Chapter Thirty-Six

The woman was a hussy. And Marge didn’t feel bad saying so. She had finished up with dinner, scrubbing down counters with the wash rag and putting away leftover macaroni casserole—her boys’ favorite—when the phone call came. She moved out into the hallway with the phone cradled to her ear so she could listen to Garrett shower himself in the downstairs bathroom. That was something his occupational therapist had taught him that Marge wasn’t overly skeptical about. It was nice to know her son could tend to something like that without Marge having to drown in the tub with him anymore.

She almost felt bad for calling his therapist a witch doctor when she had first met him.

“Hello?” Marge waited until she received a, “Hi there, this is Denise McGovern with Jennings and Jacobs.” It was a voice that sounded tired but still sweet, apparently relying on its own natural wickedness to get what it had come for.

“What do you want?”

“I’m calling in regard to Travis Barnes.” So not only a hussy, but a tragedy chaser who smelled blood in the water. Low blow, trying to wrench a case from your boss, Marge thought, taking a deep breath and listening to Garrett giggle to himself to steady her nerves.

“And what about this Travis Barnes you’re seeking?” The knife in Marge’s mouth was so sharp, it bit into her tongue.

“Oh, I don’t mean to bother you. It’s just that I think I can help. With Travis.” The hussy breathed in, took a drink of what Marge imagined could only be liquid courage, and began again. “I know your daughter, Whitney.” Garrett howled fiercely to himself, the years sifting through his many sounds until Marge landed on “joy” rather than “pain.” She shuffled back from the bathroom door and rested her back against the door frame of the kitchen.

“How do you know my daughter? Did George tell you about her?” The image was always a speeding bullet to the brain. Marge instantly remembered her small daughter under the table the night Lenny died, the one curled and breathing in her arms, and it was always this version of Whitney Marge painfully imagined imprisoned with all those monsters.

“We used to go to school together. I was there. When it happened.” The hussy didn’t go on, but Marge knew pain when she heard it. She had become well-versed in it, and as much as she hated this woman for bothering her evening routine, the worn-out mother’s heart in her chest limply beat for her too.

“Then what do you want with Travis then?”

“I know George is already representing him, but he asked me to help. I’ve already spoken with Whitney“

“You have? Is she okay?” The words were out, and Marge’s cards were played before she got a chance to glimpse them. She worked on all the possible answers to that question, like considering the edges of a million puzzle pieces.

“She seems well. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Did I say I was worrying?” Marge nearly knifed her tongue through the phone. She imagined the drunken hussy cowering in the corner, the receiver inched away from her ear.

“No, you didn’t. I just...know what it feels like to not be in control when it comes to the people you love. That’s all.” The girl went quiet, and Marge went to speak but the sound caught in her throat. Then there was a strange licking sound in her ear.

“What’s that?”

“My dog.” At that point, the hussy became just another person who was so afraid of Marge, their dog had to calm them down. Walt had gently talked about this for some time, Marge’s “stalwart” demeanor. She knew this was code for “pain in the butt.”

Marge breathed through her nostrils so there was a whistling sound working in tandem with the dog’s thorough licks. Garrett had turned off the water, and she could hear the act of finding his towel and opening the shower door.

“Okay,” Marge said, something beneath skin and bone giving way. But hours later, something about it incited her again as she replayed it out for Walt.

“Who does that woman think she is?” she asked for good measure, hoping Walt could give her a well thought out answer. Her husband was taking off those tube socks she found for him at the buy-in-bulk store. A gigantic half-opened pack of fifty lurked in their closet, waiting to make another debut. She hated how vulnerable this act made him look like he was just another old man on the planet who couldn’t right the wrong to everything.

“Sounds like she’s a lawyer. Do you know if she’s a good one? I imagine George wouldn’t have hired her if he didn’t think so.”

“Probably,” Marge admitted. “She seems to care. She knows Whitney,” she added as nonchalantly as she could.

“Has she talked to her recently? How is she?” Walt asked the questions from such a gentle place; Marge was afraid they’d break as he spoke them.

“Good. She seems good.” Walt nodded grabbing both of his knobby knees and then patted the space next to him. This meant Marge had to remove herself from the comfortable cocoon she had made underneath the covers on her side of the bed and shock the soles of her feet with the coldness of the floor. But she did it despite the surliness she felt doing so and sat next to her husband.

“I love you. No matter what,” he said.

“Why? What’s happening?” Marge braced herself for an answer that involved cancer or an affair.

“Does something have to be happening for me to love you that much?”

“I suppose not,” Marge conceded. Walt was being Walt again. All this talk about his love for her made her uncomfortable. She loved him, too, and said it with a peck on his cheek. But Walt felt it, an immense ocean of feeling Marge often felt she was drowning in. He wanted more from her. He wanted the truth about what she was feeling. But Marge had a hard time even getting to that place, although she wanted to for his sake. And she tried to ignore why she always changed the subject or worried herself with her children. She was afraid.

“I won’t stop, you know.”

“I know.”

“You ever feel tired, Marge? You seem to take the brunt of it without even realizing you can step to the side. I can help you.” There they sat, both vulnerable now, Marge realized, and she was uncomfortable in this realization. She almost considered putting on her socks and shoes to alleviate some of her discomfort. Nothing could take you unaware if you were prepared for it.

“You have helped me,” Marge said. If it weren’t for Walt, well, she didn’t like thinking about it because she would have to think about facing what Whitney did alone. What a horrible reality that would have been. Walt talked all the time about how God had intervened for her sake, and Marge’s wrist had gotten sore from brushing it off. God wanted nothing to do with her, she had said. Just good luck, that’s all.

But she didn’t believe in luck either. To distill the entire world down to random chance seemed irresponsible, and as Walt often pointed out, misguided. The sun came up at the same time every day and the same with its setting. In a world so perfectly timed, how could everything rely on the beat of a bird’s wing or an offhand comment?

There was too much consistency built into the world to suddenly stop relying on it.

“And all the time,” Marge said, letting Walt rub her back with barely a wince.