He sits with coffee. Midge in the Jump-Up, bouncing like a bean.
When he hears her, the swish-shut of the bathroom door, he doesn’t know if he should turn his chair toward the bathroom, or away. He’s still trying to decide when she comes out.
She looks like she’s been through the spin cycle. Left wet in the washer. Nothing left of her shamrocks but green smears. Her hair every which way, like her head’s on fire. She paws at it, waves him away with the back of her hand. “Don’t look,” she says, her voice raspy.
But he turns toward her anyway. She says, “You want to turn to stone?”
Taz smiles, though he feels like he might blow away. The house so normal around them. “Juice?” he says.
“Seriously?”
“Coffee?”
“God. I’m not even sure about water.” But she finds a glass, tries the tap, lets it run, stands there with her back to him, braced against the sink.
Marnie says, Class act.
He can see her shoulder blades, flared, pushing against her T-shirt like wings. They’d both, he and Marn, been there before, though it seems like another life now.
Elmo lifts the glass. Sips, he guesses, though it’s hidden behind the hair. “Phew,” she says. “So far, so good.”
“You and Rudy together all day?” he asks.
“Um. I don’t think so. I started with some friends from school. I think. Ran into Rudy later. There were shots involved.”
She lifts the glass again. Puts it down. Goes back to bracing herself against the sink.
“You okay?”
He sees her head dip as she looks down at herself.
“Well, clothes on. That’s a good sign.”
Not one word, Marnie says.
“Babysitter rules,” he says.
“Well, thank god for those, right?”
He pushes the handle of his cup to the side. Back. “Right,” he says.
“I—” she starts. Brushes her fingers through her hair until they snag. “Jesus,” she whispers.
She keeps her back to him. “Thanks,” she says. “For letting me crash. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Last night. None of it. I didn’t even know we were headed here till he banged into the curb.”
“No worries,” he says. “I know what he’s like.”
“Install or shop today?” she says.
“Either.”
She starts to breathe, deep, measured. “You think it’d maybe be possible for me to take a day off?”
“All yours. Paid. I’ll give you a lift home.” He stands up, rattles the keys out of his pocket.
She starts to say no, but he says, “In celebration. For the snakes being driven out.”
They’re quiet then. Her breathing filling the room.
“Um,” she says. “Is it okay if I puke here?”
Taz doesn’t quite keep in a laugh, but she’s serious, off and running.
“It’s fine,” he says.
He tries not to listen. Wonders if he should help.
Holding Marnie’s hair back for her in the first tri. Cleaning up.
He gives her a minute. Two.
“You okay?” he calls.
“Oh, good god,” she says. “I do not do puking.”
“You sound good at it.”
“Ha, ha.”
Taz puts his forehead against the table, holding in the laugh, listens to Midge bob, the grunt she makes pushing off in a new direction.
He hears the flush. A second one. The door opens, closes, the wobble-bladed wall fan whirring.
It’s a second before he recognizes the other sound. Their bedroom door closing, the click of the latch. Silence.
He waits. And waits. Nothing more. The house quiet. Even Midge barely babbling. Humming more like it.
He is so tired. He closes his eyes.
He sleeps at the table for maybe an hour, he isn’t really sure. Midge wakes him, not really crying, just tired of the Jump-Up, arms held up in the air, shouting. He pulls her out, does a finger check of the front of the diaper, a nose check to the rear. All good, he loads her into the car seat, takes off for the grocery store, rides Midge around in the cart, all those brightly lit, perfectly organized aisles.
He comes back with eggs, bread, butter; his old morning-after cure, fried-egg sandwich, lots of salt. He sets the bag on the counter, Midge on the floor, and she crawls straight off to the bedroom, calling, “Mama? Mama?”
“Elmo,” Taz corrects, whispering it really, and he sees her note on the counter, an apology, an “I’m mortified,” a, “HUGE babysitting violation.” The i’s are dotted with little shamrocks, and he can’t not smile.
“It won’t happen again, ever!” she promises, her last line, the ever underlined, and he picks up the note, sticks it on the fridge, under the church key magnet. Then he hears Midge, pushed up against the closed bedroom door, and realizes he’s hearing, too, the laundry going. The sheets, he’s sure of it.
Midge calls, “Mama?” and Taz says, “No, Midge. Just Elmo.”