“When was your last period?”
“I don’t remember.”
Morris scoffs. “All this stress, who bleeds anymore?”
“Did you use protection?”
My cheeks flush. “Mostly.”
“Well, then it mostly worked,” Joe says with a brightness that makes my retinas burn.
Although the box is light in my hands, the gravity of the situation elevates it to the weight of a brick. I can’t be pregnant. I wanted children, yes, but not like this. Not now.
Joe ties a knot in the glove. “Go pee on the stick.”
Morris steers me out of the room. Numb, I allow her to propel me to the bathrooms. I pee on the stick while she paces. Two pink lines slowly form in the white window.
“How many lines?” Morris asks.
“Two.”
There’s a hoot of laughter.
“I’m glad one of us finds this funny.”
“‘I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ babies,’” she screeches.
Joe grins when we walk in. “Looks like your death sentence has been reduced to life imprisonment.” He throws me a bottle. The irony of the rattling container is not lost on me. “Prenatal vitamins.”
Like all bad ideas, this one is born in the middle of a sleepless night when my mind has inevitably turned to a channel where I’m a child again. I’ve flipped through the other pages of my life already tonight: the regrets, the embarrassing moments that still manage to color a grown woman’s cheeks; all those choices made and opportunities that languished while I wandered down life’s side streets. Then I’m seven, six, five, four, three years old, dragging Feeney, my toy monkey, along behind me in a cherry-red cart. An invisible finger yanks one of my heartstrings and holds it taut until I’m aching to see the monkey again. The sensation of longing evolves in a painful fantasy where I’m holding Nick’s hand, watching our child toddling ahead of us with Feeney tucked under his or her arm.
When I wake, my pillow is wet.
At breakfast I tell Morris about Feeney.
“I’m coming with you,” she says.
“Huh?”
“You’re planning on going back to your folks’ place, right?”
She knows me too well. “You got me.”
“Coffee first. Then we’ll rustle up some bicycles.”
An hour later, we’re peddling through the badlands. Out in the burbs, the grasses grow wild, concealing the curbs, defiantly shooting pollens into the crisp air. They seem to know they’ll never see another lawn mower, never have their stems whacked ever again. There are signs everywhere that nature has seized control. Vines race up the brick veneers, competing for the highest gutters. They grab saplings in choke holds and wrestle them for precious sunlight. Our tires roll along parched blacktop that’s become cracked and warped enough for green sprouts to poke their heads through. Nature is having her wild way with the land—a party to end all parties.
My mind plays a cruel game, stripping away these new adornments, giving me furtive glimpses of how it used to be. I used to ride these streets when they were cared for by people who had no idea how soon the end was coming. The lawns were once neatly manicured, the flower beds free of weeds, and the houses didn’t peel. There’s no longer the soft tsk-tsk-tsk of sprinklers accompanying the birds and bugs. Now my old neighborhood is a strange new world where the curtains twitch and things creep. I have my gun. I have bullets. Or rounds. Whatever they call them. I’m not a gun person. All I know—and need to know—is how to load and pull the trigger.
The last time I cruised these streets, I was driving Jenny’s car. That was the last time I saw my parents alive. Maybe they still are. Hope fills me like helium and I pedal faster, hoping to get there before some big prick bursts the bubble.
It’s like old times almost, me coasting to a stop, throwing my bicycle onto the lawn, but this time I don’t run to the front door. Morris stops, butt on the seat, feet on the ground. She lets her bicycle down easy next to mine, draws her weapon.
I came prepared: I have keys.
The smell comes up and backhands me across the face. I stumble backwards into my friend.
“Jesus H. Christ,” she says. “You never get used to that smell. You okay?”
I give her a look.
“Didn’t think so.” Her voice takes on a soft, gentle sheen. “We’ll go slow, okay? Where’s the monkey?”
I’m holding my nose, trying to not to breathe, trying not to think about how this smell is probably what’s left of my parents. Morris pats me on the back.
“I’m okay. He’ll be in the attic. They kept all our toys up there in boxes.”
The air is stale and the silence deafening. Growing up with electricity, I never appreciated how much noise it made. Everything is the same. The den is neat, although the cabbage rose couch is cultivating a layer of dust. The kitchen is clean, the dishes put away, the sink empty. The beds are made and somehow the bathrooms are mildew-free. Mom cleaned before—
“Up there.” I point at the trapdoor in the hall ceiling, its synthetic rope dangling low enough for me to grab. We climb deeper into the gloom. Sun leaks in through the tiny grimy windows. Dust flecks aimlessly ride the beams.
Morris coughs.
My whole childhood is up here, packed in boxes bearing labels in my mother’s tidy hand. One side belongs to Jenny, the other to me. Easier to sort that way, Mom used to say, when we had our own children.
My eyes heat up. Tears make threats. So I fake a cough to chase them away.
“I wish I could take everything,” I say.
Morris gives me a wry smile. “You’d need a moving truck.”
She’s right. These boxes are stacked in minor mountains.
“Maybe someday,” she says.
“Maybe.”
We get to work. I don’t linger over old photos. I barely recognize the happy people depicted in the quilted albums. They belong to a time I’m not entirely convinced ever existed. Maybe the past is all a fairy tale we tell ourselves over and over until we believe it’s true.
I find Feeney crammed into a box with other old toys and claim him for my child.
On the way out, I use the bathroom. Stare at the trapdoor in the floor.
It’s locked.
I wonder which of the neighbors was left standing long enough to slide the bolt home.
Morris sneezes. “Allergies.”
It’s not allergies. Morris knows it and I know it. But neither of us wants to jump to the right conclusion. We’re walking down the hall at the school when she paints the floor in two of three primary colors.
She pulls out her pistol, shoves the end into her mouth, and
The voices are distant, miles away at the end of a long dark tunnel. But they’re getting nearer. Closer. Closer. Closer. Until they’re right in my face, shouting at me, trying to pull me away from Tara Morris. That’s when I realize I’m kneeling, holding her in my arms, trying to scoop up her brains and shove them back into her head. A rerun of Jenny’s murder.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream, but their hands keep tugging until I’m forced to let her go. A sob blocks my
