You Could Be Home by Now

by Tracy Manaster

  For fuck’s sake. Nina was one-half of the couple they were closest to back in Chettenford. She was a civil engineer and not at all the kind of woman who used emoticons. Seth’s stomach roiled. He remembered a potluck at the Henrys’ last year. The curve below Alison’s waist had just graduated from possibly beer to definitely baby. Nina wasn’t drinking and everyone guessed what that meant. The women laughed, one to another. They say it makes you stupid for the first year and a half. Now Nina’s profile picture showed a loaf-sized bundle in either arm.

  You poor thing, he wrote. Alison and I slept BEAUTIFULLY last night. Peace and quiet at any cost! Love to Ross. Seth hesitated, but only for a moment. The Henry twins’ birth announcement had arrived three weeks after they got to Arizona. A postcard, the newborn pair snuggled and hazy. Their hats looked like the hat that the nurses had placed on Timothy’s head when they brought him over to Alison’s bedside. It killed him, that hat. The pretending involved in dressing a dead child. He clicked post.

  That damn postcard. It was cruel. A letter would have at least had an envelope. A letter they could have trashed unread. This, they’d had no choice but to see. Ondine Violet (five pounds, thirteen ounces) and Linus James (five pounds, eleven). In their toothpaste-toned Arizona kitchen, Alison’s eyes had gone gemlike, hard and bright. In the softness of the surrounding skin he could see the faint scoring he would come to know as wrinkles soon enough. “I hate them,” she’d said. She made her voice nasal. “We’re Ross and Nina. Have you met our children? Ondine. Linus.” She’d kicked at the kitchen island. The surrounding cabinetry rattled, cheaply hinged. “Christ! I hope they wind up every bit as pretentious as their names.”

  “They’re good people,” Seth had said. “They didn’t think.” But he hated the Henrys, too. And he’d hated Alison, at least for the moment. When it was her turn to fall apart, it had to be his to be rational. She slumped to the floor. She tented her legs.

  “They should have thought,” she said. “Fuck them. Fuck them and their healthy perfect beautiful babies.”

  Fuck them indeed.

  Seth leaned forward and clicked through to Ross Henry’s page. My third shirt in four hours. Move over, Linda Blair. There are new babies in town . . . In Ross’ picture, a baby—the daughter? The son? It hurt to look, actually hurt, there, in the space Seth used to think belonged to his lungs—wore a Yankees shirt that was a size too big. Seth felt a momentary nudge from his old life. The itch to get a gibe in there. There were people who loved the Yankees, and then there were people who actually loved The Game. Instead, he wrote Paternity leave sounds like hell. Ali and I had it SO much easier.

  Seth tallied. He had one hundred and fifty-seven friends. One hundred and fifty-seven oblivious grinners. He typed quickly. North Chettenford’s most beloved biology teacher was enjoying his first frozen custard of the summer and wondered why it had taken him so long. Seth wrote Yum! I wonder what flavor my son would have liked best! A girl he’d dated for about half a minute was setting off on a three-day bike trip. Have fun, Jen! I used to daydream about teaching Timothy to bike. His freshman roommate had posted a blurry ultrasound. It’s official. A boy for Maura and me. Seth wrote Wow, I didn’t even know the two of you got married. Your son looks like mine did before he died. One of Alison’s cousins liked Your Family Were Once Immigrants, Dingoes Ate My Anchor Baby, and What the Hell Are They Thinking in Arizona? Seth wrote, I’ll tell ya, Sean, this Arizonian’s thinking about how the hell to make it through another day with all this crushing grief. Also, dead babies aren’t funny.

  A ping and a pop-up. You there? A photo of Ross Henry’s stupid Yankee baby. Seth ignored it and refreshed. His high school lab partner would be in L.A. for the weekend and wondered if anyone wanted to meet up. I would, but I’m still in mourning. One of Ali’s bridesmaids wished her mother a happy birthday. Awww, what a good daughter. I used to think our Timothy would be like that. A former student declared the sweet potato hash at O’Rourke’s to be the ultimate hangover food. Ali craved sweet potatoes with Timothy. Remember Alison? AP European History? She and I had a son. He died. Another ping. Ross again. Seth, want to talk? It’s been a while. The asshole was probably typing one-handed, his other arm wrapped around the warm weight of a wriggling infant. Seth took a deep breath. The asshole probably felt his child’s chest expand and crest against his. The asshole asked, You doing okay?

  As if the answer could possibly be yes.

  Seth ignored Ross, typing away. He felt jittery and too-vivid, as if edging toward a fever.

  A grad school classmate had booked her tickets to Belize. I’d love a vacation from my reality. Did you hear? Timothy’s still dead. The son of his mother’s best friend put up a picture of a gargantuan, meaty sandwich. Easier to swallow than the fact my son died. A woman he couldn’t even place had taken a quiz that identified her power color as dusty rose. Seth typed Wow, I’m so glad that you’re alive to waste your time on things like that. My son isn’t. One Chettenford colleague thanked another for jump-starting her car and someone he had never heard of made an innuendo about it. Long time, no talk, guys. Come visit me and Ali (just us. Our baby’s still dead) in Arizona any time. His uncle needed a backhoe for his imaginary farm. That’s great, Uncle Stu. I need someone to give a damn about Timothy. The guy who’d done all the cartoons for his college paper couldn’t get “Ice Ice Baby” out of his head, how randomly 1990. And I can’t get the fact that we lost our boy out of mine. When you figure out a solution, give me a call. The first girl he ever kissed grumbled about the stress of med school. Don’t bother with it; doctors couldn’t even save one tiny baby.

  Seth? It was Ross again. You there?

  He felt the seed of a scream beneath his Adam’s apple.

  Timothy was dead.

  Timothy was dead and things like frozen custard still had the audacity to exist.

  Seth closed out Ross’ window. He clicked to Alison’s page. Three hours ago she’d become friends with somebody named Mathieu Donaldson. Yesterday she had posted a picture of a watch and the words I covet. The watch was a runners’ watch, black and bulky and covered with more buttons than the average dashboard. The day before yesterday she’d lauded Roy Halladay’s perfect game. The day before that she announced she was finally getting a handle on Adah Chalk’s handwriting. The day before that she bragged about clocking her best mile yet. Earlier in the week she’d posted a picture of a sunset that he hadn’t even noticed her taking. That same day she’d asked for movie recommendations. She linked a review of a local gallery they hadn’t visited and a hole-in-the-wall taqueria he’d never heard of. She appeared to have an ongoing list of Arizona wildlife she’d spotted on her jogs. She said that the cacti here looked like souvenir-shop cacti and that the sun was turning her into a giant freckle. She had registered for The Commons’ Memorial Day Half Marathon. She said she was looking forward to it.

  Seth may have made a noise. A mewl of sorts. He was leaning very close to the screen.

  Life goes on. People seemed to get a kick reminding him. And so Seth wrote on his wife’s wall. I love you. He wrote, I get your thing about Adah Chalk. It was simple. There were no rearview mirrors on covered wagons. When people left, they left, faces to the setting sun. Letters might yet wing their way: tidings of farms that failed, parents who returned to earth, a niece or nephew baptized under such and such a name. But all that was words and paper. Kindling.

  Seth closed out his browser. He crossed to Nicky’s desk, wanting nothing more to do with any of this. He handed back the slip of paper the kid had given him. He said, “I’m going to let you field this one. All of it. Your source, your story. Go with your gut.”

  Light came to the boy’s face, and Seth ached all over. In another life, he had labored in a classroom, mining for that light. He returned to his office. On road trips as a child he’d had an Etch A Sketch. Even more than filling it, he had loved the moment of shaking it clean. He hadn’t thought of that in forever. He took a full, rich breath. There was a
logical progression here: If they were done, well and truly done, with all that had come before, that made this their life now. The Commons, Arizona. They had to make something of it. Alison had gotten that intuitively. She had started already; he’d seen as much online. His wife was waiting. All he had to do was catch up. So, a to-do list. He’d work out a fix for the condo’s sagging built-ins and buy some decent patio furniture. They would explore Sabino Canyon and drive out to those graceful old missions. They lived in Arizona, for chrissakes; they had to Craigslist their snowshoes. Lobel could recommend a realtor, and they’d decide if they needed to factor in school districts.

  And Seth would run Lobel’s bullshit, why not? A sound investment. The boss would owe them. He sat. He pulled up a blank document. He thought of his wife in her office upstairs, working away. The elegant sweep of her spine. Elbows on the table. Hair in an improvised knot. Notes and photos fanned out like tarot cards. Her lower lip paler than her upper because she licked it when she read and no lipstick had a chance. Seth typed. Slow Sale of Rosko House Due to Internal Error. It read a bit clunky and he’d always felt vaguely amateurish writing out the headline first, but who was he kidding? This was hardly the stuff of Pulitzers.

  A VIRTUOUS START

  INTAKE HAD BEN SHOW PROOF of insurance and sign a dozen forms he didn’t bother reading. Sadie claimed a pair of hard plastic waiting-room chairs. The granddaughter was off somewhere, taking with her the I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to that had sounded like a metronome in his ear the whole ride over. Sadie stood when he approached, removing the reading glasses he hadn’t known she needed. She popped them into the front pocket of her blouse and the cloth between the buttons gapped ever so slightly. He settled beside her to wait. She smelled subtly of grapefruit. Veronica used to eat half of one for breakfast so that whatever the day threw at her thereafter, at least she had made a virtuous start. Goosebumps stippled Sadie’s skin. She’d gotten him to the ER without grabbing so much as a sweater.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Liar.”

  Sadie smiled, but her eyes weren’t in it. Her cheeks weren’t either. “I’m fine,” she said, but she rubbed her arms. She caught him looking and stilled. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. He could tell her watch had cost a pretty penny. Graceful. Silver. He heard it tick.

  “You don’t see those much anymore.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Watches. It’s a beautiful piece.”

  She fidgeted with the clasp. Odds were, the watch had been a gift from Gary. Ben’s own wife had never liked jewelry that called attention to her hands. Veronica’s nails broke easily and her fingers were stubby. She called them her plebe paws. Sadie crossed her legs at the ankles, uncrossed them, inspected her trousers, and plucked at an imagined speck. Posters hung at intervals around the room, encouraging him to quit smoking, to cover his mouth when he coughed, and to get more fiber, more exercise, and—because Knowing Is Sexy!—regular testing for STDs.

  Sadie’s foot tapped a nervy, erratic beat. “I was a debutante,” she said.

  “What?” Ben palmed the base of his skull, which still throbbed dully. Maybe he’d hit it harder than he’d thought.

  “I’ve got a portrait floating around somewhere. You’d laugh. Crinoline. White gloves up to here.” She patted the full swell of her bicep.

  “Huh. I don’t think I’d have ever guessed.” A half lie. There was something country clubby to her bearing, now that he thought about it, more offhand sportiness than innate athleticism.

  “It was an age ago and it was silly even then. But—what I mean to say is, I’m really good at manners. And that matters. If you know what’s done, then you do it and it leaves more room in your life for everything else.”

  Ben nodded, remembering the note that had arrived in the mail six days on the heels of Gary’s funeral. In it, Sadie had thanked him for the soups he’d had sent from an online gourmet company, the same company that Veronica always used when someone passed. Sadie’s stationery had been thick and edged with scallops. Her handwriting was pure Palmer Method.

  She said, “I could arm wrestle Emily Post.” She flexed. “I could flatten her. But this. I don’t know the polite way to ask. My granddaughter. Are you going to be pressing charges?”

  “She doesn’t like me much.” Ben didn’t admit it was mutual. He thought of the snotty moue of the girl’s lips. The drawn out-cadence that laid exclusive claim to her Gra-an. An uncomplicated dart of feeling. Ben loathed the girl. Absolutely despised her. And he was allowed to. She wasn’t his daughter. He didn’t owe her a lick of nuance. Three years post-divorce and he still had his lawyer on speed dial. Picture the shocked, sullen look on Lily’s face when the police arrived.

  “No,” Sadie agreed. “She doesn’t.” Veronica would have obfuscated. Lily likes you plenty. She’s shy. She’s always been a bit undemonstrative. Tara’s first go at rehab? Veronica told their friends she was off at a summer leadership academy. Sadie’s foot stopped its tapping. Whatever broken face Lily made when the cops came, her grandmother would surely mirror.

  Ben said, “Maybe I have that effect on people. On teenaged girls.” He swallowed. He’d been shooting for funny, but of course, it wasn’t.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Lily’s”—Sadie cast about for the right adjective. He was disappointed when she settled for—“a good kid.”

  “A good kid,” he echoed. He’d heard that plenty about Tara. A good kid at heart. A good kid but. Actual good kids were probably called something else. On the other side of the room, a woman clutched her stomach and swore. Ben’s skull felt too heavy for his neck.

  “She was in a mood,” said Sadie. “I shouldn’t have put her behind the wheel. She was all up in arms about some Internet—”

  “Valedictorians.”

  “Benjamin? You okay?”

  “What they call the real good kids.” The waiting-room floor was scuffed all over, a worn, familiar beige. Every hospital in the Western Hemisphere got its tiles from the same supplier.

  “Let me get a nurse.” Sadie was on her feet.

  “Sorry. Sit, please.” He tapped the seat beside him. “I was woolgathering.”

  “Aah.” She resettled. “Should’ve guessed. You get this look sometimes.” She indicated his head. “There’s a lot going on in there.”

  “Sometimes, maybe. Not right now.”

  A nurse in pink scrubs appeared and summoned a patient who was not Ben, a narrowly built fellow with no outward evidence of injury. The woman with the stomach pains moaned.

  Sadie said, “I do believe Lily when she says it was an accident.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. She’s got the family temper, but I’d swear it’s all backtalk.”

  “Girls that age are terrifying.” Tara used to make her face colorless when they fought, eyes stolid shutters against any attempt to reach her. She was six pounds, fourteen ounces when first settled into his arms. And just like that his heart weighed six pounds, fourteen ounces. His sternum could never protect it again.

  “Terrifying,” Sadie agreed. “And Lily doesn’t have the easiest path ahead of her. I tell you she’s a lesbian? Came out last year. None of us had the least idea. She just wanted us to know. It wasn’t—I don’t know—laying the groundwork to introduce some Jenny with a rainbow flag she wanted to take to prom. Lily’s always been like that. She’s . . .” This time, the adjective was more worth the wait. “Adamant. Absolutely herself. Fifteen.” Sadie sniffed and smiled, like the number was inherently funny. “That age, the only coming-out on my radar involved a white dress.” Something warm swept across her face. “I went up to Chicago three times for fittings. It was the most delicious moonlight-colored silk.” An easy flick of her wrist, as if to smooth remembered cloth. “I’m not saying I was some holy innocent. But I was young. It was more along the lines of figuring out regular sex.”

  Ben feigned interest in the nearest poster, a cartoon syringe that
had something to do with H1N1, so that Sadie wouldn’t catch the flow of his thoughts. Which were, no surprise, a lot like water seeking the lowest point. Teenaged Sadie, figuring out sex. The archaic smoothness of long gloves. Pearl buttons on a white dress slipping one by one from their slits. A twist of something must have shown on his face; a twist of something easily misread.

  Sadie was defensive. Her chin jutted out. “I don’t mean regular sex like Lily’s kind is somehow abnormal. But young seems like it was younger then.”

  “It’s young enough now.” Bearing down on him, Lily’s hands had been at ten o’clock and two o’clock exactly, a position you never saw outside Drivers’ Ed. “It’s plenty young.” The fledgling frailty of fifteen. He’d forgotten. Or, rather: he’d stopped himself remembering. The ways a body could break.

  “Ben.” Sadie produced a pack of tissues. “Here.”

  He was crying. It had been ages since he’d done that. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She brushed away the apology. “Hospitals bring it out in people. And for all I know you’re in a hell of a lot of pain.” She pointed at the receptionist. “Bet I could sweet-talk her into finding someone who’d give you a pill.”

  He took a second tissue. “I have a daughter. Had. Have.”

  Silence. Everyone he offered this story to accepted it in silence.

  “Everyone called her a good kid, too. Only, you know how they say everything before the but is bullshit? Tara was a good kid but. Good but high strung. Angry. In and out of trouble. In and out of rehab. She ran off at sixteen. The police didn’t give a damn. They made a few calls but that was it. Veronica and I checked all the shelters. We handed out her picture everywhere. Hired a detective. This was in 1995. We never saw her again.”

  “Oh, Benjamin.”

  “About your Lily. I’m not going to press charges.”