Missing Mr. Wingfield

by E. Christopher Clark

  “Is it?” said Desiree. “And if it is, then why is it? Because that’s what you had to do?”

  Veronica grunted, then said, “I had to figure things out on my own long before she did.”

  Desiree squeezed Veronica’s shoulders. “Right,” she said, “but do you want to be your dad?”

  Veronica spun around again. She narrowed her eyes and stared up into Desiree’s face, determined to find an answer there, a compromise. But she couldn’t. So, instead, she held out one open palm before her and then set a closed fist atop it.

  “What are you doing?” said Desiree.

  “Rock, paper, scissors,” said Veronica. “No fairer way to decide,” she said.

  “Parenting by Roshambo?” said Desiree, shaking her head and smirking despite herself.

  “Yep,” said Veronica, nodding at her outstretched hands.

  “I guess this is what happily ever after looks like,” said Desiree, mirroring Veronica’s hands now and getting ready to duel. “Dumb and so saccharine it’ll rot our goddamn teeth straight out of our increasingly empty heads.”

  “You ask me,” said Veronica, “the Brothers Grimm—”

  “I don’t think people lived happily ever after in their versions,” said Desiree. “Mostly I think they had their eyes put out by ravens, or else they sawed off their own toes to win the love of aloof princes.”

  “You knew what I meant,” said Veronica. “The fairy tale people,” she said, “I think they end things too early. I think it’s possible, however unlikely, that happily ever after could be a lot more interesting than it lets on.”

  “Fine,” said Desiree, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Are you ready?”

  Veronica nodded. Then, together, tapping fists against open palms on each beat, they said, “Rock, paper, scissors.” But before they could say “shoot,” the barn door slammed shut down below. Veronica and Desiree turned from each other and cast their gazes out of the window again, but Tracy had gone back inside.

  “Come back to bed,” said Veronica.

  “Shoot,” said Desiree, shaping her index and middle fingers into a pair of scissors and waiting for Veronica’s response.

  Paper or rock, Veronica had to decide. She looked into her wife’s eyes, as she always did, for the answer.

  25

  The Lonely Boy in the Rain

  As she stormed back into the courtroom, it was Tracy’s nose that stopped her in her tracks.

  It was filled, all at once, with the smells of plumeria and pineapple, of sunblock and aloe vera, of a pig roasting on a spit.

  Then there was sound: rain pounding down on the roof overhead, rain sizzling as it hit the hot pork, the slap of bare feet racing across cold stone. And, somewhere beyond all that, waves crashing on a not-so-distant shore.

  Finally, there was light and a whole lot of it. Tracy blinked her eyes against the burst of color, rubbing them until they adjusted. The room she found herself looming above now was all wicker and white linen, open to the elements on three sides, a collection of Polynesian art on the fourth. Michael’s own painting of Pele was the centerpiece, a fierce portrait of the goddess emerging from a lava flow to confront a trio of suit-clad men breaking ground where they shouldn’t have been.

  She looked around for some sign of Michael, who was the mastermind behind all this. His ability to bend the world to his liking was frightening. Her mother hadn’t been able to do this, at least not this well, at least not as far as Tracy knew. They were already in Hawaii, and they weren’t meant to be there yet. Michael was in control, and Tracy didn’t like that one bit. She remembered her mother’s dream about the Salesman, how frightened Veronica said he’d been when she had taken control when she wasn’t supposed to. It was happening to Tracy now. But she couldn’t let it. She had to find a way to turn things around.

  A board game sat open, in mid-play, on the dining table. It was Risk, if Tracy was right, a game of military strategy and world domination. She wondered at the significance, beyond the name of course, which was surely meant to refute her claim that Michael didn’t make choices in his life.

  “Mr. Silver!” she shouted, hoping her voice would draw him out. “What is the meaning of—”

  “I’m defending myself,” he shouted back, as he strode into the room. He looked confident, victorious even.

  Tracy said, “The prosecution hasn’t finished its—”

  “Whatever rules this farce might have had,” said Michael, “you broke them first!” He waved at someone in the hallway and then, through the doorway, walked Jenna and Veronica. Veronica strummed a happy tune on the ukulele and they both sang along. Then they seated themselves and looked at their cards, examined their positions on the board.

  Tracy threaded her fingers together and pushed her thumbs together, trying to keep her composure. This looked good. This looked like he had something. She breathed, then said, “You try this court’s patience, Mr. Silver. But, given how unlikely it is that your evidence will sway us, we’ll allow it. Would you care to set the scene?”

  “It was the summer of 2002,” said Michael, “a little over a year after Jenna and I were married. We’d moved to Hawaii after honeymooning there and your mothers decided to pay us a visit.”

  “And where was I?” said Tracy.

  Michael sat at the table, picked up a pair of six-sided dice. “Back in Massachusetts,” he said, “with your father.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Oh,” said Michael, “that sniveling little coward is your father, alright. The family resemblance has never been clearer than it is right now.”

  Tracy banged down her gavel in anger just as Michael rolled the dice. That was when the ladies at the table started speaking.

  “How big are the needles?” said Jenna.

  “Wait!” said Michael. “There are needles?”

  “Yes,” said Veronica. “There are needles. Two different kinds, actually. Subcutaneous and intramuscular.”

  “And which kind is it that Desiree is on now?” said Jenna.

  “Intramuscular,” said Veronica.

  “Intramuscular?” said Michael. “As in inside the muscle?”

  Veronica smirked. “Yep.”

  “Egads,” said Michael.

  “What are you squirming about?” said Jenna. “You’re not the one who’d be getting the shots.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but I’m the one who’d be administering them.”

  “You can’t do them yourself?” said Jenna.

  Veronica shook her head. “Desiree did the subcutaneous ones herself, from time to time. But not the intramuscular. Too much contorting.”

  Michael raised an eyebrow. “Where do you have to stick them?”

  Veronica said, “The upper outer quadrant of a buttock.”

  “Ouch,” said Michael, rubbing his own ass.

  “Oh, quit your worrying,” said Jenna. “I’ve survived being married to you for a year. I know how to deal with a pain in the ass.”

  Tracy laughed, in spite of herself. Michael and Jenna’s banter had always been her favorite part of having them around. But something was gnawing at her, as the conversation continued: How had she not known about this? How had her mothers kept it all a secret?

  “There was no other way for her to get pregnant?” said Michael.

  “There were a few,” said Veronica. “But, seeing as she didn’t want to reenact that Heart song—”

  “Which Heart song?” said Jenna.

  Veronica smiled and Michael groaned, their typical reactions to Jenna’s lack of pop culture knowledge. Veronica illuminated her. “‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You,’” she said.

  “Which one is that?” said Jenna.

  Michael explained: “The one where she picks up a dude on the side of the road for the express purpose of knocking herself up.”

  “Oh,” said Jenna.

  “Yeah,” said Veronica. “So, that was out. We did try artificial insemination, but it didn’t take.�
��

  “Didn’t take?” said Jenna. “You mean, she had a—”

  “Yep,” said Veronica.

  Jenna grabbed hold of Veronica’s hand. Up on the bench, Tracy wished she could do the same. She braced her upper lip against her lower, thinking of what her mothers had lost, of who. A face came to mind, a little old man’s wrinkled, toothless face, but on a cherub’s soft pink body. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jenna.

  “Water under the bridge,” said Veronica, as Tracy opened her eyes again. Veronica addressed the game, waving a hand over the board. “Whose turn is it?”

  “Mine,” said Michael.

  Veronica said, “Then what’s your move, Professor?”

  “Shh!” said Michael. “Don’t jinx it. I haven’t graduated the program yet. And, even if I do, I’m not sure I would want to be a profes—”

  “Waitaminute,” said Veronica. “You haven’t wowed them yet with your thesis on those perverted pin-ups?”

  Michael’s thesis! It was one of Tracy’s favorite texts, both the spiral-bound review copy he gave her the day after he successfully defended his dissertation, as well as the version that the University Press of New England published a few years after that. The premise, as famous now in the art world as it had been for years in their family, was that Nick Gold, a pin-up artist and comic book penciller from the 1940s, was actually an alias of Michael’s Great Aunt Dottie. She was a lesbian trying to break into a male-dominated industry, and Michael posited that it was only because of her male pseudonym that her drawings of half-naked women were as popular as they were. Michael said that, if readers knew it was a woman drawing the stuff they were jerking off to, it never would have worked.

  “Oh, please don’t get him started,” Jenna begged Veronica. “Can we just play?”

  “Of course,” said Veronica. “What’s your play, Prof?”

  Michael winced at the nickname, just as Veronica might wince if the name of Scottish Play were mentioned within fifty feet of the barn. Then, he said, “I’m invading Camel Crap.”

  “Camel what?” said Jenna.

  “Kamchatka,” said Veronica. “It was the nickname our fathers had for Kamchatka.”

  “But,” said Jenna, “Kamchatka doesn’t sound anything like—”

  Together, Michael and Veronica said, “We know.”

  “Did you roll?” said Veronica.

  “Sure did,” said Michael. “Beat that, cuz.”

  Veronica picked up the dice and rolled. Then she smiled as Michael jolted back away from the table.

  “Damn!” he said. “I never win, dude. Never.”

  Veronica plucked several pieces off of the game board tile representing Alaska and deposited them back into the game’s box. “And,” she said, “the mighty army of Camel Crap beats back the pitiful Alaskan hordes once again.”

  As Jenna picked up the dice to roll, Desiree crept into the room, lingering in the doorway. When the rest of them turned to face her, she manufactured a smile, but the craftsmanship was shoddy and Veronica saw right through the façade. Up on the bench, Tracy did too.

  “Hi,” said Desiree.

  Veronica rose from the table and made her way across the room. “What happened?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” said Desiree. “Nothing—”

  “Des,” said Veronica.

  “We can talk about it later,” said Desiree, taking a step toward the table.

  Jenna rose, pushed her seat back, and tapped Michael on the shoulder. She said, “We can give you guys some privacy.”

  “No,” said Desiree. “No, I don’t want to… Not right now.”

  “Is it the baby?” said Michael.

  Tracy wanted to leap down and smack him, to pummel him with her fists until he was weeping on the floor, weeping the way she wanted to weep now. First, he had to show her this in the first place, another piece of him she didn’t want. Then, he had to say that, to ask that stupid question, in that stupid way. She wanted to rip at his neck until she could pull his larynx out of there, then to stomp on his voice right in front of him, until all the words he had left to say were nothing but a bloody mess on his tile floor.

  Desiree broke down and began to cry into the crook of Veronica’s shoulder. Veronica held Des tight, held her own tears back.

  “It’s not because you flew,” said Michael, “is it?”

  “Michael!” said Jenna. “Let’s go.”

  Now Michael began to tear up. He turned to Jenna, said, “I’m the one who convinced them to fly out here.”

  “It’s not because we flew,” said Veronica, guiding Desiree out of the room. “It’s not your fault.”

  Jenna turned on Michael. She said everything Tracy wanted to say, which was the only thing keeping Tracy where she was. “It has nothing to do with you,” said Jenna. “How dare you inject yourself into—”

  “Did you see how crushed she looked?” said Michael. “If there’s anything I could have done, Jenna. If—”

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” said Jenna. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Why,” said Michael, “are you so mad at me for caring?”

  Jenna stalked away from him. She stood by edge of the lanai and held a hand out into the rain. Then she brought that hand to her forehead, used it so push her hair back, away from her face. She closed her eyes, breathed.

  Tracy admired this woman so much, pitied her. The things she put up with, even from perfect, sensitive, gentlemanly Michael.

  “I’m not mad at you for caring,” said Jenna. “I’m mad because you’re falling apart, and it isn’t even your baby.”

  “Yeah,” said Michael. “But it’s my cousin’s, and—”

  “Yes,” she said. “It was your cousin’s. And what would happen if it were yours?”

  Michael said he didn’t understand.

  “Michael,” said Jenna, “you’re a sensitive soul. I get that. I love that about you. But in this situation, if we’re going to go through this, one of us needs to be strong. And I’m telling you right now, it can’t always be me.”

  “But we know this wouldn’t happen to us,” said Michael, standing, going to her. “I mean, the women in your family pop out babies just by thinking about it. I’m the one with the problem in our equation.”

  “So,” said Michael, reaching for her hand, “if all we need is to give my guys a little guidance, then—”

  “Then it could still fail,” said Jenna, pulling her hand away, not yet ready to give it. “It could still fail. And what happens then? Do you turn into a blubbering mess when I need you the most?”

  Michael walked away from her, went to the wall, and plucked the statue of Haumea off of the shelf. Of course he did, thought Tracy. The fertility goddess, the most obvious prop in the room.

  “You want kids,” he said to Jenna, turning to face her again, clutching the statue to his chest. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Jenna.

  “Then why are we even having this discussion? Why are we pretending like not doing the IVF is an option?”

  “Because,” said Jenna. “It is an option.”

  “It’s not!” said Michael. “You want kids. End of story. We have to do this.”

  “No,” said Jenna. “We don’t. If you can’t handle it—”

  “I can handle it!” said Michael, setting Haumea back on her shelf. “Find me one of those needles,” he said, heading back to the table, grabbing the strap of Veronica’s pocket book. “I’ll show you. I’m not gonna pass out at the sight of—”

  “OK,” said Jenna, “you’ll get over your fear of needles. But what about everything else?”

  “What else?” said Michael.

  Jenna sat back down at the table. She said nothing for a moment, began to clear the board of the game’s pieces. Then, she looked at him. She said, “What about the fact that you might not have a choice about that theoretical professorship Veronica was teasing you about? One of us is going
to have to get a job, the nine-to-five kind, the kind with health insurance attached.”

  “Oh, man,” said Michael, “you know I hate talking about that shit. I mean, why do we need health insurance? Plenty of people—”

  Jenna sighed, leaning back in her chair. She rubbed at her temples, probably trying to keep her head from imploding under the sheer weight of his idiocy, his naïveté. “Oh, Michael,” she said. “Jesus Christ! Have you read any of the emails Veronica has sent us, looked at any of the websites?”

  “We’re not going to be able to afford it without insurance?”

  “No,” said Jenna, “we’re not.”

  Michael ducked his head, something finally sinking into it. “I didn’t realize that,” he said.

  “There’s a lot you didn’t realize, apparently.”

  “But I want kids,” he said. “I do.”

  “I know you do,” she said, reaching for his hand, squeezing it. “We all want a lot of things in life. But there are only some wants that we actually get.”

  He turned away from her, pulled away from her grip, but she held on.

  “Maybe,” he said, “you should go out and make like that Heart song then? Find a dude by the side of the road and—”

  Jenna stood, pulled at his hand, and spun him around. “I don’t want a dude by the side of the road,” she said.

  Michael leaned his forehead against hers. “But the one thing I can’t give you,” he said, quoting the song, “is the one little thing that he can.”

  “Yeah,” said Jenna, “but all I want to do is make love to you, you idiot. You, not someone else.”

  Tracy looked down on them for a moment, frozen there in their dining room. It had been nearly nine years since this moment, and she’d never heard of it. So many things about it stunned her, kept her tongue in her mouth and her mind inside itself, but the thing that shocked her most was that Michael had managed to keep something secret, that there was something she hadn’t uncovered in all the digging she’d done.

  “I didn’t know,” she said, as she tapped her gavel against the podium and washed the courtroom in darkness once again.