“Is Michael okay?”
“Fuck Michael.”
I take a step back. Being in here reminds me of footage I’ve seen of when lion tamers get stuck in the cage with the lion. I know I am safe, but I don’t feel it. Because he is furious. Furious in a way I hoped I’d never see him.
Jimmy shakes his head, gnawing on his lip. “He split. He finally did it. On Thanksgiving fucking Day,” he says, this deep, dark snarl down in his voice. He smacks his fist hard into his palm. “Can you even fucking believe it?”
That sound, the fist hitting his palm, startles me, and I step back farther. He’s so wound up, he doesn’t even notice. And again, he’s pacing, the muscles of his jaw twitching, his neck tight and tense.
He is a volcano right now, and in his eyes, I can see the kind of fury and heat and anger that I never ever wanted to see again as long as I lived.
Mary. It’s okay. It’s not the same. You know this. It’s him. It’s Jimmy. It’s just Jimmy.
But this isn’t the Jimmy I know. This isn’t a Jimmy I’ve ever seen.
And this Jimmy is terrifying me.
I take his hands in mine. “It’s fine. You know that. I think she’s lucky to have you.”
But nothing I’m saying is getting through to him. He’s probably been stewing for hours and wouldn’t let Annie see him explode.
The stewing. The churning. The explosion.
This is not the same. This is a different man. You are different. Everything is different.
He starts pacing again, working his hand into a fist once more.
“Jimmy, just calm down,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”
It’s like I can hear the snap in the air. He takes two strides and gets in my face. “Fuck that, Mary. It’s not going to be okay. Ever. Not for that little girl there.” He points toward the living room. “Her dad left her. On the fucking street. On Thanksgiving. When she was three years old…”
Which is when he winds up with that huge hand of his, his muscles pulling at the fabric of his shirt, and lets loose with a punch into the drywall, straight through to the studs. I hear the pieces crumble down between the boards.
The smell of gypsum, that absolutely unmistakable powdery mineral smell, fills the room. Jimmy extracts a bloody hand from the hole. He turns to me with this fury in his eyes, this anger…
And now it’s my turn to hear a snap.
The fear is so sudden, so instantaneous, so primal and simple, that it almost feels peaceful. I will not be a part of this. I cannot be here. I will not be here. I feel like I am watching myself from above. I feel like I am not me at all. And then I watch myself pick up my purse and back out of the room.
And take off running down the hall.
When I get back to my building, I walk up the steps in a stunned haze and trail my fingers along the torn patterned wallpaper as I make my way to our apartment door. I fumble for my keys and turn the deadbolt, suddenly feeling weak and desperately in need of my bed.
From the sounds coming from the television and the vague smell of something baking, I know that Bridget hasn’t even left for her parents’ yet. I walk through the front door and drop my purse on the ground. She pokes her head around the corner of the hallway, her hair high in curlers.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
It’s then that my lips start to tremble and the world starts to get fuzzy and blurry.
She wraps her arms around me. “What happened?”
“He got so angry, Bridge,” I say into the sleeve of her robe. “He got so angry, and I just couldn’t be there.” My sobs come out jagged and hard. “I just couldn’t be in that room with him. He punched…”
I clutch into her somewhat damp terrycloth and find myself crumpling to the floor. “Did he hit you?”
“No!” I scream-sob. “No. But Bridget…”
She pulls me closer and smooths my hair over and over. “It’s okay. I know… You’ve got a thing with all that.”
A thing. It’s not just a thing. It’s a totally all-encompassing terror. I’m crying so hard that I can hardly breathe now, and I feel her guiding me toward the kitchen. I slide down one of the cabinets into a ball, and Frankie comes over, crawling up into my lap. He puts his paws on my chest and licks my tears.
“Come on, you,” she says to Frankie and gives him a bully stick. “You go work on that. She’ll be okay.”
I sniffle hard, so hard that I make a kind of horrible honking, and Frankie tilts his head, whacking me in the shin with the stick.
Bridget slides down onto the floor too, and hands me the container of screwdrivers. I take a big gulp and then another.
She nods at me the way nurses do when they’re watching patients take a dose of something therapeutic. “Drink up,” she says, taking one of the curler pins from the hot rollers so that one long curl of her hair spills down her shoulder, like we’re in a different century altogether. “And tell me what the hell is going on.”
“I can’t handle it, Bridget,” I say, just like I’ve said again and again. “I can’t be with a man who gets angry like that.”
Bridget rubs her lips together and takes a mixing bowl from one of the nearby cabinets. She unwinds one roller after another, placing them in the bowl nestled in her lap.
“I can’t leave you here,” Bridget says. “There’s no way I’m just going to go to Mom and Dad’s with you like this.”
I put my forehead to my knees. “I’m okay. I’ll watch Stranger Things and cry myself to sleep.” But then the tears start all over again. That kid with the teeth is my hero.
“Bridget, I fell so hard for him. How could I be so stupid? I don’t even know him.”
A ringback tone fills the kitchen. Bridget has her phone on speaker. For one instant, I think she must be calling Jimmy. Interfering, as ever, and making a mess when she really shouldn’t…
Except it’s her mom that answers. “You better get here quick, honey. Your father is circling the stuffing and you know I can’t hold him.”
My heart aches…for the stuffing I’ll never make for Jimmy, for the pecan pies I will never see him eat, for the pumpkin pies I will never make for him. For all the things I was so close to having and will never have with him again.
“Is there room for one more?” Bridget asks.
“Don’t tell me you got a flat tire and met a man. Again,” her mom says in that strange, clipped Gold Coast accent of hers.
“Mom!” Bridget snarls. “Once. One time!”
“Twice, Bridget Shaw. Twice.”
Bridget flares her nostrils. “It’s Mary. She’s up shit creek and I can’t leave her here.”
“Well, why the heck didn’t you say it was Mary?” her mom asks. “Of course she’s welcome. Of course! But be quick about it, dumplings. I’ve got a hungry man here, and he wants to get back to his football. Say, Mary. Are you still dating that dashing quarterback?”
Cue silent ugly-cry sob.
50
Jimmy
As Annie sleeps, I try to call Mary over and over again. After the sixth try, that flame of anger rises and I toss my phone across the couch. Which is inconvenient, because if I want to call her a seventh time—which I most definitely fucking do—I’m going to have to move Annie.
So instead, I just take a moment. A new episode of How It’s Made begins, and of course, because the world is an asshole, it says this episode features citronella candles, frozen orange juice, pasta makers, and…boxing gloves.
“Fuckers,” I whisper at the screen, which makes Annie stir in my arms. I feel fucking terrible for what happened. Never in my life have I actually punched a wall, not until today, when the shitstorm that is Michael blew up my life.
With my palm, I touch Annie’s forehead to see if she’s hot. She is hot—she’s a hot sleeper, like me, and is now a hot little ball of hair and sweat—so I move one of the blankets off her, and then another.
The logistics of this shit are nightmarish. I don’t even own a houseplant
, that’s how much I travel. And now, I’ve got a kid.
I’ve got a kid.
Annie is mine.
Fuck.
All sorts of things—details, ideas, plans, legal forms—fill my head. First and foremost is to legally adopt her; no way is Michael taking her back, jerking her around. He’s done enough damage. She should probably see a child psychologist as soon as fucking possible, because if there’s any chance of undoing god-awful parenting and the fact that she got left by first her mom, and then her dad, the sooner she starts talking it out, the better. I also wonder if she’s been to a doctor in a year. If she’s up to date on her vaccines, if she’s even growing normally. He never fed her enough, no matter how much money I gave him. Bastard.
None of it, though, is any more important than Mary. Because I know I can take care of Annie, but I don’t want to do any of it without her by my side, and I won’t ever get the chance if I lose her today.
I let my head fall back onto the couch cushions.
“A worker double-stitches the seams of the boxing gloves….”
Cradling Annie in my arms, I stretch out to grab my phone. I’m heartbroken to see she hasn’t texted me and hasn’t called in the two minutes since I had it out of my hands. I saw the fear in her eyes, the terror when I pulled my hand out of the wall. I remember what she said to me at dinner, about violence and anger. About her ex. I remember saying, “You don’t have to worry about that with me.” But I know I lied, without meaning to. The anger. The fucking Falconi fuse. I have tried so hard to keep down for so many years. I max out at two beers because of the anger. I meditate because of the anger. That shit follows me around like the proverbial black dog. It’s part of me, and one I know how to manage. But not today I didn’t. Not today. Which means I’m the only one to blame if I’ve lost her.
I can’t let myself think that. I can’t go there. Not yet. For now, I have to focus on what’s in front of me, which is Annie, and a game tomorrow. Christ. So I pick up my phone and call Valdez. In the background, there is chaotic noise, people laughing and clinking glasses.
“Happy Thanksgiving, man!” Valdez says.
“Bear, I need a favor.”
“Ándale, sure. You name it!”
In my mind’s eye, I see his mom. The plump, pretty, soft-spoken lady that once made me four dozen empanadas for my birthday. María Del Carmen.
María.
Mary.
Fuck.
It might just be that everything will remind me of her, forever.
“I need to know if your mom can look after Annie this weekend. I need someone to spoil her rotten,” I say. “I need to know she’s safe.”
He doesn’t even ask her. “Of course, hombre. Of course. She’d be honored. Listen, you wanna come over? We’re about to sit down and play some Chutes and Ladders.”
A wave of sadness rips through me for the big family he has. The love. The chaos. The wife… “I’m good. But thanks.”
“You okay?” Valdez asks.
No, I’m not. I’m definitely fucking not. But I say I am and end the call.
Scooping her up in my arms, I cradle Annie to my chest while I make a kind of bed out of the sofa for her, an envelope of blankets. I lay her down inside and make sure her head is on the pillow again. Sound asleep, her thumb moves to her mouth. I situate her giraffe next to her and cover her up. Once in the kitchen, I try not to let myself look at the turkey or the rolls or the sorry excuse for sweet potatoes that I was going to try to make. Instead, I take out a two-pound bag of chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs and arrange them on a plate. I stick it in the microwave for thirty seconds and then sort of slump down over the sink. Which is when I see her pie, a beautiful pecan pie in a glass pan. With a handful of the pecans arranged in a heart on top.
I hear a rustling from the sofa, and Annie sits up. Her hair is a mess on top of her head, and she’s clutching the blanket in her little fingers, glancing around. “Daddy?”
The microwave dings, and I open the door. “He’s not here tonight, Jellybean.”
She looks confused, but then slowly it all comes back to her. I crouch down in front of her, my knees cracking, and I clean a little bit of drool off the corner of her mouth. “You’re staying here. With me.”
She crumples her brow. “Where’s Mary?”
Jesus Christ. I cannot handle this. My nose stings with welling tears. I will not cry in front of her. I will not melt down. I shake my head again. And she frowns so hard that her bottom lip comes out.
The pain inside me is like a bloody gash on my heart. I haven’t known Mary long enough to know how to reason with her, but I’ve known her just long enough to be more sure about that woman than anything I’ve ever known in my life. I take Annie’s tiny hand in mine, and I see her studying my own furrowed brow.
“How come you’re sad, Uncle Jimmy?”
Sad. Fuck, yes. Sad. Heartbroken, on Thanksgiving. I look into her gray-blue eyes, and steel myself to lie to her for her own good, for the very first time. “I’m okay, Jellybean. Let’s get you something to eat.”
I hoist her up in my arms, and she clings to my neck, pressing her face to my cheek. With my one free arm, I get her Dino Nuggets arranged on a plate.
“You want ketchup?”
She leans back and looks at the plate, then she shakes her head. “Honey.”
“Honey,” I say.
Of course.
51
Mary
After dinner, Bridget’s parents fall asleep next to one another on the sofa, her mom in a tidy ball under a chenille afghan, her dad sprawled out with his mouth wide open and his feet up on an ottoman trimmed with gold tassels. Bridget and I clean up together in the kitchen, and I immerse myself in the rhythm of soap, rinse, soap, rinse, dry, of bone china plates so thin you can see light coming through the scalloped edges.
The china put away, and the big balloon glasses drying upside down next to the sink on a dishtowel, the two of us listen to the noise of the waves on the lake. Bridget asks me if I love him, and I shove a cold roll in my mouth. She asks me what I’m going to do now, and I fill my mouth with whipped cream so I don’t have to answer that either. And we drink: vodka tonics and then wine and then port, which—added to the screwdrivers—leaves me more-than-a-little tipsy by the time we get to the pumpkin pie. We don’t even bother with plates, digging into the center of the custard with the fine silver that belonged to her grandma, the forks strangely small with pointed tines.
And then my phone buzzes. Again.
“He’s persistent,” Bridget says. “I’ll give him that much.”
My phone dances around on the kitchen counter, scootching closer and closer to an untouched bowl of cranberry sauce.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Bridget takes the pie and shuffles out of the kitchen in her socks. “Answer the phone, Mary. Hear him out. Don’t be a chickenshit.”
With a deep breath, I pick it up and answer.
“Oh fuck, thank God,” he says. “At first, I thought you were just mad. Then I thought something had happened to you. Then I was sure something had—”
“Jimmy.”
He stops short. “I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what happened to me.”
I steady myself on the edge of the table as the world spins gently around me. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Like I first learned to box to protect myself. Like I can’t stand yelling. So much you don’t know. So much we don’t know about each other. And this has all been so fast, Jimmy. So fast. I just...”
A door creaks on his end, and when he starts talking again, his voice is echoey and strange. He’s either in the bathroom or the hallway. Both places full to the ceiling with memories already.
“I totally get that.”
I open my eyes and the kitchen wobbles. I pick up a fork and make a crosshatch pattern in the cranberry sauce. “You do?”
“Of course I fucking do,” he says softly. “It’s been intense, but Mary… I don’t want to
be any other way with you. I want to love you so hard that it takes your breath away.”
“Do you?” I spin the fork around in a small circle. “Love me?”
“Fuck yes, you have to know that. You have to know I love you fucking senseless. To the moon and back. I love you. I do.”
It’s been so long since I've heard those words that they don’t sound real. He said something like it in bed, that he wanted me to let him love me. But he didn’t actually say it. Not the three words. Not until now.
After a moment of thinking silence, he says, “I bought you a ring, you know that?”
My heart feels so full I think my ribs might burst. I suck in a quick breath. “You did…?”
“Fuck yes, I did. And it’s here. Waiting for you. When you’re ready to come back.”
I look out the big picture windows at the moonlit shore. I listen to the wind.
“Will you come back? Please.”
I want to love you so hard it takes your breath away.
“Come back. Come home,” he says, with a quiver in his voice.
Home.
He has swept me completely off my feet, so even now I feel like I’m floating, ungrounded and almost lost. I don’t even know what day it is, really. I’ve lost track of everything except him. But I know I can’t just traipse back to his house. I am too rattled, too upset, too unsteady—never mind the drinks. It’s just been too much to face all over again, at this hour. And especially because we now have to be strong for Annie. No way am I walking back into that apartment tonight to face that hole in the wall, and him, and the fact that I was totally chickenshit, and I see that now.
“You have to give me some time, Jimmy. Just a day or two.”
He lets out a huge, slow, peaceful breath. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Whatever you need.” His voice is crackly with tears. “Just don’t give up on me. Not yet.”
Hail Mary Page 27