“All I’m saying is there’s a time and there’s a place,” Thad says.
Jake laughs. “You don’t believe that. You think you believe that because that’s what you’ve been taught to believe. No sex for you. Not at a time like this. You’re respectful.”
“My mom is—”
“Your mom?”
Thad’s arm itches. He runs a finger along the raised scar, swollen in the steam. “I could hear you halfway across the house. You want her hearing that?”
“Ah,” Jake says. “That’s different. That’s manners. Manners I can get behind.”
Jake’s big on manners. In the city, he’s as well-known for his charm as he is for his art. Frank DiFazio—respected, feared, beloved owner of Chelsea’s Gallery East, the man who made Jake and named Jake (before Frank, Jake was Jacob)—has Jake trained. “I took the boy out of Memphis and the Memphis out of the boy,” Thad once overheard Frank tell a friend.
“I’m sorry I was impolite,” Jake says. He’s drying off. He’s lean but not boyish, muscled but not buff. Thad had a body like that once, but he’s put on weight the past few years. Too much pot. Too many late-night snacks.
Jake smiles. It’s tough staying mad at him.
Thad stands, and Jake drops the towel. He reaches past the shower curtain and places one hand on Thad’s cheek.
“I can make you feel better,” Jake says. His hand drops to Thad’s waistband. “Come on. I’ll keep it real respectful.” Then Jake’s hand is down his shorts.
Thad pushes him, and Jake hits the wall, hard.
“Jesus,” Jake says.
Thad moves to the door. He needs to leave the room before he cries. He doesn’t want to meet Jake’s ex. He doesn’t want to lose Jake. He doesn’t want a child to be dead.
“You think they’ll find him?” Thad asks, but Jake won’t look at him.
When Jake turns, his back is latticework, squares where the shower tiles have left their mark.
“I’m sorry,” Thad says.
But he no longer has Jake’s attention. Jake’s stepped out of the shower, and his attention is on the small, black jar he’s just fished from his toiletry kit. He uncaps the jar, dips two fingers in, then gently works the product into his hair.
4.
Diane Maddox exhales. Diane Maddox who traded Tennessee for Texas. Diane Maddox whose parents are divorced. Diane Maddox who married Michael ten years ago and wouldn’t take her husband’s name. Diane Maddox who carries a child inside her. Diane Maddox who had an abortion in high school and who does not regret that choice, but who is not in favor of making that choice a second time. Diane Maddox who went to school to be a painter before settling for being a those-who-can’t-do art teacher. Diane Maddox who wonders whether thirty-three is too early for a midlife crisis, were women said to have those and if those meant more than a red motorcycle and the affair to go with it. Diane Maddox who has been reassessing her infinitesimal place in the cruel and sideways-pressing world. Diane Maddox who likes dangly earrings. Diane Maddox who has always longed to visit Reykjavík. Diane Maddox who grew up watching Mad About You and wanted to be Helen Hunt. Diane Maddox who, in eighth grade, cried—cried—through the Mad About You finale, cried over the fact that Paul and Jamie weren’t together anymore. They would give it another try, the way Diane’s parents gave it another try too many times to count, giving it another try code for the pain a daughter feels when some mornings Dad’s there, eating Cheerios, and some mornings Mom says, “I hope that fucker drives that thing off a fucking bridge.” Diane Maddox who is unhappy but for whom divorce does not feel like an option (whether to prove something to her parents or to Mad About You, she isn’t sure). Diane Maddox who wonders whether things would have gone better had she taken her husband’s name, though of course a name can’t save you. A name can’t save a marriage, can’t save a house from sale or a boy from the bottom of a lake.
Diane in the ambulance. Diane not crying, keeping calm. Diane following the paramedic’s instructions as the ambulance navigates country roads and the paramedic measures Michael’s blood pressure. Diane Maddox-not-Starling—and it’s never too late to change a thing, except sometimes it is—pressing the damp cloth to the head of the man she loves. Or loved. Some days, let’s face it, she’s not sure. Blood pooling beneath the cloth, the forehead an awfully vascular area, the paramedic says, worse than it looks, which Diane takes to mean looks worse than it is, though she can’t be sure. There will be stitches, though she hopes against concussion, against brain injury, against anything permanent because, in all fairness, can the girl who said in sickness and in health still speak for Diane at thirty-three? Say Michael slips into a coma or spends his life in diapers, drinking through a straw? Does the Diane who said I do love this man enough to wipe his ass another fifty years? And how to love a man who’s made it clear, if not in words, then in scowls and sighs, in the way he picks strings from the frayed cuffs of his jeans, that he’d rather her not have their kid? Does she love Michael enough to stay? Does she love herself enough to leave? Diane doesn’t know, knows only that Michael’s blood is real and warm and won’t stop rising from his head.
The ambulance brakes, the doors open, and Diane breathes.
The hospital is not what she was expecting. Small and beige and boxy, the building looks less like a hospital than a bank someone dropped onto an acre in the woods. Gently, Diane is pushed aside by a nurse at the curb, Michael lowered into a wheelchair and asked to hold the cloth to his own head. Of all the fears Diane has ever known—fear of flying, of snakes, of seeing the stick’s minus sign become a plus—never has she known a fear like watching her husband’s face paint the water red. The paramedic pushes the wheelchair forward, the nurse holds the door open for Michael to be pushed through, and Diane follows, feeling useless.
Inside, the waiting room is empty, the floor a checkerboard. The woman at the front desk is rude. The hallways are hot. The X-ray room is cold.
Then Michael’s on a table, and she’s at his side. The Betadine goes on, and Michael winces, his forehead orange. The needles go in, and she has to look away. She holds his hand. The next time she looks, eight Frankensteinian stitches hold his head together. They fill the gap between eyebrow and hairline, as though Michael’s left eyebrow has an eyebrow of its own.
Then the X-rays are in and all is well—Good enough for this country doctor, anyway—though Michael gives Diane a look that says, When we get home, I’m getting a second opinion. Not that they can afford a second opinion, what with a mortgage they can hardly handle on a house that’s worth half what they paid in 2007, four maxed-out credit cards, plus Diane’s student loans, which, no matter how hard she ignores them, aren’t exactly going anywhere. Still, she’s glad to see Michael talking, smiling. Mostly, though, she’s happy she won’t have to change his diapers till death do them part.
That said, there is a diaper she wouldn’t mind changing in fewer than seven months.
This love for a thing unborn, a thing that isn’t even yet a thing—how to explain this love to her husband? She promised him she’d never want a child, and she’d meant it at the time. The mistake wasn’t getting pregnant. The mistake was making a promise that was never hers to keep.