Hanging by a Thread

by Karen Templeton

  So he still doesn’t know about the abortion. For about two seconds, I think of telling him. Until I realize it’s not my place to come clean for Tina.

  “It worked, didn’t it?” I say. “You let her go.”

  “Yeah, it worked. But not because I believed her story. Because, when I realized I didn’t believe it, I also realized just how badly she wanted out.” He bangs his hand on the edge of the sink, then lets out another one of those heavy sighs. “Of course, the irony of the whole thing is that all I wanted to do was protect her, you know? Make things a little easier for her, because she’d had such a bad time of it.”

  “And I repeat—that’s not a bad thing.”

  His eyes are hooked in mine; I know what’s coming. Knew from the moment he hugged Starr so hard, a little while ago. “Yeah, it is. When it makes you screw over other people you care about, makes you ask somebody else to keep a secret that shouldn’t be kept, it sure as shit is a bad thing.”

  And there it is, peeking out from its burial place after more than five years.

  “What would you have said?” I say, reclothing an old argument. “It was crazy, what happened between us. We agreed at the time, it was crazy. That there was nothing to tell Tina…”

  Luke’s arm swings toward the house next door, where Starr is playing. “You call a child nothing?”

  “And I told you then, I couldn’t be sure—”

  “Except you said the jerk always used a condom, even though you were on the Pill. But even so, even if Starr hadn’t happened, what we did was a fact. A fact I decided that the woman I’d convinced myself I loved, because she needed me, couldn’t handle. And in doing so, I screwed over my best friend. What kind of a man does that make me?”

  I take my own deep breath. And don’t think the “my best friend” part of all that went over my head. One problem with dragging something out into the open is that a whole lotta other junk gets dragged right out there with it. Junk you thought for sure you’d chucked out ages ago.

  “One who thought he was doing the right thing, at the time,” I say softly. “Don’t beat yourself up, Luke. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not worth it.”

  “But we have to tell her.”

  I don’t know whether he means Starr or Tina. But my answer’s the same, whoever it is. “Eventually, yes. Not now. Not until…”

  “Not until when?”

  I feel what I realize is a not-so-little prickle of irritation. “I don’t know!” I snap, then look at him, seeing my own uncertainty mirrored in his eyes. And regret, that despite our best intentions, we still screwed up.

  I press my fingers against the spot between my eyebrows, then let my hand fall. “I don’t know,” I repeat, wearily this time. “My life’s in shreds right now, okay? How about giving me a minute to figure out what to do next?”

  Remorse instantly contorts his face. “Christ, El, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pressure you, babe, you know that—”

  “Go home, Luke,” I say, turning him around and prodding him toward the hall. “The longer you stay, the more confused I get.”

  When we get to my door, he frowns into my eyes. “Yeah. Me, too,” he says, then disappears into the chilly spring night.

  Being a grown-up sucks.

  Especially when you do something that proves you really weren’t as much of a grown-up as you’d thought.

  I call the Gomezes. Liv, who still hasn’t had this baby, answers, begs me to let Starr stay for another hour or so, the kids are having a great time. I say fine—I need to encourage her getting along with other kids as much as possible, right?—but I’m secretly disappointed, that she’s not coming back right away. Then again, maybe it’s not so much that I want to see her, as I want the distraction from my thoughts.

  You think?

  In any case, I wander out into my quiet, child-free living room and plunk myself in the middle of the sofa, riding out the ache at not seeing Leo sitting here, playing Nintendo or watching TV or reading the Post. And arguing with it, I think with a half smile, pulling a drawing pad off the end table and flipping through a half-dozen sketches I’d made—and rejected—for Heather’s bridesmaid dresses. Although I’d suggested different styles for the different figures, she really wants them all to be alike. So—I sift through the detritus on the end table until I find a pencil with an actual point—all alike, they shall be.

  I turn to a clean page and begin sketching, lightly delineating a pair of figures—one thin, one…not so thin. Then I stare at them, trying to visualize the perfect dress, hoping against hope I can distract myself enough to ward off the memories of something not worth remembering.

  It doesn’t work.

  I may not have learned much about life, but I do know this: The more you’d like to forget about certain events in your past, the more you can guarantee they’ll come back and haunt you.

  I draw the first line, only to immediately erase it.

  To be perfectly honest, if I could expunge my twenty-second year from my history, I’d be a happy camper. However, since The Months Ellie Forgot She Had a Brain aren’t going to go away, and since those months produced a child who isn’t going to go away, either, I knew I’d have to face the issue of who her father is at some point. I was hoping on my deathbed, when I’d be too riddled with pain to see the agonized look on her face.

  My second attempt at a neckline goes a little better. No, actually—I erase it again—it needs to be lower. All those boobs, might as well show ’em off a little, right?

  I don’t suppose our little revelation back there came as any big surprise. But hard as anyone might find this to believe, we honestly thought we were making not only the most logical, but the kindest, decision we could have, given the circumstances.

  Which were? you might ask.

  Pause for a big sigh here. As well as a tiny plea in my own defense, which is that I had never before, and have never since, slept with two men within a forty-eight hour period. Nor have I ever engaged in pity sex. Pity gorging, yes, but not pity sex. However, after Daniel’s bombshell, I was lower than a smashed roach on a subway track. I barely remember getting home, although I do remember refusing to sob on the train. Then, both because I still possessed a shred of pride and because I couldn’t bear the thought of listening to my father’s and grandfather’s threats against Daniel’s life for the rest of mine, I sort of gave them the impression that I was the one who broke it off. Unfortunately, in my zeal to avoid recriminations, I also left myself with no visible means of sympathy. For a woman with freshly pureed emotions, this was not good.

  Hmm. The sleeves. Gotta have sleeves of some kind, too many wobbly upper arms in this bunch…

  My stoicism, aided by copious infusions of cheesecake and Cherry Coke, worked well enough for the first twenty-four hours. (Sugar highs—the poor woman’s Percoset.) However, unbeknownst to me, while my heart was being ripped asunder by Daniel The Schmuck in Manhattan, Luke and Tina had split up in Queens, a fact I discovered on Day Two.

  Wrist length? No, elbow length for June. And something…yeah, like that.

  It was early April. Opening day at Shea Stadium. Dad and Leo had gone out to the game (an annual ritual they were far more likely to observe than donning yarmulkes and prayer shawls at Yom Kippur) leaving me alone in the house with a new cheesecake. I had my fork poised for that first, exquisite bite when our doorbell blatted out the opening notes of the Star Wars theme.

  Luke.

  Word gets out fast around here. However, I certainly didn’t expect him to show up in the middle of the afternoon. Or that, when I opened the door, I’d actually flinch at how awful he looked. On some men, scruffy looks sexy. On Luke, the impression is more that of a stray dog needing a bath and a flea dip.

  “Tina and I split up,” he said, which was about the only thing right then guaranteed to jolt me out of feeling sorry for myself.

  “Oh, my God!” I grabbed his hand and dragged him into the house, only to immediately drop it and subtly pu
t some distance between us. He didn’t smell all that great. “Why?”

  The picture of abject misery, he sank bonelessly onto the sofa. Fillet of James Dean. Three days past his sell-by date.

  Big, soulful, sad brown eyes (hmm…maybe now I understand the wanting-to-take-all-the-dogs-home phenomenon) looked up at me. “Dunno.”

  Actually, I did know, but I wasn’t sure whether this was the time to mention it. He and Tina had been going together for nearly seven years by then. So she was getting pretty anxious for a ring. Yes, they were still really young, but as she so succinctly put it, how long can you keep screwing somebody without getting married? Which, translated from Tinaese, meant Please God, don’t let me end up like my mother.

  Trouble was, as ready as Tina was to get married, I knew Luke wasn’t. Not that there was anybody else for him, I don’t mean that. Despite all that stuff he said in my kitchen a little while ago, the fact was, and forever shall be, that at that point he only had eyes—among other body parts—for her. So it wasn’t Tina he wasn’t ready for, it was donning the cloak of Husbandhood that was giving him palpitations. See, despite his mother’s tenacious grip on modern life, Luke was solid nineteen-fifties. You know, when a real man supported the wife and family and he damn well didn’t get married until he could. And Luke couldn’t, not then.

  But apparently, Tina didn’t want to wait—

  Fuhgetabout a waist, half these girls don’t even have waists…

  —so she’d broken it off, taking what I suppose she thought was a calculated risk that he’d come to his senses. Which actually, for Tina, was a pretty gutsy move.

  Anyway. The guy was, literally and figuratively, a mess. We think women take breakups hard? I’ve seen more upbeat blood-hounds. At least women rant and sob and generally give voice to their feelings (which Tina did, later that night. But I digress.) Luke just…sat there. Boneless and morose and smelly. So, in desperation, I spewed out the one thing I figured might take his mind off his misery: my cheery news about Daniel.

  Just like that, Just Shoot Me Luke disappeared. Color flooded sallow, unshaven cheeks; fury set dull eyes ablaze.

  “The sonuvabitch was married?” He jumped up from the sofa, nostrils flared, fists clenched. “Is he still there, back at the apartment? ’Cause I’ll go right over there and whip his ass if you want—”

  Just like that, the sobs I’d been holding back for two days gushed forth like lava from a volcano. And once they started, I couldn’t stop.

  Here’s where things get blurry. I remember sitting on the floor, bawling like a three-year-old, and Luke making like he was going to hold me only I must have recoiled or something because he didn’t, and then we were breaking into my father’s bourbon stash, which, judging from the layer of dust on the bottle, hadn’t been touched for some time. I might have fleetingly wondered if bourbon gets stronger as it ages. Or maybe not. Anyway, from then on, we’re talking fragmented images involving Luke realizing how bad he smelled and wanting to take a shower, only then I was somehow in the shower with him because he was too drunk to do it himself and I was afraid he’d fall over and crack his head open or something. And then my clothes were all wet so I took them off, too, totally forgetting—or not caring?—that I was undressing in front of Luke. Who was rapidly sobering and hardening, right there in front of me.

  And then we were kissing, and the water was pouring over us, warm and soothing, and I think we were both crying a little, I couldn’t tell with the water running down our faces, but I was very aware that Luke is an excellent kisser, and suddenly, there we were, having hard, frantic sex. In my shower. Standing up. Not the first time I’d had an orgasm there, but definitely the first time I’d had company for the occasion.

  Then it was over. Oh, boy, was it over. Luke unwrapped me from his waist and set me down, looking at me as though he’d never seen me before, then nearly ripped the shower curtain off its rings in his split to get out of the tub.

  He was dressed and gone before I even had a chance to get dried off.

  I look down at the sketch, only to rip the page out of the book and crumple it up. A warm, unpleasant flush creeps over my skin; I can’t quite catch my breath, as if my lungs have shrunk or something.

  I can’t do this, I can’t….

  How on earth did I get through that evening, when Tina came over to cry on my shoulder? And did I really squeal with excitement a week later when she showed me the adorable little engagement ring Luke had given her?

  I suppose I did. After all, that’s the way things were supposed to work out. Luke didn’t ask me not to tell Tina what had happened, but he didn’t have to. Our soggy tryst was nothing more than a moment of drunken insanity. In theory, he hadn’t been unfaithful to her, since they weren’t together at the time. But I know he felt he’d betrayed her trust as much as if they’d been married. And had I not gotten pregnant, I doubt either of us would have ever mentioned it again.

  Tina’d had enough crap dumped on her in one lifetime. The last thing either of us wanted to do was hurt her. I mean, if you could have seen how radiant she was in those weeks leading up to her wedding, her obvious relief at finally, finally having something good come her way…how could Luke or I even think of bursting her bubble? Especially since—we told ourselves—we didn’t actually know it was Luke’s baby. Whoever’s baby it was, the whole thing was a fluke (or so I thought, not knowing then what I do now, that, uh, yeah, you can get pregnant while on the Pill. Odds may be slim, but slim is a helluva lot different than nonexistent.).

  Except that Daniel had indeed insisted on also using a condom every time we had sex. And that Luke and I didn’t, since I don’t normally keep a stash next to the shampoo.

  My father and grandfather accepted my news—when I finally got up the nerve to tell them—with equal parts shock and resoluteness. But once I started showing, they both really got into it, one or the other bringing home something for the baby almost every day, it seemed like. Starr may not have been planned, but she’s always been loved.

  But by nobody more than the man who’s always assumed she’s his daughter.

  I’ll be the first to admit this is a bizarre situation. And one a lot of people aren’t going to understand, whenever the truth comes to light. Especially our never finding out for sure whether or not Luke is Starr’s father. I guess neither of us saw much point, since Daniel—even if I had known how to contact him—had made it crystal clear he wasn’t interested in the daddy bit. At least, not again. And not with me. But now, more than five years later, we’ve got this huge, tangled mess I’m not sure we can ever fully untangle. Try to loosen one knot, and you only tighten all the others.

  “Mama!” The front door slams shut. “I’m back! Where are you?”

  “In here, honey.”

  Starr clomps into the living room in her boots, her smile drooping when she sees me. “What’s wrong?”

  I plaster on a smile of my own and shake my head. “Nothing. Just…frustrated with my drawing, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” She comes over and plops her skinny little butt beside me on the sofa. Before I can stop her, she’s found the wadded up sketch and unwadded it, smoothing it flat against her thighs. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, that’s all.”

  “I think it’s pretty. I wish I could draw as good as you.”

  “As well as me. And I’m not really that good.”

  “Well,” she says.

  “Well, what?”

  She huffs one of her little sighs. “You said good instead of well. Like I did.”

  “Oh. No, when I said good, it was right.”

  “That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

  Does anything?

  “You need to go get ready for bed, sweetie.”

  “Yeah, in a minute,” she says, scrutinizing the sketch like an art expert a Rembrandt. “C’n I have this if you don’t want it?”

  “Sure. Live.”

  She
beams at me as if I’ve just given her the moon—if not a real Rembrandt—then scampers out of the room. Seconds later, I hear little boot thuds against the stairtreads as she goes up to her room.

  I turn to another clean page and start over.

  Maybe this time, I’ll get it right.

  chapter 16

  A laid-back, slightly exhaust-scented spring breeze teases the new blue-and-white checked café kitchen curtains as I scrape out the canned spaghetti sauce into a pot on the stove. Rap music blasts from an apartment across the way, competing with a loud, rapid-fire argument in some unrecognizable language. An ambulance screams up Atlantic Avenue; every dog in Richmond Hill starts howling.

  Ah, spring in the city. Gotta love it.

  “Whatcha making?” Starr asks at my elbow. Worry lurks at the edges of her words.

  “Spaghetti.”

  I don’t have to look at her to see the frown. Or that the cat, whom she’s got in a death grip, is mirroring her expression. The late-afternoon sun has turned the freshly painted white walls—I finally got rid of the pumpkin-orange—a pretty peachy color. A color that makes me happy, I decide, adding it to my mental “things to be grateful for” list. All in all, despite the million and one unresolved issues littering my brain, it’s been a good day. Since seven o’clock this morning, I’ve unclogged a toilet, unstuck a stubborn window, finished the mock-up of Heather’s dress before she has a cow, gone grocery shopping and planted pansies in the two new window boxes I bought. And now I’m making dinner for my child. I am hot stuff.

  “Leo didn’t make it like that.”

  Okay, warm stuff.

  However, I refuse to let a five-year-old with a serious lack of diplomatic skills destroy my good mood. I peer into the Dutch oven on the back burner to see if the water’s boiling yet. It isn’t.

  “I know. But it’ll be fine,” I say, as I’ve said at least three dozen times since Leo’s death.