Circus in a Shot Glass

by Beth Overmyer

  James throws his hands heavenwards. “That could take forever! How do we know something isn’t seriously wrong with—”

  “We’ve discussed this as well. Whatever is wrong, it is my business, none of yours. You’ve ruined your second chance, James.”

  Rain pelts my brow as Ardal retrieves my things from the bench. He sees the crack in my window and tenses. I think I was not meant to hear any of their conversation. But my eyes are droopy, so maybe I can get out of a conversation or an explanation or even an argument—especially an argument—if I…

  A hot blast hits me as his door opens. He reaches and settles my possessions in the backseat, where they’re certain to ruin his leather. His door closes, but the car doesn’t move.

  My brother the druggie is staring at me through squinted eyes; he can’t see me well through the tinted glass. “Please, Ardal; don’t—” His words are cut off as the window glides back upward.

  There is silence, then a presence flirting ever so near my left cheek, a warm kiss on my brow. “Are you cold?” He turns down the A/C, and reaches over me to fasten my seatbelt.

  The rain stabs at the window like a million knives, and we drive. We drive for I don’t know how long, my hand in his.

  “Did you remember something else?” he asks, and I know he knows the answer to his question. One eye on me, one on the road, that is how he drives all the way through the metal gates and up the long drive.

  He runs to my door, to help me out, but I am under control now . . . mostly. I test my weight on both feet and glance at my new, rain-drenched surrounding. All I can make out is that everything is tall and wide.

  “We need to talk,” Ardal says as I stare at his shoes, his beautiful shoes getting ruined by all this rain. “Inside? Sweetheart? We need to go inside, or you’ll catch your death.”

  I nod. I know I’m about to learn more and wonder if I’m going to like it or lose it. A drink, a drink, my sanity for a drink!

  But we’re inside and I know better than to ask for anything. Am I in trouble? My feet squelch as I kick my shoes off. “I’m sorry,” is all I can say, over and over again, and I mean it, but don’t know why I’m saying it.

  “Julianna,” he says, and stops. He’s testing the name on me, to see if it fits.

  I blink.

  “I love you,” he says. “You have no idea how hard—I mean, I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I can’t play this game; it rips me to shreds, this lie. I can’t . . . I can’t.”

  Julianna?

  My face is cupped in his hands, and I find myself enjoying the experience quite a bit. “Do you remember me? Please, I can’t pretend any more. You need to remember.” His eyes search mine, and my mind is burning, cell by cell, my brain is disintegrating into gray ash. And he kisses me, softly, slowly on the lips.

  I kiss him back, and he sighs. I fit well in his arms, as again he lifts and holds me. So happy. I am so happy it hurts, and before I know it, I am crying.

  Ardal sits with me on a winged back chair. He has stopped kissing me. Why has he stopped kissing me?

  I find myself on the slow path to hysteria. I try to manage my breaths. In and out, slow and deep.

  His lips find my brow, and he kisses me like I am a child. A sickly, broken child. My cries are now audible.

  Ardal doesn’t shush me but rather strokes the damp auburn nuisance atop my head, his breaths deep and deliberate like he is trying to hold it together himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, all tenderness and sorrow, and now I’ve reached my breaking point. He has broken me with his love, and the elephant that once niggled at me now trumpets in my brain.

  I am reliving my nightmare.

  Two Years and Several Months Ago . . .

  “I love you, Mrs. Bishop,” he said as we lounged together on our leather sofa.

  I was round with our child, due in a little under four weeks. My back hurt like the dickens, and my feet were swollen to what felt like twice their normal size. “Clown feet,” as he would say. “Like from our circus.”

  Our baby’s nursery had been painted like a regular circus exhibition, with pink and white fabric gathered and draped just so around the chandelier to make the “big top.” I’d been painting up a storm. There were fire-eaters, a tight-rope walker, vendors, rides, tigers, and elephants. Two elephants, a dad and mum. I had started penciling the baby elephant, when I was told to stay away from paint fumes. It wasn’t good for me or the baby. So I’d stopped.

  We were in the middle of a good, long kiss when my water broke. I’d been feeling crampy all day, so the sudden wetness came as little surprise. He’d wanted us to rush to the hospital right away, but the nurse on the line told us to wait until the contractions were only so far apart. So we’d waited.

  “All right, we’re going,” he said, helping me to my feet.

  “Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

  He left me to go change and gather my suitcase, which had been packed and repacked over the last few days . . . just in case. Just-in-case had turned out to be just-in-time, something I knew he would gloat about later. “It’s nerves,” he said from the other room.

  “But I haven’t finished the nursery,” I said, starting to cry. I’d been doing a lot of that lately. “Isn’t it a bad omen or something?”

  Suitcase in one hand, he tugged me toward the door with the other. “Julianna, deep breaths, darling.”

  I was close to hyperventilating. “I can feel it. Something’s not right. Something’s not—”

  He silenced me with a soft kiss on the lips just as a contraction hit. I accidentally bit his lip, which started to bleed.

  “Sorry,” I said, wiping away the dripping crimson with the sleeve of my favorite sweater. “Don’t leave me, okay? Please don’t leave me.”

  He was laughing. “Why would I leave you? Sweetheart, look at me. I’m not going anywhere.” He squeezed my hand. “Now, do you think you can make it down the stairs all right? Or should we take the lift?” We’d been taking the steps up until yesterday on my insistence. I might have been huge, but I’d wanted to get a head start on tackling the baby weight.

  Whimpering and spilling tears everywhere, I allowed myself to be led through the door, which he closed and locked behind us. “The elevator.”

  “Right, of course.” He didn’t talk much on the ride down, but he was smiling and humming to himself. It was as endearing as it was aggravating. Didn’t he know something was wrong?

  We got to the hospital in record time with almost all green lights the whole way. The two we did stop at made him hum a little faster and tap his horn with the heel of his hand when the car in front of us was a little slow getting started.

  “We’re going to be parents!” he said, helping me through the automatic doors.

  For his sake, I tried to smile. By now things were getting more intense, though not nearly as bad as I’d expected. My mom had had an easy labor with me, they said. Maybe I would, too.

  I found myself in a pastel pink and blue delivery room, where I stripped down into a hospital gown with the help of an aide. Someone helped me to the bed. I could barely make it myself, the pain punching me in the back and in the front.

  “Can you do an ultrasound?” I said with a gasp. “Something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong.”

  My husband squeezed my hand and tried to reassure me. No one would listen: I was just a little hysterical pregnant lady getting hooked up to a monitor while my soul-mate filled out paperwork with one hand.

  “Miss, you need to lie back down, okay? Your heart rate is going up, and that’s not good for the baby.”

  Indeed, I was hyperventilating between sobs. “Are contractions supposed to come this fast? Ah!”

  “Breathing,” he said. “Can you do your breathing?”

  I’d had one breathing class but couldn’t think of anything right then but how they needed to get my daughter out. She was in danger. I didn’t want to think any worse than that, but my heart knew. My
body must’ve known, too.

  The nurse called for a doctor a few minutes in. I was wet, soaked, drenched.

  “She’s bleeding pretty hard.”

  The doctor made his crisp entrance, lifting the sheets as a fresh scream ripped through my throat. Everything was crimson.

  I was sedated soon after and gained consciousness two days later.

  He was sitting by my side, reading a magazine upside down. Staring, just staring, numb with shock, I guessed. When he saw me stir, he dropped the periodical, took my hand in his and asked how I was feeling.

  “Where is she?” I blinked. This wasn’t a delivery room. It was cold, it was sterile, it was silent. No crying.

  He blinked back tears and said, his voice shaking, “She didn’t make it, sweetheart.”

  I stared at my arms, my sad and empty arms. “She didn’t make it,” I said back. My voice sounded distant and off, like I was trying to talk under water. It sounded dead. And he was going to leave me just like Dad had left Mom those many years ago. Her lost baby had been named Emily. Maybe I had made a mistake . . .

  “Hey,” he said, leaning forward. “Julianna, I know what you’re thinking.”

  How could he know? He was already gone. I’d lost the baby, and I knew I’d lost him as well. Dad left. Yes, Dad left, and Ardal would leave me as well. But where would I go?

  “Julianna, it is not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. These things—they happen.” We were both quiet. My husband looked like he was thinking of the best thing to say, while I was thinking of where I would live, what I would do. Who could I turn to now? Mom was poor and estranged from me, and Dad was dead. I had no family in these parts. Portland, Oregon was a bleak option, as family relationships had deteriorated quickly after Skip’s fall from grace.

  Ardal continued. “The doctors said it was the placenta—it became detached and, well, she wasn’t getting enough oxygen, honey. By the time we got here, the doctors couldn’t do anything.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t cry, wouldn’t cry. I turned my head away from my husband and stared at the open door. A janitor wheeled a mop and bucket through the hall, wafting the burning odor of bleach and stale urine with him.

  That’s when the flashbacks started again. Memories of my mother screaming in her bed while I dialed for an ambulance. I was too late. Couldn’t save her baby, couldn’t save my baby. And Ardal was leaving us. It became fact in my addled brain, and I clung to it like a lifeline because men leaving women happened in my family. It just did.

  The room disappeared for a moment. There were flashes, flashes of what once was and what now was and what would never be. It left me disoriented, and I almost jumped when I heard Ardal’s voice again.

  “Julianna? You still with me?”

  I nodded. The bleach and urine stench were carried away from me as he got to his feet and went to the door. He blew a breeze of cologne at me, and I knew I would miss his smell and would never smell it again. That’s what caused a few tears to spill down my cheeks, but I dried them before he could turn back around.

  “Let me go get one of the nurses; I was supposed to call for one when you woke up.” He leaned down and kissed me on the brow. “I’ll be right back.”

  I watched him leave. I wouldn’t try to stop him, though it felt like someone was ripping my heart out of my chest. Breathing became hard, painful even, so I did my special breathing exercises. And I planned. My brother, Skip, lived in NYC now. He’d sent me a baby present last month, so I had the address. He’d always been nice to me. Maybe he’d let me live with him until I could get my life all sorted out.

  Deep, slow breaths.

  I’d talked to him on the phone the day I told him about the baby. He said he was working at an antique shop, which made him laugh for some reason. I wondered if he was on drugs but didn’t push the issue.

  Maybe I could work for him…but there would be a condition…a big condition.

  When I was signed out of the hospital, Ardal stayed home with me for as long as he could. I knew, though, it was temporary. He would let me stay until I was better, and then it would be over. Just like Dad and Mom. Just like Dad and me. I needed to move...fast.

  On his first day back to work, Ardal almost didn’t go in to the restaurant. “Are you going to be all right?” How sweet of him to pretend to care. Or maybe it was cruel. I couldn’t decide. But whatever the case, I had Skip’s phone number hidden in my novel, Fantome de l’Opera.

  “I’m fine,” I said and bit the inside of my cheek.

  He gave me an uncertain look and was about to argue for his staying home, when his cell rang. He rolled his eyes and answered. There was an emergency at the fancy French restaurant he worked at, could he come in early? And he did, after I reassured him some more.

  I couldn’t tell him what I was planning. He’d feel guilty, like we were stuck together. But we weren’t, and as much as I wished nothing could separate us, it wasn’t true.

  After he left for the restaurant, I let myself cry for two minutes and then sucked it up and called Skip, who told me right off the bat it was just James now. He wasn’t messing around with niceties, so I wouldn’t beat around the bush either.

  I told him what I wanted. He argued, I argued. He hemmed and hawed, I whined. Until at last, he hung up on me. But I knew my brother and his enormous guilt complex, so I made flight arrangements the next week and left the following Tuesday with a bag of clothes, along with my music player, which contained our “mix tape,” something to remember Ardal by if I ever needed to remember. If I ever wanted to remember. There was even that hokey song he’d written and sang for his dad to give to his mother. It hadn’t worked, they had divorced. But maybe I could listen to it sometime and think about what once was.

  I drove myself to the airport, leaving only a note on the kitchen table: “I’m gone. I’m sorry. I love you.” I didn’t want to turn into a missing person’s case because I couldn’t handle all the media attention if I were found. But I wouldn’t be found, because no one had kept in touch with James, only me.

  With three dollars to my name—hiding, I couldn’t use my bank account—I entered James’s world, and he accepted my terms after some arguing. He accepted that I was going to forget everything, from the fact that he was my brother, down to my name. He would provide me with alcohol, which I believed would take me to Nothingness, a place void of memory, and we would live as strangers until I died.

  I clung to this idea until it became a reality, which left me a hollow shell of a person, functioning but never whole. Denial became easier the deeper I steeped myself in the deception. Alcohol took the edge off the emptiness, leeched the health and life from my body, and Skip, my last tie to reality, was good enough and horrible enough to play the only award-worthy role he would ever take on: Ringmaster.

  As my past life flashes through my mind, I cannot detach myself. No lies, no excuses, no way out. This is what happened, and I embrace it with intensity even as it threatens to destroy me from the inside out. What have I done? I’ve ruined my life, ruined everything. Where do I go from here?

  Somewhere between the living room and consciousness, I’ve been collected and laid out in a way-too-large bed, and it smells like someone else. Like . . . In deep through the nose out through the mouth. Him.

  There is a stirring beside me, a gentle hand on my arm. He is here, and it wasn’t a dream. Relief and horror pound hard in my veins.

  My husband looms next to me, brows knit. He is more present than I remember yet guarded. I—we will have to work on that, iron out our baggage. But we have ages. I feel it: Ages stretch before us. Neither he nor I are going anywhere. Not this time.

  “You left.” Ardal’s voice strokes my hair and nuzzles my neck. It’s not an accusation . . . at least, not entirely. The pain is raw and real, but though his eyes are sad, there is no judgement there.

  My hand finds his, and he kisses my knuckles. “I shouldn’t have.” The words “I’m sorry” are unannounced guests in the room. I
pull away. I need to think, to speak and make sure that none of my delusions were factual. The words tumble out of me, and it takes an effort not to start sobbing again. “Didn’t you want me to leave?”

  His jaw drops and his eyes widen. “Never.” There is a shaky element to his lilting voice, and I swear I can see the ghost of years past reflected in his eyes. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  I hesitate, fearful of voicing my brash assumptions. “I thought after—after losing . . . her, you wouldn’t want me anymore. I thought you’d leave. It’s what my dad did.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, but their marriage was falling apart before the miscarriage. I searched everywhere for you.” He takes my hand again and gives it a ghost of a squeeze. “Didn’t you see the missing person adverts? The television campaigns?” He strokes my knuckles. “I wasn’t about to just let you go without at least trying to repair whatever damage had been done.” He swallows. “And to see whether or not the damage had been of my own afflicting.”

  And I’ve been a fool. A crazy, drunken fool. I start to sob again, but he says, “Shh. Julianna; don’t cry. It’s all right. It’s all forgiven. It’s been forgiven since the moment I read your note. Please, don’t punish yourself; it’ll only add to my torment.”

  “B-but I left you!”

  He sighs and squeezes my hand for real this time. “But we’re together now.” He gives me a concerned look, always the protector, even—no, especially from myself. “Are you all right?”

  I nod and think it’s the truth. This will take years, if not a lifetime to fully heal from, if it is possible. But with him I’m willing to try. Our marriage is worth it. He is worth it.

  We sit in silence, pain our companion. After a moment, I return the pressure on his hand, the horror of what I’d done fully sinking in. I want to apologize, say the actual words as if they are a magical salve that will repair this mess, but he smiles before I can open my mouth and comes out with, “It was fun dating you again.” Ardal tosses a pillow aside and pulls me into his arms, where I melt as he says, “Mrs. Bishop.”