What We All Want

by Michelle Berry

  He didn’t really do anything with Grace.

  But he wanted to do something.

  Or did he?

  “I was out,” Billy says. He feels itchy all over, especially his genitals. He wants to scratch but he knows that he would be drawing attention to his guilt. His face turns red, blood-hot red all over.

  “I have no one who loves me,” Hilda says from behind the curtain. “Feel yourselves lucky.”

  Billy picks at his fingers with his nails. He bites his lip.

  “And my stomach aches,” Hilda says. “They’ve stolen my ­organs. My liver, my kidneys, my appendix. They took my appendix and they’ve probably given it to someone who will clone me. I saw that on TV.”

  “Rest,” Billy says to Tess. “You’ll be home soon.”

  “You can’t walk out now,” Tess says. “You can’t leave me like this. You can’t leave me with her. We have to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Billy says. “I was just out, that’s all, having a drink.”

  “Drinking, Billy. Jesus.”

  “You eat, Tess,” Billy says. “I drink.” And saying this astonishes him. It can’t be the same thing. He leaves quickly before she can say anything else.

  Billy’s footsteps disappear down the hall and Tess tries to imagine the sound of the engine starting and the short drive to her house. She pictures her kitchen, her fridge and stove, her food cupboards. So many years of looking into those food cupboards, ignoring what is going on around her, eating, always eating. And then her mind moves up the stairs of her house and settles lightly on her cotton, floral pillowcase in her bed. She wishes she were there, her head on the pillow, resting gently. And then she wonders, if she were there, if her head were resting on her floral-covered pillow, would Billy be lying there beside her. She has to take hold of herself, make some changes, get things straightened out. She nearly died, goddamnit.

  “I think we should escape,” Hilda says. “We should get out of here as soon as we can.”

  Thomas, Hilary, and Jonathan are eating breakfast silently in the kitchen. Jonathan has cleaned up the dishes and Hilary is astonished to be eating off plates and bowls, using real glasses Hilary is eating scrambled eggs and toast and drinking new coffee with real cream. Thomas has been back and forth to the grocery store, has stocked up the fridge and plugged in the old freezer in the basement. He filled it with hot dogs and hamburgers, frozen dinners and bread, quick food. Hilary looks around the kitchen. Her puzzle has been carefully moved to the dining-room table which looks dusted. Her dolls have been placed on shelves and tables and look clean and shiny. Until Hilary saw the shine she didn’t realise how dusty everything must have been. She admires the furniture, her grandmother’s—given to her mother when she married her daddy. Hilary thinks the furniture is hers now, passed on from woman to woman, down the line. Unless, of course, Billy decides to take it, along with everything else she owns.

  “It’s so clean,” Hilary whispers.

  “What happened to your puzzle?” Jonathan says. “The face is missing.”

  “I can’t find the pieces,” Hilary says. “But I haven’t really looked everywhere yet. I’ll look more today.”

  “I think that puzzle was always missing pieces,” Thomas says. “I think I remember that.”

  “No,” Hilary says. “No. I remember her face clearly. I remember those pieces.”

  “Probably from the picture on the box.You probably just think you remember.”

  “No, I remember. I remember holding the pieces in my hand. I remember Mother doing the puzzle. The face pieces were her favourites.”

  They eat carefully, quietly. Every chew seems to reverberate in the cleanliness.

  Jonathan gets up for a cup of coffee. He refills all the mugs without asking if anyone wants any more.

  “So,” Thomas begins.

  “We have to dig today,” Hilary says. “And maybe buy things for the party.”

  “The party?”

  “The funeral. People will come. Billy and Tess and Sue.” Hilary stirs sugar in her coffee and then blows on the steam like a child. Loud puffs, her cheeks filled with air.

  Jonathan watches. “I think it’s admirable that you’re burying your mother in the garden, Thomas. If you can get away with it, I would like to be buried in our garden someday. You could put me under that iron bench, beside the bird bath.”

  “Jesus, Jonathan, it’s illegal.”

  “Your garden?” Hilary echoes.

  Jonathan and Thomas look at each other.

  “It will just make things worse,” Thomas says to Jonathan.

  Hilary sips her coffee, watching her brother and his friend. If Hilary could only find the puzzle pieces for the Madonna’s face. She wants to see the eyes clearly, the lips, the set expression on her face. What would it be like to be told you were pregnant when you didn’t want it, didn’t expect it, didn’t even make love to anyone to get it? Hilary remembers from the Bible, from the years her daddy made them go to Sunday school, that Joseph was going to set Mary aside, not marry her, because she was pregnant. But he got an angel too, didn’t he? Someone came down from Heaven and said, Marry that woman because she is carrying God’s son.

  Hilary’s mother got pregnant just out of high school. She didn’t want Thomas, didn’t expect him. But Daddy married her. Without an angel telling him to do it. She was safe within the rules, Hilary assumes. Hilary thinks that she would like to be pregnant now more than anything in the world, and if some angel came down from the sky and told her that she was pregnant, she would dance for joy. She would even consider throwing out some of her dolls to make room for cribs and playpens. She would make the living room floor a soft place for the baby to crawl.

  Thomas clears his throat. He looks at Jonathan, runs his eyes over his lover’s face. This is the man he has spent his life with. This is his life.

  “Do you know I’m gay, Hilary?” he asks.

  “Gay?” Hilary says.

  “Jonathan and I live together. We’ve been living together for fifteen years.”

  “Fifteen years?” Hilary looks at the two men sitting before her.

  “I’m just telling you because I think you should know.” Thomas feels shaky. He has moved his new world into his old world now and the feeling is not good. It’s a stomach-dropping feeling. Thomas fidgets around on his seat as if he has fleas.

  “But,” Hilary starts, “you’ve had girlfriends.”

  “No, Hilary, all that was just pretend.”

  “How can you pretend girlfriends?”

  “I made them up.”

  “But you brought one to Billy’s wedding. How can you make up a girlfriend?”

  “That was a sister of a lover.”

  Hilary stands. She looks at the two men. “Gay,” she whispers. “Together? You, Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughs. “Oh my God. What would Mother have said?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Thomas says.

  “Is that why you didn’t come home? God, that’s why you didn’t come home.”

  “No, of course not.” Thomas looks at Jonathan. “I’m afraid to fly. I have a busy life. I —”

  “That’s why you didn’t come home. I knew there had to be a reason. It wasn’t just us, it wasn’t that you didn’t love us.”

  “No, Hilary, of course not—the point is—Jonathan is my lover.”

  “What does it matter?” Hilary says. “Really? What does it matter?”

  “I thought it might matter.”

  “When are you going to learn, Thomas, that nothing really matters “ Hilary walks out of the kitchen and into the living room. She walks across the rocks and looks out the front window.

  Jonathan comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder. She jumps.

  “You startled me,” Hilary says.

  “I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

  “I’m just looking out the window,” Hilary says.

  “I thought we’d
clean first.”

  Hilary looks at Jonathan.

  “I just cleaned the kitchen and a bit of the dining room. The rest of the house needs a vacuum and dust. The bathroom needs cleaning,” Jonathan says. “I know I don’t know you and you don’t know me but I think we need to clean your house before the funeral.”

  Hilary looks at her dolls lined up on the couch.

  Thomas comes into the living room.

  “Do you really love each other?” she asks.

  “Yes,” Jonathan says.

  Thomas nods.

  “Fifteen years together,” Hilary says. “I didn’t know.”

  “I’m sorry, Hilary.”

  “No,” Hilary says, looking away from Jonathan and Thomas to the window again. “I don’t know much of what is going on in the world.” She presses her face to the cold glass, presses her nose flat. The sensation is both claustrophobic and cooling on her cheeks. She pulls away. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve just been born.”

  Jonathan puts his hands on Hilary’s shoulder again. She shrugs it away. “Let’s have our showers and get ready for the day,” he says. “We’ve got a lot to accomplish. I’m going to vacuum this room and I have to figure out how to do that without disturbing the rocks.”

  “Can’t we pick them up?” Thomas asks.

  “No,” Hilary says. “They have to stay there.”

  Jonathan shrugs. “She’s right. It would take all day just to move them.”

  Hilary presses her face to the glass again.

  Thomas looks at her. He can feel something stuck in his throat, his saliva won’t go down. His eyes well up as he turns to go upstairs, to get dressed for the day.

  Driving home from the hospital, turning the corner before the mall, Billy sees Sue walking along the road. He stops to pick her up. They begin to yell at each other as soon as she gets in the car.

  “Aren’t you going to see your mother today? She’s your goddamned mother.”

  “But I have things to do,” Sue says.”She won’t miss me for one day.” “What could be more important than seeing your mother at the hospital?”

  “Things. I have to meet Sandy.”

  “When did you get this way, Sue?”

  Sue looks out of the window.

  “You used to be something special. You used to be someone.” “Christ, Dad.” Sue slumps down in her seat. “You can drop me off here.”

  “Now all you do is scream and holler. I bet you gave your mother the heart attack. Were you fighting with her?”

  “You wouldn’t know, would you? You were out.”

  “I.…” Billy looks at his hands on the steering wheel. His knuckles are tight.

  “You don’t have to tell me what you were doing,” Sue says. “I can smell it a mile away. Stop the car. I have to meet Sandy.” “What do you mean by that?”

  Sue sighs. “When Samantha slept with Joey, everyone in school knew she had done it. Intuition, I guess. Women can guess these things. We know.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You fucked someone else, Dad. I know. Mom knows. Live with it.”

  Billy pulls the car over to the side of the road. “Get out,” he hollers. “Get the hell out of my car.” He reaches over and slaps Sue on the shoulder. “Get out.”

  Sue slams the door.

  Billy rolls down his window and screams, “I wasn’t unfaithful.” “Whatever.” Sue starts walking back down the road. She is rubbing her shoulder.

  Billy leans on his steering wheel, his forehead resting on his hands, and he begins to cry. His mind is so whirlingly crazy he doesn’t know what to do. Twice in two days he is crying. A man who hasn’t cried since he was a small boy. What’s gotten into him? He reaches under his seat and takes out one of the beers from the pack he’s been drinking all morning. He opens it and swallows it quickly, letting the bubbles burst inside his belly. He burps. He sobs and burps and drinks. He hit his little baby. He watches her through his rear-view mirror as she disappears down the road. He drinks more beer. And the more he drinks, the more he thinks about Grace and the less he thinks about Tess and Sue. He thinks about how he wants to try again, how he wants any woman’s body that will just lie there and let him do what he has to do. He doesn’t want a history with anyone, he doesn’t want this tenseness, this uncontrollable sadness. He just wants a good screw. He just wants to think with his body, not his mind. He wants to explore things other than feelings. He drinks more and the empties pile up beside him.

  Billy turns on the car. He drives swervingly down the road towards Greenhomes Minigolf Course, towards Grace. He doesn’t notice that he’s driving so slowly that several people move out to pass him. Billy doesn’t notice that he has the air conditioner going in the car, instead of the heat. He sees an older man walk out in front of his car and he brakes just in time. The older man raises his hand to stop the car from hitting him. The man peers at the Oldsmobile and then walks stiffly away. Billy suddenly remembers his father coming to his baseball games and sitting in the stands with a proud smile on his face.

  Billy drives into the Minigolf course parking lot. There are a few cars scattered around, parked haphazardly. Billy can see into the clubhouse window and he sees the young man from the night before talking to a customer. There are three or four people playing on the course. Billy drinks the final beer and then gets out of the car. He has to piss badly and he thinks of the other night when he pissed in the bushes and he wishes it were dark out. The cold is palpable. Billy feels the air whipping him. He hunches his head into his shoulders and walks, hands in pockets, into the clubhouse. The bell on the door rings and everyone looks at him. The young man smiles. Billy glances around, looking for Grace.

  “Can I help you?”

  Billy shrugs.

  “Are you here to play some holes?”

  “No,” Billy says, “I’m looking for Grace.”

  “Oh.” The young man walks to the back of the store and hollers into a doorway. Grace comes out, wiping her hands on her shirt. She sees Billy. She looks at him.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi.” She has something white on her upper lip. It looks like sugar. “Can we talk?” Billy feels horrible. His voice is slurred and his mind is wandering.

  “About what?”

  Billy looks around. Everyone in the clubhouse is silent, listening to the conversation between Billy and Grace.

  “Come here,” Billy says.

  “I’m busy” Grace says. “I’m having a break. I only get one break a day. I need to take it.”

  Billy looks at the other customers. He is nervous. He beckons her. He whispers, “Can’t we go outside and talk?”

  Grace looks at the young man. He nods his head.

  “I’ve only got a minute,” she says. She follows Billy out into the cold. “Shit, it’s cold out here.” She hugs herself. Her teeth chatter. “We can sit in my car.”

  “Fine.” Grace runs to Billy’s car and waits for him to open it. She sits in the back seat because of all the beer bottles on the front seat. The car reeks of beer. Billy sits behind the wheel and watches Grace in the rear-view mirror.

  On Sunday, after Billy ran out of the house, Grace climbed into the top bunk and listened to the mumblings of her mother’s TV set and thought about her life and what she’s going to do with it. Billy hadn’t even said goodbye or “See you again,” he just left. And when he left, as when all the men who come over to her house walk out, Grace felt an overwhelming sense of relief. She knows that each time she lets a stranger into her home she is taking a monumental risk. And when that stranger leaves, relief floods her system.

  “So, what’s up?” Grace asks. She licks her lips. She was in the middle of a snack and she can still taste the coffee and donut she was eating. Her coffee is probably getting cold in the back room of the clubhouse.

  “I don’t know.” Billy looks at Grace in the rear-view mirror. He tilts it to catch her reflection. He can’t figure out what he found attractive about this woman
the other night, what made him want her. In the light of the day he sees the pimples on her forehead, the red mark on her lip where she bites it. There is ink on her hands and her nails are bitten down and chipped.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you again.” Grace makes a move to get out of the car.

  “Stay,” Billy says. “Just for a second.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Christ,” Grace says. “You’re drunk.”

  Billy looks at the bottles on the seat beside him. “I’ve had a few,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m drunk.”

  “You shouldn’t even be driving. Why are you driving when you’re drinking?”

  “Shut up,” Billy says. His eyes go cold.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Grace says.

  “Listen,” Billy says. “I’m sorry. It’s just…my daughter…I’m being henpecked from all corners. I just thought I might like a little comforting. I thought maybe you and me, we could, you know, go back to your house.”

  “No,” Grace says. “I don’t think so “

  “Why not?”

  “I have a rule,” Grace says, running her fingers up and down the car window which is fogging up from the heat of their bodies. “One night only. No matter what.”

  “That’s not a good rule,” Billy says. “How will you know if you’ve ever found the right person?”

  “I’m not looking for the right person.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Same thing as you, I guess.”

  “What’s that?” Billy really doesn’t know and he hopes to hell she will tell him.

  “Sex.”

  “That’s not it,” he says. “There’s something else.”

  “Yeah, well,” Grace says, “that’s all I’m looking for. I don’t need all the shit that comes with relationships.”

  Billy nods, knowingly.

  “I just need sex once in a while. That’s all it comes down to. We’re all animals, you know, deep inside these human skins.”

  “But don’t you hate to be alone?”

  “Nope,” Grace says, putting a stick of gum from her pocket into her mouth and snapping tiny bubbles against her tongue. “Being alone is great.” She opens the car door. “Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got my mother.” She laughs. “Sorry about that,” she says. “I’d really like to sleep with you but I have my rules.”