“That’s because he loves you.” She looks disgusted by the thought. “You guys are sick, you know that? I’ve seen seventh graders with more ability to curb their hormones.” She blinks a sarcastic smile as she pulls apart the donut in front of her—jelly filled—my favorite.
“He does love me. By the way, we’re trying again. Are you going to abuse that thing or eat it?” I reach over and pinch off the side before popping it in my mouth.
“You’re trying?” Her face smooths out with surprise. “How exiting! How long did it take with Eli?”
I glance over at my dark-haired boy. He wears his father’s features like a mask. He’s gorgeous to the point of agony.
Katrice has been hinting nonstop how nice it would be to have a cousin close in age. The veins in her neck protrude like blue cords beneath her parchment-like skin. Something tells me she’s going to get more translucent as the pregnancy goes on. She’ll be my sister, the ghost.
“Honeymoon baby. Same with Stella.” I wince when I say it. Different honeymoon. Different husbands. I hadn’t thought of Mitch for almost two weeks. I hate when he comes at me like that, out of the blue like a poltergeist on the attack. Of course, I see him in Stella’s room on her nightstand, but I’m almost immune to that picture now. Almost. It’s self-preservation. I can only take so much heartbreak. He’s so damn handsome in that picture. He burns into my mind so easily I try not to look at him anymore. I keep telling myself it’s not Mitch. That it’s just some placeholder that came with the frame. But I can’t ignore him for too long. And now he’ll percolate in my brain for hours.
“Lee!” Kat wraps her arms around me before pulling away. “We’ll be close.”
“Maybe,” I shrug. “We’ll see how fast it takes Max and his swimmers to pull it off. Besides, I’m only having one to your three.” I’m not sure triplets are functionally practical, although nature doesn’t really ask you these things, it merely acts, and you react—like with Mitch dying.
“So about a month with Eli?” Kat picks at a loose thread on her maternity jeans. Her eyes stray as a trio of surfers strut by, one has a longboard hitched over his head with red and blue stripes that run the length of it.
I feel horrible telling her how easy my babies came when she had to move heaven and earth and inflict a double mortgage on herself to do it.
Eli slams his fists into the screen before coming outside and plopping down between us with his dark hair, his bright blue eyes. He squeezes a yellow truck in his hand. He’s all boy just like his daddy. For a while I was paranoid that maybe he was Colt’s, but Eli quickly morphed into a mini version of Max and I let that insane idea go.
I glance back at Stella, still at the kitchen table, drawing in a sketchbook that Sheila brought over a few days ago.
“You know—I take that back,” I say. “It might have been when we got home.” Max and I went to Turks and Caicos for our honeymoon, never did see the sun or sand with the exception of when the plane was landing. An erotic heat wave washes over me with the memory. “We went out into the fields—Max was going to show me how the new bird nets worked. I was afraid they’d choke out the vines. Anyway it started to rain, and Max thought it was a good idea to mud wrestle.” I close my eyes, lost in the memory—Max and me rolling around the crimson soil—his tongue tracking over my chest in long fiery strokes. “I’m positive it was that day.” I push my finger to my lips. “God. It just hit me. I made a baby with Max Shepherd in Townsend field. I was defiling sacred ground and didn’t even realize it.” I give a guilty smile down at Eli.
“Oh, come on,” Kat starts, “you should be used to pissing on Mitch’s proverbial grave by now. You’re still living in the same house with a man he wouldn’t cross the street for.”
“Stop.” I avert my eyes. Kat knows she can get away with verbally murdering Mitch over and over in a weak attempt at humor. It’s my fault because I let her. I like hearing his name—talking about him as though he were real. He doesn’t feel real anymore. Maybe that’s the biggest heartbreak of all. “You’re not funny. Besides, it’s my house and they’re my fields, have been for years. Mine and Max’s.” Once we married, I made sure everything turned into a joint venture. “I guess it was just a good year for babies. Maybe we should start a new line of bottles—the fertility series.”
“You’re terrible. And late with production.” She taps her belly.
“Please,” I balk. “You’ll have three underfoot driving you crazy, wishing you had none, and then, poof, you’ll get pregnant again on your own. Happens all the time. You’ll have six or seven before you know it.”
She gurgles a laugh while shoveling a chip full of salsa into her mouth. Her honey butter hair curves under her chin. She’s chopped off the locks of her youth but I’ve held onto mine. It’s almost down my back. I can’t seem to part with it. I like looking in the mirror and recognizing this version of myself as the one that Mitch knew. In a small way it helps keep him around. I’ve already changed my husband, my name, rearranged my family, a part of me needs to recognize the girl in the mirror.
“Guess who else is having a baby?” I almost forgot all about the latest Shepherd family scandal.
“Who?”
“Our favorite centerfold.” Hudson’s new girlfriend, an ex-stripper named Candi with an ‘i’ is the glorified dancer in question. She spells her name out as a part of her introduction. “You think she’s ditzy now? I think all of Mono should fear for its safety once her hormones kick in. A pregnant brain is a very real thing.”
“All knocked up with Shepherd dough to blow, huh? How long have they been together?”
“Three months. That’s like a fiftieth anniversary in Hudson relationship years.”
“Any word on that other kid of his?” Kat snarls as if Jackie kidnapping Joshua was somehow Hudson’s fault. Probably was.
“Hasn’t seen him in over two years. She’s moved to North Carolina permanently. Enrolled him in school and everything.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s terrible.”
“One would think. But Hudson doesn’t seem to mind. It’s killing his mom, though. Max is pretty upset, too. He wants to plan a trip out after Christmas.”
“He’s a good uncle.”
“Max is good at everything—for sure he’s a better dad than Hudson any day. Weird thing is, I don’t think Jackie and Hudson ever filed for divorce.” Eli rides his truck up my leg, tickling me in the process. “Hey you!” I pick him up and bounce him on my knee, watch as his baby fine hair wafts in the breeze and fans out like a plume of ebony feathers.
“So”—Kat cinches her cheek up one side—“how’s Stella doing in preschool?”
“Loves it. Max and I cried her first day, and she didn’t even wave goodbye.”
“You’re a brave girl, Stella.” Kat shields her eyes from the sun struggling to break through the haze.
“I hear you,” she shouts from inside.
“She hears everything,” I whisper. “I have to spell out all my naughty thoughts now.”
“Like?”
“Like none of your f-u-c-k-i-n-g business.” I laugh.
“Bet Max enjoys those.”
“More than you’ll ever know.” A private smile curves my lips. “Max has a dirty streak a mile wide, and I love every naughty inch of it.”
“I’ve always suspected Max Shepherd was a freak.” She bites down over a chip and raises her brows.
I lean back and watch the waves roll in, one by one, chaffing against the sand in a constant surge of anger. A lone surfer paddles out, and from the back, he reminds me of Mitch—same golden hair, same broad shoulders, defined biceps. There he is again. Drifting away from me as if that were his destiny all along. From here I can fool myself into believing it really is him.
Phantom Mitch hops up on the board. He catches a small wave only to abort the mission and pencil dives into the water.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Kat always knows.
“I can’t help
it.” Mitch is like a hurricane that ripped through my life. So glorious and wonderful at first, then he blew it apart—left me with the devastation. Hurricane Mitch—not sure that’s the legacy he would have wanted.
Kat leans in. She twirls my hair at the base with an apprehensive smile. “You never really made peace with him, did you,” she whispers.
Eli squirms and bucks until I put him back down by my feet. Same sweet dimples, same intense eyes as Max.
I have a beautiful girl, a beautiful boy, a husband who would set himself on fire for me—then why in the hell do I feel so unsettled?
“Maybe I haven’t made peace with him.” I stare out at the lone surfer as he traverses a wave—rides it until it funnels out. He stands on his board a second before sinking back into the water then disappears from the planet just like Mitch.
It’s true. I strapped Mitch’s carcass to my back and have been dragging him around silently for years. He’s the ghost in the bedroom during those intimate moments between Max and me. I still see the hurt in his eyes every time I look at Colt. I’ve let him down. I can feel it.
“Let go, Lee. Forgive him. He didn’t die to piss you off,” she whispers it sweetly like only a sister can.
The surfer garners my attention again. I forgive you, Mitch. Your wave petered out. It trickled to nothing. God called you home. I can’t drag this lingering pain around anymore. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Colt’s. It just happened.
Stella runs out, fanning the picture she’s been working on. Her golden curls spring up as she jumps into my lap. I kiss her face as she wiggles in my arms. Mitch hides there in her eyes, but I pretend not to see him.
“Hon, this is beautiful!” I marvel at the four smiling stick figures, the sun in full bloom overhead.
“It’s me, you, Daddy and Eli,” she sings.
Colorful poppies surround us against a field of green.
“I love it,” I say, kissing her hair. “We’re a perfect family.”
She didn’t draw Mitch. She never does.
He’s out of the equation forever.
And yet, deep down inside, I still feel unsettled.
Mitch
Darkness covers me like a shroud. I’ve spent the last fourteen days straight in the belly of the wicked whale. No light, less food, even less desire to keep breathing—all hope is gone—nothing but Mitch in a foxhole.
I shift the weight from one knee to the other as I try to explain a few things to God. For instance, I’m almost okay with Him leaving me here. I know He has a higher purpose—I hope He has a higher purpose. And if He doesn’t have a higher purpose, I suggest He think one up real quick.
It hurts a little too much knowing I’m sinking my life in this dungeon, losing all that time with Lee and our baby, missing my mom and brother for nothing. I don’t really need to know there’s a higher purpose, I just need there to be one. And—if he’s got a thread of mercy left in Him today, I hope He gets me on the next plane out.
I lie back down and close my eyes. It’s Lee time. We walk our yellow lab. Have coffee before the kids get up. I usually don’t make love to Lee so close to sunrise, but this morning she’s entertaining me by taking off her clothes. I give a little smile. Damn it all to hell, Lee. What are you doing to me?
Everything about Lee is the same in my mind’s eye. She doesn’t age, her hair never changes, those beautiful eyes still smile at me without trying.
The surprise of electricity goes off overhead—looks like it’s back to the grind for me.
Lights, camera, action.
The walls of the sweatshop drip with oil. The floors are dusted with sand from a spill on the manufacturing line last week. A string of bulbs dangle from bare wires, dotting the facility with the not-so-thinly veiled threat of turning the place into an incinerator. I’m sure this rat hole has more than its fair share of electrical and architectural felonies taking place. At home I couldn’t install a window without five different building inspectors breathing down my neck, and here they’ve jerry-rigged an entire infrastructure.
Gao finds a seat next to me on the production line today—the lentil assassin. Although, technically he didn’t assassinate anyone, he was trying to save them—feed them. This place is rife with irony.
Rows and rows of worktables line the dank, humid room which smells of rancid urine. Two boys, ages twelve and fifteen, occupy the table in front of us, and I flick a couple of paper roses across the floor toward them. I’ve been to isolation over a hundred times since they pushed me in and threw away the key. It works out to be about every other week. It’s dark, but it offers more quality time with God and Lee. Nothing like some time with the fam so I’m not too spooked by the consequences.
The young boys stoop down and slip the folded roses into their shoes before looking up with their dead expressions. I’ve spent months with them and never once seen them crack a smile. It’s weird seeing kids here. Although, they’re not kids anymore. This place sucks the soul right out of you, crucifies you for sins you’ve never really committed.
“Mitch,” Gao whispers while trying to master the art of ventriloquism. He stares down with great intensity at the pool of beads before him as if he were mapping out the cure for cancer. This week’s mind numbing task consists of landing multicolored bits of plastic into what looks like a tackle box.
My fingers beg to fall off as I fumble to keep up with my unreasonable quota of fourteen chests per hour. Not sure how many hours, but I don’t stop until it’s good and dark outside that window. I’m not certain what exactly lies beyond the boundaries of these walls. When I first arrived someone got up and tried to sneak a peek, but they shot him with a dart. He fell to the floor like a stone, haven’t seen him since. Mostly I sit on my ass and shut the hell up. I prefer to break the rules on my own terms.
“I got paper book,” Gao hisses it out like a sneeze. “Small paper book of your God.”
I pump out a smile at him. I’m not that enthused. Half the people I give my work to can’t read English.
“Master work,” he assures.
We sit, still as stone, as a patrol guard makes his way down the aisle.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Water comes to the desert. I haven’t laid eyes on anything that remotely resembles the English alphabet other than what streams from my own hand.
Slow methodical footsteps retract and stop just shy of my shoulder. I don’t turn around just keep at my work as though sorting the blue beads were the defining axiom of my existence. At this point it probably is.
A sharp blow strikes the back of my head. Blinding white-pain sears through my skull. The room sways, and for a brief moment I think I might pass out. Turns out I’m not that lucky today.
Two men in uniform charge in my direction and escort me out by way of the ever so popular push-shove method. It doesn’t take long for me to see blood dripping over my shoulder. Looks like I get to clock out early.
“Bandage for you today.”
Mei is on duty, so I’m feeling pretty comfortable. We sit in her small eight by ten depository that doubles as surgical quarters with mouse feces and dried blood scattered freely across the laminate flooring. She wipes the blood away from my temple and gives me another brown work shirt fresh from the laundry. I take it in and smash it against my nose. It reeks of bleach, and that alone feels pretty damn extravagant. Everything else around here, including my fellow inmates, smells like ass crack and that’s a scent I can never get used to.
“You stupid.” She slaps the back of my neck for good measure. “Keep you mouth shut. They going lock you up in dark room for good one day. We forget about people in there sometime. Bad smell come. We wait until it finish before we open door again.”
“Nice.” My mind splinters for a minute. That’s exactly what happened. The whole world forgot about Mitch Townsend. They shut the door and are trying to ignore the stench. I never could figure out why they didn’t move mountains trying to find me. I’d like to believe they’r
e still looking, but reality begs to differ.
The phone rings, and Mei picks up without the courtesy of anything that resembles a hello. Her moon-shaped face doesn’t flinch as she rattles off a series of singsong phrases. It sounds jagged, like a saw trying to hack through the trunk of an oak—wind chimes—some ancient vocal exercise. I take a seat by the door and close my eyes as I wait for the cattle prod to tell me what to do next.
The faint sound of laughter lights up the hall, and my eyes spring wide. Laughing. That’s something just this side of illegal in this shithole. A strong male voice speaks in perfect English. I lean my head out the door with curiosity as he rattles on about travel arrangements. People actually leave this place? Doubtful.
A sharp dressed man in a navy suit, blood red tie notched just below his neck, speeds in this direction. I haven’t seen anybody dressed like that since I was back in the states.
“Hey,” I shout after him as he passes me by. “Excuse me?”
He turns, still moving in the opposite direction, glances at me, and reverts over. “Yes?” His eyes run over me in my sorry state of disrepair.
“Are you a lawyer or something?” God, let him be a lawyer.
“Kyle Wong,” he barks it out. “What’s your story?”
My body seizes with hope, and my vocal cords weld together. My chest reverberates like a time bomb. Kyla Wong lit the fuse, and now I’m probably going to blow to pieces with the prospect of seeing Lee again. I glance over at Mei. If this is a trap, I’m falling in hook, line, and sinker.
“Mitch Townsend,” I say, extending my hand, but he doesn’t take it. “I came here to do some work a while back,” it speeds out of me. “Can you help me get in touch with my wife—my brother? They’ll hire an attorney. You, if you want.”