The Whole Golden World

by Kristina Riggle

  He stomped down the stairs, leaving Rain bracing herself in the door frame. She heard his angry progress through the kitchen, heard a chair get slammed against the table or the wall, and then heard more pounding down another flight of steps to the basement. As Rain tried to breathe slowly to steady her pounding heart, she heard the whoosh whoosh of the elliptical.

  Odd, she thought as she peeled off her pants and rooted in her dresser for a nightgown. Normally he wouldn’t do the elliptical twice in one night. His knees were in bad enough shape from his old track-star days that even the smooth oval action would be too much after a time.

  She dropped her cotton nightgown over her head and in the act of turning back the sheets on the bed, she paused. Something felt off-kilter in the room.

  It was a scent, something vaguely floral with a dash of citrus. She frowned and scented the air again like a wild animal.

  Her phone chimed from the pocket of her jeans, now crumpled on the floor. She stretched down to pull it from the pocket. Two messages: one from Beverly, hoping she felt better. And a picture from Fawn of a smiling, drooly Brock with the message, “First tooth!”

  Rain dropped the phone back on the floor, where it landed with a quiet thunk.

  In the morning, Rain still felt fine. Her jeans still buttoned with no strain or effort.

  She approached the bathroom with the same old infertility cocktail of fear laced with anticipatory sadness bubbling up within her.

  She stepped into the bathroom and steeled herself. She sat down, looked down, and gasped.

  Blood.

  Not much, but more than a speck. A dirty reddish brown. Rusty, almost.

  Her head swam. Despite last night’s panic and despair, somewhere there had been a shred of optimism. At the sight of blood she found herself somehow—improbably after all that failure—shocked.

  Rain peed, found a panty liner. Washed her shaking hands. In the mirror a ghost of herself stared back. She whispered to her paling reflection: “Spotting is normal. Some spotting is normal.”

  She lowered herself carefully to the edge of their bed and dialed Dr. Gould’s after-hours emergency line on her cell phone. She knew the clinic would be open at least part of the day on a Saturday: A woman’s eggs and uterus didn’t care about weekends, and timing was everything.

  She left a message with a bored-sounding nurse, and then she put the phone carefully down on the rumpled comforter next to her and put her face in her hands.

  She didn’t look up when she heard his footsteps.

  “Babe?”

  “Yeah,” she said through her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  She didn’t look up from her hands, not daring to see if he seemed concerned, or frustrated, or even angry.

  Instead she felt him settle next to her and wrap his arms around her. She allowed herself to be pulled close. “Is it . . .” he ventured. “. . . bad? Is it, I mean it’s not . . .”

  “I don’t know,” she said, staring across the room now at the blank pale blue wall. “I called.”

  He squeezed her. “I’m sorry I was such a dick last night. I’m stressed out. But that’s not fair to you.”

  He turned her to face him, and she finally met his eyes. They were red rimmed, and the whites were run through with cracks of red like rivers on a map. He had shaved at some point, but hurriedly, so that his face was reddened and he had a nick near his jaw. She reached up with her thumb and pressed the dot of blood, wiped it away. His eyes welled up, and he pulled her in tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. Please don’t let me lose you.”

  “Why would you lose me?” she said, half muffled by his T-shirt and tight squeeze. “I wouldn’t leave you over one snappish remark. I’m not my parents who split up every other week.”

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Trust me. I definitely do not.”

  Whatever he might have said next was cut off by the ringing of Rain’s phone, lighting up with Dr. Gould’s number.

  Rain lay back on the vinyl cushion, her eyes trained on a small screen facing her. Ultrasounds at this early stage were no simple affair of a wand over the top of a swollen belly. “Transvaginal” they were called. Uncomfortable was what they were.

  To her right, in a chair with her pants and underwear folded neatly in his lap, was TJ, also staring at the screen.

  Dr. Gould was silent. A clock ticked in the room, and dull voices murmured outside. The waiting room had been busy, full of women with creases across their foreheads or nails bitten to the quick. Rain had looked away from the Success Wall of baby pictures.

  “Ah!” Dr. Gould said. “There. Look . . . see that tiny flashing motion? That’s a heartbeat. Baby is just fine and snug. A little spotting is perfectly normal, but I’m glad you could come in and we could check to put you at ease.”

  The screen winked dark as Dr. Gould concluded her work and held out a hand to help Rain sit back up.

  “Now,” she continued, “the spotting is harmless, but if it’s alarming to you and you don’t like to see it, you should put your feet up and rest for a few days. If it changes in amount, or turns bright red, or you feel cramping, you call me back immediately. But so far I see no cause for alarm and no reason to believe anything like that will happen. I’ll leave you to get dressed and see yourself out. I have two IVF transfers this morning!”

  Rain watched the door close behind the doctor and finally exhaled. She had been braced since that moment in the bathroom to be told it was all over, and now that there had been a reprieve—they’d seen their baby, even! Tiny tadpole of a thing with a flashing bright heart—she felt confused, at loose ends. She was glad she didn’t have to drive herself home; she might not remember how to start the car.

  She finally remembered she was nude below the waist so she turned to TJ to collect her clothes. She did a double take; his eyes were shining, and a wet track of tears was reflecting the yellow overhead lights.

  “Hon?” she said.

  “I’m so happy you’re okay. That everything’s okay.”

  “That’s nice, honey. I need my panties, though.”

  He chuckled and sniffed and handed her the clothes. Rain dressed quickly now, wanting to get the hell out of that clinic, which had made her dream come true but was a reminder of all she had to endure for something supposedly so natural.

  As she made to leave, TJ clasped her hand and pulled her back. He did something so unexpected, she would have laughed if not for the earnestness in his face: He knelt down on one knee, proposal fashion. He hadn’t even knelt when he actually proposed.

  He took her hand in both of his. “I’m going to be better for you. A better husband, a good father. I swear.”

  Rain chuckled, uncomfortable now that they were hogging this room away from someone about to have a life-changing procedure. She tugged at him, but he stayed stubbornly on his knee.

  “I mean it,” he said, sniffing hard, more tears leaking out now.

  “Okay, okay, get up,” she said. “I love you, too, and we’re all going to be fine.” She snatched a tissue from a box near the room’s sink and dabbed at his face. “Let’s get the hell out of here and get a pizza.” Rain smiled and cracked her first joke in weeks. “The baby wants pizza.”

  30

  When Dinah would reflect on this moment later, what would strike her was how short-lived the feeling of relief had been. Intense, but gone so fast it felt unreal, that hit of Thank God.

  She’d been in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a salad when the doorbell rang. She muttered a curse and took the knife with her to the door, intending to get rid of the salesman or evangelists and return to making dinner. The kids were going to be home soon from their practices and studying, and Joe had promised to actually turn up at dinner and skip the hockey game, even though the Arbor Valley Tigers were unbeaten so far.

  When s
he approached the front door and saw the police car in the driveway, she began to tremble.

  She’d locked the deadbolt as was her habit, and she fumbled for agonizing seconds trying to get the door open.

  Not one, but two officers were on her doorstep.

  “Mrs. Monetti?” they’d asked.

  She could only manage to nod.

  “It’s about Morgan. She’s fine, but—”

  In this instant, relief flooded in so quickly she almost dropped the knife on her foot.

  “—we need to talk to you about something that’s happened. May we come in?”

  Dread collected in a hard ball in her gut as she led the way inside soundlessly. One of the officers firmly suggested she put the knife away as they talked.

  Dinah rejoined them in her living room. One officer sat on her old, broken-down couch with the soft cushions and had to perch at the edge so he did not tumble backward. The other officer had pulled in a kitchen chair to sit across the coffee table from Dinah.

  “Morgan was discovered with one of her teachers in his car.”

  Dinah said, “So what if she was in a car? Whose car?” It had been raining. She’d probably gotten a ride. “Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s at the police station, Mrs. Monetti. She was in a state of undress.”

  This was the phrase that upended her life. A state of undress. “What do you mean?”

  The other officer cleared his throat. “She was not wearing any clothing from the waist up.”

  Dinah put her hands to her face. “So he . . . attacked her? Who?”

  “She has indicated to us that they were having a relationship. But it’s not clear at this time exactly what the circumstances are.”

  “Relationship? Which teacher?” she shouted, her voice shrill and painful to her own ears.

  “A Mr. Thomas Hill. Her calculus teacher, as we understand. You should come down to the police station as well. Your daughter is not being charged with anything, but I imagine you’ll want to speak to her and take her home once we’ve gotten her statement.”

  As Dinah tried to find her coat, keys, and purse, she was already failing to recapture her first feeling of, Thank God she’s not dead.

  “How is she?” she asked them, unable to find her coat where it belonged so she went without, braving the chilly February air. “Is she upset? Is she hurt?”

  “She’s not physically hurt,” the first officer said, the one who’d sat on the couch, as he led the way to the front door. “As for upset, I’d say it’s more like belligerent.”

  Dinah rounded the corner into a small room, nested inside a labyrinth of corridors all in a bureaucratic tan color. Morgan was sitting in a plastic chair at a table, arms folded tightly, her head tipped forward and her hair obscuring her face.

  “Mo?”

  Morgan rose and flung herself at her mother. “Mom! It’s been awful! They’re treating me like a criminal!”

  “What’s he done to you?” Dinah asked, holding her and stroking the back of her head.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” She tried to set Morgan back. They’d given her privacy to greet her daughter, but the walls of this room seemed thin and hopeless for private conversation. She glanced around for one of those big mirrors like on TV with the cops on the other side. There was none. “They said . . . they said you weren’t wearing a top.”

  “But he didn’t do anything to me. He didn’t hurt me.”

  Dinah tipped her daughter’s chin to get a close look at her face. “Wait a minute. He took your shirt off, but you call that not doing anything to you?”

  “He didn’t take it off, I did. I took it off. I keep telling them, he didn’t hurt me or abuse me or attack me.”

  Morgan looked right into her face with shining eyes and declared, “I’m in love with him.”

  Dinah said the first thing she thought of: “That’s insane.”

  “It’s not insane! It’s just different. I know it got him in trouble. But we’re in love.”

  “Is that what he said? Did he say he loved you?”

  Morgan flipped her hair back over her shoulder, chin raised. She immediately pulled her hair back forward over her face, across her scar.

  “Yes. He said he loves me.”

  “He couldn’t possibly!”

  “Because I’m a disgusting freak, is that why?”

  “Because you’re a kid! His student!”

  “I’m almost eighteen! I’m mature for my age. Wise, remember?” She sneered. “An old soul?”

  Dinah sank down into a chair and put her head in her hand. “Oh, my God.”

  “What’s so terrible? The age of consent in Michigan is sixteen. He’ll get in trouble at work, but we’ll figure something out.”

  “You going to figure out his wife, too?”

  Morgan lifted her chin a degree higher. “They’re having problems.”

  “I’ll say they are.”

  Morgan huffed. “I meant before, Mother. Problems that had nothing to do with me.”

  Dinah shook herself out of her stunned stupor, stood back up, and took her daughter by the shoulders. She felt Morgan stiffen under her fingers, like when she was colicky as a baby and she’d tried to comfort her, only to have the infant Morgan shriek and go rigid with fury. Until this very moment, that had been the most difficult part of parenting her beautiful, honor student daughter. The first four months.

  “Mo. He was taking advantage of you. He said he loved you, he told you that stuff about his wife, so he could get you to take your clothes off in his car.”

  She yanked away from Dinah. “How do you know? You don’t even know him.”

  “Is that as far as it went? Taking off your top for him?”

  The cop’s word relationship echoed in her mind like the ringing of a gong as time slowed down before Morgan answered the question with one hand propped on her hip and her chin thrust forward.

  “Of course not. We’re lovers.”

  Dinah had been afraid she might have to handcuff Morgan and stuff her in the backseat, the way she reacted at the police station to being told that despite the age of consent being sixteen, it was a crime for a teacher and his seventeen-year-old student to have a sexual relationship. TJ Hill was about to be arraigned in court.

  As it was, Morgan was not speaking, curled up in a ball on the passenger side of the car, glowering at the dashboard.

  At the police station, she’d started screaming she’d been tricked into talking to the police; she threw a chair over (much like Dinah had at that long-ago notorious teacher conference), and Dinah had all but tackled her to keep the police from having to intervene. From within Dinah’s viselike grip, Morgan had shrieked that she was not going to cooperate ever again, that they’d have to throw her in jail first.

  After assuring the police that Morgan would not harm herself—she’d seemed that hysterical—she finally led her daughter out to the car.

  And the curtain of heavy silence descended.

  Dinah struggled to think of how to tell Joe. He’d already texted her, wondering where she was and why dinner was half finished in the kitchen. She’d replied only something has come up, be home ASAP. This was not text-message-type news.

  Dinah turned over the events of the last hours in her mind, while struggling to remember to drive.

  “We’re lovers,” Morgan had said, baldly, with something almost like pride, in fact. What bothered Dinah most was the verb tense. We are lovers. Not “we were” or “we made love once.”

  Dinah had been told to expect a call from the prosecutor with more details, as she certainly wouldn’t be getting any more information out of Morgan. The police had quickly obtained a search warrant and seized her cell phone and computer as evidence.

  “Why did you do this?”

  Without even looking, Dinah could feel her daughter’s fury radiating like heat off a summer highway. Morgan didn’t answer.

  “Don’t get me wrong, he’s the sick bastard, her
e. But why did you let him do these things to you? Why didn’t you come to us when he first . . . approached you?”

  She stopped at a stoplight and turned just in time to see Morgan yank the door open and jump out of the car.

  “Morgan! Shit.” Dinah punched the button for the hazard lights and leaped out herself, abandoning her running car, her purse, her cell phone, to chase her daughter along a grassy expanse in front of some office building. If any of the office drones chose to look up from their cubes, they’d catch quite an eyeful, Dinah thought, huffing along.

  She caught up to Morgan and snagged her elbow, causing her to stumble briefly. Dinah caught her, flashing back this time to her unsteady toddler days.

  Morgan flung her arms up and stepped back.

  “Approached me,” Morgan repeated through panting breath, picking up the conversation as if she hadn’t just leaped out of the car and run. “Like some molester with a van pretending to give me candy. I approached him, I’ll have you know. Because your daughter has a mind of her own. Remember how damn smart I am? I got accepted to Boston U, by the way, not that it matters.”

  Dinah reared back. “Why didn’t you say you got accepted?”

  “Because what does it matter if I can’t go?”

  “Is this revenge on us? Because of Boston?”

  “Yes, Mother, I screwed my teacher because you won’t let me go to the right school. My God, you’re brilliant.”

  Dinah clenched her fist until her nails bit the inside of her palm. Where had her Mo gone? She didn’t even know this furious, haughty girl.

  “You’ve ruined your life!” Dinah cried.

  “What you mean is that I’ve ruined yours. You can no longer claim to be the good mother, now that all three of your kids are fucked up.”

  “This isn’t about me!”

  “Well, that would be a first, then.”

  Dinah felt hot tears on her face. “Just get back in the car,” she said, hating the pleading in her voice, but realizing whatever control over Morgan she ever thought she had was long gone now. In carrying on an affair with a married teacher, Morgan had officially declared she no longer gave a damn what any of them thought.