Before Everything

by Victoria Redel

  Anna watched as Ming set down a bowl of soup for Reuben and Molly followed with her plate of salmon. Reuben curled over the soup.

  They feed him like they feed me, Anna thought. Like he is wounded. She’d insisted in the last years that her friends show loyalty. If he wouldn’t return to her life in the way she wanted, then they were not allowed to speak to Reuben.

  Now her friends circled and fed him. Poor Reuben. Hunched over like it hurt to eat. And she had thought him a man who would always look boyish. He still had a full head of curly hair. But now there was a thinning patch at the crown of his head.

  Had their son told Reuben? Watching him talk with Ming as he ate, Anna knew for certain that Reuben did not hold that kernel of the future inside him. It was hers. The only flame left within her. Momma, I have a secret to tell you.

  They had made mistakes. Still, their boy had come into her room. It was hers. And she would not tell him. Reuben would have everything later.

  Now he could barely hold the weight of the spoon. He was exhausted. An exhausted man dutifully helping her die.

  1978, Trust Me

  Here, on what had seemed a not-unusual Thursday night at the pub, was the man she’d have babies with. It was weird, but on the second date Anna already knew. His green eyes, his dark curls. They’d have beautiful babies. They’d marry. Their babies would be pretty.

  She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about the pretty babies they’d make. They were nineteen. They were in college. Anna couldn’t admit to anyone how happy she’d be to have babies right now. Helen would cringe. Call her retro. Scold her as antifeminist. Ming was off in the mountains of Guatemala with that anthropologist. She insisted that all she wanted to do was to travel, the more remote the better. The anthropologist was great, but not even necessary. Caroline had dropped out of college and as far as Anna could tell was barely leaving her parents’ house, let alone dating. Molly was off men, extolling the joys and complications of women. Lately she’d used the word “breeders.” Even Anna’s own mom intoned, Career first, career first.

  Anna looked around the pub, wanting to gather it in. She wanted to see the room in some special cast of light. To tell her friends. Of course she’ll phone Helen tomorrow, tell her all of it. Even if it meant being called retro.

  But more than for Helen, she wanted to collect every detail so that years later it would be part of the story they’d tell the children: “I knew I’d marry your dad on our second date at the Whisker Pub.” It wouldn’t sound crazy then. It would be what it was. Inevitable.

  The pub was the same dingy pub it had been every night. Same stoners grouped around pinball machines debating flipper techniques. Same grungy wood-stained walls and green globe lights. Now even its sameness seemed exceptional. That was how it was, Anna thought, the jukebox playing Loggins and Messina’s “Vahevala” when it should be playing something more romantic. Jesse Colin Young’s “Sunlight.” Yeah, that’s the way she feels about you. But Anna knew that the exceptional happens quietly inside the mundane. Unadorned, often unnoticed. She would wish it otherwise. Still, it was enough watching Reuben, his enthusiasm and sincerity. His playful, crooked smile. She could see he was into her. It would unfold. For now this was perfect, knowing quietly what could not be said, that Reuben would be the father of her children, that her life would unfold in the special way she’d known it would since she was a little girl.

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you since the beginning of the semester,” Reuben admitted.

  “I’m glad to have been noticed,” Anna said.

  “Noticed?” Reuben grinned. “You’re hands down the most radiant woman on campus.” Radiant? When had Reuben ever described a girl that way? He was just getting used to the imperative to say woman, not girl. But Reuben wasn’t just talking pretty to try to get Anna to sleep with him. He was already flipped, smitten—fuck it—head over heels in love. He couldn’t admit that on a second date. It would be certifiably nuts to admit that he was in love with Anna. Her long dark ringlets. Those incredible green eyes. And not just because she was beautiful. Yes, radiantly beautiful. Not just because she had the most exciting laugh and she laughed a lot. Not just because she also got really serious and pouted her lips when she asked those penetratingly intense questions that he didn’t think he could answer but then was answering, and all the while she was looking at him with complete concentration. No, he was in love with Anna because they were meant for each other. She was meant to have his babies. Now, that was certifiable. Reuben knew he’d better shut up. Not say anything close to that. Thinking it was weird enough. It was enough to be cool and focused on the conversation. Saying something ridiculous, like, “I’m already in love with you, Anna Spark,” would get him nowhere fast.

  Anna didn’t ask where they were going until Reuben turned in to the trails behind the library.

  “Trust me,” he said, and took Anna’s hand. He kept her small hand in his even when the trail narrowed and was not wide enough for them to walk side by side. She nudged close behind him.

  “Sorry, it’s dark,” she said when she stepped on a root and they both tripped.

  But it wasn’t all that dark. The moon had risen almost full. It spilled through the trees, surprisingly bright. She’d never thought to go into the campus woods at night. She’d taken runs or walks with friends on the trails, but always in the daytime.

  “Watch your head,” Reuben said.

  Anna didn’t really see what she was ducking under, but she ducked. Now it seemed they were off trail, moving through rows of pine. More underfoot to trip over. How far was he taking her?

  “This is a little Hansel and Gretel,” Anna said.

  “Well, I thank God we’re not brother and sister,” Reuben said. “Anyway, we’re here.”

  He held back a branch and swept his hand for her to step ahead of him. The gesture was formal.

  “Go on,” Reuben whispered.

  Anna hesitated. Go where? Why was he whispering?

  “Oh!” she said, stepping forward. “Oh,” she said again. Her own voice had dropped to a whisper, too.

  “I know,” Reuben said. “Amazing, right?”

  But it was more than amazing. Or maybe this was the actual definition of amazing. It was unbelievable, otherworldly. A clearing, a large circle, lit up; everything was silver. The bark on the trees ringing the circle was sheathed in silver, the tree trunks looking like encrusted silver columns or like a huge silver candelabra that they were standing inside. And the ground—thick moss, or was it miniature ferns?—every tiny blade dipped in silver light. The earth was a soft glitter cushion, and Anna’s shoes sank into it, almost disappearing. Even the air was feathered silver. Anna held out her hands as if the air, the particles of light, were something she could hold.

  She turned to look at Reuben.

  “I love this place,” he said. He was smiling, a big excited smile. He looked exuberant. Like a kid. “It’s my secret. It’s the most beautiful thing. And now you in this place, that’s double beautiful, that’s stupid beautiful.”

  Dog

  Where was Zeus? Had someone let Zeus out?

  Zeus, here Zeus.

  Hey

  “Hey, sweetpea.” Anna clears her throat. It’s immediately obvious to Caroline and Molly that it’s one of Anna’s three kids on the phone.

  “It is good. Nothing like best friends.” Anna’s voice is all theater. No rattle. No slur or slick of the morphine. Even her shoulders, winged back, suddenly stronger than all day.

  Caroline and Molly don’t even pretend they’re not listening. They both figure it’s one of the twins—but Andy or Harper?—that they can’t tell.

  “A conference?” Anna nods. “When’s that happening?” Questions to steer the conversation.

  “What kind of meeting? Today. Sounds promising, right?” She deflects all questions with new questions.

  “
Was it what you’d hoped?” That’s Anna’s job. What parent wasn’t an expert at pulling information?

  “Yes, yes. You’re kidding, right? That’s crazy!” Delight and laughter. Deep from the belly.

  Molly and Caroline know she actually is delighted. More than anything has delighted her all day, hearing her kid’s bubbling enthusiasm—and Anna’s right there, inside her child’s happiness.

  “No, please. I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” Anna winces, a shuddering no. They watch her face like watching a spectrometer, the slightest shifts registered.

  “I’ve got the girls here. Stay put. Just call if you get a second to tell me how the meeting went. That’s your only job. I’ll be waiting. Love you, monkey.”

  Anna works to keep her voice spunked up until the last “Love you, monkey.” She clicks off the TALK button, and Molly and Caroline see her body deflate, withering back onto the striped cushions.

  “This better be fast.” She scans their faces for a promise.

  Actually, for What It’s Worth

  Between them there were twelve delivered babies. Three six- to eight-week abortions. Three miscarriages. One post-amniocentesis selective abortion. That’s just for the record.

  Faith

  Ming asked, “How are you managing? How’s Harper? And the boys?”

  “How do we manage? We’re managing.” Reuben sounded like an old Jewish man. He scrubbed the stove. He leaned in and scrubbed.

  “Reuben, are you really?”

  Reuben raised his hand, the yellow sponge caked with cleanser in his grip. Stop. Stop. Stop. He looked older and Jewisher with every minute.

  At All Times

  The refrigerator looked as if preparations for a party were under way. How many quiches could be stacked on one shelf? The back door had opened all week long with local friends carrying more food, labeled and stored in the freezer. A pan heating in the oven at all times. Word must have traveled through the Valley that two days ago Anna had drunk a mango smoothie. Now there was a shelf jammed with every kind of organic mango smoothie available, from Stop & Shop to Trader Joe’s.

  Made Reuben wonder if anyone understood what “hospice” meant.

  Food was a nervous reaction. He knew that. The demolished tray of brownies on the counter attested to this. People had gone at the squares like there was no tomorrow.

  And to watch the childhood gang go giddy each time Anna lifted a spoon, as though they’d performed healing magic with soup.

  “Reuben? How are you holding up today?” It was Kate, the hospice nurse.

  He nodded but kept low, arranging food on shelves. He appreciated her insistence that hospice was also about the caregivers, but answering Kate’s daily concerns felt like yet another thing he was making sure he’d done right.

  She crouched next to him. “Does everyone think hospice is a potluck? I hate to be a party pooper, but all these friends showing up every hour of the day seems a little extreme.”

  Reuben snorted, “That’s life with Anna.” He knew he should say more. Give Kate a picture of the person she was caring for. How crazy loved Anna was by everyone. But Kate’s wisecrack hit a satisfying dark edge.

  “Has anyone considered this might take some peace and quiet?”

  “Oh, you better get ready. There are busloads coming.” Reuben couldn’t remember the last time he’d joked around.

  “Maybe I’ll borrow a few for my patients who have no one.”

  “Forget borrow. We can rent. Start a business.” He was having fun. Good wrong fun.

  Kate touched Reuben lightly on his shoulder. “Anna told me yesterday she wants to stop eating.”

  He pulled out a casserole, spinach and thick slabs of cheese. “Was she nauseous?” Reuben stretched a crimp in the Saran Wrap.

  “She’s asking how to move this along.”

  Reuben kept pulling things from the fridge while Kate explained that stopping intake could speed up the process. He balanced a stack of Tupperware. “She’s announced this? Stopping?” He sat back on the tile floor in front of the open fridge. Reuben should post a sign: NO MORE FOOD. PLEASE. But people will say he has lost the right to declare what Anna wants.

  “She’s considering what’s available.”

  Reuben stood up, leaving the casserole and Tupperware in a jumble on the floor. He yanked open the odds-and-ends drawer, rummaging for paper and a pen. What right did he have posting anything on a refrigerator in a house where he did not live anymore? He grabbed a green marker. NO MORE FOOD. Shoved it under a pizza-slice magnet on the fridge.

  Fuck them all. He had all the right.

  2008, Wreckage

  Ming blamed the Valley. Blamed Reuben and Anna’s local friends. Said the only reason Reuben and Anna came up with their separation on the verge of their kids being out of the house was that it had become a kind of local fashion. Now instead of potlucks the Valley friends were off on mindfulness chakra retreats and sweat lodges. And with mindfulness, it seemed, came radical awakening. Mostly genital. With the obvious yoga instructors or colleagues. Even a monk. Half of their Valley friends suddenly needed space. Didn’t believe in the old paradigm, the constraint of marriage.

  “Believe?” Ming argued with Anna and Reuben. They’d driven over to Great Barrington for their monthly dinner at Ming and Sebastian’s.

  “Adulthood is a constraint,” Ming said, and topped off her glass of wine. Breaking up was frivolous. Two homes, two heating bills, two phone bills—who had that kind of extra cash? Ming was practical. Who wouldn’t want a love affair? But who had the time?

  Reuben and Anna insisted there was no one else. Just their old story. Twenty years. Now wreckage.

  “What are you guys doing?” Ming knocked back her wine. “You have a way better marriage than us.”

  “Hey!” Sebastian snorted. He wielded cooking tongs. The whole house fragrant with herbs and garlic.

  Ming inclined old-school. Believed the vow she and Sebastian had made. The whole point of which was to bind during the ebb, not the flow. Chinese and Ecuadorean—she supposed that also made them Old World.

  “Who else will feed me like this?” Ming beamed as Sebastian carried out the platter of roasted fish and vegetables.

  He waited for everyone to be seated before he put down the platter. Food was formal pleasure.

  “With good food we are not permitted to speak bitterly or with regret.” Sebastian bowed.

  But after the meal and the wine, Ming started to cry. “You’re our best friends. We have these dinners. We took vacations. What about all our kids?”

  “Ming, we’re trying this. It’s not for forever,” Anna said. “We want to look at who we are now and see what makes sense.”

  What could survive that kind of scrutiny?

  Reuben started clearing dishes. He looked too excited. So did Anna. Like they were both already off at music festivals or heli-skiing without parental supervision.

  Ming, suddenly stony and pissed. “You’re both idiots. Have at it.”

  The Real

  “Well, well,” chimed Kate, setting her nursing bag and knapsack down. “A whole new Anna.”

  Anna, in clean leggings and her daughter’s college sweatshirt, her wet hair combed into a side braid, lounged in the living room sipping a mango drink in a tall glass.

  “That’s insane.” Anna laughed in response to something Caroline said. Radiant smile. The regal angles of her jaw.

  “This is actually Anna.” Molly’s voice was defiant, like an annoyed teen’s. “This is the real Anna.” She ta-dahed her arms. The morphine, the drifty sway, the shallow smudged breath, the eyes unopened, the not more than a wrinkle under the sheet—that was not Anna.

  Kate took out the blood-pressure cuff and started to unwind it. “Well, Anna, let’s see how the real you is doing.”

  1976, Against the Elm

&nbs
p; Molly was still pretty sure that the only one who ever knew about their kissing was the caretaker at the Farm. When Molly and Anna saw him holding pruning shears by the ragged hedges, they didn’t stop.

  “Give him a life thrill,” Molly whispered, and drew her tongue across Anna’s upper lip.

  Kissing had been Molly’s idea. “Why not?” she’d said. “It will be fun.” She reasoned that they’d both let boys they hardly knew do way more than kiss them. They each kept a list and liked that some boys appeared on both lists. Robbie Branford kissed like a fish. Clumsy Frank snuck his stubby finger inside them. Jose was so excellent they named him “King Make-Out.”

  It might have been Molly’s idea, but it was Anna who stood Molly against the elm tree. “You’re so pretty,” she’d said, and leaned in with a tentative kiss. Then she kissed Molly again, their tongues flashing and fast. It made Molly ache. Molly turned Anna so that now she had her back to the tree, and Molly pressed against her, their bodies thickening together in a grinding sway. Unlike with the boys, they kept their eyes open until, so lost in the heat and drift, their eyes could not stay open.

  “Let’s never tell anyone,” Anna said after they’d snuck out through the break in the fence.

  “You mean Helen.” Molly hated the petulance she couldn’t shake.

  “I mean I like having this secret with you.” Anna circled her mouth against the dimple on Molly’s chin.

  “Just me and the caretaker,” Molly joked, because it was always better to feel in control.

  Mud