she waited, before he accepted them and fed them into his glass fare box. So this woman standing before him would know next time where the money went. So this woman would know next time how to treat him. What the process was. She needed to know. There was a system. Two dollars in the slot. Not shoved at him like he was some kind of stripper. She thanked him, but did not seem grateful enough, in his opinion. It had been a long day, and though he was a tourism professional, he did not care at all about her thank-yous.
Twyla leaned her hip against the deck rail, put the phone to her head.
“OK. I’m here.”
“Where are you?”
“On the ferry.”
“Why are you on the ferry?”
“I was in the city, and then I was drinking, so I thought I better not drive.”
“Nice, Twyla.” He had expected her to be sitting at home, she supposed. Sitting and waiting for his return.
The ferry began to move, and immediately a delicious breeze came in off the river and lapped at her skin.
“Where’d you leave the car?” he said.
“What do you care where I left the car? You haven’t been home in two weeks.”
“I paid for that car,” he said. “I can ask where it is.”
Let’s just keep going like this, she thought. Let’s just bicker. Let’s not talk about what happened, let’s talk about anything else but that.
“That car is in my name.”
“Twyla.”
“It’s in a garage off Canal.”
Then she began to hate the conversation, the nontalking.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Nothing happened to the car.”
Silence, except for the sound of him inhaling something.
“Just say it already,” she said. “Say what you’re going to say.”
“So here it is,” said Gary. “And this is nonnegotiable. I have to know who it was. I can forgive you—I think—or at least we can try and move on. But you have to tell me who it is.”
For a second it seemed as if the boat paused in the water, and everything grew silent, but that wasn’t true, it was just her, the particles that composed her flesh stopped for a moment, froze in the night air, numbing her skin, her self, her soul. If she didn’t tell him, it was over. If she did tell him, it was over anyway, and it would devastate him.
And so, she said nothing.
“Twyla, this is our life.” He was begging her now. “You and me and Avery, but also just you and me. You remember us, right? If you tell me this one thing, we’ll still have a chance at us.”
He said other things after that, but she tuned in to the sounds of the ferry, which were rather romantic, the lap of the water, the hum of the engines, and then eventually Gary was gone, and she was alone with the phone in her hand. Goodbye, love, until we meet again.
She looked back at the city, and the skyline now lit for the night, buzzing, opening its arms to whatever happened next. The light bounced back from its reflection in the water, and she stared at it forlornly. People died in this river; the currents were strong and mean. Once every few years or so she’d read a news article about a drunk person going for a dip downtown near the shore and getting sucked under. Briefly she contemplated jumping. Solving her problems in that way. But she could never leave Avery.
Someon
e else would love her again. But she would never give up on Gary. For the rest of her life she would love him, but she would never be able to have him.
And in the end, what else was she supposed to want but love? There were people out there who made things, achieved things. Her parents fed people for decades with food they grew themselves, with their own labor. She was a mother, and she knew that was important, that it was an act of labor, too, as much as love. There was nothing left to dream for but that. What else was there for her on the horizon? She looked out. No stars, an overcast night, the humidity throttled the air. She felt the pull of the water. What if nothing was waiting for her at all but loneliness? I deserve nothing, she thought. Right now, I deserve nothing.
The ferry ride from downtown New Orleans to Algiers is surprisingly short, just a handful of minutes. It gives you a taste of both sides of the river, of its constructed appeal. There’s the city in one direction, the casino, the Quarter, St. Louis Cathedral, the bloom of the hospitality industry, rising from the historic streets. A squat skyline except for a few hotels and the once-abandoned World Trade Center, now being developed into luxury condos. And the other direction, there’s Algiers, a small, chunky neighborhood of homes safely nestled within the banks of the levee, the spidery I-90 bridge guarding it. Throughout the ride there’s the steady wind that blows, and it’s not cold, the power of it to alter your temperature is in fact illusory, but it still feels especially nice during the summertime, when there’s so little respite from the heat. Just when you think you’re cooling off, you’ve arrived.
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