Chapter Ten

She saw Franklin sometimes but mostly in passing. There might be glimpses of him in the cafeteria where he sat with his brother, Edwin, who was a younger, boisterous version. Edwin was always smiling whereas Franklin always seemed concerned. 

Whitney was scared of Franklin. She saw traces of him in Travis—in her son’s almond-shaped eyes and his hairline that cut a no-nonsense line straight across his forehead. This did nothing to ease her fears towards Jamal’s father who always seemed to be watching her. The hard part was the little spark of love she had for him. He was a good man; anyone could see it. If someone dropped their glove waiting in the lunch line, he would pick it up. When they all filtered out the front double doors at quitting time like blood cells in a tight vein, it was always Franklin holding the door for everyone. He reminded Whitney of a different time, maybe one that had never even existed.

So, it was terrible knowing what he must think of her. They still weren’t married, though through no fault of her own. Jamal kept talking about getting his degree first. It would be easier to concentrate that way. 

“How so?” she had asked him that summer when she was still pregnant, and it felt like time had stopped. They sat in bed together. They looked at Mad magazine and laughed at the Seavers on the tiny television set on Jamal’s dresser. How would a wedding make things any different?    

“School just takes up the space in my head. It’ll be better sooner than you think.” Sooner than she thought would be nearly three more years. Three years of him sitting next to her and then touching his empty space just to know what gone felt like. Their son was swimming there inside her, but she didn’t dare ask if there was any room for him in Jamal’s cluttered brain. She didn’t want to have to hear him lie.

It was break time, and Franklin was sitting at a table alone. His head was lost in a cloud of smoke—a woman with thick red lips named Claire was puffing on a Virginia Slim at the table next to him. It was a nice day—a little warmer than usual—so the room was nearly empty, the other Timex workers taking their requisite fifteen minutes of personal time with the sun and sky. He practiced not noticing her, a book laid out before him. As she drew closer, she saw that it was the Bible. It made her stop for a second. It felt like a wall between them. She wasn’t superstitious, but she almost believed that book knew all her secrets and held every single one against her.

“Hello,” Franklin said, surprising Whitney. She figured he would have kept his head buried in all the words she didn’t understand until she got the hint and moved away.

“Hi, Franklin.” He nodded at the orange plastic chair next to him. Whitney remembered a story her class had read in fifth grade once. There was a man on a mountain with all the answers, and each person who attempted to find him got lost, or blown off the side of the mountain, or decided the journey was way too great of a risk to even set foot in the first place. But there was one person, a small girl, who finally got to meet the man with all the answers.

“Why doesn’t your son love me?” It came out in a choked gasp, and Whitney wasn’t sure words had even moved through her mouth. But Franklin’s eyes were on her, trained to understand. 

“He doesn’t do love well. It has nothing to do with you personally. But it has everything to do with him.” Franklin’s hand looked as if it wanted to rest on her shoulder, but it retreated to his Bible. “You lost someone?”

Whitney cupped her eyes with her two small hands and rubbed the tears away. “What do you mean?”

“Someone you love. They die?”

“My father,” Whitney said, although she had a hard time defining if what she had felt was love. It felt more like not having anymore and not being able to shake the feeling. Lenny Marksmen wasn’t a bad man. He was just a man, and Whitney had always known that. Maybe that was part of the problem.

“I lost my wife, Jamal’s mother.” Whitney nodded. “She was like Jamal. So talented—artistic. So ready to take on the world. The only problem is that she had claimed a slice of it for herself with me, but that slice just didn’t satisfy her anymore. She loved me. She loved her son. But she didn’t know how to love well either. She spent most of our marriage seeing other men. I still don’t think Jamal knows that, and I pray to God he never finds out.”

His eyes were alarmed at what his mouth had said, but he kept going. “How terrible enough is it that she couldn’t keep a promise to me? But what about her son? Why couldn’t he be enough?” Franklin wasn’t looking at Whitney anymore. He tried to find the answer at the kitchenette against the wall, its sticky counters and half-full coffee pots. Whitney imagined the pair they made in their twin outfits—blue lab coats and grim faces. The intercom dinged. Break was over. She felt uncomfortable under the weight of the thoughts he couldn’t keep inside.

Whitney looked down at her empty hands. She’d forgotten to get a snack, a cup of coffee. But they were still filled with the question she didn’t want Franklin to answer.

“He’s cheating on me, isn’t he?” she asked. For a second, it looked like the dinging intercom had won his attention. He had closed his Bible, grabbed his empty cup, and his eyes found hers again.

“Not in the way you might think.”

––––––––

In the Timex bathroom, she went numb. Franklin had confirmed a fear that had nothing to do with Denise McGovern.

Jamal was gay.

Whitney leaned against the stall, trying to find the irony in how she always seemed to be processing life-changing news in public restrooms. She needed to know more. Who was this miserable human being who had ruined her life? But as soon as her mind strung those words together, her tongue couldn’t speak. A picture of her own face popped into her head.

Without warning the back of it met the steel wall, and she pummeled her skull over and over, hoping to forget her own name. But even that was a luxury. She had to get back to work.

Whitney went to her designated space, avoiding her supervisor, Lenora, as she walked in a daze, a few minutes late. Her row oversaw putting the tiny digital chip inside the Ironman watch. Her eyes in the microscope, the ball of her toe planted to keep her chair from rolling away, she plucked the chip from its plastic container and watched it hover like a bird mid-flight. She wanted to vomit or maybe rip everything off the formica desk she shared with the other female technicians. She wanted to go find Franklin and yell in his face. Why did you tell me? she screamed in her head as she delicately lay down the tiny brain that made the watch go. 

Because now she had the bullet. She just needed the courage to pull the trigger.