“You don't know what they've been through with her. Maybe this is the best way. Maybe being forgiving, unconditional… people can do that, love unconditionally.”
“To hell with her pain. I'd have had her over my knee. I'd be ripping the damned ‘jewelry' out one by one.”
“I got something different,” Gretchen said, reaching into the bag for her clothes. She pulled the hospital gown down onto the floor and threw on a sweater.
“Oh? What did you get? That they're such good people because they let her ruin her life? Come on, you were as staggered as me about what a waste she is. She won't live to be thirty.”
“She seemed very young to me. Immature, and very, very desperate. She was hurting. The dad kept track of everything for her. He ran out to find help. The mother cuddled her because she needed that. They forgave her everything, every dumb thing she did.”
“They're irresponsible idiots. People like that should never be parents, and that girl had no business living, she was so screwed up.”
“How is it you're so responsible? Remind me. I forget.”
“My life is honest, at least. When I knew I had to change things, I told you.”
“You always overrated honesty. What matters isn't what you say, it's what you do. I don't think you're responsible at all. I think you depend on other people too much, and I think your ego gives you the idea you're running your life independently, when you don't. You need me. You always will. You've got to face that before you can understand real love.” Gretchen pulled on her underpants carefully, up and over her injured leg. He came over to help her with her sweatpants.
“No.”
“That looks awkward. Let me help.”
“You'll push too fast and it will hurt. Please don't. Leave it.”
“I'll be careful.”
“No!”
He stared at her.
“I'm too pissed now. I don't want you to touch me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I can see we're going nowhere. It's like you said, this isn't a negotiation, and you're not changing your mind without leaving here tonight. You won't let go of her and come back to me yet, which is what you should do. So do something else for me.”
“What?”
“Go, Craig.”
“I'll take you home. I said I would.”
“I don't want you here right now. You need to grow up. See what's in front of your face. That she's not real. I am real, and I am here for you when you figure that out.”
He loved the idea; she saw it in his eyes, but the well-trained gentleman in him rose to the occasion, offering up token arguments which she easily dismissed.
“How will you get home?” he said, finally giving in.
“Don't worry. I can take care of it.”
“It's very… generous of you, Gretchen.”
“No, it isn't. It's pure selfishness.” She was adamant, and he was eager to get back to his new lover. He left, cell phone open, finger punching away.
Katie's mother came back into the room looking vaguely around. “Forgot her apple juice,” she said, checking under the sheets. She finally found what she was looking for on the counter beside the sink. “She loves apple juice.”
Well, Mom did seem a little on the dim side, Gretchen decided. Nobody left apple juice in bed.
But she sure loved her wayward, screwed-up daughter.
Gretchen swung her leg over the side of the bed and pressed the red button to summon a nurse. Somebody needed to get her a wheelchair, to push her out to the curb. By the time she got home tonight, Craig would have gone to Julie's apartment.
What would Craig do when Julie didn't answer her door? Probably the same thing he had done all evening with the cell phone. He would try and try again. At some point, maybe days down the line, he would get it through his thick skull that Julie was gone.
She hadn't been hard to take care of. Soft, not a suitable match for Craig, Julie wasn't someone with the strength to prop him up. She was certainly no match for Gretchen.
Gretchen had followed her and Craig on Friday night. They went to a restaurant, the restaurant where Gretchen and Craig always used to eat together. Now Gretchen couldn't go there anymore. She would be too embarrassed for their waiter, Harold, to witness her humiliation.
To Gretchen's surprise, Craig hadn't gone home with Julie. At least he had told the truth about that. He left her at the doorway to her building. They kissed while Gretchen watched. Then she followed his new woman all the way back into the dinky, dark apartment house. Gretchen knocked on the door and Julie answered.
Flimsy, insubstantial person. Gretchen would have known better. She had all night to finish, because she and Craig had fought earlier about her drinking. She had stomped off to stay at her mother's, supposedly. Julie's kitchen was full of things Gretchen knew how to use, even if she didn't usually use them.
That Saturday night dancing with Craig, she had seen the specter of Julie coming toward her in his eyes even though she knew it was impossible, that Julie was gone, but with that traveling car wreck of a thought, she had fallen. In that moment, she had succumbed to fear and weakness, and this was her punishment. She accepted it. She took responsibility. She didn't have to like it: visible injury. Weeks of disability. So she learned her lesson. You take control; you accept consequences.
Would he come back begging? Or would he waste a lot of time searching for Julie first?
Maybe he would call the police.
But they would never find her. No one would ever find her. Julie, as it turned out, was a clean freak. She had more bleach stowed below her kitchen sink than a hospital. And Gretchen, messy in her own life, knew how to clean, she just didn't like it much.
He had no one else. She had also spoken the truth when she said he wouldn't have had the courage to leave Gretchen without someone waiting in the wings to substitute. He needed a woman to anchor him. He would be unhappy without one.
Gretchen would think some more on unconditional love and forgiveness. She would forgive him his infidelity, and he would have to forgive her, too. Maybe she would tell him someday exactly what she had done with Julie when things were settled, after she was pregnant and he was happy with the outcome of unveiling all these secrets, even if he didn't much like knowing them. Well, she didn't, either.
She made a mental note that he would have to take some parenting classes before the big event. He didn't seem to understand that you have to let people be who they are and love them anyway. You forgive them their piercings, their abscesses, their strayings, their excesses, their lack of control. You love them anyway, with your whole heart.
She leaned over to use the bedside phone. She punched in a nine and then the number.
“Mom?” she said. “I need your help.”
Sandstorm
JUNE 3
At night I take pills to sleep. They don't go very well with the brandy I drink starting at eight or nine. When the alarm clock goes off at six the next morning and my husband gets up, swearing, to take his shower, I rise painfully and put on my glasses. Even so, as I make my way into the kitchen, I can't seem to make my eyes focus.
By seven, though, I am dressed and presentable in my high heels and my suit. My hair is clean and curled, sprayed so it will not stray during the day. I have cooked breakfast for my husband and packed his lunch, and he has left for work, ten minutes late as always.
Time to wake Abe and Molly. I bring their dishes to the table and they eat, gloomy and half-conscious, complaining. They dress and pick up their heavy packs and leave for school. I feed and walk the dog, throw a load of clothes in the washer to dry tonight, sweep the floor, unload the dishwasher, call the repair shop about the car, and stamp the letters my husband asked me to send to his relatives in Michigan. I have almost forgotten to get the chicken out of the freezer to cook tonight. Taking one last glance around, I lock up and walk down the path, which needs weeding, toward the car.