You're Not You

by Michelle Wildgen

  Now I was walking the long way to my house, so I could see the lake. A few ducks, fat and sleek, picked their way determinedly through the grass by the water and into someone’s lawn. Did anyone ever poach ducks from their own backyard? I slowed down and observed one of the birds. How did hunters do it, once it was dead? You must pluck it first, I guessed, then cut out the intestines, and maybe take off the head too. I’d had duck at a friend’s house in high school, someone whose father hunted. It was stringy, tasted rather muddy. I’d taken a few bites and then felt the smooth metal ball of buckshot with my tongue. I’d laid it on my place mat, hidden beneath the plate’s edge.

  There must be a better way to cook them—with some tart fruit, or a thick glaze of cooked-down wine and smoky bacon. The duck looked at me with one shining eye and took a wide-legged step away. After a moment it occurred to me that I was pondering eating random animals on my way home from school. Maybe the whole cooking thing was getting out of hand. I kept walking, leaving the duck oblivious to its reprieve.

  I still wanted to tell Liam every stupid thing. So why was I pondering any break at all? Because of Kate? I was fine before I met Kate. I was sleeping with a married man, admittedly, but it seemed a paltry issue sometimes. Just because I was a huge part of Kate’s life now didn’t mean I had to rearrange every single thing to match her. So she and Evan couldn’t find a good middle ground. For all I knew Liam’s wife knew all about us and took a magnanimous, worldly view of it. And Kate knew so little about Liam anyway. She didn’t know I was still seeing him.

  I walked faster, feeling defiant. I was giving Kate—the idea of Kate, her voice in my head—way too much power. She was the one who needed me. I strode the last block home, feeling chill and heartless, as light and glinting as a silver wire. I didn’t have to wedge her into every single crevice of my own life.

  NOT LONG AFTER I saw Evan at the farmers’ market, he called. Kate and I were in the kitchen making a list of people to call for the ALS Society’s phone drive. I still disliked making these calls, and when her telephone rang I was relieved to have a moment’s reprieve before I had to phone strangers and explain myself through a chain of prepositions: My name is Rebecca, and I am calling for Kate Norris on behalf of . . . Sometimes I found myself speaking to another caregiver, and with Kate at my side and the other employer on the other end, we two caregivers would carry on a conversation by proxy.

  I was looking over my list of potential donors for ones I recognized when the phone rang. I looked at Kate, who shook her head. Lately she had been screening calls. Her parents, upset about the split, had been leaving long tremulous messages on the machine, reminding Kate that she had “the future” to worry about. “Your father and I are not as strong as you might think, Kathy,” one message had said. “Our house has so many stairs.”

  We heard the answering machine pick up and Kate’s voice come on. It was always startling. No matter how many times I heard this greeting, recorded three years ago and never updated, I always stopped and listened. So that was her voice, her true voice: a lower pitch than it was now that her breath was forced into a higher register as her muscles froze up. A tendency to elide the digits of the phone number into each other. She lacked the Wisconsin accent that showed itself in the vowels, like the exaggerated and almost glottal O you heard in smaller towns, like mine. Kate’s voice had been accentless, Midwestern, and fast, a little impatient to finish the message and move on. In a way she hated to hear the old greeting, she’d once admitted, but she couldn’t bring herself to erase it.

  When the greeting ended there was a beep and then Evan’s voice came through the machine, saying, “Katie? Hi, it’s me.” Kate and I looked at each other. Then she closed her eyes for a moment and wheeled over to the phone, gesturing with her head for me to follow. I picked up the receiver and clicked off the answering machine.

  When I answered he said, “Bec, how are you? It’s nice to hear you.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I said. There was a silence. I had no idea how to speak to him with Kate present, so I said, “Kate’s right here.”

  Kate said hello and I repeated it, relieved to be back in the familiar pattern. She raised her eyebrows at me and I remembered to flip on the speakerphone. Evan’s voice floated out from the speaker, sounding flat and ghostly. I imagined his voice emanating from an empty room.

  “I, uh. How are you, Kate?”

  “Great, thanks,” she said. There was a pause. I waited to see if he could hear her well enough, but in the silence I knew he hadn’t. Or else he couldn’t understand her. I repeated it.

  “Look, sweetie, I’ll just get to the point. I’m calling about what I mentioned before,” he said. He cleared his throat. “About home.”

  Kate said he could come back—at this I shot her a look of surprise, but she wasn’t looking at me, staring intently instead at the speaker—if he ended it with Cynthia.

  Cynthia?

  Kate still didn’t look at me.

  “Um, you . . . you have to end it with Cynthia,” I repeated into the speakerphone.

  “I know I need to,” he said slowly. Kate rolled her eyes and looked out the window. “But I’m not sure what it solves.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. Suddenly I felt fed up with it all, with the talking around it for my sake, as if I didn’t know. I was the interpreter; it was time to quit pretending I would never piece it together.

  Kate cleared her throat so loudly Evan said, “Pardon?” She did it again, and I realized it was to get my attention. I looked over at her.

  “This is me,” Kate said. She ignored Evan’s voice and focused solely on me. I’d never had her look at me this way: no humor, no softening the blow. She let each word sink in and added, “You’re not you right now.”

  We looked at each other. Her lips were set, but after a moment she raised her eyebrows, as if to check that I got it; we were done with it. I felt my head nodding of its own accord as the truth of what she said sank in. The air around me seemed warmer, closer, as if the edge of my skin were softening and blurring into it.

  “Kate.” Evan’s hollow voice rang from the speaker. “I wish you would listen to me for a minute. I know I sound like a complete asshole saying this, so please don’t point it out, but I need some help here too.”

  “We’re not talking about forever,” she said. I repeated it, word for word, intonation for intonation.

  “You’re so pessimistic,” he said. “People live for years.”

  “In a bed, staring at the ceiling, on a respirator,” she said.

  “That isn’t your life.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Right now my life is good. You know I’m talking about the future.”

  “Even then, there are therapists, activities . . .”

  Kate shook her head. She nodded at the receiver. I looked at her, but she didn’t say anything or meet my eyes. I let my hand hover over the button, hoping she would at least say good-bye, but she nodded again and I hung up.

  Kate and I sat there for a moment. I was hoping she might shake her head in exasperation or say something snide about Evan, anything to redirect attention from me.

  She said, “Remember it’s me talking, that’s all. Okay?”

  “I know. I apologize. I didn’t realize you could get such volume.” I’d thought she’d smile at that, but she turned her face toward the window again. I felt like I’d greeted someone with a big hug and they wouldn’t even shake my hand.

  I had to watch that, I realized. Sometimes I thought we were closer than we were—actually, I’d thought I knew everything—yet here I didn’t even know who Cynthia was. And why would I? I was paid help, after all. Kate probably was sick of me easing my way into her life, reading her books, looking around her bedroom. Sometimes I tried to get her to laugh or crack a joke and she just shook her head and said, I don’t think I have it in me to be charming right now.

  We sat there, Kate looking away and me trying not to show that I was humiliated and worried. Maybe she
’d tell me to find a new job so she could hire someone who did the work briskly and then left her alone. It was true I didn’t work that way, but that was what I thought she wanted.

  “I’ll go make a few calls in the other room,” I said. Kate nodded thoughtfully, still gazing toward the window.

  In the study I seated myself at the desk with the list of names and numbers. I would quit dreading it, I decided, and just take care of this task for her like an adult. I knew no better motivator than the picture I had in my mind right then, of Kate looking at me across the kitchen table, saying the sort of thing that takes a moment to sink in as a dismissal. I’d nod stupidly until I realized the reason she was suggesting I should, say, devote more time to school was because I was out of a job. Just picturing it gave me the same kind of stinging embarrassment I remembered from being dumped in junior high—the cold plummet in your stomach, the quiver at the corners of the mouth. Because what else was worth doing? Selling food, convincing people they needed a black car or a red lipstick? Answering phones at a place where I didn’t know or care what happened inside the offices? Anyone could do those things. Anyone.

  “CYNTHIA?” SAID JILL.

  She peered at me over the side of her bed, her eyes still swollen and her lips colorless. No doubt I looked as pretty as she did right now. I was lying on her floor with my feet propped on the edge of her mattress. It was ten on Saturday morning, and we both were nursing slight headaches from the night before. Hillary was working this morning, and in honor of my rare free Saturday, Jill and I had stayed out till two. Pretty soon I would shamble off to the kitchen to make coffee—I always made the coffee. Jill, for some reason even she could not define, loved having coffee made for her. I usually assumed it was the least I could do.

  “Cynthia,” I agreed. “Throw me a pillow.”

  Jill tossed one at me. It landed on my face. As I was tucking it beneath my head she said, “So there’s just one.”

  “I guess. I was picturing sort of a series of mature, world-weary one-nighters with divorcées,” I admitted. “All very up-front. And I thought that was kind of okay. I thought maybe Kate was overreacting.”

  Jill nodded, her chin propped in her hands. “I did too. I guess because you did. This seems worse, though, doesn’t it? The other way was like, imperfect solution in an imperfect world, et cetera, et cetera. But this is just a chick on the side.” Our eyes met and Jill looked away. I lifted a hand and let it fall to show there was nothing to be done about it. The shoe fit.

  We lay there in silence. After a minute I hauled myself up.

  “I’ll go make coffee,” I said. “Do we have milk left?”

  “I think so.”

  While I waited for the coffee to brew I ate an apple and stared at the red light on the machine. In the other room I heard Jill moving around. It wasn’t good timing, but I had to tell her at some point that Liam was coming over today. It was his wife’s book club day. I poured her a cup of coffee and took it into her room.

  “Listen,” I began.

  Jill took the cup from me, holding up her other hand, palm-forward. “Yeah,” she said. “What time?”

  “Noon.”

  She sipped her coffee. “Fine. I’ll be gone by eleven. I have to study anyway.”

  “I thought you were getting As so far.”

  “I am,” she said. “I bet I make the honor roll.”

  “Oh. Well, good,” I said. Sometimes I forgot I still took classes, between Kate and Liam and Evan. School seemed a bit distant. Jill had sworn to buckle down before, but she was actually following through this time. “Thanks. Really. I’m sorry if it breaks up your Saturday.”

  Jill met my eyes. “Well, what else am I going to do, Bec?” she said. “You’re a big girl. I can’t boss you around.”

  “I know,” I said. It came out sounding forlorn, as if I wanted nothing more.

  LIAM WAS EARLY. HE came in, blanketed in cold air, his mouth chilly and dry when he kissed me. I hugged him until he warmed up.

  “You want some tea or something?” I murmured into the shoulder of his jacket. It smelled like wood smoke.

  He shook his head. “Let’s go get under the covers and warm up there.”

  My room, as always, was cozy, the light filling it through the curtains. We undressed and climbed into bed, but once in it we wrapped each other up and lay there, our skin touching but strangely chaste. My breasts seemed small and cool, and he was soft beneath my hand. Liam kissed my hair, and I turned to face him. We lay on our sides, arms draped around each other’s waists.

  “It’s almost November,” I said. He nodded.

  “Coming up on a year now,” he said.

  “Who’d’ve guessed.”

  Liam smiled. “I would,” he said. He tucked my hair back behind my ear and let his hand rest for a moment, heavy against the pulse in my neck. I kissed his mouth, breathing in the faint scent of mint on his breath, something like spice or citrus that clung to his skin.

  “How did you feel when you met me?” I asked him. “I mean, when you knew we were going to . . .” I trailed off.

  “Humbled,” he said.

  He must have seen the surprise, the flattery, in my face. Humbled by what? By my beauty? At his helplessness in the face of it? He stroked my shoulder and my arm, and he didn’t look away.

  “You don’t go into a marriage thinking you’ll just branch out if you have a rough time,” he said. “Or I didn’t. I know Alli didn’t. You really don’t even notice other people except sort of aesthetically, like art, for a long time, and you can’t even imagine what it would feel like to want someone else.” He ran a fingertip along the curl of my ear. “And you feel kind of smug about it.”

  I felt a burning sensation opening up inside my chest. Liam was always more honest than I would have expected a man in his position to be, but this hurt, and it had the feeling of finality that comes when you’ve made a few decisions. A long time ago, I would have been flattered to hear this, hearing only that he’d wanted me, not that he also regretted it.

  We said nothing for several minutes. I touched his chest, the curls of coppery hair, the ledge of his collarbone. “Do you think you’ll ever do this again? With someone else?” I laid my palm flat against his chest, feeling for the thump of his heart.

  “I hope not,” he said softly. “I never thought I was this person.”

  Outside we heard geese overhead, approaching and then fading into the distance. We watched one another. I thought of all the days when we had lain here making jokes or talking about inconsequential things or not talking at all, as though silence were the mission we were on.

  “You never told me that,” I said.

  “I never knew you wanted to know.”

  “I didn’t.”

  When we kissed after that it felt solemn and quiet, but we continued anyway, because it would have felt worse to stop now. If you’re going to end something, you should do it properly.

  The sounds of the neighborhood were in our ears, the cars revving and the dogs barking and the kids hollering, all distant and somehow welcoming, as though we were just another couple in this neighborhood, who belonged here the same as everyone else.

  After a while he pulled me up on top of him, and it felt like it used to, his arms wrapped around my rib cage so tightly it hurt, his eyes closed. Lately, I had been reaching for some kind of revulsion, trying to look at him with distaste enough that I would want him to leave, but then I knew it wasn’t working and would never work—he looked beautiful and intent, his eyebrows knit with concentration, a line of white flesh where his lips pressed together. A smile hovered near the corner of his mouth as I moved over him.

  For a moment I watched him, but then I gave up. It felt too sad, too hopeless, to try and commit his face, his expression, to memory. Better not to attempt it at all. So I eased myself off him and got next to him on my hands and knees, pulling his wrist to bring him up from the bed. He didn’t say a thing. I felt the mattress shift as he moved, the
roughness of his knees settling themselves between my own. I looked at the pillow and the headboard, my hands splayed against the blue sheets, and closed my eyes. He got behind me and entered me again, one hand braced on my hip and one arm wrapped around my waist, and we ended it that way.

  eight

  JILL HANDED ME A bottle of wine after holding it up for Kate to view. Then she leaned over the chair to kiss her cheek. Kate smiled, closing her eyes briefly. I got out the corkscrew.

  Jill had said to me once, I always want to kiss her hello or hug her or something, but I don’t want to be in her face. She can’t exactly get away from me if she doesn’t want me to, you know?

  I’d seen Jill’s point at first, because people were always trying to touch Kate in puppylike ways, petting her knee and her hands, stroking her hair. But later I’d realized few touched her who weren’t paid help. I felt terrible for missing that, but since Evan had left this was the truth. Hillary, Simone, and I all touched her and tried to keep it brisk and unintrusive, but only Lisa and a few of her other friends kissed her hello, or put their hands around her shoulders in a modified hug.

  She stepped back and surveyed the makings of dinner. A platter of silky white mushrooms was waiting to be sliced next to a pile of parsley and a bunch of carrots. Pearl onions and stock were simmering in one pan, and another was filled with cubes of beef and two bottles of red wine. The kitchen smelled so rich—all wine and meat and thyme and onion—it seemed we should be able to taste the air. Jill poked at the onions with a spoon. “Did you get this stuff at the market?”