Women Drinking Benedictine

by Sharon Dilworth

  Randy was standing out on the sidewalk in front of the revolving doors when I pulled into the hospital’s circular drive. He was wearing blue-and-white hospital pajamas, so I figured he must have been wandering on the highway without a shirt. I stopped the car but forgot to put it in neutral, and when Randy opened the door the car rolled forward.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I set my foot on the brake and the car jerked to a full stop.

  “Give me a minute, Caroline.” Randy slammed the door. He had a large white bandage on his head and his skin smelled like hospital soap.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “How’re you doing? You feeling okay?”

  “I’m going to live. It’s just a few stitches this time,” Randy said.

  “You don’t look too bad,” I said.

  “Where’s Siobhan?” Randy bit off his blue hospital bracelet and threw it on the dashboard.

  “She’s home watching Kate.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Siobhan?” I looked at him to see if he was making some kind of a joke, but he was as serious as he always is.

  “She’s fine,” I said when he didn’t answer. “Just fine.”

  “That’s good. It’s good that she’s with the baby,” he said. “She loves that baby.”

  “She does love Kate,” I decided to go along with what he was saying. “There’s no question about that. She loves her an awful lot.”

  Randy put his head back on the seat, but I was glad to see that he kept his eyes open. He might have had a concussion, and you’re not supposed to go to sleep with one of those.

  The wind was coming off Superior with more force than on the drive in. I kept two hands on the steering wheel to stay on the right side of the yellow line. The sky, one continuous piece of gray, looked like it was moving in closer to snow.

  “She gets so upset,” Randy spoke without opening his eyes. “I feel horrible when she’s upset.”

  It was hard to imagine what Randy was talking about. It sounded like he knew about the attempts on his life. I had wondered this before. Randy’s not stupid and he’s not clumsy, though I tell people he is because of the accidents. It’s hard enough to explain how often he gets hurt.

  “It’s my fault and I don’t know what to do about it,” Randy said. “I’m absolutely helpless and that makes it worse.”

  “You’re helpless?” I didn’t believe this. Siobhan may be determined, but if Randy told her what he knew, she would quit with the accidents and maybe see about a divorce. She’d have to.

  “Completely.”

  “Why don’t you stop her?” I asked. The straightaway was turning into the bend by the lake, and at that angle my eyes got trapped in a pocket of brightness. I squinted to block out some of the light.

  “You can’t stop desire, Caroline,” Randy said.

  “Don’t let her do it,” I argued. “You can stop her.”

  “Siobhan’s wanted this forever,” Randy said.

  “So what?” I said. “She’s always getting what she wants. Who says she has to get her way this time? A lot of us don’t get our way. Why should Siobhan be any different?”

  “I guess I want one, too,” Randy said. “I know I don’t deserve one. It’s my lot in life, but I want a baby, too.”

  The brightness was getting worse. There wasn’t a drop of sun, but the reflection off the snow and the lake made looking at the road impossible. I cupped both hands around my eyes and kept the car steady with my knee. There weren’t any cars on the road. Randy leaned over and put his hand on the steering wheel. He kept the car straight until we moved into the shadow of the pine trees near Au Train. And just the way he was acting, so calm, so understanding, I knew we weren’t talking about the same thing. We weren’t talking about the same thing at all.

  “You want a baby?” I said. My eyes were tearing from the light.

  “More than anything,” he said.

  “And that’s what Siobhan wants?”

  “I know that’s what she wants. I knew Siobhan wanted babies when I married her,” Randy said. “I just loved her too much to tell her that I didn’t have the stuff.”

  “What stuff?” I asked.

  “Besides,” Randy kept going. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure. But I am now.”

  “Really?” I said. “How can you be so sure?” Randy was breathing heavily, and for a minute I thought he was going to have an attack.

  “Do you think these accidents are just a coincidence?” Randy asked.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think they’re a coincidence at all. Not at all.”

  “Christ, all we do is try to have babies,” Randy said. “I can’t help being clumsy and forgetful. I’m worn out. I’m tired all the time now.”

  “You’ve been trying to have a baby?” The car swerved off the blacktop and I could hear the tires running on the gravel. I pumped the brakes for about a mile and then slowed to a full stop. Randy didn’t panic. I guess he had had plenty of practice with near accidents.

  “That’s all we’ve done this year,” Randy said. “I mean all we’ve done. We don’t even play cards anymore.”

  “Siobhan wants a baby, too?”

  “More than anything,” Randy said. I was starting to feel funny. Those were the exact words Siobhan used when she talked about wanting Randy dead. She told me she wanted him out of her life more than anything. That’s how she’d said it.

  “We have sex so much that it’s starting to make me sick. One night we tried fifteen times. I was so sore, I wanted to pull it off.”

  The traffic light in the middle of Munising was green our way, but the cars in front of us were backed up almost to the end of town. I slowed down, thinking the cars would start moving through the intersection, but they just sat there and I had to slam on the brakes. The inside of the car was hot, and Randy’s hospital smell was making me breathe through my mouth.

  “It’s the snowmobile people,” he said. “They’re going out across the lake that way.” He pointed over the dashboard toward Superior.

  I didn’t need Randy to make any reports. I could see the line of snowmobiles crossing the street as clearly as he could. Their engines roared together and the noise shook the street.

  “I thought Siobhan had talked to you about this,” Randy said. “You’re sisters. I thought she told you everything.”

  “Well, there are some things you don’t know.” He sounded like he was sorry for me and I didn’t like that. It was one of the reasons I had agreed to help Siobhan in the first place. I liked being included in her plan. At that point, I thought about telling Randy a thing or two. I felt like telling him that I had saved his life a few times, but when the last snowmobile crossed the street and the cars started up, I kept quiet until we pulled into their driveway. Randy said he wanted to check on some things in the garage. I didn’t even bother getting nervous about the snow shovel and the rake. I figured if Siobhan hadn’t put them away by this time, there was no use trying to help either of them.

  Siobhan and Kate were sitting under the kitchen table eating peanut butter on saltine crackers when I walked in.

  “Siobhan,” I said. “Get up from under there.”

  “Why?” Siobhan asked. “What’s wrong with you?” It was perfectly bright outside, but Siobhan had on every light in the house. She says it keeps away the winter gloom, but I tell her that much light isn’t good for anybody. I turned off the overhead in the kitchen.

  “How come you never told me you and Randy were trying to have a baby?”

  Siobhan bent sideways and peered at me through the wood slats of the chair. “He told?” When she tried to stand up she hit her head on the edge of the table.

  “You’ve been wanting a baby for a year?” I was furious that Siobhan had tricked me into believing her.

  “I told him not to tell you,” Siobhan said. “I knew you’d be furious.”

  I reached under the sink and got out her bottle of whiskey. It was brand-new, and the cap was still sealed shut. I br
oke it with my teeth and poured out a glass. The sharp taste made me think of Denny’s Benedictine and I drank the full shot, trying not to cringe.

  “You lied to me, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Siobhan said. “You never asked me about a baby.”

  “But you weren’t killing him.”

  I reached for Kate, but Siobhan had her wrapped in her arms.

  “Were you?” I asked. “Were you trying to kill Randy?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  “Never?” I asked. “Did you make up everything?”

  “You don’t kill your husband,” Siobhan said. “They’re hard enough to find as it is.”

  “What about all the accidents?” I poured another glass of whiskey, but when I brought it up to my lips, my stomach wasn’t ready for it, so I dumped it down the sink.

  “I was mad at him,” she said. “I wanted a baby. I still want a baby.”

  “But I saw Randy get hurt. Those accidents were real,” I told her.

  “He can’t have a baby,” Siobhan said. “Randy doesn’t have the stuff it takes to make a baby.” She held Kate up as if she was demonstrating a science project.

  “But you weren’t killing him?” I didn’t want to drink anymore, but it gave me something to do while I was trying to figure things out, so I drank more.

  “No. I told you no.” Siobhan tucked Kate’s legs into her arm and with her free hand reached for the bottle. “I was just angry with him. He knew what was going on.”

  “Why’d you lie to me?” I held the bottle away from her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell me the truth?”

  Siobhan turned away and started picking up Kate’s train set. The engine was stuck on something under the table. The material stretched, and she kept pulling on it until it gave way. “Because you got so excited about it,” she said. “You just seemed to get a kick out of it.”

  Randy came walking in the side door and startled me. I had forgotten all about him. Siobhan leaned up and kissed him right below his bandage.

  “Did you ask her?” Randy asked.

  “Why’d you tell her about not being able to have a baby?” Siobhan asked.

  “I thought she knew,” Randy said.

  “Ask me about what?” I stopped pouring out the whiskey and looked over at Siobhan. “What were you going to ask me?”

  “Nothing.” Siobhan took the stuffed train and walked out of the kitchen. Randy called her back.

  “Not today,” she yelled from the living room. “Don’t say anything, Randy. It’s not a good time.”

  “Tell me,” I said. “You’ve got to tell me now.”

  Siobhan came storming back into the kitchen and started fuming about the wasted liquor. “What are you doing with my whiskey? You’re not even drinking it.”

  “So what?” I said. “I want to know what’s going on.” I held the whiskey bottle over my head and started pouring it down the sink.

  “All right, all right.” Siobhan grabbed the bottle, but I hadn’t let go, and she spilled more pulling it away from me.

  “The thing is,” Randy said. “We’d like to have Kate.”

  “What do you mean?” I could see a line of blood running down Randy’s nose. I pulled off a section of paper toweling and handed it to him. He wiped the peanut butter off Kate’s face and then tossed it in the trash bin.

  “We want to adopt Kate,” Siobhan said.

  “Kate’s mine,” I said. “She’s my baby.”

  “We know that.”

  “Well, you can’t just adopt her.” I was angry that Siobhan had used me. All these months and she had never really needed me. She had been lying to me all along.

  “But we’d like to,” Siobhan said. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you. We want to make her part of our family.”

  “I’m her mother.”

  “Right. But she needs a father.” The three of them stood there looking at me as if everything had been decided without me.

  “Her father’s on base. It’s only forty minutes down the road,” I said. “That’s a lot closer than some fathers I know.”

  “But Randy could be her father right here. Right now.”

  “She’s too young to want a father now,” I said.

  “Babies need fathers,” Randy said. “They need them even when they’re as young as Kate.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “We’ve asked people,” Randy said. “I’ve been talking to a lot of doctors, and they say a baby knows when she’s not in a family situation.”

  “That’s not true,” I yelled. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about babies. You can’t even have one.”

  Siobhan was into her smug routine and didn’t even react to my comment. She was pretty sure of herself, just like she always is, like she’d never get punished for lying to me.

  I couldn’t take looking at the three of them. I tore out of the house and drove down the driveway at forty miles an hour. It was a stupid thing to do, because they had Kate. I got to the end of the driveway and put the car into first gear, but I just didn’t have the energy to start fighting with them again. I turned around and headed into Munising, figuring that they could worry for a change. I’d let them worry about when I’d be back for Kate.

  The hills were casting just enough of a late afternoon shadow that I didn’t see Denny right away. I caught a glimpse of something moving on my side of the road, so I slowed down and then kept staring into my rearview mirror until I recognized his silver jacket. It was Denny all right. I could see his uneven boots from that far away. I pulled off and walked back to where he was standing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I know where my women are.” Denny seemed happy to see me. He was holding a bicycle—an old two-wheeler with no gears. “I’ve discovered who my beautiful, beautiful women are.”

  “Who?” I was still crying, but Denny didn’t notice.

  “Think about it,” Denny said. “It all makes sense.”

  “I don’t get it.” I was fed up guessing what people were talking about, but Denny didn’t play the game for long.

  “They’re models with Kawasaki,” he said. “They’re up helping film the commercial.”

  “So what’s with the bike?”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner,” Denny said. “You should have thought of it too. You’re a smart one. You could have put two and two together.”

  “It’s only March,” I said. “What the hell are you doing with a bicycle in all this snow?”

  “They’re shooting the commercial on Grand Isle,” Denny said.

  “So what?” I asked. “They’ve been shooting that commercial for the last two weeks.”

  “I can’t take a car there. It’ll go through the ice.” “You’re going to ride a bike there?”

  “I have to find them,” Denny said. “I just have to see them again.”

  “You’ll never make it.” The sky was dusky, and the clouds were getting lower and lower as if sometime during the night they would simply touch the snow to the ground.

  “I’ve got to make it.” Denny stepped over the bar and got on the seat. He tried to move the pedal forward, but his bum foot was too weak to pull it around.

  “You’ll get caught in the dark soon.” I grabbed hold of the handlebars to help support the bike.

  Denny kept kicking at the pedal, but he wasn’t getting it, so I bent down and moved it into place. He tried pedaling forward a few inches and stopped in front of the snowbank.

  He seemed satisfied with his short ride. He put the bike over his shoulder and carried it to the edge of Lake Superior. It was all ice, impossible to tell where the beach ended and where the water started. Denny was panting, but as soon as we got to the lake he got back on the bike. He tried pedaling again, but he was having a hard time because his boot was too big for the pedal. He rode for a second before he had to jump off. T
he bicycle slid on the ice and spun away from him.

  “For God’s sake, Denny.” I went over and grabbed the bike. “Be careful.” I dragged it back and held it out to him.

  “I need your help.” Denny sat on the ice, not making a move to get up.

  “No way,” I said. “It’s too cold to be out here.”

  “Please, Caroline,” Denny said. “Pedal the bike for me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “What good is it going to do if I take the bike to Grand Isle? Where are you going to be?”

  “You can ride me,” Denny said. “I’ll go here.” Denny stood up quickly and moved to the front of the bike. He stretched his arms out behind him and threw his leg over the front tire. He boosted himself up and sat on the handlebars. The bike shifted, and I had to lean forward to hold him up.

  “Do it, Caroline. Please. I can’t do it by myself.”

  “You don’t need me,” I said.

  “I do,” Denny said. “I really need your help.”

  “Do you mean it?” I put one foot on the other side of the bike. My feet could easily reach the pedals.

  “Of course I do,” Denny said. “Remember this morning in the bar when I told you I was going to find those women? Well, that’s what I’m trying to do now. That’s all I want to do now. I just want to find my women.”

  The wind picked up and started moving across the open bay, making it hard to hear what Denny was saying. He had worked up a sweat carrying the bike to the lake, and his hair was wet. He licked the sweat off his upper lip and stood there, just looking at me and waiting to see what I would say, and I decided I might as well help him.

  “This is crazy,” I said.

  Denny let out a yell and we started up slowly. He wasn’t very heavy, but the ice underneath the thin layer of snow was slippery and it was hard to keep both of us steady. I couldn’t keep the bike balanced when I was sitting, so I stood, keeping the dark line of pine trees and the red blur of the lighthouse in clear sight, and I pedaled Denny all the way to Grand Isle to find his women.

  Awaken with My Mother’s Dreams