The Mothers (19 page)

“I left him,” she said.

“You went to school. He wanted you to.”

“I left him like she did.”

He touched her cheek and she closed her eyes, melting into the softness of his fingers.

“No,” he said. “It's not the same.”

“It is,” she said. “I feel like I have to be her for the both of us.”

She started to cry. Luke pressed her head against his shoulder,
then he guided her away from the kitchen table. In the bathroom, he knelt on his good leg and ran water into the tub.

“Why are you doing this?” she said.

“Because,” he said evenly, “I want to take care of you.”

Later, he would set a glass of water on her nightstand and tuck her in bed. She would fall into a heavy sleep, relaxing for the first time in weeks because Luke was in the living room watching over her father. Before drifting off, she would think about how much she had wanted this when she was waking up in the abortion clinic. For Luke to be there, taking care of her. She was exhausted from taking care of herself. But for now, Luke stepped out as she undressed, as if he hadn't seen her naked before, as if he didn't already know the contours of her body, down to the dimple on her stomach where, her mother used to say, God had kissed her. Luke had kissed that same dimple before, fitting his lips against the divine's. She sank into the warm bubble bath and closed her eyes.

—

I
N THE MORNING
, Luke brought her father's medicine and Nadia kissed him in the kitchen. The paper drugstore bag crinkled in his hands as he hooked an arm around her waist. In her bedroom, the curtains whipped open in the breeze and Luke lowered her onto her childhood bed, which squeaked under their weight. Quiet, quiet. Not the rushed motions of their youth, a dress shoved up to her stomach, jeans sagging to his knees. Now he unbuttoned his shirt and folded it on the back of her desk chair. He slipped her socks down her ankles. He loosened her freshly washed hair and buried his face in it. Now they were slow and deliberate, the way hurt people loved, stretching carefully just to see how far their damaged muscles could go.

I
t wasn't an affair.

Affairs were for boozy, lonely housewives or horny businessmen, real adults doing real adult things, not sneaking her high school boyfriend into her childhood bed. Nadia felt layers of the past peeling away; she was slowly stepping backward into her old life. Luke on top of her, his familiar warmth and weight, every man since him melting away like the springtime fog. He visited each day during his lunch break and she snuck him into her room while her father took his afternoon nap. In her bed, Luke wasn't married anymore. He didn't know Aubrey. She was seventeen again and tiptoeing with Luke through her parents' house, except now they had to be extra quiet, hoping that his cane wouldn't drum too loudly against the floor.

In her bed, she believed the impossible. She felt herself growing younger, her skin softer and tighter, her mind unfilling with the
textbooks she'd read. Luke uncrippled, unswallowing aspirin by the palmfuls. Unloving Aubrey. He kissed Nadia and she felt untouched, their baby unforming inside of her, their lives separating.

She unhinged from time, her days splintering into before and after. Before Luke visited, she cleaned the kitchen, helped her father to the bathroom, gave him his medicine, showered. She combed her hair but never put on makeup—too much effort would ruin the naturalness of their tryst—and helped her father to his armchair. After Luke, she showered again, closing her eyes into the steam, as if the hot water could rinse away what she'd just done.

Some days, they did not have sex. Some days, Luke sat at the kitchen table while she made him a sandwich. She felt him watching her as she cut it in half and imagined that this small moment was normal for them. She slid into the chair across from him and propped a leg onto his lap; he ate and under the table, stroked her calf. Affairs were shadowy and secretive, not lunches shared in a sunbathed kitchen while her father napped in the living room. But these quiet, clothed days felt the most treacherous, the most intimate.

“I love you,” he whispered one afternoon, his fingers stroking her stomach, and she wondered if he was speaking to her at all or the ghost of the child they'd made. Could you ever truly unlove a child, even one you never knew? Or did that love transform into something else? She wished he hadn't said anything at all; he was tugging at the edges of her fantasy. What was love to her anyway? Her mother had told her she loved her and then she'd left. There was nothing lonelier than the moment you realized someone had abandoned you.

“You left me,” she said. “You left me in that clinic—”

“But I'm here,” he said. “I came back.”

—

T
HE MORNING OF HER APPOINTM
ENT
, Aubrey sat in the waiting room, watching an overhead television play a video on heart disease. Cartoon red blood cells slid down a chute, ramming into each other like bumper cars. The leading cause of death among women, the video reminded her, as it looped for the third time. Was this cartoon supposed to make you feel better about the fact that your heart might be slowly killing you? She sighed, reaching for a magazine instead. She hated going to the doctor. When she'd first moved to Oceanside, her sister sent her to an endless stream of them. A doctor who gave her a physical where she'd tried not to cry when she unbuttoned her jeans and slipped into the thin paper gown. She felt sick, imagining Paul spreading inside of her like a virus. But there was nothing wrong with her, the doctor had said, and she refused to speak to her sister the whole ride home, ashamed that Mo had thought there might be. Then she'd been sent to a psychiatrist who prescribed her an antidepressant that she never even opened, the orange vial gathering dust in her drawer. A therapist who asked banal questions about school—never Paul—but she'd still felt sick the whole hour, because she knew those questions were lurking. After, she'd climbed into Kasey's car, resting her head against the window until they made it back home. At night, she'd heard Mo and Kasey arguing in their room, the walls too thin to mask their angry whispers.

“All I'm saying is that she gets so stressed about that doctor—now what?” Kasey had said. “We gonna send her to another doctor for that too?”

A moth fluttered into the waiting room, its brown wings as thin as a scab. She chewed her thumbnail—a nasty habit, her mother had
always said—as the moth spiraled through the room, past the receptionist's desk, the window facing the street, two women sitting under the television, until it drifted onto a stack of magazines. She watched it land, its wings folded like an arrowhead. Her sister had called her earlier and asked for updates when she finished. She'd been trying for months to convince Aubrey to schedule this appointment. Didn't she want answers? Wouldn't a diagnosis—even a bad one—be better than wondering why she hadn't been able to get pregnant? Maybe, but Aubrey hated the idea of waiting for a doctor to tell her what was wrong with her body. She'd made the appointment anyway, which told her one thing: she was beginning to feel desperate.

In Dr. Toby's office, Aubrey lay on her back, staring up into Denzel Washington's eyes. Her doctor had tacked posters of handsome movie stars on the ceiling. “It helps my patients relax,” he'd said during her first visit, offering her a wry smile. She clenched her fists as soon as the doctor's cold tools entered her. She still tensed up when anything was inside her, even Luke's finger. On their wedding night, she'd hurt so bad, she felt tears gather at the corner of her eyes. But she hadn't said anything and Luke kept pushing into her, slowly and insistently. How could he not tell that he was hurting her? Or worse, how could he not care? If he loved her, how could he enjoy something that caused her pain? But she soldiered through because this was what you were supposed to do. A girl's first time was supposed to hurt. Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman's life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne.

She hadn't expected that her second time would hurt too, or her third, or even now, years later, that she would still dread the moment
when Luke first entered her. He enjoyed it—she could tell from the way he closed his eyes or bit his lip—but she always clenched her fists until she grew used to him moving inside of her. It might be psychological, she'd read online. She felt disgusted at the idea of Paul still lingering in the back of her mind, as if when Luke touched her, Paul watched from the foot of the bed. Or maybe her troubles had nothing to do with Paul at all. Maybe she just wasn't turned on enough. The website said that women should verbalize their desires, but what were you supposed to say? Were you supposed to sound breathy and baby-like, the way sexy women spoke in the movies? Or crass and vulgar. Did men actually like that in bed? Once, Luke had told her that he wished she would initiate sex more.

“I feel like you don't really want me,” he said.

She was stunned. Of course she wanted him, he was the only one she'd ever wanted. But she didn't know how to make him feel that way. She pulled out the teddies and nightgowns she'd been given at her bridal shower, examining them a moment before burying them back in her drawer. She bought whipped cream and chocolate syrup once, but could never figure out how to make the smooth transition from the bed to the refrigerator, so she brought them to Kasey's birthday party to eat with the cake and ice cream. Maybe nothing was wrong with her body. Maybe she was just bad at sex or her husband was bored. Maybe if she was sexier, more enticing, she would be pregnant already.

Dr. Toby told her not to worry.

“Everything looks fine,” he said. “You're both young and healthy. Just relax. Have some wine.”

Have some wine, as if that was all it would take. Dr. Toby had
spent years in medical school just to arrive at that recommendation? She drove to Mrs. Sheppard's office, furious at the doctor for wasting her time, but Mrs. Sheppard told her to cheer up. After all, the doctor could have given her a bad report. He could've told her she was hopelessly barren, that there was no chance she would ever give birth. Instead, he'd told her that she was healthy. Her mother-in-law reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“Don't worry, honey,” she said. “Everything in its own time. You can't rush God.”

That night, Luke came home late. Aubrey was sleeping when she heard him fumbling in the dark, shedding clothes. When they first married, she'd always jolted awake at the sound of him moving in the dark. He could be anybody, creeping through her apartment. But now she knew the cadence of his footsteps, how he tugged off his jeans and his shirt before climbing in bed beside her. She smelled his familiar scent, a little sweet but warm. Manly. Their bed smelled like him, and on the few nights they'd spent apart, she always slept with his pillow on top of her own. Like how when they were dating, she would always leave her sweater on the kitchen chair where he hung his jacket, so he would place his on top of hers and when he left, her sweater would smell like him.

She rolled toward him and placed her hand on his warm belly. A few inches lower and she could slip her hand inside his boxers. She could kiss him and climb on top of him, the way she'd climbed on top of Russell long ago in the beach bathroom. A stranger, yet she still couldn't bring herself to touch her husband first. But before she could move, Luke lifted her hand and kissed her palm. Then he rolled over and went to sleep.

—

I
N THE FADING EVENING LIGHT
, Luke huffed in Nadia's backyard, bench-pressing her father's weights. He was killing time, waiting for her to finish reheating dinner, waiting for her father to fall asleep in front of the television so he could spend an hour with Nadia in her bedroom. He usually didn't come over this late, but tonight had been a surprise gift: his schedule had been switched at the last minute, so when he told Aubrey earlier that he had to work late, he hadn't been lying for once. He was a better liar than he'd thought he could be. It scared him a bit, how easily he could convince even himself that what he was doing wasn't wrong. All because Nadia had been first. She had been his first love, so maybe, in a way, she had the rightful claim to his heart. Maybe it was like how when you stepped out of the grocery store line to grab bread, no one could really be mad when you returned to your spot. It wasn't cutting if you had been there before.

He groaned, pushing up the barbell. He'd begun doing this, playing around with her father's weights when he came over. He had put on weight and he suddenly felt aware of it every time he undressed in front of Nadia. The last time she'd seen him naked, he'd been in elite shape, 220 pounds, five percent body fat. Now he'd grown extra padding on his stomach, his taut calves and biceps softening. He was already turning fat like the alumni who used to visit team practice during homecoming; Luke and his teammates had secretly laughed at them, men who hadn't quit a football diet once the football stopped. That would be him someday, he'd known that, but he hadn't guessed how quickly someday would come.

Since he and Nadia had started sleeping together again, he'd begun
eating better, avoiding dessert, doing push-ups on the bathroom floor. He felt shy about it, like an insecure teenager, but maybe that was what she wanted. She had loved him then, when he was young and handsome and cruel. He didn't want to be cruel to her anymore, but he could at least be handsome again.

“Do you want those?”

He racked the weights and sat up, his arms burning. Nadia lingered behind the screen door.

“What?” he said.

“Take them,” she said, pointing to the weights.

“But they're your dad's.”

“He doesn't need them. They almost killed him.”

She leaned against the doorway, her foot scratching the back of her calf. She was wearing sweatpants, her hair tied up in a bun, and she had never looked more beautiful. He had never seen this side of her before, not the first time. Then, she had gussied herself up every time they went out, wearing miniskirts and cute sundresses and lipstick. He'd loved that about her, how much effort she put into looking pretty for him, but he felt even more connected to this dressed-down side of her. This was the real her and she trusted him enough to let him see it. The same way he knew that she had seen the real him. Aubrey saw a version of him that was better than he had ever been. But Nadia had seen him at his worst. He'd been selfish and mean to her, but she still wanted him. He felt liberated, knowing that he was seeing Nadia at her worst too. She had betrayed her best friend to be with him. She felt guilty about their affair, he could tell, even though she wouldn't admit it. Admitting it meant that she would have to stop seeing him. It was easier to pretend she didn't feel guilty.

So he pretended too. In her bed that night, he traced his hand down her naked shoulder, misted by their sweat.

“Do you ever think about that summer?” he said.

“Which summer?” she asked.

“You know the one.”

Sometimes he felt trapped in that summer before she'd left for college, wondering about all of the things he should've done differently. If he'd just picked her up from the clinic. If he'd convinced her not to go to the clinic in the first place. If they would have been exactly like this, lying in bed together talking, except with a six-year-old running around in the living room.

“Sometimes,” she said.

“Do you think we—” He paused. “Maybe we should have—”

She tensed in his arms and he knew he'd crossed a line. He knew by now the topics he could never discuss with her. Aubrey. Their baby. He expected her to pull away from him, but instead, she rolled toward him.

“Shh.” She kissed his neck, slipping her hand under the covers.

“Nadia . . .”

“I don't want to talk,” she whispered.