Abby
THE SIDE DOOR OF Pine Haven is still open and so Abby is able to slip inside without setting off an alarm or having to ring a doorbell. Usually things are all locked up by now so she is relieved. They feed people at five thirty or six and then a lot of them go on to bed or to their own rooms to watch television. Rachel Silverman says she does not like that made-for-preschool children schedule one damn bit, but Sadie says she doesn’t mind because she likes to watch Jeopardy in her pajamas. She sees C.J. all dressed up in front of the big mirror in the beauty parlor. Normally she would love nothing better than to find C.J. there alone; she would ask her to read her palm or do those fortune cards, but Abby is not up for anything tonight. Nothing sounds good. There is not a person at the desk so Abby runs past without having to check in. She knocks lightly and then opens Sadie’s door and moves into the room. It’s almost completely dark, just the faint light from her bathroom window and the nightlights by her bed that come on when it gets dark. Harley jumps when she comes in but then comes when she calls him. Sadie is still sleeping, the piece of paper Abby had forgotten earlier in the day in her hand.
Sadie, Sadie? She shakes but Sadie doesn’t stir so she decides she’ll just curl up and wait. She turns the television on and the volume way down. Sadie has slept right through Jeopardy because the television is on the Weather Channel where she keeps it the rest of the day, so Abby leaves it there and closes her eyes. The thought of Dollbaby getting hit and then left in the middle of the road makes her cry all over again. She hates whoever hit her and the farmer who buried her. She hates her dad because he built a shitty fence and her mom for never being nice to Dollbaby in the first place. She’s sick of them, sick of everybody. I’m so sick of it I could die. That’s what her dad said that time about her mom. I’m so goddamned sick of it I could die.
“Sadie?” she whispers. “Sadie?” She will let her sleep a while longer and then she’ll wake her and tell her the bad news about Dollbaby and about how her parents didn’t even try to do anything about it. You might have to teach your mother some things, Sadie had said, but what did that mean? She wishes it were last night when she was still hoping Dollbaby was okay, when her dad pulled a big ostrich feather from his sleeve and gave it to her, promising more where that came from at her party, and when she asked him if he thought there was a chance Dollbaby was still alive he said, of course he did. “There’s always a chance,” he said even though most of his stories were about no chances at all, like the one the other night—a train wreck in this very county in 1943 where over seventy people died, most of them soldiers trying to get home for Christmas. Sadie said she remembered it well; she was Abby’s age when it happened and the whole county was devastated by the disaster. She said she has never seen a train since that she didn’t think of it. “Some mistakes were made,” her dad said like he always did. “They should have seen it coming.”
“Why do you fill her head up with all that awful stuff?” her mother said, one of those times she didn’t know Abby was listening. “You’re going to make her so weird.”
But now she’s glad it’s all in her head—the brakes and screams and all those loud sounds that can keep her from thinking. Why do you fill her head up with all that awful stuff? You’re making her weird. Mistakes were made. They should have seen it coming.
“Sadie?” she whispers. “Sadie? Are you awake? Please wake up.”
Kendra
THE HOUSE IS QUIET and now, finally, she can call Andy. No answer. No answer. No goddamned answer. It’s been like this all day long. She kicks at a loose bolt Ben has dropped there in the front hall—bolts and screws everywhere and for what? A stupid disappearing chamber when he is who she wishes would disappear. Let him disappear and all this shit he leaves around for that stupid theater like anybody in town even gives a shit. Who would notice if he stopped it all other than a handful of ancients from next door and whatever kids he can coax in to watch things like Jerry Lewis movies and stupid westerns. She will go take a nice long hot shower, relieved that Ben left and went wherever it is he goes with his loser self. She has just turned the water on when her cell phone starts ringing and she races to pick it up. It was him so she hits dial back. It’s his house phone, but she is feeling brave; if something screws up and Liz answers, she will act like she was calling her.
Liz’s voice is cool, suspicious. She knows something. Then without any waiting or beating around the bush she says it: she knows he’s been having an affair.
Is it a trick? Kendra doesn’t know what to say so she opts for nothing. She says, Oh, and then nothing, but Liz keeps talking. She says it’s all over and they are going away to figure it all out. Going away. A day, a week, forever?
“Do you hear me?” Liz asks.
“Yes.” Kendra stands there in a towel, aware of the water running in the shower and of how dark it is outside the window, no moon and the streetlight on their corner burned out.
“And?” Liz asks.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I.” Liz hangs up and Kendra is left in silence with no idea what to do. She almost dials his cell phone but then stops. It is so rare for her not to know what to do, but she has no idea and something in the stillness of the house completely unnerves her. The little white sticker she had put under the table on Ben’s side of the bed is visible and she rushes over to remove it. She’s not used to the silence. She’s not used to being alone. It’s not supposed to happen this way. She’s not supposed to be alone. She’s afraid to be alone.
Joanna
AT FIRST IT SOUNDS like a shutter has blown loose again and is whining against the wind, a creaking strain, open and closed, but then it is too rhythmic for the wind, too measured. It’s the hammock. Someone is on her porch. She looks out the kitchen window to see Ben’s car parked in her driveway. It has been his car these recent nights, circling, stopping. She goes and cracks open the front door.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Who’s there?”
“Guess.”
“What are you doing here?” She still stands behind the screen door, latch in place.
“I come here a lot. Sometimes I fish, sometimes I sit.” He tilts a bottle up to his mouth, then offers it out. “C’mon, join me.” He sits, legs hanging off the side and pushing against the floorboards. “It’s like old times.”
“You come here? To my house?”
“Yeah, amazed you haven’t noticed before. Come on.” She goes and brings Kurt’s carrier closer. He’ll be waking soon and she likes to reach him as close to that first cry as she can make it. “Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here.” She shushes him, tells him she’s babysitting and to keep his voice down, and then he immediately starts talking about his kid. “You’ve met her,” he says, and Joanna nods yes, says she sees her often over at Pine Haven. “Well, it would suck to be her right about now,” he says. He reaches for Joanna’s arm and pulls her there beside him then drops his arm around her shoulders and squeezes. “Been a long time since we sat this close, hasn’t it?” he asks, and she nods, aware of his thumb circling her bare arm, the smell of him exactly the same though she never could have described it in a million years except it was his smell; it was his childhood home, any jacket or shirt or magic show prop he had ever tossed her way.
“I know Abby’s dog is missing,” she says, and takes a deep breath, uncertain of where any of this might go and afraid to even wonder.
“Not just missing. Dead.” He says the word in a low whisper, dragging out its hard ugly sound. “And a dead dog is just the beginning.”
She turns, waiting for him to continue and there in the dark of the porch, he looks very much the way he always did, the night erasing just enough years that he could be that boy; it could be that time.
“I mean it all sucks. Marriage is like a job and some people love what they do and some people hate it. Some stay because they feel like they have to and some just say fuck it. I mean
we all have people in our lives we have to tolerate, right? They’re selfish or hateful or narcissistic, but goddamn, it really sucks to marry one of those.” He laughs and hugs her close again. “Now you never lingered, did you? You’re the one who can just say fuck it and walk right off.”
“No, that’s not true,” she says. She takes the bottle from him and drinks, some kind of whiskey that nearly turns her inside out, and then she quizzes him, what had made him want such a girl in the first place—was it all about appearances? Did he need drama? Want drama? What would possess someone to go there unless he thought he was rescuing her—poor little thing, but was he so blind? Was he so stupid? “Once upon a time you had a pretty good brain,” she says, and twists out from under his arm. “In fact, there was a time when I thought you were really smart.” She pauses. “And nice. I used to think you were nice.”
“You’re one to talk. You’re the charity bride, right?” He drains the bottle and throws it off the porch into the shrubs. “Married a million times. Married a gay dude. That’s pretty desperate, isn’t it? Bet that was a fun honeymoon.”
“Actually, it was.”
“And then the widower. Talk about a pity party.”
“Must be it. So glad you cared enough to keep up with me.”
“Well, I felt responsible. You see.” He grips her shoulders and forces his forehead against her own. “I made you disappear.”
“You don’t have that power,” she says, voice shaking but determined not to let him get the best of her. “I’m more like Mary Poppins. I go where I’m needed and then the wind shifts and I’m needed elsewhere.”
“Oh yeah. So what brought you back?”
“My dad.”
“I thought maybe it was me. I thought maybe you were once again seeking true love.”
“I gave up on that a long time ago.”
“Ouch. Because of me?”
“You give yourself an awful lot of credit, don’t you?” she says, and he sighs and leans back, one arm hiding his face. “You can come and go like the wind until you have kids and even though they weren’t my blood, they felt like mine. I was helping to raise them. But it didn’t work.”
“Yeah? So where does that leave you other than alone?”
“I don’t know.” She reaches and pulls his arm from his eyes, waits until he is looking at her. “Being with someone isn’t as important as it once was. I’m alone, but I’m never lonely. How’s that? I’ve got a life, people I care about, work I find very satisfying.”
“So, is it too late for us? Are we too old?”
“No, but you are married.”
“Oh yeah.” He laughs, leans back and pulls another bottle he’d obviously stashed in the dark corner, takes a drink and passes it to her. She just sits holding it for a long while, their feet pushing off the floor, the sound of the ocean in the distance. He talks about his marriage and how he really wants to leave. He talks about the disappearing chamber he has spent many weeks building and painting. “The job’s still yours if you want it,” he says. “My loyal assistant and disappearing girl.”
“I was the disappearing girl for way too long,” she says, and against her better judgment, hands the bottle back to him when he reaches for it. “And I did disappear, remember? I disappeared for a very long time.”
“Glad you reappeared.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry I haven’t been much of a friend.”
“Understandable.”
“She hates you.”
“I gathered.”
“But she hates everyone.” He pauses. “Unless of course they have something she needs.” He laughs and rubs his hand on Joanna’s head the way you might a child or a dog. “People really do say you’ve been married too many times to count.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the real story?”
“Does it matter?” She turns to look at him and he leans in to kiss her but she pushes him back.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Really. I’m just trying to figure out how I got where I am. How did I get here?”
“You’re asking me?” she asks, and moves away. “The physical here in the hammock on my front porch or the abstract here?”
“Yes, I’m asking you and the latter.”
“Oh, I see. Now I get it. Because I’ve been there so many times before. Thanks so much, speaking of people who only show up when they need something from you.” She goes inside and lifts Kurt from his carrier and then brings him back out with her. He wakes and stirs as she lifts him but then settles right back in against her chest as soon as she sits in one of the rockers.
“So, then, why don’t you tell me how you got here.” He stretches full length in the hammock and closes his eyes. “Tell me about the life that didn’t work. The one with the kids you left behind. Tell me why you didn’t live happily ever after.”
“He was grieving when we met and for a while I filled up the empty space and then he fell in love with someone else.”
“Ouch.”
“He couldn’t help that. It was just what happened.”
“And the gay husband?”
“He taught me how to love. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“Ouch again.”
“Grown-up friend. You’re someone from childhood.”
“You make it sound like another planet,” he says. “I’m still your friend. I’ve always been your friend.” He opens his eyes, but she doesn’t say anything, just breathes in the smell of Kurt’s damp sticky neck. “I am your friend. Why are you being this way?”
“We haven’t seen each other in years, Ben. I don’t know anything about your life. I know a boy who wanted to be the next Houdini—David Copperfield his distant second choice. We were friends—the best of friends. We even had sex once, remember that?”
Ben’s cell phone rings and he can’t find it to turn it off. She stands when Kurt starts to cry and jiggles him on her hip. Seconds pass and it starts ringing again, the shrill sound like an alarm sounding, breaking the strange dark silence.
“Of course I remember that,” he says, and stares into the lit face of his phone. “How could I forget that? And you may not be lonely, but I am.” He slams the phone shut and stuffs it in his pocket. “I’ve got to go. Looks like Abby has run away and Kendra is hysterical. I’m sure she’s next door with Sadie Randolph like she always is, but I have to go before every cop in town is called.”
“I’m sorry, Ben,” she says. “I really am. I hope everything’s okay.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” He hands her the bottle and she puts it down on the table by the hammock. “Can we try this again some time?”
“Okay,” she says, and shifts Kurt up a little higher, presses his sleep dampened cheek against her own. “We can try it again.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he says. “Don’t leave.”
She watches until his taillights disappear down the road and then takes Kurt inside to change his diaper and give him a bottle and get him all settled in for the night. The longest and most expensive journey you will ever take is the one to yourself. She imagines Luke there in his black satin nightshirt, flipping through old albums and his stack of 45s, Tammy on the floor beside him, and she tells him he’s right and that thanks to him, she is now miles and miles from where she began. Gregory Luke Wishart and Willis Hall—keep us close, keep us alive—Mary Grace Robertson and Suzanne Sullivan. The pull, the pull. I am their mirror. You are my little girl.
C.J.
SHE WALKS OUT INTO the cemetery, a small flashlight illuminating the ground around her feet, but Andy isn’t there. She shines the light all around to make sure he isn’t hiding and about to jump out at her. He has done that before and she cried for over an hour, ashamed of her fear but still not able to stop. Esther Cohen devoted wife and mother. She steps closer and there’s a note tucked into Esther’s urn. Go home. Dinner is waiting. She turns and looks all around once more and then starts making her way back to her car, walking quickly
now, feeling relieved by the note she clutches, careful not to smudge her white silk blouse. This is the kind of note he always left in the beginning. This is the promise of some kind of good take-out food and maybe like the time he had a hot bubble bath waiting for her and all kinds of candles and lotions. She gets in the car and drives through town as quickly as she can. She could get mad at him for making her drive all the way in and then all the way back out, but right now she is too relieved to even care. She sees Abby’s old magician dad, there at the stoplight, but he doesn’t see her, and if she weren’t afraid of waking Kurt, she would call Joanna to tell her that she passed him on the road from the beach, and that he probably is riding by her house all the time. But she’s almost home. There’s a light up in her window and Andy’s car is parked where he always parks, across the street at the far back corner of the Texaco station.
She can’t get there fast enough, running up the rickety steps and into the room where he is sitting and drinking a glass of champagne, one already poured and waiting for her. She puts Kurt’s stuffed dog in the playpen and then throws her arms around him and breathes in, trying to smell what’s for dinner, but all she smells is Andy, and for some reason, for just a second, she is reminded of the smell of Sam Lowe’s shirt—nothing more than detergent and sweat—when he hugged her hello the last time she saw him.
Life After Life Page 28