“I have this student right now—super bright—and she needed some help coming up with a thesis,” he fiddles with his napkin, and never fully settles into his chair to unfold the piece of cloth and throw it over his lap.
My body grows rigid, my muscles against my bones like resin settling into a mold.
“She’s writing about your book,” he adds, not oblivious to my silence. A dynamic so familiar yet entirely forgotten during the course of my absence blankets us. We are wrapped in suspicion. Or at least I am. Wes isn’t to blame. It’s one of those names carved on the bathroom paneling that’s responsible. The letters might as well be etched in granite, the way they hold me tighter than the dash between the dates on a tombstone.
His addendum does little to warm me up. My hand finds the arm of my chair and clamps down like if I let go, I’ll fall to my death. I’m a bullet, shot towards him but now I’ve glanced off his shoulder and I ricochet into the past. I smile and when the waiter comes by, I order another drink. Wes seems to accept the idea that we’ll be staying for at least one more round. He fidgets with the menu as we talk. I slowly loosen my grip on the arm of my chair. Maybe it’s the past melting away in the August heat, or maybe it’s the second mixed drink permeating my blood stream. Either way, it’s a welcome relief.
Wes loosens up, also. The evening stretches over the horizon and the tension between us seems to stretch out, too. After two more drinks, we’re feeling good. He gets the check and I let him. We stand. He helps me when I stumble. He laughs, and I lean into him. I inhale the scent of his aftershave. For the dying, the scents of home do more for comfort than almost anything else. I begin to think that if I were to die right there with my face in the bend of his neck, I’d be content. And I think far too often we chase after happiness when what we really want is contentment.
He rights me and leads me out by the hand. We navigate the stairwell and emerge onto the street where we stand for a moment. Wes looks down and fiddles with his keys. Only two feet separate us.
“It was good to see you, Ione,” he looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
I lean in and kiss him. I run my hands through his hair and he gingerly places a hand on my back. Surprise colors his features. I’m taken aback by it, too, but it feels right. There’s time to apologize for everything—for the way I left, for the way I kept him at arm’s length—there’s time for all of that now.
He pushes me away.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he looks away this time.
I stumble and step unexpectedly off the sidewalk. My stomach lurches and I’m not sure if it’s the sudden change in elevation or his sudden change in tone. He reaches out to help me.
“I met someone this past year, Ione,” he offers me a hand.
I’m close enough to inhale the words as he speaks them, the sweet scent of his whiskey sour fanning across my cheeks. I shrug away from his touch.
“I missed you—I still do—but she’s here. She’s always here,” as he speaks, I know exactly what he means. “I should go.”
He looks at the sidewalk for validation that it doesn’t give. Stoic and unmoved by the breaking of my heart, it offers me no solace, either, other than a path by which to return to my car. We part ways and I look over my shoulder twice to see Wes retreating into the evening, his steps quick—the steps of a man whose mind is made up. He’s not going to turn back. But I do, a third time, just to be sure.
Once at my car, I get inside. The dimly illuminated cabin fades after I sit for a few moments in silence. In the darkness, I start to cry.
I really fucked that one up.
BIRDIE
A flurry of kicks below her ribcage keeps Birdie awake in the small bedroom above Tom’s office. Impatient, the baby makes its presence known with a constant series of acrobatics inside the womb. She doesn’t know her exact due date, but by her best estimation, less than two weeks remain. She came upstairs an hour ago and crawled into bed with a book. Living in the main house—Tom and Vanessa’s house—was a recent change. The accommodations here had far surpassed those in the cabin she’d spent the majority of her pregnancy in. The closer she comes to giving birth, the more Tom wants to keep an eye on her. Though she can’t sleep, she’s grateful for the air conditioning. Late August in Oklahoma makes it feel like a furnace burns just below the crust of the earth with heat that radiates into your bones. The extra weight of the pregnancy doesn’t help, either.
Birdie never wanted to get pregnant. It wasn’t something she ever desired the way that some women do. And yet, here she was. Alone, thoughts swirl around the core of her brain like water rushing a drain. They become claustrophobic, the idea that only a couple of weeks remain between two very distinct portions of her life seizes her like a partially desiccated hand reaching up from a grave.
Voices echo through the vent grating beside the bed and under the nightstand. The reverberations of a conversation grow louder and less apt to be ignored. Birdie lays the book on her stomach, a tent atop a hill. As she focuses more intently on the two male voices, the conversation becomes less white noise and more a viable source of data about the situation surrounding Tom Wolsieffer’s compound, the place she now calls home.
Birdie makes out the distinct voices of both
