Chapter Seventeen

Her son put his hands on the glass, his eyes pleading with her. She knew Garrett would never leave unless she went in to fish him out. He hated all glass doors. Sliding ones, revolving ones, ones that simply opened at their hinges. How he managed to walk through one without panicking was beyond Marge. He was good with windows though. He loved windows, and she’d often find him tucked in the chair underneath the one in their living room, looking at the sky. But now he was intensely staring at her, waiting to see if she was willing to bury her past for the sake of his future.

“Well, Trav, here goes nothing.” Marge propped her grandson up higher on her hip and cautiously walked to the front of Brightman’s Bakery. She did a quick scan as the sun broke off the windows and saw that the only person inside was Gerry, the woman who always worked first shift at the counter. She had never met Gerry officially, just knew of her through Walt who said she was a cherished family friend. Gerry was now inching her way towards Garrett, not getting too close. Something in her eyes said she understood.

“Okay, Garrett, time to head out,” Marge said, the inside warmth meeting her cheeks.

“Oh, he’s yours? I was just about to offer him a cookie. Would that be okay?” Ignoring the facts that sugar wasn’t Garrett’s friend and she wanted to leave the bakery as quickly as possible, there was something about Gerry’s kindness that made Marge shake her head “yes.”

Gerry brought out a plate-sized sugar cookie. Marge almost pointed out that Garrett would only eat chocolate chip, but he took it into his hands and put it immediately into his mouth.

“There you go. What a nice treat, huh?” Gerry said mildly with that warm smile still on her face. Marge felt exposed. She didn’t know what to say next or where to stand so she kept shuffling a bit, knocking idly into Garrett and the mirrored pillar that took up space in the middle of the room. 

“Why don’t you all come and sit up at the counter?” Gerry asked, noticing Marge’s discomfort, which made Marge even more uncomfortable. She put Travis on her lap, trying to steady the swivel stool with her hips. Travis turned to watch his uncle devour something delicious, and his hands went out to him. Garrett grunted in response.

“Is it okay if he has one too?” Gerry said, realizing the pickle she’d placed Marge in. Marge nodded, and Travis began to gum at his own large cookie. She decided to strike this particular detail off the record when she would later recount their Saturday outing to Whitney. Her daughter had a strong “no sugar” policy.

Gerry went to help the couple who had come in to survey the bread. Marge kept glancing at Garrett’s cookie, hoping it would disappear much quicker than it actually was. He seemed to have been taking a cue from his nephew, gumming it half an inch at a time. 

When the couple left, Gerry returned. “So how are you guys doing?” she asked. She wiped a wet rag around the counter as she spoke, looking into Marge more than Marge would have liked.

“Oh, just great. Thought I’d take these two to the park. We really enjoy our Saturdays, don’t we boys?” Both boys seemed hardly aware she was even still alive as crumbs caked the corners of their mouths.

“Well, what a blessing to have two grandsons.” Marge opened her mouth, but the correction got tangled up in the back of her throat. 

“My kids live in Indianapolis. Don’t get to see the little ones as much as I’d like. But I’m not sure I could ever leave this place. The Brightmans have always been family. And their son, Walt—he’s the owner now—what a peach of a boy. I just keep visualizing life in Indianapolis stuck in a recliner in my son’s basement. Just wouldn’t be the same,” Gerry said, winking at a practically sedated Travis. Marge felt like she had just rubbed her finger against a broken piece of glass. Walt. 

“How is...I mean, so Walt. Walt Brightman. You said he owns this store?” 

“Yes, he does. You know him?” Gerry looked at Marge expectantly, as if everyone who knew Walt was in some kind of special club. She figured Gerry wouldn’t be too far off. 

“No, no. Just curious as to who would own a joint like this. He a nice guy? Family guy?” Marge threw in, concentrating on the neon Brightman’s sign behind Gerry’s head. 

“Walt? Oh no, he’s still an eligible bachelor. I tell him he needs to be on the lookout for a lady. It’s not fun growing old alone. I tell him, if I were ten years younger, he wouldn’t have this problem!” Gerry’s turtleneck and the large pearl earrings at her ears came into Marge’s view right then. She was a pretty woman, in a functional way. Short gray hair, clean, scratch-free glasses. Her nails were rounded and painted a pale pink. Marge waited for Gerry to probe into her own marital status and tried to not take it personally when Gerry did no such thing.

“How surprising. Never had a love interest then?” Marge asked. She wanted to hear about herself, the “before” version who could have made Walt an honest man and her life a less tragic one. No such thing as tragedy, she said in her head, worried she might have said it out loud because Gerry was looking at her funny.

“Well, speak of the devil,” she said as Walt took the empty stool at Marge’s side. In all the scenarios Marge had drafted up in her head about the moment she’d see Walt again, this one wasn’t one of them. First of all, she never had children in tow nor was she wearing a neon pink windbreaker with a broken zipper. But still, Walt looked at her like she was manna, the bread from heaven the Israelites had eaten in the desert. Sustenance.

“What are you doing here, Marge?” Walt asked. She could see he had snuck into the main area of the bakery from the door on one of the sidewalls—his office. He had shown off the place when she first started training with him. He called it his “palace,” a remark that got him a guffaw and a smack on the wrist because it was nearly the size of the small broom closet in Marge’s old trailer. 

“What does it look like?” she asked, the words a wall against the heat in her cheeks. It was all too much. The boys were covered in crumbs, and Gerry kept staring from Walt to Marge, her head swiveling between their tennis match of words. And here was Walt, the man she had left in the dark as she licked her wounds and often wondered where he was now. And now she knew.

“It looks like you’re watching two hungry boys. They have breakfast yet?” Marge’s red cheeks blanched. She hadn’t thought about breakfast after conquering coats and mittens. Whitney’s departure had thrown her off, and all she could think about was leaving the house and burning some daylight so she wouldn’t have to think about her daughter’s strangeness and the divide between them.

“I was just heading out to eat,” Walt said, not waiting for her reply. “Why don’t you three join me? It gets lonely with just the paper and a cup of coffee.” 

Marge would have said no—the prospect of a meal with her autistic son and a toddler not being the most ideal of situations—but she kept getting a glimpse of Gerry’s hopeful face in her peripheral and didn’t have the guts to say it.

“Sounds fantastic,” Marge said.

She waited for Walt to grab his coat and pretended to busy herself with the boys so she could avoid Gerry’s inquisitive glances. 

“You two have fun,” Gerry said with a slight hint of glee, and Marge nodded her reply.

When Walt returned, Marge braced herself for Garrett’s meltdown with the glass double doors, but the combination of Walt whisking it open and the little bell above it tinkling put Garrett in a slight trance. Marge took the opportunity to gently nudge her son forward and out onto the sidewalk.

The relief was bittersweet when she realized she’d have to explain who Garrett was.

“Bakery still looks good,” Marge said, taking the reins of the conversation. She inwardly became slightly maniacal, creating a false reality where she could avoid all talk of the past and only choose bits and pieces she could swallow.

“Not too bad, right? Especially since it’s been what, nine, ten years?” He said it in a way that indicated he knew exactly how many years it had been.

“Sure, something like that.” She held Garrett’s mittened hand and held Travis close as they crossed traffic to the other side of the street and walked down the sidewalk to the diner. It was one Marge had driven by so many times but never had the chance to try. She wondered if things had been different for her and Walt if this would have become their place.

Again, Walt opened the door for them, and again, Garrett walked through unscathed. It gave Marge a nervous sense of hope that breakfast might not be a total fiasco. A woman named Franny scooted them into a booth near the large front window. Marge let Garrett go in first and then cautiously slid Travis in with her, the table’s edge nearly cutting her grandson in half.

“Booster?” Franny asked, going to get the kid’s chair before Marge could tell her one way or the other. When she got back, Franny set it down at the only available space—next to Walt. 

“I can take the little man,” Walt said, his arms outstretched at her. Marge felt inept to make such a decision. But Travis made it for her, outstretching his own arms and whimpering in the confined space. Marge carefully lifted him out, and Walt took him and placed him in the booster seat next to him. After giving Travis a spoon to play with, he turned to Marge. She waited for his questions. Who was the little black boy she was watching? Why did the bigger one not seem to notice anyone else was in the room? Marge was so used to fielding questions, she wasn’t ready for a declaration.

“I’ve missed you Marge,” Walt said. She knew if she looked into his eyes, she’d be a goner, but she looked into them anyways. 

“I...uh...”

“Fried eggs, two strips of bacon and toast, no butter?” Franny said, morphing into existence at the side of their table. Marge wasn’t sure what the answer was to a question like that, but Walt shook his head “yes.” Franny looked at her expectantly as her right hand blindly filled their coffee cups.

“Oh, um. Pancakes? Two plates, and I’ll just have a small plate of bacon.” She knew Walt would pay no matter how hard she protested, but she still didn’t want to rack up a large bill. She had her can money with her, most of it still jangling in her pockets, but she wasn’t even sure if it would be enough to cover their part of the breakfast.

“And she’ll have the waffles, too.” Walt said. Franny nodded her head and took their unopened menus. Travis banged out his enthusiasm with his spoon.

“So, nice place here,” Marge said, pretending to admire the diner’s sticky floors and thick mass of patrons. She was silently counting ceiling tiles when Walt said, “Where did you go Marge?”

She had been praying he wouldn’t ask, but why wouldn’t he? He had every right to know what had happened to his employee, his friend.

“I just...” She looked over at Garrett. He was searching the street with his eyes, watching a bird hop over the cracks of the sidewalk. How to explain the terror one feels on the side of the cliff, each finger slowly pried off the edge. She had free fallen, that’s what she wanted to say. She had fallen into a sea of bad decisions until she finally came up for breath one day for no reason and found herself at the bakery again.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. He had tears in his eyes, and Marge had a deep desire to make fun of him for it. It was too hard watching his pain. It was too hard watching what she had done to him.

“This place got a john?” she asked, midway out of her seat. Her panic was stronger than her desire to worry about Garrett wandering off or Travis calling for her when she left. She walked to the back of the diner—the jingle jangle louder in her ears than it was before—and gratefully found the bathroom vacant. She locked the door, stuck two hands in a cold stream of water and patted her large, round face. She looked at herself, at every year that had left its mark and asked, “Marge, where’d you go?”