The Whole Golden World

by Kristina Riggle

Her eyes snapped open. He released her, then whispered, “Sorry I did that, but you were so loud. . . .”

  Then he smiled, one corner of his cheek dimpling. “You sure liked that, didn’t you?”

  Morgan felt like she was liquid; she could be poured into a bowl. He’d made her feel better than anyone ever had.

  Given this, she failed to understand why she felt so queasy, watching him tuck his penis back into his pants and start handing her back her clothes.

  They’d decided he should walk out, first, slipping out the side door.

  That left her alone in the practice room. She thought about actually practicing—though she hadn’t yet figured out how she’d be able to go through with performing her solo without the invented accompanist—but the brief moments she sat behind her cello felt empty. So she packed it away.

  She reached for the light switch in the practice room as she was leaving and cast a glance back, staring at the spot on the floor where they had just been sprawled a few minutes ago.

  She was starting down the hall toward the lobby when it occurred to her she could walk out the side door with the practice room key in her hand.

  The kid behind the desk was probably supposed to take her ID or something to get the key back, but he hadn’t. If she went right out that side door, which she already knew did not have an alarm . . . no one would ever know where the key had gone.

  She slipped out the side door and blinked hard in the surprising bright sun; when she’d arrived, the day had been shrouded in a woolly gray.

  The clouds were receding just ahead of the early winter sunset. All the power of the setting sun was pouring out through a crack between the edge of the clouds and the horizon. The light bathed everything in gold. She froze, transfixed. The word phantasmagoric drifted into her mind. Then, preternatural.

  It just didn’t look possible, yet there it was, right in front of her.

  She hurried around the building to her car and stowed her cello in the backseat. From her backpack she retrieved a notebook and a pen and set to work in the driver’s seat, before she even started the ignition.

  Sun will not be restrained

  bursts the seam

  of the sky

  spilling beneath the ashen dome

  setting alight the whole golden world

  20

  Rain fiddled with the stem of her wineglass and threw a forced smile toward the laughing Alessia, who was running her hand over the smooth arc of her belly.

  Candlelight washed over the room and symphonic versions of Christmas carols wafted through the air, courtesy of Greg’s pricey sound system. A cousin teased Alessia—who was sitting cross-legged in front of the tree, handing out gifts—that next year there would be no candles, and everything would be locked down and babyproofed.

  “No ornaments on the bottom branches of the tree, either!” another cousin crowed. Alessia rolled her eyes but laughed along.

  Rain tried to remember which cousin that was. TJ and Greg were the only two children in their family, but their uncles and aunts all had many kids, resulting in many cousins, who were all quite a bit older, and thus all their older kids of the next generation were downstairs, tearing apart the rec room and playing pool and Wii and who knows what else.

  Leaving the adults to drink their civilized wine on their civilized couches amid their civilized music.

  It all made Rain want to crush her wineglass in her fist.

  She took a fake sip of her wine. She’d at first intended to decline any alcohol, on her third treatment cycle now, not wanting even the slightest chance of contaminating any burgeoning life. But she knew the speculation and teasing—good-natured or not—would be unbearable.

  So she decided to accept a glass. At intervals she found reasons to wander into the kitchen and spill some down the sink.

  There was another gift. Among the adults, they’d all drawn names. The next gift was for Alessia, from the one who had spoken moments ago. Tammy, that was it. Her name was Tammy.

  A combined gasp and “aww” erupted from the crowd as Alessia unwrapped a baby dress covered with little red strawberries. She’d just learned they were having a girl.

  Alessia trilled, waggling the dress at Rain, “I can’t wait to be able to pass this on to you!” The “you” was drawn out and singsongy.

  Rain felt herself growing hot under her sweater. Several pairs of expectant, wide eyes turned toward her.

  Rain faked a laugh, waved her hand in a gesture of, “oh you’re too much.” She did sip her wine for real this time, enjoying the way the smooth pinot noir rolled over her tongue. “Don’t go starting rumors. No buns in this oven.”

  TJ caught her gaze from where he’d been trapped across the room in a discussion about the corrupt college bowl system. He crossed his eyes at her quickly, so no one else would see, and—Christmas miracle!—she felt a smile, a real genuine smile, unfold.

  They could share so much through a single glance. That one funny face said to her, I’m sorry my family is being unbearable. Here, let me cheer you up by doing something stupid.

  She smiled back at him from behind her glass, to say, Thank you. I needed that.

  Rain set down her glass carefully before she was tempted to suck the whole thing down immediately.

  She pasted on a joyous holiday smile, and let her mind wander, as she shifted her waistband so it no longer pinched her bruised injection sites.

  She was long past mourning the unnatural process required to get her a baby, though she did wonder what it would be like to just wake up one day pregnant. Late period, pregnancy test, happy announcements. She imagined Alessia holding the pregnancy test and being swept into her husband’s arms. Must be nice.

  Rain bit her lip. She was turning into her husband, letting her bitterness and envy overtake her. TJ could never be happy for his brother, no matter now nice Greg was to him, and in fact when he was particularly nice, it was worse yet, because TJ believed Greg was patronizing him.

  TJ had never been able to explain the source of the one-sided animosity. He had never revealed some great conflict in their youth, or even any favoritism as they were raised, though he certainly noticed it now that Greg was a well-to-do doctor.

  Alessia herself had been so supportive and kind when Rain finally did confide in her after the first failed cycle. She really did want Rain to have that pretty strawberry dress, to share in her joy and raise cousins together.

  The last present under the tree was for Rain.

  She had tuned out of all sounds in the room and so had to shake herself awake, nearly, when a gift was being handed up to her.

  This one was from TJ’s mother. Rain pulled on the artful forest green ribbon around the cream-colored package—decked out with stylized Christmas trees—and wondered if her mother-in-law had engineered the name draw. Something about the smile on her face . . .

  It was a DVD, she could tell by the size and shape. When she peeled the wrapping back, she gasped before she could stop herself.

  On the cover, a round pregnant woman in a leotard was in trikonasana.

  Mrs. Hill cried in her delighted, girlish manner, “It’s a prenatal yoga DVD! We just know this year is going to bring blessings for you and TJ. We just know it.”

  Rain’s hands would have been shaking, but she was gripping the DVD firmly to stop them from doing so. Her throat was suddenly dry, and as she swallowed, she found her breath shallow and her words simply gone.

  TJ cleared his throat and noted drily, “No pressure or anything.”

  “No!” protested his mother, as her hand flew to her throat. “No pressure! I just know that you’re really hoping, really trying . . . We’re just all really pulling for you.”

  Rain swallowed again. Why was she so dry? A ringing started up in her ears threatening to drown out her words. Had TJ told them about the treatments? Did they all know she’d had her legs up in stirrups with a syringe squirting his sperm into her under the bright lights of a doctor’s office?

&nb
sp; “Thank you,” she croaked out, her voice in a whisper, glancing up at Alessia who was shaking her head, sending Rain a heartbreaking look of pity and mouthing I didn’t tell them. “I appreciate the support.”

  TJ crossed the room to her then and held out a hand to her. She took it and allowed herself to be led from the room, upstairs. She felt them all staring holes in her back, and she knew the moment they were out of earshot, the gossip would start.

  TJ led her to a guest room, one of several in this enormous house that was home to just two people.

  He settled her on the edge of a four-poster bed made up in cornflower blue and indigo and returned to join her after closing the door.

  “How did she know?” was the first thing Rain said. “I thought we weren’t telling them.”

  TJ shifted on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t mean to. Just that when Greg called about Christmas dinner and stuff, we got talking about the baby and he started asking questions about when we were gonna have kids. I was trying to dodge, but he was doing his lecturing voice about how we shouldn’t wait forever, and fertility rates declining blah blah. You know, his ‘I’m a doctor so I’m smarter than you’ routine and I finally snapped that we’re seeing Dr. Gould. So then he got all excited because he knows her and says her success rate is ‘phenomenal.’ I didn’t tell you because you’ve seemed so touchy about this lately, I didn’t think you wanted to hear it.”

  “I would have liked a heads-up, so I didn’t walk into a sucker punch like that in front of everyone, on Christmas.”

  “I’ll talk to Mom, tell her she shouldn’t have done that.”

  Rain held up a hand. “No. Don’t. I don’t want to make her feel bad, and it’s already done, anyway. I guess everyone knows now.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. Really.”

  She traced a pattern in the bedspread with her finger. It had been ages since she’d done her nails. They were ragged and uneven. She used to paint her fingers and toes all the time, given that her bare feet were always on display at work.

  “Well, they are your family, and if you want to tell them about our lives, that’s fine. Just clue me in.”

  TJ pulled her in for a hug and she let herself relax into it, trying to feel what she used to, especially since he was being so much more attentive and kind. Maybe seeing Alessia grow bigger renewed his genuine desire to be a father, for real, instead of just to compete with his brother. Stranger things have happened.

  “You want to go home?” he asked into her hair.

  “No,” she said with a sigh. “No, just go on down ahead of me and give me a minute to collect myself. And hide that stupid DVD somewhere. I don’t want to look at it.”

  “You got it,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

  On the way out, his phone chimed.

  “Who’s texting you on Christmas Day?” Rain asked, perplexed. His whole family was here, anyway, unless they were texting him from downstairs to hurry up.

  He frowned at the screen. “Doesn’t make any sense to me. Must be a wrong number. Take as much time as you need. I’ll save you some ham.”

  Rain smiled weakly, and as he closed the door, she curled up on top of the quilt. As if she could eat anything now.

  In a few minutes Rain had pulled herself together enough to descend the stairs back into the fray.

  As she reached the main floor, she saw several heads turn toward her, then turn immediately away. They’d been instructed not to stare, she could imagine. Not to make her feel uncomfortable.

  Too late for that.

  Rain fake smiled when she happened to meet the gaze of the various cousins. They had started eating, and her spot was conspicuously empty. She squeezed TJ’s shoulder as she came around to her chair, which he then jumped up to pull out for her, a ridiculously chivalrous gesture she’d never seen him deploy, even at the fanciest of restaurants.

  Conversation had stalled, and they were all trying not to stare at her.

  She reached for her water glass and satisfied everyone’s curiosity. “We’ll find out next month if our treatment cycle was successful. Thank you for your concern, everyone. Now, please let’s talk about something other than my uterus.”

  Everyone laughed, suddenly, as if all their mirth had been contained in a boiling pot and the lid had just flown off. Some of the cousins’ kids down at the end of the table looked both confused and completely grossed out. Most likely they had missed the “Don’t make Rain feel weird” speech and didn’t know, which suited her fine.

  Conversation finally drifted to politics—the Republican primary made for some lively conversation, just on the right side of proper and civil—college bowl games, and exploits of some of the younger kids in the extended family. Cousin Will’s kid Nicky had a new fascination with the word sexy, which he had picked up somewhere. Everyone roared with laughter when Will related how his six-year-old said at Sunday dinner when their pastor was visiting, “Please pass the sexy carrots.”

  Rain was starting to get her equilibrium back. This was why she loved TJ’s family. Over at Angie and Ricky’s house the day before, dinner had taken place at 6 P.M. instead of the advertised 2 P.M. because Angie had forgotten to properly thaw the bird, and most of the time they were treated to an off-again, on-again argument about some fight her parents had at their Walmart jobs resulting in a talking-to from their boss. They’d drop it, but then when conversation sagged an hour later, Angie would bring it up again as if they’d never stopped.

  All the while, Fawn was groaning about Brock teething so much he was crying all the time, resulting in Rain searching the Internet for suggestions as Brock wailed himself into red-faced fury. Stone was half asleep for most of the day, texting and ignoring the rest of the family.

  Such a refreshing contrast between that chaos and the easy camaraderie at this table.

  When the pie was served and Greg remarked he’d like some of that “sexy apple,” the table roared again with hilarity.

  Rain laughed, too, genuinely laughed, and in a lately-too-rare feeling of spontaneous affection, she put her hand on TJ’s thigh.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket under her hand, and she gasped like something bit her. “What the heck? Is someone still bugging you today?”

  TJ frowned. “I’d better go call them back and tell them they have the wrong number.”

  “Call them? Can’t you just text them back and tell them to stop it? You could just shut your phone off.”

  But TJ was already walking away, throwing her a confused shrug over his shoulder.

  People texting on Christmas. Rain shook her head and took a sip of her water. Couldn’t people ever just put their phones away to enjoy a holiday?

  She looked back over her shoulder to see TJ walk out to the three-season porch and close the door behind him. She could see him in silhouette through the door and watched him talk for far longer than seemed necessary for a simple wrong number.

  21

  Dinah swept the floor of the Den around the last two customers, two teenagers holding hands and nuzzling on the couch in the rear of the shop, near the now-cold gas fireplace.

  Janine was stacking chairs on top of the tables, and they’d already shut off the music.

  Dinah finally leaned on her broom in front of the couple and announced, “Okay, closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

  The boy looked up, and Dinah almost jumped back. It was that curly-haired scary kid from back in September who’d grabbed his girlfriend’s wrist. Justin something. This wasn’t the same girl; this was a dishwater blonde whose hair was up in a messy ponytail, and she wore an ARBOR VALLEY CHEER shirt.

  Dinah tried to act like she wasn’t startled by him, but she felt her grip tightening on the broom handle. She’d gone upstairs to take a call; he must have come in then. She would have ordered him to leave. Janine must have forgotten all about that. Or she just didn’t care.

  He smirked at her and tipped an invisible hat. “Sure thing,” he said. As he stoo
d, he kicked over the coffee table in front of the couch.

  “Oops. So clumsy of me.”

  The girl shrieked a giggle and clung to his arm. He refused to hurry his way out, just loping along, drawing out the moment. He knocked over a chair just before walking out the door to a fresh gale of giggles from his girl.

  As the door clicked closed, Dinah whirled on Janine. “Why did you let him in here?”

  “I didn’t know we had a banned kids’ list.”

  “We do. It’s a list of one. Him.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize.” Janine picked up the chair that had fallen. “No harm done here,” she said, inspecting the chair and the wood floor. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “You mean other than being furious that this kid comes in here and acts like that to me?”

  “That’s just it. The minute that coffee table went over I thought you were going to tear his head off. And then call the cops. But you just stood there.”

  Dinah leaned on her broom handle. That would have been in character. She shrugged, propped the broom in a corner, and righted the table. It had a new scratch, but she’d purchased it from an antique store because she liked how it was artfully distressed in the first place.

  She resumed sweeping. “Maybe I’m just tired of riding into battle all the time when nothing ever changes anyway. I mean, I turn around and instead of an army behind me, I’m all by myself. No one else cares, and I end up looking like a moron, and usually with a new mortal enemy.”

  “Will wonders never cease,” Janine observed.

  “Yeah, well. I mean, I tore into the principal for suspending Jared for pot smoking when he swore up and down to me he hadn’t done it. I believed him.”

  “Bless your heart,” Janine said, moving behind the counter to start cleaning the coffee pots.

  “Don’t make me feel worse. It was plausible. Only to have him confess to me that he really had taken a few puffs.”