Gary stared at his computer, his hand motionless on the mouse. Downstairs, he could hear Suzanne moving around, shutting doors a bit too loudly, turning up her music too much. Some punk rocker wailing about his cheating heart that was slashing him like a blade.
Gary slammed down the mouse and clicked off the computer. That was it. He’d get out of the house. Get away from her. It was Saturday night. He could go see a couple of movies. Or he could go to the diner. Stay there until he knew Molly would be up and he could go to see her. Anything as long as he wasn’t within ten feet of Suzanne. He bolted up from his seat, determined, and came out of his room and as soon as he did, he smelled something wafting through the house, winding its way up to him. Garlic. Tomato sauce. His stomach rumbled and growled. He was suddenly starving.
When he got to the stairs, Suzanne was waiting for him at the bottom. Her lips looked glossy, like she’d shined them up. He stared at them, stricken.
Suzanne smiled. She tucked her hair behind one ear. “Want some dinner?” Suzanne said. “I made pasta.”
“I ate,” Gary lied. The last thing in his stomach had been a stale
piece of Juicy Fruit he had found in his pocket. He was so hungry he could have eaten six bowls of pasta, he probably could have eaten the cardboard box the pasta came in, but he wasn’t going to take the chance sitting at a table with her.
“I made garlic bread, too. And salad.”
“I said I wasn’t hungry,” Gary snapped. He hurried down the stairs, intending to walk right past her, but she didn’t move. He had to brush past her.
“Everything go okay at the hospital today?” Suzanne said.
Gary nodded and headed for Otis’s room. He was going crazy. If he was so anxious to hold someone, it had better be his son. He leaned over the crib. Otis kicked his legs as Gary picked him up. He nuzzled Otis, but then he looked up, and for a moment he was sure he saw Suzanne, leaning in the doorway. He blinked. The doorway was empty. He’d have to get out of the house. And he’d take Otis with him.
Gary got Otis into his jacket. He got the baby carrier and had his hand on the door when he heard Suzanne call to him.
“Hey, where are you going?” Suzanne said. Her voice moved in a funny way. Her expression looked complicated. “Can anyone come or is this a private party?”
“We’ll be right back,” he said quickly, and then he stepped out into the cold, shutting the door even as she moved toward him.
He headed for the Tastee. “Well, look who’s here!” the waitresses said when they saw him. Otis slept on the leatherette seat. Gary nursed his chocolate milkshake and fiddled with his french fries, swiping them through the ketchup and laying them back on his plate. He hardly ate anything. A couple came and sat in the next booth, holding hands, leaning over the table and kissing. “Maybe we should just go home,” the woman said, laughing, deep and throaty. Gary was suddenly furious at the couple. They made him feel heartsick, they were so happy. He put down money for the check and picked up Otis. He opened the door and walked outside.
The neighborhood was dark except for a small square of blue light in Suzanne’s room. He carried Otis into bed, and when he came outside, there was Suzanne, in her blue robe, sleepy-faced and miserable, her hair rumpled, staring at him. “Are you just going to avoid me forever?” She grabbed for his sleeve. “Nothing happened.”
“Everything happened.” Gary freed his sleeve and looked past her. “And it’s not going to happen again.”
“Don’t you want to talk about this? We live in the same house. You can’t just keep sidestepping me forever.”
“I’ve got tons to do,” he said curtly, cutting her off, and then he went upstairs to his office, turned on the computer, and fell instantly asleep in his chair.
He woke with a start and stumbled into bed, and as soon as he hit the sheets, he was wide awake. He put the pillow sideways, the same way he did every night, to trick himself into thinking he was sleeping with Molly. He shut his eyes. “Molly,” he murmured, and suddenly he smelled Suzanne’s perfume. He saw her eyes, her hair. He felt her body, lowered beside his, the slide of her hair across his back. He bolted up from the bed, kicking the sheets to the floor. The bed was empty. The house was silent. He sat down in the chair by the window.
He’d sit here until morning if he had to.
The next day, on his way to see Molly, Gary, so sleepy he was stumbling, stopped and bought her vegetable soup from the Kiev. Her favorite. He was broke but he stopped at a jewelry store and bought her a silver bracelet, slim as a wedding band. “Someone’s quite a lucky girl,” the store clerk told him.
When Gary walked into Molly’s room, she was turned away from him, looking out the window. Her skin looked gray and it hurt him to see it. Her hair was matted on one side and her face was puffy. “I come bearing gifts,” Gary said, forcing cheer, and Molly turned toward him, perking up, putting on a smile, too. He put down the cardboard cup of soup and opened it for her. Steam curls floated in the air. Potatoes bobbed on the surface.
“Oh, my favorite!” she said.
Gary reached in his pocket and then set down the present in front of her. “And what’s this?” she said.
He stood back from her, watching her take the gift from the bag and unwrap it. He had heard that lovers could smell betrayal on each other, that you couldn’t help but give faithlessness away with a glance, a look, a certain tone in your voice. But Molly’s face was glowing with surprise and pleasure. “Oh, my God!” She lifted the bracelet up, admiring it. She held up her wrists helplessly. “Got mine already,” Molly joked, showing him her plastic band on one wrist, the coil of IV tubing on the other. She set the bracelet on the dresser by the bed. “Well, I can look at it and love it for now. It’s something to aspire to.”
“Have some soup,” he urged.
Molly tried, but she could only finish half the soup. She yawned and stretched.
“You sleep and I’ll stay here,” he told her.
She shut her eyes and he sat there watching her for a while. He took the bracelet and opened the clasp and studied her arm. He couldn’t believe there wasn’t a place for it. Her arm was now so thin, the bracelet would probably fit on a lot of places beside her wrist. Finally, he slipped it on just under her right elbow. He felt a weird, hot kind of relief. He stepped back and looked at it. When Molly woke up, she’d see the bracelet, a silvery gleam on her arm. She’d remember he had given it to her.
When Gary got home that afternoon, Otis was in the Portacrib in the living room, batting irritatedly at the colored plastic toys suspended above him. “What’s the matter, you don’t like your toys?” he said. Otis whacked a plastic yellow butterfly, sending it spinning. Gary could hear Suzanne in the kitchen, the rush of the water. He knew her routine. She must be doing Otis’s bottles by hand. “Let’s take a walk,” Gary said. Gary quickly got Otis dressed and into the Snugli. And
then, as he was ready to go out the door, he called out, “Suzanne, I’m taking Otis out.”
“Gary?” she said, but he shut the door. He went out into the street.
He walked around and around, waiting for Suzanne to leave for the hospital, but as soon as he saw the car moving down the street, her head bent forward, her sunglasses on, he felt even worse than before. He didn’t want to go back in that empty house and feel the walls closing around him. He didn’t know what he wanted. He looked down at Otis, who had fallen fast asleep against his chest. He suddenly felt so lonely he didn’t know what to do with himself. He walked around the block twice, the baby bouncing against his chest, just in time for the paperboy, a scrappy little kid in a baseball jacket, to zoom the papers willy-nilly at everyone’s door. Gary’s landed on the sidewalk and he plucked it up.
He found himself at Emma’s door. He felt like a foundling that had put himself on her stoop. He didn’t know what he wanted, what he’d say, only that he didn’t want to be alone another minute. He looked up at her house. A light flickered on. He could hear her TV blasting from the open window. She was up.
He rang her bell.
It took Emma a few seconds to get to the door. She was already dressed and when she saw Gary and Otis, she looked surprised. “Is everything all right?” she said worriedly. “Do you need me to sit?”
He handed her his paper. “The kid knocked it in your rosebushes. I thought I’d deliver it by hand.”
She looked at the paper curiously. “But this isn’t mine. I don’t get the paper.”
“Oh, my mistake,” Gary said stupidly. He stood there like a fool. Of course she didn’t get the paper. On paper recycling days, his was the house with the stacks and stacks of boxes and newspapers and magazines. Her house barely had a flyer. Even so, he couldn’t manage to move.
“Well—” Emma said, glancing at her watch. Gary didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want her to close the door. He didn’t want to
go into his house, didn’t want to go into a coffee shop by himself, and he was so exhausted, he didn’t think he could walk another aimless block. And then, like a sparkler going off, he had an idea.
“Would you have breakfast with me? With us?” Gary blurted. “My treat? We could go to Josie’s down the street. I hear it’s pretty good.”
Emma looked perplexed for a moment. And then she suddenly relaxed. “Don’t be silly. I don’t believe in paying for food when you can make it just as good at home. You come in here instead.”
She held open the door and instantly he smelled cigarette smoke and coffee. It struck him suddenly funny. All this time he had lived on this block and he had never once been inside Emma’s house before. He had never been inside any of the neighbors’. Had never caught more than a glimpse of the houses because they all kept heavy curtains on the windows, drawn even in the hottest summer days.
Once inside, Emma didn’t even bother to give him the tour, the way he would have. She didn’t tell him what anything was, or what it might mean. She didn’t apologize or brag about a thing. He followed her through the living room. The walls were all dark wood-paneled. The rug was green shag, the furniture heavy and upholstered, some of it covered in white plastic, and dead center on the wall was a badly painted seascape with churning blue water. White checkmark seagulls. Yellow circle sun. Gary blinked at it, astounded.
Emma followed his gaze. “Isn’t that beautiful?” Emma said. “My cousin did it. Very talented girl.”
Gary nodded. “Very,” he said, trying to sound sincere. He had never in his life seen anything like it.
“Right this way.”
She led him past the dining room.
The kitchen was papered in a garish big blue and red plaid. Here were the photos, plastered all over the refrigerator. Kids’ faces, round and soft as apple dumplings, grinning up at him. Emma followed his gaze. She pointed out the faces. “Theresa’s grandniece. My cousin’s kids. Bill’s nephew. There’s Maryann and Betsy and Robert John.” She tapped out the photos with her fingers.
“Sit,” she ordered. He sat at the table. Emma slid an apron over her and tied it in back. Then she went to the refrigerator and started taking things out, humming to herself. Eggs. American cheese. Butter. She got up and took out a bowl from the cabinet and cracked two eggs into it. She sizzled grease in a pan.
He liked sitting there, listening to her cook. He felt warm. Comfortable. Companionable. He didn’t want to move an inch. He stroked Otis’s back.
She poured orange juice from a can into polka-dotted jelly glasses. She warmed Otis’s bottle for him in case he woke up, and then she set out extra butter and toast and napkins. She scooped the eggs, nubby yellow chunks, onto plates and set them on the table with a flourish. “Hard scrambled. Better than any diner, if I say so myself.”
“Molly and I met in a diner,” Gary said, and as soon as he said it, he felt a knot in his heart. He felt suddenly exhausted. His shoulders dropped. He felt Emma’s eyes on him.
Emma pulled up a chair and sat down carefully next to Gary. She placed one hand over Gary’s. He stared down at her hand, at the web of wrinkles, the peach-colored nails, the tiny diamond wedding ring. “We’re all praying for Molly, Gary,” Emma said quietly. “We’ve got a very good priest over at St. Ann’s and he says special novenas for Molly every Sunday. We even have a prayer circle. Molly’s got so many prayers, I’m sure she must be hearing them.”
“Really? You all pray for her?”
Emma looked so concerned and motherly that Gary suddenly wanted to fling himself into her arms, to have her pat his back, to tell him it was all going to be all right. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t think what to say. Emma folded her fingers over his, and patted them, and then released his hand. She looked at him as if he were a child. “Gary, we pray for you and Otis, too.”
Suzanne sat in Molly’s hospital room. Sometimes it was hard to look at her sister. Molly had that pallor sick people did, as if illness took away your skin tone. She had gone all puffy, and Suzanne could only
imagine what her sister’s hair must feel like. But what she hated the most was the way Molly acted around her, the way she stared and stared and wouldn’t look away, as if she were trying to figure something out.
“So what did you and Gary do today?” Molly said.
“I was on my own today.”
“Uh-huh. I bet you can’t wait to get back to California,” Molly said.
“No—it’s okay here, it’s fine.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“Why are you talking to me like this?”
Molly stared at Suzanne, considering. She gave her that stare again that made Suzanne feel like jumping out of her skin. “Are you in love with Gary?” Molly blurted.
Suzanne stood up. “Why would you ask me that?”
“You’re not answering. Is Gary in love with you?”
“Molly, this is ridiculous—”
“No, it’s not ridiculous. I’d ask him myself except he probably wouldn’t tell me. At least not now, not while I’m stuck sick in here. But you, you tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“It’s my husband. My baby. My house.” Molly swallowed. “My life. I have a right to know.”
“Molly!”
“I know something’s going on.”
A nurse breezed in with a wheelchair. “X rays, honey,” she said.
Molly didn’t even look at Suzanne when Suzanne left.
Suzanne drove home feeling sick. Are you in love with Gary? Molly had asked. Love. The heart was a lying little muscle that didn’t know the difference between good and bad, between being wanted and unwanted. You could fool yourself a million ways when it came to love, and she had probably gone through all of them. Is Gary in love with you? She saw Gary in her mind, sifting through Internet printouts about Molly’s illness, she saw Gary swaying Otis to sleep, she saw him looking through the photograph albums filled with Molly. She felt him touching the side of her own face, tugging her roughly to him. What
kind of question is that? she should have asked Molly. And it was true. What kind of question was it?
The next morning, Molly was already unhooked from the IV and in the wheelchair, protective plastic taped to her belly, a towel, shampoo, and soap in her lap, when Gary arrived. “I’m getting a shower this morning!” she said, triumphant.
Gary shook his head. “No. That can’t be right. The hospital’s letting you do that?”
“Yup. There’s one right on this floor.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” he said doubtfully.
“Whose side are you on?” She felt suddenly angry. He wasn’t the one stuck in here. He was outside. With Suzanne.
Gary looked offended. “What kind of question is that? Your side.”
“Then let me take my goddamned shower.”
He flinched at her tone. He held up his hands. “All right, fine.” He wheeled her out into the hall. “Left, and then right,” she told him, until he led her to a door along the wall. SHOWER, it said.
“I’d better go get the nurse now, right? To go in with you. Or can I just come in with you?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Molly said. “No, the nurse would be better. You’d better get a nurse.”
He hesitated and then started to wheel her with him. “No, no—” she said. “I don’t want to lose my place in line. I’ll wait here.”
She watched Gary winding his way down the aisle, looking back at her three different times to make sure she was all right, but it didn’t make her feel safe. It made her feel closeted. Eight o’clock. The nurses were all busy making their rounds, and they were short-staffed today. Molly had had to badger the nurses three different times just to get the wheelchair. It would take Gary awhile, she bet, to get a nurse to leave a sick patient just to help Molly take a shower no one seemed in a hurry to let her have.
She wheeled closer to the door. No one was in the corridor except a patient struggling to walk, one hand braced along the wall, not even
looking at her. Molly opened the shower-room door and stood up, using the door handle for leverage. She stepped carefully into the shower room, shutting the door behind her. She looked down. Oh, my God. A lock. She hadn’t seen a lock since she had gone into the hospital. A door you could shut and keep people out. Privacy. Oh, what a simple, blissful thing.
She locked the door with a satisfying click.
Molly looked around. The shower room looked like one big single bathroom. There was a sink and a tub with a kind of rubber chair built into it, with chrome handrails and a handheld shower nozzle. There was a blue tile floor, a toilet, a wastebasket, and an extra bench. Guardrails circled the room. Well, she’d have to work fast. She already felt tired.
Molly turned on the water. She shucked off her clothes and eased herself onto the rubber seat, and as soon as the water hit her, she felt jolted. “Oh!” She gasped. She couldn’t imagine anything feeling like that. The water was a shock. The heat an embrace. Her skin seemed to vibrate. The water hummed. She couldn’t help laughing. Her mouth dropped open. She threw her head back, gripping the handrails of the chair. She shut her eyes with pleasure. She braced her feet against the rubber bottom of the tub. The water beat down on her, intense and blissful. She sighed. She held on tight. It felt as if all the heat and damp were loosening something up all over her, sliding it off. Layers of hospital. Coming right off in a rush. All the endless morning rounds and medicine in tiny paper cups. The noisily beeping IVs, the food that tasted like paper. The goddamn blood takers and nurses and med students who woke her up at three in the morning. She reached up one hand and grabbed the soap in the tub and used it on her hair. Instantly, her head tingled. Instantly, she felt lighter. Another layer sloughed off. She felt her scalp, alive and tingling. She felt electrified. She laughed out loud.
“Molly?” She heard him outside the door, faintly muffled. Gary. But she wasn’t moving. Not for anyone. She wasn’t leaving this bliss. “Molly!” His voice boomed. He tried the door and Molly turned the water hotter. She made more steam. “Molly? Are you in there? The
door’s locked! Molly!” She turned the water pressure up. She sang loudly.
“Molly! Are you crazy? You can’t be in there alone!”
“La, la, la,” she sang through the door, her voice rising in sudden rage. “I’m singing, I can’t hear you!” She felt suddenly powerful. Nothing could hurt her now. Nothing could even touch her.
“Molly, open the door now! What are you doing? I have to be in there with you!”
“La, la, la. I know about you! I know about Suzanne!”
“Molly, it’s not true—Molly, nothing happened. Molly, open the goddamned door!”
“Fuck you,” she shouted. “I’m washing you down the drain!”
She kept singing. La, la, la. Louder and louder, and the angrier she got, the more powerful she felt. A thousand times stronger. Water cascaded down her in warm sheets, intoxicating her, making her dizzy with the pure bliss of it. She gripped the sides of the chair. Gary banged on the door. “I’m getting somebody!” he shouted. But this time, she didn’t bother to shout back at him. The banging stopped. All she heard was the hiss of the water, the rough tag of her own breathing, and then she slowly leaned forward and turned off the water.
She still felt great. Her whole body was buzzing. Everything seemed more intense. The white of the tub was blinding. The blue of the tiles shimmered. Even the air seemed somehow electrified.
Here we go, she thought. She didn’t think she could pull herself up, but she didn’t feel terrified. Take it one step at a time. She tugged herself up. Beads of water fell from the plastic over her gauze covering. Her legs were butter, startling her. Easy. You can do it. You can do it. The same words she told herself when she was giving birth. It made her laugh out loud. She shuffled, smiling to herself, holding on to the wall, making her way slowly to the sink. One baby step at a time. You can do it. She grabbed at the sink. She caught her breath a little and this time looked frankly at herself in the mirror, at her eyes, sparkling as if they had chips of mica in them. As round and enormous in her face as dinner plates. Her skin flushed pink. Her hair was fat with the steam,
curled in damp wisps. Her heart was beating like a bird’s heart, fast and thin and fluttery as wings. She felt like she could fly away. She slid on her dress, stepping into her stretchy shoes, and then she took the three steps to the door and unlocked it. She opened it up to Gary.
His face changed when he saw her. He was scared and then he was something else. His eyes widened. His mouth opened. She felt herself coloring. Something sprang between them. He stared at her, astonished, and then suddenly he grabbed her and kissed her deep and passionately on the mouth. He took her arms and wrapped them about his neck. “You are so fucking beautiful and I am so fucking insane for you,” he said. And then, right before she could start kissing him back, she fell, collapsing against him into a narrowing cone of black.
She woke in a dark room. She blinked, adjusting her eyes to the dim light. Nighttime. Hours later, she thought. A shadow moved, and then came into focus, and there was Dr. Price in his white coat, hovering over her, glaring.
“You did a very stupid thing,” Dr. Price scolded. “What if you had fallen? What if you had hemorrhaged? You must think about these things.” He frowned, shaking his head at her. He left the room.
Molly smiled. She’d think about it all right. She waggled her fingers. She flexed her toes. Oh. That wonderful feeling was still there. The pleasure, so keen she could have skated along it. She still was feeling lighter. The hospital’s grip was really loosened. She had done it. She had really done it. There was more of her now than there was of the hospital. And she was just going to have to find ways to tip the balance even more.