by T. Greenwood
“You look so pretty,” he said.
She blushed a little. “Come with me,” she said, taking him by the hand and leading him back down the stairs and through the kitchen to the sliding doors. She pulled back the accordion shades and slid the door open.
When they bought the house, the only appealing thing about the property, for Ben, was the backyard and pool. He used to swim in high school and thought he might get back into shape doing laps in the morning before work.
Sara had clearly been busy since she got home. The outdoor table was covered in a pretty tablecloth, and the entire fence was strung with twinkling lights. There were candles floating in the pool, and soft music coming through the radio she’d brought outside. The table was set, and there were candles there too, and a bunch of heady-smelling roses cut from the bushes in the backyard and stuffed into a pickle jar.
“Take your tie off and sit down,” she said. “I’m going to give you the meal of your life.” She spun a little on her heel, smiling, and went back into the kitchen.
She had not only made homemade lasagna, but also picked up a bottle of Ruffino Chianti, the kind of wine they always ordered at Pasto in Flagstaff. The kind they were drinking the night he proposed.
“What is all this?” he said, squeezing her hand.
“Ben, I want to start over. I want everything to be new. I want …” she started but her voice was trembling. “I want you back.”
“Hey,” he said.
She leaned into him, and her tears soaked through his collared shirt to his shoulder.
“Hey, it’s okay. Sare … it’s okay.”
And there was that snag, that sharp hook. It punctured somewhere smack-dab in the middle of his chest and pulled.
“I’m sorry,” Sara said, laughing. “God, enough with the hormones already. Let’s eat.”
After dinner they left everything on the table, and Sara led Ben to the bedroom. In the cool, quiet white of the room, Ben made love to her for the first time in a month. And afterward, as they both caught their breaths and lay staring at the ceiling fan above them, Sara said, “There’s a little girl at the hospital. Emma. She’s five, and she has leukemia. But she is the brightest, happiest child I have ever seen.”
Ben rolled over to face her, propping himself up with his elbow.
“Her mother had to quit her job when she got sick. Then the dad left, and I get the feeling he’s not doing much by way of support. But her mom is the most optimistic person I have ever met. She’s at the hospital all day every day. She does puppet shows for the kids, and she reads to them. She brings in homemade cookies and today she helped some of them start a window box garden in the atrium. She’s really managed to make a home there for Emma.”
There was a tear rolling down her cheek.
“And all day while I was doing my rounds, I kept thinking about how lucky we are. That this baby is healthy. That we are healthy. That we have each other.” She turned to look at him. Her eyes were sad, wet. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, Ben. I know that. I’m not stupid. But I promise I’ll make a home for us. For the three of us.”
Ben reached and touched the tear that had snuck onto her earlobe. Then he leaned over and kissed it; it was cold and salty. Her neck still smelled of tea roses. Sara smiled.
“Hey,” she said, sitting up suddenly, hitting the pillow with her hand."I have an idea.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just come.”
The fence around their backyard was only six feet high; somebody could see in, and Ben was self-conscious as they climbed into the pool, still naked. The air was cooler than the water, and it felt good against his skin. They both floated on their backs, looking up at the sky. As the water filled his ears, he listened and could hear his heart beating in his temples and he thought about this life. About how clean and bright it was. About how shiny it all was. How golden.
It could have ended here, with this strange bliss: of never-ending sun and impossibly blue skies. With Sara’s unspoken forgiveness and Ben’s gentle assent. But nothing is ever as easy as it seems. And nothing is ever truly clean. Like a fractured bone improperly set, the healing can be slow and incomplete, and, in the worst cases, infection can set in, sending sickness traveling slowly, silently through the rest of the body.
In February, Sara was scheduled for the ultrasound that would reveal whether they were having a boy or a girl. At first they had wanted to wait, to be surprised. But as the date drew nearer, Sara started getting antsy. She didn’t want any more surprises, she said. She wanted time to prepare for whatever their future held in store.
Ben left work early to meet Sara at Children’s. He checked in with the receptionist, who asked him to have a seat in the waiting room. He was anxious; he hadn’t been in a hospital since Ricky died. This hospital, unlike the one in Flagstaff, was terribly cheery inside: with cartoons on the TV and candy-colored floors. It felt more like a playground than a hospital.
Their appointment was at four, and Sara was running late. By the time she finally came into the waiting room, she was harried.
“Can we still get there in time?” she asked Ben, glancing at the Cinderella watch Ben had bought her for Christmas, the one he thought the kids at the hospital would like.
“I think so. If we don’t hit any rush-hour traffic,” he said.
In the truck, Sara was quiet, staring out the passenger window.
“You okay?” Ben asked. Her silence made him anxious.
“Huh?” she said, distracted.
“Everything okay?”
She shook her head and looked back out the window.
“They’re having a hard time finding a bone marrow match for Emma. And every day she just gets sicker and sicker. And the real kicker is, she’s just so damn grateful for everything. We threw her a birthday party yesterday, and I’d never seen a kid so excited about cupcakes and balloons. You’d have thought she was at Disneyland.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Ben said. “I really don’t.”
“I dream about the kids, Ben. Every single night. Of course, sometimes it’s just like I’m at work, administering meds, doing my rounds. But then other times the dreams are so bad.” Sara shook her head. “I never stop thinking about them.”
They pulled into the parking lot at the imaging center and rushed inside. They were ten minutes late.
“Have a seat,” the receptionist said after she got their information.
They sat down and Ben looked around. There was an elderly woman and another couple, the young woman looking as though she might give birth any minute.
Sara went to the magazine rack. “You want one?” she asked Ben. He shook his head. She picked out a magazine for herself and sat back down.
Ben got up and got a paper cone filled with water, drank it, and then filled it again. It probably held only about two ounces and he was thirsty. In Phoenix he was always so thirsty.
“Hey, Ben,” Sara said."Come look at this.”
She had folded the magazine’s cover over and was pointing to an article. “This woman is from Flagstaff. She’s a Navajo artist, a weaver. It says her last name is Begay. Wasn’t that the guy’s last name? The one from Halloween?”
Ben gripped the fragile paper cup. He took the magazine from Sara.
In the photo, Shadi was standing next to a tree, with the Peaks jutting up into the sky behind her. Ben scanned the article. Shadi. His entire body was trembling.
“Huh. I wonder if they’re related,” Sara said.
Ben shook his head and handed her back the magazine. “Begay is a really common Navajo last name.”
Sara nodded her head. “Her work is beautiful. My parents have been looking for something for that wall in their family room,” she said. “I’m going to see if I can keep this article. Maybe we can see where she sells her work the next time we’re in Flagstaff. It might make a nice thank-you gift, for everything they’ve done.”
He ran his hand across his face, f
elt the sharp stubble of late afternoon. Christ.
“Sara Harmon?” the nurse said, appearing with a clipboard.
Sara set the magazine down. “Here we go,” she said, and they both stood up to follow her. “Wait a second,” she said. And she grabbed the magazine and tore the page out, stuffing it into her purse.
The technician asked Sara to pull up her scrubs and then squirted jelly over her stomach, which was rounded now, a noticeable swelling. “Sorry if this is cold.”
Ben sat down in the chair next to the table and looked at the screen, trying to shake the image of Shadi, of the mountains, out of his head. The technician probed and recorded. “The baby is measuring at exactly twenty weeks,” he said.
Sara squeezed Ben’s hand. Her palm was hot and moist.
“This is the foot,” he said, pointing to the screen. “Kicking away! A little soccer player, maybe. See, and here is the spine, and a nice profile shot for you.”
He took a thousand measurements, moving the probe and then freezing the image. Clicking and tapping information into the computer. Sara let out an audible sigh every time he confirmed that the baby was developing appropriately.
“Now, did you want to find out the baby’s gender?” he asked.
“I do,” Sara said. “Ben?”
Sara looked at Ben, and Ben said, “Sure.”
“Okay, let’s see if we can get the baby to give us a peek.” He prodded Sara’s belly, and the baby on the screen kicked and moved.
“Must be shy,” the technician said, laughing.
“You can’t see?” Sara said, sounding the slightest bit panicked.
“Let me try one more thing,” the technician said. “Why don’t you roll over onto your side here. This works sometimes.”
Sara turned over onto her side, facing Ben. She was really sweating. He brushed a damp piece of hair out of her eyes. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded quietly.
“Well, there we go!” the technician said, and Ben glanced toward the screen. The technician fiddled with the buttons on the computer and the image froze. “Look at this,” he said and Sara rolled back over. “See,” he said, pointing at some lines on the screen. “These lines that look like an equal sign?”
Ben leaned forward, looking to see what he was talking about.
The technician smiled and said, “I’m ninety-nine percent sure you’ve got yourselves a baby girl here.”
Sara’s hand flew to her mouth and she sucked in her breath. “A girl? Really?“ “You got it.”
“Ben,” Sara said, starting to cry. “We’re having a baby girl.”
When Ben’s mother came home from the hospital with Dusty, he thought she was a birthday gift for him. They were born almost exactly five years apart, and because his mother went into labor on his birthday, his party had been delayed. Her arrival came at the same time as the balloons and the cake and the rest of his presents. At the same time as the candles and wishes.
“Mine,” his mother said he exclaimed, reaching for the little bundle in her arms. And when she shook her head and said, “You need to wait, Benny. Let’s get you on the couch so you can help Mommy hold her,” his face had fallen in disbelief. “My baby,” he said.
Looking back now, he’d always had a proprietary feeling about Dusty. She was his in the same way his Matchbox cars and LEGOs were his. She had come, was there, for him. To tickle and push on the baby swing. He was the only one who could make her giggle. The one she cried for when she was hurt. She was his. His sister. His responsibility.
Dusty, with her long blond braids and freckles. With her green eyes and tiny hands. Dusty, who could sing every single song on the Grease sound track and could do back handsprings across the whole length of the park. How do you fit that into a box? How does that just end? At the cemetery, Ben stood between his parents and watched as the minister said a prayer over the tiny white coffin. The leaves were turning gold and red in the trees, but summer hung on. The thick heat filled his lungs. He felt like he did sometimes when he got water up his nose in the pool. As though he were drowning. Dusty, who liked to cut words out of magazines and tape them to her door.FABULOUS. AWESOME. GOOD MORNING. Dusty, who hated chocolate milk but loved chocolate cake. Dusty, whose breath smelled like peppermint.
At home that afternoon, Ben went to his room and lay down in his bed. He looked around at all of his stuff: the model airplanes hanging by threads from the ceiling, the basketball shoes in the corner, the stack of CDs. Did any of this stuff belong to him? Did this house, did his school, did his family belong to him? If Dusty could disappear, couldn’t just about everything else too?
Ben held on tight.
He held on to every single moment, because he knew how things could vanish. Wasn’t this what had been happening his whole life? One gift given, something taken away? Hadn’t he been waiting for the other shoe to drop his entire life?
They went to Home Depot and picked out the paint for the baby’s room. And now, he lifted the lid to reveal the color Sara had chosen. It was called Peaceful Princess. Purple. She’d chosen sheets for the crib, tiny violets, and curtains as sheer and light as a whisper. The crib was still in its box; he planned to put it together after the paint dried. They’d been to the Container Store for bins and boxes. The bureau they’d bought was already nearly full of tiny little onesies and pajamas. When he opened the closet, there was already a neat row of miniature dresses hanging from tiny little hangers.
There was something calming about painting. Ben had always loved the rhythmic monotony of the roller, the concentration required for edging and painting trim. Now, as he stood on the stepladder and applied the first brushstroke to the baby’s wall, he wondered if he’d missed his calling. Maybe house painting would have been a more fitting vocation.
By the time Sara returned from IKEA, where she’d been looking for a small bookcase and a rug, he had finished the room, assembled the crib, and hung the hardware for the curtains. She came into the room and started to cry.
“Ben, it’s so pretty.”
He put his arm around her and held on. Held on tight as she hugged him.
“I got the sweetest little bookcase. We can put it over there. Make a little reading corner.”
“Did you find a rug?” he asked.
“I think I want something more custom,” she said, pulling away and walking over to the crib. “Remember that artist I read about, the one in Flagstaff?”
Ben stiffened, felt a shiver running like cold water down the ladder of his spine.
“The one from the magazine at the ultrasound place?” she persisted.
Ben scowled. “I don’t remember.”
“Of course, you do.”
He stole a look at her face but couldn’t read anything in her expression.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I remember. The Navajo woman. The weaver.”
“The one with the same last name as the boy we found.” Sara was smiling, touching her belly absently. “I was thinking we could get something for Mom and Dad and maybe commission her to do a rug for the baby too. Something with purples and pinks.”
“She might be hard to find,” Ben said, reaching. Grasping. “And she might not even do that sort of thing.”
“I’d actually completely forgotten about her, and then I found the article in my purse when I took out my wallet to pay for the bookcase. So I contacted the gallery where she shows her work, and they gave me a phone number for her. She had left a business card.” Sara was still smiling.
“I can call,” Ben said. “Just get me the number.” He wondered if she’d written down Shadi’s number before she erased it from his cell phone. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was she doing to him?
“That’s okay. I’ll call,” she said, smiling. “I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you. I don’t know how much it will cost, but it will definitely be more than IKEA.”
The sunlight was coming through the curtainless windows, and Ben had to shield his eyes against the glare
. He waited, waited for everything to detonate; he anticipated the explosion, the wreckage of its aftermath.
But instead, she just sat down in the new glider. “It would mean a lot, to have something from Flagstaff for the baby,” she said, putting her feet up on the matching ottoman. “Boy, my feet really are starting to hurt.”
“Can I get you something?” Ben asked, grateful for the shift in the conversation. His heart clanked against his chest. He could feel himself beginning to sweat. “Something to drink?”
“Nah, but could you bring me my phone? I want to give her a call right now. I’m excited, Ben. I think this is exactly what this room needs.”
At work on Friday, Ben couldn’t focus on anything. Frank had business to attend to at another dealership and had left Ben alone for the first time. He’d left behind a whole checklist of things to do, but the harder Ben focused, the more blurry the list became.
Sara had tried to no avail to get in touch with Shadi, but she was determined to get through. She’d left at least three messages, and Ben figured that Shadi had probably figured out who she was. She was probably wondering what sort of cruel joke this was.
Ben knew he should contact her. Should let her know that all of this was just an awful coincidence. That he had planned to do as she had asked. To leave her alone. But he also knew that contacting her was dangerous. Not only because of Sara.
By noon, Ben had managed to make his way through about half of the list. He’d checked in with the sales folks during their weekly meeting and he’d drafted the newsletter that Frank had put Ben in charge of. He’d updated the customer database and made some follow-up calls to recent customers.
He decided to go get a bite at Chili’s, see if Frank’s discount would apply without Frank there. He took a newspaper from the machine out front; he’d overslept and hadn’t even had time for a cup of coffee on the way out of the house, never mind read the paper.