Jennifer Hritz

JOEL, JANUARY 1992

James and I haven’t spoken since we left Austin,
not since we threw ourselves down the front steps
and into the night, not since I tossed him the keys
to my Explorer. Next to me he grips the steering
wheel with an urgency he rarely possesses. There’s
been an accident, that’s all we’ve been told, and
I slide my hand up and down the worn leg of my
jeans, reliving the past few weeks, hearing the beg-
inning of every message she left on my answering
machine. I erased them all the second I heard her
voice.

I haven’t spoken to her—to either of my parents—
in almost a month, since the day after Christmas.
I’d knocked on the door of my father’s study, a
semester’s worth of shitty grades in my hand and
a tremor in the pit of my stomach, and when I saw
the smoke coiling from his cigar I pulled out a
last-ditch effort as a means of survival: I threatened
him. Enraged, he told me something monstrous.
I fled, bawling, then came back thirty minutes later
and packed my shit. Got the fuck out of there. My
mother begged me not to go, but I was adamant,
knew that I needed to absolutely, irrevocably, cut
the cord. By the time I reached Austin city limits
I’d cried as much as I’d allow myself.

Remembering that miserable drive I curl my hands
into fists, my nails slicing half-moons in my palms.
I’ve defended her, to James, to myself, when in
reality it wouldn’t take much to indict either one of
them.

But then there’s the painting. She gave that to
me, indulged my obsession, in direct defiance of
my father. Edward, she said over my shoulder as
she rocked me back and forth, How could you,
how could you?

I pick at a hole in the knee of my jeans, worry it
until I can fit two fingers through the threads. James
glances at me in the thin light from the dashboard,
his baseball cap crammed low over his eyes. I have
to stop for gas, Joel, he says. He sounds almost
apologetic, and I’m struck by how readily he’s
accompanied me, the night before classes start,
by the reluctance with which he accepts the cash
I offer him when we pull into a service station. Every
so often, when I want to fuck with him, I remind him
that he still owes me coin from bailing him out of jail
freshman year, when he was arrested for a DUI.
Dude, I’ve more than paid that shit back, he’ll say,
I have to live with your ass.

Night this far out in the middle of nowhere glitters
with stars, and I stare out the open passenger win-
dow, into a cold, silent wind that stings my cheeks
and burns my eyes. Even the sideview mirror can’t
begin to decipher the rash of emotions fighting for
dominance in my expression, the fear of what I
might have set in motion, the regret already build-
ing at the back of my mouth.

A rage so fine and pure I shimmy along with the sky.

ADAM, MARCH 1990

Bobby kneels in the dirt behind the house, his
hands deep in the earth. Beside him Indy wags
his tail, a brush of soil across his wet, black nose.
I stand with my arms crossed over my tee shirt,
trying to keep warm. It’s too early, I say, but I’m
ignored by Bobby as well as the dog. The branches
of the maples rattle like old bones; green buds that
seemed on the brink of unfurling just last week curl
inward, away from the chill. Shivering, I watch as
Bobby takes one of the plants from its plastic
container and plucks at its roots, his fingers deft
but gentle. I’m cold, I say. So go inside, Adam,
he says, depositing the plant in the hole he’s
dug and packing it with dirt.

I don’t want to go inside by myself. I want him to
come with me. I want him back in bed. I’ve been
missing him all week; I left last Monday for a busi-
ness trip that lasted a day longer than I expected.
When I finally got home last night he was already
asleep, and he turned away from me when I slid
my hand over the slope of his hip. Tomorrow, he
murmured, but he took off for the nursery before
I was even awake and now he’s emptying the next
plant into the palm of his hand.

We’ll have another freeze, I inform him, examining
the sky like I know what I’m talking about. There’s
not a trace of the sunlight that spilled golden
through our bedroom windows last Sunday morn-
ing, warming our skin as we made lazy, sleepy love.
Afterwards I’d pulled my grandmother’s quilt over our
heads and we’d lain together under a patchwork
of color as rich and vibrant as stained glass. Today
the clouds hang ominous and low. Looks like rain,
I conclude, and Bobby sighs. Adam, he says, sitting
back on his heels, Are you going to help me or are
you just going to stand there and complain?

I go inside. Heat rises from the floorboards and
thaws my bare toes. For three hours he works,
disappearing around the corner of the house at
one point and coming back with the hoe. I’m reheat-
ing the soup he made last night when he opens the
back door, stopping in the laundry room to peel off
his muddy jeans and toss them in the washer. After
he goes into the bathroom to shower I sweep Indy’s
paw prints from the floor.

We’ll have tomatoes, he says a few minutes later,
joining me at the table. Maybe, I admit as he tears
off a piece of toast and gives it to the dog. Catching
one of his hands, I examine his thumb, then run my
tongue across the whorls on the pad, tasting soap
and the singular tang of his skin. Mm, I say, but
he pulls his hand from mine. I’m hungry, he says,
Let’s eat.

The rain starts that night as we’re getting ready
for bed. I told you so, I say, staring out the window.
Plants like water, he tells me, his tone mild. He’s
lying on the bed, the dog stretched beside him,
shedding long, blonde fur on my grandmother’s
quilt. Does he have to be up there? I ask, and
Bobby rolls his eyes. But he nudges the dog to
the floor, his sweatpants pulling away from his tee
shirt and giving me a glimpse of fine, white skin.
I’m allowed one kiss before he moves away. The
gardening wore me out, he claims. You’ve already
used that excuse today, I tell him. But he stops me
when I try to kiss him again.

JAMES, SUMMER 1993

She tells me after dinner, as we’re walking home
under a sun that refuses to set. Sweat streaks her
shorn hair, snakes down the thin slope of her neck,
and in spite of what she says I want to stop right
here on the hot summer sidewalk and take her
narrow hips between my hands. Suck every salty
drop. Well, I say instead, Shit.

She starts to cry. I have a sudden, fierce urge to slip
my arm around her and draw her close, and I might,
if panic wasn’t rising to my already flushed face, if
I wasn’t confused by the accompanying flurry of
excitement in my abdomen. Are you sure? I say.

I should know better than to ask. She’s probably
taken a half a dozen tests by now. This isn’t my
fault, she sobs, and I rise to the occasion, take her
hand in my own and hush and coo her all the way
back to the house.

We end up in Joel’s studio. She lets me slip the
strap of her tank from her shoulder, cup one small
breast. This is weird, she whispers as I wriggle her
shorts down around her ankles. I don’t know what
she means, if she’s talking about the fact that we’re
surrounded by Joel’s half-finished paintings or if
she’s talking about the baby. I rest a surreptitious
hand on her belly, but she knows what I’m doing
even if I don’t and she draws the line when I move
my mouth to her navel.

By the time Joel gets home she’s asleep. He’s
vague about where he’s been but I have a pretty
good idea. At this point I just wish he’d own up to it.
Where’s Elisa? he asks, taking a stray paintbrush
between his fingers, and when I tell him she’s gone
to bed he looks at me, quick and sly. No, I say,
knowing what he’s thinking, Not now. Why not? he
asks. Can’t you give it a rest for one fucking night?
I ask. She doesn’t care, James, he says, and I tell
him that tonight I care. He pouts, sucking on the end
of his brush like it’s the tit of Mother Earth herself.
What about you? he finally asks. No fucking way,
I say, but he whines so much that I give in.

CATHLEEN, AUGUST 1991

Dave, he’s our boss, he doesn’t usually let us work
together but Melissa smiled at him in that way she
has and kind of nudged his shoulder with her wet
one and asked pretty please and he finally said
yeah, okay. So we’re all here at the same time, all
three of us, and I squint across the pool because
the glare’s so bright even though I’m wearing
sunglasses, these mirrored ones I found in the
bathroom and turned in to the Lost & Found but no
one ever came to pick up. I can see Melissa; she’s
swinging her legs back and forth, not paying any
attention to the kids in her section, including Justin,
who’s wearing bright red lobster swimming trunks
and yanking his little brother underwater. I lift my
whistle, but I know I’m not going to blow unless it’s
an emergency because the last time I called down
someone in her section Melissa wouldn’t talk to me
for almost a week.

My butt hurts from sitting so long. I look at my watch,
the one my dad gave me for graduation that lets me
go as deep as seventy feet, but we have ten minutes
before the next break and so I just shift and sigh a little,
even though no one can hear me way up on my wooden
perch. I’m thirsty, but my water’s almost gone and what’s
left I don’t want to waste. We’re not supposed to have
anything besides water, Coke or anything, in the chairs
but sometimes Melissa makes me stop at Sonic on the
way here so she can get a Diet Coke and she carries it
up the rungs of her chair and plunks it down beside
her like she’s daring someone to stop her.

Melissa’s the closest friend I have at school and
even though sometimes she can be kind of a bitch
she’s also a lot of fun and really funny and quick to
lend me her makeup or jewelry or whatever. Even
the earrings she loves, the dangly purple beaded
ones she bought in Padre over Spring Break, she
lets me use every time I ask, though really they
look better on her. And I can’t borrow her clothes
because we don’t have the same build at all. She’s
curvy and a little plump, but in a self-satisfied kind
of way, and she has these perfect breasts with
round nipples the color of warm caramel. I know
because we live together and there’s just no way
you have any privacy in the dorm. One time? We’d
been out kind of late and we were both kind of
drunk and we passed out on her bed and when I
woke up in the morning all hot and sweaty because
I’d never bothered to undress I turned over and
right there, popped out of her bra, was Melissa’s
left breast. Melissa was sound asleep but her
nipple was all taut and hard and I thought, what
would happen if I just very quietly leaned over and
sucked it?

But I wouldn’t have ever done that because I’m not,
you know, like that in any way. It was just one of those
thoughts that go through your mind, the kind that you
know you’re never going to act on but is there anyway.
Like sometimes? When I go home and I’m watching my
mom in the kitchen, like getting dinner together or some-
thing, and I wonder what would happen if I just stuck a
knife in her back. I mean, I’m not going to do it or any-
thing, I love my mother, but you know, sometimes the
thought’s just there.

ELIZABETH, FEBRUARY 2005

James labors on top of her. Teeth gritted, brow
furrowed: this sort of grim determination does
nothing for Elizabeth’s libido. Though that’s been
missing for a long time now, since before she
started the fertility drugs, since before the miscar-
riage in November. James would probably credit
both for her disinterest, but deep down she knows
that it’s James himself who turns her off. James,
with his enthusiasm and encouragement and
fucking tenacity. “C’mon,” he’s muttering, and she
doesn’t know whether he’s annoyed that she’s not
matching the grind of his hips or if he’s giving his
sperm a pep talk. The latter’s more likely.

Elizabeth closes her eyes. What she likes to do
while James finishes is organize her day, think
through the projects she has going on at the office.
She works for the city, and despite the bleakness
of this February morning—she can feel the wind
seeping through the ancient windows of the brown-
stone James insisted they buy, and spy a sky-full
of lake-effect snow—she knows spring will arrive
in mere months, bringing the butterflies along with
it. She’s been planning for months, interviewing
artists, allocating funds; for a while, she wasn’t sure
she was going to be able to pull it off. But she saw
the first one yesterday, big and bronze and wonder-
ful, sculpted wings spread wide. The idea is to plant
them—all twelve of them—throughout the city, part
beautification project, part tourist attraction. “Gor-
geous,” she’d told her boss, “Really stunning.” But
since then she’s been wondering.

James shifts positions, sliding one hand beneath
her and gripping her ass in a way that makes her
wince. She’s not exactly wet, and they haven’t
bothered with lubricant. In the old days he would’ve
just gone down on her. In the old days, before he
became so obsessive about this whole pregnancy
thing, before—if she’s going to be honest—they got
married. She thinks back to their first time, the relish
with which he unbuttoned her blouse, the slip of his
mouth on her skin. This morning he barely kissed
her, a brusque brush of the lips that she didn’t
return. But that first time ... oh, that first time he
couldn’t get enough of her, and she laughed when
he reached for her again before they even had time
to catch their breath.

Enough, she thinks. The past is her husband’s
realm; he’s the one who spends all of his time
digging up the dead. Not that he’s in the field much
anymore. His students take up too much of his time,
a complaint which always unnerves her. Shouldn’t
his classes be top priority? “At the expense of
research?” he asks, when she dares to pose the
question. He needs tenure, he tells her, especially
if they want to start a family, and that’s not going
to happen if he concentrates on his students. But
he teaches three or four classes a semester, and
between those and his committee work his trips
abroad are usually limited to the summer months.
Sometimes she takes a week or so off to accom-
pany him; last year she met him halfway through
a dig on the isle of Crete. She’d been taking the
Clomid for four months at that point, in ever increas-
ing doses; the medication had unraveled her. She
spent most of the trip curled up in the hotel bath-
room, crying, then stared out across the Aegean
with half a mind to flee.

She sighs, an inadvertent breath that James misin-
terprets. He’s getting close; she understands the
shift in his expression when she opens her eyes.
She’s seen enough of it the past two and a half
years. For the longest time the doctors couldn’t
figure out when she was ovulating, and she and
James had sex every other day, just to be sure.
After a while, she couldn’t stomach the thought of
him. She wondered then, as she does now, what
he thinks about in order to make this happen.
She’s not altogether sure she wants to know.