Chapter Fourteen
Heather

Heather watched her husband chew a bite of broccoli, tough it out with a mouthful of chicken, and recount his golf game as if he had been personally invited to the U.S. Open. 

“You should have seen Mark’s dumb butt shank it. You could tell he was pretty burned up over my drives.” Wyland shook his head, the ligaments in his tieless neck straining against his skin. She wondered where in his thoughts Vienna’s pregnancy played. He didn’t seem overly worried about it—an act probably but the thought scared her, how he could keep his world spinning with a smile on his face even as chunks of it flew off mid-rotation.

Heather smirked at her plate. He had something in common with Amber that way. 

Heather’s thoughts ventured to the mall, how she had left the department store stiff in dried urine, stolen goods snug in her bag. She had thought of going home to shower first, but a sympathy bubbled where she imagined Dolores’s heart rested. She decided to go to Oaks first and give Vienna her mother’s suit. She’d try to make things better because she felt as sorry for Vienna as she felt for her pee-soaked self. She didn’t know where they stood after Vienna sped off, and Heather festered in her mother’s front yard. But she was tired of intensifying Vienna’s pain and needed Vienna to absolve her of it. The sobering thought of relying on nobody but Amber at the funeral also played its part in keeping her foot pinned to the accelerator. 

“Hello, welcome,” Elbert Oaks had said when Heather arrived at the funeral home. He had walked over to her and gently took the hand floating at her side, jiggling it in two fluid shakes and placing his hand on her shoulder. “Now, what may I do for you?”

“Um, I’m just here to see Vienna. I have my mother’s outfit for her funeral tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s right, forgive me. For Caroline Hammel?”   

“Yes,” Heather said. Elbert shook his head, and his hair took flight. It was an odd thing, a grown man with strands bursting forth from a layer of gel, but Heather took to the way he looked her in the eye like he could accurately place her grief. She could forgive him his appearance since he had apparently forgiven Heather hers. 

“Let me get our makeup artist. She’s been working with your mother this afternoon, and I know she’ll be ready to dress her soon. Excuse me a moment.” He walked down a hall that curled to the right. She could hear a door squeaking heavily at its hinges. It was cold in the foyer. Music cackled through an overhead speaker. She categorized it somewhere between “background noise” and “pain.” 

Heather walked to a large, framed oil painting on the wall. It was of two people, a tall man— his eyebrows cleanly arched and his mouth set tight—and a woman the size and shape of a barrel but with a face striking like a hot tipped match. “Deluca and Frances Oaks” a small, rectangular plaque drilled into the wooden frame read.  His mom and dad, Heather thought, revisiting the small Internet knowledge she had of the Oaks family. Must be a treat seeing his mother every day, she thought, looking Fran square in her oily set of eyes.

“Can I help you?” Heels clicked to a stop, and when Heather turned around, she found a new face. Rosa Piedras.

“Hi. Rosa? It’s me, Heather.” The eyes knew exactly who she was, so Heather felt strange saying it. She waited for something monumental, like being heaved out the door, a clump of her hair still attached to Rosa’s claw. 

“I know. Sorry about your mother,” Rosa said. Her sixth-grade face was attached to a woman’s body. She was all hills and no lumps. It was the worst thing to witness while pregnant.

“Thanks.  I was just going to give this to Vienna.” Heather reached inside her bag and pulled out the bunched-up suit. Rosa took it and squinted one of her perfectly almond-shaped eyes.

“I thought Vienna was with you. Helping you...move a few things,” Rosa said. Vienna and Rosa were still friends. It made perfect sense that Vienna still had her childhood best friend supporting her, watching out for her. But pain flickered hungrily at Heather as she remembered the last day of sixth grade fat check when Rosa had Vienna’s back and outed Heather’s mother for what she was, a crazy person. Heather hadn’t been able to place what hurt more, having no argument for Rosa’s accusation or knowing she’d never have anyone like Rosa at her side to alleviate the burden of living.

“She was, but she had to leave. An appointment.” Heather’s tongue allergically reacted to the lie. She felt embarrassed originally thinking Vienna was like her, all alone in the world with no one left to starve the fire when, in reality, Vienna had more than her fair share of supporters. “I need to go. I’m having lunch with my husband,” Heather coughed. She watched Rosa’s face contort, and then another truth pummeled her in the back. Vienna had to have told her best friend about the affair, about the baby.

“Was Rosa here able to help you out?” Elbert reappeared, locks first, and placed his arm around Rosa’s reluctant shoulder.

“Yeah, yes, she did. I have to leave but um, Mr. Oaks, I just wanted to congratulate you,” Heather said. She felt like she did that night with the bat, that forced pump feel of anger in the vein moving her words against the enemy with a steady swing. She recognized now it was the same feeling that had overcome her when confronting Vienna earlier in her mother’s yard. 

“On what?” Elbert said. His face spread and a smile engulfed it. Heather noticed he was the sort of man who shouldn’t smile.

“On becoming a grandfather,” Heather said, one heel already out the door. “I’ll see you all tomorrow,” she called out, legs weak with the quick shifting of her belly. She didn’t look back.

Heather blinked through the day’s soul-draining events and stared at her husband who had taken a break from recounting his miracle on the links. The chicken tasted like chalk, and the broccoli wept in her mouth. Dinner making had been a riotous act—pots and pans flailing, diving to the bruised wooden floor. It had hit her then, her husband upstairs showering off a hard day’s work of impressing his father, ignoring his child in Heather’s stomach, the one in Vienna’s, too, while Heather worked in the kitchen, conjuring the ghost of her mother in pearls and heels. The thought of having to confront all those people at tomorrow’s funeral was almost as terrifying as looking into her mother’s empty face.

“So, uh, how did it go today? Did you get any cleaning done at your mom’s?” Wyland said through a mouthful of food. Heather wanted to yank his head up from the face of his cell phone. She wanted to see his eyes and watch for flashes of Vienna.

“Yeah, spic and span. You could eat right off the floors.”

“Really?”

“No, Wyland,” Heather scoffed. An abridged sigh left her throat, and she knew what was coming.

“You don’t have to be rude, Heather.” His head was locked securely in front of their wide-bellied fridge. Heather hurt with the need to pound the butt of her hand into his nose just to hear the crack of skull against metal. Instead, she swallowed the wet mess in her mouth and started over.

“Vienna helped me. We were there all morning, didn’t get a thing done, but we talked, you know. It’s good to have a friend like her.” She had snapped the link between her husband and his phone. He was looking at her now, all eyes.

“Oh. I’ve been thinking maybe you shouldn’t be so friendly with Vienna.” His hands weakly grasped his fork. It made music against his plate and the wooden table, keeping time with the erratic twitch in Heather’s left eye.

“Why’s that?” Heather asked. She noted the evening was weak in their kitchen. The June sun refused to burn out, so it stained everything with a dirty shade of gold. It made the kitchen that less bearable. It lit streaks of dirt in the grout of her countertops. Handprints on the fridge’s front burst into flames. Crumbs stacking, rats gathering, women sleeping with her husband shot sparks of fire, and not even the hint of a black and white tiled floor was present to ease the pain. 

“Because of all the stuff she used to say about you.” A smirk, a genuine lift of his upper lip. Wyland’s golden hands released its utensil. His sun-tinged fingers worked into his network of curls. Heather couldn’t hear anything, just watched the slow-moving yellows and golds as her husband stretched out comfortably in his chair.

“Well, I’m sure she had gotten fed up with me talking about her mom every day.”

“It was more than that, Heather. She nearly convinced me not to marry you. She said you were cruel, fat, lazy. And I told her she didn’t know the real you.” He watched his plate, and the past played in his eyebrows. For a moment she expected an apology. “But I guess maybe she did.” He pushed his chair back. That sound, that sound she could hear, and it whipped her hard in the face. She watched as he collected his plate and glass, his fork and knife. She could see out of the corner of her eye his wide-shouldered back, his trimmed waist. There was a haunting feel to hold him, to forgive him. To beg for forgiveness. 

But Heather was tired of begging. 

#

NIGHT HAD TURNED INTO morning, and Heather had awoken on their leather couch in the living room. It left her body sore and soaking, her white cotton nightshirt stuck like a bandage. She could hear the shower going. Having to remember that she had a husband and that he was a royal pain in the neck crept into her morning cup of decaf. 

She dressed in the only black outfit she owned, a pair of leggings and an oversized sweater that would keep her adequately roasting in the home’s cramped viewing room. She looked out of place next to Wyland who wore a sharply altered black suit, an investment that would help him “drive up sales” and show Hollywood “who’s boss.” And get laid, Heather thought. They didn’t talk while getting ready. They rotated, gears cranking in their bedroom. In the car, there was no movement, only music and the sound of her husband humming that made her taste tears.

“Do you remember any of it?” she asked the passenger-side window. The tears were loud in her throat. She could hear them in her ears, but she didn’t make any noise. Heather wouldn’t let one fall.

“Remember what?” 

“Us. Any of it. When I worked at Aurelio’s, and you were working for your dad for the summer. Or boxed wine and pizza nights.” Or the times I couldn’t breathe it hurt so hard to think of mom, that house and how you told me there’s always treasure buried in piles of rubble, and in this case, that treasure was me, she thinks, but doesn’t say. “Do you, do you ever think of any of that?” They turned onto Halfway Drive, leaned into the driveway of Oaks Family Funeral Home, but she kept staring out the window. Heather couldn’t look at Wyland because doing so would make her forget everything about their past.

“Sure,” he said, and she felt her regret at being the first to speak melt away. His hands in her hair, wrapped around her sweaty waist after a panicked sleep. Trinkets of a lost past that could possibly be found again. “When I need to remind myself how far I’ve come,” he added.  Heather sneered at her window; her reflection’s teeth set against the thick trunk of a chestnut tree. Her tears lost their flavor. Her regret froze over. 

Elbert greeted them in the home’s dark foyer. Heather couldn’t look at his eyes, and it was Wyland who shook his hand and took ownership of their presence.

“It’s good to see you again, Wyland,” Elbert said, and his hand pumped Wyland’s up and down. The funeral director nodded at Heather—she could feel it in the way the atmosphere parted, his head slicing through it—and he made no mention of his future grandchild. 

“Wish we saw more of you.” 

“Been busy,” Wyland said, and Heather wished he had the guts to say with whom.

“Well, we’ll move into the viewing room first. Allow time for everyone to visit with Caroline,” Elbert said. Heather stifled a wrong sort of smile at this. She imagined her mother sitting upright in her wooden bed, shaking hands with strangers and offering a slice of her fresh from the garbage, mincemeat pie. Heather imagined her mother placing a hand on her daughter’s unyielding gut, the baby kicking. Caroline flinching. 

“That won’t take long,” Heather said more to herself, but Elbert heard her. He lost his place in his undertaker’s manual but found it again with a quick finger.

“Yes, Vienna informed me that you’ll be keeping a close-knit group this morning.” At Vienna’s name, Heather caught Elbert’s eye. They were brown, mud-stained. Ribbons of wrinkles fluttered from them. Heather considered the concentric circles of his irises and looked for the pockets where he had stored love for Vienna’s mother, the hopeless drunk.

“I have to um...” Heather said, pointing to her stomach. “The restroom,” she managed. It felt like looking at her father’s face, the misplaced man who left her home but had spent a lifetime unknowingly dismembering her strongest parts. “Men, you can’t live with them, and well, that’s it,” her mother would say at one of her prettier moments when there was still an ounce of room on the floor, and she’d sit, back straight against their floral papered wall. It looked like the outside was in, consuming every bit of Caroline Hammel, and Heather would feel herself failing and believing every word her mother baked and delivered. 

“Right down the hall,” Elbert said with a finger jabbing their airspace. Heather followed it, listening to Wyland play concerned husband as the force of her movement gathered in her knees. The bathroom was cramped. There was an aging stack of National Enquirers on a glass and iron rod table wedged in one corner. The toilet paper lined every shelf in the cabinet above the toilet. Heather took her time. She learned the porcelain of the sink and memorized the beveled edges of the mirror that hung above it. She relieved her bladder in a slow stream of warmth and sat on the toilet until she could feel every droplet dry. She flushed, and washed, and waited until she realized what she was hearing—Wyland and Vienna on the other side of the vine papered-wall, talking.

Heather crept out slowly. Their voices were mingling in the inner void of the break room. Heather waited outside the block of fluorescent light, a place where coffee rings reigned along the formica countertop. Vienna was brilliant in a jewel-toned shirtdress. There was no mistaking her figure or the sleek river of hair streaming between her shoulder blades. There was no mistaking Wyland’s eye establishing an opinion on the matter.

“How are you holding up?” Vienna asked Wyland. There was an intense burning through Heather’s fingers to slap the words from Vienna’s lips, but she kept her limbs quiet. She needed more.

“It’s been rough. But I’m more than happy to play my role. It’s been hard for her, but I like to think I’m helping make things a little more tolerable.” Vienna nodded, and Heather swallowed her tongue. She leaned hard against the doorframe until she could feel it pierce against bone. A lovely couple, that’s what anyone else would think seeing Wyland and Vienna standing, coffee cups in hand, but no one else was there to see it except for Heather. 

“We’re still on for tomorrow, right?” Vienna whispered. Wyland nodded with the Styrofoam edge of his cup between his lips. Coffee splashed against his jacket, a hard felt “Dang it” hot in his mouth. Vienna grabbed a towel from the oven’s handle and soaked it in water. She dabbed the stain with hands already familiar with the job.

“Oh, honey, feel free to go in.” A voice behind her startled her as it did the other two, deer frozen in fluorescent headlights. Loretta’s cherry lacquered nails gently curled into Heather’s shoulder. 

“Heather,” Vienna said, and she noted it was Vienna’s, not Wyland’s voice that was concerned enough to sound. Heather didn’t even look at her husband because it wouldn’t have mattered. She turned around, and the motion was dreadfully slow. It hurt, moving. She came face-to-face with Loretta, and the woman’s mouth looked tattered at its edges, a perfect respite for runny lipstick so even the tributaries that led from her pout were a light shade of cranberry.  Heather wanted to bury herself in Loretta’s arms.

“Thanks, but I’m fine,” she said, and she breathed in spurts to gain her composure. It was worse than the basement. Heather would have paid any amount of money to hear Tina McCafferty moo at her than be surrounded by her husband, Vienna, and her dead mother who looked like she was drowning in a coffin teeming with purple Kool-Aid. Worse, she had forgotten Amber was planning to show up. She headed to the viewing room but was road blocked by her barely sober friend whose arms had never been wider. 

“We’ll get through this, we always do,” Amber whispered to Heather as they stumbled into their pew. Heather’s eyes were too exhausted to roll themselves. 

“There, there,” Amber said as Heather let herself suffocate on her friend’s expensive blend of oils. She cried hard and choked even harder on the best perfume money could buy. 

Soon, Heather’s hand was turned to mush, furiously kneaded by Amber’s creamy white one. Amber’s fingers were short but thorough, and when they moved to the left, the side of her diamond band dug into Heather’s hand. Heather found herself looking forward to the short, sharp jabs. It woke up her skin, and her nerves seemed to follow suit.

Amber stopped kneading and reached for her bag. Heather looked as her friend subtly snapped the lid off an orange bottle and handed her a pill the color of urine-drenched snow. She raised an eyebrow, but Amber waved her off.  

“It’s fine. The baby will be fine,” Amber whispered, hardly convincing. Heather took it anyway, remembering quickly becoming a welcomed hardship. 

She couldn’t even feel it when Wyland came and sat next to her, when he wrapped his arm snugly around her, and it felt like nothing more than a heavy coat draped ever her shoulders. It was the sort of thing her neighbor, Erma, would call “a small blessing.”

Later, after the funeral, after her nap that lasted until the next morning, after waking up and relishing the short feel of existing without consequences, this is what Heather recalled:

Her mother had never looked cleaner, more beautiful, and less likely to roast dead vermin than when sleeping heavily in a coffin.

Heather had kissed the clergy man’s cheek after her mother lowered a jarring six feet into the ground, and she had kept laughing at the burial, her feet digging into the earth as if her belly intended to bury her, too.

When she had been delivered home, there were chicken fried steaks on her front stoop from the lonely lady next door, and when she had closed her eyes to sleep, the sun was still glowing, her blood rushing her inner canals, and she listened to the vociferous noise of loneliness. 

Heather never knew existing could be so loud. That it could be so delicious. 

Heather devoured it all.