Outside, the sky tumbled with clouds in varying shades of gray. They moved quickly with a cold breeze, sometimes revealing a patch of blue or letting a ray of sun peek through. When the wind rose up, it sent petals flying across from the plum tree in the adjacent yard. A chain-link fence separated her and her neighbor. Through the metal diamonds she could see bright yellow daffodils, the garnet branches of the flowering plum, a deep green lawn.
All this would be very heartening if her own vegetable patch hadn’t been ravaged over the winter. She had had to bring last fall’s harvest in so early, and then she’d neglected it. Now in March the beds resembled abandoned graves—wet mounds of earth riddled with weeds and the withered remains of last year’s crops.
She wore rubber gardening shoes that kept getting stuck in the mud. Her feet would step out of them, onto the damp ground. So now her feet were wet and cold, but she kept at it. She crouched in the soil and worked it with her hands, breaking up lumps of clay, making a pile of weeds. They had weak roots, pulled easily out of the ground. If she found a slug she’d pluck it between two fingers then hurl it into the lawn. She should kill them, but she didn’t have the energy.
She was making little to no progress, and then the sky opened up, pelting hard, cold raindrops on her. It seemed to come at her sideways, whipping her hair across her face. “Agh!” she screamed. “Thwarted by Mother Nature again! The elements have won.” Lately she’d been doing this—narrating her thoughts as if she were on camera. She took this not as a sign of mental instability, but of job preparation. She had decided on a new career path, which started with forming her own landscaping business and eventually segued into hosting her own televised gardening show: “Mud, Slugs, and Bugs.” She’d already come up with several catchphrases, such as “It’s a dirty job, and I’m here to do it.”
On this program, she would transform her guests’ weed-infested eyesores into veritable oases of calm and beauty. But unlike other shows, she would not shy away from the harsh realities of her craft. She was sick of the romanticizing of gardening in literature and popular culture. Tales of Victorian children—children!—smiling and pruning some forgotten garden back to its former glory enraged her. And just recently she’d read a book in which an Iowan opened her window in the dead of winter and scattered a handful of spinach seeds out onto the snow. The snow melted and tender salad greens popped out of the ground. What nonsense! Of all the suspending of disbelief she was required to do as a reader, this—this—was beyond credibility.
Her television program would highlight the feet-sticking, the slug-tossing. Through much anguished yelling and gnashing of teeth, she would tame the unwilling landscape into something better than nature could do on its own.
The wind and rain continued to pelt her. She could barely see. Her feet and hands couldn’t move; they were frozen to the bone. She gave up and headed inside.
She entered the house through the back room—or what used to be Malcolm’s room. It looked the same as it had before he’d left last December. He had sent her a text message telling her he could get his furniture moved out if she wanted to bring in another roommate. No, no, she had written back. She’d keep it here for him. He’d be back eventually. Right? She hadn’t heard from him again.
She wished she could throw herself into her work. Isn’t that what you do to forget? But her job made everything worse. What made her think she was qualified to teach writing? She’d taken on five classes this term; she was swamped with lesson planning and grading. Hours spent agonizing over those plans, those compositions, and for what? Were students rewarding her with polished apples, standing ovations, tears of gratitude? Quite the opposite. She’d just received last term’s course evaluations. “Joanna doesn’t have much talent as a teacher,” someone wrote. The office had carefully typed out the comments so she couldn’t sleuth out the author. It went on: “But that’s okay because neither do I. No one’s good at everything.” To soften the blow, a smiley-face emoticon was included at the end of the comment.
But that wasn’t even the worst one. “The teacher doesn’t seem to know much about the subject so she can’t help us with our writing. We NEED to learn grammer! [sic] SHE DOES NOT TEACH US WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WRITING!” And the one that made her cry, almost, it was so unfair: “She just doesn’t seem to care very much.”
How could someone say such a thing? And what did it mean? Joanna had received the evaluations in the morning and then had to teach three classes in a row. After that, at a coffee shop next to the college, she rifled through the evaluations one by one, trying to make sense of them. Maybe they were right: she should quit teaching. If only she could hibernate through winter term, burrow into a blanket and survive on supermarket donuts. But going home didn’t appeal to her so much these days.
Coming to no conclusion about the state of her career, she figured she should get something done. With a sigh, she heaved a folder onto her table and halfheartedly began reading student essays.
“Joanna?”
Three papers into grading and the interruption already came as a relief. “Wow, how long has it been?” Joanna asked.
Her friend Allison was squinting her blue eyes at Joanna. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe since last fall?”
“Here—” Joanna gathered up her papers and stuffed them back in the folder. “Sit down.”
Allison took a seat and gave Joanna a hard look. “What’s wrong?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“Not bad, exactly. You look worn out.”
“Great.”
“Just—sad.”
Joanna didn’t know what to say to that. Part of her wanted to break down sobbing, tell Allison everything that had happened with Malcolm. Instead she said she was feeling discouraged over the student evaluations. “What do they know?” Allison responded. She dove into a ten-minute rant about students and how they were incapable of recognizing the subtle genius of Joanna’s methods. This made Joanna feel better, even if Allison was making it all up.
Running into her old friend got her through the last days of winter. They went out a few times. It helped to drink, to flirt with guys she’d never see again. She knew even while she was doing it how pointless it all was. But it made her feel like she was going through the motions of moving on.
She and Allison went out one Saturday and they ended up chatting with two college students; they couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. Art school types, with unwashed hair and elaborate tattoos. And then somehow—it’s not as if she planned it—she agreed to leave the bar with one of them, this kid who paid for his beer in quarters and crumpled-up dollar bills; she went back to his apartment without even telling Allison she was leaving. Let him take all of her clothes off, then lay back on the bed and allowed him to lap at her between the legs for forty-five minutes before she pushed him off of her, gathered her clothes, and ran down the stairs and out into the street. She hadn’t even been paying attention on the ride over, had no idea where she was—she didn’t recognize the streets.
She called Allison then. Allison was furious with her but came and picked her up once Joanna figured out where she was.
She counted the days down until spring break, whiling away hours looking up fares to possible vacation destinations—Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Tokyo! But she ended up driving down to Nevada—again. As a part of her effort to move forward with her life, she had vowed to patch things up with her sister. As teachers, they both had a week off, while Ted had to work. Laura said since she didn’t go down for Christmas she wanted to see her parents before the baby arrived and Joanna had grudgingly agreed to accompany her. So she and Laura had been spending time together again. They’d resolved their differences not with a heartfelt talk but by simply pushing it under the rug. Not much had changed since they were kids.
They were on a scenic portion of the drive—out of the misty blue forests and into open skies, golden windblown fields, a view of Mt. Shasta to the east for miles and miles. They had driven the last half hour or so in silence, and then suddenly Laura spoke up. “So it sounds like Malcolm’s pretty popular down in San Francisco.”
Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. What did this mean? That he was dating someone? That he was dating hundreds of women? “Mm,” she answered.
“I mean, it’s great that they admire his work so much. He should have no problem starting up his own business when he comes back to Portland.”
Joanna kept her eyes on the road, trying to puzzle out Laura’s comments without stooping to ask her directly. She couldn’t figure out if Laura was speaking hypothetically or if Malcolm really did have plans to move back to Portland.
“So what ever happened with you two, anyway?” Laura asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s obvious you haven’t been speaking to Malcolm lately. He moved out last December. It’s March now. What happened?”
“Nothing happened. He got those jobs down in California. Like you said, they love him down there. He couldn’t pass that up.”
“Right.” Her sister rested her hand on her rounded belly, a gesture that irritated Joanna, though she knew almost all pregnant women did it. It just looked so affected. Joanna suspected they did it to draw attention to themselves, force people to jump up for them on the bus or let them cut in line at the restroom. “So you obviously had a falling-out,” Laura pressed on. “Does this mean it’s over between the two of you?”
“What?” She couldn’t believe this. “How did you find out?”
“Come on, Joanna. Please. Everyone knew what was going on.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was obvious to anyone who saw you together. The way you made eyes at each other, the way you disappeared off to the bathroom at the exact same time, the way you—”
“Okay,” Joanna interrupted. “And Mom never said anything?”
“Mom! You told Mom about this and didn’t tell me?”
“She pried it out of me over winter break. I believe you weren’t talking to me at the time.”
“Well, it’s all out in the open now. So let’s hear it. We have a couple hundred more miles to go.”
Laura sat back in the passenger seat and listened as they headed back into another forest, with pines outnumbering the firs. “But I don’t get it, Joanna,” she said when Joanna had finished speaking. “Why all this game-playing? Why not just—you know—be with each other?”
“I’m not playing games! And not everyone wants the whole marriage and kids with the white picket fence, you know!”
“I never said you had to marry him. I’m just talking about having a basic relationship with him. And don’t tell me you’re against that on principle because you’ve done it before, with other people. Why not him?”
“I told you. Malcolm and I are friends. That means something to me. I didn’t want to ruin it—”
“Very ironic.”
Joanna ignored the interruption. “Look around you. All these relationships—they end. Most people who find someone they get along with well enough to marry just wind up divorced.”
She could sense her sister’s eyes on her. “Well—so what?” Laura said.
Joanna was so shocked at this she didn’t respond at first—kept both hands on either side of the steering wheel, driving on. She would have thought that Laura’s current happiness with Ted would have blinded her to the possibility that it might one day fall apart. Or that even if it did fall apart, she’d rather suffer through affairs, separate bedrooms, and awkward family dinners than call it quits, satisfied that she’d toughed it out until death.
“So you’re saying if this marriage and baby thing blows up in your face—you’d be fine with it.”
“I’m not saying I want to get divorced, or plan to get divorced. I’m just saying it’s not the end of the world. That years of potential happiness and partnership with someone—even if it ends five, ten, sixty-five years later—is worth it. I know you think that friends are forever but obviously that didn’t work out.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You can’t be with someone forever when you go halfway like that,” Laura continued. “You sort of have to take the plunge.”
They drove through the forest without speaking. Finally they made their descent into the valley below—brown hills, squat sagebrush, huge sky with clouds billowing up over the horizon, making shapes. They stopped for gas in Susanville and then got back in the car for the homestretch. Eighty miles to Reno.
“You know,” her sister said out into the silence. Joanna’s mind had been wandering to her landscaping idea. The desert had made her think of it; how opposite this place was! Perhaps after some initial success in the Pacific Northwest, she could take her show on the road, gardening her way through the other hardiness zones. “This is how you tend to do things,” she heard Laura say.
“What? What do you mean?” Joanna looked over at her sister for a moment, then focused back on the road ahead. Laura’s blonde head was swiveled toward Joanna.
“I mean, this thing with Malcolm. It’s part of a larger pattern.”
“What are you talking about? I never had a friend like Malcolm before. I never slept with my friends before.”
“I mean, you do things halfway. You always talked about going off to Vermont or someplace to college—but then you didn’t even apply.” Slowly, Joanna began to seethe. She clenched the steering wheel, staring at the yellow line in the middle of the road, breathing deliberately through her nose. “And then when you do get a chance to leave Reno, see the world, you come back early. You only had to stay in the Czech Republic a few more months—”
“I guess it doesn’t matter that I was miserable the whole time—”
“You were right there in the middle of Europe! You act like it was the end of the earth, a Siberian prison! A lot of people would have been thrilled—”
“That’s enough!” Joanna yelled out. It was lucky they were the only ones on the entire highway because she felt like smashing into something.
“All I’m saying is, it wouldn’t hurt to follow through with something for once in your life,” her sister said in a small voice.
Joanna could barely think straight. She took a few deep breaths and checked the speedometer: eighty miles per hour. She took her foot off the accelerator, watched the orange needle drop back down to the legal speed limit before answering. The words came out clipped but reasonably calm. “It’s interesting that you don’t think I follow through with anything, Laura. It seems to me that you are the one who left your fifteen-year-old sister with our crazy mother so you could run off and enjoy the whole ‘college experience’ without a care in the world.” Laura tried to say something but Joanna kept on: “You know why I didn’t apply for any private colleges or even out-of-state schools? Because I couldn’t go out of state. Someone had to stay with Tess, and it sure wasn’t going to be you.”
“Joanna, no one asked you—”
“I know you didn’t ask me. You had no idea. She kept it pretty much together right after the divorce, back when you were still around. But you had no idea because you weren’t there. And you weren’t there because I was. For eight years! So don’t tell me I don’t follow through with anything!” Joanna almost choked on the last few words. She brushed tears from her cheeks. She didn’t look over at her sister, but she could hear from the sniffling sounds that Laura was crying, too.
When they arrived at their mother’s townhouse less than an hour later, they had both calmed down, though they weren’t speaking. They knocked on the door. No one answered. They stood on the cement step and waited. “That’s weird,” Joanna said. “I told her we’d be here for dinner.”
Laura’s mouth formed into an O. She slapped herself on the forehead. “You’re going to kill me,” she said.
“What?”
“I totally forgot. We’re supposed to meet her at Dad’s. Dad and Linda were having some sort of welcome-the-baby dinner for me tonight. They want us to stay with them tonight.”
“And no one bothered to tell me this? I’m the one who’s been driving you and your ‘precious cargo’ around for the last ten hours!”
“I offered to drive!” Laura reached over and grabbed the keys out of Joanna’s hand. “That’s not the point. I was supposed to tell you about the dinner—I forgot. Pregnancy brain.”
Joanna rolled her eyes. So far on this trip, Laura had invoked “pregnancy brain” to explain why she’d put salt in her tea and left her jacket in the candy bar aisle at a service station. Joanna had been nice enough to turn around so she could fetch it, even though the detour had added an extra twenty minutes to their journey.
Laura got in the driver’s seat and headed west through town toward their father’s place, which was nestled in some brown foothills with views of the mountains and some cliff-like rock formations. The sun was sinking down into the Sierras, tingeing the clouds tangerine and purple. A band of bronze along the edge of the horizon burnt brighter and brighter as the sun descended, making it difficult to see the road before them. Both sisters turned down their sun visors at the same time.
They stopped at an intersection. “I can’t see anything.” Laura hunched over the steering wheel, trying to get a better view of the street.
“Why aren’t you wearing your sunglasses?” Joanna didn’t even try keeping the irritation out of her voice.
They lurched forward. Joanna looked over to her right a second before she saw it: a pickup truck hurtling toward them. The rest of it happened in a blur. A loud crash, like an explosion. The sounds of metal crunching, tires skidding over asphalt. Cars honking. Then it was silent.
Joanna batted the airbag that had burst open on impact. Already it was deflating, withering into a sad, limp sack. The air smelled like smoke and burnt plastic. “Laura?” Joanna turned to look at her sister.
Laura unfastened her seat belt and rested her head and hands against the steering wheel. She looked like she had slumped over the deflated airbag and fallen asleep. Or died. “Laura?” Joanna lowered her voice. “Are you okay?” She saw her sister’s back rise and fall. She was breathing.
Laura turned her head to the side to look at Joanna. She coughed and fanned at the smoky air. “I’m okay. I think I’m okay. You?”
“It’s going to be all right.” She tried to make herself sound confident. Comforting. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Joanna tried to open her eyes but then shut them again to stop the room from spinning. She opened them slowly, concentrating on a figure she made out in the corner of the room.
“You’re awake,” her mother said. Joanna focused on her face, now peering over her.
It took a few minutes for her mind to make sense of it, but then she was able to sit up in the hospital waiting room and look around without toppling over. Her mouth felt dry, her words came out hoarse. “Where’s Laura?” she croaked.
Her mother poured some water from a plastic pitcher into a paper cup. “Laura’s great,” Tess said. “The baby is healthy, too. They just want to keep her here overnight to be sure.”
Still groggy, she thought back to the accident. They’d called their mom, filled out the police report. Then Tess insisted they drive over to the hospital, too, just to be sure everything was all right. The force of the airbag had torn the cuff of Joanna’s sleeve, and she was left with a large scratch on her wrist. Other than that, she was fine. Shaken up, but fine.
It took her a moment to register her mother’s words. Laura was doing well. That was good. And the baby, too? “But it’s too early for the baby!” Joanna blurted out.
“No, no. She didn’t have the baby,” her mother said in a soothing voice. “Everything is okay. You’re all okay. Can’t say the same for your car.”
“What time is it?”
Her mom consulted a large clock on a wall next to a ceiling-mounted television set. “Almost midnight.”
Joanna’s head was beginning to clear. She took in the waiting room. A huge fake potted palm in one corner. An aquarium bubbling along the wall. Tess and Joanna were the only ones there.
“I’ve got to see Laura,” Joanna said, “Can I go see her?”
“If she’s still awake.”
“Why aren’t you with her?” Joanna sniffed. She felt strange, as if she was going to burst into tears like a child.
“Dad’s with her. It’s you we were worried about.” Tess smiled and patted Joanna’s leg. “You got a bit hysterical.”
Tess walked her over to the front desk of Labor & Delivery, where she had to sign in. She wrote her name on a nametag, stuck it on her shirt. Tess already had one. She saw her father’s head through the door window and tapped on it softly. He let her in. After making a fuss over Joanna for a minute, he said he was due for a coffee break.
Laura was sitting up in the bed with a crossword puzzle out on the table next to her. She looked tired but miraculously unharmed. Her hair was even brushed smooth, as always. Joanna swallowed the lump in her throat.
“We’re okay,” Laura said to Joanna, smiling. At first Joanna thought she meant the two of them, sisters. But soon she saw Laura was patting her extended midsection: she meant her and the baby. Little wires connected Laura’s rounded abdomen to a machine that was monitoring the baby’s heartbeat with excited, jagged peaks and valleys. Laura looked over at the machine. “I have to stay here overnight, just to make sure I don’t go into labor or something.”
Joanna started crying then. “I didn’t mean it!” she blubbered. After she blurted it out, she wasn’t sure what, exactly, she didn’t mean. The quip about Laura’s “precious cargo”? The whole thing about marriage and kids and the picket fence? That Malcolm had ever been just a friend? None of the above? All of the above?
A tear trickled down Laura’s cheek. “I’m sorry for wrecking your car.”
“I shouldn’t have let you drive. Not in your condition.”
They looked at each other, and then both sisters started to laugh.
Laura wiped the tears from her eyes. Her laughter stopped, suddenly.
“What is it?” Joanna took a terrified look at the baby monitor, but it was blipping along as usual.
“Oh my God,” Laura said. “You will never guess who’s here.”
“What are you talking about?”
Laura paused dramatically, then whispered. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you first thing!”
Joanna was about to reach over and strangle her sister—pregnant or no. “What?”
“Malcolm!” Laura explained that when their mother had called Ted to tell him about the accident, he’d freaked out. He’d tried to book a flight into Reno but it was too late. Rather than wait until the next morning, he jumped in his car and started driving. He called Malcolm and made him promise to drop everything and go to Reno; he was closer, he’d get there first.
“Well,” Joanna responded after a moment, “That was nice of him to drive all the way over here to check on you.”
Laura gave Joanna a look. “I’m sure that’s not the only reason he had to hightail it over here in under three hours. Just to check on his friend’s wife? Come on.”
Joanna concentrated on her hands. They looked dry, uncared for. Her knuckles were raw and red. “So where is he?”
Laura gestured toward the door. “Around here somewhere, I’d imagine. Maybe you should find him.”