The Ninth Step (11 page)

“Meh.”

“I’ve been trying to make his life better. That’s my amends to him.”

“But…”

“But it feels like maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

“It
is
wrong, dear. It
is
wrong.”

“But you would never tell. You could never tell.”

Martha opened her purse and pulled out a book.
Twelve Steps
and Twelve Traditions.
It was well used, and the word
surrender
was scratched in ink along the top edges.

“I’ve been thinking about you. About your dilemma. And I wanted to read this to you. It concerns step nine. ‘We cannot buy our own peace of mind at the expense of others.’”

Martha laid the book down on top of the twenty-dollar bill.

“Do you understand what that means? I’m sure that what you’re doing for this man is making
you
feel better. It’s buying your own peace of mind. And right now I suppose it’s even helping him. But what if he finds out, dear? What if he finds out that he’s befriended the woman—”

The waitress rested her hip against the booth like a long-distance swimmer finally reaching shore. She sat down the club sodas on the previously placed napkins. Martha slid the money from under the
Twelve Steps
book, tucked it in the waitress’s change apron, and, with a wink, told her to keep the change. Clearly caught off guard by the unexpected generosity, the woman mumbled a word of thanks.

“I used to wait tables myself. I know what it’s like.” She turned back to Helen and said, “I’ve always believed in rewarding good service.”

“It took her ten minutes to fetch two club sodas. And there’s no ice in them. And on top of that, you hardly rewarded her. Looked to me like you left her owing the till about eight dollars.”

“I’m sorry, dear, I’m not following. What are you saying?”

Helen stared her down.

“What?”

“You just gave that woman a dollar bill and told her it was a twenty.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Martha, I saw.”

“No, I’m quite certain it was a twenty. I remember pulling it—”

Helen shook her head.

“Are you sure, dear?”

Helen leaned across the table and picked up the
Twelve Steps
book. There, underneath, lay the twenty-dollar bill.

“Well, I never told her it was a twenty. She just assumed.” Martha sighed, her eyes clouding over with nostalgia. “I really shouldn’t come into bars. It
does
bring back old habits. I used to be something of a… In my drinking days, we used to… I guess I just wanted to see if I could still do it. We all have a past, dear. Mine’s as black as yours. And believe me, I never went back and repaid every few dollars I grifted off someone. That would have been impossible. And stupid.”

“You wanted me to see that.”

“Maybe I did. The point is: You can have done bad things but still be a good person. I have, and I am. A good person.”

Martha took the twenty and tucked it under her glass.

“No harm, no foul. If you can make amends, then make amends. Just be damn sure you don’t do more harm than good.”

“I want to make his happiness my job.”

“Your job is staying sober. One day—”

“At a time. I get it. And helping him helps keep me from picking up a drink.”

“Just be careful. Let go—”

“And let God. We need some fresher expressions.”

Martha extended her clenched hand across the table.

“Fist bump.”

Helen reciprocated, and the two women knocked knuckles.

“Blow it up.”

Edgar slept.

Sprawled in his recliner, he slept deeply, the still unsolved Rubik’s Cube resting squarely on his chest. He dreamed of Judy. Awake, even after all this time, he never allowed himself the momentary lapses of memory that many a grieving spouse sometimes indulged in. He never forgot, not for the briefest of lapses, that Judy was dead. But when he dreamed, Judy was alive, and the notion of her death was unfathomable.

Helen knelt beside him, her head resting in his lap, her hand stroking his leg.

Her hand crept higher and higher, seeking a sexual response. Edgar’s body responded.

Edgar groaned in his sleep, stretching with pleasure.

Helen stood, leaned over Edgar, and kissed him. Her hand was still in his lap. She took the unsolved cube off his chest and placed it on the floor. “Told you,” she whispered and smiled.

Helen unbuckled his belt, freed him from the underwear. She pulled down her own pants and stepped out of them. She straddled Edgar in the chair, drawing him into her.

After a while, the whole of Edgar’s body responded, thrusting into her, matching her rhythm. He was awakening. He mumbled “No,” even as his body responded to the sex act. He pulled Helen down to him and kissed her with a fervor of which she would have thought him incapable. He rose up and flipped them both so that he was in charge of the act. Helen decided to be whatever he needed her to be, to do whatever he needed her to do.

In the morning, Helen woke up in Edgar’s bed. When she opened her eyes, she could tell that Edgar was awake as well. She could sense his thoughts. She found it hard to make initial eye contact with him and sensed that he, likewise, did not want to look into her eyes, fearful of what he might silently communicate to her. Of course she would have to look at him at some point, so she did it now, saying “Good morning” and casting her eyes upward. She was surprised that the guilt feeling was not there—not on her part, or his. She saw no guilt or shame in his eyes.

Helen scooted out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom. At the end of the hallway, a closed door caught her
eye. She had never been upstairs before. All the other doors in the house were kept open. She opened the door. Inside, she found a nursery. An infant’s bedroom that had never been used. Many of the items were still packaged and shrink-wrapped.

She poked the mobile that was suspended over the crib, setting it in motion. She sensed something behind her and found Edgar watching her from the doorway. Now, she felt guilty.

“Judy had this room ready three years before she got pregnant. She never doubted that we would be able to make a baby. And she was right.”

Helen stopped the mobile. She spoke so lightly that her voice could barely be heard, but what she said was intended to provoke him: “You have to move on.”

“What?”

“I said you have to move on.”

Like a roulette wheel, she watched different emotions flicker over Edgar’s face, finally settling on anger.

Rage contorted his features. “How dare you?”

Helen stuck with the script that she had come up with. She sensed that to turn back would be a bigger risk than pushing forward. She went to him, stood inches away from him, and the thought that he could quite possibly hit her flitted through her mind. She reached up and pulled his face to hers. “You have to move on.”

A choked sob escaped from Edgar. She pulled him in closer. Held him. And it worked. All the poison came out. No, she had not seen guilt in his eyes this morning. It had been buried too deep for that.

When Edgar broke the bond, he looked at Helen and asked, “Is this real?”

“It’s real.”

And she knew that standing here with a woman in his never-born child’s room did not feel real to Edgar. But she knew that she could make it real.

Tyler Ketchum ran through the green grass waving a Fourth of July sparkler. His little sister, Savannah, chased after him as best she could. Mitzi loped behind, not wanting to get too close to the burning sulfur smell.

It was a barbecue in Edgar’s backyard. Because of the pool, a privacy fence encircled the property. In addition to that, the old neighborhood had stands of mature maples and banks of pin oaks hemming in the houses. Well-established arbors, towering stands of leggy nandinas, and an undeveloped woodlot gave the backyard total privacy.

From the kitchen window, Helen watched the children running through the yard while she rinsed vegetables in the sink for a dip tray. She could also see Jane and Steve Ketchum, who were
reclining poolside, watching Elmore do tricks off the diving board. It had felt odd meeting them—intensely uncomfortable was more accurate—but Edgar had his heart set on it. Helen looked around for Edgar but didn’t see him outside anywhere.

Helen looked different somehow. It could have been that her hair was different—she was wearing it a bit shorter. It could have been that she was just feeling more relaxed in her own skin these days. Or perhaps it was nothing more than the simple beauty of the summery drop-waist dress she was wearing.

Edgar sneaked up on her and nuzzled her from behind. She swatted him away, feigning annoyance, but Edgar persisted, running his hands over the front of her dress, gently cupping her breasts. Then his hands trailed lower before disappearing under the hemline of her dress. Helen squirmed and giggled, turning to face him. She squealed as Edgar lifted her onto the sink and took a deep breath as she saw the direction his head was moving in. With a nervous glance out the window, she opened herself to him.

“Oh, Edgar, you’re so—thorough.”

It was the first time Edgar had opened the pool this summer. Spring rains had collected on the heavy plastic cover and eventually pulled it loose from the side moorings—so insects and debris had accumulated for quite some time. It had taken a full day to clean out the trash and then filter and chemically treat the water.

Helen’s records clerk, Kelly, unscrewed the top off a Rolling
Rock and watched Elmore climb the three risers to the diving board. (While she was working her steps, Helen had gone to Elmore, asked his forgiveness, and offered him his job back.) Not shy, Elmore took three heavy, purposeful steps on the plank, and his massive girth bent the diving board so that the tip actually touched the water. The board sprang back and rocketed him high in the air. He tucked in his knees, held them tight with clasped hands, and came down in a perfectly executed cannonball.
Thuwhuuuump!
The splash was like a depth charge. Jane, who had just had her hair done and had no intention of getting it wet today, screamed and yelled, “Goddamn it!” Her husband, Steve, suppressed a smile, secretly delighted.

Elmore bobbed to the surface and spotted Helen and Edgar emerging from the house carrying food trays. He called to Helen to join him in the pool. Edgar took both the trays and set them down. He grabbed Helen’s wrist. “C’mon, let’s get wet.”

Helen protested good-naturedly, saying she certainly wasn’t going to jump into the pool wearing a dress, but Edgar was still feeling frisky. He wanted to do something impetuous. And he wanted to do it with Helen in front of their family and friends. He wanted them all to see how she made him feel.

Despite her resistance, he pulled her toward the pool. His mood was so elevated that he did not notice that the tone of her protestations had changed from playful to serious. He moved so fast in his elation that he did not hear the genuine fear that had crept into her voice. The hysteria. He had made up his mind; he was taking her in.

Helen raked her nails down Edgar’s arm. Drawing blood. “I
said no!” she screamed in a shrill voice that echoed in the backyard. All eyes were on the two of them. The only sound was the lapping of pool water. Nobody knew what to say, and they felt that it was up to Edgar or Helen to break the spell.

The side gate of the fence opened and Martha walked through.

“Nobody answered the front door, so I figured—”

She looked at the solemn faces, took in the silent atmosphere, and said, “You call this a party? Jesus, you could at least turn on the radio.”

That broke the spell. Attention was diverted. Folks started moving again.

Helen told Edgar in a low, apologetic voice, “I don’t… I don’t swim. When I was little—”

Edgar put his finger to her lips. “It was my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.”

Helen grabbed Martha and introduced her around as an old friend. Steve offered her a beer and Martha declined. “No thank you, dear. I would rip this joint up.”

As they all settled into quiet conversations about nothing much at all, Kelly said to her boss, “On your finger. Is that what I think it is?” and pointed to the solitaire diamond-and-gold band on Helen’s left ring finger. Helen held her hand out for everybody to see. “Yesterday. At the justice of the peace.” Through the oohs and ahhs, a shadow crossed Jane’s face. She looked at Edgar and said, “I’m so happy for you, Edgar. I’m so happy for both of you.”

Jane hugged the newlyweds, but it was stilted and stiff.

And anytime Edgar happened to glance at Martha, he found that she would avert her eyes.

Martha and Helen retreated to the kitchen. Elmore manned the grill while the rest of the adults sat around the pool. Tyler and Savannah were wearing water wings and splashing around in the shallow end. Edgar waded in with them just to be extra safe.

Edgar held Savannah while she kicked at the water, drops exploding like rhinestones in the summer sun. The air needed to be cleared with Jane. She was hurting for her sister. Edgar wanted to do it now while Helen was in the house.

“I’m sorry if all of this is bizarre. It wasn’t something I just rushed into. I hate to say I’ve moved on, because I’ll never move on. Never.”

“No, Edgar. I like Helen. I really do. I truly am happy to see you build a life.”

“But…”

“But nothing. I like Helen. And I’m happy for you.”

Steve said, “Edgar, she’s great.”

They sat for a while and watched Edgar play with the children in the pool. The air hadn’t quite been cleared yet, and they all knew it. Something remained unspoken.

Jane said, “Helen really is great. I like her. If I seem off, it’s just that maybe I like her too goddamn much. Maybe I feel guilty for liking Helen. Judy was my sister… And it’s hard for me to see you move past her.”

“I told you. I never will.”

“I know. I know that. It was time anyway. I know that. It was time. It’s just hard.”

The July sun glinted off Edgar’s glasses, hiding his eyes. “It was time to let go and let God.”