The Whole Golden World (10 page)

“Okay, well, don't be too late. And for heaven's sake, be careful on the roads. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Morgan trilled, as her mom's car pulled away.

This time she glided through the snow, hardly aware of the cold. Every part of her felt sharp and bright. The world looked distinct and dimensional in a way she hadn't seen it in months. Every dancing flake in the lamplight seemed like a star.

She cranked up the heat in her old Chevy, noting that she had a view of the front of the bar. So she waited.

She'd been listening to NPR on the way to the movies, but she shut off the British reporter relating tragedies in sub-Saharan Africa.

It was wrong, Mr. Hill had said, and Morgan knew that, obviously. He was married, she was young.

But it was once wrong for a black man to marry a white woman, too. She thought back to last week, watching
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
with her mother on their weekly movie night. A privileged white girl fell in love with Sydney Poitier, and who wouldn't? Morgan spent much of the movie in disbelief that their marriage should be a problem for anyone, and Dinah kept insisting that it was, especially for children they might have had, back then.

Love triumphed, of course, with a dramatic speech by Spencer Tracy, while Katharine Hepburn gazed at him with adoring, shining eyes.

She spotted the taxicab, and she knew even from that distance it was Mr. Hill climbing into it. The yellow cab was easy to follow in the snow, and follow she did, pulling to the side of the road at the end of a dark suburban block.

She watched him weave his way out of the cab and stand in the circle of his porch light, fumbling with his keys.

A shadow cast itself over her bright, vibrant mood.

Maybe he only kissed her because he was drunk. Maybe he wouldn't even remember it tomorrow, and she'd be just a moment's indiscretion, and nothing at all to take seriously.

But no. She felt certain as the taxicab roared off and she idled slowly past his house—noting the address on a gum wrapper from her purse—that they'd shared something that couldn't exist solely on the fumes of beer.

Morgan looked at the dashboard clock. She had plenty of time to actually get a bite to eat after the movie she hadn't actually seen. She sent a text to Britney:

Sorry late for movie go out for pizza after?

Suddenly she didn't mind seeing David and Britney together. In fact, she was going to enjoy seeing them treat their silly little high school fling like it was so very important.

15

R
ain curled around the hot-water bottle on the couch, torturing herself with
A Baby Story
marathon on television—the last thing she should be watching on a Saturday morning. Any morning.

She'd already had to turn the pillow over to find a dry side, having soaked the first one watching a family bring home a squirming bundle of baby after a long labor and years of infertility before that.

She'd tried to teach class for Layla the night before as promised, but the cramps knotted her up so badly she had to beg Beverly to take over, then she sat curled up and groaning behind the counter to mind the store until class dismissed and Beverly could take over the register again.

Beverly sent her home with stern instructions not to return until she felt “100 percent” and Rain thought,
What, you mean never?

So Rain happened to be home last night when the taxi pulled up with her drunk husband inside.

She watched him feel his way up the stairway with both hands brushing along the walls, and a voice in her head asked—a voice that reminded her of the ever-practical Gran—
Would TJ still be coming home drunk if she were pregnant? Nursing a baby? Helping a grade-schooler with his homework?
Aren't we too old for this frat boy shit? Rain wondered.

Then she reminded herself of how good TJ was with his little cousins, his promise to teach his child to spiral a football. That it wasn't like he was out partying every single night and for goodness' sake, it was his birthday weekend. He hadn't driven home, and that was all she'd asked of him, really. He was allowed to cut loose once in a while.

She didn't try to talk to him. Something had been on TJ's mind already, something serious and distressing, based on the strange way he wouldn't look at her, and the way he seemed to be pale and trembling, not normally drunken traits of his.

So he'd passed out, and she'd lain awake wondering what was on his mind and dosing herself with Motrin every few hours for the terrible cramps.

The soft music swelled to a crescendo on
A Baby Story
as another mother was pushing out a new, squalling life.

Agony. But she couldn't stop trying to live vicariously, which seemed to be the best she could do. Especially if TJ refused to go through it a third time, which seemed likely.

Maybe that's what it was. He was drinking away his anxiety over whether to try again. Maybe he was torn between wanting to stop for his own sake, but not wanting to crush her hopes.

She fumbled for the remote when she heard his heavy step coming down the stairs; he'd hate to see her watching this. She flipped the television off rather than search for a new station.

TJ sat down heavily on the end of the couch, his head in his hands. “I'm a terrible human being.”

“Oh, honey, no, you're not. You took a cab home, you didn't hurt anything. Maybe your own head . . .”

Rain sat up with a grimace and crawled over to join her husband. She nudged her way under his arm, the same way her parents' dog Dog did when he needed some affection.

He was draped over her as she cuddled up against him, but he wasn't responding. Just sitting there, limp and slumped.

Rain said, “I'm not feeling well either. Tell you what. Leave your car in that parking lot today; we won't worry about it. We'll just stay here on the couch all day and watch bad TV. We'll order pizza and eat junk food and just be lazy. We won't answer the phone, we'll draw the curtains. You know how when you were little and sick your parents would spoil you? Let's spoil ourselves. Each other.”

He drew her in suddenly and clenched her tight. “What did I do to deserve you?” he muttered into her hair. She could feel his lips against her scalp.

“I love you, too,” she replied, happy to be distracted from her sadness and cramps.

She handed him the remote and he seemed to relax as he switched the TV on.
A Baby Story
was still playing and Rain tensed.

But he sat and watched it, instead of flipping the channel or getting upset that she was torturing herself by watching this after another failed cycle. He even chuckled when the husband got woozy in the delivery room.

Rain let herself cry a little more on TJ's shirt as another birth played out before their eyes, and he squeezed her in response.

“Hey,” he said softly as the credits rolled and the new parents cooed. “When do we have the next appointment with Dr. Gould?”

Rain turned to him and smiled with relief and surprise. “I'll call her Monday.”

“Good,” he said, stroking her arm as he embraced her. “Now, I definitely think we should watch something else.”

“There's an Iron Chef marathon.”

“Now you're talking,” said TJ.

Rain let herself doze in the circle of his strong arms, not daring to question what brought about his change of attitude.

 

When Rain woke, the curtains were closed and she felt unmoored. She was alone on the couch, and she sat halfway up, trying to remember what time of day it was. She squinted at the clock; it was the middle of the afternoon. She'd slept through lunch.

She pulled an afghan around her against a chill and wandered the house, looking for TJ.

There was a note on the table: “Walking to get the car. Sorry about last night.”

Walking? That would take him ages, and in this weather?

He was punishing himself. Trudging miles through the snow and wind with a hangover was his penance for getting drunk in the first place. Gestures like this were why she could never stay angry at him.

She picked up her phone to call, to demand that he tell her where he was, where the car was, so they could drive out and get it . . . it was pointless to go tromping around in the snow.

She heard the faint, tinny strains of “Don't Stop Believing” issue from somewhere else in the house and realized he'd left his phone at home.

Rain considered heading out into the Michigan winter white to go find him. All she'd have to do is drive the route between their house and the bar and surely she would spot him, trudging along. She could almost picture how he would look: the hangdog face, his hair wet with melted snow. He would probably argue with her about getting into the car, insisting he deserved to be cold.

Then again, he could be on his way back with the car even now; she'd been sleeping long enough. They'd miss each other, and the excursion would be pointless.

Rain shook her head and went to the yoga studio next to their bedroom, which in actual fact was the nursery, was going to be the nursery the first day they toured this house as potential buyers, only it needed a purpose before the baby. Now she referred to it as the studio to avoid a jinx. Not getting pregnant was turning her as superstitious as TJ, or Beverly with her chakras and crystals.

Rain rolled out her mat and knotted her hair roughly behind her head with one of the stray hair elastics lying around on the beat-up yard sale dresser that sat in the corner—the dresser she would surely paint fresh bright white, as soon as she had reason to.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the long mirror she'd propped up against one wall. Her face was flushed red and marred with sleep creases. Her eyes were puffy, and her hair was lank and dirty. She suddenly pictured adorable, pert Layla in her all fertile youthfulness . . . She shook her head and folded into a forward bend. Stupid to think like that. Even Layla must get sleep creases and puffy eyes sometimes.

Her abdomen felt looser, the cramps less pronounced. She breathed her way through her warm-up sun salutations until her joints slid easily in the sockets and her muscles felt long and warm, her spine long with tangible space between the bones.

Should she try it now? Well, why not?

She bent her knees into a squat, preparing for
Eka Pada Koundiyasana I,
a hand balancing posture that would end up, if she managed it, with her weight on her hands and forearms, bent at the elbows, her body parallel to the floor. Her lower half would be twisted to the side, one leg behind her, one leg outward, balanced on her elbow.

She'd seen Beverly do this in a workshop, and she was not supposed to be jealous. Her childhood religion and her yogic study had both taught her that much about envy. The physical form was not the point. Physical achievement was not the goal, as her friend always said.

Oh stuff it, Beverly, she'd wanted to say. Easy for you to say because you can do it.

Beverly had looked at once powerful and light as air, serene and still, yet the very picture of action and vitality. Rain knew well how much strength was required to remain so very still.

Rain eased her bent knees and hips into position and was about to straighten into the pose, her forearms already shaking, trying to breathe through the burning in her shoulders and core . . .

The back door swung open. “Rain!” TJ called.

Rain fell forward, past the edge of the mat, knocking her chin on the wood floor and biting her tongue. “Shit,” she muttered, untangling her limbs. She tasted the metallic bite of her own blood. She put the back of her hand to her lip and came away with a smudge of red.

She walked down to the kitchen, feeling her long, soft muscles seem to curl up tight at the very presence of her husband.

He was, as she'd predicted, wet, cold, and hangdog.

“You okay?” she asked. “I would have driven you to the car.”

“It wasn't your fault I got drunk last night. I didn't want to make you go out.”

She took a paper towel and dabbed her lip, and TJ finally noticed, having shrugged out of his coat and begun to make fresh coffee, that she was bleeding.

“Baby, what happened?” he said, rushing over to her as if she were hemorrhaging.

“Nothing. Fell getting into a posture, it's nothing.”

“Are you sure? It looks awful . . .”

“It's nothing, I said,” Rain snapped, short on patience for his outsize concern over a tiny nick in her mouth, compared to the aching hollow of being childless again, still, always.

He drew back, blinked a few times. Rain watched as his countenance darkened, and he withdrew from her.

16

M
organ brushed her hair until it shone. She stroked lip gloss across her lips. She dabbed another swipe of concealer under her eyes.

She may have begun to feel like a different woman—awakened, fresh—after the kiss, but the nightmares refused to recede. In the one last night, the twins fell into a black pit, shrieking for her, and she reached down, down, down and couldn't reach them, but she couldn't fall, either, just stretched down endlessly, always failing to catch them.

But with the makeup, no one could even tell she was tired. Her eyes looked brighter, she thought. She turned her face slightly to one side, giving her bedroom mirror a three-quarter profile view, the same one she'd employed for her senior pictures. The photographer had tried to suggest other angles, other poses, but Morgan would just shake her head and resume her prior position. His name was Rick something, and he was gray- haired with a scowling face like a pile of rocks, all angles and furrows.

Morgan did not dignify his annoyance with an awkward explanation. She just kept the scar hidden safely away like the dark side of the moon.

Lighter, Morgan thought, regarding herself at home in the mirror. She felt lighter. That's what allowed this brighter, vibrant feeling. She no longer cared what her brothers were doing or whether her mother was upset about it. She was going to be no one's crutch anymore.

She didn't even care about her parents' verdict about Boston. When she turned eighteen, they no longer had any legal say, and if she wanted to move to Boston and wait tables until she could pay for college, she would do it and they couldn't stop her.

Or maybe she wouldn't bother with Boston, anyway. She felt like she was peeling off the old Morgan like dead skin. Or better yet: The new, adult Morgan was burning her way out, phoenixlike. The same Morgan who sat right next to Britney and David laughing at the restaurant Friday night and felt nothing, even when David let his hand drift ever farther up Britney's thigh.

She capped her lip gloss with an air of satisfaction. She was looking forward to this Monday, yes, she was.

 

“Hi, David,” Morgan said, swinging into her desk in Mr. Hill's calc class.

“Hey,” David replied, a half smile on his face. She caught him glancing down at her hips, the shape of which today were on full view because she'd given up on the frilly peasant shirt she would normally have worn and chosen a close-fitting, finely knit sweater that she'd bought on a whim and rarely took out of the closet.

She smiled to herself and took out her notebook, turning past earlier pages with snatches of poetry in the margin. She rolled her eyes at herself and selected a fresh, new page.

Mr. Hill had not yet arrived in class, and for a moment Morgan's mood faltered. Had he called in sick? Or worse, resigned in fear of facing her again?

But no, there he was. Looking a little pale and a little scruffy, but still himself. He gave the class a wan smile and swept his eyes across the room. Morgan noticed he did not look at her.

He did not have to look at her, though, for her plan to work. The class handed their homework pages forward to the first desk in each row, and Mr. Hill collected all the papers from those kids. No one looked at anyone else's paper, why would they? And they certainly would never turn a math assignment over and look at the back as they handed it forward.

Which is why she didn't worry about anyone else seeing what she'd written on the back of her homework page, after the last problem.

We should talk,
she wrote, and signed it,
M
. She'd added a cursive flourish to her initial. Then she'd carefully printed her cell number.

Mr. Hill collected all the papers and stacked them carefully on his desk. Then he slipped them into his briefcase. Of course he would likely grade them at home. His free hour for planning and whatnot was earlier in the day than this. A flutter of nerves erupted in her chest; is it possible his wife would see it?

She took a deep breath in and out. Didn't matter now. Already done. Some things you could never take back.

She caught herself running a finger down her scar, and she brought her hands back to the desk. She tried to look like any other student, just this side of bored to death.

 

Mrs. DeWitt was pleased to see her on time in the band room.

Morgan had her cello all tuned, her bow all rosined, and she'd been rehearsing bits of her solo on her own. Her fingers seemed clumsy and fat today, her bowing arm tired, and the notes didn't trip lightly the way they should. The Elgar piece they'd chosen—Concerto in E Minor, fourth movement—was difficult, with intricate fingerings and leaps up and down the fingerboard, not to mention the musicality of the piece, from slow lush phrases to
allegro
sections. Morgan had been talked into it. Today, it showed.

In prior orchestra years, Morgan would have given into someone's pleading for a cello in their quartet and played her unobtrusive harmonies, keeping time with her toe inside her shoe while the other musicians argued about tempo or something. This time, in honor of her senior year, she'd given in to her teacher's prodding to try this difficult solo, with a little extra coaching from Mrs. DeWitt.

Today, Mrs. DeWitt's mood darkened as she got more frustrated with Morgan's mistakes, and Morgan was regretting ever attempting a solo in the first place. What had she been thinking?

The combination of retired, crotchety teacher and Morgan's own sleepless exhaustion—this was always the hardest part of the day, like a final sprint in a marathon when lungs are burning and legs are jelly—turned the atmosphere rotten.

When Mrs. DeWitt opined, “Really, you are better than this. I don't know why I bother to be here if you won't take the time to perfect the fingering at home.”

“I don't know why you're here, either, if you're just going to be a jerk.”

Mrs. DeWitt banged her two tiny fists on the piano keys, and the clang startled Morgan's bow out of her hand. Morgan bent to pick it up. “Well, I never!” Mrs. DeWitt exclaimed, sounding about eighty-five instead of just sixtyish. “That's it.” She started stacking her music. “I'm done. This was truly a waste of time.”

Morgan knew she should call her back, apologize, grovel even. Mrs. DeWitt herself lingered at the door as if waiting for such a thing. Morgan only smiled and waved her bow in a mockery of a farewell.

Mrs. DeWitt huffed one more time and stormed out, much to Morgan's relief.

“Good riddance, crusty old bitch,” she muttered.

She stared at her phone, wishing it would ring, or chime for a text. Nonsense, though. Mr. Hill wouldn't risk calling her from school. What would he do, then? Make an excuse for an errand and call from the car, later tonight perhaps.

Thank God for cell phones,
Morgan thought, as she readied her bow and started playing once more, her clumsy fingers already finding the music again.

Then she heard it. Her phone. She threw her bow down on the music stand and snatched up the phone.

“Hello?”

“That was quite a risk you took.”

“I know. Where are you?”

“In my car in the parking lot. And, no, you can't join me.”

“I wasn't going to ask.” Morgan frowned. How dumb did he think she was? “But we can't just let something like that go and pretend it didn't happen.”

He didn't reply. She thought she could hear him tapping the wheel.

“Because it's not just me, and it wasn't just the drinks, was it?”

Still silence. Somewhere a ticking second hand registered at jackhammer volume. The concerto was still looping in her mind, the way it should be played, not the way she'd been murdering it. She should hang up. This was insane, and she'd been a childish fool to think he'd ever—

“I can't stop thinking about you.”

He'd said it in a rush, as if he'd known she was about to hang up.

Morgan let herself absorb this triumph for a moment, then started to worry for him. The stress must be tremendous. She thought of his wife and the problems he'd mentioned.

“Are you okay?” Morgan asked. “Are you . . . How are things at home?”

“Tough,” Mr. Hill answered through a sigh, puffing out the word.

“That's too bad.”

Silence. The line crackled.

“Hello?” Morgan said, almost shouting, fearing that if she lost the connection he'd never call her back.

“I'm here. I can't make her happy anymore. No matter what I try.”

“She's shutting you out.”

“Yeah,” he said. The word almost a groan. Morgan wanted to fly to his side and hold him until he stopped sounding like that. “I can't go on like this. She'll barely even talk to me; it's like I'm not even there.”

Morgan scowled. Okay, so she was sad, but did that give her the right to ignore her husband? As if he didn't have feelings of his own?

“I want to see you,” she blurted.

After a pause in which she felt her whole new self hanging in the balance, he whispered, “How?”—the word at once a plea and a groan.

Morgan glanced around the empty room, feeling a smile play across her lips. She tried to sound appropriately mature and grave as she replied, “We'll find a way.”