Sometime, Somewhere

by Kalyn Fogarty

  Once, in college, we came this close to breaking up. Compared to the troubles we have faced recently, I can only laugh and recognize how silly we were. But when you’re in college and haven’t a care in the world besides midterms and which frat party to attend on Friday, problems tend to get blown out of proportion. Wren has been stubborn since the day I met her. I always tell her she should have been the lawyer in the family because she will argue anything. If she’s in a bad mood, you could tell her the sky is blue and she will swear it’s purple, and eventually you’ll agree with her because her reasoning is quite compelling—and it’s also the only way to get her to shut up. If she doesn’t like you? Then forget about it. You are wrong, she is right, no matter what the topic.

  Well, that time in college, I should have known better than to mess with her when she was in a bad mood. I should have left her alone, but that was my fault. I didn’t know when to back off. I figured I could only make her day better. Boy was I wrong.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you went to Pete’s party Friday?” was the first thing she said when I let myself into her dorm room. Her roommate, Chrissie, quietly slipped away. She raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed good luck as she passed.

  Wren had left for a three-day gymnastics meet over the previous weekend. I’d driven myself to the competition Sunday morning to watch her vault routine, but with my own practice and school schedule, I hadn’t been able to stay over Friday and Saturday.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it.” It was a stupid answer, looking back. I should have just apologized and told her she was right.

  “You didn’t think to tell me that you stayed out all night and walked Danielle Fisher to her dorm?” It all became clear. Danielle Fisher had made it quite obvious that she wanted to hook up with me on numerous occasions. I’d always laughed it off because, honestly, I was just one of many. When Dani was at a party I was at, she wanted me. If I wasn’t there, there was always some other guy she had to have. There wasn’t a chance in hell I would ever be interested in a girl like that, even if I were single. I had told this to Wren a million times before. But she was in one of her moods today.

  “She was obliterated,” I said. Noticing that this didn’t garner much sympathy for either me or Dani, I continued, “She was puking everywhere, and no one else was sober enough to take her home. Pete asked me to make sure she made it okay, since she’s on the way to my dorm.” This was the dead honest truth. I hadn’t wanted to take her—she’d been sloppy and hanging all over me—but I’d tried to be a good guy. I’d led her, stumbling and slurring, to the outside entrance of O’Hara Hall and helped her in the front door. She’d gone up to her room, alone.

  “Well, that’s not what she’s telling everyone.” Wren can be frightening when she’s angry. She doesn’t get loud and throw things like some girls. She doesn’t even sound that angry. She talks very quietly in this slightly deeper than normal monotone and just stares, like she’s waiting to catch you in a lie.

  I didn’t back down. “Well, that’s what happened.”

  We had a staring match.

  “Are you seriously going to believe what you heard from Dani Fischer? I promise you, Wren, I’m telling you the truth. I love you, no one but you.”

  She glared at me, her eyes so cold and distant, not at all like those of the girl I knew. “Well, from what I hear, this wasn’t about love at all.”

  And in that instant, I hated her. It was one of the first times I’d ever felt that way about her. I had loved Wren pretty much from the first moment I saw her. Sure, we were young, but that puppy love turned into the real thing. It grew and got stronger as we got older. But right then, I hated her.

  “Believe what you want. I’m leaving. Come find me when you realize how ridiculous you sound right now.” I left her standing there, face set in a hardened cast. She didn’t try to follow me, didn’t call out my name. I wanted her to; I was hoping she’d cry and come after me. But no, she’s a stubborn bitch sometimes.

  It took her three days before she called me. Three agonizing days before she called and apologized to me. I forgave her, of course. Not many things come hard for Wren, but apologies do. She’s always so certain she’s right, so when she’s wrong, she doesn’t know what to do. I blame her parents. She grew up too fast and she always had to fend for herself. Thank god she was so smart and usually right, or I don’t know how she would have made it out of her house alive.

  I’m reminded of this incident because I fear that what I’m doing now might have similar consequences but on a much, much bigger scale. I’m not going to a party and forgetting to tell her, a simple lie by omission. I’m walking into an adoption agency and purposely not telling her. I just want to scope out our options. I’m not signing any papers, I’m not bringing home an orphan. I only want to see what’s out there. I hope to god she doesn’t find out before I tell her on my own, because I know I’m not doing anything wrong, but boy she can be scary if she thinks I am.

  ***

  “Where were you today?” she asks when I walk into the kitchen. Her back is toward me as she stirs something that smells like beef and heaven on the stove.

  I bear-hug her from behind. “Defending the innocent and persecuting the guilty,” I joke, kissing her ear. She doesn’t crack a smile.

  “Did you have court today?” She keeps stirring the pot. Homemade beef stew.

  “No, just met with some clients. Boring stuff.” I try to sound nonchalant, but she’s onto me. I have no idea how she knows, but she knows something.

  She shakes her head, finally turns to look at me and smiles. Her smile could freeze a meteor. “I brought lunch to the office. You weren’t there,” she says, wiping her hands on a towel.

  Wren has brought me lunch about twice, ever. That’s including high school, college, and married life. She must have been bored out of her mind at home to feel the compulsion to cook an extra meal for me and drive it to my office.

  “I’m sorry, babe, I went out for lunch,” I say, not quite lying. I did indeed go out for my lunch break.

  “Guess next time I should call,” she says, still smiling.

  No yelling, no accusations, just that cold, brittle smile. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach, and then kicked again in the balls while I was down. Why? I didn’t do anything wrong. Why does it feel like I did?

  ***

  Dinner was fine, quiet but delicious. We are sitting on the couch, digesting. She’s reading a novel while I type up a draft on my laptop. She’s next to me, but the distance between us is an ocean.

  “I’m going up to bed,” she says, closing her book with a thump that makes me jump.

  “All right, I’ll be right up,” I say, finishing a sentence and looking up at her.

  “It’s okay, you can stay down here tonight,” she says, as if I asked to say on the couch, like she’s giving me permission.

  Surprised, I laugh. “What? I’m done. I don’t need to stay down here.”

  “Well, I’d like you to sleep down here tonight,” she repeats. “Then we can talk about what you learned at the adoption agency in the morning.”

  She spins on her little heels and walks up the stairs without glancing back at me.

  29

  Karen

  After

  May 2004

  If Prissy senses me, she’s not letting on. She purrs loudly and sleeps curled into herself, oblivious of anything around her. I’m cross-legged on the floor of the closet, my knee inches from her whiskers, and still she doesn’t budge. Just like Prissy doesn’t feel me, I can’t feel the floor I sit on. Chalk these observations up to more things I don’t understand about my existence and have given up trying to figure out. I don’t touch the floor, yet I must at least be hovering above it or held up by some force of physics, since I seem to sit or stand on it like a normal person, an alive person. Early on I attempted to jump up and down as hard as I could, hoping I’d fall downward through the floor. Maybe I watched Ghost too many times i
n my living life but what can I say, Patrick Swayze was quite sexy in it. If he could jump through drawers, I assumed I could fall through floors. No such luck. I gave up on that pretty quickly. I kept falling into random rooms I had no interest in being in, so I decided stillness was my best option.

  Questions. So many questions, so few answers. In life, I was never scientific or philosophical and I despised religion. Ending up a ghost—or whatever this is—is pretty much the most ironic thing that’s ever happened to me. The most ironic was having ovarian cancer. A woman who didn’t intend to reproduce getting a reproductive cancer was a mean trick of the universe.

  I killed myself. I repeat this like a sick mantra. I need to remind myself it actually happened. I killed myself. I hated my life so much that I chose to end it. Somehow I’m not dead, but also not alive. This is not what I envisioned happening after I took those pills. Although I’m not exactly sure what I expected, I thought I would just go away. End. Not be anymore. Imagine my surprise when I ended up here, in the closet of some alter-me hiding from an alter-life. Sometimes I wonder if I’m trapped in a dream. Maybe a coma, even. Any way you play it, I managed to screw up my own death. Simple tasks have never come easily to me.

  Wren is sleeping and Jimmy is downstairs, probably fixing something. The few times I’ve watched him, he’s always been doing something with his hands. As my grandma said, idle hands are the devil’s tool. He takes this adage to heart. Either that or he’s seriously overcompensating. He can’t fix Wren, so he’s fixing everything else. I’m no shrink, but perhaps there’s more to it than a clogged drain. Wren’s the sick one, but Jimmy doesn’t look much better. If he’s not careful, he’ll be so far broken he’ll be beyond fixing.

  This is why I overdosed. While I didn’t have my own suffering husband at home, the thought of victimizing another human was too much to bear. I’d already come to terms with my disease and prognosis. Best case, I could’ve lived a long, childless life in an extended bout of remission. But the longer I lived, the more people I would tangle in my web. I couldn’t stand people worrying over me, concerned that every time I had a runny nose, I was sick. My poor mother, for all her shortcomings as a parent, was genuinely worried about me. My dad too. They worried all the time. All. The. Time. Mom called me every day, her life suddenly revolving around my wellness. Another daughter might have appreciated this concern, but I hated it, rejected her attention. I’m sure it came from a place of love, but she couldn’t hide the disappointment written in the lines on her face. Each time she asked how I was feeling, she was really asking if one day she’d be able to plan a wedding. When she asked how long I’d been without symptoms, she meant that she wanted to be a grandmother. Behind every question was a veiled regret, a wish for something not had. Somehow, viewing myself this way, through her eyes, made it easier. Easier to convince myself suicide was a favor to her and all those my life touched. The fewer the people who loved me, the fewer the people who would be hurt when I inevitably let them down or left them.

  Wren doesn’t care who she destroys. Jimmy suffers in silence every day. Because of this, I hate her.

  She doesn’t come into this room very often, making it my favorite room in the house. No one comes in here except Prissy when she’s sick of the couch. The cat likes to cuddle inside the basket of stuffed animals. I like to be enveloped in the darkness. This room is so rarely entered I’m not even sure the light works. Thankfully, the darkness of the blackout curtains—purchased to keep the sun from awaking a sleeping infant—serves to offset the pastel decor. But a sliver of moonlight still sneaks around the corners, highlighting the bunny wallpaper outlining the perimeter of the room and casting a chilling glow on the mobile hanging in the crib. It all gives me the creeps. All this whimsy needs a baby. Without one, it’s somewhat sad—haunting, if you will. The closet door is only cracked open so Prissy can come and go, and it gives blissful protection against staring at all the baby crap.

  Tonight, I have company. Wren sneaks into the room, quiet as a mouse. Although she’s barely visible through the slats in the door, she resembles a ghost herself. She’s dressed in a threadbare robe. Her collarbones are prominent, her skin shimmering gray in the moonlight, and she’s so light she tiptoes barefoot around the room like a cool breeze before settling onto the rocking chair. My first instinct is to leave, but for the first time in two years I’m drawn to her in a way I’ve never been before. Her face is blank, her eyes are distant, and I recognize this expression. I’ve worn it before. I can tell she’s biting her cheek and wonder if she tastes blood.

  Using a slippered foot, she pushes off the plush carpet and rocks harder, her whole body pulsating with emotion. My own body is torn between fading away into a faraway corner and moving to her side, to be closer to her. Compromising, I stand and peer through the cracks. Her sorrow echoes in the empty room, waking up something inside me. Tears stream down her face and I have the urge to brush them away, tell her not to cry, since it won’t do her any good. My chest tightens and I’m on the verge of tears, except I don’t know if I can cry.

  “Wren,” Jimmy says, cracking open the door to the nursery and peeking inside before striding to her side. His sandy hair reflects the light and a halo surrounds his head.

  I know this Jimmy isn’t the same one I once knew, once loved, but so much is the same. I could never forget his boyish insistence that he could solve any problem, no matter how hard. Even after years of life beating him down, he looks so hopeful.

  Wren usually settles when Jimmy is around. I’ve seen her surrender to his strong embrace and let him shoulder the pain, but not tonight. Now she lashes out at him. He tries to console her, but her rage is untamable. In this instant, I can finally relate to her.

  “Everything is wrong, Jimmy,” she hisses. He pulls back as though slapped.

  I peer through the slats, straining to watch. I’m rooting for her anger to win, for her to finally send him away. Maybe she’s finally strong enough to let him go.

  He strokes her cheek, ignoring her when she turns her head from him. He’s sobbing, thick and heavy breaths racking his body. Wren wiggles and tries to get free from his grip, but he won’t ease up. I should have known he wouldn’t let her go. By sheer will he comforts her. Soon they are crying into each other’s necks, wetting each other’s shirts with their tears.

  I sit back down. For a moment I thought it might be over.

  Someone else’s sob clutches my chest, reaches into my gut and grabs hold. Neither Jimmy nor Wren is making a sound, but still I hear a scream so loud that I swear I feel goose bumps rise on my arms, even though this is not possible. The depth of pain in that cry is so powerful I want to cover my ears against the sound. As if it can actually break glass, the shriek ends when a vase of yellow flowers crashes to the nursery floor. Through the cracks, Karen and Jimmy break apart, staring at the table, surprised.

  I flee. The wail resonates in my head, a chord of sadness and desperation in B flat. It’s the song of my soul. I don’t know who cried to me and wonder if it was my own voice, so perfectly it sang my feelings.

  30

  James

  After

  May 2004

  Time is a funny thing. One moment I’m in my car, the next in a strange living room. One moment I’m in 2011, the next I’m hurtled back to 2004. How many other times and places am I in right now?

  I don’t believe in an afterlife. Even though I grew up Catholic, I wasn’t devout by any stretch of the imagination. I attended Sunday school, was baptized and confirmed, took all the appropriate steps toward heaven. Most years I attended church on Christmas, and sometimes even Easter if I was feeling particularly guilty. Generally, I considered myself a believer in God, but not a participant in any religion. I loved life, especially my own. I didn’t hope for the afterlife because I was content with all I had. Now I’m not so sure.

  Heaven and hell, the two polarities of faith. The good go to heaven, sinners straight to hell. What awaits us on either side? Angel
s and everlasting happiness up high, the devil and burning flames of regret down below? I never gave much thought to either. I never worried about where I would end up, but if I’d had to guess, I would have said ruthless divorce lawyers sign with the devil in year three of law school. I never thought it mattered much, but maybe I should have cared more.

  In college I took a few philosophy classes and for a while was fascinated with the prospect of reincarnation, but in a passing-phase sort of way; it was just one of my many collegiate interests. Certain faiths believe that when your human body dies, your soul comes back as another form. So perhaps my dead uncle is one of the grand oak trees lining Beacon Street in Boston or Grandpa Knight lives on as a bloodhound or some other droopy-faced dog. I glance over at Prissy, yawning and absently licking her front paw. She doesn’t sense me, so I’m not convinced she’s inhabited by some reincarnated soul, but who am I to say? Clearly I am no expert on any of this.

  Despite my interest in reincarnation and my upbringing in the church, I guess I didn’t really believe any of it. I assumed nothing was what was in store. You die and you are simple gone.

  Yet here I am, contrary to everything I’ve ever thought. I’m not a dog, a tree, an angel, or Lucifer himself. I’m not anything except maybe still myself but not exactly. If this is heaven, then I’m eagerly awaiting my happy ending. Otherwise, this afterlife sucks. Some days I believe this is actually hell. Watching my life the way it could have been if I hadn’t been such a fuckup is an extreme form of torture. You could have been happy. You could have been loved. Here, watch it. There’s no devil or fire, but this might be worse.

  I would have preferred nothingness. Poof, dead, gone.

  ***

  It’s dark outside. Jimmy is fiddling with the washer and dryer in the basement, so I’ve been watching Wren sleep for hours. Her snores are like music. I breathe vicariously through her.