​SIXTEEN

Elena

“What about the TV?” Her voice is like the one always zigging and zagging its waves through my chest, but I hardly hear her. I’m thinking about the baby appointment we have scheduled later today. And I'm also thinking “heartbeat” because there Ronnie is in the corner with her bug-eyed child, pecking in a circle with the other mothers who keep sneaking peeks at me.

“Mommy?” I look at Sela, and her face is still saying “TV,” and I tell her it's fine. It's still in storage, and no, we still don't need to tell Daddy. She thinks everything is good, that Mitch and I have made up, which we have to some degree. I don't like thinking about last weekend, where he was, who he was with. So, I hold on to that tiny speck of power I have left: the TV. My one thing. But Sela wants me to come clean about it because that's what people do when they make up. When they're in love.

“Do I look okay?” she says, and I nod because it's time to herd her with the rest of her class near the stage. Tater tots. It smells like tater tots and juice dried on the concrete floor. And it's ten in the morning, so they haven't even fired up the stoves yet, which means this smell has just been doubling over on itself week by week, and everyone has these slick, lipsticked smiles, like the fact that old tater tot oil seeping through their beautiful clothes doesn't faze them for a minute. I guide Sela by her white-coated shoulders, a pharmacist's coat that Pam sewed, and Sela drowns in. It's career day, and St. Bonaventure Elementary had this fantastic idea of hosting it during school, so I can't even stand next to my husband, shield myself behind his shoulder so I don't have to look at Ronnie while listening to Principal Geyser mispronounce “cardiothoracic” because someone's little offspring wants to be a surgeon.

The tater tots. They go to my head when I look at Sela and how she's unfortunately standing next to Trudy. But on the plus side, I'm sandwiched between Marlene—Bud's mother who smells like fermented apples—and Allie's father because he got laid off from Tyson and everyone tries to pretend something like that is not the end of the world.

But then there's the other smell. Bleach.

I did it this morning when Sela was asleep, and when Mitch woke up, I had sprayed half a bottle of body splash, but he still knew. He kissed my cheek, and the “I love you” seeped through my skin with his saliva. The word “but” was there, but I didn't say it. You love me, but you cheated on me. You love me, but you left last weekend. You love me, but, but, but...

It will be okay. We'll go to a meeting.

He thinks it's about the alcohol.

“My name is Sela Reynolds, and I want to be a pharmacist.” I wait for the silly grin like the ones delivered by the five kids who went before her, but her lips knead into one another, and her eyes are only good for searching. I still don't get one when she finds me, just a nod. Just a face that says, “thank you for not leaving.”

It's Trudy's turn, a mini-marine biologist. Stupid. We don't live anywhere near the ocean, and I'm sure that kid's first reaction to seeing water would be drowning.

I feel Ronnie, and that feeling turns up my heart. Sela's okay. She's okay and doesn't need me. I think “water” and then quicker than my feet can shuffle, I'm in the girl's bathroom, the faucet in the tiny white sink turned up so hot I have to muffle my yelp.

In a storage unit, there's a TV I own. And at work, my boss is pissed because I took the day off to be with my daughter. And in my gut, the whiskey burns, breakfast of champions.

And my husband cheated on me with a man.

I splash the hot water on my face, and it hurts. It blurs my eyes, mascara melting into my lashes, and I blink hard, but everything is black in the tiny mirror. Even Ronnie's face when I look up.

#

“I like you, you know. I still do.” The A/C is frigid in Ronnie's Beamer, and I love the feeling. It dries up my blurry face. The new car smell has replaced the tater tots so my heart slows down a bit, and finally, I can open my eyes.

“You must have a thing for crazy people,” I say. She snorts and shrugs, taps out a Virginia Slim from the pack she keeps hidden under the seat. We're parked at the side of the church. I think of my husband high in the sky and let the sun stab my eyes.

“I'm a real piece of work,” Ronnie says and blows the smoke straight into my nostrils. I want to say smoking is bad for babies, but Ronnie knows that. She's on numero dos, so no need to remind her. Plus, I have bleach and whiskey bottles back home that sit a little lighter this morning, so I'm in no position to point out the obvious.

“No. It's not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. I guess, I didn't think it through. The toll it must take on you. I shouldn’t have dumped the news on you like that.” Looking her in the eyes is as bad us staring at the sun, so I look at the vent instead, take on that puff of air like the one the optometrist shoots into your eyes. A toll. Yes. It's a toll, a burden I've tried to wash clean with the bleach. The whiskey. But the real thing is the guilt of knowing I'm trying to start over. I'm wishing on one hand that Sela never existed, that I would have chosen another life, and I'm wishing on the other that I never existed because then I wouldn't have these monster thoughts. Because deep down, it's not about growing our family. It's about erasing reality and dulling the point of a new pencil.

“I'm happy for you.” I wait a beat. “And sad for me. But for other reasons, too.” Today, Ronnie is wearing a sheath dress, geometric patterns the color of salmon. My side eye concentrates on those patterns as my words click together.

“Mitch cheated on me.”

“Oh, sweetie.” The words drip with smoke, and now my chin is on her shoulder. She hugs me hard, and I look out her window to the edge of the woods, and there tucked back behind a scattering of tree trunks is a wide-eyed doe.

“With a man.” That shuts her up. There's a difference between fun and dysfunctional, I know that's what Ronnie's thinking. But when I look at her, past the smoke and swirling salmon circles, her face is how my heart feels. Hurt.

“Tell me,” she says. So, I do. I tell her about this morning, that's where I start. How Mitch left, how I dropped off Sela and headed back home for an hour or two before career day started. I told her about my secret job and how I'll probably be fired because Hattie's a REAL see-you-next-tuesday. I tell her about Tanisha and Tanisha's hoop earrings. I don't know why I tell her that part.

Oh yes, I do. I tell her because my tongue is as scared as my heart, and if I say the bad thing out loud then it's true. It was there, I suppose. I think about that faggot rock that some of the boys from school threw through Mitch's window and how his mother wanted him to keep it, his sins in stone as a reminder. And I remember thinking it was horse manure. It was all just a bunch of horse manure contrived by a bunch of scared boys and drilled in by a mother who doesn't know how to love her child. But it's bleeding into to me: motherhood, hate, disappointment, bed wetting, the child in the pharmacist's coat that's one size too big. My hands still sting from the faucet's hot water.

“This man rings the doorbell. Says his name is Aaron,” I say. I was barefoot when I answered the door, which still irks me to no end. You need to be dressed, prepared for an attack like that.

“'I should be at work.' That's the first thing he says like I know who the heck he is or what the heck he does for a living. Then he gives me his hand, and I shake it, and there's a little part of me that dings in my head, that warning bell. You're alone Elena. Strange man at the door, Elena. But then he starts crying, and dang it, Ronnie, if there's one thing I can't take in this world, it's a man crying.” I snort, laugh a little because my insides are turned out, and I'm afraid they'll stain the leather. She draws again on the cigarette, and I take a deep breath of dirty air.

“'I love your husband. And he was going to leave you, but he didn't. And that's ruined everything in me.' He whispered that part, the “ruined.” And then he says he just thought I should know, and then he walks to his car and drives away.” I choke on words and teary phlegm. “You know the worst part?”

Ronnie dips her head at me, says, “What?”

“I didn't even have the satisfaction, that small moment of thinking, ‘This guy's mental, and he has the wrong house.’ He was wearing a t-shirt, flip flops. Pajama bottoms. It was like he was wearing a sandwich board that read, “Mitch Reynolds has Really Taken Me for a Ride!”

“So, what are you going to do?” she asks, and again, her face. My eyes are no longer dry, and the mascara pools up again.

“Ronnie, I think I might kill him,” I say.

“Which one?”

I haven't decided.