Holding on to Nothing

by Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

  “I can’t believe I forgot that. I’m sorry.”

  They stood side by side. Lucy put her hand out and touched the crib’s shiny white finish—she didn’t know much about these things, but it seemed like a beautiful crib, a place a baby would be happy to sleep for the first few years of its life. Jeptha thumbed the crib as well. She had to hand it to him; showing up at her door with a crib and a teddy bear and diapers was about the only thing he could have done to make her forgive him. Standing there with him and looking at the crib their baby would sleep in, everything felt real. She was going to have a baby. An honest-to-God baby. Hers. And Jeptha’s. Lucy reached out her hand and rested it lightly on his.

  “Thank you again,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

  Jeptha looked at her, for so long and so quietly that a flush swam up from her belly. His eyes were doe-soft, and a smile flickered on his lips. He opened his mouth to say something, but LouEllen came swanning through the front door, her gargantuan bag swinging in before her hips made their entrance.

  “Jeptha. You’re here,” she said. Lucy saw her mouth tighten for a moment before she smiled at him. “And you brought a crib. Lucy told you the good news?”

  “Something like that. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, there you go. It looks … real nice,” she said. “Have y’all tried to get it through the doorway of that back room?”

  Lucy and Jeptha looked at each other. Lucy hadn’t considered that. And the look on Jeptha’s face said he hadn’t either.

  “Maybe it’ll fit. They usually don’t, but maybe this one will,” LouEllen said.

  “I hope so,” Jeptha said. Lucy noticed his fingers fiddling with the frayed edges of his pockets.

  “If not, we’ll take it down and put it back up. Jeptha did it in five minutes,” Lucy said.

  “Did you now?” LouEllen said. She appraised Jeptha. He fiddled more.

  Lucy couldn’t stand seeing him suffer under LouEllen’s gaze. “Jeptha was on his way out. Weren’t you?”

  “What? Oh. Yeah, I was. I am.” All was quiet while he leaned down and pocketed the Allen wrench and one extra washer. “Should I try to get it through the door now though?”

  “It’ll be fine, Jeptha. Don’t worry about it. If it won’t fit, we’ll leave it right here until you can come back and help us girls out,” LouEllen said, her hand gesturing to the door.

  Jeptha took the hint. “Okay. Just let me know, Lucy, when you want me to come help. Tomorrow, next day, anytime.”

  “I will,” Lucy said. “And Jeptha?” He turned so quickly she worried he’d hurt himself. “I appreciate it. Really.” She faced him, and then kept her back to LouEllen until Jeptha closed the door and she heard his truck drive away.

  “Well, wasn’t that just precious of him?” LouEllen said from behind Lucy. Lucy’s belly tightened when she saw LouEllen’s hands casually touching the crib. “It’s pretty. Couple dings, but nothing a little white-out won’t cover.”

  Lucy leaned on the crib edge opposite from LouEllen and averted her eyes from the dings she now saw around the edges, tiny flecks of missing paint that she might never have noticed if LouEllen hadn’t pointed them out. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.

  “It was nice of him—I’ll say that. I thought you weren’t sure you were going to tell him?”

  “I didn’t. He figured it out.”

  “And didn’t run screaming? That is nice of him.”

  “I think maybe he isn’t as bad as his family is.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “I’m serious,” Lucy said, angry at the tone in LouEllen’s voice. She would always be grateful to LouEllen for taking her in, but sometimes, she wanted to tell her to get the hell out of her life.

  “I am too, Lucy. It’s just—you’re young. I believed people could change when I was young too. But I’ve seen a lot of Taylors over the years. And I ain’t never seen one of them that wasn’t drunk or mean or tomcatting, or all three. Believe me, I want that not to be the case for you. For that baby. But history doesn’t bode well for him.”

  Lucy thought of the times she’d seen Jeptha roll out of church early, off to get up to God knew what trouble; or the times she’d seen him in high school strolling through the halls, the smell of booze lingering in the air behind him; or that time he’d come into the Laundromat where she was doing her clothes, his eyes bleary red and his clothes smelling like a skunk. Lucy only figured out later that he was high as a kite.

  “I’m not sure about him either,” she said to LouEllen. “I wish I was. It’d be good to have someone to count on in the middle of this.”

  “Well, what am I? Chopped liver?”

  Lucy looked at LouEllen—her red-lipped smile lighting up her face, her white hair tipped to the side, and her teal-blue outfit blaring against the white walls. She laughed. “No, you are certainly not chopped liver.”

  “Well, alright then. You aren’t alone in this. You don’t need to depend on Jeptha. You got me.”

  “That’s good to know,” Lucy said, giving LouEllen a hug, even as her skin pulled a little at the words. She knew she should purely be grateful that LouEllen had been willing to take her in and wanted to be involved now that Lucy was bringing a baby into the house. But she worried. LouEllen had once told her that the worst mistake she’d ever made with her life was not having kids. But if Lucy was going to do this, she knew herself enough to know that she wanted to be elbows deep in bottles and baby poop. She wanted to make the mistakes millions of others already had made rather than have someone tell her constantly how to do it better or differently. She wanted a family, her own family, one that made all the mistakes families make when they are exhausted, broke, or unsure. She wasn’t sure that could happen with LouEllen standing beside her, marshaling the world into order.

  She looked at the crib she and Jeptha had assembled and then back to the doorway it needed to fit through. LouEllen was right, of course: there was no way it would fit. But then she thought of Jeptha’s long fingers slotting their baby’s crib together, like he was playing an instrument he’d been handling all his life. He would have to come back—undertake the whole crib exercise all over again. At the thought of that prospect, Lucy felt a flutter in her stomach that had nothing to do with the baby.

  7

  JEPTHA EASED HIMSELF INTO a seat at Judy’s. “The usual?” she asked, her hand already halfway into the cooler before she finished asking the question.

  There was no one else in the bar so early on a Friday, just a half empty beer at Delnor’s usual place, marking his spot while he went to the bathroom. Like old, unmarried, crotchety Delnor, Jeptha didn’t have anywhere else to go. The tobacco didn’t need tending until tomorrow; Cody was at the plant; and Jeptha was, as always, in between construction projects. He had no one to get into trouble with. Besides, after he took that crib by Lucy’s two weeks ago, trouble hadn’t seemed as appealing as it usually did. Even drinking, his oldest and best friend, had lost some of its appeal. It’d been two days since he’d had a beer at all and two weeks since he’d been drunk. Lucy and the baby were taking up all the space in his head that alcohol usually did. He saw her a week ago at his regular gig—they’d talked after the set while she cleaned up, but when he’d said, “Well, I better get out of your way,” hoping she’d ask him to stay, she’d merely said, “All right,” and patted his arm good night. He’d called and talked with her a time or two, wanting to see her, but she was working every night he’d asked her about. He’d gone by her house twice too, to see if she needed him to move that crib, but she wasn’t home—LouEllen had answered the door. Her words had been as nice as could be, but her raised eyebrows and knowing smile had made Jeptha so nervous he could barely mutter Lucy’s name. He trembled thinking about it. He was sure LouEllen hadn’t mentioned his visits to Lucy. But the idea that, at any given time, Lucy was a few minutes away from him, his kid growing inside of her and he couldn’t see her, set him on edge. He put his hand on his leg to stop the jit
tering that was his constant companion these days.

  “Jeptha? Hey. You in there?” Judy asked, her arm deep in the bottom reaches of the beer cooler. She pulled out a Budweiser and set it in front of Jeptha.

  “Oh, sorry. I’ll just have a Coke.”

  “A Coke? You?” Judy said, her hands hovering over the beer, about to pop the top on it.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, all right then,” she said. She wiped her hands on her t-shirt and grabbed a pint glass off the shelf, dragging it through the ice and filling it from the fountain dispenser. She set it in front of Jeptha and narrowed her eyes at him. “You getting on the wagon?”

  “Haven’t felt much like drinking,” Jeptha said.

  “New leaf?”

  “Guess,” he said, not sure what name to give this new feeling.

  “Well, as long as you can play tonight, it’s all the same to me. Just don’t tell everyone I said that. I’d be out of a bar if all my regulars started drinking Coke.”

  “Won’t say a word,” he said. He turned away from her watchful stare, gazing toward the stairs and hoping he’d see Lucy coming up them to restock the beer cooler. He’d come in early in the hopes of getting to talk with her. His leg jittered again as he looked.

  “She isn’t here,” Judy said.

  “Who?”

  “Jeptha, please. Delnor’s in the bathroom, and even he knows you’re looking for Lucy,” Judy said, crossing her arms over her body.

  “Oh,” Jeptha said, looking down at the bar, knowing his cheeks were as red as his t-shirt.

  “What’s going on with you two anyway?”

  “Hell if I know.” Jeptha sighed.

  “Can I ask you—is she all right? She’s been sort of off recently—pretty distracted and keeps using the bathroom like an old guy with a prostate problem,” Judy said. “I’ve been wanting to ask, but it’s not strictly my business.”

  “Um, well, I, she’s … she’s okay. Ain’t been feeling great, I think, but it’ll pass.” Jeptha tried to keep a smile off his face when he thought of Lucy being pregnant, but he failed.

  Judy leaned in close and stared at him until his underarms stunk with fear. “Jeptha Taylor. Is she pregnant?”

  “I … I … it ain’t mine to say. Well, I mean, it is mine, but—damn. Forget I said anything.”

  Judy slapped the bar with her hand and very nearly smiled. “I suspected as much, but I’d have never guessed you were the reason why. I was pretty sure she hated you.”

  “I think she did. Still might. I don’t know.” He wiped a blade of condensation off his glass with his thumb, remembering the smooth white paint of the crib and the slight touch of Lucy’s hand on his when she had thanked him.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” He felt weird talking to Lucy’s boss about it but also like he wanted to open his mouth and tell Judy everything.

  “Yeah, I know a lot of women getting pregnant from nothing. I hear that’s the chief way it’s done, in fact.” She rolled her eyes at him. “So, what’s the story?”

  Jeptha didn’t know how to put all that had happened into words. He knew other people could probably do it—Cody, say. That man could out-talk a woman. But Jeptha didn’t know, and never had, how to put the words together, how to parse out his feelings and arrange them into sentences. He knew he was happy when he thought of Lucy’s hand on his but miserable when he thought about not having seen her for two weeks. He didn’t know how to tell Judy any of that. Not for the first time, he wished he’d been gifted with the skill of making his mouth say what his heart felt.

  “It’s … it’s a long story.”

  Judy rested her hands on the bar and scanned the empty room. She crossed her arms back over her tremendous chest and stood up tall, staring down at Jeptha. “Yeah, I could see how you’d be real worried about telling it, given how busy I am.”

  “Delnor may want a drink?” he protested weakly.

  “You’re worse than either of my husbands at talking,” Judy said, shaking her head with disappointment. “Besides, it’s four o’clock. If history is any guide, Delnor will be in there for a good twenty minutes yet.”

  “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Damn, Judy.” The jitter in his leg kicked into high gear, and he looked around for the tenth time to make sure no one was listening. The bar was as empty as it had been two minutes before.

  “Well, do you?”

  “I … um, I …” Jeptha stopped, not trusting what might come out of his mouth. He settled for a nod.

  “Now, was that so hard?” Judy asked. “Actually, to look at you, it was. Never mind.”

  Jeptha was silent, relieved to have admitted he loved Lucy and weak with the desperate knowledge that it didn’t matter. He could bring a thousand cribs, all the diapers in the world, and love her forever. He was still Jeptha Taylor, and no woman in her right mind, especially one like Lucy, would give him a shot.

  “What are you going to do? You love her. She’s pregnant. What’s next?”

  “Nothing,” Jeptha said. He put his head in his hands, his legs still jack-hammering away at the floor.

  “What is that noise?” Judy asked, peering over the edge of the bar. “God, is that you? You are nervous as all get-out, aren’t you? Why don’t you ask her to marry you and get it over with?”

  “Marry her?” Jeptha croaked. “I can barely get up the nerve to ask her on another date.”

  “Well, you better find it and quick.”

  “Ain’t no use,” he said. He’d thought about it, a dozen times or more since she’d told him she was pregnant, vaguely imagined her saying yes to his proposal. But when he tried to think of specifics, he got panicky. He imagined bringing her back to his shitty trailer after the wedding, trying to find space for a crib among the rusted red couch, pizza boxes and beer cans on the floor. All the things about his life that had never bothered him before were making him sweat now, imagining them through Lucy’s eyes. She’d run screaming. He’d be left alone. And Jeptha was smart enough to know that having her and losing her would be way worse than never having had her in his life.

  “You are pitiful, Jeptha, just pitiful.”

  “Like I don’t already know it,” he said.

  “I mean seriously,” Judy said. Jeptha looked up at the note of anger in her voice. “Another man might see this pregnancy as the answer to his prayers. She’s way more likely to say yes now than she ever was.”

  “Not if it’s me doing the asking,” Jeptha said. He sipped his Coke, wishing it was a beer.

  “How come?” Judy asked.

  “I’m a Taylor,” he said, waiting for the expression on her face to change to one of disappointed disgust. When it didn’t, he shook his head. “Don’t you know? We’re the worst of the white-trash—we drink too much, shoot each other, cheat. You may not give a shit, but Lucy does.”

  “Maybe. But carrying a man’s baby has a way of changing a woman’s mind about things. Besides, you don’t seem so bad to me. And even if you are, you can change.”

  Jeptha scoffed. “Yeah, right. How can I change?”

  “Get a job, be there for her. Stop blaming who you are on your name. You’ve already stopped drinking. Seems to me your biggest problem is being a coward.”

  “A coward? The hell?” Jeptha stood, nearly knocking his stool over.

  “You are too chicken to ask Lucy to marry you, no matter the answer. Even if she says no, isn’t asking the right thing to do? I mean, even where I come from—the Godless North as you all keep calling it—that is generally the way these things work. Aren’t you guys real big on all that honor stuff down here?”

  Honor. There wasn’t anything more in the world Jeptha wanted to do, but there was no honor in asking a question when he already knew the answer was no. Jeptha got angry sitting there, across from Judy’s crossed arms, her looking down at him like his grandma used to do, looking at him like he was family and she
knew anything about anything. She moved down here for a man, one she wasn’t even married to, and she wanted to lecture him on honor? Jeptha didn’t want to hear it.

  “Ain’t you heard, Judy? I ain’t got no honor,” Jeptha said. “And I’ll take that beer now.”

  “Aw, fuck that, Jeptha. Be better than that.” Judy threw him a sharp look and walked away.

  JEPTHA SAT THERE as the bar began to fill up, trying to ignore the dirty looks Judy cast his way while casting more than a few of his own at her. He talked to Delnor for a few minutes and nursed the half-foam beer Judy had grudgingly set in front of him thirty minutes after he’d asked for it. He just wanted to see Lucy. He knew seeing her wouldn’t make him feel any better—probably worse if his past experiences held true—but he didn’t care. He turned around in his seat every four minutes to see if she had snuck in behind him, but there was no Lucy, just a couple of people sitting at tables, eating jalapeño poppers and waiting for the show to start.

  “This thing’s warm as a homeless man’s bottle of piss,” Judy said, picking up his half-drunk beer and shuddering. “You want another one?”

  Jeptha shook his head. “Just a Coke.”

  Judy set down his drink and leaned her elbows on the bar in front of him. “Here’s the thing, Jeptha. You only get one shot at something like this—believe me. How you’re feeling right now? It doesn’t come around every day.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was young once,” Judy said. “A hundred years ago.” Jeptha laughed.

  “I’m serious. You don’t get a dozen shots on goal when it comes to this. I’ve been a bartender all my life and I’ve seen people in every stage of love there is. But you—you’re miserable in love. That’s the worst kind. The kind that can only be treated by doing something about it. Whether she says yes or no, you’ve got to ask. It’s the only way you’ll stop that leg.” Jeptha stilled it with a massive force of will. “You’ve got to try.”

  Jeptha was quiet, his gut twisted as he thought of Lucy. He nodded at Judy. “Maybe.”