Splinters of Light (21 page)

“S
he’ll never forgive me.”

Luke grabbed Mariana’s hand. “I know you feel that way.”

He said it all the time. Mariana hated it. “You
don’t
know.”

“Look. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She didn’t know where Ellie was.” Mariana had ruined her chance. Her only chance.

Luke sighed. Again.

It had been sweet earlier, when Luke had asked that they stay at home instead of going out. They’d been planning on going to a picnic at their friend Savannah’s condo in Oakland, but when they’d looked at traffic, it would have taken them an hour and a half to get there, and who knew how bad it would be on the way back? Luke had nuzzled Mariana’s throat, his scruff making her shiver. “Let’s stay home and make some belated fireworks of our own.” Mariana had laughed in surprise and spun in his arms.

It had felt like Before. It used to be they’d spent full days in bed whenever they could steal the time. Since the proposal, though, they’d been so wretchedly polite. The few times they’d had sex had felt perfunctory, bodily needs met, that was all.

Today, though, was different. It had been old times. The windows shook with another reverberation outside. A full week after the Fourth of July, the Potrero neighborhood was still beating a staccato rhythm of airborne blasts punctuated by whistles. The bed swayed and thumped joyfully along with their movements. She kept her eyes open while she came, and he’d done the same. That had been the worst—and the best—part.

Lying on his back, Luke spoke toward the ceiling, “Honey—”

Mariana sighed. That simple noise was enough to take a bit of light from the room. Luke didn’t finish his sentence. He got up. The water ran in the bathroom. She could see him in profile, leaning forward, his wrists on the sink, his head down. He stayed like that for a long, unbearable moment.

She was going to lose him if she kept this up. There was no relief in the thought.

He finally left the bathroom and sat next to her on the bed. “Mariana—”

“Why do you stay?”

“You still don’t know?” His laugh said that things were the same, that he still loved her the same way.

She was—what were those rocks called? Where ships wrecked? She was those. “Your proposal . . . You shouldn’t . . .”
You’re wasting your time with me. Why bother? Why are you here with me now?

“I love you, you idiot.” He tugged on a lock of her hair. “I love the way you cuddle yourself into me until sweat runs off me in the middle of the night. I love the way you laugh at more than half of my jokes. I love the way you fit on the back of my Harley. I love the way when you’re at the shop, you have your own work to do on the app and I don’t have to worry about you. I love your sexy walk, and I like this slick spot right here.” He slipped his
hand to where he’d so recently been, and Mariana gasped. “I love that you like to cook but can still manage to burn rice.”

“Hey!”

“And I love that I can see how much you love me by the way you buy the baking soda toothpaste instead of your damn Colgate.”

“I hate that baking soda shit,” she said mildly.

“But you buy it for me.” Luke smiled.

“Let’s have a baby instead,” she said. It was a thought that had flickered through her mind two or three times a week for the last month or so. When Luke had been inside her earlier, she’d imagined it, a child made by them—a little extension. A piece of them, held to the side. Just in case. It was a stupid thought, one she couldn’t stop having.

Luke scrambled, crablike, backward and up the bed so he was sitting against the headboard. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She kept her voice light. “Why not?”

“Why
not
? You’re forty-four. I’m forty-eight. You won’t
marry
me. We’ve never even talked about babies. You bring it up
now
?”

“There are ways.”

“You realize you’re being insane. I know you’re not serious.” He wiped his forehead, swiping his hand down to his mouth.

She wasn’t really serious, or at least she hadn’t been, not up until about sixty seconds ago. She’d been pregnant once in her early twenties and she’d never regretted the abortion she’d had. She’d never thought about getting pregnant on purpose. Not till now. “We could do it. Think about what it would be like.”

“God
. Everything
is about your sister.”

Heat filled her mouth, burning her tongue. Mariana held up a hand. “Ex
cuse
me?”

“I know you love her more than anyone in the whole world, and I’ve always accepted that.”

Anger flared low in her belly. She folded her arms. “You had
no choice but to accept that.” Of course she loved Nora more. Of
course
she did.

“That’s what I’m saying. I’ve been mostly fine with that up until now. But, Jesus, Mariana.” He wiped his lips. Normally he would reach out and touch her leg or she would twist and put her head in his lap. But neither of them moved. They were frozen. They didn’t jump when a firework mortar blasted somewhere outside, rattling the glass again. “A child that you”—he waved his hands in the air—“give birth to or buy or adopt or whatever, that won’t make Nora think you’re good enough to take care of her daughter.”

It hit her with the force of the sun. He was right. It was literally the only thing she hadn’t tried in her constant quest for her sister’s acceptance.

How naive of her. “Holy shit.”

“Love—” He started to reach for her and then took his hand back, pulling the sheet over his lap. Luke was almost never conscious of his nakedness. Then he took a deep breath that Mariana could almost feel. “It’ll be okay. Having Ellie here. It’ll work great. We can move your office into the spare bedroom, and she can have the attic. She’s always loved it up there—”

“No, no, no, no.
No.
” She wrapped her arms around her knees, realizing that she was freezing even though she was still sweating at the armpits. “It won’t—she won’t—we won’t need to do that. It’s not going to come to that. She’ll be fine. I don’t know how . . . But I’m not . . .”

Luke’s answer was his silence.

Mariana went on. “She
will
be. We have no idea what kind of breakthrough drug is about to be released. They’ve been researching it, just throwing buckets of money at it.” She’d read so much about it. Millions of dollars had to add up to a cure. Eventually. Soon. “And besides, she doesn’t want me to have Ellie. I’m not good enough.” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t.

“Well, she sure as hell won’t want Paul to have her.”

“I
hate
that you thought of this.”

Luke shut his eyes.

She scooted forward then. She put her hands on his knee and shook it. “Nora’s going to be fine.” He smelled like them, like sex and sweat and faintly of the rosemary shampoo they both used. “She’s going to be okay. Eventually.”

When he opened his eyes, she saw the truth.

Fuck him, anyway. She scrambled off the edge of the bed and lunged for her robe.

“You’re going to have a kid whether you like it or not,” he said.

“Stop talking.”

“Paul’s never going to help. You all know that. You’re going to have to take care of Ellie when your sister isn’t here.”

“Stop.”
They didn’t yell at each other. Ever. She was a professional in the field of mind-body balance. And she didn’t care that she was screaming. “You’re so full of
shit
. You don’t know
anything
.” Her hands fumbled with the robe’s tie—she couldn’t make a bow. She’d forgotten how.

He stood and made the bow for her as she shook in front of him. Then he led her back to bed and pulled the blanket up over both of them. Mariana’s teeth chattered so hard she bit her tongue and she tasted blood.

“I love you,” she said against his neck.

“I know.”

Another explosion roared outside. The smell of gunpowder drifted in through the open window. “No, I really love you.” She wanted to tell him she loved him more than Nora. She wanted to say it so badly.

“I know.” His hand was heavy on the back of her neck.

Open hands cling to nothing.

What a bullshit mantra. She wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could.

EXCERPT,
WHEN ELLIE WAS LITTLE:
OUR LIFE IN HOLIDAYS,
PUBLISHED 2011 BY NORA GLASS

Labor Day

When Ellie was little, we went camping. The first time she slept in a tent was the first time Paul ever had, too. Such a city boy that he could sing along with car alarms, he was convinced right down to his toenails that we were doomed to die a terrible, outdoor death.

“How?” I said, pulling a citronella candle out of the pantry.

“Bees.”

“Bees are a drag, but they won’t kill you.”

“What if a
swarm
of bees attacks us? What’s your fancy-pants idea then?”

“Then we go into the tent and zip it closed,” I said while I filled the food box: string cheese, Goldfish crackers, red apples, and perfect green grapes. We’d been playing this game for a while now, and I’d realized I didn’t have to pay him my complete attention—I could pack for the camping trip while I listened to his galloping fears. We’d already checked bear–escaped felon–mountain lion off the list, and I figured it would take him a while to get to white lady–ghost–man with hook for hand.

“What if the bee swarm follows us into the tent?”

It was a ridiculous worry. They all were. That’s what I wanted to tell him. But the camping trip was my idea, and thus, it was my responsibility to assuage him. I didn’t have real worries yet. I had no idea I’d be for all intents and purposes a single mother in less than six months. I had no idea this man I loved so much would become a stranger not only to me but to the little girl he seemed to love so much. “Bees hate the sound of a zipper,” I said. “They’re more scared of being in a tent than you are.”

Paul raised one thick eyebrow. “Now you’re lying.”

I had no firm science to back up my claim, but I believed it. Bees probably
did
hate the sound of zippers.

He scrolled down his mental list. “Okay. What if a spider crawls into Ellie’s ear?”

I winced. “They don’t do that.”

He grabbed a chocolate bar out of my hands and unwrapped it. “Aha! Now I know you’re lying. Remember the Schwartzes’ kid? Didn’t that happen to them when they went camping in Tahoe?”

“Those are for s’mores.”

“You have, like, twenty of them. And tell me I’m wrong about the spider.”

Jennifer Schwartz had been convinced a spider had wriggled its way into her ear while she slept, and no one had believed her until they’d gotten down off the mountain and she was
still
alleging she could hear it moving inside. Sure enough, at the hospital they’d flushed out a small, harmless, but probably very surprised arachnid. I still got chills thinking about it.

“No bug will climb into our daughter’s ear.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“You can have her wear earplugs if you’re worried.”

“Oh.” Paul brightened and hopped up onto the counter next to the sink. He took a huge bite of the Hershey’s. “Good point. I’ll wear some, too.”

“So really,” I said, moving so that I stood between his knees, “you’re concerned about getting something in
your
ear.”

“No . . .”

“And being stung by a bee yourself.”

He used those long, strong legs of his to pull me against him. “I could be allergic,” he said.

“But you’re probably not.”

“Who knows? I’ve never been stung.”

“Chances are good that you’re not.”

“But if I am, I could
die
.” He made a tragic face, and I remember this: I laughed at him. Six months later, I would be wishing for his death. (Don’t look at me like that, dear reader. If you’d seen the way he looked at me when he told me I couldn’t be enough for him, that
we
couldn’t be enough, you would have offered to dispose of the body.)

“We’re camping in the
backyard
. We’re two minutes from the closest fire station. I think you’ll probably pull through.”

“What if—”

“Shhhh.” I kissed him. I remember so vividly the taste of that kiss: equal parts cheap chocolate and warmth, a mixture of exasperation and love. All of it tasted the same to me:
safety. I heard a shuffling behind me, and I knew almost-four-year-old Ellie would be standing there when I turned, one thumb in her mouth, trailing Paul’s old Cal sweatshirt behind her, the sweatshirt she used as a binky. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Lions or tigers?” said Ellie’s small voice. “Bears?”

I spun to face her, my happiness beating full, wide wingspans in my chest. This was my family. My
family
. My own little world, and they came to
me
with their silly worries in the day, with their real fears at night. Me.
Mine.
“There are no creatures from
The Wizard of Oz
in our backyard. None. I promise you that.”

“What about the downhill?”

Ellie had a nebulous fear about the slope below our house: that a bogeyman would walk up it and into her room, that ghosts roamed under the oak trees at night. “The only thing down there is deer. Maybe a raccoon or two.”

“What about skunks? What if we get sprayed by one?”

Paul slid off the counter and tried—too late—to hide the chocolate wrapper. “Yeah, Mom. What about
skunks
? Huh?” He handed the last piece of candy to Ellie. Her face lit up, and she dropped her hold on the sweatshirt. I could try to grab it off the floor to wash it, but I suspected she needed it for getting ready to sleep outside.

“A skunk would not be ideal,” I admitted.

Ellie’s face was both horrified and thrilled. “What if it came in the tent and
sprayed
us?”

“Then we’d go in the house and wash off.”

“It doesn’t come off with soap,” said Ellie. “Steffie’s dog got sprayed and it had to stay outside forever and ever.”

It had been more like a week, according to Stephanie’s mom, Janice. “It comes off with tomato soup,” I said, though I didn’t know if that was exactly true.

Ellie screeched in joy. “A
bath
? In tomato
soup
?”

I nodded. “I’d make those crunchy bread crumbs you like. And I’d put them in the bath with you.” I gathered my little girl into my arms, and I pressed my nose into the crook of her neck, right where she smelled like sunshine and No More Tears. I gave her neck a soft bite, loving the way she wriggled against me. “Then I would get a spoon and I would eat the soup!”

The hiccups she always got when she laughed too hard started, and I held her tighter. “What if—
hic
—you ate me, too—
hic
?”

“Then I would eat you up and you would be all gone!”

“All—
hic
—gone!”

Paul tickled her and I squeezed my little girl harder as she kicked and flapped and the three of us stood there in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the west-facing windows, and none of us knew that it would be the last time we’d stand in that exact spot in the late summer sun, still a perfect, unbroken family.

That night, after roasting marshmallows over the portable hibachi Paul used at Niners’ tailgate parties, we slept in our brand-new tent. The night was dry—we didn’t attach the tent fly. Paul and Ellie stared up through the overhead mesh in wonder, watching the stars. I swear they were twinkling at us on purpose, as if they knew we were there watching, light-years and universes below.

“The stars see us,” said Ellie, right before she fell asleep, still on her back between us.

Paul and I counted four satellites and three falling stars before I fell asleep. When I woke in the morning, he was still watching the sky, then streaked pale blue and pink with sunrise. It was perfectly silent. (Now I wonder if he was thinking about her, the woman he left us for. I hate wondering that.) Ellie had wiggled to our feet in the night, and I felt one small arm clamped around my ankle. Paul turned on his side to kiss
me. He had morning breath. I remember I wrinkled my nose but kissed him anyway.

“Let’s go camping again soon,” I said. “Real camping.”

“Bees,” he said.

“I’ll protect you,” I said. That was my thing. That’s what I knew how to do.

Until I didn’t.