Good Grief: A Novel Read online

  I feel guilty for longing to sleep with anyone other than my husband. The last time Ethan and I made love should be my last time forever. It was right before he went into the hospital for good. I had called the doctor and explained that the Darvon shot wasn’t helping with Ethan’s pain this time. The doctor said to give Ethan another shot and bring him to the hospital, that he was terminal now and we wanted him to be comfortable. He said this slowly and gently, and I remember wanting to hang up on him.

  I gave Ethan another shot and he lay back on the pillows and licked his lips, his eyelids fluttering. I rubbed his feet, then his legs, then his shoulders, and scratched his scalp vigorously. He said all those tingling nerve endings eased the pain. His once lustrous hair was thin now and came away in wispy clumps in my hands.

  Ethan laughed, loopy from the shot, and pulled me close to him. His cleanly shaven face was smooth against my cheek. Even on days when he felt awful, he showered, shaved, and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, the jeans hanging from his waist. That chore sapped all his energy, though, and he usually lay down again. Then I’d bring him some breakfast, which he pretended to enjoy.

  His breath was sweet, like mint toothpaste. He tugged at my T-shirt, trying to pull it off. I swept it over my head and lay beside him in my bra, his skin hot and smooth against my stomach. He pointed at my jeans, and I peeled them off. He pointed at his jeans and then his shirt, and I helped him pull them off, too. Together we lay under the cotton summer sheet, which was as light as breath over our skin. Ethan’s body seemed as thin and brittle as an old man’s, his shoulder blades two sharp wings under the sheet. His breath was weak and rattled faintly in his chest. We lay on our sides and pressed our faces together, and I felt a surge of remaining strength in Ethan’s arms as he wrapped them around me. Heat emanated from his chest, then the two of us were one and I hid my face in the pillow so he wouldn’t see me weep.

  Afterward, I helped him into the tub for a hot soak, which always eased the ache in his hips. I sat beside him on a wooden stool and read his book of Blake poems aloud. He dipped his head back against the edge of the tub and closed his eyes. His lashes were as long and thick and dark as they’d always been, and I remember thinking, There is this one last healthy thing. Looking back, I wish he would have died right then, comfortably.

  Now, I choose a conservative apricot-colored camisole with a bow so tiny that it’s almost invisible, and I begin to dress.

  The warmth of Drew’s raisiny port burns through my chest and into my arms and legs. Suddenly we’re tumbling onto his bed, a feathery down cloud. We don’t have far to go, since we started our late night dinner picnic on the floor in front of the fireplace in his room. Now the reflections of the flames samba across the ceiling, making the whole room seem on fire.

  Drew’s eyes are droopy—window shades drawn halfway. Drew-py.

  He lifts up the down comforter, forming a cave to crawl into, and we nestle between the flannel sheets. He rubs the back of my neck and then my feet—massaging away my date anxiety. After he tugs off my jeans and sweater, I’m down to only my underwear and the peach camisole—a slippery wisp of fabric dividing my bare skin from his. Despite the warm, rubbery port sensation in my body, I dread losing my last protective layer. Would it be possible to keep on my undergarments and conduct our romance through a hole in the sheets, like the Shakers?

  I lie still, not wanting anything to jiggle. Then again, I don’t want to seem like an uptight, afraid-to-get-naked sort of girl. I hold my breath, suck in my stomach, and roll gingerly toward Drew, as though there’s broken glass in the bed between us.

  “Cold?” he whispers.

  “Freezing,” I lie. Maybe this means I’ll get my sweater back.

  But clearly there isn’t going to be any sweater or jeans or underwear or camisole or anxiety. Only fire. On the walls, on the ceiling, between my jelly legs. I remember this: Being touched. Passion. Joy. A cut healing over.

  In the morning I stand in Drew’s bathroom, the plywood subfloor splintery beneath my bare feet, dreamily brushing my teeth with my finger and a gob of Drew’s Crest. Turning my head in the mirror, I check out my crazy, just-had-sex-on-the-beach hairdo, which Drew said he loves. I poke my fingers into the curls, then give up trying to fix them and splash cold water on my face.

  We slept only about four hours, and now my brain, soaked with port and sex and chocolate, feels numb and giddy.

  “You okay in there?” Drew says through the door. He wants to give me a fresh towel and a clean warm sweatshirt with that alluring dryer smell of his. He wants to take me out for blueberry pancakes at his favorite diner on I-5, where you can sink into comfy Naugahyde booths and read the paper all morning.

  But I don’t feel up to breakfast and daylight. I’m dizzy and sleep deprived, my cheeks lacking last night’s luster. Everything went so well on our date, I’m afraid somehow it’ll get wrecked over breakfast. Maybe I’ll find out Drew’s secretly in a cult. Besides, I’m supposed to meet Kit in a few hours to check out commercial rental spaces in town. I thank Drew for the invite but tell him I’ve got to get going.

  At home, while waiting for water to boil for tea, I do not want to make eye contact with the wedding picture on the kitchen counter of Ethan and me. I keep it by the sugar bowl, so that I’ll see it first thing every morning when I’m groping for coffee fixings. It wasn’t that I had sex with another man. It’s that I enjoyed sex with another man. Clothes-strewn-everywhere date sex. Not carefully-timed-trying-to-have-a-baby sex. And last night, before heading off to Drew’s, I took off the gold chain with my wedding ring. I laid the ring and chain in my jewelry box, beside the little note from Ethan saying that he’d just gone to Home Depot. The giddy delirium from my late night gives way to a leaden feeling in my chest. I’m sorry, I want to tell Ethan.

  I shower, dress, and sit on the front porch waiting for Kit, staring at my feet in my sandals. Feet look strange if you stare at them long enough. Like flat, rectangular hands with tiny fingers.

  Anything begins to look strange if you stare at it long enough. A hole in the plank on the porch looks like a gaping little mouth. Oh, it says. Uh-oh.

  A word begins to sound odd if you turn it over in your mind enough times, like a stone from a river that’s black, then blue, and then gray as it dries. Boyfriend. Boy. Friend. Boyfriendboyfriend. Do I have a boyfriend? A woodpecker hammers greedily at a tree beside the garage, the relentless rapping echoing through the yard. I cover my ears with my palms, which makes a new strange word beat louder in my head: Lover, lover, lover.

  22

  The old wooden door of what used to be the Fudge Shoppe on East Main is swollen shut, and Kit has to heave his weight into it. Finally it gives and he tumbles into the store, the bell on the door clanging cheerfully.

  “Here we are.” His voice echoes into the empty shop. There are two rooms: a sales area up front and a kitchen in the back, beyond a row of glass bakery cases.

  This is the first of a number of commercial rental spaces Kit wants to show me, but I don’t think I need to see the others. A few blocks from the theaters, this location is perfect. I picture tourists from San Francisco and Portland pouring down the street in the summer, the smell of baking pies luring them in.

  The store has been closed for almost two months, since the Fudge Shoppe owners retired, and the air inside is warm and stale. A fly buzzes lazily against the glass in one of the dingy bakery cases. I notice that the racks are rusted. Still, I imagine the shelves sparkling and filled with cheesecakes.

  I’d like to get Drew’s opinion of the shop, but that might make me seem needy. Hot waves of date memory wash over me: port and flannel and skin against skin, slick with perspiration. The mattress moaning under our weight, the comforter tumbling off the bed.

  “What do you think?” Kit asks.

  Blushing, I shudder and turn to survey the shop. A long oak counter with bun feet runs perpendicular to the glass cases. The rest of the room is empty except for a wooden bench sc
abby with peeling paint. I picture a table by each window, where people can look out onto the street. “Perfect,” I tell Kit.

  “It’s a bit grungy,” he admits. “But nothing a little elbow grease can’t fix.”

  I follow him into the kitchen, where a row of black ovens towers to the ceiling. I plan to use money from the sale of my house and stock from Ethan’s company to start the bakery. I’ll also need a bank loan.

  “You may need some fireproofing work,” Kit says, peering into one of the ovens. “But I’m sure it’s nothing major. And look at this ceiling!” As we tip back our heads to admire the embossed tin ceiling overhead, I’m dizzy from my late night.

  Maybe Kit’s unflinching optimism is what lured me into getting a crush on him before. He made starting over seem easy, even fun. But thankfully I’m not fantasizing about going to the Ramada Inn with my realtor now that I have a . . . lover? Pending significant other? Drew needs a job title.

  “I’ll bet there’s a great wood floor underneath here,” Kit says, tapping his foot on the old black linoleum, which is flecked with gold sparkles.

  We sit at a rickety table in the kitchen and go over the lease. It’s for two years, with a five-year renewal and an option to sublet, which Kit says is optimal. That way, if things go well, I won’t have to move anytime soon. “Then you’ve locked in five more years at a good rate,” he explains.

  The words locked in send a pain through my head. “Five years?”

  “With the option to sublet, you have a backup plan in case you change your mind.”

  “Or the place flops!” I picture tourists sucking in their stomachs and hustling past the bakery toward the chain coffee shop down the street for a nonfat latte. Who needs all those sweets before a long play? Who wants to add to the calorie count after that heavy French onion soup and buttery escargots at Le Petit Bistro?

  Kit smiles and squeezes my hand. “Sophie, you worry too much.”

  “Let’s see what the bank thinks,” I tell him.

  Ruth helps me put the finishing touches on my business plan, which I take to the bank in town to apply for a loan. The loan officer, a thin woman with a pinched nose, is as brisk and humorless as a school nurse. The more she frowns at my loan application, the more I jabber on nervously about the savory cheesecakes. (“They sound strange, but really they make a wonderful hors d’oeuvre or first course.”) Finally she says, “Everything looks satisfactory, Ms. Stanton. We’ll be in touch. Good day.” I sit in the chair beside her desk for a moment, trying to think of a compelling detail to add.

  “Toppings will be sold separately for the sweet cheesecakes,” I explain. “Cranberry at Thanksgiving.”

  She smiles stiffly. “I guess that’s good. I’m diabetic.”

  After the bank, I stay up several nights poring over cookbooks and choosing recipes.

  One or two nights a week I sleep at Drew’s house, and a couple of nights a week he stays at my place. He leaves his deodorant, razor, and toothbrush in my bathroom. Meanwhile, I carry a toothbrush in my purse, not quite ready for bathroom cohabitation. Still, I’m grateful when Drew dotes over me with the concern a spouse would harbor. He doesn’t think I should walk home alone from work every night.

  “Can cars see you?” he asks. “In the dark?”

  “I’m on the sidewalk.”

  “Well, there aren’t very many streetlights. You should have air bags.”

  “I’m walking!”

  “I know.” He giggles. “Personal air bags. In your coat.”

  One morning a social worker from Big Brothers/ Big Sisters calls. At first the graveness in her voice makes me worry that I’ve done something wrong. Did she find out about the time I let Crystal drive my car? It was in an empty parking lot. We wore our seat belts and only circled around a few times. Crystal was very good at shifting gears.

  But the social worker’s calling to tell me that Crystal’s been expelled from school for blowing up M-80s in the girls’ room. She explains that the whole student body had to evacuate and gather on the front lawn for over an hour. The band missed its recital. I clench my teeth angrily as I listen, sickened by Crystal’s selfishness. The woman says that Crystal got the M-80s from her friend Melvin; she coerced him into stealing them from his older brother. Melvin has been suspended for two weeks, and his parents won’t allow Crystal to see him anymore.

  No more sleepovers with Pop-Tarts and Pringles, I think. Well, it’s Crystal’s own fault. Trying to blow up the school! Everything had been going so well for her lately. She was passing pre-algebra, and her science project on mica was chosen to be exhibited in the state science fair. I just took her to get a cute haircut. But it’s as though Crystal doesn’t want to allow herself to do better, as though she doesn’t know how to be anything other than in trouble.

  “Crystal hates gym class,” I explain to the social worker. “The other girls are very mean to her.” I know this is a weak defense, but I’m not sure anyone realizes how hard school is for her.

  Crystal said that one day Amber asked if the two bony knobs on top of Crystal’s shoulders were Crystal’s breasts. “No, but they’re larger than your brain,” Crystal reputedly told Amber. I felt proud of her for at least having a comeback. But now I’d like to shake Crystal and yell at her.

  “Since she’s been expelled, she may want to spend all of her time with you,” the social worker warns. “So be firm about your boundaries and don’t feel bad about limiting her visits to once a week.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just remember, you’re not her only resource. You’re making a positive impact just by spending time with her. It’s not your job to save her.”

  “I like spending time with her.” That is, when she’s not trying to burn down my house. Or steal lipstick at the drugstore. Or hang from the windmill at the mini-golf course until the motor whines and the manager yells at us.

  “Crystal really seems to connect with you. I think it’s because you’re empathetic. Often, family and friends are disdainful of cutters. That just lowers the child’s self-esteem, and the cutting gets worse.”

  I tell the social worker that I’ve seen my share of gore, that my husband died of cancer.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” I want to tell her that I think I’m feeling better now. Finally. And I’ve actually met someone else. Slept with someone else. Is this okay? But we’re not talking about me.

  I can’t imagine what Crystal’s going to do home alone all day in her pink house other than chain-smoke, burn things, and start cutting her arms again.

  “What if I put Crystal to work?” I ask the social worker.

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m starting a business, a bakery.” This is the first person I’ve told about the bakery other than Dad, Ruth, Drew, Kit, and the loan officer. I feel a rush of excitement as I describe this new stage in my life. My loan hasn’t gone through yet, and I haven’t signed the lease or received a business license from City Hall. But I’ve got what seems like the most difficult component: the confidence that I can do this. Maybe I’m crazy. But I’d rather be crazy with optimism than crazy with pessimism—crazy in my pajamas and unable to leave the house.

  “That sounds good,” the social worker says tentatively. “A job can help build a child’s self-esteem.”

  As I head up the front walk to Crystal’s house the next morning after class, I try to prepare a tough-love speech in my head. All that comes to mind is: What were you thinking? The metal storm door bangs open and shut in the wind, and the wind chimes clatter an eerie dissonant tune. Several stubbed-out cigarette butts line the porch steps. I’m surprised to find that the door is unlocked. I push it open and enter the hallway, which is dark and cold. Something crunches under my feet. I look down to see a broken Coke bottle, shards of glass strewn across the wood floor.

  “Crystal?” Nothing. Sleeping in, probably. Hopefully. Like a normal teenager.

  I crouch to sweep up the glass, using mail from the table
by the door as broom and dustpan.

  Maybe I should have agreed to let Crystal sleep over last night when she called and pleaded. It was around midnight, when Drew and I were just settling into bed. She said that her mother and a new boyfriend had gone up to Crater Lake and she didn’t want to spend the night by herself. I paused, considering, worrying about Crystal being alone, then remembered what the counselor at Big Sisters had warned against. I told Crystal no to a sleepover but promised we’d get together today.

  “How come?” Crystal had asked, sucking noisily on a cigarette. “Is actor boy there?” Drew’s bare leg was hot and bristly against mine. I shuddered at the thought of him and Crystal sleeping over on the same night. But what difference would it have made, really?

  This is the first time I’ve been all the way inside Crystal’s house. Aside from the broken glass, it’s remarkably tidy. Crystal’s mother’s favorite colors are obviously red and pink. The pink curtains are splashed with red hibiscus flowers, and the couch is lined with matching red chenille pillows. Two logs are stacked neatly in the fireplace, and the mantel is crowded with photos of her mother posing with various friends and boyfriends. There’s only one picture of Crystal—a school portrait in which she’s wearing a little too much blue eye shadow and smiling a little too fiercely at the camera, as if to say Look at me, I don’t hate junior high.

  The kitchen has a sharp acrid smell, like burned hair and rotten eggs.

  “Crystal?” I call out, panicking. “Crystal?”

  Nothing. There’s a pot of congealed bright orange macaroni and cheese on the stove. I run water into the pan, then open the window over the sink to let in some air.

  I head down the hall, looking for her room. “Crystal?”

  Last night I told her I’d take her out to lunch today for veggie burgers. “Whatever,” she said listlessly. I could tell something wasn’t right. Still, I hung up and went back to Drew.