After All I've Done

by Mina Hardy

  Within minutes, his reply: Where are you?

  I don’t answer. I sip my drink. I scroll through my Connex feed, checking for friend requests from hometown people I can delete. I even check my email. A minute passes. Another. He’ll have seen that I read the message. He will be wondering why I’m not answering.

  This is a game, isn’t it? A stupid game, and it makes me feel sickly twisted up inside.

  “I am not that girl.” That’s what I’d told Jonathan the first time we went out for lunch, both of us knowing there was more to it than friendship.

  I’d texted him something bold about how I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Christmas party. That if he was up for a “drink,” he could always text me. He’d said he wanted to get to know me, and I was totally down for letting him. It had been blunt and forward, my intentions clear, and I was still was surprised that he’d agreed to go.

  I started it, but Jonathan was the one who started texting me more often. Wanting to meet once a week, then twice, then more. He’s the one who told me he couldn’t get enough of me. Of this.

  Of us.

  What was meant to be one month became two.

  He started checking in constantly, little texts asking me how my day was going. Asking for pictures. Flirty emojis. I was doing this for her, and at first I thought it would be hard for me to want him.

  Then, I thought I would be able to stop.

  “No games. No drama. I am not that girl.”

  I wasn’t, then. A dozen relationships in as many years, and if there’d ever been drama, it hadn’t come from me. I was the one who got chased, not the one who clung. I was the one who broke hearts.

  Not the one whose heart got broken.

  I was not that girl, but here I am. I don’t want this drink. I don’t want to be here. My phone lights again with another text.

  I’m sorry I was late. Where are you?

  There is a moment when I consider not answering at all, ever again. I can call myself another car and get a ride home. I could pick up a man and go home with him. I can ghost Jonathan, block him, never see or speak to him again. I have options. I am not stuck in this thing. But … all I really want is to be with Jonathan, drinking champagne and eating Thai food in my house.

  I am not imprisoned by this love, but I do choose it.

  I have chosen it every time, and I need to remind myself of that, because I will continue to choose it. I will keep choosing him. People lie about love, and so do I, but I won’t keep lying to myself about this.

  Downtown Lounge

  The instant I send the text, the message is read. In the next, three tiny bouncing dots show me he’s replying. I wait, the taste of vodka harsh on my tongue.

  Be there in 10

  A shiver runs through me. I’ve often joked with Jonathan about him “going cave man” with me, but there’s no denying that it turns me on. What’s too rough for someone else turns out to be just right for me. There’ve been plenty of men before him who tried asserting their ownership of me, and it never worked out very well for them. But with him … everything is different.

  I gather my purse and pick up my coat. Out front, I wait on the sidewalk for his car. This time of night, downtown is all shut down except for the Lounge, but there are plenty of cars passing. None of them belong to Jonathan.

  I’m getting cold. And now, pissed off again because it’s been a least ten minutes since he said he would be here. He’s late. Again. Five more minutes pass, and finally his charcoal Volvo rolls up.

  I get in.

  The light is red, and Jonathan twists in the seat to glare at me. “What the hell, Val?”

  “I waited for two hours.” I cross my arms and stare out the window so I don’t have to look at him. “It’s my birthday.”

  “Ah, shit. It was my mother.” The light turns green. Jonathan heads out of town, toward my house.

  “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  He glances at me. “Yes.”

  “You didn’t answer any of my texts. You could have at least told me you were going to be late.” I sound too accusing. Too nagging. Too upset. I bite my tongue, literally, to keep myself from saying more.

  “I’m sorry, baby. Believe me, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

  He pulls into my driveway and shuts off the engine. I get out of the car and head for my front door. I fumble with the keys. He’s behind me. One long arm goes up to the door. The other around me. He presses against me. His mouth finds the back of my neck.

  I’m lost.

  The door opens, and we spill into my front hall. My coat and purse go flying. The door slams as Jonathan kicks it closed. I’m in his arms, and his mouth is on mine, and then I’m on the stairs, with him between my legs. He pushes up my dress.

  Fervent. Eager. Demanding. Possessive.

  I think about fighting him. My hand comes up to slap him, but he grabs it. The fingers of his other hand hook into my panties and tug them to the side so he can dive between my legs. His mouth, hot, sweet, finds my bare flesh, and my head falls back. I groan.

  The wooden stairs are hurting my back and my neck. The ridge of the one I’m sitting on digs into my ass. I can’t move. I can only open myself up to this fierce pleasure, this violent ecstasy.

  I come, hard. With a shout. My entire body jerks hard enough to slide me off the step and down to the next one, banging the back of my head in the process.

  I’m crying.

  Jonathan gathers me into his lap at the base of the stairs. He cradles me. I close my eyes and let him hold me until the steadiness of his breathing calms me.

  “My mother needed me to stop by her apartment and fix something for her. I couldn’t tell her no.”

  I unfold myself from his lap and head for the kitchen. I need a drink. Something cold. He follows me, watching without a word as I fill a glass and swallow half of it without looking at him. For years, I’d have given anything to be able to do something nice for my mom again. How could I fault him for it now?

  “What could I tell her, Val? That I can’t stop by because I have plans to spend the night with my mistress? That it’s her birthday?”

  It sounds so ugly when he says it that way, but it’s the truth. I put the glass on the counter, and then both hands, still facing away from him. My shoulders slump. I feel worn out. The back of my head hurts.

  “You could have texted me to say you were going to be late. That’s all.”

  He moves behind me, and I let him pull me back against him. He nuzzles the side of my neck. “I’m sorry, baby. I should have.”

  “I thought … Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you forgot.” My words are stiff. My body, stiffer. I don’t pull out of his embrace, but he moves back a step, leaving me where I stand.

  “I wouldn’t,” Jonathan says, “forget your birthday. Ever.”

  So it has to be all right, then, doesn’t it? Because he’s here now, and the champagne and Thai food are both getting cold out in his car. Everything between us needs to be fine, now, unless I want to ruin my own birthday.

  At the table, I pour us glasses of fizzy liquid, and Jonathan dishes out the food from the takeout containers onto the plates I’d set out earlier. And then, there’s a gift bag. A small one, decorated in hot pink and black, with ribbons tying it shut.

  I am expecting lingerie, but instead I pull out a piece of paper. Confused, I turn it over. I stare. I shake my head and smile uncertainly.

  “A plane ticket to Kansas City?”

  “I know it’s not Punta Cana, baby, but hear me out,” Jonathan says hastily, holding up his hands as though I’ve made some kind of protest. I haven’t said a word. But my insides are twisting, and I’m trying to keep my face from doing the same. “I have to go there the end of January on business. I want you to come with me.”

  He’s right. A conference center in Kansas City is no goddamned all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic, which is where we were suppos
ed to go in October. But I’m not upset about that.

  I fold the ticket carefully and tuck it into the bag. “You want me to go with you to Kansas City on your business trip?”

  “Yes. I’ll have to be in meetings all day, but there is a spa …” He looks hopeful.

  I can see by his face he doesn’t quite understand. I will have to spell it out for him, and even then, I suspect he won’t get it. What is it with men anyway? Why are women so hard for them to figure out?

  “When we go away together, I want it to be a real vacation. Not some tagged-on business trip. The two of us.”

  He looks uncomfortable. “You know that’s not possible right now.”

  “When, then?” I demand and toss up my hands as I move away from him. “When, Jonathan? How much longer do you think we can keep doing this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer,” I tell him. “I think you should leave.”

  He tries then to plead with me. To placate. To woo. I’m not having any of it. I’m finished with patience, with his reluctance and excuses. With all of this.

  I might finally even be finished with him.

  “We fucked. You’re done. Get out. And take your plane ticket with you. I’m not going to fucking Kansas City.” I toss the bag at him.

  “What the hell do you want from me?” He’s pissed off.

  Good.

  “I want you to figure out what you’re doing, Jonathan. I want you to decide where this is going, what you want from it. What you want from me. Us, I guess.” The fight’s slipping out of me. This isn’t how I wanted to spend my birthday.

  “I can’t do anything until after the holidays. Okay? I just … I can’t leave her at Christmas.”

  I bark out laughter. I know it, and he should too, that Diana does not and has never given a rat’s ass about Christmas. When I tell him this, he looks uncomfortable again. He runs a hand over his hair, longer than he usually keeps it. I told him once that I liked to be able to sink my fingers into it, and he remembered. I want to think that’s his reason, not that he’s simply been too busy to get a cut. I want to think it’s because of me, but right now I simply can’t make myself believe it.

  “Will I see you? On Christmas, I mean.”

  He says nothing, which is the answer I already knew.

  “It’s going to break my mother’s heart, Val. I just don’t want to be the guy who ruined the holidays for everyone because he’s left his wife.”

  I draw in a long, shuddering breath. “But it’s okay to ruin my Christmas. And my birthday too, I guess. It’s okay to ruin me.”

  “I don’t want to ruin you, baby.”

  “You might not want to,” I tell him, “but you are.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Diana

  “I already asked Jonathan to do this for me,” Harriett frets behind me as I pull down the folding staircase that leads into the attic space over her apartment. “Just wait for him to get home. He’ll do it.”

  She’s worried I’m not strong enough to pull down the boxes of decorations, but it’s been three months since the accident, and I’m finally out of the slings. Honestly, between the two of us, she’s the one more likely to get hurt. She’s frail that way. I hear her muttering but ignore it as I find the first bin of Christmas junk and tug it forward from beneath the eaves.

  “Be careful!”

  “It’s fine, Harriett.”

  The space above her apartment is lofty, almost big enough to be another floor if not for the steep slant of the eaves. The big house has limited attic space, so we’ve taken to storing things over here. My husband, I’ve learned over the years, seems incapable of getting rid of things. He wants to save it all, even if it’s broken. Especially, it seems, if it’s broken.

  That’s probably why he hasn’t left me yet.

  Despite the huge amount of empty space, everything we’ve put up here is easily accessible within an arm’s reach from the stairs. I tug one plastic bin labeled “Xmas” toward me, testing its weight. It’s heavy, and I have to concede that Harriett was right—if I’m not careful, I just might mess up my collarbones again.

  “Let me help.” She’s on the ladder behind me, grabbing at the plastic tote. It’s either fight her for it or let it go, so I do. I’m surprised but relieved when she doesn’t drop it or fall off the ladder, but manages to wrestle the bin to the floor. She’s stronger than she looks.

  If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be bothering with any of this. It had taken Harriett mentioning wistfully several times over the past week for me to get the hint—she wants Christmas. In past years, she’s been content with minimal decorations, but at least there was a party. I’m not up to hosting one this year, and I can tell she’s disappointed. So, after all she’s done for me, putting up a tree seems the least I can do for her.

  I pull out the second bin, this one bigger but lighter. Those two are all we have. A tree and ornaments. No door wreathes, no nativity, no angels or candles or Santas or snowmen. I don’t have some grand reason for this. No Gremlins sort of story, like my dad tried to play Santa and got stuck in the chimney. I’ve never liked Christmas because it’s the time of year where everyone pretends extra hard to care about each other, and it never lasts. If someone loves you, they ought to do it all year round and not use a holiday as an excuse to make an effort they’re not going to keep up.

  Before I can manhandle the bin through the hole, something else catches my eye.

  “Hang on a second,” I say over whatever she’s asking me.

  My fingers brush stiff canvas. When I pull it from the shadows, my stomach lurches in recognition. At the same time, another plastic tote shifts, tipping on the beam so the lid pops open. I can see papers inside.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just a minute,” I tell her and push aside the Christmas tote so I can climb the rest of the ladder and get all the way up into the attic.

  I crouch there, hesitant. The small canvas is one of my mother’s oil paintings. I thought I’d gotten rid of all of them. I don’t recognize it. On the back, it says “For Diana.”

  The rest of the tote is full of stiff and crinkly pages. Watercolors. My mother always worked in oils. I shove them back into the tote and put it on top of the bin of Christmas junk, then push them both through the hole in the floor, keeping hold of everything and moving down the ladder fast enough that Harriett has to get out of the way or be pushed out of the way.

  I let everything fall onto her living room floor and bite back a groan. The pain’s not as bad as it would have been even a few weeks ago, but it’s still there. I ignore the Christmas tote and open the one with the paintings in it.

  Harriett cranes her neck. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” I sit back on my heels to sift through it all.

  My mother never called herself an artist.

  She was a painter. In her good moods, she talked about colors and techniques, but in the bad ones, she’d lock herself in her room, chain-smoking and painting. She painted and she was good at it, but she painted ugly things. There was no commercial success for her and no artistic triumphs either.

  The painting I’ve found is different from the ones I remember. Broad strokes, with layers of paint creating texture. Still surreal, but not ugly. This painting has an odd sort of beauty and a sense of peace I would never have associated with anything my mother ever did. She’d meant it for me, but I’ve never seen it before.

  On the other hand, the watercolors in the plastic bin show little talent. In their soft lines and pastels, they are at least pretty. Landscapes. Still-life of apples and pears, vaguely fruit-shaped smears. Nothing inspired. None of it is art, and none of them were painted by my mother. My gut clenches. I don’t recognize any of these paintings, but I know the signature at the bottom.

  It’s mine.

  My phone tinkles with Jonathan’s text tone.

  I’m home. Where are you?

  “Jonathan’s home,” I
tell her.

  I get to my feet with a glance at the small clock on the wall. He’s been getting home at his usual time for the past week. Since the day after Val’s birthday, as a matter of fact.

  With a backward glance at the newly discovered cache of paintings I appear to have created, I follow her out of her apartment and into my own kitchen, where she talks about dinner. She pulls out a package of ground beef and also one of tofu from the fridge. She turns with both in hand and a broad grin. “Tacos?”

  I can’t remember the last time my husband and I had a meal together that his mother didn’t cook. “That sounds terrific, Harriett. Jonathan, can you come next door with me to carry over the bins of decorations?”

  In Harriett’s living room, I show him the plastic bin of art. “I made these.”

  “Yeah?” He looks confused.

  “When did I paint these, Jonathan?” I already know the answer. It has to be sometime during the blank in my memories. But I want to hear it from him.

  “Over the summer. You had so much free time after you quit your job, you signed up for a class downtown at the rec center.”

  Signing up for a class at the rec center does not sound like me at all, but I can’t argue or deny it since the apparent proof is staring right at me.

  Pay RC

  Rec center. I haven’t been able to throw away the list I found in my nightstand drawer months ago, just in case I remembered something. At least one of those mystery entries on the list makes sense now.

  “Who put them in the attic?”

  “You did,” he says, then pauses. “I mean, I assume you did.”

  “Why would I put my artwork away in the attic? And when did I do that?” I sift through the pile, pulling out a few pieces to look at before shoving them all back inside and putting the lid back on. They’re nothing. Fruit, flowers, what is meant to be a tree—nothing scary about them, but looking at the paintings, most particularly my signature, unsettles me.

  He shrugs, hands on his hips. He’s getting the tiniest bit of pudge around his middle, and I know why. Instead of going to the gym, he’s been getting another kind of workout.