The yellow industrial paint is lifted away from the concrete walls in spots, and the fluorescent lights make Jen’s eyes glaze over. Rosemary is hunched over, head in hands, staring at her shoes, quiet now. Alby is sitting on the other side of her, and via some unspoken sisterhood law, they take turns rubbing her back, periodically exchanging glances that telegraph the equivalent of “Holy shit!” Janet is over in the corner talking on her cell phone, telling Mark in very hushed tones that she’s staying in town tonight, issuing what must seem to him to be cryptic explanations. The hard edges of what’s happened somehow cannot be vocalized in this dome of petrified comforting. Time stretches and bubbles while they wait for the morgue staff to clean up Rosemary’s little chef.
The awfulness of the night, the event, has filled Jen’s mind and is somehow leaking beyond the outer edges of her comprehension, triggering a numb, other-worldly daze where she feels both useless and guilty. Guilty for all the jokes about the little chef. Guilty for blowing off Rosemary’s concern, voiced earlier in the evening.
Distraught from Rosemary’s latest rebuff, the foxy-faced kid drove his car through the plate glass window of Pete’s house in a suicide mission as deliberate as it was dramatic. His car was a 1989 Mustang convertible he’d rebuilt and hand-painted for rallying. There were no air bags, nor did the seat weld hold in the high impact delivered by 350 horsepower unleashed at the house that contained his antagonist. He left Rosemary a last love letter in his jacket pocket. And if the crash hadn’t killed him – which it did – the overdose of Adderall would have surely arrested his heart. His desire to die was much more methodical than Jen’s own desire to live, she thought.
The sliding doors open with a whoosh and Jen’s morbid thoughts are interrupted. She turns at the sound of footsteps in the hall. It’s Pete and Paul. Pete has his arm in a sling, and Paul has a bandage over the right side of his face. At first, no one says a word. Pete leans against the coffee machine, and Paul walks over to Rosemary. Only after he’s stood there a moment does she look up, and slowly decides to rise. Paul bends down to meet her halfway and hugs her.
“It’s not your fault, Rosemary. I don’t hold this against you,” he says, cradling her head against him.
She doesn’t say a word, though tears are easing down her face.
“Why are you doing this? You’re not his next of kin,” Paul continues, a little too sharply, still in an exaggerated whisper, though everyone can’t help but to hear.
“They’re in Florida. He wanted me to see. He said so in the note they found written on the front of an envelope in his pocket. Said his teacher, alias me, would identify him,” Rosemary says, pulling back and wiping her face on her sleeve.
Jen notes the slight alteration about the contents of the envelope. Yes, it instructed them to notify Rosemary. What was inside was far more damming. Jen gets up and moves across the room to get the box of Kleenex in deference to Rosemary and Paul’s quiet exchange.
Paul tilts Rosemary’s head upward so he can look her firmly in the eye, holding her face as if she’ll look away. “You don’t have to do it! You heard them! The cops said you didn’t have to; they’re going to find his parents in Florida. What a fucking bastard,” Paul says, breaking the eye contact, voice rising, body tensing and pulling back from the embrace.
“Never mind, Paul. He wasn’t a bastard. And I’m going to do it so his mother doesn’t have to. It’s going to be bad enough for her; she’s had a hard time lately. Besides, it’ll be hours before they get home,” Rosemary says in a low, controlled voice.
“Guy drives smack through my front window to hurt you, and me, and he’s not a bastard? And you’re sitting here worried about his mom? How do you even know his mom?” Paul takes another step back from Rosemary, and crosses his arms.
“She calls me for advice about him. I met her at parent-teachers. And I do not plan to discuss this further,” Rosemary says and sits back down beside Alby.
Pete clearly doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he fidgets with the button on the coffee machine in the corner.
“Do you want a coffee?” he asks no one in particular. Paul walks away and joins Pete. He’s mad as hell, and Jen can’t blame the guy. What a night.
“Why don’t you guys go home. There’s no point in waiting here, it’s probably still going to be a while. We just thought it’d be easier than coming back in the morning,” Jen says to them.
Pete gives a bitter laugh. “Always trying to get rid of us, eh Jen?”
“Look, I just don’t see the point,” she glares at him.
Rosemary stands up suddenly, and yells, “Would you just fucking leave? I don’t want you here! It’s bad enough. For the love of God, just GO.”
Paul looks over at her like he wants to yell back, but he just swallows, turns and walks away, giving the coffee machine a shove for good measure. Pete shoots Jen a dirty look over his shoulder and follows Paul down the sterile hall.
Jen watches them recede and feels a pang of pity. From what she could gather at the scene amidst the flashing lights and blood and smoking wreck, Peter and Paul had been sitting on the couch watching a movie when they heard the tires squealing, heard the front maple tree snap. Then the car crashed right through the picture window, sending the couch and the guys flying. Paul had had no idea who it was when he called Rosemary, but when Alby pulled up to the scene with Jen and Rosemary in the car, Rosemary knew immediately it was the little chef in the body bag on the stretcher, and started swearing hysterically. It was his car, though all you could see was Coexist bumper sticker on the tailgate sticking out of the house. Eventually, she had calmed down enough to explain to police how she knew the kid. And that was how Paul heard about it. So his slow retreat down the long hall feels somehow like the heavy, sad drift of someone without a friend in the world, a shuffle away from a place where he has no place. The piece de resistance in an evening fraught with danger and humiliation.
Rosemary isn’t watching him, and interrupts Jen’s reverie.
“Jen, you better call Jace. It’s three a.m. He’ll be worried sick about you,” she says.
“Yeah, maybe I’d better.” Jen says, getting up to find a private corner. Jen doesn’t feel right talking on the phone right beside Rosemary. Janet is kind of pacing around and wanders over to Jen in the corner.
“Is Mark cool with you staying?” Jen asks her.
“Yeah, he’s a little freaked out. I woke him up, so it took a while to explain. Are you going to call Jace?” Janet says, biting her lip in perhaps prescient dread.
“Yeah, I guess I’d better. I don’t want him to worry.”
“Want a coffee? I’m going to get one.”
“Sure. I’ll be over in a sec,” Jen says. She dials the home number, assuming Jace’s cell will be powered down. She’s a little nervous since they left things on bad terms. She’s not sure he’ll believe her. It sounds pretty far-fetched.
Four rings, he usually wakes up easier than this. Five.
“Hello?” A woman answers. A sleepy woman.
“Jace?” Jen say automatically, then realizes how stupid it sounds.
“Mrs. Jones?”
With a mixture of relief and confusion, Jen recognizes the voice: it’s their babysitter, Sherry.
“Sherry, what are you doing there?”
“Mr. Cunningham isn’t home yet. He said he figured you’d be home fairly early.”
“God, I’m sorry, this terrible thing happened. This guy who likes my friend drove through her boyfriend’s front window and killed himself …we’re at the morgue now because she’s got to identify him. . .”
“Oh my God, you’re kidding…”
“No, really. I want to stay with her, it’s going to be a late night, but where the hell’s Jace?”
“He said he had a meeting and that he was going out after.”
“Fuck. Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, I really can’t come home. You’re done school right?”
“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about me, I’ll just call mom and tell her I’m staying over, that way Jace won’t have to drive me home when he gets here. I’ll leave Mr. Cunningham a note for you and go to sleep in the spare room, okay Mrs. Jones?”
“That’d be great. Look, I really appreciate this. Tell Jace I’ll be home for breakfast, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
Jen can’t believe he did this, tonight of all nights. He never stays out this late, at least, not anymore. She’s starting to feel really shaky. Janet comes over with the coffee.
“What’s going on, Jen?”
“I guess Jace decided to go out and get laid tonight or something,” Jen says, shaking her head.
“Oh come on, Jen. He’s probably out crying in his beer at his buddy’s because you hurt his feelings.”
“He doesn’t have any buddies.”
“Come off it, Jen. I’ll bet you any money he’s over at that Kevin guy’s house woman-bashing. Jace is the last person on the planet you have to worry about screwing around on you,” Janet says, putting her arm around Jen.
“Yeah, you’re right. He could be at Kevin’s. I never thought of that.”
Rosemary comes up to where they’re standing. Her face has a pasty look to it, and her eyes are bloodshot but black and harsh. She seems pretty controlled, maybe because the anger is hitting her.
“Look, ladies. I appreciate you being here, but I’ll understand if you want to go home. You have little families to look after…”
“Rosemary, my little family is fine. Jace is out and the babysitter is staying. I’d rather stick around than rage around the house all night about where he is,” Jen says. It’s the truth. Jen knows if she goes home she’ll feel like throwing things.
“I’d like to stay too, if you don’t mind.” Janet says. “I never get out.”
Rosemary laughs.
“Aren’t you glad?” she says to Janet.
“Yes. Hey. I didn’t mean to be a smartass…”
“It’s okay,” Rosemary says, leaning closer to whisper, “It’s better than the solemn-stoic-righteous-approach.” She looks wistfully down the now-empty hallway and excuses herself to head to the washroom.
Alby is still sitting on the opposite side of the room, in a lotus position now. Jen is certain she’s putting a lot of white light around Rosemary. Jen isn’t sure if they should go near her or not.
“She glows, doesn’t she,” Janet says, reading Jen’s mind.
“Yeah, but she always glows when she concentrates. I don’t think it’s just being pregnant,” Jen says.
“You glowed when you were pregnant.”
“Everyone said that. I never had so many men hit on me in my life,” Jen says.
“I know. Can you believe it? Like, hello, see this bulge in my belly, guys? I just might be otherwise committed.” Janet says.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s the attraction.”
Janet laughs. “I’m sure Saint won’t have any trouble getting dates.”
“Dates? What do you mean, Janet?”
Janet bites her lip and rolls her eyes. “Of course you don’t know, because he doesn’t know! She’s pregnant. Nine weeks. That’s part of the reason she decided to kick him out.”
“Why would she do that?” Jen’s stunned, but then she remembers it’s Saint they’re talking about here.
“Hey, you know her better than I. You put it together. It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s insane,” Jen says, but there she goes, lying again, the way she would to people who don’t know Saint. Of course Saint wouldn’t want to share her pregnancy with a man she essentially didn’t respect. That’s all she wanted from him anyway: babies. She said it once, though Jen had assumed that the failure to produce offspring for seven years suggested perhaps they weren’t able to. The fact that Saint just carried on with it until she finally became pregnant just blows Jen away. Poor Gary. She suspects Saint will never tell him if she can avoid it.
Janet and Jen walk over to the bench. Jen sits down and closes her eyes. Saint is pregnant, is all she can think. Her husband is out god-knows-where doing god-knows-what, and all she can picture is Saint finding out she’s pregnant. The shift from “I” to the primordial “We.” These moments are what the bonds of the sisterhood are made of. The stories about delivery, giving hand-me-downs and parenting-related marital advice, commiserating. Welcome to the brood, the fresh, mystifying hell unleashed on the unsuspecting vessels, the bloated bellies, sore backs and a civil war raging in their bowels.
A tired man in a lab coat calls Rosemary in just as she’s coming back to the waiting room. Jen stands up and grabs onto her arm.
‘I want to come too,” Jen says. Rosemary just looks at Jen, a little puzzled, still stern.
“Why, Jen?”
“I don’t know. Please.” is all she can say.
Rosemary looks down, and nods. Jen follows her into the steel womb, full of all those late abortions. Jen feels a sick wave of prickly heat rippling through her. What she suspects a hot flash is like. The man fidgets with the drawer handle and slides out the long tray. Like a file cabinet. The idea is humbling. We’re filed when we’re done. But Jen knows this. It’s in the movies all the time. Somehow it’s different when you’re standing in the middle of death.
He pulls back the sheet and Jen’s ready, holding on hard to Rosemary. Numb enough. Jen stares right at him, cut, bruised and battered but that same long-haired kid with the foxy face and freckles who always came up to Rosemary in public places with love in his glinting hazel eyes. Rosemary nods, and takes a clipboard from the man to sign something. She pulls her arm away from Jen’s hand, which is still clutching her like a lifeline. Jen’s not sure who is supporting who. Feeling foolish, she lets go.
Somebody’s little boy. A pain shudders through her womb, some kind of sympathy pang for the little chef’s mom. God, it’s awful, awful to have happened. How could he have been so stupid, impulsive? In a way, she can see it. That black rage, that what the fuck and put the pedal to the floor. The ringing of shattered glass, crunching bones. She’s felt it; she’s done it, in a way. Did he even brake? Or just aim, hard, decisive about death. Life or the end thereof on his terms, and his terms only. But still, somebody’s little boy, once standing for a first time in a crib. And this is what Jen nearly did to her own mom seven years ago.
Rosemary is pulling Jen out of the room. Jen realizes she’s crying, a little too loud maybe. Fuck. She tries to pull it all back in, before she gets Rosemary started. Maybe she’s too mad. Through the blur Jen sees tears have started down her cheeks, but silent ones. Alby and Janet meet them in the hall and usher them out the door into the street. Nobody protests. Alby gets the car and everybody piles in, eager to put the morgue far from view.
“Want to go out to the beach and sit a while?” Jen asks.
Everyone waits to see what Rosemary says, but she doesn’t say anything at all, so Alby just keeps going along the Lake. Finally, she pulls into a quiet little cul de sac that leads to what was once Saint and Jen’s favorite beach. Single file, they walk down the sandy path to the shore. The sky is starting to get lighter, more an indigo than the dark velvet of night. The moon is full and sends silver shimmers across the water. The waves thrash the shore like a heartbeat inside a huge, universal womb. The warm wind carries a slightly fishy smell, the kind that’s nice, like the sweat of someone you love. Jen digs her toes into the cool sand, and starts tracing circles through the grains with her fingers.
“There’s nothing you could have done, Rosemary,” Jen says. Someone’s got to say something. Or maybe that’s Jen’s problem, she thinks. Not knowing when to be still.
“Is that what you really think, Jen? Miss I’ll-own-it, cause-and-effect-Jones? You’re pretty good at double standards, aren’t you?” Rosemary spits.
“What do you mean?” Jen’s stunned, hurt, has that grade-school feeling of impending social doom.
“Well, you’re always forgiving everyone their little human frailties, but you’re not so generous with yourself. Which boils down to the fact that you don’t think we’re capable or worthy of your true standards. Air’s too thin up there for us.”
‘I can’t believe you’re saying this …”
‘I’m sorry. I’m angry, and maybe I’m taking it out on you. I just can’t stand this bullshit right now. You know fucking well it is my fault. I led the kid on. I was too vain, too flattered to shut it down. I perpetuated it, and now a sweet little guy who was the victim of temporary hormonal insanity is dead, Jen…”
”But you can’t…”
“Shut up. I’m not finished. If you dare tell me that I can’t blame myself, that it won’t bring him back and all that other wizened woman self-help shit, I’ll fucking strangle you.” Rosemary leaps to her feet and brushes the sand off her gauzy skirt.
“Now if you ladies will excuse me, I have to go think about my life a little. Thanks for everything, really.”
“Wait, Rosemary…” Jen gets up to follow her, but she won’t stop, so Jen starts to run. She catches her and Rosemary tries to push her away, but she just hugs her and won’t let go. Rosemary breaks and cries hard, and for what seems like a long time. Jen doesn’t dare say a word. Jen feels a little awkward, and helpless. Finally, Rosemary pulls back a little.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I get contrary about pity, I guess.”
“I can relate. You want to go back and watch the sunrise?”
“Okay.” A hesitant, cynical chuckle. They walk back down the trail to Alby and Janet. They sit and talk about everything and nothing, comfort words drop like starchy foods while the sun rolls over to their side of the earth.