She kept staring at me and I was worried that she was going to ask more, that I would dump the weight of my life among her living-room clutter. She just turned, grabbed the turtle painting, and handed it to me. “For the baby. Boy or girl, everyone likes turtles.”
I wasn’t much of a crier—Billy and I had rented Toy Story 2 last week and the collar of his shirt was damp by the end, mine dry. As I took that shitty painting I felt weirdly close to tears.
“Here’s money for the pizza, keep the change.” She handed me a twenty and pulled out another, pressed it firmly into my palm. “And a little extra for you, my savior.”
She walked me to the front door and hugged me and I didn’t mind. She smiled and I wanted to bottle it up, pour it over my morning cereal. “Take care, Pizza Girl.”
The door shut and I stared at it, tried to come up with reasons to knock and bring her back.
* * *
—
IT WAS A BLESSING I didn’t get into a car accident. I spent the rest of my shift in a daze. My hands and feet felt and behaved like bricks. I knocked over a stack of boxes and dropped a napkin dispenser I was trying to refill. As Darryl bent down to help me clean up, he asked me if I’d taken pulls from his Bacardi.
I mixed up orders. Drew Herold got Patty Johnston’s Meat Lovers, extra bacon. Patty Johnston got Drew Herold’s Very Veggie, no sauce. “You might as well just get a salad,” she said, shaking her head, inspecting a mushroom between her fingers. She was nice, an older mom type who looked like she was used to dealing with youthful incompetence. She didn’t mind having to wait while I drove back to retrieve her pizza, just told me to include garlic bread sticks for free next time she called in. Drew Herold was less nice, told me that meat was murder, he’d be calling Domino’s in the future.
When I got back to the shop, I went to the bathroom and didn’t notice the seat was up. There was toilet water on my pants as Peter yelled at me. Driving home, I missed the turn for my street three times. I kept getting distracted by lamppost lights—I saw Jenny standing underneath each one. She was still lovely, even under their harsh orange glow.
* * *
—
AT NIGHT, after Billy was snoring in my ear and I heard Mom flick off the TV and double-lock the front door, I’d run my hands through Billy’s hair twice and then quietly get out of bed. I’d tiptoe down the stairs and into the backyard, walk across the lawn, and go inside Dad’s shed.
In his last years, Dad spent most of his time in here. When he got home from whatever his current job was, when Mom or I pissed him off, when he just needed a breath, some “Me Time,” he’d throw open the screen door and stomp across the lawn, lock himself in the shed for hours.
The shed was always padlocked. He repeated over and over that Mom and I were forbidden to go inside. A little after he died, I got a hammer and swung at the lock until it broke off.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I realized then a part of me hoped that whenever he went into the shed he’d feel bad about what he’d said, how he acted, his boozy, sour breath. He’d feel bad and he’d grab his toolbox or notebook and try to make us something to apologize, would write long letters to us promising to be a better man. I pictured him whittling little sculptures, painting them bright, hopeful colors. His letters would contain beautiful, flowery language.
When I went inside there were no tools, or papers, or paints. There was just an old armchair, a small TV on a table barely big enough to support it, a mini-fridge. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts covered most of the floor. There were a pile of old newspapers and a foam football in the corner.
I thought about going back into the house and getting a book of matches, watching the shed burn before my eyes. I didn’t. I sat in the armchair and cried for the first and only time since he died.
Ever since Billy and I decided we’d be keeping the baby, I’d been coming to the shed most nights. I’d sit in the armchair and flick on the TV to the infomercial channel—there was something weirdly peaceful about people enthusiastically trying to sell you things. After a while, I’d open the fridge and pull out a beer. It was lite beer, I reasoned, basically water. I would only have one, sometimes two if the day had been long and my head and body both felt heavy. I’d drink slowly, try and empty my mind, focus on the infomercials and how much better my life could be if I had a Snuggie, or a Shake Weight, or Ginsu Steak Knives—I’d be warm, fit, and able to slice through anything.
It was the best part of my days.
I was halfway through my third beer when I remembered. I walked out of the shed and to the front of the house and unlocked the trunk of my car, grabbed Jenny’s painting.
There were no nails to hang it, so I just leaned the misshapen turtle against the wall with the TV. It looked good there.
3
“AT TWELVE WEEKS, the baby is the size of a plum.”
The clinic doctor told me this with a smile as he squirted gel onto my belly. The gel was a translucent blue, felt slimy and cold. Alien spit, I thought.
“Like what type of plum? And how ripe is it?” I shivered as I watched him spread the gel around. “At the supermarket, plums come in lots of different sizes.”
The doctor standing above me was an old man with hair coming out of his nose and ears. His hands looked older than the rest of him—large and gnarled, veins popping out, deeply lined palms—I wondered when the last time he had sex was, what those hands felt like against bare thighs. His name tag literally read Dr. Oldman and I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t been lying on my back, shirt up, sweaty and alone. I couldn’t stop imagining a plum in my stomach.
“You’re a funny girl,” he said.
I imagined the plum growing arms and legs and trying to communicate with me. I couldn’t or wouldn’t understand. The plum quickly gave up on me and started banging its tiny fists against the inner walls of my stomach, dug its teeth into me, and drew blood. I shivered again.
The night before, Billy had rubbed my shoulders and offered to come with me, but the appointment was at nine. Landscaping crews did their biggest jobs before the sun reached its full power—a few parks, schools, one cemetery—since hard work was a little less hard when sweat wasn’t pouring into your eyes, the back of your neck wasn’t red and burnt, thirstiness was a feeling that started in your throat and spread to your mind. I kissed both of Billy’s eyelids and told him that I would be fine, he shouldn’t skip work, we couldn’t afford that.
The money Billy’s parents left him had been huge in helping us with bills, groceries, a fun trip to the movies here and there, and we both tried not to think about how the total was deflating at a rapid rate. Mom was a checker at Kmart and the job sucked—she’d been working there for ten years and had only just received her first raise, a dollar more per hour—but we were lucky they provided insurance. I held Billy’s large, sweet head between my hands and told him to go to work, I’d be fine, would make sure to bring home the first picture of Billy Jr.