The Parallel Apartments (38 page)

April loved anything that verified her status as carrying, be it the praiseful smiles of gynecologists; be it her favorite articles of clothing encountering the new snugness at her waistline; be it the pregnancy mask so dark that a four-year-old child at the Highland Mall asked her if the rest of her body was black; be it April's neighbor Porifiro knocking on her door with a cream puff from Central Market in one hand and a card in the other, a homemade congratulatory card that opened onto a Crayola meadow of pop-up sheep and pigs and goats and chickens, each wearing a hat made of an origamied five-dollar bill.

“Jesus, Porifiro, you
made
this?” April had said.

“Yep. I just found out about you, uh, your, uh…”

“Shit, who told you? Nobody knows but doctors. It hasn't even been five months.”

“I saw you at a coffee shop one day, reading that baby book
What to Expect
or something. Then I saw you toting that big old Graco baby stroller up the stairs. Looked like a chuckwagon. 'Member, we waved. Then I saw you sitting in your car one day and you're busy listening to your stomach with a stethoscope. So I was pretty sure, and I figure if come to find out I'm wrong, twenty bucks oughta fix the damage done.”

“You were watching—”

“Hey, I'm no stalker. Just a busybody who spends a lot of time looking through his blinds. To, you know, keep the Parallel Apartments safe from crime and all that.”

April smiled and looked at her card again. Oh dear. The baby goat. The baby goat was so cute it pushed April onto the entrance ramp of a highway that might lead to tears. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt the imminence of the horrible grief hiccup in her chest that was the wall between tears and no tears, but, she thought, here it comes. And it arrived. She hugged her neighbor. His T-shirt smelled of dryer sheets and Pop-Tarts, and she soaked it in the wet of a monster cry.

“Okay, okay,” Porifiro finally said, pushing her gently away and back into her apartment. “That's fine. Thaaat's fine.”

April invited Porifiro in. He declined, but asked her to always wave when she saw him. April promised to do so. April said she'd wash his shirt for him if he liked, and he said he might bring it by. She shut the door, sat down in the middle of the floor between a stack of never-unpacked boxes and the telephone, opened her card again, which read
“A New Baby, HooRah April!!!
” She removed the pig's money hat, carefully unfolded it, and then tried to fold it back, without luck. She tried with the chicken hat, but couldn't refold that either. She struck out with the sheep, too, even accidentally pulling her off the card altogether. She wasn't going to monkey with her baby goat's money hat no matter what. What if she tried and failed? Then no one would have a hat. April stood her card up against the base of the cordless, laid the detached sheep in front of the card, picked up the receiver, and dialed the obvious number.

“Hello, Caroles.”

“Dad?”

“
Bry—
?”

“No, April.”

The unintentional slight didn't bother her in the least. She felt at peace with her sister for the first time ever, and she was going to make it so with her parents.

“Oh god, sorry… April, how good to hear your sweet voice.”

“You, too.”

Silence.

“Everything all right?” Archie Carole finally said, his words slick with worry, as if he'd just remembered that his estranged daughter would only ever call him if she was in some seriously hot water. “Are you in jail?”

“No. Is my mother there?”

“Yes, but I don't think this is the best—”

“Harry?”

“Uh, school.”

“Oh. Well, can I come over?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now.”

“Well… of course, April. Come on over.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

April cradled the receiver and jumped up to dress. She was definitely showing now—how could a belly like that
not
crack her mother's endless mourning, if only for a few minutes?

A red ribbed tank top she'd bought at Old Navy two years ago seemed to provide adequate coverage, ventilation, and elasticity, and would also favorably feature her boobs, which, though a little tender and itchy, had enlarged at least a cup size. She didn't know why she wanted to show her parents the embonpoint of her late-fourth-month bust, but she did.

April pulled on a long pleated unbleached-linen skirt embroidered with blue sharks, slipped into a pair of flip-flops, and went out to the car. In the rearview she did her face and plucked her brows. She started the car. As she began to back out, a terror came over her. It felt like a thousand spikes of razor-sharp glass from a hundred busted bottles pouring down and slicing into her from a bucket tipped thirty feet above… she jammed on the brakes.
Where's my baby!

Then she remembered. Ah. Ha. Hahaha. A chuckle escaped, but the trauma of the razor-glass shower stayed with her, cutting, stabbing, until she reached her parents' house in Bee Cave.

The house, a low brick ranch situated so close to the road that the driveway lay parallel to the facade, leaving no room for any sort of lawn save two strips of ill-tended monkey grass, had been April's home since birth (she and Bryce had been born in the tub—April was nineteen minutes older), until she enrolled in UT's School of Music in '98. The front door was never used, so April, after parking bumper to bumper behind her dad's Cadillac, walked through the side yard to the back door. Still shaken by the vision of the rain of razor glass, she knocked, an action she'd never before committed upon this door, and waited. She could see movement inside, but it was a full thirty seconds before anyone came to let her in. It was her father who did.

“You didn't have to knock,” said Archie Carole, not smiling, not frowning.

“Yeah. Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi. Long time no see.”

The tired salutation used to enrage April. He always used it, no matter the visitor, no matter the time passed between visits. But this time April was not enraged. She wondered if, by becoming pregnant and escaping her disgusting, open-legged servitude, she had also left behind a canyonful of resentments and hatred.

She wished Bryce were here, too, mutually contrite, in all her beauty, sitting at the dining-room table with their mother, who always received guests while seated at the head of the table, as if she were the duchess of the room, unwilling to rise for subalterns. Bryce would be sitting next to her, leaning toward her mother, her agent, informer, confidante, the two a team, or even a single being, invulnerable.

But Blaise was not at the table. She was standing near the gas stove, expressionless except for a tightly ruffed brow, arms crossed, dressed in a light denim skirt, her weight borne by one shoeless foot—in other words, just as she'd appeared ever since Bryce died.

“Hi, Mom.”

She smiled politely but did not speak or move. April walked up and gave her a hug, being sure to press their bellies together.

“You're pregnant,” she said, after returning the hug with one arm only.

“Yeah.”

“You're not married, though.”

“How do you know?”

“Is it Ryan's?”

“No,” said April. She had been planning to lie and say her nonexistent boyfriend, “Laurence,” was the father, but a lie now would force an endless stream of them, whereas one simple truth now would say an awful lot about her life yet not invite many questions, given its indecorous nature: “I don't know whose it is.”

“I… would you like a beer?”

“No beer for me, thanks.”

“Of course, how stupid of me,” Blaise said, smacking her forehead with the heel of her palm, an action whose harshness probably exceeded in vigor its intent. “I'm sure you've stopped your pills, too.”

“Yeah, but not till I found out.”

“So you were on… what? And for how long?”

“The same old stuff. About five weeks.”

“You didn't stop when you missed a period?”

“I never missed one. Happens.”

“I'm sure it'll be fine.”

“How do you feel without them?” said her father, assuming his typical stance as monitor of healthful practices among his family and friends.

“I'm fine, seriously, don't notice anything at all. I just wanted to come over today to give you the good news, about the baby, and to apologize for how I treated you both and how I treated Bryce, and to just basically apologize for me.”

April stood, head slightly bowed, expecting a tentative but warm welcome home.

“Welcome home,” her parents said, coolly, and awkwardly out of sync.

“Thanks.” April fought a fidget. “Just know that I'm doing everything right to be a good mother.”

“I'm sure you'll be a wonderful mother.”

“Thanks. How's Harry?”

“Becoming a boy,” said Blaise.

April tried to suppress a giggle, but failed.

“What?” said Archie, beginning to smile. He looked at his wife, who was not smiling.

“The way you said that,” said April, between stitches, “it sounded like Harry used to be a girl.”

Silence. Then Archie roared, a genuine belly laugh. Blaise blushed and almost smiled. April found herself at the starting line of a long stretch of guffaws. Eventually her mother joined in, impotent to suppress a laugh. The three of them went on long enough to give April a stomachache.

The tempest passed. They all sat down on the kitchen floor at the same time, heads down, grinning, each busy investigating something—her mother, the hem of her skirt; her father, a thumb wart; April, a giggle-pulled muscle in her side. She had not laughed that hard since her cat Clavamox fell in the toilet.

“I'm at more than four months,” said April, noticing that the aroma of roasting meat was filling the room. “What're…”

April was going to say “we,” but realized at the last moment that it would've sounded presumptuous.

“…you having?”

“Pork loin,” said Blaise, still rosy from her fit. “Soon you can get an ultrasound and find out its gender.”

“I know. But I don't wanna know till he or she is born.”

“Why don't we all sit at the table?”

April and Archie sat on either side of her mother's seat at the head of the already-set dining-room table. Presently her mother arrived with the tenderloin and set it between them. She left and returned with green beans and a salad. One more trip brought salt and pepper, butter, and two bottles of Shiner Bock.

“What would you like to drink?” said Blaise.

“Me? Root beer?”

“Archie, we still have a case of Bryce's A&W, don't we?”

“Yeah, I'll get a can.”

“We have a little news, too,” said Blaise, when Archie had left the room. “We learned that Bryce had been secretly married. The father came forward. After producing a marriage certificate and demanding a paternity test—it came back positive—he—Clare—yes, Clare was his name—was awarded by a court—Judge Polemp's—Bryce's estate, including Harry.”

“God.”

“Got it,” said Archie, returning with a can of A&W from whatever domestic vault the memories of Bryce were stored in. “Let me get some ice.”

“I'll take it warm.”

April opened the two-year-old can, poured the fizzless liquid into a glass, and took a sip. It tasted like sugar water amplified with tar and lemons—the flavors that carbonization apparently curtained.

The house itself was brick, but the interior walls were of particleboard, the doors light and hollow, the central air vents virtual ear trumpets, amplifying and distributing among the rooms every conversation, groan, curse, murmur, aria, fart, lie, moan, and collision; there was little question whether Archie had heard Blaise tell their daughter about Harry. Proving this, he said:

“And it looks like he's going to come get your car.”

This news didn't upset April as much she would've expected. She still had her old Mazda. And she wouldn't have to worry about somebody stealing the desirable little Mini.

“Oh, okay.”

“Really? Okay?”

“Yeah, I understand. Can I cut the pork tenders?”

“We have to wait fifteen minutes. It's carrying over. Still cooking.”

April's stomach growled. The pulled muscle ached. The atmosphere was cooling more rapidly than the meat. Four wordless minutes passed.

“We've really missed Harry,” said Archie.

“I bet,” said April. The uncarved meat screamed in conspicuity.

“Clare said we can see him when we want,” said Blaise.

“He's a nice person.”

“He's been in prison and rehab,” added Archie, managing to simultaneously direct the comment toward Blaise with acrimony and toward April with compassion.