Accidents of Marriage (29 page)

The car kept going forward.
Stupido. Wrong way, stupid.
She needed to back out.

Reverse. R for reverse.

No! Hit the thing that stops the car, stupid fuck retard.

Her disobedient foot jammed harder on the wrong pedal. The car strained at the wooden door, splitting it wider, opening up to the garage packed with boxes and summer chairs and grills and three giant teddy bears her father had once bought for the kids. She steered into the bears until the car stopped, or maybe the bears stopped the car. She moved the stick thing into P and took out the key.

She climbed out of the car, walked out through the splintered door, and headed back to the house. So tired.

Climbing the stairs seemed impossible. Instead she went into the living room and fell facedown on the couch. She smelled her family on the cushions, the blanket, and the throw pillows. She buried her nose in them and pulled up the blue-and-white afghan her mother had made all the way up to her neck.

•  •  •

“Mom? Mommy? Are you okay?”

Someone shook her shoulder. She opened gummy eyes. Emma bent over her, looking pale and scared, frightening Maddy.

“Whas wrong?” she asked—her slow painful words not matching her racing heart. “You . . . okay?”

Over her shoulder she saw Caleb and Gracie pressed together, their jackets still on, their eyes wide open.

“Whas wrong?” she repeated, wishing she could shout or scream. Had something happened to Ben? What would she do without Ben?

“Mom, what happened to the car?” Emma asked.

“Car?”

Gracie stepped forward and put a small hand on Maddy’s foot, clasping her toes in her fist. “The car is smashed into the garage, Mommy.”

“Did Aunt Vanessa do it?” Caleb rocked from foot to foot.

“Where’s Aunt Vanessa?” Emma asked.

They were pelting her with their words. “Vanessa went. Home.”

“I better call Daddy,” Emma said.

“No.” She struggled to sit up. “No.”

Please, she didn’t want Ben racing home and making her into a baby. She strained to remember. What was wrong with the car? Poor Ben. She was sick of Ben looking hangdoggy.

“Show me,” she said to Emma.

Caleb took her hand, and they walked to the front door with Emma and Gracie following.

“Put on your shoes, Mommy,” Gracie said.

She looked down and flexed her white-socked toes. Where were her shoes? Ben’s slippers were sitting face-forward on the shoe mat. She put them on and shuffled out the door.

The vines on the porch were brown and crackled. She could see through them to the driveway.

“No car! Stolen?” she asked.

“No. Look!” Caleb said. He tugged at her hand, pulling her down the porch stairs. She tried not to fall in the flopping slippers. The gaping hole in the garage reminded her of a jack-o’-lantern. Halloween would come soon. She loved Halloween.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

Were these the only words she knew anymore?

“Went wrong. I’m. Make supper.”

“Supper?” Emma repeated. “The car—Never mind. We’ll order something, Mom. Pizza. When Dad gets home.”

“Yeah, pizza with Daddy,” Caleb agreed.

So tired, but yes, they should have supper. She could show Ben she didn’t need a babysitter.

“I’m cook.” She turned and scuffed back to the house.

“I’ll make it, Mom,” Emma said. “You rest.”

Maddy walked past them into the house, straight toward the kitchen, and stopped at the entryway. She put up her hands to block them from following her into the kitchen. “Me. Just me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Emma said.

She pulled up all her energy and tried to sound like a mother. “No. Just me.”

They stared: Emma with slitted eyes, Gracie worried, and Caleb jumping from foot to foot. Yes. This was right! They needed her!

“It’s okay.” None of them moved. She took a breath. Slow, bringing calmness inside. “This I can do.” Ha, slow, but four words. She’d said a four-word sentence! And now she could cook!!

Maddy walked into the kitchen, sensing them still standing there behind her, little statues of uncertainty. She turned around. “Don’t call. Daddy.”

Now she marched forward, her mind clearing as it eventually did after sleep. Too bad she was always tired. Zelda said that was also normal. According to Zelda, everything was normal. Sleeping eighteen hours a day? Normal! Headaches boinging in and out as frequently as she breathed? Normal! One minute jumping on top of Ben, desperate to screw, the next hour screaming if someone brushed against her?

Normal!

Normal!

Normal!

But she had plans! She would go back to work. She would be alone in her house. And she would cook a fucking supper.

CHAPTER 28

Emma

Emma listened for sounds from the kitchen, terrified that her mother might be lying dead across the kitchen table.
Please call us, Dad.
She shifted on the study’s leather couch, hyperalert and ready to run in and rescue her mother.

She felt like the story she’d learned in English class last year. She’d turned into Odysseus, caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Monster number one was her Scylla mother, who’d flip out if Emma called her father, probably pull another nutty with the sugar, or maybe spin her head around till her neck became a choking spiral. Monster number two: her Charybdis father, who would freak on Emma for not calling him. He’d give her one of his interminable lectures, as though she were one of his delinquent clients.

Emma, you have to be responsible, learn to make the proper decisions.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, her mother was probably chanting
fuck, fuck, fuck
or
I love you all so much
in her creepy whisper. Her father had promised Emma the cursing was simply a stage.

“Mom will get over it,” he’d say. “Don’t worry.”

Meanwhile, Emma felt as though she couldn’t leave the house and she wouldn’t dare ask friends over.
Please excuse my mother’s swearing; she has a slight case of brain-injury cursing.
Zach would smile politely while averting his eyes, repulsed by her gross family.

“Emma?” Gracie came and sat on the other end of the couch.

“What?” Emma stared at her book, unwilling to let Gracie’s sadness pull her in and pile on top of her own.

“How much time do you think God gives us when we make a promise? To have to keep it, I mean.”

“What do you mean? What kind of promise?”

Gracie shrugged and looked at her feet. “I promised God I wouldn’t eat any more candy if he made Mommy better. Then Grandpa brought over all that chocolate. And I ate a lot of it.”

“I don’t think God expects you to keep those sorts of promises,” Emma said.

“But what if he does?”

“I think God just wants you to be a good person, Gracie. I don’t think God gives a shit if you eat candy—especially so close to Halloween.”

“What do you think we’re going to do for Halloween?” Gracie asked.

“You and Caleb will go trick-or-treating, like always.”

Gracie made figure eights with her bare toe. “But Mommy always takes us.”

Emma placed her book in her lap. “So I guess Daddy will take you.”

“Then who will hand out the candy?”

Her father loved doing that. Yet another chance for him to be a big shot—holding his hand over the candy bowl, as though debating what the miniature witch or spaceman in front of him deserved. Judge and jury—even with the little kids waiting, holding their decorated brown bags.

“I’ll hand out the candy, Gracie. Don’t worry.” Emma pointedly picked up her math textbook.

“But you and Zach are going to a party. I heard you tell Caro.” Gracie started chewing on her thumbnail.

“Don’t—that’s gross.” Emma pulled Gracie’s hand away from her mouth. “And don’t listen in on my conversations.”

“I have to. Otherwise I don’t know anything. No one ever talks to me,” Gracie said.

“That’s not true, Gracie.” But her sister was probably right. “No one talks to anyone around here anymore.”

“Daddy talks to you.”

“Daddy orders me around. That’s not talking.”

“It’s not being invisible. Like I am.”

“You’re not invisible, sweetie.” Emma gave in and closed her book, placing an arm around Gracie’s shoulders. “You’re the only nice one in the house. Everyone loves you.”

Gracie shrugged again. “So what. No one ever talks to me. That’s why I have to listen.”

Emma opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of what to say.

“Mommy used to talk to me,” Gracie said. “And she really listened.”

“You can still talk to her, you know.”

“It’s not the same.” Gracie stared straight ahead for a moment. “Emma? Do you think we should tell Mommy? You know. About Daddy going fast. About his maybe making the accident happen?”

Emma’s chest tightened at the thought. “If we want to be dead.”

“I think people should tell the truth. I think Mommy should know the truth.”

Emma closed her eyes. She didn’t want any more drama in the house, and she didn’t want her father to explode. “Remember what Daddy said? It just takes time. He’ll tell her when she’s better.”

“But what if she doesn’t get any better?”

“She will.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” Gracie’s voice broke.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to love her like this.” Emma tugged Gracie’s ponytail. “If you want, Caro and I will take you and Caleb trick-or-treating. And we’ll make you costumes.”

“I wish Mommy could make me a costume.”

“I know, but I don’t think she can, sweetie.”

“Should we go check on her?” Gracie asked.

Emma hugged her, grateful for her sister giving her some sort of odd permission to go in the kitchen. “Yes. She probably needs our help.”

Emma peeked into the living room as they went by. Caleb lay on the rug with yet another electronic game Grandpa had bought him last week, a half-eaten bowl of soggy Frosted Flakes in front of him, which was exactly the kind of cereal their mother never used to let them have. At first, their father had tried to be strict about those things, but now he threw anything they wanted in the shopping cart. Last week he’d bought four boxes of Dove ice cream bars when Gracie asked for them and then let Caleb and Gracie each eat one on the way home, even though Grandma had supper waiting and they were dripping ice cream and chocolate all over the car. Some stupid loyalty kept Emma from taking one, despite dying for the comfort of cracking open the brittle chocolate with her teeth and then reaching the creamy vanilla ice cream.

Emma and Gracie faced a tightly shut door at the kitchen entrance. Emma couldn’t remember ever seeing the connecting door between the dining room and kitchen closed. She eased it open, the old hinges creaking.

“Mom?”

Emma stuck her head in, and then pushed the door into the usual position, flush against the kitchen wall. Her mother slept sitting in a kitchen chair, her head resting on her arms on the table. Flour whitened her so-short dark curls. Bowls, measuring cups, sacks of flour and sugar, and mixing spoons covered the table. Butter had fallen to the floor. Eggshells lay in the sink on top of piles of dishes and pots. Vegetable remnants were scattered on the chopping board.

Lumpy batter with pools of liquid sat in a bowl on the counter. Emma crept over and peered in. “What do you think this is?” she whispered to Gracie.

Gracie came over, and Emma tipped the bowl toward her. “It looks sort of like cookie dough,” Gracie said.

“Taste it,” Emma said.

“Why should I taste it?” Gracie asked.

“Just do it.”

Gracie stuck a fingertip in the bowl and put it to her tongue. Emma wondered if she should stop her. It could be poison—what if her
mother had mistaken rat poison for sugar? Did they have rat poison in the kitchen? They didn’t have any rats, but who knew what might be around.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“It’s like cookie batter that’s missing stuff. It tastes crunchy.”

Emma opened the drawer and got a teaspoon. She covered the tip in the batter and brought it to her nose—sniffing before tasting. Sweet and buttery, probably okay. She licked the spoon. Undissolved sugar crunched. Lumps of butter coated with flour made the strange texture. An unmixed pool of dark liquid floated on top—it looked like an entire bottle of vanilla.

“Waa?” Her mother lifted her head an inch.

“Mom, what’s this?” Emma asked.

Her mother blinked a few times, then got up and shuffled to the counter, still wearing their father’s slippers. She looked into the bowl and shook her head.

“Mess.” She began crying. “Cookies. Be. A good mother. Shit, shit. Shit.”

Emma placed a hand on her mother’s back. “It’s okay. It tastes good—sort of.”

“Tired. Head hurts.”

Emma checked the clock. Five thirty. Should she call Kath? Their father would be home any minute.

“I’ll get you some aspirin, Mom.” Emma turned to Gracie. “Get Caleb,” Emma whispered. “We’ll clean up before Dad gets home.”

CHAPTER 29

Ben

Ben approached his street, loosening his tie with one hand, using the other to make a right. The tie had been choking him for twenty-five minutes, but these days he drove as though listening to Barry Manilow or some such shit, both hands on the wheel as he crept along the road.

If Maddy seemed okay, they’d all go out to dinner. Somewhere local. Bella Luna would be good. Elizabeth had deflated his high, but he’d won a case and still wanted to puff out his chest.

He hoped Maddy was in a decent place. He thought about what she would have done before if he’d been excited over a court victory. Something corny, like having the kids make a banner. She might have stopped on the way home from work and bought a bottle of champagne. Maybe even the good stuff.

Now, even if Maddy could drink, it would be something like Cold Duck. All they could afford was cheap faux shit. Ben tensed up each time he looked at their bank account. Maddy’s saved-up sick time had run out ages ago. His father-in-law kept raising the issue of money, and Ben kept putting him off. They were already into Maddy’s parents for more than he wanted. When would Ben have to hit the kids’ college fund? The emergency fund was already—