by Mina Hardy
Upstairs, I strip out of the clothes I’d chosen so carefully. Too fancy for a watercolors class at the rec center. I’m thinking of Cole again as I step into the shower and tip my face into the water. I open my mouth to fill it, letting it overflow with warm water. I’m warm all over. I wash my hair, waiting for the ache to rise up again, but it seems fine. Everything seems fine, actually. Warm and fine and fun, and I’m hungry now, and I also feel giddy and giggly. The water’s too hot, so I dial it back, letting it wash over me, trying to chase away this thick feeling in my head.
I have to admit that Harriett was right. Scrubbed and clean, everything does feel better. I pull on leggings and a tunic top, drag a comb through my hair. I’m a little dizzy. The edges of everything have gone fuzzy.
When I come back down to the kitchen, Harriett has set the table with a plate of chicken-salad sandwiches and fruit salad. Also, more coffee.
“You got it working? What was wrong with it?”
Harriett shrugs. “Nothing. I pushed the button and it started up.”
I had also pushed the button, several times. I frown and study the coffee maker, but indeed, it seems to be working fine. “Huh. Weird. Maybe it’s time to replace it.”
“That would be a waste of money. That one still works.”
“This one’s ancient. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on its way out.” My mug is missing from the counter, so I pull another one from the back of the cupboard. It has a pinup mermaid on it and the name of the New Orleans restaurant Val and I went to when we celebrated our thirtieth birthdays. When she and I were still best friends.
I fill the mug anyway, but the coffee is more bitter than I’m expecting.
Harriett watches me add sugar. “I thought you took your coffee black.”
“Usually, yes. But today the coffee tastes off. Maybe I’ll just go shopping, pick up a new coffee maker. Oh, that reminds me, I need to see if the furnace people have called me back.” I look around for my phone, which I remember leaving on the counter.
“What’s wrong with the furnace?”
“The thermostat schedule keeps getting messed up. Have you seen my phone?”
“Have you lost it?”
Still looking around for my phone, I pause with the mug halfway to my mouth. I finish sipping before I answer. “I had it earlier, but I can’t find it, now.”
“You should be more careful, Diana. You’ve had two new phones in the past few months. With only one income in the house, you ought to be a little more careful.” Harriett takes her place across from me at the table and nibbles gently at the edges of her sandwich.
I burst into surprised laughter. “Harriett, you’re kidding. Right? I lost my phone in the car accident. Just one phone.”
She is clearly not kidding. My laughter fades. New phone. I think of the list in my nightstand. I sip more coffee, still too bitter, even with the sugar. I could blame the coffee maker, but I think it’s probably the mug and its memories. I contemplate what Harriett just said while she fusses with the food on the table.
“And that was your newest one. You’re always getting the newest phone,” she says. “And with you not working …”
“You do know I took an extremely generous payout during some company restructuring, don’t you? And then I had a car accident and emergency surgery, so I haven’t exactly been fit for work, have I?”
“I’m sorry you’re offended, but there’s no need to raise your voice.”
I had not raised my voice, but I took an extra breath before answering her, anyway. “I appreciate your concern, Harriett, but Jonathan and I are not in financial difficulties. I hadn’t planned to go back to work right away, even before the accident. He knew that. We discussed it. Together.”
“It’s none of my business, I suppose. I just remember how it was when I first met you, how worried you used to be about making ends meet when you were on your own. You certainly wouldn’t have replaced something that was still working, just because you felt like being fancy. Back then, you were certainly far more worried about stretching that paycheck.”
I find myself blinking rapidly, both at her statement, which is not untrue, but also at a fresh rush of dizziness. I put a hand on the back of the kitchen chair to center myself. Harriett frowns.
“Are you all right?”
“A little dizzy. That’s all.”
Her smile grows wide, and I am uncomfortably reminded of the Grinch’s curling grin. “Is there something you want to tell me maybe? Some good news?”
“About what?”
Her gaze drops briefly to my stomach before returning to mine.
I’m so stunned my tongue trips and tangles on my reply. “Oh God. No. That ship has left the station. The train, I mean. No, whatever, no, I’m not pregnant.”
“A touch of the flu then? You look exhausted. Are you still not sleeping? Maybe you should go upstairs and lie down. Don’t bother with the kitchen—I’ll clean up.”
“I sleep. I just have bad dreams.” I hesitate, but right now, Harriett’s the only one I have to tell this to. “I’ve been dreaming about my mother. Hurting her. Her hurting me.”
Harriett makes a low noise of disgust. “Oh. Her. You shouldn’t waste your time, Diana. She’s not worth it.”
I am allowed to think that, but hearing it come from Harriett’s mouth somehow sets my teeth on edge. “Well, when you’ve figured out a way for people to control what they dream about, let me know.”
“Oh, honey.” Harriett tuts, shaking her head, and gives me a sympathetic look. “They’re just dreams.”
“They feel so real. I feel … guilty,” I admit, not wanting to, but unable to stop myself from confiding.
Harriett narrows her eyes. “You have nothing to feel guilty about. She was a drug addict and a whore, and you’re better off without her in your life. She wasn’t even your real mother!”
The words hit me in the gut, worse than a punch. What makes someone your “real” mother, anyway? Is it how you feel about her? Or how she makes you feel about yourself?
“That doesn’t matter, Harriett. I’ve started thinking that there’s something about her, something I know but don’t remember—”
“Maybe it’s better that there are things you can’t remember,” Harriett snaps. “Maybe there’s a good reason for that!”
“It’s not better for me!” I shout. Too loud. Too fierce. I lower my voice. “It’s not better to have a huge blank space in my brain, Harriett. Even if the memories are painful, I should still get to have them. No matter what they are.”
“You should go upstairs,” she says. “Take a nap.”
I don’t think it’s the flu, but I am very tired. I grab my purse from the back of my chair to take it upstairs, glancing inside it as it gapes. And there, inside …
My phone.
“Harriett. Did you find my phone?”
She straightens from putting our plates in the dishwasher. “No. Was it lost?”
“I misplaced it. I told you that. But now it’s in my purse.” More wooziness rushes over me.
“You haven’t mentioned your phone. It’s that oversized handbag,” she says lightly. “My goodness, no wonder you can never find anything in it.”
I rustle through it, sorting past the leather appointment book, the loose change. The pill bottles are gone. I feel her gaze on me as I go to the cupboard where I’ve been keeping all the pills.
The orange bottles are lined up. Each is full. One is for anxiety. One for pain. One for nausea. I have no way of knowing if they are the same as what was in my bag or different. I gather them in fumbling hands.
“Are you all right?” Harriett asks.
“I don’t need these anymore.” I shake the bottles and look inside one. It’s full. So’s the next I try. “Harriett, when’s the last time you refilled these?”
“I’m not sure.” She attempts to take them from me, but I pull back. “Diana, what’s going on?”
“I don’t want you to fill them
anymore. I’m going to stop taking them. All of them.”
She watches as I toss them all into the garbage. I take a deep breath. My hands are shaking.
Harriett shakes her head. “I see. It’s just …”
“It’s just what?” I ask, irritated.
“I’m a mother. I’m allowed to worry.”
“You’re not my mother,” I say before I can stop myself. “And I don’t need you to keep fussing so much over me!”
Silence.
I’ve wounded her, but I want to be alone. Is that so much to ask? That I just have my own house to myself? I used to love spending time with Harriett, but my God, it’s been nearly nonstop for months.
“Oh all right, then. Well.” Harriett draws herself up and lifts her chin. “I’ll just go on home then.”
I follow her to the front door to make sure she actually leaves. “Be careful on the walk. There might be ice.”
I watch her until she gets inside her apartment. I close my front door. I lock it.
I lock all the doors.
Upstairs, tucked into my bed, I bring up the app on my phone that allows me to monitor the outside cameras and security system. My thumbprint won’t open it. I log in using the credentials I remember, but that doesn’t work either. I try to reset the password, but it says the email address I’m trying to use isn’t associated with the account.
I’m the one who designed this system, chose the equipment, set up the app, all of that. It makes no sense that I’m now locked out of it.
Jonathan and I used to video chat with each other when he went away on business, but I’m not dumb enough to do that without warning him first. Although I suspect that he and Val are no longer together, I’m not one hundred percent positive he’s alone in that hotel room. I call, instead.
“What’s up?” He sounds wary.
“I’m just checking in with you. How’s Kansas City?”
I hear a rustle like cellophane. “Boring, but productive. How are things there?”
“Fine. Cold. I think we’re supposed to get snow. Hey,” I drop in casually, like it means nothing, “I can’t log in to the camera app.”
A pause. “Babe, you logged out so you wouldn’t keep getting all the notifications waking you up. Remember? Are you okay? You sound … tired.”
“I do remember. But that was months ago. I want to log back in. I mean, with you gone and everything. I want to be able to get the notifications again. I’ll feel better. Safer.” I’m laying it on a little thick, but I’m not exaggerating the sudden tremble in my voice.
Jonathan crunches something, speaks with his mouth full. “You’re the one who set all that up.”
“I know I did. But now it won’t accept the password, and it says the email address isn’t associated with the account. Did you change it?”
“Why would I change it?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
There’s silence. When he does speak, it’s slowly, carefully, and infuriatingly placating. “You know I don’t mess with that stuff. That’s all you, babe. Have you been drinking?”
My heart thumps rapidly. I feel like I’m swimming up from the depths of a deep, dark lake. Panic builds at the thought I might drown before I can reach the air.
“I’m going to request a new password using your email address.” I speak as carefully and slowly as he did. “Let me know if it shows up.”
“I told you, I didn’t change it.” Now he sounds sharp. Irritated.
“I might have changed it to your email address by accident or something,” I say with him on speaker as I tap away into the app. I hold my breath for the few seconds it takes after I enter the email address, but that one also comes up as not associated. “Shit. That’s not it either. Are you still getting alerts?”
“No. But you know I never got it set up on my phone—that was always your thing. Listen, could you have, I don’t know, deleted the account instead of just logging out of it?”
“No. I mean, why would I do that?”
“Maybe,” he says, “you just forgot.”
I want to scream a curse at him for that, but I bite it back. “That makes no sense. I wouldn’t have changed the email address to something else or deleted the account. I just logged out so your mother would stop waking me up every morning.”
“Calm down.”
I sip at the air. My hands are shaking again. My stomach feels sick, seriously twisted, like I might actually vomit. “I’ve got to go. I don’t feel well.”
“Are you—”
“I’m really going to be sick.” I disconnect, toss the phone onto the bed, and flee to the bathroom, where I fall in front of the toilet, gripping it hard enough to send a shockwave of pain through my barely healed bones.
I don’t actually throw up, although I wish I could. Instead, I hang over the toilet for a minute or two, heaving. When it’s clear nothing’s going to come up but sour spit, I sit back and concentrate on my breathing. At the sink, I splash cold water on my face, then draw some in the glass and sip at it. I wait there in the dark, and after a few more minutes, the sick feeling fades.
What is happening to me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Valerie
What the hell do you think you’re doing, Valerie?
Jonathan’s voicemail starts off without even a greeting, and although I should be pissed off about that, or intimidated or something, instead I feel that rush of heat that comes when he shows me how strong he can be … when he wants to. Maybe I shouldn’t have texted him the link to my house listing.
You put your fucking house on the market? Where are you going? Call me. Now. A pause. A sigh. Then, softer. Please, baby. Let’s talk about this. Call me. I’m in Kansas City until next week. You can call me any time.
It’s been weeks since we spoke, but I haven’t forgotten that he offered me a chance to go on this trip with him, such a sorry replacement for what had been meant as a romantic getaway. Proof of our relationship being more than a fling. I could’ve been with him now in Kansas City, but instead he’s calling me with a tone of desperation in his voice that I’ve never heard before.
I don’t call him back. I dial another number instead. I think it’s time Diana and I have another little chat. Maybe this one will jog her memory. Maybe she and I will finally get some things squared away between us. But the call goes right to voicemail. I don’t leave a message. I call back. Again, right to voicemail.
That bitch has blocked me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Diana
The bullshit with the security camera system and app has knocked my feet out from under me. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I was, in fact, the one who deleted the account, but I can’t find a record of doing it anywhere. No cancellation email, no nothing. The only solution is to reset the entire damn thing with a new email address and login, but I just … right now, I just can’t.
I’m caught up in a syrup of lethargy. Everything takes an effort. It’s only been three days since the watercolors class ended, but I haven’t had the energy to do much beyond watch TV all day. Jonathan won’t be home until late tomorrow night. Harriett has been nursing her hurt feelings by not speaking to or cooking for me, which doesn’t feel like as much of a punishment as I’m sure she means it to be. This is the longest I’ve been alone since the accident.
I don’t feel depressed, but maybe I am.
Waking up Saturday morning, though, I feel the best I have since coming home from the hospital. Sure, there are still some residual aches, but I’m clear headed. No upset stomach or dizziness.
When Trina calls and invites me to go out dancing at the newly reopened place downtown, I’m happy to say yes. Not so thrilled to hear that she left her husband of twenty-some years right after Christmas—Divorce Month is a thing, after all. But it makes me all the happier I agreed. Trina has been a good friend to me in the aftermath of the accident, so now it’s my turn.
“Who knew this place could shine u
p so nice?” I look around at the interior of what used to be a dingy dive bar but has been transformed into a hipster version of the same bar. By this I mean they still serve Pabst Blue Ribbon and Genesee Cream Ale, but you can also get a glass of sort of pricey wine. No Briar White, not even Briar Red, but the selection is decent despite that.
Trina looks over the menu. “I haven’t been out like this in forever.”
“Me neither.” I don’t ask about her separation. If she wants to bring it up, she will.
“I’ll take a glass of pinot grigio,” Trina says to the very young, very cute server who arrives to take our order.
“Chardonnay for me, please.”
When he leaves, she giggles and waggles her eyebrows at me. “Gah, I’m too old to be looking at that.”
“Shut your mouth. Never too old to look.” I shift on the high bar stool. My skirt rides up. My legs are still cold from the walk from the Ryde that dropped me off at the front door of this bar. I’d been smart in advance, not wanting to risk driving home even if I have only a couple drinks. The way wine’s been hitting my system since the accident, I don’t want to take any chances.
Trina twists to get a look at the dance floor, still mostly empty except for what looks like a bachelorette party. “Wish there’d been a place like this when we were younger.”
“I wasn’t really sure they’d be playing good dance music. Now I’m rethinking the heels. This place has really upgraded.”
The server is back already with our drinks. I sip the chilled wine with a small grimace. It’s not the best, but it’ll do the trick. Trina and I clink our glasses together. We people-watch for a bit. The bar’s getting crowded. I’m glad we got a table when we did. We both have another glass of wine.
Trina has to raise her voice over the crowd noise and the music now. “It’s so weird being single again. At first, I felt like I should wait to get back out there, but … why wait? I was miserable for years. My marriage was over long before I told him I wanted out.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
“What would you have been able to do about it?” Trina shakes her head. “Nobody knew. Hell, he’s claiming even he didn’t know, just so you know. No wonder we’re getting divorced.”