by John Vercher
She hadn’t waited for his response. There it was, signed on every page next to the multicolored plastic arrow labels, directing his pen to the empty space where his name should go. Tamara Winston.
The day the papers arrived, he’d almost called her, but the last time he’d done that had been a mistake. Things were said, things worse than the time before, the time she decided more time apart was what they needed. She just had to go to her sister’s, her Goddamned sister, who never liked Robert to begin with, who he knew, just knew relished the chance to drive home the wedge that threatened to cleave them completely in two. Disgusted at the notion of her whispering in Tamara’s ear as though delivering an incantation, he stubbed the cigarette out into the tread of his sneakers and went back inside. He walked up to Lorraine seated at her desk.
“Any place close by to get a drink?” Robert asked her.
“You don’t listen to the weather, huh?”
“It’s not that bad out yet,” Robert said. “Just one for the road.”
“I’d head home if I were you. Those roads are going to get bad fast.”
“Driving in the snow is in my blood,” he said. “You want to join me?”
Lorraine raised her left hand, palm facing her and wiggled her fingers. A diamond caught the overhead lights and glinted.
Robert brought his hands to his chest in a mea culpa. “No disrespect.”
“None taken,” she said, smiling. “Lou’s is a couple of blocks that way,” she pointed west. “It’s the closest if you want a quick drink. Not sure if it’s the most hospitable, but you can take your chances.” Robert tilted his head, not understanding her meaning. Lorraine scrunched her mouth and looked up at him from under her brow and Robert understood. Wrong bar for his complexion.
“Good looking out,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
Outside, the flakes fell heavier. Cars rolled by, their tires muffled by the snow-quilted street. Robert popped the collar of his coat and pulled a knit cap from the pocket. He walked in the direction of Lou’s. A salt truck rumbled past and peppered the windshields and doors with crystallized chunks that left pockmarks in the pristine white.
ROBERT AND TAMARA had said things they didn’t mean, or at least said things they meant, but that should have been kept to themselves. In the weeks following the miscarriage, Tamara systematically withdrew from Robert. She had this infectious wide-mouthed laugh, complete with head toss, but devoid of pretension, punctuated by snorts if she really found something funny. She’d laughed like that on the exam table when they’d had their first ultrasound. The sanitary paper underneath her sounded like applause as she wriggled with excitement when they heard the rapid-fire heartbeat.
But there were no laughs at the final ultrasound. Just the sound of their own breath, held first in anticipation, then in fear, finally let out in a simultaneous slow sigh. A physician’s assistant delivered the news. Robert guessed the doctor could only be bothered with the happy occasions, and in a way, he understood why. As a medical student, he’d been forced by his instructors to deliver bad news to terminal patients, or to family members when they’d lost someone dear. He’d felt a sense of physical pain when he had done it, as he imagined his teachers and professors had before him. It seemed less a hazing and more a rite of passage. Strange how clear it had seemed at that moment, as the assistant wiped the gel from Tamara’s belly and replaced the ultrasound wand—the sound like a weapon being holstered.
“Your body has completed the miscarriage,” she’d said.
“Take as long as you need,” she’d said.
After they’d been left alone, Tamara and Robert had heard muffled sounds of excitement through the wall. Tamara took Robert’s hand as he helped her from the table and dressed in a quiet daze. No tears. No words. Robert had guided her through the filled waiting room, his hands on her shoulders as if to protect her from paparazzi. The way they all looked at her, trying to look like they weren’t looking at her, glancing up from their pregnancy magazines, bridal magazines, and gossip rags, he knew they knew what had happened and she didn’t deserve their eyes on her. Down the hall to the elevator she looked up at Robert, her eyes brimming.
“I’m hungry,” she said. She scrunched up her mouth in a half smile. He smiled back.
“I could eat,” he said.
They ate a late breakfast at a restaurant near the OB’s office. They hadn’t yet warmed from the winter chill and Tamara swam in Robert’s oversized hooded sweatshirt. She stirred at her dippy eggs with her fork, mixing the yolks with the mountain of ketchup she piled on top of them.
“Are you trying to find them?” Robert asked.
“What?”
“The eggs that came with your ketchup. Because I don’t see them.” She tried to hold back a smile. “Don’t smile,” he said. “It’s not funny. I’m not kidding, I think we got ripped off.” Her lips got tighter as she fought harder. Their waitress refilled their coffees and Tamara sipped. Robert leaned on the table. “You see? See how she looked at us?” he asked. “I bet you the white folks in here get eggs with their ketchup.” Tamara spit back into her cup and wiped her mouth. She gave a slight snort. Robert smiled.
“You’re so crazy,” she said.
Robert had shrugged and grinned. They’d get through this. They were tough. They knew how to laugh. He reached for Tamara’s hand and she reached back, but then her brow knit and her eyes narrowed. She clutched at her stomach. Her smile disappeared. She shifted in her seat and her eyes went wet in an instant.
“Robert,” she whispered.
She looked down and shook her head. When she looked up, tears spilled down her cheeks. Robert slid into her side of the booth. Red stained the crotch of her gray sweatpants like a broken ink pen. Robert took off his sweater and wrapped it around her waist, dropped money on the table and hurried her out of the restaurant. Even at fifteen weeks, she’d been told to expect cramping, spotting, perhaps even some bleeding. She hadn’t been told how to expect to feel. She curled in the fetal position in the back seat and quietly wept the whole way home.
That night and every night that followed, Tamara’d edged farther away from the center of their bed and shied from Robert’s touch when he’d reach across the gap. She went to bed fully dressed and showered with the master bathroom door closed.
Despite Robert’s protests, she’d returned to work in a week. Her meetings ran later. They ate microwave dinners or takeout in front of the television. She hardly spoke, at least not to Robert. She spent hours on the phone with her sister in San Diego while he called up medical journal articles on the web, pretended not to listen, and tried to figure out what he’d done wrong.
The fight started after his third consecutive eight-to-eight shift going into the weekend. She’d finally decided she needed more time away from work and stayed home. Robert slept at the hospital to give her the space he thought she wanted. When he returned home, the trash had three days’ worth of frozen breakfast, lunch, and dinner packaging and smelled like overripe bananas. The sink was full of stemless wine glasses with dried rings on the bottom. In the bedroom, her clothes hung from the treadmill, shirts plastered to the floor, panties draped over the edge of the wicker hamper.
The toilet flushed and she appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the overhead light behind her. She wore what had become her new uniform: a du-rag, white long-sleeved thermal, heather gray sweatpants and suede slippers. She gave a slight jump at the sight of him, then walked past and climbed under the comforter and turned her back to him. He sat on the edge of the bed.
“Have you been outside today?” he asked. “Or yesterday?”
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to smother you.”
She pulled the comforter back and slowly sat up. She spoke softly. “Can we, maybe, not make this about you? Please?”
“I’m sorry. Honestly, that’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I lost it, too,
Tam.”
“It? Do you always have to be so clinical?”
“NO.” ROBERT LOOKED at his hands. The cold weather had dried them, made them ashy. The repeated handwashing after patient care cracked his flesh, left red slivers in between the light brown skin of his knuckles. “I couldn’t think in terms of ‘him’ or ‘her’,” he said. “That was just too hard.”
“It was a girl,” Tamara said. “I…think she was a girl.”
“A girl. Did she have a name?” Tamara shook her head. “I wonder who she would have looked like.”
She managed a weak smile. “I know at our age this was a risk. That this might have been it. But we can try again.” He winked at her, hoping for a real smile. “Isn’t that the fun part anyway?” Robert reached for her but again she shied away. Robert’s hand recoiled. “What, Tam? What did I do? What am I doing wrong that you won’t even let me touch you? Tell me and I’ll stop.”
“I’m sorry that I’m not dealing with this the way you’d like me to. I can’t pretend that she was an ‘it.’ I don’t have your gift for detachment. But let’s pretend that I’m already feeling bad enough without you making me feel guilty about not wanting to fuck you.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, what? Tam, that is not what I’m trying to do.”
Tamara wiped away a tear from her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I didn’t want this baby and you made me want her and now she’s gone.”
“I made you?”
“I told you I didn’t want one, but you pushed and you pushed and you pushed. Your mama just had to have a grandbaby and you couldn’t say no, could you? You couldn’t let me say no.”
“Okay. You’re angry. We’re going to say something stupid. You need some space.”
“Stop telling me what I need, Robert. We didn’t need this baby. We were doing fine, just
you and me.”
Weary of defending himself for days, he snapped.
“Well, I guess you showed me, didn’t you?” he said.
He sighed the instant the words left his mouth, disgusted with himself, but it was too late. Tamara gave him an incredulous look and hugged herself. He knew he should have crossed to the other side and pulled her close but her accusation cut deep and scraped bone. They were both proud, sometimes to the point of absurdity, and in that moment the distance between them felt immeasurable.
Tamara wiped at her eyes and curled into herself under the comforter, her back to Robert. He kneeled on the mattress and reached for her. He was going to pull her in close, even if she fought. Let her yell at him, hit him, if that’s what it took. Let loose that pain so they could get back to where they had been. The box springs creaked under his weight and Tamara spoke, almost too quiet to hear.
“I’d like to go to sleep now,” she’d said.
The determination in her voice withered Robert’s resolve. He stepped away from the bed and gently closed the bedroom door behind him.
He paused. The wood floor squeaked as Tamara got out of bed. Then he heard the gentle whir of the oscillating fan she kept on her side of the bed. She couldn’t sleep without the white noise to lull her to sleep, the same way Robert always stuck his leg out from under the comforter. Neither of them understood the other’s quirky sleep behavior, and they had laughed about how restless they were when they tried one night to go without indulging their strange habits.
She never could sleep without the fan.
HE WONDERED IF she could sleep without him.
The next morning, neither of them had talked about the fight. They didn’t talk about anything. The fight hung in the air like radioactive fallout, made all the more potent by their refusal to acknowledge it. Before Robert had worked up the courage to offer to stay home from work, Tamara had already headed up the stairs and back to their bedroom.
When he returned home, Tamara sat at the kitchen table, her eyes red-rimmed. Her hair was done, and she’d changed out of her sweats into a blouse and jeans. Robert sat across from her. She looked into his eyes.
“I’m leaving for a while,” she said.
“No, you’re not.”
“I have to,” she said. “Just for a while.”
“Tamara, I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are,” she said. “I am, too. But the fact that we said those things, Robert, something’s wrong. With us.”
“We lost a child, Tam.”
“I think maybe we lost a little of ourselves, too, Robert, and I need some time to figure out if that’s the case. I can’t do that here.”
Robert clasped his hands and brought them to his mouth. He wanted to argue and make her stay, but he’d felt it, too, this river across which the two of them stood on opposite sides, neither of them with the means to ford it.
“What if I say no?”
“This isn’t your decision,” she said.
“Where will you go?”
“My sister’s.”
“California?” Robert said. He blew out. “Well, can I drive you to the airport?”
“The shuttle is already on its way.”
Minutes later, Robert loaded Tamara’s suitcases into the back of the idling shuttle van.
“You packed a lot,” he said.
She put her hand on his cheek and he inhaled. The cocoa butter that softened her skin made her smell like home and he swallowed hard against the knot forming in his throat. He kissed her palm and promised to call. She didn’t return the promise. The shuttle drove away, the taillights lighting the flakes that had just begun to fall.
A LITTLE MORE than a year had done nothing to dull the edges. Robert reached Lou’s. The red neon sign buzzed above the entrance to the bar. Robert stomped the snow from his shoes and went inside. Just one drink. A warm up, for perhaps the beginning of a new tradition. To remember, by forgetting.
Nico smiled at Isabel when she walked in to Lou’s. She hoped he was feeling generous.
Only hours ago, eight white drunken college kids in burlap pullovers and Birkenstocks with thick wool socks had strolled into the diner. Rich kids dressing like they were poor. Refill after refill, food added on when one friend, then another, showed up late, milkshakes all around, and western omelets sent back already half-eaten because they were too cold. But with every belligerent order, every juvenile command, she smiled, always smiled, and each time she walked away they laughed at her. At the stains on her uniform, too tight around her stomach. Her too-high hair, her too-bright lipstick. They pretended to whisper, but she could tell they wanted her to hear. She did. But halfway through the month, she and Bobby were still short on rent, and their need for shelter took priority over pride. Sometimes all too often.
She almost never added on the tip for large parties. She preferred to earn it, and she had from this bunch. An unforgiving landlord, however, dictated a little insurance. She added up the large bill, dancing from foot to foot. She had needed to pee for the last hour. She dropped the check and headed to the bathroom. Elbows on her knees, she let out a whoosh of relief. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the added gratuity and tip on top of that. The snow had started late enough not to affect her shift and it had been a good night. Thirty percent or more on that table would be a nice little takehome. Maybe even enough to take a day off, maybe convince Bobby to go catch a late-run flick at the cheap seats, like she used to do with him when he was little. She’d been cutting back on the booze for almost two weeks and as a result, they’d been talking more, in the rare moments when neither of them was working. Last week, he’d lifted his nose from his comics to ask her how her day was.
He’d even smiled.
When she returned from the bathroom, the kids were gone. The table was carnage. Full sugar packets stuffed into half-full coffee cups, soaked brown and swollen. A glass knocked over, water on the floor collecting from a thin stream above. In the puddle on the table sat the check, unpaid, the ink blurred, but just readable enough to see the words “Fuck You” scrawled across it. Isabel stared at it, then pulled it from the table, letting it drip
before she squashed it in her fist and threw it with a wet slap against the floor. Patrons at a few lingering tables cast sideways glances at her.
“Fuck you, too,” Isabel whispered to herself. She cleaned up her station and walked to the front to close out for the night.
Pockets, the manager, cashed out another waitress while Isabel waited her turn. She knew the policy on dine-and-dashers, but she hoped Pockets could see past to let her slide on this one. He had been in recovery, though for a lot longer and more consistently than she. On slower nights, he’d talked to her, swapped horror stories of ruined relationships, both familial and otherwise. He often tried to convince her to come to a meeting, even offered to be her sponsor. Isabel never saw herself sitting amongst strangers and giving confession. Still, she’d considered, but didn’t entirely trust his motivation. He was many years her senior, but kindly, more fatherly, with gin blossoms spread across his nose and the puffy cheeks that gave him his nickname. Though he never said anything inappropriate, she’d catch his stares from time to time. Watched his face bloom red when she covered her chest after seeing him look down her cleavage while counting out her tip shares at the end of a shift. With every invitation to join him at a meeting, she’d politely decline, but felt guilt for the disappointed smile he’d give her.
When it was her turn, she slid over her cash and checks, and pulled the scrunchie from her ponytail. Her straight black hair fell to the middle of her back and she swept the length over her shoulder. Pockets plunked at the adding machine keys and frowned.
“You’re short,” he said.
“And you’re chubby.” She gave him two finger pistols and winked.
“Very funny. But seriously. You’re way off.”
“That last table ditched, Pockets.”