Detours

by Vollbrecht, Jane

  “This is when I start getting her ready for bedtime. House rule is that Nat’s in bed by nine, though it’s anybody’s guess when she’ll actually stop talking and settle down to sleep. If I start around seven-thirty, by the time she’s bathed, changed, and out of arguments, I can get her there by nine.” Mary tried to decipher the look on Ellis’s face. “You must think I’m some kind of nut case.”

  “Not at all. I don’t pretend to understand what it feels like to have a child.” She gave Sam’s head a generous rub. “I know how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel when ol’ Sam here acts like I’m the best thing in her life. That’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to knowing what a mother feels.”

  “You never wanted kids?” Mary asked. “The two-legged kind, I mean.” She paused in her collection process long enough to give Sam a quick scratch behind her ears. “No disrespect intended, Sam.”

  Mary anticipated a quick answer and was surprised when Ellis seemed to contemplate her response. “Not of my own, no.”

  Mary dropped the armload of miscellany she’d rounded up onto the ottoman. “Did you want someone else’s kids?”

  Once again, Ellis seemed to take a long time to answer. “No, I wouldn’t say that, either.”

  Mary sat down in the glider, the chair she’d spent most of the afternoon and early evening in as she and Ellis compared notes on their lives. “Then what would you say?” Mary was greeted with yet another uncomfortably elongated lull in the conversation.

  “I’m afraid anything I say will come out all wrong.” Ellis used her good foot to push against the far end of the sofa and sit up a little straighter. “We’ve had a good day together, and I don’t want to ruin it.”

  “We talked about everything from our families to religion to sperm banks, and we got along fabulously well. Why would talking about kids ruin things?”

  “It wouldn’t. It’s just that—”

  The ringing of the portable phone on the end table interrupted Ellis’s thought.

  Mary checked the clock. “Twenty minutes to eight. That’ll be Natalie. Nathan has probably told her it’s time to start getting ready for bed, and calling me is one of her typical delay maneuvers.” Mary lifted the phone. She said to Ellis, “I’ll only be a minute or two,” and pushed the talk button. She pointed to her chest and then to the hallway. She mouthed the word, “bedroom,” then held her index finger across her lips and pointed to the TV.

  Ellis nodded. She heard Mary’s side of the conversation as she left the room. “Hi, honey. How was the movie? What did you eat for dinner tonight?” Sam jumped up from her place by the sofa and followed Mary.

  Ellis fixed her eyes on the television screen. Maybe she could pick up the thread of the story Leslie Stahl was reporting, or at least get a chuckle out of Andy Rooney’s witticisms.

  And maybe she’d run for president or form a rock band or win a Nobel Prize in physics. She hit the “off” button on the remote control. The memories of one of her last conversations with her ex-lover, Becky Blumfeld, washed over her like the surge from behind a burst dam.

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  She and Becky had stood in the entryway to their jointly-owned house in the Candler Park neighborhood in east Atlanta. They’d been together almost ten years—ten great years, in Ellis’s estimation. Ten great years minus one essential ingredient by Becky’s reckoning.

  “You know I don’t want to lose you, Becky.” Ellis fought the tangle of emotions inside her. Losing Becky would be worse than death. The argument had grown old from hundreds of repetitions, but the prospect of life without Becky made Ellis hope their differences could be resolved.

  “I don’t want to lose you, either, Ellis, but I told you right from the start that I wanted to have a family.”

  “We are a family. You, me, two cats, a dog. We live in a nice house. We’re both doing jobs we love. We’ve got a few bucks in the bank. Your parents like me. My brother and sister ignore us—which is just fine.” Ellis lifted Becky’s chin with her fingertips. “What’s wrong with the life we’ve got?”

  “What we have is fine. But there’s a huge missing piece, and without it, I’ll never feel complete.”

  “You’re stuck in a fairy-tale world.” Ellis spun away and waved her hands in the air in exasperation. “Having a baby would complicate everything.”

  “I agree. It would affect every detail of our lives, but I see it as a blessing, not a complication. Yes, babies change everything, but in a good way.”

  “What’s good about not being able to sleep late on the weekends or to take off and run to the beach for a couple of days? What’s good about needing a babysitter every time we want to see a movie or go for a bike ride? Hell, we couldn’t even make love when we wanted to if we had to worry about a baby’s schedule.” Ellis stomped a few paces away, then returned to Becky, who started to cry. Ellis reached out to hold her, but Becky pushed her hands away.

  “Don’t, Ellis. We’ve had this argument for years. You won’t change your mind, and I can’t change mine.” Becky cried harder. “If you won’t agree to let me be inseminated, then we just can’t stay together.”

  Ellis tipped her head back and forced herself to wait before speaking. She lowered her head and looked Becky in the eye. “It’s not like taking a wild notion to get a horse or raise sheep. A kid is forever. You can’t take it back to the store if it turns out to be more work than you expected or if it gets sick a lot and costs piles of money.”

  “I know that. And no amount of money can replace what it would feel like to hold my own child in my arms and feel its heart beating against my chest. No movie or bicycle ride or walk by the ocean could ever be as entertaining as hearing my child call me ‘Mom’ and watching her take her first steps.” Becky sucked in a shaky breath. “I was a hell of a lot of work for my parents, and I cost them a mountain of money, but I remember the look on my dad’s face when I got my MBA at Emory. My mother has scrapbooks full of my report cards and track ribbons and programs from my piano recitals.” Becky clenched her fists and glowered at Ellis. “I want my chance to be proud of my son or daughter. And I don’t care if he’s a C-student, finishes last in every race he ever runs, and can’t pick out Twinkle Twinkle after six years of lessons.”

  Becky suddenly stopped crying and fixed a withering gaze on Ellis. “When we had our commitment ceremony, you promised to always believe in the future.”

  “And I meant it.”

  “What could be a bigger belief in the future than having a child?” Sparks fairly flew from Becky’s eyes.

  Ellis couldn’t meet her gaze. She stared at the floor and spoke softly. “It was so different for me. My childhood was nothing like yours.” She knew what was coming next, and even uttered the words with Becky as she said them.

  “We’re not your parents…”

  Becky exploded. She thumped her fists on Ellis’s chest. “Damn you, Ellis. Damn you to hell and beyond. You win. I’ll spare you the horrible inconvenience of having a child. You can fatten up your bank account and keep your schedule free and clear for whatever spur-of-the-moment adventure might beckon. Take your precious freedom and get the hell out of my life. I won’t tie you down with something so wretchedly confining as a child who’d have the unmitigated gall to think of you as a parent.”

  Ellis stood in stunned silence. Becky seemed to sink into herself. Her voice broke as she said, “I love you, Ellis. I’ve loved you as best I know how. The worst part is I know I’ll love you for the rest of my life, but I can’t do this anymore.” She smiled, but it was without warmth or light. “I’m thirty-five, and I’m not willing to wait any longer to accomplish the one thing that I’ve known for thirty years I need to do.”

  Becky picked up an overnight bag and opened the door. “I’ll be at my mom’s. We’ll talk in a couple of days. Be thinking about what we should do with the house and which of us should take the animals.”

  “Becky, please…”

  Becky paused on the threshold. “It’s no
use, babe. The one thing that you could do to make me change my mind isn’t even a possibility. If it had been, I know you’d have done it years ago.”

  With that, Becky was gone, and Ellis was left with what she thought she wanted, but somehow, freedom didn’t feel at all like it ought to.

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  And now, here she was cheerfully established on the couch of a woman with a child, and she still had no reason to believe that being a parent was all that fulfilling. What she’d seen of Natalie only underscored what she’d envisioned: a lot of thankless work for a demanding, unreasonable, small person who gave back precious little for all the money and energy expended on her.

  Mary returned to the living room, portable phone in hand. Ellis said, “So, motherhood duties completed for another day?”

  “In your dreams. I had to promise to call her at five minutes to nine to say good night.” Mary put the phone in its place. “You’re due for one more round of ice and a pain pill. Do you want something to eat first?”

  “No, in fact, I think I might skip the pain pill. I haven’t had one since right before Nathan and Natalie left, and I’m doing fine. If I can, I’d like to get by without it. I probably should take the anti-inflammatory, though.”

  Mary took a step toward the kitchen.

  “I’ve gotten good at getting around on my stick legs, you know.” Ellis hefted one of her crutches. “I could get it myself.”

  “You could, but I’m going to grab a beer and some pretzel sticks anyway, so I might as well bring it to you.”

  “Any chance you’ve got two beers out there?”

  “Yeah, I do, but I don’t think you should have any alcohol until you’ve been off the Darvocet for twenty-four hours.”

  “What was it Nathan said about you being an overprotective mother?”

  “Thank goodness Natalie was out of the room when he brought it up. She’d have gone on for an hour about what a pain in the ass I am.”

  Mary went to the kitchen and came back with a Coke for Ellis, a beer for herself, a bag of pretzels, and Ellis’s pill. Ellis pulled the ottoman near enough that she could sit with her foot resting on it. Mary sat at the other end of the sofa.

  “Don’t let me forget to call Natalie, okay? As much as I ride her about remembering to keep her promises, the very last thing I need to do is give her ammunition by forgetting my own.” Mary took a long drink from her bottle of Budweiser. “I’m so glad the beer truck that rolled yesterday wasn’t the only one in town.” She set the bottle on the end table and grabbed the pretzel bag. “Maybe Natalie wouldn’t be such a nitnoy if she weren’t an only child. She’s so accustomed to being the absolute center of attention. It was bad enough when Nathan and I were still together, but we both made the classic mistake of trying to overcompensate after we divorced. She can be a total tyrant.”

  “Did you and Nathan want more kids?”

  “Absolutely. And if I hadn’t had to have intercourse to get them, we’d probably have had three or four.” Mary passed the pretzels to Ellis. “And if that had happened, we wouldn’t have split up, and you and I wouldn’t be sharing this delicious bag of white flour and salt.”

  Ellis pulled a handful of sticks from the bag. “You make them sound so appetizing.”

  “It’s a gift. Comes from all my years of working with words.”

  “Tell me more about the magazine you work for.”

  The hour flew by as Ellis and Mary picked up from where they’d left off in their earlier conversation of that afternoon. At eight-fifty-eight, Mary called Natalie, as promised, and then had to make a new promise to call again before Nathan took her to school the next morning.

  Mary wiped her brow in mock exhaustion. “Now I think my motherhood duties are finally complete—for today, anyway.”

  Ellis nearly melted into a puddle from the seductive look Mary cast her way.

  “My daughter is with my ex-husband. My cat and your dog are once again asleep on Natalie’s bed.” Mary peered around the room, then completed her thought. “It would appear that we’re alone.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Ellis inched over as far toward Mary as she could get and still keep her right leg on the footstool.

  “I’m inclined to say good, but remember, I’m new at this.”

  Ellis shoved the pretzel bag out of the way and left her hand palm up on the sofa cushion. Mary reached over and slid her palm over Ellis’s, just barely making contact.

  “Mmm. Nice.” Ellis leaned her head against the back of the sofa. “Last night you were a soup tease, tonight you’re a hand-hold tease.”

  “You’re not exactly lily-white in that regard, you know.” Mary laced her fingers with Ellis’s.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seems to me you owe me some information about a major character flaw and an explanation about someone named Becky.”

  Without thinking, Ellis yanked her hand free.

  “How do you know about Becky?” she blurted.

  Mary seemed taken aback. “The same way I knew about Sam. You mentioned them both when you were talking in your sleep yesterday on our way here after getting your ankle checked.” Mary stretched and reclaimed Ellis’s hand. “I guess calling that a character flaw was a little strong.”

  Ellis knew her laugh sounded tinny and nervous, but she couldn’t manage one less forced. “Oh that. Yeah, I can be a real orator, when I’m not a snore-ator.” Her palm felt moist, and she hoped Mary didn’t notice. “Darn good thing I’m a sleep talker and not a sleepwalker. That could cause all sorts of trouble with my cast and crutches.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me about Becky, you don’t have to.”

  “Not much to tell.” Another forced, fake laugh. “We used to be a couple, but now we’re not.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” Ellis used her free hand to graze the back of Mary’s hand with her knuckles. “We just had different goals for our lives. We figured out it was better if we each went our own way.”

  “Do you still keep in touch with her?” Ellis felt the tension in Mary’s question.

  “We don’t have much in common these days. We don’t go out of our way to avoid each other, but we don’t talk on the phone every week, either.”

  “So she’s in Atlanta?”

  “Yep. Candler Park.”

  “What kind of work does she do?”

  “She’s the office administrator for a nonprofit research group.”

  “A real brain, huh?” Mary lifted their hands off the sofa, then let them plop back onto the cushion.

  “That’s a strange comment.”

  “Not when you realize I consider myself the dumbest woman on the planet.”

  “Get in line behind me.”

  “Oh, right, Little Miss Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. I bet there were plenty of biology and chemistry classes involved in getting that degree.”

  “So? What have I done with them? I mow lawns in the summer and eat mac and cheese all winter, wondering if the bank account will stretch far enough to get me back to the busy season so I can buy a hamburger once in a while, and then for a splurge, have fries and a Dairy Queen treat.”

  Mary furrowed her forehead. “It can’t be all that bad. You’ve got a nice truck, and your apartment isn’t exactly a dump. I’ve been there, remember?”

  “The truck was part of the deal I made with Becky. We’d each gotten a new vehicle shortly before we split up. She kept the house and paid off my truck loan to pay me back for what I’d put into the mortgage there.”

  “How long had you two been together?”

  “About ten years.”

  “And all you got out of that was your pickup truck?”

  “No, she agreed to pay off whatever was on the credit cards we had, and I got a promissory note, too.”

  “Not that it’s any of my business, but has she paid on the note?”

  “I haven’t asked her to.”


  “Why not?”

  “I wanted to see if I could make it on my own.”

  “Can you?”

  “Too soon to say. We’ve only been apart for a little more than a year.”

  Mary looked at Ellis out of the corner of her eye. “Have you dated anyone since you and Becky broke up?”

  “Just one, but it’s serious.” Ellis gave Mary’s hand a quick squeeze. “You’ve met her. Black, curly hair. Sweet brown eyes. Good kisser. Loves puppy cookies, squirrels, and nine-year-olds named Natalie.”

  “Sam, the bed hog?”

  “That’d be the one. She’s the only girl I’ve dated since Becky kicked me to the curb.”

  “At least Sam seems loyal and devoted.”

  “True enough.”

  “Despite her loyalty, I bet she’s grateful she has a night’s reprieve from my holy terror.”

  “Or she’s pining away for her new best friend.”

  “Either way, she seems to have decided she likes it here.”

  “Can’t say as though I blame her.” Ellis sidled a bit nearer to Mary. “I could get used to it myself.”

  Mary released Ellis’s hand and eased close enough to drape her arm around Ellis’s shoulder. “Good. That’s saves me the trouble of trying to convince you to move in.”

  Ellis stiffened.

  “While your ankle heals, I mean,” Mary said. “I didn’t want to have to argue with you about you and Sam staying for the next few weeks ’til you’re off the crutches and out of the cast. It was my fault you got hurt, after all.”

  “Your fault?”

  “Uh-huh. You fell for me, so the least I can do is help you get back on your feet.”

  Chapter 5

  “How can Christmas be less than a week away?” Mary poured ketchup on Natalie’s hamburger and passed the plate to her. “Seems like the last thing I knew, it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I was on my way to a book discussion at Charis Books.”

  Natalie ignored her lunch and instead continued her inspection of her Christmas gift from Ellis.