​​Chapter Six

Lying breast and belly against the porch, Natalie freezes time, and I let her. Her daughter is still screaming, and her husband dangles from a tree. But in Natalie’s mind, it’s five years ago, and she’s living it with a hunger in her heart.

At the time, she didn’t even want to live it at all.

#

MACK IS HUNG OVER AND smells like death. She’s spent the night hearing his sins and the sins that have been trespassed against him. Natalie sniffs her skin and smells the Jager and his sweat, but what’s worse is the way her insides feel but mostly her mind. Its door is open and all has been plundered.

Natalie spills inside out as she finds his bathroom and closes the door. She takes a shower, dries off with a damp towel and puts her bar clothes on again. Her heart is still broken from her ex who left her two years ago for his dental hygienist. He went to Texas A&M-Texarkana. Business major. His family had more money than they knew what to do with but decidedly never spent any of it on his manners. He didn’t even blink when he left her. Todd Hiney. Natalie Hiney. Maybe he did her a favor, she thinks.

So Mack was supposed to be a one night fling. A band-aid on a stitch-worthy flesh wound. She’s never done something like this before and was almost relieved when Mack became stumble-drunk in an instant and started to relive his nightmare with her in his bed. She doesn’t want sex. She wants fulfillment. So she figures she’ll marry Mack. Better a broken man than self-possessed one.

She makes sure to put a glass of water on the nightstand and a bottle of Advil. She has her shoes in her hand and her purse clamped under her armpit, but as she turns, Mack grabs her hand. Her body moves quietly enough but her soul stirs him awake.

“Leaving.” Mack declares it because the question would hurt his head too much.

“For now,” she says, blessing his temple with a kiss because Natalie’s one of the good ones.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

#

SHE MEETS HIS MOTHER and Glenn Augustus and nothing goes according to plan. They eat at Red Lobster and Natalie orders a hamburger off the kids menu since she’s allergic to shellfish. Glenn Augustus looks appalled, and Mack smoothes over the situation by blurting out that he and Natalie are getting married even though he hasn’t even asked her yet. She’s not angry he does it like this. She’s too wrapped up in the surprise and thrill of it and ignores the sharp edge of loving a man you know everything about and nothing at all.

#

SHE ITCHES AND SWEATS in the Texarkana sun. Natalie wears the same dress Rochelle wore two years ago at her and Glenn’s small wedding ceremony in Glenn’s backyard. At that affair, Mack had gotten noticeably drunk and was ushered out by a very forlorn looking Dennis.  

“Get off me!” Mack had growled and set off to walk home even though Dennis was opening the front door of Rochelle’s barely mobile Le Sabre.

“You think it’ll last?” Dennis asked, looking up at Glenn’s enormous house. The fear was already playing chess with his head and heart, but Mack was too drunk to notice and too invested to care.

“What ever does?” Mack laughed at his own joke and that’s the sound Dennis would replay for the longest time.

Mack’s mother gave Natalie the dress like she was giving away her own life. Natalie could see the “I’m sorry” in Rochelle’s eyes as easily as the tight stitching in the polyester/cotton blend. It makes her look like an office secretary but Mack thinks he sees an angel walking down the aisle runner. He’s flanked by his boss, Jaime, and work friend, Leon. Dennis shifts around somewhere near the back of the standing crowd, and Natalie tries not to look at one of her husband’s demons. At Natalie’s side of the gazebo stands her sister, Rebecca, and cousin, Polly–two women who think this whole ordeal is a big mistake. The looks on their faces keep Natalie propelling forward down the makeshift aisle at Bringle Lake Park. The air smells like water and the future is intangible. But Natalie has created something like two rocks in her stomach. Something that sparks hope when she rubs them together.

Things will get better. They must.

#

A YEAR IN CAN BE MEASURED in empty cans of beer and bottles of whiskey hidden around the house. Except that they’re not hidden because Natalie is great at finding things, and Mack wouldn’t know how to hide his own displeasure. She lets it slide at first, her sister and cousin’s faces giving her a strange sense of determination. But after the second time he sleeps in and forgets to go to work, she says, “No more.” They need to save up for a house. They need to have a baby. They need to get out of the apartment. Because those are the things that will change their lives for the better.

Natalie plays with the rocks and watches the light flicker.

She works, too. Natalie isn’t lazy and has been working what feels like all her life. She didn’t have the luxury of college, Rebecca still a teen and at home while their father broke his back at the lumber company. Their mother had died giving birth to Rebecca, and Natalie still tries not to blame her for it.

She did odd jobs growing up until she landed one that isn’t so odd. She works at a call center where she’s trained to coerce people to pay on their defaulted student loans. Everyone hates it there except Natalie. Natalie works the first shift so she’s home by four and tells Mack all kinds of stories about the people she talks with.

“One guy had a cancer relapse at the beginning of the call, but once I told him about our payment plan, he was magically cured.” Mack smirks and drinks iceless water from his whiskey glass. She knows he’s still drinking because the countdown has begun. He’ll be heading to the bar soon, and he never asks her to join him.

She could tell him to stay or she could even go with him. But she’s not sure which one would be worse.

So she lets him go and hugs him, breathing in his showered scent. It’s kind of like watching a part of yourself walk right out the door.

# 

NATALIE IS PROMOTED because she’s a hard worker and makes it a habit to know everything about everything. Her manager is named Val, and she’s beautiful and blonde but always walks around with a slight hangover; her hand seems permanently glued to her temple. Natalie tries not to think about where she was the night before, if she was at the bar and knows what Mack’s been up to.

Natalie keeps rubbing those rocks and concentrates on the fact that she makes more money now. They can finally afford a house.

They move in over the weekend with Jaime’s help. Rochelle offers to stop by with Glenn, but when she shows up she’s Glenn-less and doesn’t say a word about it. She helps Natalie sweep the floors and dust and start unpacking the boxes stacked up in the living room. It’s a cute house: two bedrooms, wooden floors. It’s secluded and stands guard off a gravel road.

Mack’s outside with Jaime, saying their goodbyes. Rochelle looks at her, and it’s a deep look that makes Natalie blink.

“I didn’t do so great.” She starts but then stops.

“What? When?” Natalie says, but she knows what Rochelle is saying.

“With Mack.” Her eyes are rimmed with water, and I place my hand on her shoulder. “I wanted the wrong things because I thought they were the right ones.” She sighs and lets the water wash her face. “All I’m asking...” She rubs at her cheek.

“It’s okay,” Natalie says even though she knows none of this is.

“All I’m asking is that you don’t try to fix him. Don’t put that on yourself. Only Jesus can do that.” She pats at her cheeks to try and erase the evidence. Natalie nods but doesn’t believe her. Natalie, she has a good heart. But she’s convinced she’s birthed that heart herself.

That night she takes a pregnancy test, and she knows there’s a baby where the rocks should be. She imagines tiny toes fluttering inside her abdomen although it’s way too early for that. She goes to tell Mack but waits for a moment in the bathroom. She relishes this one blink of time when it’s just her and her daughter.

#

HER STOMACH IS GROWING swollen, but that doesn’t stop Val from asking her to the bar when she sees her in the break room. “It will be fun. For old times’ sake.” Val’s talking about the one other time Natalie went with her, the night she met Mack. It’s not as strange of an ask this time since Natalie is Val’s team lead now and an official member of management. She places her hand on her belly, but Val doesn’t seem to notice and frankly, doesn’t care. Natalie figures the woman would drink with a wooden door if it came to it.

Mack doesn’t protest. He’s going to a poker game with Leon, and he’s almost relieved that she won’t be sitting on the couch while he’s out with the boys. It’s like Natalie sits on a ridge in his brain when he’s out drinking even though she’s convinced he doesn’t think of her at all.

“Tonic, please,” and the bartender brings her a sweaty glass of carbonated water while Val kicks back another Sex on the Beach. This is her second, and she’s already had a shot of something that smelled like grapefruit.

“I love this. I love being young.” Val smiles at herself, and Natalie tries not to notice her crow’s feet. She’s certain Val is at least thirty, and the most she knows about the woman is that she lives alone with two cats. And it’s a shame, Natalie thinks, because someone who still has a little fire in her eyes should be with someone who loves her, should be married and making herself a home.

There’s a loud commotion at the front of the bar. Mack comes in with a pack of noise and testosterone and Val perks up a bit. “The meat market’s open for business,” Val says and catches her balance when she hops off her stool. Natalie tries not to go too deep inside herself to lick the bitter taste of irony.

#

WREN IS A WRINKLY PINK baby, and if Natalie had any friends, she’d brag about how she has to be smarter than all the other babies. Her eyes are always open and taking everything in from the lamb mobile shifting above her head to the feel of Mack’s rough work shirt. She feels a closeness to her daughter that almost presents itself like an escape hatch. She finds herself thinking and talking about Wren like she made her with her own two hands and a thread of misunderstanding is sewn into the back of Natalie’s mind.

Wren is not hers. Wren is mine.

“What if I’m a horrible father?” Mack says.

“Well, she’s already here, and you’ve proven you’re not.” Nine months in and Rochelle is watching Wren for what she packages as “a much needed night off” for the new parents. But there is no night off for Natalie who feels her daughter in every labored movement. She pours hot water into a tea cup and sees her baby’s face. The tea steeps and the timer goes off, and she can hear her cry in her ears. Mack is unaware of this tedious kind of existence, and Natalie tries not to feel superior in her head.

“What if I hurt her?” he whispers. She comes and sits next to him and puts the chamomile down on the coffee table. Mack puts his head on Natalie’s shoulder, and she takes his shaky hand. She turns over the black-inked heart, palm facing up, and rubs the light white scar on his wrist like rubbing away his past. She doesn’t know how a mother doesn’t notice, and her hate burns hot for Rochelle. Rochelle who’s watching her baby.

“Maybe we should go get her,” Natalie goes to move off the couch, but Mack turns his head and kisses her. He kisses her so deeply that she can almost ignore the whiskey taste on his breath. She lets herself go for a minute and pretends the wall she’s built between them is merely a pebble. But then the small clock on the side table ticks, and she thinks of Wren’s beating heart.

#

REBECCA HAS A BABY which changes things. They go from never talking anymore to talking all the time. They peck at their children like mother hens and visit their father’s home that smells like cooking oil and tortillas even though his freezer is packed with microwavable meals. They play family again, and for an instant, Natalie pretends she’s happy.

“I never thought it would happen. Five years trying and then out comes this one.” Rebecca puts her face close to Antonio’s whose hair is black and whispy and pokes out of his blue blanket. Natalie smiles at her. She takes some ownership of the woman Rebecca has become, frankly more than half, because it was her who put on Rebecca’s shoes and made her lunches for the longest time. There’s a soft stab when Natalie remembers the feel of her mother holding her in her arms.

“Well, that’s amazing. He’s a beautiful boy.” Rebecca nods. It’s late summer, the time before fall pretends to have any existence in this part of the country. They’re sitting on their father’s back stoop while their respective husbands grill out in the yard.

“You think Daddy’s going to be okay?” Rebecca asks into the top of Antonio’s head.

“Oh, yeah. The man’s a beast. Nothing can stop him.” Another soft stab when she remembers the way he cried all the way home from the hospital, baby Rebecca strapped in the back, motherless Natalie strapped in the front.

“Heart issues though. No good.” Natalie nods and looks at the patio table they’ve already set. Guacamole and frijoles and the tortillas she fried earlier in the kitchen. The air smells like carne asada, and she feels like she’s writing over her past with a red pen.

“Look at them. Look at our two manly men,” Rebecca says, and Natalie looks at the two gringos they snagged, one at a bar, one at a church. “What good guys.”

Natalie feels a pang of jealousy when she nods at the half-truth.

#

WHEN WREN IS THREE, there’s an incident. She finds a quart of whiskey barely buried in Mack’s toolbox and carries it around with her like a baby doll. By the time Wren hits the side of the house where Natalie is raking leaves, she’s played with the cap, and it comes off in her hand. Natalie smells the whiskey even before she sees her daughter. She turns, and there’s a stain on Wren’s shirt. She smacks away the bottle and grabs her, ignoring her gasp-like yelps. She sticks her fingers in her daughter’s mouth, smells at her breath. Wren writhes silently, her face hot with anger.

“It’s okay, baby. Let Mommy see.” Natalie’s voice is too panicky, and she watches Wren twist out of her arms and sit on the grass. She drinks in that moment like some of the other ones that bite at her skin. Her daughter’s back, bent over and tired and smelling of booze. She breathes in the tainted air and chucks the bottle hard against the house. She only notices Mack staring at her when Wren starts to cry.

#

I GIVE HER ONE MORE moment because the last one is the tumor that’s never stopped growing. There’s an evening when Wren is over at Rebecca’s, and Natalie is sitting on the floor in their living room. The wood is hard on her hips, but she hasn’t been able to stop. It’s the box in her lap, this box that holds so many different parts of a past she’s only briefly been invited to. It’s the box Mack keeps that they’ve never talked about. He’s in bed–still hungover from the night before–and in some sick way, she thinks he owes her. So she starts to look through it like she’s staking some sort of claim, but the feeling wears off when she holds Mack and Dennis in her hands. It’s a picture of them standing in the street in front of Dennis’s duplex, Mack’s old home. They’re two feet apart, Dennis’s hands clasped against the front of him, Mack’s to the side like they don’t know where to go. She cries so hard, she kisses the floor and dust is washed with tears.

“What are you doing?” Mack’s aglow in lamplight. He looks like he’s let a series of trucks take a run at him.

“Um, I’m not-”

“Why are you looking at that?” His voice is gentle. In fact, there’s almost a note of relief. Natalie knows his past. But now she gets to see it. 

“I’m sorry. I just...I just want to know why.” She starts crying again and digs her palms into her eyes. She feels his arms around her, and she feels comforted but also just as lost. She can’t fix him. Only Jesus can, she hears in her head. She’s so angry at that because she can barely understand what it means. She puts her arms around his waist and sticks her face into his neck.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she says, and he holds her tighter.

#

I PLACE MY HAND ON her back. She senses it’s time. Time to get up. Time to face the music singing in the leaves. Time to hold her daughter and call 911. But she lingers for one more moment because it’s hard to leave a past you never wanted in the first place.