“Try me.”
Webster turned, went into the bedroom, found his suitcase at the back of the closet, and began packing his clothes and personal items. When he headed into Rowan’s room with a large canvas bag, Sheila stood.
“All right,” she said in a small voice.
“All right what?”
“I’ll go. To AA.”
Webster took the suitcase and the canvas bag back into the bedroom. “I’ll find out where and when the nearest meeting is.”
“I already know,” Sheila said.
So Sheila had gone as far as to investigate AA? That was a start.
“Mommy sad?” asked Rowan, who always needed to know. As if asking whether she should be worried or not.
“No, Pumpkinhead,” Webster said. “It’s all good.”
It wasn’t all good. But it might get better.
He parked outside the church, as far away from a streetlight as he could. It was illogical, since Sheila would be walking into the basement meeting soon enough. He thought maybe he was protecting her identity—although preserving one’s anonymity was almost impossible in Hartstone, or even the next town over. Behind them, Rowan was asleep in her car seat.
Sheila had smoked two cigarettes in the car. Ordinarily, Webster would have called her on that, too, with the baby in the backseat. Maybe he really was becoming a self-righteous prig, an epithet Sheila had once hurled at him. Lately, Webster had found himself wanting to go to a bar with his buddies at Rescue. Stay out all night, come home with a good one on. He couldn’t. She’d never listen to him, then.
“You’ll be OK,” he said to her.
“I want to do this about as much as I want to have a root canal,” she said.
“You ever have a root canal?”
“No.”
She had on jeans and a white shirt. It was getting dark later and later, even though the early April nights could be frigid.
Webster checked his watch.
“I know, I know,” Sheila said. “I have three minutes before I have to go. Actually, I could go in at any time.”
“You’ll just draw more attention to yourself.”
“It’s not going to work in just one night,” she warned. “So don’t get your hopes up.” She turned to look at him. “Are your hopes up?”
“I don’t know whether I dare,” he said.
He patted the middle of her back. He thought she flinched. It reminded him that they didn’t touch as often as they used to.
But this touch seemed to have released something in Sheila. She sighed and bent her head. “I’m sorry, Webster,” she said.
He wanted to hold her, but their positions were awkward, like those of teenagers trying to make out in a car. He wondered if Sheila would one day feel compelled to make amends. He didn’t want amends. He wanted her to stop drinking.
“I love you,” she said.
He undid his seat belt and pulled her close. “You do?” he asked.
She nodded, and he kissed the top of her head. “I love you, too.”
She put her hand on his thigh. “It’s not like a hypnotist, you know. I won’t come out cured.”
“I know that,” he murmured, resting his chin on her head. “You just keep going to meetings,” he said.
After a minute, she wiggled out of his hold and stepped out of the car. She hesitated a moment. He watched her walk, hands in pockets, shoulders straightened, toward the basement door.
* * *
When she came out, she was smiling. Webster’s heart soared, even though he’d told himself not to expect too much. He watched her saunter to the cruiser, a streetlight illuminating part of her walk.
Drop-dead gorgeous.
When they went home, they put Rowan to sleep and made love the way they had in the old days. Webster couldn’t believe his luck. If only he’d managed to get Sheila to AA sooner, they wouldn’t have done so much damage to each other. Now life would be different. He was sure of it.
Before the week was out, Webster smelled alcohol on Sheila’s breath. He was so angry, he could hardly speak.
“Just tell me one thing,” he said before walking into the bedroom and willing himself to sleep, too tired and crushed to leave the apartment with Rowan or even threaten to. “That smile, when you came out of the meeting, that was a con, right?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Webster made it clear that he wouldn’t fight with Rowan in the room. Sheila agreed but sometimes forgot herself. In the worst of the bad episodes, Webster thought again about bailing. It sometimes seemed like Sheila was asking him to abandon her. Then he’d convince himself that Sheila was just going through a really bad patch in a young mother’s life. Any minute now, she’d go on her own to AA, or she’d find a way to level out.
They had periods of calm. All would be forgiven during a night of great sex. Love of a certain kind would be rekindled. Webster and Sheila would inch closer and closer, each waiting for the other to give.
Sheila went to AA by herself and stuck with it for a month.
Webster knew that once he had been as happy as a man could be, but he couldn’t feel that happiness anymore. Even when he and Sheila were good together, Webster couldn’t get there. He closed his eyes and remembered the details, but it was as though a piece of him had floated beyond his reach.
Within this irregular heartbeat, Rowan grew.
Sometimes, riding in the Bullet to a scene, or chopping wood with his silent father, Webster wondered if all marriages had this pattern—some good periods, some bad periods. He thought they probably did. The doomed marriages would be the ones that got stuck in the bad periods, when neither husband nor wife knew how or cared to climb out.
During his training, an instructor had talked about “stressors.” He’d meant them in the context of the job, the horrors the medics would inevitably see, the way they could, over time, make a medic indifferent to his patients. Webster had experienced some of those stressors, and though they sometimes rattled him, he had for the most part found a place to put them. Webster had no idea where to put the stressors of his marriage. They were making him indifferent to his wife.
His mother was on her hands and knees, patting the floor, playing a game with Rowan. Webster hadn’t been paying attention. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a show that made Webster want to grit his teeth, was still on the television. He wasn’t paying attention to that, either.
Sheila was at work.
Rowan’s lips still had tracings of purple frosting. Webster let his mother feed Rowan anything she wanted. His mother had never had a girl she could spoil before. It tickled Webster.
His mother, breathless, got back up on the sofa. Rowan seemed mesmerized by a show that reminded Webster of grass growing.
“You’re Mr. Quiet today,” his mother said, giving him a poke.
“Mom, cut it out. You sound like a character in that stupid show.”
“Mr. Testy now,” his mother said, her beatific expression unchanging.
Webster tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it.
“You want something to drink? Iced tea?”
“No,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, the expression on her face switching to one of concern. “You’re worried about Sheila’s drinking, aren’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“It’s pretty obvious. We have eyes.”
“You and Dad have talked about it?”
“Only to each other.”
Webster looked away, embarrassed.
“It’s not your fault,” his mother said.
“How do you know that?” Webster retorted. “Who’s to say that something I’m doing or not doing isn’t driving her crazy?”
“Has she said as much?” his mother asked. She turned to look at Rowan to make sure her granddaughter was still involved in the television show. “You both have this utterly precious child,” she added.
“I know that.”
“You look so d
ejected.”
“I am. It’s been a hell of a ride lately.”
“Does Sheila love you?”
“I think so.”
“Then she’ll stop this nonsense,” his mother said. “For you. For Rowan.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Webster noted that his daughter was beginning to squirm as the program neared to a close.
“Get out more,” his mother advised. “Get outside. Go for walks together. Instead of one of you with Rowan at a time, do things together.”
He knew his mother meant well. But it was like offering a man a straw to stop a leak.
Rowan toddled to her grandmother and mashed her face, snot and all, into her knees. His mother didn’t seem to mind. “Just remember this,” she said, patting Rowan’s head, “you can’t regret anything that leads to your children.”
* * *
The following Sunday, Webster heeded his mother’s advice. The night before, he’d talked Sheila into taking Rowan to a park in the woods. It had picnic tables and benches and trails and even a place with playground equipment. All three of them would go. “I’ll bring a picnic,” he’d said. “Let’s do breakfast.”
In the morning, he packed up matches, bread, bacon, long skewers, paper plates, juice, paper towels, a skillet, a thermos of coffee, and a couple of mugs. “That looks interesting,” Sheila said.
“You just wait.”
Rowan seemed giddy at the notion of a family outing, and Webster wondered why they hadn’t done more of this before. They’d gone shopping together, had been together when doing other errands, and they’d eaten at his parents’ at least once every two weeks, but outings to the park were infrequent.
While Sheila ran around after Rowan, who had to try out every piece of equipment, Webster made his fire in one of several barbecue pits that dotted the beautiful acreage. As he worked, other families came into the area as well. Most of the kids had just dads with them. The mothers, Webster knew, were sleeping in or simply desperate to have time to themselves.
Webster set out the skillet on the grill above the fire. He cooked the bacon the way his father had taught him to—slowly and with a good scald. The scent made its way over to Sheila, who raised an eyebrow. He set out a paper plate padded with paper towels and left the bacon to drip. Next, he grilled the toast using the long skewers, browning each piece until it started to show dark spots, just as it should be. He poured the juice into paper cups, the coffee into the mugs. Then he put three slices of bacon between two slices of the toast. He made a sandwich for each of them. He thought the other fathers might be envious right about now. When he had everything ready on the picnic table, he called to his wife and daughter. “Come and get it.”
He could tell by the pleasurable moans from both that he’d got it right.
“When you oversell something, I’m usually skeptical,” Sheila said. “This is even better than I imagined.”
“You have to do it outdoors, and you have to use a wood fire. Otherwise it tastes completely different,” Webster said. He watched his daughter open her mouth as wide as it could go to get a bite of sandwich.
“Wish I’d brought the camera,” he said. “You do realize that this is an important milestone?”
“Her first bacon sandwich?” Sheila asked. “I think you need to get out more.”
“My mother said that to me on Tuesday. I am out. We’re all out.”
Sheila drank her juice.
“Want another one?” Webster asked. “I’ve got plenty of bacon cooked already. Just take a second to toast the bread.”
“I’ll take another,” Sheila said.
“Me, too,” Rowan said, though she had just learned to open the sandwich and tear the bacon apart.
Sheila and Webster each had another sandwich. All three sat on the benches facing one another. Webster felt a tenuous flutter of happiness.
Sheila cleaned up while Webster took Rowan for a short walk along a trail. He didn’t want her on the equipment until she’d settled her stomach. The walk turned out to be even shorter than he’d intended because Rowan, like a dog, felt compelled to look at and touch all the rocks and pinecones along the way. When they turned back, he saw that Sheila was idling on a swing.
“Want a push?” he asked when he reached her.
“Sure,” she said.
“I want a push,” Rowan echoed, trying to sit on a swing next to her mother.
Webster pushed both Rowan and Sheila until Sheila was laughing and Rowan screaming in delight. He loved the sounds. Loved them. Finally, Sheila asked him to slow down. “I’m getting dizzy,” she said.
Rowan and Sheila hopped off the swings, and the three sat on a bench along a path not far from the table where they’d had their picnic. Rowan slid off the bench and began exploring the natural treasures on the ground. Sheila was silent. Webster feared a curtain was slowly descending.
“Sheila,” he said. When she turned to him, she had that half smile that he’d learned to distrust.
Webster could create moments, but he couldn’t string enough of them together to make a life.
Webster laid his arms along the bench but didn’t touch Sheila. He kept his eyes on Rowan. He could tell that Sheila was aching for a drink. He told Rowan not to put a pebble up her nose. She looked at him with lids lowered as if weighing the pros and cons. An older woman, sitting on a bench not far from them, leaned forward. It was the first time Webster had noticed her.
“These are the best years of your life,” she said, smiling.
Webster nodded at the woman to acknowledge her pronouncement. Sheila bent her head as if examining the dirt.
“Really,” she said to no one.
The backyard of the ice-cream shop wasn’t much to look at, but Webster and Sheila had spent an hour hanging balloons from trees, decorating a picnic table with red cups and birthday hats and plates, and setting up games that two-year-olds could play. Overly excited, Rowan crisscrossed the yard. She already had grass stains on the yellow and white dress her mother had bought for the occasion. Sheila and Webster stood and surveyed the lawn.
“It looks like a birthday party,” she said.
“Thank God it hasn’t rained like they said it would.”
“They always get it wrong.”
“Rowan’s fit to bust,” Webster said, smiling at his little girl.
They’d had a long run of calm. Webster hadn’t dared to hope that he and Sheila were on solid ground, but enough time had passed that he felt like celebrating their long good spell as much as his daughter’s birthday. Sheila had made the birthday cake, a slightly listing chocolate cake with yellow frosting. Three candles, one of them for good luck.
They’d celebrated Rowan’s first birthday party with family. This time Sheila wanted to invite four children Rowan knew from day care as well as their parents. Webster didn’t know the parents; he’d seen them mostly in passing. Rowan’s grandmother and grandfather would come to the party, too.
Sheila seemed happy. She poured Coke into one of the taller red cups meant for adults and asked Webster if he wanted some. He was about to say yes when the first of the parents arrived with their child, a boy named Jason. Rowan dragged Jason off to see the games her dad had set up. Sheila offered the parents a beverage and pointed out the chips and dips. Conversation was awkward, and there were a lot of jokes about living over an ice-cream shop. Webster had heard every one before, but he chuckled nevertheless.
Sheila laughed loud and long with the mothers. She knew them better than Webster did.
Webster lost himself in his job as master of ceremonies.
It wasn’t until an hour had passed that he noticed that Sheila was never without her red cup. A ping of alarm went through him. She was nervous, he told himself, she needed a prop. When it was time for the cake, Rowan made a wish and puffed herself up. To Webster’s astonishment, Sheila bent in and blew out all the candles herself. He was certain Rowan would cry, but instead she whapped her palm flat on the top of th
e cake, disturbing the icing that said “Happy Birthday Rowan.” Only Webster saw the gesture as angry. Sheila chose to think it adorable and laughed. Webster glanced at the parents and noted their wary eyes.
While Webster oversaw the remaining games, Sheila leaned against the cement wall of the ice-cream shop, red cup in hand. By one thirty, she was slurring her words when she said good-bye to the parents. Webster noted how they drew their children close to them when Sheila approached. Webster was furious, embarrassed for himself and for Rowan. When the last of the guests had left, he told Sheila to go upstairs, that he would clean up and watch Rowan, too.
Sheila pulled herself up the stairs. Webster’s mother took over the cleanup, while Webster stood next to his father under a red maple, both watching Rowan.
“Sheila’s in a bad way,” his father said, getting right to the point. “Something has to be done.”
“I’ve tried everything I can think of,” Webster said, “short of actually leaving her.”
“You’re going to have to do more. Maybe look into some of those programs.”
“You mean a rehab program?”
“That’s it.”
“They’re expensive, Dad.”
Webster winced. His father would think that he was asking for money.
“We could help…,” his father began.
Webster put his palms up. “I’m sorry I mentioned the cost. That’s the last thing I want. Whatever we do, we do on our own.”
His father put his hands in his pockets. Neither Webster nor his father had taken their eyes off Rowan, who seemed to have forgotten the incident with the cake. “I’ll tell you this, son,” his father said. “There’s no better place your mother and I could ever put our money than to see you and your family have an easier time of it.”
“Thanks for offering, but it’s something I have to think about.”
“You’re a fucking lush,” Webster said to Sheila in the bedroom while Rowan was watching television in the living room. He tried to keep his voice down, but there was too much anger behind it. “At your daughter’s birthday? Are you shitting me? Did you see the way the children clung to their parents when you got close to them? My God, Sheila, can you imagine what they think?”