by Andrew Post
Her heart did not slow down. “Did something happen?”
“We’ll talk about it when you get in.”
“No, Steve, I think we’ll talk about it now. I’m a long way from home and you dropping this fucking hint on me that something bad has happened and then not saying isn’t very fair. So either you can tell me or I’m just going to keep asking until you do.”
Less than halfway through that the Brenda voice she reserved for Steve and the girls had fallen away and the sharpness with which she’d address a mark had come out.
He took a long time saying anything and when he did, a heavy sigh preceded it. “Something happened last night.”
“Yeah, I’ve picked up on that much. Care to tell me what?”
He took a deep breath. “So, last night I went to go pick up Judy from Linda Cassell’s place. Kara invited her over for a slumber party, but I guess she got homesick. So I went over and Linda and I got to talking, outside, out on the porch. And Judy, with me there, seemed to relax and since it was looking like she might change her mind back to staying after all, I decided to give her a few minutes to decide. Linda asked me if I wanted to come in and maybe have a glass of wine while we waited. And we got to talking about school events and the bake sale coming up and before we knew it, the girls had fallen asleep in front of the TV, and Linda asked if I wanted another glass. Since it’d been years since I drank, I think it must’ve gone straight to my head and….”
Fucking Linda Cassell. My husband fucked fucking Linda Cassell.
“It was a stupid, irresponsible mistake,” he said, “and it’s been killing me since it happened. Brenda, I have never regretted anything in my life as much as this. I want to say that I was lonely because you’re out on the road working so often, but that’s no excuse, I was selfish, I was self-centered, and it was just a bad, bad mistake.”
Brenda put on the four-way blinkers and pulled over to the side of the road. Her hands shook. She could not quite identify the emotions she was experiencing but could only classify them as unmistakably negative. She’d been told she would not be able to feel things the same way as others. She had learned how to mimic them, playact, present her understanding of what they should look and sound like. But right now, there was only a black hole inside her, pulling in every thought unrelated to what she had just learned and ejecting from it only this feeling, this feeling she did not know how to deal with as it spread its roots inside her, overtaking everything.
“Talk to me,” Steve said, sobbing. Again, it made Brenda think of when he was in the hospital, how much pain he was in, how every second was agony for him, how he sounded when he didn’t think he would’ve bothered – as he put it – if it wasn’t for her.
Team Stockton.
Then the black hole rewound. Taking back the negative, unidentifiable feeling and the door was slammed shut after it, giving her back the familiar silence and stillness inside her.
Brenda said, “How?”
“I don’t know. It just sort of happened. One thing led to another. Like I said, it was just a selfish, irresponsible thing. I mean, I don’t know why I said yes to a glass of wine. I mixed medication and alcohol and if Judy decided she wanted to go home after all, she would’ve been in the car with me. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Not that,” Brenda said. “How did you and Linda Cassell work around your issue?”
He was quiet for quite some time.
Brenda said, “Did you tell her that if you two want to fuck she’ll have to stick a finger up your ass first? That if she doesn’t you won’t be able to get it up?”
When he answered, he sounded like he was being torn apart. “Yes.”
“And she did that for you?”
“We were drunk.”
“But not drunk enough to not fuck each other, apparently. Not drunk enough for her to be unable to hit the target with her index finger. But I feel like I’m still missing some details. Let’s rewind a bit. So you told her that’s what she’ll need to do to get you going and she was game?”
“Yes.”
“We talking missionary, cowgirl, what?”
“Brenda, it shouldn’t matter. We did what we did.”
“Yes, that has been established, you two did what you did, but I want to know specifics. Paint me a picture. Put me there. Were you a gentleman? Did you make sure her needs were met?”
Steve apparently could not bring himself to say.
“Is she a screamer? It’d make sense. Loud as fuck with everything else she does. Talks to everyone like they’re goddamn deaf.”
“We both regret it. We regretted it as soon as it was over.”
“I’m sure that’s true. So, you two agreed to fuck,” Brenda said. “I assume you took your activities upstairs and didn’t just rip each other’s clothes off right there next to your daughters asleep on the floor.”
“No, we went upstairs, we—”
“Sorry to cut you off, but I was trying to make a point. So, if you did it upstairs, that means you had the time to think about where this was heading while you were going upstairs, then you had even more time because since it can’t be spontaneous with you, you had to take all that time explaining to fucking Linda Cassell what she’ll have to do if she wants to get you hard. And at no time while all this was happening did you think, ‘Gee, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this’?”
“I was lonely. You’re gone all the time,” he said.
“Fuck that. And fuck you for putting that on me. I do this for us, for the girls. You don’t think I get lonely?”
“No, I don’t think you do. You always seem glad to be leaving.”
At that moment, Steve should’ve been glad Brenda could not reach through the phone.
“That was harsh,” he said. “I take that back.”
“You’re right, it was.” While not incorrect, it still wasn’t a very nice thing to say. “So you just left Rebecca and Maureen at the house alone? How long were you gone?”
“A little under an hour.”
“A lot can happen in an hour. And I don’t mean what you were doing with Linda. What I mean is there could’ve been a fire at our house. Someone could’ve broken in. Someone could’ve hurt Rebecca and Maureen and you would’ve had no idea it was happening because you were too busy sticking your dick in Linda Cassell.”
“I feel like a single parent,” he said. “And talking to Linda, it wasn’t all about the bills and the girls’ school activities and paying for instrument rentals and the groceries and all that. We could just talk as two people. And the way she talks about being divorced, the more she said, I found myself sympathizing with her, relating to what she said about how hard it is. Even though you and me are still married. Maybe, in that moment, I just forgot.”
“You didn’t forget shit, Steve. You did this. You fucked Linda. I didn’t make you. You didn’t fucking forget a goddamn thing. You weren’t drunk. You asked her to put a finger up your ass, she apparently was more than happy to do so, and then you fucked her. End of story.”
“I understand you’re upset. This is why I didn’t want to do this on the phone. Are you driving? What’s that clicking I keep hearing?”
Brenda shut off the four-way blinkers. “It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. I can tell you one thing for sure, I’m not fucking the mother of my daughter’s friend.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes. I know we can work this out. If I have to sleep on the couch for a year, if you want us to go to couples counseling, if you want me to get tested—”
“Tested,” Brenda said with a laugh. “I hadn’t even thought of that. Imagine that shit. I suppose if you’re worried about that, that means you two didn’t use anything. What if she gave you the clap, Steve? That’ll sure make running into each other at PTA meetings kind of awkward, won’t it? Better yet, what if you knocked her up? Jesus! What a nightma
re that’d be for you. How’s an unemployed guy expected to pay child support? Might want to google that because I can tell you one fucking thing for sure, it won’t be me footing that bill.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said again, sounding like he was desperate it’d help his case. “Whatever it takes. I swear. I promise. Whatever it takes.”
Brenda looked at the road ahead, where the dotted yellow line faded off into the dark, and the farther dark beyond that, Chicago, Felix’s house, hundreds of miles away. Merritt Plains somewhere, perhaps behind her, perhaps in front of her, maybe in the car that just went by, neither of them aware of it, ships passing in the night. What waited ahead was not going to be as simple as kicking down a door and putting two in Felix’s head. If he could plan a fuck-over this byzantine, he’d make sure he had his bases covered too, safety measures, plans B, C, and D.
Covering the low spots inside Brenda where emotional intelligence should be were things, while not terribly helpful to a successful marriage, that could help her in the line of work she was in. Among them, pragmatism. And what it was telling her now was that the odds of her coming out of this unscathed floated somewhere between fat chance and no way in hell.
“Brenda? Are you there? Please talk to me.”
“While it lasted, were you happy?” she said.
“We can get through this. We shouldn’t let my stupid mistake end us,” he said. “We should at least try. If not for us, for the girls at least.”
Brenda let her other voice glide back into place, softer, kinder, quieter. “I’m not talking about us. I mean when you and Linda were together. While it lasted, while you were getting your chance to get away from it all and just enjoy yourself, did it make you happy? You can say. I want to know.”
“Yes. It made me happy.”
“You two had been talking before it happened, right? It didn’t just come out of nowhere.”
“We’ve talked, but never really about….” he said. “It was innocent at first. But then there was some flirting. Some more suggestive stuff. Subtle, but we both knew what we were doing, what it meant.”
“Are you in love with her?”
He didn’t respond immediately. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve got to go,” Brenda said, “but tomorrow morning when the girls get up, please wish them a merry Christmas for me and give them each a kiss.” She wouldn’t lie and tell him that she loved them or missed them or that she loved or missed him either. There was no more room for lying anymore. “Make sure the girls get to school on time, make sure they don’t just eat junk food, tell them they need to be nice to each other, and….” Brenda trailed off. She didn’t need to tell him any of this. If anyone could spell out how to take care of their girls, it’d be him. “I want you to do something. And it’s important that you do it, as soon as we’re done talking.”
He sounded unsure when he said, “Okay.”
“I want you to take the girls, pack up a few changes of clothes for each of them, and go over to Linda’s. Ask her if she’d be willing to put you up for the next few days. Tell her the water heater broke.”
“She knows we just got a new one last year.”
“Then the roof has a leak. The basement’s flooded. Pick something. Just make sure you or any of the girls do not go back to our house. See what Christmas would be like with Linda if you two decide to have a go at this. See if Judy will be able to tolerate living with Kara instead of just doing the occasional slumber party. You and Linda have your own slumber party too. Try to enjoy yourselves.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“There’s nothing to understand. Just keep being a great dad to them and take care of each other.” It’d be a lie to say she ever loved him, or the girls, not in a true way, and he didn’t deserve hearing that, that she only found them useful for the normalcy they provided her with and that was what she loved. But instead she only said, “Goodbye, Stephen.”
“Brenda—”
She hung up. Broke the burner. Lowered the window and dropped the pieces out. She put on the blinker and rejoined the sparse traffic on 94.
Moving east.
Chapter Nine
Mel woke to something cold pressing against her face and wondered if she was still lying on the floor in Amber’s kitchen. Her surroundings came into focus, gaining resolution with each tired blink. How much her head was pounding was the first thing to become clear. Then that the thing her head was pushing against was not a linoleum floor but a pane of glass. Her own ghostly reflection stared back at her.
She was in a car but not Brenda’s rental. The car’s floorboards were ankle-deep in trash, a couple glass bottles still hugged by paper bags. Amber’s car then, maybe. Mel looked in the back seat. That cooler of Brenda’s, Mel’s bag, the rubber handle of the slim-jim sticking out the end.
Ahead, neon lights. Other cars parked around her. Then, as her eyes adjusted, the front of a restaurant. A line of windows. Brenda inside, seated alone at a booth. She noticed Mel and smiled, pinched the brim of an invisible cowboy hat. She held up a finger. One minute. Mel thought about getting out of the car and running away but everything felt like it was in slow motion. Her head felt like it was full of hot water, and by the time she found the door handle Brenda was sliding in on the driver’s side and dropping a takeout bag in Mel’s lap, the contents warm on her legs.
“Burger and fries,” Brenda said and started the car. “And before you say something about how you don’t have an appetite or you feel too shitty or scared to even think about eating, tough shit, eat anyway. You’re going to need the energy.”
They got back on the road.
“Where are we?” Mel said.
“Wisconsin.”
Mel didn’t want to believe hearing her uncle had been killed was true, but she knew it was. If there was any anger in her toward Brenda, as it tried to come back to life it resulted in a queasy feeling in her stomach and her headache compounding. The smell of fryer grease now filling her nose wasn’t helping. She tried taking a bite, thinking once she’d started eating she’d come around to the idea, but her throat started spasming; one gag escaped.
Brenda said, “If you throw up in this fucking car….”
“I’m okay. I just can’t right now with the smell of this stuff.” Mel tossed the takeout into the back seat – where it landed on the lid of the cooler.
“I’m sure you have a good reason why that needed to come with us.”
Brenda said nothing.
Mel gingerly fingered the goose egg on the side of her head. “You knocked me out.”
“That I did.”
She saw the dark red split in Brenda’s bottom lip, the abrasion on her cheek bearing the same texture as Mel’s cast. “I did that to you.”
“That you did.”
“Where are we?”
“For the second time in five seconds, Wisconsin. We’re in Wisconsin. Are you going to be like this now? Or should I hit you again and see if that resets you?”
They passed a motel. The parking lot was full of activity. News vans. Reporters standing in front of camera lights. Yellow police tape strung every which way. One room’s door in particular appeared to be the focus, the thing every station wanted to have in the background behind their on-the-scene correspondent. Where it happened. Where a man named Michael Olson was found shot, tortured, and drained of blood.
Mel couldn’t tell if Brenda slowed down because there was a good chance the police were still in the area, or if she was just trying to get a better look, to rubberneck at the scene where one of her coworkers had plied his trade on an innocent human being.
Mel put her forehead against the passenger-side window again. The cold glass felt good. Still in this nightmare. Still stuck with this fucking person.
“Did you kill Amber?”
“No.”
&n
bsp; “Sorry, but with you I just assumed.”
“Amber will live to wake up on plenty a bathroom floor. Shit.”
“What?” Mel sat up too fast. The world spun before her, reduced to only streaks of color taking their time coalescing again.
They’d come over a hill. Traffic was stopped for what looked the better part of a mile, sets of taillights stretching on toward other lights, these flashing red and blue. Sizzling white-red lights on the ground, flares. A traffic stop.
Brenda brought them to a stop at the end of the line of cars and turned in her seat to look over at Mel. “I doubt I need to tell you this isn’t going to look good.”
“What do you mean?”
Brenda turned on the dome light. “I’m all beat to hell, you’re all beat to hell. They’re going to want to know why.”
“We got in a car accident. That’ll be our story.”
“This car might be a piece of shit but it doesn’t look wrecked – on the outside anyway.”
“This is our friend’s car. We borrowed it. That’s mostly true. That might help them believe it.”
“No. I don’t buy it and neither will they.” Brenda slapped on her turn signal. “We’re finding a different way.”
Mel held on as Brenda fanned the wheel, gunned it across the snow-swept median, and filed the car in among traffic in the opposite lanes.
Amber’s car did not have any onboard navigation and neither of them had a phone. Mel decided it’d likely be a smart decision not asking Brenda how she planned on knowing which way to go now that they were on the backroads moving through Wisconsin farmland at night.
Now that they were moving much slower than when they’d been on the interstate, the urge to jump out of the car began to slowly build inside Mel. She kept looking at the door handle and imagining herself grabbing it and throwing back the door and rolling out. Her guess was that the stuntmen in movies just made it look like there was nothing to it. She pictured herself falling weird and ending up getting pulled under the car. Or only falling out halfway and left to dangle and get dragged for a few miles because Brenda would probably use the opportunity to punish Mel for trying such a stupid thing.