The Possibilities

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  Kit appears at the top of the stairs.

  “Hi there,” I say. She looks puffy-eyed and pale.

  “Morning,” she says.

  “Hi,” Billy says. He holds a hand up in the air.

  She mimics his gesture, looking like she’s taking an oath. “Hello,” she says.

  “That’s Billy,” I say. “Cully’s father. We’re not married. We were never married.”

  “That’s quite an intro,” Billy says.

  Kit tucks her hair behind her ear and scratches her nose. “Nice to meet you,” she says, taking him in. I wonder if she’s seeing Cully everywhere like I do.

  “Thanks for the calendar,” he says.

  She makes to answer but then doesn’t say anything, embarrassed.

  “Come sit,” I say. She sits on the same stool as she did last night. “Here we are again.”

  She smiles and covers a yawn.

  “Listen to this,” my dad says to the person on the phone. “In half an hour I’ve found the solution to your little problem. You tell Critter Conservation, Center for Colorado Ecosystems, WILD, whomever—tell them two words: chytrid fungus . . . You don’t need to know what it is, I don’t even know what it is exactly, but I do know that it’s killing them. The toads are going extinct with or without your expansion! With or without your existence! You tell these people this and all the attention will move to Fish and Wildlife, who are going to get their asses sued for not putting froggy on the endangered species list.”

  “Who is he talking to?” Kit asks, amused.

  I look at my dad on the edge of the couch. “Someone from his old job, I assume.”

  “Oh, right,” she says, as if recalling something they had talked about.

  “I heard you had a fun night, Kit,” Billy says. He walks over to us, joining me on my side of the counter.

  “It was something,” she says. She is wearing her dirty shirt, though I can’t see the bloodstain.

  “Do you want to borrow a sweater?” I ask.

  “I have mine,” she says. “Somewhere.”

  “It’s over here,” I say. “I hung it up.”

  I walk to the closet by the front door and get her sweater. Like her coat it’s well made, understated, and elegant.

  “And get this,” my dad says. He has raised his voice. “Research has shown that golf courses are the ideal habitat for the toad. They’ll go crazy over that; probably tell you to go on with the expansion—better than a golf course any day. All the groups will back off, figure they may as well go retro and start fighting for the whales again. Tell Dunbar maybe instead of hiding the toads and skirting the issue, he advertises their existence and their demise. The resort could be the savior. Make a promise to the EPA to build artificial hibernacula for the ailing amphibians.”

  We all look at one another. Kit puts on her sweater.

  “Hibernacula,” my dad says. “I don’t know, google it. Hibernation units. Toad condos. The units could stay on the mountain but down near the base. Prime real estate. Okay . . . okay . . . roger that. Good. You bet. Glad I could help. Hup,” he says, then lowers the phone and peers at the buttons. “No one says goodbye anymore,” he says. “Hello, Kit.”

  “Hello, Lyle,” Kit says.

  He stands and walks over. “Well, all right.” He nods, appraising her. “Sarah told me all about your late-night vandalism. You sleep okay?”

  “Very well,” she says.

  “Can I get you some breakfast?” I ask. “Eggs? Or more cereal?”

  She doesn’t laugh at what I consider to be our inside joke.

  “No, thanks,” she says.

  My dad comes into the kitchen with his mug. “Kids, kids, kids. Crazy, crazy kids. Yesterday I was telling Kit—Billy, this was when she was our hired hand—I was telling her about the old days.”

  “You were?” I say.

  “Old, old days.” He brings his fist over his mouth and burps silently. “Criminals would come here to hide, rich guys from the East Coast would come here to slum, fancy women who didn’t want to be fancy anymore. They’d all migrate to our town to find their fortunes, begin again.” He smiles to himself while filling his mug with coffee. He adds his milk and sugar and I tap in some cinnamon because I read somewhere that it’s good for your heart or immune system. I forget which.

  “Guess you found an adventure, Kit,” he says. “Pretending you’re a snow shoveler, delivering a token. Boy.”

  “I didn’t think of it that way,” she says.

  “And you shouldn’t,” I say. I may have sounded gruff, but this is hardly some western adventure. Delivering belongings to a heartbroken family. Or I guess it does sound like a plot.

  “Why didn’t you just tell us you had it?” my dad asks. He shakes his head, as if not needing an answer. He lets her off the hook, and I try to remember what her explanation had been when I asked her last night. I recall it being long-winded.

  “Those toads you were talking about?” Kit says.

  “Yeah?” my dad says.

  “They have red warts.”

  “Really? Goodness, that’s another strike against them.” He’s next to me, stirring in the cinnamon, and then he pours coffee into another mug. “You take cream? Sugar?”

  “Both,” Kit says.

  “Atta girl. Did you see your truck out there? It’s completely buried.”

  “I can help you dig it out,” Billy says.

  “But she’s the snow shoveler, right?” my dad says.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” she says.

  He walks back around the island to her with her coffee. “I wouldn’t say that either.”

  “I was telling Sarah last night that I’m sorry about doing such a stupid thing. I can help clean up or . . . the sheets. I can wash the sheets.”

  My dad waves her words away.

  “One night my grandson, Cully, who you knew of course, he drove right into someone’s wooden fence on Harris. He was inebriated, had just gotten his license, and now had to deal with a torn fence and a cut through his eyebrow.” He makes a sound as he slices his face. “Instead of driving the one-minute drive home, he drove up to Shock Hill to Sarah’s bountiful friend’s house—she wasn’t as bountiful then, though. He went there for help. He asked Dickie—he’s the husband—he said, “Can you say I was playing football and that I fell and got a concussion, and that you drove my car home and accidentally hit a fence on the way over?” My dad uses a comically whiny voice.

  “So, Dickie actually agreed. He comes over here—and I’m here for some reason—and he starts with this story but can’t see it through. He starts to crack up. And you know how red Dickie gets when he laughs. Looked like he was going to implode. So he gives up the lie, hits Cully on the back, and says, ‘You take it from here, kid. Take it away,’ then tells him it’s good to be grounded. Gives you an excuse to stay home with your mom.”

  “And the moral is?” Billy asks.

  “I don’t know,” my dad says. “Kids do stupid shit.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kit says again. Her gaze drifts over to the television behind her, where my program is on. It’s an old segment, shot almost six months ago.

  “In addition, these residences reside on sixty acres of land, forty of which are a conservation easement,” Penny, the property manager says. She had an accent that I couldn’t place.

  “Now what does that mean?” I ask on TV.

  I look at myself, feeling compassion for this past self, afraid for what her life is about to become. At the same time I don’t exactly want to be her again.

  “Will you guys turn this off?” I ask.

  “Well, it means that nothing will ever change,” Penny says. “No one will come and build something to obstruct your views and our forest won’t be destroyed.”

  “And no one wants that,” Katie says.

  “No,” Penny says.

  Billy and my dad both laugh. I do too. It’s as though we’re watching a sitcom. I look so interested, so sincere. I understand no
w the disappointment Holly and Katie must feel in me, but watching this makes me feel that I will never be able to show that interest ever again. I look like the women on Dad’s show, going over the same things with disproportionate enthusiasm, nodding mechanically as the people we interview say over and over again, “We’re really excited.”

  “—really excited about this one in particular, which is designed to capture the timeless quality of quaint and elegant European villas, but the architects have fused it with that rustic Rocky Mountain character we know and love.”

  “Look at that chandelier!” Katie says. “Are those antlers? Are they real?”

  “Are those antlers!” Billy says.

  “Are they real!” my dad says.

  “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to do this again,” I say.

  I walk to the couch, click the TV off.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Billy says. “Begin again. Do the opposite.”

  I try to think of what the opposite would be: demolition derby? piano tuning?

  I go back to the kitchen and lay the bacon out on paper towels and use its grease to scramble the eggs. I will cater to her hangover and make her comfortable to indulge. I look up to see if she’s tempted. She’s crouched on her chair, as though bracing herself. Her eyes are closed.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “You want some juice?”

  She nods yes or no. I can’t tell.

  “Use your words,” Billy says, and smiles.

  “I should go,” she says. She stands up but doesn’t move.

  “Whoa there, you all right?” Billy asks.

  “I think I might be sick,” she says. She looks at me with a pleading sort of look, runs to the kitchen and straight to the sink, where she proceeds to throw up in a way that makes her look possessed. Some splatters on the bacon and eggs. We all watch, our mouths agape. When she’s done she stands over the sink and takes deep breaths, then turns on the faucet and splashes her face with water. She stays over the sink, letting the water run, and water drips from her face.

  “Wowza!” my dad says from behind. “That was some fine work.”

  “Stop it,” I say. “Hon, are you okay?” I gather her hair and let it fall on her back. I hand her the towel from the hook on the wall.

  “Why don’t you dry your face off,” I say.

  We all stand close to each other, huddled.

  “This?” she says. The towel is dark blue and has a design of a small cat licking its paw.

  “We can get you another one if it offends you,” my dad says.

  “Stop it, Dad,” I say.

  “I just don’t want to dirty it,” she says.

  “That’s what hand towels are for,” he says, and then sincerely, “You all right, sport?”

  “No,” she says.

  Billy takes a glass to the bathroom. I hear him turn on the faucet. He comes back and places the glass of water beside her.

  We are all attending to her and I’m sure she is mortified. She drinks the water and my dad pats her back as she drinks. “You’re okay.” His touch makes her cry, and she has given in, relieved to cry. He pats and rubs circles into her back.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” she says. She looks at each of us, almost as if forcing herself to do so. Her face and neck are flushed. I’ll have to lend her a new shirt and sweater.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Billy says.

  “This isn’t supposed to happen this way.” I notice her hands shaking a little. Billy and I exchange glances. What way was it supposed to happen?

  “Funny how that emotion, embarrassment, is just deer-in-the-headlights debilitating,” my dad says. “You can hurt someone and go around thumping your chest like a baboon. But to be embarrassed, that’s tough. Makes people veer quite incredibly from logic.”

  “Dad,” I say. The way he speaks, I swear.

  “Just breathe,” Billy says.

  “I’m trying to help,” my dad says.

  “I know,” I say.

  She puts her forehead down on the edge of the sink and takes deep breaths.

  “Billy,” my dad says. “Get down on your knees and stick your butt in the air. I want to show Kit a technique I learned from my dad, who learned it from his father before him. Billy, get your chest on the ground. Show her this technique to help her relax and breathe. I do it all the time.”

  Billy hesitates, then makes his way to the floor. Kit, still leaning against the counter, turns to look.

  “Now put your forehead on the ground, Billy. And splay your arms. Splay them.” Billy situates himself into an exhausted child’s pose.

  “There you go,” my dad says. “You see that, Kit?”

  She nods her head on the counter.

  “Now really look at Billy,” my dad says. “Look at him there. Hell, I don’t do that all the time. It may make it harder to breathe for all I know, but nothing you do today will be as embarrassing as what he’s doing now.”

  Billy lifts his head but stays down on his shins.

  “You’re a little nuts,” Kit says.

  “I know,” my dad says.

  “We all know,” Billy says, “but he’s kind of always right. It’s annoying. It actually feels great down here. I’m very relaxed.”

  Kit turns back to the sink and stands up straight. Tears are really flowing now, like a quiet snowfall.

  “Take a deep breath,” I say softly. “Ignore the idiot gallery behind you.” I gesture for Billy to get up and he does. “I learned something from my father,” I say, “and I swear I’m not making this up. He’d always tell me to say something, to talk about something that has no meaning, that won’t trigger any emotions. Just get talking, get breathing, you—”

  “The toads,” she says, and I’m surprised by her steady voice. It’s as though she really is snowing or raining and not crying, the tears just a natural phenomenon. “Lyle. Those boreal toads you were talking about? The way they mate is the male jumps on the female’s back and she carries him around for days. This stimulates her to lay the eggs. That’s all he does. He sits on her back. When she delivers the eggs—that’s when he fertilizes them. I don’t know why my dad knows so much about the way creatures mate. He was always interested in it. That and the heart. He loves the heart.”

  “That’s good,” my dad says. “That was really good. See, you’re fine. You’re doing great.”

  We stand there, surrounding her like coaches.

  “Oh God,” she says, and does it again, throws up in the sink. We all automatically take a step back.

  “I’m pregnant,” she says, when she’s done.

  “Holy shit,” Billy says.

  Chapter 12

  Billy’s response, “Holy shit,” echoes through my head. I mouth it. I say it out loud. I feel it and hold on to it, not wanting to think or feel anything else right now.

  I look out the window of my room, trying to gauge the weather—it looks like holy shit. I put on black jeans and my gray oversized sweater, as if the news demands a new costume. I somehow put on makeup while avoiding the mirror, as if not seeing my reflection saves me from admitting or understanding something. I have nothing else to do in my room. Taking a shower or making my bed would feel ridiculous, like tidying up your house while it was burning down. I have to go downstairs now. I open my bedroom door.

  The three of them wait at the bottom of the steps and I walk down, feeling like a debutante. By the looks of them I know they have talked, decided on something, and I will be shuffled because I’m too stunned to think straight. I’ll float like flotsam. Drift like driftwood.

  “The car is packed,” my dad says. “And I lent Kit some things from the laundry room.”

  At first I don’t know what he’s talking about, then remember our one-night trip.

  “Did you get my bag?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “Everything’s taken care of. We can head out, but first I thought we’d get something to eat—all of us.”

  Kit is wearing one of my favorite
sweaters, the dark gray one with diagonal ridges.

  “We need to get Suzanne,” I say. “We’re late. I hate being late.” I guess I won’t be shuffled after all.

  No one bothers to answer me, making me understand that our lateness is hardly a pressing matter right now.

  “We’ll get some lunch at the Whale’s Tale,” my dad says. He looks at his watch. “Brunch.”

  He has always done this. When we have a conflict or an issue to address, he takes it to a restaurant, to neutral ground. He thinks one behaves better and thinks more clearly, carefully selects words. The meal serves as a timeline. By the end something needs to be determined, accomplished, but it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

  “Not now,” I say. “Not for this.”

  “We are not speaking about anything here,” he says, then walks outside.

  “This is stupid,” I say. “We can talk right here.” Kit and I look at each other and I feel like a child who’s been wrongfully blamed.

  “Save it,” my dad says. “No sense repeating yourself, repeating yourself.”

  We all follow him out the door. Kit puts on her nice coat. I look at her stomach, then look away.

  “Careful,” I say to her, when she starts to walk down the icy steps.

  • • •

  WE WALK IN to the saloon-like restaurant, a place I’d always go to with my father when I was young. It was our night on the town, just the two of us. It’s funny that it was special to me because it was always just the two of us, but I guess the excursions felt like a celebration of our duo. I switched up the tradition and took Cully to Steak and Rib for our night on the town. Just the two of us. As an adult I saw it was as much a favor the child does for you as one you do for them, especially as a single parent. He was my company.

  The restaurant is dimly lit and nearly empty. It feels better to be here than back at home, less claustrophobic. My father is always right.

  “Four of you?” a hostess asks in a chirpy way. I feel bad. We’re going to ruin her day with a lifeless response, but she is steadfast and oblivious.