The Barter (17 page)

“That's right. And we're also cowriters of the book; we observe her play with Bunny, and as she narrates what she's doing, we're her audience. We're the
pages
.”

“You are totally losing me.”

“It's totally obvious. See, this is what happens to your brain when you quit your job and the biggest thing you have to think about is whether your kids are eating too much sugar. Like, of
course
they're eating too much sugar,
any
sugar is too much for those little fiends. Listen,” Martha went on in her courtroom tones, “the real problem in Judy's Book is this: In a book that's all about exploring the world, and, and basically
grabbing
things, there's a little girl who's written a book for herself—who's
trapped
in this book inside of a book—and what is her book about? There are like five fucking pages, and each of them is about being a little mommy to a bunny: feed the bunny, pet the bunny, watch the bunny grow, put the bunny to bed, watch the clock.”

“‘Hear the tick-tick, Bunny?'” Bridget quoted. She was neither agreeing nor disagreeing at this point, just signaling that she understood. She didn't entirely like the idea of Judy trapped in her own story—she thought it went a bit too far to say that little Judy was trapped. She didn't say so at the time. But ever since Mark mentioned giving it away—this book, this particular book out of the many he could have named—she's been revisiting what Martha said about it. Would a ghost trapped in a house be appeased by a story with a trapped little girl, or not?

“Exactly. And like I said, we're the pages—just by listening to it, we are
helping
Judy write this story about herself that traps her in place. In a book about tactile discovery and taking risks and play, Judy is stuck in a circular story about taking care of a bunny. And the fucking bunny is just going to grow up and put her in a fucking nursing home anyway.”

This is the kind of half-serious abuse Bridget enjoys taking from Martha and no one else. Sitting up in her bed, unread magazines on Mark's pillow, her teeth brushed and her hair still damp, she briefly considers calling Martha. Getting her read on the situation.

No, this much she knows better than to do. She can imagine all too easily what Martha would say if Bridget were to tell her that she hasn't seen her husband awake to talk to in probably more than a week, that her house is haunted, that she doesn't have enough money of her own to fill up her gas tank so that she can drive to her mother's . . . and even if she could drive to her mother's, she's afraid of the message that might send to Mark. Have they really drifted so far apart, the two of them, that she believes
he
wouldn't notice or care if
she
left? Hadn't she seriously considered, just this morning, lighting out for Kathleen's house for a week without so much as telling him
that they were going? Isn't she, after all, the one who's guilty of thinking about leaving?

Martha would say,
This is what the word “breakdown” sounds like, Bridge.

Why would she leave? She has everything she could ask for here. Pretty little house. Healthy, funny, lovely child. Nice friends, a social life of sorts. Family nearby, or all the family she has, anyway. A handsome young husband willing to make money for her so she can stay home and raise their daughter.

But there are other things, other things she wants. It sounds terrible—
Who could ask for anything more?
as the song goes. But yes. She wants more. She wants—uninteresting things, nothing special. That's the worst part, maybe—she's not even thinking about saving the world or living up to some smothered artistic potential or fulfilling some long-held dream. She's not gifted, she's not going to do anything miraculous with her happiness, but she still wants it.

You're allowed to want things. You don't have to be special, and you don't have to be a monster to want more in your life than your baby and your house and your marriage. Even if those things are stupid, even if they aren't helping anyone or changing the world.

Well, naturally I am.
Bridget feels impatient with herself again. These pangs, they are pointless, they lead nowhere, they are the luxury of the woman who leads the kind of privileged life she knows herself to have. And therefore these pangs are beneath her. She knows better than to self-indulge in regret when she's been given a lifestyle that many people would be grateful for—grateful! She should be grateful. She is.

She's had happy times at home with Julie, though, yes, she has. Nothing could have prepared her for the shocking joy that
sometimes floods her when she is holding Julie, or giving her a bath, or watching her eat, or doing any one of the simple, silly things they do with their days together. It's the kind of happiness, bone-deep and fleeting, that makes Bridget wish for strange technologies: a chip in her brain, for example, that could record Julie's expressions or the sound of her squeaky voice for mental playback later, when both of them are older and less loving. Or a time machine, but a time machine that only works in increments of one minute so that you could relive a bit of goofy, wonderful goodness with your baby over and over until you've wrung every drop of joy there is to express from it, drunk it all up, and declared yourself ready to move on to the next minute, whatever it might bring. Or some kind of virtual consciousness currency that lets you barter moments of lazy thinking or inattention for heightened consciousness when it really counts: Imagine some bank where you could trade in minutes of wasted waking life, those hours spent pulling out of the driveway or changing diapers or walking up flights of stairs, and those minutes could be exchanged—not one-for-one, but at some rate that made you want to earn your own life—for superconsciousness that you could flick on, like a switch in your mind, when you sensed that you'd come upon a moment of daily joy, in this good old, sweet old world, and you wanted to
really
live in it, absorb its preciousness. Regular consciousness is not good enough for the kind of dumbfounding joy that parenting introduces, at its best moments. And, okay, regular consciousness is perhaps
too much
for the kind of repetitive, hourless routine that parenting also introduces, at its most mundane: the endless washings of small plastic containers, the tired-out play, the hours spent with a preverbal person when nothing, nothing is coming into your brain or out of it that is worth assigning value to. So, yes: Imagine a
bartering mechanism whereby the good stuff can be made even better, and the boring stuff, the flatline stuff, the un-alive moments of being alive can be turned in, trimmed, released. Made into harmless dead matter, lint floating under the dresser.

Frustration and sleepiness overcome her simultaneously, and she eyes her phone, lying beside her on the covers, for distraction.

The message from this afternoon. She discovers it the way you might find a forgotten scrap of cash in your raincoat pocket. Better yet, she sees that the message is from Kathleen. Bridget prepares herself to relish the sound of her mother's voice—to make it the last thing she hears before sleep, how delicious, how lovely a gift. The magazines are swept off the bed, the light is dimmed, and Bridget snuggles into her pillows in the darkness. This is how a blessed child goes to bed every night. Mother.

“Bridget, honey. Just calling you back. I'm sorry we didn't connect earlier. Listen. Don't worry if your house has a ghost in it. And don't worry if you think you're crazy. I want to tell you a story.

“You and I went through some hard times when you were a little girl—I mean a really little girl, right after your dad left.

“And you know”—this sounds almost sung, after the briefest of pauses during which Kathleen seems to have taken a sip of her coffee—“I've always had my faith. It goes without saying that I wish I'd done a better job raising you to believe in something. I don't mean to tell you what to do, you're a grown woman. But I'll tell you, it's been a great comfort to me in dark times.

“Anyway. This was one of those times. I never knew what to make of it, exactly. But I think it might have been one of those times when God was reaching out to me and even if I didn't understand what it meant, something was really there.

“You were a little thing. You were . . . I think maybe two. Almost two.” Bridget understands, without Kathleen needing to say so, that whatever she's talking about must have happened in the year after Carrie-Ann died, her mother's zero year. She hears her mother take another sip of coffee and then begin to talk faster, as if the caffeine has given her a jolt, or the remembrance has.

“I was in the kitchen, reading my Bible. I did that a lot at night in those days after putting you to bed. The apartment we lived in was always so loud. It was a tiny place, I don't know if you remember it. I was glad when we were out of there, it always had a bad—vibe, I guess.” Kathleen laughs unhappily. Bridget's heart aches at the sound. “So I was reading my verses and feeling, you know, pretty low. I was working two jobs at that time, there was a neighbor lady who would watch you overnight, and I used to just sit at that kitchen table in the hour before my night shift and read my verses and just dream of sleep—oh, you can't imagine how tired I was. Can you believe it, I worked from ten to three every night, then I came home and slept for four hours and got you up and off to day care and then worked from eight till four, then I picked you up and played with you in the afternoon and gave you dinner and a bath and put you to bed, and then I sometimes took a little nap—although, jeesh, when I did that it was like I was even more tired, so I didn't always. This was one of those nights when I didn't sleep, but I wanted to so badly. I sometimes thought, thinking about it later, that I must have been asleep and dreamed the whole thing. But then, when I'm true with myself, I know it was real. It wasn't a dream.

“Anyway, what happened was, I turned the page of the Bible and suddenly there was this verse that just seemed to sing up at me. ‘As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.' I don't remember
what chapter it was, but I remember it was like those words were blazing up at me, telling me to read them over and over.

“I sat back in my chair then and sort of, I don't know, lifted my hand to my face, to rub my eyes, and I felt, I swear I felt someone standing behind me. In my kitchen, in my home. With my baby girl sleeping in the next room. I was so scared. I knew there was someone there—I could feel, well, it was like I could feel something breathing over me. And then—and I know this sounds crazy, a little bit—but I felt something touch me. Just real light, you know. But something put a hand on my forehead and just pressed real gentle, like when you were sick and I would put a cool washcloth on your forehead and you'd be soothed that way.

“You would think I would have screamed or jumped or something, but you know, I decided to just let it happen. Just let it in. Maybe I was so tired I couldn't have fought anyone off anyway.” Kathleen laughs. “I would've just given up. But it felt so good, and not frightening at all, that I just let it, whatever it was, just hold my head like that, and I felt so light, almost like I didn't have to think or work or feel anymore. I was so grateful. Just for a minute, to be at peace that way.

“I don't know how long I sat that way. But when it was gone I felt better. I went to work and if you can believe it, the very next morning at the bank was when I got my first promotion. That's the craziest part about it, almost! I'll never forget it. But it meant more money, so I could cut back on my nighttime job, and sleep more, and we finally moved out of that unlucky old apartment later that year. I finally began to feel like we were going to move on, to better things. After that night.”

Bridget's tears, streaming down her cheeks, are making the slick
glass face of the phone slippery. She reaches for a tissue from the box on the nightstand and misses a little bit of what her mother says next.

“—back to work, honey. You know, every minute of work I put in, even in those dark days, was sweeter because I knew I was trying to make a good life for you. So even though I felt like I was doing nothing but hours and hours, just putting in hours and hours, I had your sweet little face in my mind the whole time. Just thinking, that's my girl, I'll do whatever it takes for her. And it felt like when I was missing the strength to keep that whole machine going, for you, something came to visit me to tell me to keep it up. That I was doing the right thing, and it was going to be all right.

“So that's why I'll always say I believe in ghosts. I'll talk to you later, honey. Try not to worry. I love you.”

*   *   *

I
n her sleep, in the darkness before awakening, she senses the air coming alive even before she hears the door to the bedroom open, the movement of air in the room, bringing with it the tang of death and earth, the two inescapables, the matched pair. She hears the footsteps, quick now and approaching.

She is afraid to open her eyes.

“Please, please don't,” she whispers.

The footsteps stop short, but she feels the presence at her bedside. There is someone there.

“If she were here, she could see you, I think,” Bridget murmurs.

There is a shuffling sound, a strong exhalation. Bridget emerges from sleep into the realization that it's Mark, not the ghost. But the scent—she opens her eyes.

He's there, looking off toward the window and not at her, moving
toward the closet while unbuttoning his shirt. He's left the bedroom door slightly ajar. And the ghost is there, too: She can see her, flickering out in the hallway. Looking in with one bright dead eye.
She's still hunting.

Bridget sits up quickly.

Mark pulls off his undershirt and glances back at her over his bare shoulder, on his way to the other side of the room. In that one look, Bridget can see all she needs to know. That he's angry. That what she said to him has had its time to sink in, and what he remembers isn't that she apologized or told him she loved him, but that she was unloving, unyielding, unfair—and that she had the gall to be surprised that he notices the simplest, stupidest things about Julie. That she caught him off guard and attacked. He's exhausted, he's had a terrible, long day at work, and whatever wounded or ashamed part of him she might have stepped on this afternoon has decided to rise like a gravestone and make its coldest stand. This is married life, Bridget supposes. You start the day intending to be a good person, a good partner, but there are usually significant detours before bedtime.