My sister-in-law beamed. It’s disturbing how alike she and her brother are. I looked into the house and saw Elsa standing by the glass doors, staring at me, patting her hand over her heart. I returned the gesture.
“Why do you always do that?” my sister-in-law asked. “You are so strange.”
I shrugged and leaned back in my chair. “Let me tell you a story.” I told her about my mother. I come from a long line of women who loved hard and died young. My mother came from sharecroppers and too many siblings and a two-room house with a dirt floor but she had a happy childhood. My grandmother bought her kids a dog once but there was something wrong with that dog. He was a mean cuss, always growling and baring his teeth. One day, my mom was in the yard playing with that mean cuss of a dog, trying to brush his coat to a shine but the dog wanted no part of it. He started biting my mother and my mother started screaming. Her mother ran into the yard and when she saw that dog hurting her child, she threw herself on him, wrestled him down and strangled the life right out of him. When the dog was dead, she dragged him to the mailbox and she left his corpse there, let it stink and rot so any wild thing would know what she would do for her children.
My sister-in-law paled. “That’s some story,” she said.
I sat forward, spoke real low. “I’m going to assume it was the wine and your broken heart making you express even a moment of regret where my … where Elsa is concerned. I would hate to draw other conclusions.”
She had enough common sense to look ashamed. Animals always know when their lives are in danger.
When Elsa and I said goodbye, my sister-in-law waited in the car and I knelt and wrapped my arms around the child. She held me so tightly, whispered in my ear, “I miss you already,” and I said, “I am counting the hours,” and I said, “I love you.” I allow myself to say that to her once a week. My sister-in-law honked the horn and Elsa sighed. I squeezed her one last time. “Be good for your mother.”
“But you’re my m…”
I pressed two fingers against her lips, kissed her forehead, smoothed her hair. Her shoulders sank.
I watched as she walked down the brick path pulling her rolling pink suitcase and suddenly she seemed so much smaller. I could not deny her. Just before she reached the car, I shouted, “I am, Elsa. I am.” I ran to the car, my heels clacking on the brick path. I planted my hand against the window. “I am, you hear me?”
Elsa nodded and pressed her hand against the window too. I ran after the car as it pulled away and stood in the street for a very long time.
♦◊♦
I went to see Theo. He was sulky, sat stiffly in the chair while I sat on the dresser. He said, “What am I to you?”
“You’re the knife man.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I expect you to cut the bullshit.”
His eyes widened. “You left me alone on Saturday.”
“I have something important to do on Saturdays.”
“More important than me?”
“More important than everything.” I started undressing and his mood improved.
“Why do you keep coming back?”
“It’s nice to spend time with a man who isn’t always trying to buy or sell me.”
He stopped asking questions and started talking about a new business plan involving rare and precious gems from South Africa, how he was going to work the import/export angle.
“What happened to the mortgage thing?”
He pointed to a stack of papers on the table. “It’s really hard to sell bad mortgages.”
I lay on my stomach and Theo started tracing my spine almost tenderly. He made me drowsy. I didn’t want to do anything else, didn’t want him to touch me anywhere else. I wanted to lie there and enjoy the weight of fatigue. Men incorrectly assume I don’t enjoy a gentle touch.
“What’s the deal with you and your husband? You’ve been together a while. You have a nice house, money. Why don’t you have any kids? I’ve got two; they’re the best even though I don’t see them much.”
I covered my head with a pillow but he removed it. I wanted to tell him I had a daughter, that she was smart and sweet and perfect, that she loved me as deep as I loved her but I couldn’t. I had to secret that truth in my skin where it was safe, where it was mine.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You can’t have kids?”
My mouth tasted dry and sour. “I can have kids.”
“So?”
“Let it go,” I snapped. “We don’t do this. We do not talk about my life.”
He threw his hands up. “I got it. Just trying to make conversation.”
I lied, said, “I don’t come here for conversation.”
Theo climbed on top of me, pressing his chest to my back. He nudged my thighs apart with his knees and pulled my hips up. I kept telling him harder, harder, harder, reached back to hold him. He planted his hand against the back of my head, pushing my face into the bed. He grunted and sweated and thrust harder, harder, harder. It was never hard enough. I swear I heard him say he loved me and some part of me wanted to believe him but I’ve never been allowed to have anything for myself.
This is a fabulous story. I think there’s more to it—more possible. Perhaps it could be a novel. Very compelling, beautifully done.
Wanted to print out your Weekend Fiction, but there is NO easy way to do that – like a simple Pdf. Can you arrange that in the future?