by Lamb, Wally
I flashed on Angela, the way she’d looked that morning—fists clenched, blood-flecked foam at her mouth. . . .
“I still can’t quite believe it,” Joy said. “Me. A mother.”
We talked about what was in store for the next several months—the pregnancy, my injuries, my business. Lying there, speculating about worst-case scenarios, was driving me crazy, I said. And when I dozed off, I had these hallucinations.
“Like what?” she said.
“Never mind. You don’t even want to know.”
Joy told me she’d packed me a bag of toiletries, and then had rushed out of the house, forgetting everything. She’d visit again that evening, she said. Was there anything else I needed? I described the place in my desk where I kept my insurance policies for the business. My health insurance policy, too. It was all together. Could she bring that stuff? It was driving me nuts, just lying there, thinking my insurance might not cover this.
Sure, she said. She’d bring it. Anything else?
I shook my head. Started to cry again, goddamn it.
Everything was going to be okay, she said. Really. I should try not to focus on my leg or on my brother. Why couldn’t I just focus on the baby—the fact that I was going to be a father. She touched my hip cautiously, testing it like it was something hot from the oven.
Maybe none of it mattered anymore, I thought. Maybe I could just go with the exhaustion instead of fighting it. Give in to it. That was how people drowned, wasn’t it? They just stopped fighting. Just relaxed and gave themselves over to the water. . . . Maybe that’s what Thomas was doing down there at Hatch, too. He’d taken the news stoically, Sheffer said. It was funny, really: ironic. All our lives, he’d been the crybaby and I’d been the tough guy. The guy who didn’t let his guard down. Cross Dominick Birdsey and he might blow up at you, might come out swinging—but you were never going to see him cry like that pansy-ass brother of his. . . . But ever since I’d fallen off Rood’s roof—had come bubbling back up from hell or wherever it was that the morphine had taken me—all’s I could do was cry. Now I was the crybaby and Thomas was the stoic. Gets locked up in maximum-security hell for a year and takes it with a stiff upper lip. I had to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Joy said.
Instead of answering her, I rubbed at the tears. Blew my nose. What had Felice said? Believe in fate? Go with the flow? Maybe that was the big cosmic joke: you could spend your whole life banging your head against the wall and all it boiled down to was fortune-cookie philosophy. Go with the flow. Which, come to think of it, was what people did when they drowned. . . .
“It’s not going to be okay,” I told Joy.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not. I’m never going to fix anything. And even if I could, I’m just too tired. I can’t do it anymore, Joy. All’s I want to do is wave the white flag. Take the damn water into my lungs.”
She looked confused. “It’s the drugs they’re giving you,” she said. “Narcotics are depressants, right? They’re bringing you way down.”
I saw Rood up there in his attic window. Shook my head. “I think . . . I think when I went off that roof, something else busted up besides my foot and my leg and my ankle. Something that all the surgery and physical therapy in the world aren’t going to fix. . . . I’m just tired, Joy. I don’t want to keep fighting anymore.”
It was the medication, she said again.
“It’s not the medication. It’s me.”
Lying around and feeling sorry for themselves never helped anybody, she told me. I should think about the baby.
I hadn’t planned on getting into it. I’d planned on shutting my mouth—maybe until after the kid was born, or after I couldn’t take it anymore. Or maybe for the rest of my life. I hadn’t been sure how it was going to play out. But I suddenly knew I was just too tired to keep up the game. Knew right then and there that I couldn’t do it.
“I know the baby’s not mine,” I said.
She looked more bewildered than surprised. “What do you mean, not yours? Of course it’s yours, Dominick. What are you talking about?”
“It can’t be. I’m sterile. I got a vasectomy back when I was married.”
She blinked. Sat there. “What?”
“I never told you about it. My wife . . . Dessa and I . . . we had a kid. A little girl. Her name was Angela. She died.”
“Dominick,” Joy said. “Stop it. Why are you doing this?”
“I should have told you. I know I should have told you, but . . .”
I asked her if she remembered that time when we’d discussed kids—way back, right near the beginning. We’d both said we weren’t interested. “So I just . . . I told myself that it wasn’t even an issue. Convinced myself that I didn’t have to get into it because you didn’t want babies anyway. That I could just let you keep taking your birth control pills and . . . But I see now that it was the same as lying. Keeping it from you. You’re not the only one who’s been dishonest. We’ve both been lying to each other. I’m not even mad, really. God, the way I’ve been treating you the past couple months. . . . I mean, I was mad. When I first found out about it? I was ready to come out punching.”
“It’s this medication they’re giving you,” she said. “It’s making you think strange.”
“You remember that night you got arrested for stealing? And you were saying how, now that everything was out in the open, that it was a good thing, not a bad thing? That things were going to be better than ever between us? And I told you not to get your hopes up. Remember, Joy? I told you I was damaged goods. You remember me telling you that? . . . That’s what I was talking about, I guess. The baby. What it did to my wife and me. I don’t know, Joy. It damages you. When you have a baby and you get to know her for three weeks and then she . . . just dies. I’m not trying to make excuses. I just . . . That’s what I meant when I said I was damaged goods. So I . . . I went and got a vasectomy. I can’t have kids, Joy. Whoever the father of your baby is, it’s not me.”
She just sat there, blinking. Looking at me strange.
“And . . . and I’m not even mad. I’m sad, Joy. I’m just real sad, because . . . because I was never really going to be able to give you a fair shake. You and me, I mean. I see that now. I used you. I’m damaged goods. But now I’m too tired to . . . I can’t fake it anymore, Joy. I can’t keep playing whatever game it is we’ve been playing. I can’t.”
She blinked. Laughed. “Stop it, okay? You’re wrecking everything. This is your baby. Mine and yours. You’re going to get better, and we’re going to have this baby, and buy a house and . . . Who else’s would it be, Dominick? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
We both just sat there, looking at each other.
“Honest!” she said. “Honest to God!”
That nurse came back into the room. Vonette. “Let’s see about that bag now,” she said. She took a look. Took my hand and felt for the pulse. Joy backed away from the bed. She looked shell-shocked. Scared. I hadn’t meant to scare her about Angela. I was sorry about that. But I couldn’t keep it up. I was too tired. I just wanted to sleep.
“Where’s your buddy?” Vonette asked me. “He didn’t go AWOL, did he?”
What? Leo? She nodded toward Steve Felice’s empty bed.
“Oh. . . . I don’t know. He’s probably out in the solarium.”
“Your BP seems a little high, hon,” Vonette said. “I’m going to come back and check it for you in another half hour or so. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She turned to Joy. “All right now, hon. If you don’t mind, I have to check his catheter and change his bag. I’m going to draw the curtain for a couple minutes and then you can get right back to your visit. All right?”
“All right,” Joy said. She smiled. Backed up another few steps. Vonette drew the curtain between us.
I had imagined some big showdown when I lowered the boom—lifted the lid off the fact that she’d been cheating on me. But it hadn�
��t been like that at all. I felt so sleepy.
“There now,” said Vonette. “You’re all set.”
When she pulled the curtain back again, Joy was gone.
Ray visited later that afternoon. That evening, too. Neither of us mentioned Joy. We didn’t say much at all, really—just sat and watched TV together. I dozed more than anything else. Leo and Angie came on Sunday afternoon, with a homemade poster from the kids. When Angie asked where Joy was, I shrugged. Said something about a cold.
Leo came back later by himself, carrying this three-ton fruit basket—something like a picture out of a magazine. The card said, “Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Fondly, Gene and Thula Constantine.” Fondly? Since when? Leo pulled off the cellophane for me. Ate one piece of fruit after another, practicing his hook shot with the wastebasket and the cores and peels and rinds. “Okay, where is she?” he finally said.
“Who?”
“Joy. Is she really sick?”
I shrugged. Yawned. Grabbed the chain bar and shifted my position a little. I told Leo I appreciated his visiting, but did he mind leaving now? I was tired. I wanted to sleep.
I was dozing in and out of 60 Minutes when something woke me up. A shadow. I opened my eyes.
He was just standing there, watching me. The Duchess.
“What do you want?” I said.
He handed me my Walkman from the house. And a cassette. I didn’t get it.
“This is from Joy,” he said. “She wants you to listen to it.”
“Yeah? Why didn’t she come up and give it to me, then? Where’s she at?”
“In the car,” he said. “She explained everything on the tape. Just listen to it.”
He turned and left.
“That was a short visit,” Felice said.
“What?”
“Your friend there. He didn’t stay long.”
“My friend?”
Hi, Dominick. I’m, uh . . . I’ve been trying all day to write you a letter, but nothing’s coming out right. I never was a big one for putting things down on paper, so Thad said, “Why don’t you just make him a tape? Tell him what you need to say on a tape.” And I thought, yeah, maybe that’s a good idea, because I guess I have a lot of explaining to do. . . . I don’t know, Dominick. I guess if I wasn’t so ashamed of myself, I would have told you everything in person.
I . . . I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I saw you yesterday afternoon. I was up all last night thinking about you and me, and where I’ve been in my life, and where I’m going. I have to admit that you blew me away when you told me the baby couldn’t be yours. I wanted it to be your baby, Dominick. Our baby. I just wanted it to work out for us. When you used to say to me how you couldn’t give me a “happily ever after” life, I used to go to myself, yes he can. He just doesn’t know it yet. But I guess I was just fooling myself. As usual.
Ever since I was little, Dominick, I’ve had this Carol Brady picture of myself as this nice, pretty mom with a nice house and a husband who loves me, and we have real cute kids. Things in my life got unbelievably complicated, but that was really all I ever wanted. . . . I know I told you some of the stuff about my childhood, but there’s way more I never went into. It was hard. All my mom’s husbands and boyfriends . . . I’d just start getting used to things and then we’d move again. And my mom would always say, “Well, this is it. I finally found what I’ve been looking for,” and then the next thing you knew, we’d be moving again. Sometimes we moved so quick, I couldn’t even hand in my schoolbooks. Last night I counted all the different schools I went to by the time I graduated from high school. I came up with nine. I never counted them before last night. Nine schools by the time I was seventeen.
The worst times were when she was between guys. Sometimes we didn’t even have any food in the house and I’d be like, “Mom, you have to get a job so we can eat something,” and she’d always go, “Don’t worry. Something will turn up. I’ll meet someone.” We had this trick where we used to rip off grocery stores when there was nothing in the house. . . . We’d go in and get a cart and fill it up like we were doing a big shopping and then we’d just eat stuff out of the cart—bananas, crackers, American cheese. Then we’d pretend we forgot something in Aisle 2 or whatever and just walk out of the store and my mom would go, “Don’t look back! Just keep walking!” Sometimes I’d still be hungry and she’d be rushing me out of there.
When she was between guys, she used to have to get all dressed up and go out at night. She wasn’t a hooker or anything. Don’t get me wrong. She just used to have to go out to bars and clubs and let men know she existed. . . . I used to think she looked so beautiful when she went out. I’d always help her get ready, help her fix her hair and zip her up in the back. It was like playing dress-up with your dolls or something, except it was your own mother. I didn’t think it was weird or anything, but that time after I got arrested? And I was going to Dr. Grork? He said it was abnormal. Unhealthy. I guess I just didn’t think that much about it at the time. Analyze it or whatever. It was just our life. . . .
I used to hate staying by myself all night when she went out. I don’t really blame her. She couldn’t help it. How was she supposed to pay some baby-sitter when we couldn’t even pay for the food we were eating at the grocery store? . . . But I was always a nervous wreck when she was out like that. Thinking some killer or burglar was going to get me. I used to get so nervous that I’d pull out the hairs on my eyebrows. I did it in school all the time, too. It got to be a bad habit. I had this one witch of a fourth-grade teacher who was always yelling at me for making the skin around my eyebrows bleed. It was like this woman’s personal mission in life was to get me to keep my hands away from my face. There’s this school picture of me that year that I still have. I never showed it to you. It’s kind of pathetic. We were living in Tustin then. (It was just before my mom met her husband Mike.) And, in the picture, you can see these red scabs where my eyebrows are supposed to be. Whenever I look at that picture, I get that same feeling in my stomach like I used to get when I’d be by myself all night, or half the night, or whatever. It’s like I’m that same little girl again and nothing else in my life has ever happened. It’s weird. . . . I’m not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me, Dominick. I’m just trying to explain why I wanted so much for us to have a house, and a baby, and maybe even get married at some point. But you have to admit that I never tried to push you into it. . . .
The pregnancy just happened, Dominick. I keep thinking that you think I got pregnant just to trap you into marrying me. I’m real upset about that because that’s not at all what happened. Honest to God.
I really think having this baby is gonna change me for the better, Dominick. Make me a better person. I hope it does. . . . Ever since you told me yesterday about your baby daughter that died, I can’t stop thinking about her. I am so, so sorry, Dominick. That must be so heavy duty. And it explains a lot about you that I could never figure out. Why you seem so mad at the world or whatever. I just wish you had told me about her. I might have been able to help you through it.
I keep thinking about your ex-wife, too. I had a good cry over her last night—right in the middle of everything else I was thinking about. Probably because I’m gonna be a mother, too, now. . . . I never told you this, but I saw her one time. Your ex-wife. I don’t even remember her name, but I knew it was her. She was at the mall with Angie. Angie and her are sisters, right? That’s how I figured it out. They didn’t see me, so I just . . . I followed them. I sat down in back of them at the food court and listened to their conversation. They were talking about their mother—what they should get her for her birthday—and I just sat there going, this is Dominick’s ex-wife. This is the woman he was with before he was with me. . . . She seemed nice. I remember sitting there wishing that she, Angie, and I were three girlfriends out shopping together. That probably sounds kind of strange, but I never really had many girlfriends. Other women don’t like me very much, I don’t even really kno
w why. Last month, Patti at work had a baby shower for Greta (the nutritionist) and I think every single woman at Hardbodies got invited except me. If I was going to stay there, which I’m not, I bet no one there would ever give me a shower. I’d be lucky if I got a card that someone bought and passed around and everyone signed. I guess when you change schools nine times before you’re even out of high school, you don’t get to develop many friendships. I’m twenty-five years old, Dominick, and I can’t even say that I ever had one real girlfriend. Isn’t that pitiful?
Anyways, your ex-wife seemed so nice. And funny. She was complaining about her mother—not mean or anything. She kind of reminded me a little of Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore. Not looks, just the way she was talking. . . . I know you never stopped loving her, Dominick. You never said anything, but I could always tell. It was like you always held something back from me. I know I never really measured up, and I know you never thought I was smart enough for you—intelligent enough or whatever. You never said anything, but I knew. . . . But anyway, I cried for her last night because I was thinking about how she lost her little girl. It makes me kinda scared to think about everything that might go wrong. But it also explains a lot. I just wish you had told me before. I might have helped you if you let me in a little. At least I could have tried.
I guess I’ve finally gotten to the hardest part of what I have to say, Dominick, and I hope it’s not too hard for you to have to listen to this on a tape. . . . It’s not easy what I have to tell you. I just want you to remember one thing. My feelings for you have always been real. I may have been dishonest about a lot of things—shoplifting, etcetera—but I’m being totally honest about my feelings. I know it hasn’t been good for us for a while now, but I thought at the beginning that we had something pretty special. In some ways, you made me happier than any of the other guys I’ve been in relationships with. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish the baby was yours. Because I really, really care about you. The feelings are still there, Dominick. Honest to God.