Lying With Strangers

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Don’t worry about it. He means well. If he makes you happy, that’s what’s important.”

  “He does make me happy,” Allison said. “I’d sort of given up on love, and now, here I am, feeling like a teenager at times.”

  Diana gave her a hug. “Good for you. You deserve a man who appreciates you.”

  *****

  Digger greeted Diana and Jeremy with his usual wild enthusiasm, compounded by a long day alone. Diana turned on the back lights and sent Jeremy into the yard to toss the dog his favorite ball. While she filled his food dish and sorted through the day’s mail, she considered how to best organize her day tomorrow.

  The windshield repair people were scheduled to come at one o’clock. If she kept Jeremy out of school, they could visit Roy at the hospital in the morning and still be home in plenty of time for the window repair. That made more sense than waiting until the afternoon, when the repair might or might not be done, and then fighting commute traffic into and out of the city. With luck, she could then grab a couple of hours in the afternoon to write her column. Maybe between now and then she’d even think of something to write about.

  By the time Diana tucked Jeremy into bed that night, she was half asleep herself.

  “I’m really sorry you didn’t get to see Daddy today,” Diana told him, smoothing the cowlick at his left temple. “I know you must have been really disappointed.” She’d apologized earlier, when she first got to Allison’s, but she wanted to make sure he understood she hadn’t reneged on purpose.

  “Yeah.” Jeremy flopped back against this pillows and frowned. “I drew him a picture, and everything.”

  “We’ll go tomorrow, instead. Okay?”

  Jeremy’s face lit up. “Daddy’s going to be so surprised, isn’t he?”

  Diana felt a tightness in her throat. Was she doing the right thing taking Jeremy to the hospital? Her own father had died of a heart attack when she was eleven. He was in the hospital for three days before, but her mother hadn’t let Diana see him. Sick people, she told Diana, didn’t need little children about. Diana had been close to her father, closer than she was to her mother, and the “little children” stung. Maybe that was what her mother intended. It was one of the many ways Diana had felt marginalized and slighted by her mother over the years.

  Diana wasn’t smart enough, except when she was “too smart for your own good.” She chose the wrong friends, the wrong clothes, and ultimately, the wrong man when she married Emily’s father.

  Both her parents were gone now, but it was her father’s death that could still bring tears to her eyes. If she was making a mistake taking Jeremy to see Roy, at least it wasn’t the same mistake her mother had made.

  Diana kissed Jeremy’s forehead. “He will be very surprised,” she told him. “And very happy to see you.”

  *****

  Chloe woke up with a pounding headache from crying herself to sleep. She knew her eyes and face would be puffy, and that would elicit some further comment from Velma about no man being worth that kind of grief. The dark thoughts that had sucked her into despair last night still spiraled through her head. Weren’t people always saying things looked better in the morning? Well, they didn’t.

  Maybe things only looked better if they weren’t really so bad to begin with. If the father of your unborn child wasn’t in jail and if the police weren’t coming any minute to arrest you.

  She cradled her belly. “Don’t worry, Sophie. I’ll figure something out.” But Chloe wasn’t sure how.

  She turned onto her back. The morning air had a chill to it. Fall was coming, and then winter. The thought depressed her even further. She wondered if jail cells were heated. She pulled the covers up under her chin and started counting. On ten, she told herself, she’d get out of bed. When she reached eleven, she told herself she’d get up on twenty-five.

  And then she heard a noise coming from the kitchen—soft, like running water—and she leapt out of bed without thinking.

  Cops or one of those apes who’d burst in two night ago?

  Her heart raced. She couldn’t hide in the bathroom. That was the worst place because you’d be trapped. She looked around the tiny bedroom with its platform bed and single closet. She was trapped in any case, unless she climbed out a window. That’s what the smart, quick heroines she read about in books would do. Either that or they’d use their black-belt skills to overcome the intruder, which wasn’t so smart if the person turned out to be a cop.

  But Chloe didn’t know karate, and she wasn’t about to drop three stories in the hopes of landing on a soft awning, especially since there were no awnings anywhere near the apartment.

  She shivered, whether from fear or the cold she couldn’t tell. All she could do was hope whoever it was found what he wanted and went away.

  And then the familiar aroma of coffee wafted into the bedroom. Fresh-brewed coffee. Like Trace made each morning.

  She tiptoed toward the kitchen, and when she saw Trace sitting there at the yellow Formica table with a mug of fresh coffee in front of him, she burst into tears.

  “You’re home,” she managed. “Are you okay? I’ve been so worried.”

  “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.” Still seated, he wrapped an arm around Chloe’s waist and nuzzled his head against her.

  Trace didn’t look so fine. He had dark circles under his eyes and a gash on his forehead she didn’t think had been there yesterday. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, and his shirt had a rip in the sleeve.

  “Didn’t mean to worry me?” she asked in disbelief. “How could you think I wouldn’t be worried? You didn’t leave a note, or call, or”—her voice broke as she fought a second round of tears—“or anything.”

  “My phone died, okay? I’m sorry.” He unwrapped his arm from her waist and put both elbows on the table. “Look, I’ve had a hard night. I’d like a little peace and quiet, if that’s okay.”

  She sat at the table. Her relief at seeing Trace was giving way to anger.

  “I had a hard night, too.” She leaned forward to look him in the eye. “Where were you?”

  “What? You my mama now? I don’t have to answer to you, Chloe.”

  The words stung as much as if he’d slapped her again. She sat up straight. “No, Trace. I’m not your mama. I’m the woman you say you’re going to marry. The mother of your child. Someone who cares about you. You can’t stay out all night, worry me half to death, and then come waltzing in here like it’s none of my business. You’ve dragged me into some god-awful mess, and I deserve to know what’s going on.”

  Trace said nothing. Wouldn’t even look at her. Had she gone too far? Would he hit her again or just walk out the door for good?

  “I was so scared,” she said, trembling at the memory of the dark places her mind had taken her. “I thought you’d been hurt. Or arrested. I was afraid you might need help and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. Really, I am. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He reached a hand across the table and linked his fingers with hers. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “How could I not be upset?”

  “I said I was sorry, Chloe. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “So where did you go?”

  “I had a few things to take care of.”

  “Like what?”

  He slid his hand free of Chloe’s and reached for his mug. “You need to get going or you’ll be late for work. I’ve got a plan. We’ll talk about it tonight, okay?”

  “You’ll tell me what’s going on?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m going to go to bed now, I’m exhausted. You have a good day.”

  Trace was home. Alive and safe. Chloe didn’t care what the rest of the day was like. It was already a good day.

  Chapter 16

  Even with the heavy morning commute–traffic into the city, Diana and Jeremy arrived at the hospital a little after ten. Over the course of the morning, Jeremy had gone from jubilant to subdued to, no
w that they were in the hospital elevator, reluctant.

  “What if he doesn’t want to see me?” Jeremy asked.

  “Oh, honey, of course he wants to see you. Just remember, he’s in a special kind of sleep called a coma. That happens sometimes when people have been hurt really badly. He’ll know we’re there but he won’t see us and he won’t be able to talk to us.”

  Jeremy’s brow furrowed, and his eyes grew somber. At times he looked so much like Roy it took Diana’s breath way. “Is it like being blind or something?” Jeremy asked.

  “No, more like . . .” She struggled to find a way to explain to a seven-year-old what she didn’t really understand herself. “You know how it is when you’re asleep and we carry you in from the car at night? You’re sort of aware of what’s going on but you don’t really wake up? It’s more like that.”

  “Oh.” The answer seemed to mollify Jeremy some. But he reached for her hand and gripped it tightly as they walked down the long corridor toward Roy’s room.

  Roy had been moved from ICU and was now in what was referred to as “constant care,” which meant that he was in a room with only one other bed (occupied at her last visit by a very elderly man who snored loudly), and that the nursing staff was spread more thinly than in ICU. Diana had the horrible feeling that constant care was where they moved the patients who were beyond help.

  As she and Jeremy entered the room, she tried hard to hide her own distress at seeing Roy. With each visit he looked less and less like himself and more like a wax likeness of a gaunt old man. Shifting her gaze, she noted that the second bed in the room was now empty. She wondered if the former occupant had died.

  Still holding Jeremy’s hand, she strode with purpose to the side of Roy’s bed that was free of monitors and drips. Jeremy pulled back.

  “It looks scary,” she whispered, urging him forward, “but the tubes are helping Daddy. They’re giving him food and medicine.”

  Jeremy shuffled a few steps closer to the bed, but his eyes were still on the machinery.

  “Hello Roy,” Diana said softly. “I brought someone very special to see you. Jeremy’s here.”

  “Hi, Daddy.” Jeremy’s words were tentative, as though he were speaking into a microphone and didn’t know quite what to say or how loudly to speak.

  “How are you doing, honey?” Diana brushed Roy’s forehead with a kiss. “They’ve moved you out of intensive care. You’re getting better.” Diana wasn’t sure that was true, but her mind was scrambling for something to say.

  Jeremy looked at her and whispered, “What do I do now?”

  “Just talk to him. Tell him about what you’ve been doing.” Diana pulled two chairs closer to the bed and they sat.

  “I got a hundred percent on my spelling test,” Jeremy said. “And we’re going to start learning cursive in a couple of weeks.”

  The steady ping, ping of the IV drip and the low hum from the chest monitor filled the empty silences. The scene before her was so wrong. In normal times, Roy would have given a whoop of pleasure and high-fived Jeremy in celebration. And he would have made some remark about his own terrible cursive and how Jeremy should pay attention to his teacher. Roy was fond of giving lessons based on his own perceived failings.

  “And Billy Lawton shared his M&Ms with me at lunch the other day,” Jeremy continued after a bit.

  Diana desperately wanted to see some reaction in Roy. She’d been sure that Jeremy’s presence would compel a response. Even a quickened breath or the slightest flutter of his eyelids. But nothing. They might as well be talking to a stone. Maybe her mother had been right in thinking children didn’t belong at the hospital.

  “Oh, and I drew a picture for you,” Jeremy added. He pulled a drawing of the four of them from his backpack and held it out to Roy before hastily dropping his hand and looking to Diana for direction. She took the drawing and held it open for Roy, although she knew he couldn’t see it.

  “Isn’t this beautiful, Roy?”

  “It’s our family,” Jeremy explained. “So you won’t forget us.”

  “That’s Jeremy and Digger on your left,” Diana told Roy. “And me and Emily on your right.” Roy and Jeremy were twice the size of the other figures—something she knew would make Roy smile. But she didn’t feel she should point that out in front of Jeremy.

  “I miss you, Daddy. I want you to come home soon.”

  “Me, too,” Diana said. “You’re going to beat this, Roy. You’re going to get well and come back to us.” Please, she added silently.

  *****

  On the way home they stopped at Fenton’s and ordered ice cream sundaes. Jeremy had barely spoken a word during the drive back to the East Bay, and she worried that she’d made a mistake in taking him to the hospital.

  “What will happen if Daddy dies?” Jeremy asked, mashing his chocolate chip ice cream with the back of his spoon, but not eating any.

  “What do you mean?” Diana didn’t want to have the whole heaven discussion because she wasn’t sure it was what she believed. But a child needed assurance, didn’t he? White lie or truth? She looked to Jeremy for guidance about how to proceed.

  “When Nick’s father died,” he told her, “the whole family had to go live with his grandparents way far away in a different part of the country.”

  Nick was a classmate whose father had died of cancer in the middle of the last school year. Diana hadn’t known the family well, but Nick was part of the group of boys Jeremy and his friends played with at school. She knew Nick kept in touch with at least one of that group.

  “Nick has to share a bedroom with his two brothers,” Jeremy continued. “And they don’t have any money for toys and stuff. And he can’t play after school because he has to help his grandmother around the house.” Jeremy looked at her forlornly. “I don’t even have grandparents.”

  Her son’s plaintive tone was a knife in Diana’s heart. Relieved as she was to be spared a philosophical discussion of death, this was worse. And it brought her up short to realize that Jeremy was worried about their future—something she, herself, hadn’t considered.

  “We won’t have to move,” Diana reassured him. She could get a real job. Something that paid more than the pittance she earned as a columnist. She’d managed to raise Emily on her own, hadn’t she? Roy had life insurance, and she and Roy did have savings. Not a lot, but enough.

  “Besides, Daddy’s not going to die. It’s just going to take him a little time to get better.”

  *****

  When Chloe got home from work, the house was so quiet she was afraid that Trace had gone away again. She was relieved to discover he was only napping on the sofa. She could tell from the bread crumbs on the carpet and the sticky ice cream bowl left on the coffee table that he’d spent the afternoon in front of the TV.

  She kissed his forehead. “Trace, I’m home.”

  He groaned and pulled one of the loose decorative pillows over his head.

  “Hey, get up. It’s evening.” Chloe turned on a light. All day at work she’d been on edge, wondering about Trace’s plan.

  Trace sat up sleepily. “Why’d you have to wake me? I was having a nice dream.”

  “Too bad. You promised to tell me what’s going on.”

  He groaned again and rubbed his eyes. “Cut the attitude, Chloe. You’re acting like you’ve got PMS or something.”

  “You know I hate it when you say that.”

  “And you know I hate it when you’re always on my case.”

  “I’m not ‘always on your case.’ ” Chloe walked into the kitchen area. “You want a Coke?”

  “We got any beer?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Okay, a Coke is fine.” Trace leaned back in the couch and finger-combed his hair. “How was work?”

  “Same as always.” Except today she’d caused a customer to yell at her, something that hadn’t happened before.

  She wasn’t like Velma, who didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, even with customers. Velma
had been yelled at more than once, something she was actually proud of. “You don’t let jerks push you around,” she’d told Chloe the first time it happened. That’s why Chloe had been so surprised at Velma’s admission yesterday about having been hit. Abused, was what she’d said.

  Chloe had almost worked up the nerve to ask her about it today, but then she’d had the run-in with the customer who called her “stupid trash” because she’d rung up thirteen yards of ribbon instead of three. “It’s a sign of the times that stores are stuck with stupid trash like you,” the woman had said loudly. Chloe had apologized for the error—the woman hadn’t even paid for the merchandise yet so it wasn’t really much of an inconvenience, except that Chloe had to ring her order up a second time—but the woman wasn’t placated. She’d turned to her companion and gone on and on about dumb and lazy help, like Chloe wasn’t standing there right in front of her bagging up purchases and fighting tears.

  Velma said afterward when Chloe was pulling herself together in the restroom that it was just the hormones from being pregnant that made her cry. “Your whole system goes nuts when you’re pregnant,” she told Chloe. “You get emotional about everything.” Maybe so, but Chloe thought it was probably more likely that everything in her life was so awful right now.

  She didn’t want to get into that with Trace though, especially because it was mostly his fault things were so awful.

  She handed him his can of Coke and sat down at the other end of the couch. “So, where were you last night? And who were those guys who pushed their way in here?”

  Trace took a long drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I owe them some money, okay? That’s why I set the thing up with Hector. I needed money.”

  “I thought you said you were doing it for the baby.”

  “Yeah. But I got to pay these guys first.”

  Chloe wasn’t really surprised— she’d pretty much heard what they’d said to Trace from her hiding place in the bedroom—but there was still a sick feeling starting up in her stomach as she listened to Trace explain.