A ball-peen hammer drove its way into Mark’s skull about the same time he realized Mr. Chesters must have bypassed the litter box and used his mouth instead. On the couch, Mark braced himself, waiting for the painful thuds to quit. For a blessed second, they did. He steadily, painfully, rose to a seated position. What happened?
In front of him on the antique trunk stood a saucy stack of beer cans. Mocking him. One lay at his feet, dribbling sour brew onto the carpet.
Aha. The bored meeting. Dale Ochs and the boys discussing his “qualifications to pastor.” Ervin Plumley caving like Styrofoam under Dale’s pressure.
Mark had slinked away into the night like a kicked dog, looking for some carbonated comfort.
He had found it in the Beer Barn, an awkward red building with a flashing neon sign. Adult beverages to go. He pulled the church pickup in, edging close to the drive-in window so the kid behind the counter couldn’t see the Lakeview insignia on the side.
“Whatcha need?” The clerk had severe acne and a pleasant expression. His name tag read ROBERT.
“Coors. Cold, please.” Mark pulled down the rim of his ball cap and pretended to adjust the radio.
“Sure. We’ve got a special tonight on twelve-pack cans-”
“Whatever, that’s fine.” He scratched his forehead, shielding his face.
“Or, did you want bottles? Because the longnecks are buy three, get… Hey, you look familiar. Aren’t you-”
“Cans are fine. I’m in a hurry.”
Robert handed the heavy paper sack over, and Mark had to reach out of the pickup to grab it. “Thanks.”
“Wait a minute. You’re that church guy.” Robert poked a finger, grinning at having solved the puzzle. “Lakeview, right?”
Mark shrugged and put the truck in gear.
“My grandma goes there,” Robert chatted on, oblivious to Mark’s discomfort. “Letty Hodges. You know her?”
Mark gunned the gas and drove home, dashing into the house with the chilly cans tucked under his arm. Ready for a fuhgeddaboutit party of one.
Vaguely, he remembered singing Willie Nelson tunes along with the stereo. Slurring about lost jobs and missing women. Between the beer and Amanda’s record collection, he’d almost fooled himself into painless delirium. Happy without her, he’d informed Mr. Chesters. Don’t need her, don’t want her. Just us boys, doin’ fine on our own.
He hadn’t had this much to drink since his glory days in college. Now the alcohol sucked the water right out of his body. Even his eyeballs felt dry.
He’d cut off his right arm for a cold glass of water, but the kitchen seemed too far away. Instead, he flopped back on the couch, shut his eyes and prayed for a miracle. A water miracle. Preferably of the mountain spring variety, bottled and chilled, to appear majestically before him. On the trunk, where he wouldn’t have to move. Hadn’t God done it for Elijah in the desert?
But this was a desert of his own making. And he was no Elijah.
Wham! Wham, wham, wham!
There went the hammer. He whimpered and covered his ears. What on earth? The sound, on second reflection, came from outside his head. Nearer to the front door.
Someone knocking?
Although his subconscious mind whispered, Amanda’s home, rational self argued that she certainly had a key.
Still, he jumped up too fast and slammed his knee into the trunk with all his strength. Profanities rolled with the cans as they clattered to the floor.
“Just a minute!” he called out, his tongue a terry cloth slab. “Be right there!”
He hustled the cans to the garbage, smelling stale alcohol throughout his living area. Please, God, don’t let it be someone from church.
With his luck, it would be Dale Ochs, with a pink slip and a box of Mark’s office belongings. And a big grin.
Smoothing his hair, Mark made for the entryway and hoped his eyes weren’t too red. Maybe he could plead sickness. Get rid of whoever had the audacity to knock his door down on a Monday morning. His day off.
The squeak of the hinges nearly leveled him, but he clenched his teeth and stood strong. Morning sun streamed behind a gaggle of ladies, all smiling at him. Truly, a gaggle.
Peggy Plumley led the charge. “Good morning, Mark!” she sang in an impossibly cheery voice. “We’re here for the housecleaning shift.” She pushed past him, nearly knocking him over with a gigantic yellow pail full of cleaning supplies.
Behind her stood Missy Underwood, Shelinda James and Pam Hart, each dressed in work clothes and carrying bundles. Shelinda and Pam chattered as they swept in. “I’ve brought some King Ranch for your dinner.” Shelinda’s mittened hands held a steaming casserole.
His stomach flipped. “Thanks.” Flattening himself against the wall, he counted the troops. Invaders. Four, counting Missy who ran back to the car.
Pam Hart sniffed deeply as she entered. “Why, it smells like a fraternity house in here!” she announced to the room at large. “I know, because my daughter from Chitapee…”
At this familiar phrase, Peggy made a face and disappeared down the hallway.
“… once dated a boy in a fraternity out at OSU.” Pam breathed excitedly, adjusting the waistband on her stretchy pants with a vigorous snap. “And I visited, and it smelled just like this!”
Shelinda jammed an elbow in Pam’s rib cage.
“Ouch!” Pam cast an injured look at her younger friend.
“We’ve got plenty to do without standing around here gabbing.” Shelinda looked pointedly at the broom and dustpan in Pam’s hands. “Get moving.”
Pam balanced the equipment against the wall and gripped her ample hips. “I know what I smell and that smells like beer-”
“Pam!” Peggy’s authoritative voice called from the back of the house. “I need your help here in the bathroom. You can scrub the potty.”
Shuffling away, Pam grumbled, “Well, I never.”
“Probably not,” Shelinda agreed under her breath. She nodded at Mark and turned to the kitchen.
Wincing at the idea of strange women scrubbing his toilet, Mark held open the door for a trailing Missy. She maneuvered down the sidewalk, holding her prize with both hands.
A glass pitcher, full to the rim. Sweat beads from the cold trickled down the sides. Ice bobbed, fruit slices twirled in the heavenly liquid. Lemonade.
“I made it fresh this morning,” Missy told him. “At the last minute, I just thought… that maybe you’d like some.”
Mark lifted silent hallelujahs and ran for a glass.
Seated on the couch, he finished the last of the pitcher, sucking it down like a 10K runner in the Sahara. Greedy and grateful.
When his stomach quit the churn cycle, he realized women inhabited every room-scrubbing, washing, poking through his belongings. He tried to intervene. “I can get this, really.” He pulled at Peggy’s laundry basket.
“Now, Mark, let us do this for you.” Peggy insisted. “You just step aside and we can get to work. We’ll be done in a jiffy.” Brooking no argument, she squished down the hall in her nurse’s shoes, carrying a folded load of his underwear.
Mark wondered if escape might be his best option. Maybe a quick jog through the neighborhood. Clear his head and get out of the house.
He went to the master bedroom to grab his running shoes. As he shut the door for some privacy, he heard a fumbling in his closet. “Ooof!”
Thank God he hadn’t started changing into his workout clothes, or else he’d be giving new meaning to “Just As I Am.”
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me.” Peggy came out, her handkerchief askew, rubbing a red mark on her head. “I was putting some things away, and knocked this over.”
She handed him a boot box, cracked open with papers spilling over. “Looks like it could be important.” What appeared to be a doctor’s bill poked out the side.
“I’m afraid they got a little mixed up. Sorry about that.” She handed him the mess, her eyes soft. “I’ll go get the girls. We should be about finished.”
The door clicked behind her.
The edge of the bed squeaked under Mark’s weight. He wondered what Amanda would store inside an old box. He handled all the financial bookkeeping and didn’t know of anything missing.
Cautiously, he opened the cardboard container. The pink paper slipped out, the edges wrinkled, scrawls at the bottom barely discernible. A hospital charge. From when Mandy lost the…
He tossed the receipt on the mattress, digging deeper into the box. That terrible day. He saw no need to revisit it by poring over old medical charges. Katy had paid them in full without batting an eye.
Old Dragonlady did have her strong suit.
Next, a string of blurry photos, long and narrow on a shiny roll. Each focused on what looked like a see-through peanut, floating in a tornado. Ghost white lines in cloudy black ink.
The baby. His mind voiced it before he could catch himself. The sonogram photos of the baby.
His throat squeezed shut, and he coughed into a fist. Must be the hangover. Maybe he’d go out and get a big glass of water. Put these relics away and go for his run.
He cocked his head to the side, listening. No hens clucking. No vacuum roar. They must have gone home.
The urge to run slid away.
He turned his attention to the photos, trying to remember.
Wishing he could forget.
As he traced the images in the pictures, he named each place he could identify. The top of the head, the face. Perfect. He recalled that much.
He’d been so worried that his and Amanda’s heated scramblings, illicit exchanges, had resulted in a mistake. A physical punishment for physical transgressions.
He’d prayed for mercy each night, for forgiveness, expecting none.
When he saw the screen that day in the tech’s room, he’d almost wept with relief. He held himself in check, though, frozen by the image swirling on the screen. Transfixed by the technician’s voice, pointing out all the parts.
Femur and fingers, tiny toes and great big eyes. Or at least, dark pockets where the eyes were. Little sage, floating. Protected. A perfect gift for imperfect people.
The baby’s heartbeat thudded in time with his own. Love personified. Powerful pulses that thrilled and scared him.
And Amanda in some awful robe-thing, gray-blue cotton in a cold room. Her eyes darted to his. Biting her lip, she laughed and cried all at once, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Happy.
One of the last days he saw her that way.
The perfect gift he hadn’t wanted, taken back. Passed in a pool of blood around his lover’s feet, her face wild with the pain. He’d gathered her close, held her to his chest and carried her to the car. He caught a scent of pennies. Copper pennies, spent and gone.
The whole time his heart pounded, louder than the day at the tech’s room. Calling in silence to their baby, his baby, as he drove, frantic in Houston traffic. Hold on. I do want you. Can you hear me? I want you. Hang in there. Daddy’s heart is here for you.
But it hadn’t worked. His blessing, his punishment, had slipped away, quiet as it came. Leaving broken people behind, one of whom refused to crack.
He set the sonograms carefully on the bed and returned to the box. The baby book. On the very bottom, still in the bag from the card shop where she had bought it. The plastic wrap crinkled as he pulled it out. On the front, little mice danced among ribbons and flowers. Raised, scroll lettering for the title, bumpy under his fingers. The Story of Baby.
He opened the cover and flipped through thick pages, preprinted with areas for lists and photos. Spaces for the sonogram. Baby’s first picture. Room for remarks from Mommy. From Daddy.
All empty.
Not one line filled.
No evidence that a baby ever existed. Because that’s the way he’d wanted it.
A white rectangle, no bigger than a playing card, floated out and landed on the carpet by his feet. He picked it up. Betty’s Hallmark. The receipt, for $21.95.
She’d kept it in the book. Why?
Then he remembered. How he’d scolded her when she bought the album. Her middle barely rounded from the pregnancy, showing him her purchase. Blushing and excited.
He’d told her it cost too much. That they’d need to save their pennies because his severance was running out. There’d be time for books later, he’d said. Keep the receipt so you can take it back.
Take backs. He hung his head in his hands. He wished he could. To start over, from the beginning. But not all the way.
Just to the part where he had quit being human.
He’d been right about one thing. It had-all of it-cost way too much.