“Shewon’t stop,” she told me in her small voice. “She keeps crying and crying. Ican’t sleep.”
“Lilly,where’s Mommy?” I pulled myself from the stool and grabbed my backpackabsentmindedly. I began to walk toward the door, when Jeff stopped me. My keyshung from his fingers. I had forgotten them on the bar. “Thanks,” I mouthed.
“Sleeping,”Lilly replied.
“Sleeping?” Beth never slept through Annabel crying.Sometimes she woke up before the baby had even started, and I teased her abouthaving a sixth sense. My lungs sped up the pull of air, in and out, in and out,and I had to talk myself down from hyperventilation. “Where is Annabel?”
“Onyour bed.”
Inodded fervently, pushing through the door. “Where’s Mommy, Lilly?”
“Itold you!” Lilly shouted, growing more and more impatient with my apparentstupidity. “Sleeping!”
“Where?On the bed, with Annabel?” As if the baby heard me say her name, she began tocry louder, and I moved quickly to my car.
“No!”Lilly shouted louder. “On the floor!”
***
The heavy-weighted veil of silence hungover our diner table as I slowly turned the mug. Handle facing me, handlefacing her, handle facing me … just waiting for her to say something, foreitherof usto sayanything.
But Tess, sittingacross from me, was adamant on keeping her lower lip from wriggling, andkeeping up the battle against the tears in her eyes. She looked at thefluorescent lights above us, at the aluminum encasing the window beside us, atthe dingy linoleum floor below us, but she wouldn’t look atme. I guess in a way I was glad for it.I was so sick and tired of the pity. So damn fed up with feeling like a thingto fix, despite how true that was. And yet, a small part of mewantedher to see me in that way. Iwanted her to look at me and see the broken, battered, bloodied hole gaping inmy chest. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted her to think for a second that she couldfix it. Because if she could just look at me, with her crystalline eyes full ofhope and determination, then maybe I could believe it was possible. To be wholeagain. To be better. To go an entire day without forcing myself into a numbedstate of being.
But when she didfinally bring her gaze back to mine, there was nothing present in those eyes.Nothing apart from a never-ending crystal lake of sympathy, and I dropped mygaze to drown in the blackness of my tea.
“What happened then?” sheasked quietly, her voice strangled with unmoving emotion.
“I—” I coughed,unclogging my throat of every dying hope for salvation I had left. “I called9-1-1 on my way home and tried calling a couple of the neighbors to get intoour apartment, but it was late, and nobody answered. I got there before theambulance did, and I found Shelly and Lilly in their room. Shelly was upsetbecause Annabel was crying, but Lilly …” My sigh accompanied the shake of myhead. I looked out the window at the world still buzzing outside, while Iremained stuck inside, revisiting that moment that kept my life from movingforward. “She thought Beth was just sleeping, but at that point, she wasworried. She knew something was wrong.”
“Oh, Jesus, Jon …” Tesslaid her hands over her face. “God, I’m so sorry.”
I nodded. “Yeah, metoo.”
Her hands flopped tothe table, palms against the Formica, and she questioned, “Can I ask how shedied?”
“Aneurysm,” I statedmatter-of-factly. “She told me she had a headache, but I didn’t think anythingof it. I guess she was going to bed and collapsed. Luckily, Annabel was alreadyon the bed, but …” And there it was. The guilt.
Sucha selfish man.
Before she could sayanything else, Tess lifted her mug and took a long, slow sip. I looked to herand was surprised to find myself laughing when her face screwed up with thepain of being scalded. “Still too hot?”
She sputtered andnodded. “Oh, yeah. They must’ve gotten this water straight from Hell, it’s sofreakin’ hot. Don’t touch it yet.”
“Don’t you worry,” Ichuckled, eyeing the criminal cup of boiling water. “I won’t.”
Cocking her head, shetook me in. I felt like I was under a microscope, scrutinized and picked apart,until she said, “You’re going to be okay, you know that, right?”
I didn’t, but still, Ismiled. “I’m trying.”
And with that, herdemeanor changed as she moved the conversation to a new subject. “So, tell mesomething,” she began,teepeeingher fingers againsther mouth.
“Sure.”
“Were you like, somekind of child prodigy or something?”
My chuckle rumbled,deep and throaty, as I shook my head. “Nah, not really. My parents took me tosee Billy Joel when I was thirteen, and hekindablewme away. I asked them for piano lessons the next day.”
“And that’s when theyrealized they had a boy genius on their hands?” She grinned expectantly.
