This Is Where I Leave You: A Novel

by Jonathan Tropper

  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” Jen gurgles. Her tears are hot on my fingertips. The resident continues to move the probe around. I can’t believe we’re here doing this again, losing another baby. Fate already warned us to pack it in. We just didn’t hear it in time.

  “I deserve this,” Jen says. “I do.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “What I did to you . . .” She looks up at me, her features slashed with regret. “I ruined us.”

  “Listen!” the resident says sharply. We turn to her, and then we hear it through the static, a fast, rhythmic, robotic swish.

  “What’s that?” I say, but of course I know. I’ve done this before.

  “It’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

  “It sounds so fast,” Jen says.

  “To you, maybe,” the resident says. “It sounds just fine to me.”

  On the gurney, Jen closes her eyes and cries with relief, still clinging to my hand. With my free hand, I wipe away my own tears before she can see them.

  “So why was she bleeding?” I say.

  “It could be any number of benign reasons. I’ve paged the ob-gyn on call. Someone will be down in a minute. But the baby doesn’t seem to be in any distress.”

  “Wait,” I say when she lifts the probe off Jen. “Can we listen for another minute?”

  The resident flashes a kind, lipless smile and pulls out some kind of canvas belt gadget from a drawer and wraps it around Jen’s belly. Then she leaves, and it’s just Jen and me, listening to the frantic, throbbing heartbeat of our unborn child. She looks at me with shining wet eyes and smiles. “That’s our baby,” she says, beaming.

  “He sounds nervous.”

  She laughs. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  We listen for a little longer. Beat, swish, beat, swish, beat, swish.

  “Judd,” Jen says, not quite looking at me. “We can do this, right?”

  And this is where I stop regretting the way things should have been the first time I heard my baby’s heartbeat. This is where I surrender to the magic of it all, the karmic appropriateness of becoming a father right now, when I’ve just lost my own. And maybe I do feel something; it’s hard to say, because we’ve only just begun to try the moment on for size when the curtains fly open and Wade steps in, effectively murdering the moment and all the ones to follow.

  4:45 p.m.

  THE LAST TIME I saw Wade, I attacked him with an office chair. The time before that, I jammed a lit cheesecake up his ass and almost burned his balls off. So it’s understandable that his first reaction upon seeing me is to flinch and assume a defensive posture. He stands in the doorway looking uncertainly at me, then moves past me self-consciously to approach Jen on the gurney. “You okay, babe?” he says. There are guys who can pull off “babe.” I’m not one of them. Wade is, and I mean that in the worst possible way. I start scanning the shelves for sharp objects. “I got here as fast as I could. My GPS messed me up.”

  “I’m fine,” Jen says.

  “Good. Good.” He rubs her shoulder lightly and then stops, too aware of me in the room. There’s no choice but to turn and face me.

  “Hey, Judd. How’s it going?”

  “It’s going swell, Wade.”

  There’s a knock on the door, and a bearded doctor enters the room, carrying Jen’s chart.

  “Jennifer Foxman?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  My last name, still attached to her, is a kick in the crotch.

  “I’m Doctor Rausch, from ob-gyn.” He turns to Wade. “Mr. Foxman?”

  “No,” Wade says.

  “I’m Mr. Foxman,” I say.

  “Nice to meet you,” Doctor Rausch says perfunctorily, before looking at Wade. “And you are?”

  “He’s my wife’s lover.”

  “Shit, Judd,” Jen says, covering her eyes. “Not now.”

  “Wade Boulanger,” Wade says, extending his hand. “It’s complicated.”

  “Not the radio jock.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Doctor Rausch smiles. “My wife hates you.”

  “The wives generally do.”

  “Not mine, unfortunately,” I say.

  Doctor Rausch looks at me like I’m spoiling his good time. “Okay,” he says, pulling some latex gloves out of his pocket. “I’ve got an ulcer and a long shift to get through. Whatever’s going on here, you’re not going to make it my problem. You two can wait outside.”

  “But I’m the father,” I say.

  “Congratulations. Now get the hell out of my exam room.”

  4:55 p.m.

  “SO, THIS IS some predicament we find ourselves in,” Wade says.

  We are standing against the wall in the crowded waiting room. There is what appears to be an entire Little League team and their parents sitting around, waiting for an injured teammate. Two construction workers prop up a third whose foot is wrapped in a blood-soaked towel. On a small television mounted too high for effective viewing, someone is cooking a soufflé.

  “This predicament, as you call it, is my life. My family.”

  “Jen is my family too now.”

  “Jen is where you’re presently parking your cock.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “I’m not, you dumb shit. I’m talking about you.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you’re shooting blanks.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Um, excuse me, guys,” one of the Little League dads says, indicating the children present. But this train has already left the station.

  “I know you pretty much fuck anyone who will have you. You fuck the interns, you fuck the sales reps, you fuck the sponsors, or, in one case that I know of, the sponsor’s daughter, who at the time was not quite eighteen yet, was she? I know you won’t last with Jen, because the last thing you want is to be saddled with someone else’s kid. I know you’ve been praying for a miscarriage ever since you got the call and that now you’re weighing your options, looking for the fastest way out of this mess. I know you want to think that underneath it all you’re really a decent guy, but you’re not so sure, are you, and for what it’s worth I can pretty much confirm for you that underneath it all, you’re not a decent guy at all. You’re just an empty soul, devoid of any real substance. So you’ll keep getting laid and getting paid to be the voice of the lowest common denominator, until, as inconceivable as it seems, someone even lower then you comes along, and then you’ll get old and obscure, and you’ll die alone.”

  It’s safe to say we’ve got everyone’s attention now. The Little League parents are horrified. The kids can barely contain their exhilaration that a grown-up said “fuck” so many times in one sentence. The construction guys are unimpressed.

  “You feel better now?” Wade says with a shit-eating grin.

  “Not even a little.”

  “That’s too bad. It was a good speech.”

  “Let’s just not talk, okay? Can we do that?”

  “I didn’t turn her, Judd,” Wade says. “I didn’t seduce her or come on to her, or anything.”

  “And by not talking I meant exactly what you’re doing right now.”

  “She was lonely and angry and lost, and I didn’t do that to her. You did that, all by yourself.”

  “And you saw an opening.”

  “Yes, I did. I’ll admit it. She’s beautiful, and I’m human. I crossed the line. But I didn’t fuck her any more than she fucked me. It takes two, my friend. And believe me, no one was more surprised than me when it became something more. So you can go on hating me for it; I certainly would if I were you. But she came after me, Judd. Not the other way around. She came after me. You know that’s true, and that’s the thing you can’t get past.”

  “That doesn’t make me want you any less dead.”

  “Yeah, well, get in line.”

  And that’s when I decide to hit him. I’ve already assaulted him twice before, but nei
ther time was really that satisfying. I need the intimacy of direct violence, the blunt force of bone on bone. But moving from conversation to violence is just as hard as moving from flirting to kissing. There’s that leap you have to take, to shed your inhibitions and expose your naked impulses.

  This is how I do it. I bridge the distance between us by pointing at him and saying, “You don’t get it, you dumb bastard,” until my finger is inches from his eye. He swats the finger away, as expected, and that’s my trigger. But I’ve used my right hand to point, so it’s my weaker, less reliable left hand that swings around with the punch, and Wade reflexively turns away, so that my fist glances impotently off his goddamn shoulder. “Asshole!” he shouts, and shoves me back against the wall, not attacking back, just kind of getting me off of him. But that’s when Phillip finally shows up, and all Phillip sees is Wade shoving me, so he steps in and coldcocks Wade with a high arcing punch he learned from watching mixed martial arts matches on television. The punch hits Wade in the nose and he goes down hard. Phillip stands over him with one foot on his chest and says, “Call my brother an asshole again.”

  A fat security guard materializes and pins Phillip’s arms behind him. A second one comes up behind me, grabbing my arm tightly. “Let’s go,” he says, and they hustle us toward the exit.

  “My wife is in there.”

  “We’ll deal with it outside.”

  It’s raining outside, a hard rain that makes a racket against the fiberglass awning of the emergency room. The guards release us beside a parked ambulance. They hold a quick, whispered conversation, and then one of them heads back inside. The other, a large black man with a shaved head and thirty-inch forearms, turns back to us. “Is that the Man Up guy in there?”

  “That’s him,” I say.

  “Which one of y’all hit him?”

  “Nobody hit him, he just fell,” Phillip says.

  The guard smiles widely and extends his hand. “Shake my hand, man. I hate that loudmouth motherfucker.”

  Phillip shrugs and shakes his hand. “And if you hadn’t pulled me off of him when you did, I’d have really kicked his ass.”

  5:20 p.m.

  PHILLIP DOESN’T QUITE remember where he parked, so we get soaked walking around the lot. When he finally locates the Porsche, it’s parked a few cars away from Wade’s silver Maserati, with its MAN UP vanity plate. Before I have time to talk myself out of it, I climb up onto the roof of the car and jump up and down on it, screaming obscenities into the rain like a madman. I jump up and land hard on my knees, feeling the metal crumple satisfyingly beneath me. Phillip pops the trunk of the Porsche and pulls out an L-shaped tire iron. “Here,” he says, tossing it up to me. “Go crazy.”

  But I’m suddenly out of steam. I slide down the front windshield and sit on the hood. Phillip joins me, and we sit there in silence for a few seconds as the rain pummels us.

  “I miss Dad,” I say.

  “Me too.”

  “Why didn’t I miss him more when he was alive? He was dying for two years, and I only visited him a handful of times. What could have been more important than spending time with your father?”

  “He didn’t want us around. He told me so. He didn’t want us to remember him like that.”

  “Well, that was probably our time to step up and say ‘Tough shit, Dad.’”

  Phillip nods soberly. “Dad was always much tougher than us.”

  “I guess. How did we become such wimps?”

  “Hey,” Phillip says. “Did I or did I not just take out Wade Boulanger with one punch?”

  “You did.”

  “Damn straight.” He winces a little as he rubs his hand. “I think I broke my knuckle. Can you even break a knuckle? I should go back in and get it X-rayed.”

  “I heard the baby’s heartbeat.”

  Phillip looks at me. “That’s great. Right?”

  “Yeah.” I’m quiet for a moment. “I told Wade he was hoping for a miscarriage, but the truth is, I think part of me might have been. And how terrible is that, for a baby to be growing in the womb and for the father to be hoping it won’t make it?”

  “It’s pretty terrible,” Phillip says, lying back against the windshield to join me.

  “Did you think Dad was a good father?”

  Phillip ponders this for a moment. “I think he did his best. He was pretty old-school, I guess. He didn’t always get us, didn’t always appreciate us, but come on, look at us, right?”

  “I think I could be a pretty good father, actually.”

  “I think you’ll be great.”

  Raindrops land in small explosions on the Maserati’s gleaming hood. “But I’ll have to forgive her, won’t I? I’ll have to learn to live with the fact of Jen and Wade. I mean, for the sake of the kid.”

  “I don’t know anything about parenting, but my guess is that there will be much larger sacrifices to be made.”

  I look over at Phillip, who is catching raindrops on his tongue. “You almost sounded wise right there.”

  Phillip grins. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

  I smile and lean back on the windshield, looking up into the rain. “I’m going to be a dad,” I say.

  “Congratulations, big brother.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You ready to go home?”

  “Okay.”

  He grabs the tire iron from me, and as he slides off the hood, he swings it to the side, noisily shattering the driver’s-side window. The car alarm goes off instantly, a muted, almost apologetic wail. Phillip looks at me and smiles. “Whoops.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “You just said I was wise.”

  “I’m seeing things more clearly now.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He offers me the tire iron. “One for the road?”

  “I’m trying to rise above here. To forgive and move on.”

  “And you will. In exactly thirty seconds.” He tosses me the tire iron. The cold metal feels almost alive in my hands. I shouldn’t be having this conversation. What I should be doing is climbing down off of Wade’s car and talking my way past the security guards so that I can make sure Jen is okay. We are going to be parents together, and there’s no place in that arrangement for juvenile acts of vandalism, no matter how satisfying. But Wade is already in there, probably back on his feet by now, taking charge, charming the doctors, asking all the right questions. I’m the extraneous one, the temperamental biological father who had to be forcibly restrained and removed. I realize now that this is how it will be: Wade on the inside, and me out here in the rain, and no magical heartbeat can change that. I will always be the odd man out, the guy everyone secretly hopes won’t show up to the party and put everyone on edge. And right now, that seems like more injustice than any man should rightfully be asked to swallow. If that’s what I have to look forward to, I’m not sure I’m going to be up for it after all. This is a crucial moment, I know that, but that’s never stopped me before.

  And thirty seconds is really all you need with a good tire iron in your hand.

  Chapter 39

  6:10 p.m.

  Back at home, Mom and Linda are having a fight. They are in the kitchen, arguing in hushed tones. I can’t be sure, but it sounds like Linda’s crying. A fist pounds the counter. A cabinet door slams. There are no visitors right now, this being the dinner hour, but there is no dinner right now, since none of us will dare enter the kitchen. More low voices. Then Linda storms down the hall and out the front door, slamming it behind her hard enough to rattle the lightbulbs in their sconces. A minute later Mom comes out, still composing herself, and sinks down into her shiva chair. We all look at her expectantly. “What?” she says. “We had an argument.”

  “What about?” Wendy says.

  “About none of your business.” She stands up and heads for the stairs. “I think I feel a migraine coming on. I’m going to go lie down for a bit.”

  “Hey,” Wendy shouts, stopping her at the foot of th
e stairs. “What happened to a family with no secrets?”

  Mom nods to herself, holding on to the banister for support. When she turns to us, there are tears in her eyes. “It’s been such a long time since we were really a family,” she says.

  7:50 p.m.

  IT’S A NIGHT for lovers’ tiffs. Alice is pissed at Paul for injuring his shoulder. She is berating him upstairs but is coming in loud and clear through the baby monitor. Back in the den, Tracy is furious with Phillip for hitting Wade. I sit in the kitchen eating dinner, listening to these two very similar arguments play out on different sides of the house. There are perks to being single.

  Underneath it all, Alice is really angry at Paul because she’s still not pregnant, and Tracy is angry at Phillip for having sex with Chelsea, which he probably has, or, if not, probably will. He’s definitely been thinking about it. Tracy is angry at herself for letting Phillip make a fool of her, for blinding herself to certain obvious realities, for being in her forties. But this is not the time or place for such thorny issues, so in their frustration they overreact to sprained shoulders and bruised knuckles, and harmony is not in the cards at Knob’s End tonight.

  On the plus side, fresh new platters have been delivered. Teriyaki chicken wraps, pasta salad, deviled eggs, and a tray of black-and-white cookies. I don’t know when I’ll eat this well again. Wendy’s boys sit across from me on stools at the kitchen island, freshly scrubbed and dressed in tight pajamas that cling to them like superhero costumes. Their damp hair, perfectly combed, gleams under the recessed lighting. They are like an advertisement for children’s shampoo, or for children in general. Wendy tries to get them to eat, but their tiny stomachs are still bloated and churning from all the sugared crap they ingested at the amusement park today. I experience a clenching pang as I think of Penny. It’s the feeling of having behaved poorly, of having hurt her. I would call her if I had any idea at all what I could possibly say besides “I’m sorry.”