Ariel couldn’t stand Buddy—she called him the Tick. “All he does is take, take, take,” she once said, “and what do you get in return? Lyme disease.”
Insanely, Dex had replied, “Well, what if I want Lyme disease?”
On the other end of the phone, Buddy’s words were muffled.
“Were you sleeping?” Dex asked.
“No thanks to you.”
“Want to get a drink?”
“Let me guess. Ariel’s gone?”
“That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Typical.” A pause on the line, then, “I bought some weed yesterday, so things are a little tight, financially speaking.”
“I’ll get the first round,” Dex said, knowing he would end up buying them all.
“Right on. Meet you downtown in twenty.”
* * *
As Dex put on his going-out clothes and styled his hair, he thought about what Ariel had said: If it’s any longer, I’ll call you.
If it’s any longer. What had she meant? Longer as in a day longer? Or two days? Or a week?
Whenever they visited his parents in Kansas City, their stay was calculated down to the minute, with escape plans and backup escape plans involving fake phone calls and imaginary migraines. Ariel had never felt completely comfortable around his parents, whom he loved deeply despite their suburban ridiculousness. They were boring and Presbyterian and had thrown away their vote in the election by writing in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, but all they ever said of Ariel, who hardly spoke a word around them, was that she seemed nice. If you’re happy, his mother had said, then we’re happy. Dex understood his parents were relieved he had found someone at all; they wanted grandchildren, and he wasn’t getting any younger. The year before he met Ariel, they’d sent him a card containing a username (HandsomeProvider321) and password (WeLoveYouDex321!) to ChristianMingle.com.
Meanwhile, Dex knew little about Ariel’s parents—her entire childhood was a half-formed question mark. He knew her mother lived on the western edge of Kansas and had given Ariel neither a phone call nor a nickel since Ariel moved to Lawrence. It was therefore surprising that Ariel was suddenly determined to bridge this gap, to forgive old grievances so that, when the time came, she could invite her mother to the wedding.
Before heading out, he spritzed Ariel’s lavender-and-basil pillow spray onto his shirtsleeve, so that he might catch a whiff of her as he moved about his night. His fiancée. Was there a lovelier word in the world? He even preferred it, at least musically, to wife, a word like a starched white apron, unyielding and tight. Wife. It didn’t suit Ariel at all, but that was part of the novelty, the thrill. As much as she was not a wife, he was not a husband. He liked to imagine that someday, when he and Ariel were shriveled old pumpkins, he would think boyfriend, girlfriend and laugh.
Ariel
Her mother stood at the end of the hallway in a ratty gray nightshirt. “Who’s there?” she called. She appeared to be gripping a gun.
“It’s just me,” Ariel said, putting her hands up. The sight of her mother with a gun was so startling she forgot, for a moment, that they hadn’t spoken in years. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel it everywhere: in her head, her wrists, her tongue.
Her mother let the gun drop to her side, put a hand to her heart. “Ariel?”
How long had it been since she’d heard her name pronounced that way—are, ee, ell? When she’d started school in Lawrence, she’d been too shy to correct her professors’ mispronunciations, and so she’d decided to just go with it, accepting the new pronunciation of her name, the new pronunciation of her life. It sounded like the Little Mermaid’s name. Like something that flies through the air.
“I thought someone was breaking in,” her mother said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She had rehearsed a hundred responses during her drive, but not a single one had felt right. “I just—I wanted to come back. So I did.” She hoped her mother could hear how terrified she was, that this terror was a symptom of remorse. How does one apologize, in a sentence, for six years of pain?
Her mother stared at her, and so Ariel stared back. Her mother’s dark hair, which she had always kept in a long braid down her back, now ended at her shoulders and was shot through with gray. She held herself like a soldier who’d gone into battle and returned only half-alive, eyes glazed with everything she couldn’t unsee. She was barely fifty but looked a decade older. Ariel felt a pang of regret—she had missed the sunset of her mother’s beauty. Here was dusk, the crickets chirping.
She wondered what her mother saw, what kind of daughter. Ariel was only twenty-four but could already feel the layers of her girlhood sloughing off, pooling at her feet when she showered. Dex had found her first gray hair the month before, plucking it from her head and then handing it to her, like a rose. A crooked witch hair for m’lady.
Her mother cleared her throat. “You could have called.”
“I tried, but nobody answered, and the voicemail was full.”
“Well,” said her mother, and then there was nothing else to say.
Just then, a Scottie dog came skipping down the hall. An old-timer, with a gray muzzle and cloudy eyes. Strapped around its middle was a length of blue cloth—a diaper band. The dog hopped up and down at Mona’s feet, asking to be picked up.
“Hey, Daisy Doo,” Mona said cheerfully, clearly grateful for the distraction. Still holding the gun, she scooped the dog into her arms. “Daisy’s got bladder issues. Don’t you, Daisy?” She spoke in her animal voice, soft with a singsong lilt. “Aren’t these diapers cute? They come in all sorts of colors and patterns. Bad news is the diaper rash. I have to put ointment on her twice a day.”
As if on cue, Ariel saw a tiny stream of urine leak from the diaper and onto Mona’s nightshirt.
“Oh, shoot,” her mother said, setting Daisy down so the dog could finish her business on the carpet. “She must have gotten excited.”
Ariel put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. “Sorry, not funny.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mona said, pinching her shirt away from her body. “They’re putting on a show for you.”
Ariel crossed her arms, felt her heart still racing. “Mom?” she asked.
Her mom looked at her. “What?”
“Do you think you could put the gun down? You’re making me nervous.”
“Oh, this thing?” Her mother opened her mouth and pointed the gun inside. Before Ariel could do anything, her mother pulled the trigger. Water squirted out.
Ariel had been ready to scream. “Jesus. You scared me.”
Mona smiled, clearly pleased. “Looks real, huh? Gideon and I picked it up at the church rummage sale. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff there—bear traps, bowie knives. A pickled thumb in a jar. The people in this town, I swear.”
“Wait, Gideon’s here?” Around Ariel, the room shifted slightly.
“Where else would he be?”
“I don’t know—I figured he would have moved on.”