Calamity

She thought about that for a moment. “It’s upstairs on the right.”

Carefully, Tyler helped Sasha stand and allowed her to use him as a crutch as she took the stairs one step at a time like an old woman. Even if he did end up arrested, this was the right thing to do. Stupid maybe, but the right thing nonetheless.

He sat her on the toilet and wet a hand towel in the tub. He dumped some body wash onto the towel and started to clean the paint from her face. She let him do it for a moment and then she took the towel and started scrubbing vigorously at her eyes. She scrubbed and wept and Tyler felt so small, pathetic and helpless that he didn’t notice Sasha’s mother was standing in the doorway until she spoke.

“I was afraid this might happen,” the woman said. “We must perform the love child rites immediately.”

2

Anthony left the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered with a startlingly clear image of what he had to do. It wouldn’t be pretty; but it was what God expected. Tyler’s car (keys in the ignition) was waiting. He drove home and went immediately to his wife.

He flicked on the overhead fan light in the bedroom. Chloe lay in a shriveled lump under the sheets while her sister Stephanie was sprawled out, fully clothed, next to Chloe on the comforter.

“Wake up,” he said.

Chloe was so heavily drugged that there was no chance she would simply wake up, but Stephanie came out of her doze with an awkward spasm. She sat up, squinted against the light. “Anthony? What time is it?”

“I need to talk to my wife,” he said.

She hesitated at his tone. “She’s … asleep.”

“No, Stephanie, she’s not. She’s fucking drugged.”

The f-bomb was a cold splash of water on her face. After a moment, Stephanie’s mouth slowly closed and then she was fumbling for words but managing only to produce nonsensical burps of vowel sounds.

Anthony moved toward her so quickly and with, no doubt, a slightly crazed expression on his face, that Stephanie scrambled off the bed, smacked the nightstand, and stumbled into the wall. She raised her hands slightly, either in a gesture meant to calm him or to protect herself.

“I need to talk to my wife,” he said again.

“She’s not well, Anthony, you know that. You’re only going to upset her.”

“Ha!” he said so loudly it echoed around the room. “I doubt anything could upset her, not in this condition.”

“She’s almost due for her nighttime pills.”

Stephanie tried to slide across the wall to go around him, but he seized her arm.

“No more pills.”

“But Dr. Carroll.”

“And no more Dr. Carroll, either.”

She started to respond, rethought her approach. “What’s gotten into you?”

The question was a tranquilizer of its own. His grip loosened on her arm and then his hand dropped free. The pressure that had gathered near his temples eased. His jaw relaxed and he realized he had been clenching it. What had gotten into him? That was easy to answer, though not likely easy for his sister-in-law to accept. She had her loyalty and no matter what he said right now, she would continue to opine how Chloe needed her pills, how devastated she was, how not just her heart had been broken but her soul as well. She was, as Ellis phrased it, “another obstacle to empowerment.”

And you know what we do obstacles, don’t you? Ellis had asked.

Find a way around them?

Ellis smiled. That doesn’t sound very empowering. No, when we cross an obstacle, we break right through it.

“I’m sorry,” Anthony said. It was always the best response to a woman no matter the situation. “I’ve been really stressed. Everything seems like it’s spiraling out of control. Like I’m going crazy.”

She resisted her empathetic side for a moment, perhaps afraid this was some kind of set-up, and then touched his cheek. “You poor man. You’ve been carrying this burden all by yourself.”

Burden. Was that a coincidence or God’s intrusion? Was there a difference?

Her hand was soft. He hadn’t shaved in days. He’d completely forgotten about shaving until just now. Hopefully, Delaney wasn’t insulted.

“I’ve been so concerned about Chloe that I haven’t tried to help you. I’m sorry, Anthony. I truly am.”

Tears threatened for a moment; he forced them back. Stephanie could be annoying (sometimes talking his ear off for an hour or more when Chloe wasn’t around to take the phone), but she was a good sister to his wife, a good aunt to his kids. “I really just need some time alone with her, okay?”

Her eyes searched his. “Of course. You’re sure you’re okay?”

Stephanie knew damn well he wasn’t okay, not even slightly close to okay, but it was one of those things people asked. He nodded. He was fine, please, he just needed a few minutes with his wife.

He shut the door behind her, locked it, scanned the room, and dragged his chest of drawers from the opposite wall to the bedroom door. He stopped, appraised his work. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. This is what God wanted. It might not feel like God’s way, might seem even contrary to His path, but that was okay. God’s work is messy, Ellis said. And sometimes, very painful.

He went to her, sat on the edge of the bed. She squirmed at the vibrations. Her eyes were moving back and forth beneath her lids. He touched the side of her face, brushed her hair back behind her ear. She stirred but did not step out from the comfort of her drug-addled slumber. In one gesture, he grabbed the edge of the comforter and flung it down off of her shoulders, exposing her body all the way to her knees.

She wore a pink T-shirt and a pair of blue gym shorts. Curled with her knees near her chest, she was a fetal corpse left to rot on a tray. Since the baby’s death, Chloe had lost at least thirty pounds. He traced his hand over her skinny leg, across her skeletal hips, and hooked a finger under her shirt and dragged it up to her breasts that had once overflowed a C-cup but were barely A-cup material now. Her ribs pushed out from her skin like the bony fingers of some alien gestating inside her. Yet, the worst was her face, which almost resembled its old self when it was pressed against the pillow. When he took her chin and raised her head, her skin tightened over her cheek bones like plastic wrap sealing over a chicken leg bone.

This would be painful, but it had to be done. “Fruta de la vagina,” he whispered. It was funny how something so ridiculous as having sex in an old Pontiac while some guy was selling bad fruit outside could bury itself so deeply in your heart. He and Chloe would relive that moment again and again for the rest of their lives and every time they would laugh and rekindle, at least for a moment, a lost piece of their love. That sounded true, and he wanted it to be, but he was just fooling himself.

The call from Sergeant Fratto had ruined their last attempt at reminiscing on Saturday. He shouldn’t have answered that call; he should have just let it ring and kept sleeping, Chloe curled against him, the memory of their recent laughter fresh in the room. Maybe the phone would have stopped ringing and Delaney wouldn’t be dead.

Now, who’s fooling himself?

“Honey,” he said. “Wake up. We need to talk. Please.”

She grumbled something, rolled on her back and then onto her other side facing away from him. Her butt had shriveled into a boney angle.

He nudged her. She mumbled something that was probably go away. He grabbed her shoulder, pulled her toward him so she was on her back again, and shook her. He shook her until her eyes opened like the lethargic blooming of a flower. Instead of blue carnations, her eyes were gray marbles cracked with bloody veins.

“You want your Pilly Billies?” he asked.

Her tongue slithered from her mouth and traced a thin line of saliva across dry lips. “Where’s Stephanie?”

“Taking a break. Having a smoke.”

“What?” She was still in the throes of her slumber and spoke as if she might collapse back into sleep. “She doesn’t smoke.”