Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  “Want to head back?” Chloe asked.

  Keisha nodded, and was about to respond verbally when the entire contents of her stomach erupted, and she vomited into the street.

  “Hey, you.”

  Keisha looked up at Jayson standing in the doorway, handsome and grizzly. He had begun growing a beard. When? When had he begun growing a beard, and how had she not noticed?

  “Hi,” she said.

  He came to sit on the bed next to her, put a hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her briefly on the lips. Perhaps he had been told about the vomiting. Maybe that accounted for the tentativeness of his kiss. She wanted to tell him she had brushed her teeth but if would sound ridiculous, especially if he didn’t know.

  “I heard you went out today.”

  So yes, he’d heard about the vomiting. Of course he had.

  “Yeah. It was bright out, so I thought …” She shrugged.

  “Next time maybe don’t overdo it?” he said. “You were probably a little, I don’t know. Weak or dehydrated.”

  Keisha looked at him. He thought she was an invalid. They all did. Like some woman in a Victorian novel who would waste away, or faint if she was required to do more than walk around her little garden, or to an awaiting carriage.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding.

  He stood and seemed to be about to leave her, so she asked a question.

  “How was work? How’s the store?”

  He hesitated, then turned to look at her again.

  “Fine.”

  But there was something in his voice that told her that wasn’t true.

  “What’s going on, Jay?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” His tone was defensive. He was lying to her and resented that her pressing him had required him to do it.

  “Do you think …” she began slowly. “Do you think there’s any bad news I can’t handle at this point? That something could make things … worse?”

  He came back and sat at the edge of the bed. “I’ve just gotta put in some more hours, that’s all,” he said. “There were a lot of … I had to cancel some things and now I have to make up for it.”

  “Oh.”

  He had been with her day-and-night for a long while. She couldn’t even remember how long. Someone had to have been holding down the fort with the store, except that there was no one. Ashley was a great photographer, so she probably could have done some of the events, but maybe not all. And if Ashley was doing the events and studio shoots, Jayson would have had to pay his other two part-time people more hours.

  “It’s the holidays now, though,” Keisha said. “Soon, I mean. So there’ll be lots of bookings.”

  “Yeah,” Jay said. He touched her knee. “I’ll make it up over the holidays, I just need to make up the time.”

  “So, you’ll be gone a lot,” Keisha said.

  He didn’t answer.

  Because the answer was yes, of course he would be gone a lot. Even if they no longer had a baby to support … Her heart twisted at the thought … Even if they no longer had a baby, there was a mortgage to pay, the mortgage that made the store purchase possible.

  They had to live, even if they no longer wanted to. And Jayson’s store made that living possible.

  “Maybe I should think about getting a job,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “No,” Jay said firmly. “No.”

  “But, I don’t have to …” Be home anymore. Because Lee’s not here.

  “No,” he said again.

  Standing, he started for the door again. Except for at night when they were in bed, he kept his distance, Keisha realized. He took care of her—excellent care—and all her bodily needs, but he stayed a few feet away, except for kissing her ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’, except for when she clung to him in bed, and smelled him. And wrapped herself around him like a baby monkey.

  “I’m going down to see what’s going on for dinner,” he said. “Chloe’s leaving in a while. I’ll bring you something up.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’ll come. I’ll come down.”

  He paused at that, and his eyes searched her face as though he was trying to assess her capability for follow-through.

  “Okay,” he said. “Come down in a little bit. When you’re ready.”

  She went down to eat dinner at the table and almost laughed at the look on Chloe’s face, which was as though she was Lazarus, arisen from the dead. Keisha’s thoughts always seemed to go in that direction now—toward death.

  She sat at the table and looked at the plate of roast chicken and string beans. Chloe was a good, if unimaginative cook. Keisha would have made something more interesting, herself. Like chicken curry. But she cut into her chicken and tried to get in touch with her taste buds.

  When she glanced up, she saw that Jayson and Chloe were watching her, their faces so earnest and hopeful, she couldn’t help but giggle. She giggled while they watched, their expressions changing from slight amusement, to bemusement to alarm. And then she was crying and heaving, and sobbing. And Jay was coming around the table and had helped her up. She struggled and resisted for a moment, then relinquished her will to him, and let him lift her and carry her back up to bed.

  “Has it been four weeks?” she asked when he settled her back against the sheets.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Has it been four weeks? Since Lee … since he died?”

  Jayson’s face seemed to cave in for a second, and then he tightened up. His eyes went flat.

  “Five.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  She turned onto her side, stared at the wall for a few moments, and then when that became boring, shut her eyes and tried to sleep.

  She only opened them again when it was very late, and Jay was joining her in bed. She had been undressed, though she couldn’t recall when, or by whom. Her legs were bare, and she was only in her underwear and a tank top. As Jayson got under the sheets, he lifted her legs, putting them beneath the covers are well. His hands were warm and made a small sound of pleasure involuntarily escape Keisha’s lips.

  Flipping over onto her stomach, she looked at him. He looked back at her through the gloom.

  “What?” he asked in a low, librarian whisper.

  Shoving aside the sheets, she straddled his thighs, reached down and tugged his boxers, pulling them down just enough so she could hold him.

  Jayson gasped, maybe in surprise, or maybe because her hands were cold. Keisha didn’t ask. She stroked him, just enough that he was no longer completely flaccid, then slid down further and took him in her mouth.

  Licking and sucking, she worked him with her tongue, feeling his hand on her head, the touch tentative. His legs were tense, and she thought for a moment that he might be liking it, but then his fingers in her hair tightened and he gently tugged her hair. Not in encouragement, but to pull her up, and away from him.

  Raising her head, Keisha looked at him. Her chest felt as gaping wide as though he had clawed a hole into it.

  “You don’t want me,” she said.

  “Key … it’s …”

  “You don’t want me,” she said again. She vaulted herself off him and to the other side of the bed, lying on her side and turning her back.

  “No …” His voice was halting. “I … I just … it’s not …”

  “You don’t want me,” she said again, this time emphatically.

  “No, Key, listen!” He touched her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Not after … after … I ... what I did …”

  Keisha froze, then turned over to face him. “What you did? What’re you …?”

  “I was the one who took him out, exposed him to all those people, and …”

  Keisha sat up.

  “Jayson.”

  “What?” He sounded like he was choking.

  “No. It … we don’t know that. He went out with me all the time. It could have been anyone. Someone in the grocery store w
ho touched his cheek. Or me. It could have been some stray thing he picked up when I went to the pediatrician’s office … We don’t know.”

  In a rush, Keisha remembered what she said to him. About never forgiving him if something happened to Lee.

  “It wasn’t you, Jay. I know it wasn’t you.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “You can’t know that.”

  “I think … sometimes I think it was me,” Keisha said, her throat tightening. Just when she thought there could be no more tears, there always were. “Sometimes I think it happened because of what I … because of who I used to be. That it’s my punishment. That God doesn’t think I deserve to be happy, because I did all these … I made so many people unhappy in my life.”

  “Key …”

  “I was moping around for half his life … I don’t even for what … I missed so much of it, just being …” She shook her head.

  Jayson reached out and pulled her against him, holding her so she could bury her face in his neck, the way she liked to do. The hints of Lee in his skin were all but gone now. Now it was just Jay again.

  “You didn’t miss it,” he said, speaking into her hair. “You were there. You were always there. You smiled at him even when you didn’t feel well. You played with him, you took care of him and never wanted to be away from him.

  “You were … you are an incredible mother. And I’m so glad he had you. Of all the mothers in the world, I’m glad my son had you.”

  10

  Thanksgiving came and went. And it was hard. As hard as Jayson expected it to be, it was about ten times harder than that. On the actual day of the holiday, he and Key had woken up and looked outside at the snow, pondering aloud whether they wanted to accept the invitation to go over to Chloe’s. They settled on ‘no’.

  But around noon, Keisha sat up in bed, where they were still lying silent, and said she wanted to try.

  She’s been so nice to me, she said. Both her and Austin. They’ve taken care of both of us. We should go.

  Jayson was still unsure because it would be the first time since the funeral that she would see Gabby and Toni, Chloe’s two little girls. And he had no idea what Gabby might say, or whether Key would dissolve into hysterical tears again.

  But they went. And it was hard. Watching the girls play and laugh, especially Toni, the little one. They weren’t the only guests there. Austin’s parents and his brother and his brother’s kids were there as well. There were enough kids for there to be a kids’ table. Jayson’s head pounded all day with a tension headache, and the cheers of the men watching football only made it worse.

  Keisha had been in the kitchen most of the day with the women, cooking and gossiping and arranging platters of food. It was difficult to leave her on her own with a gaggle of high-spirited women, and almost impossible to wander into the kitchen for another beer, see her perched on a stool forcing a smile and not want to grab her and take her home.

  They stayed a respectable four hours, until Jayson’s headache drove him to give their excuses, and say their goodbyes. Chloe walked them to the car, hugged and kissed them both and had that awful, sad look on her face that Jayson imagined she would have for at least another year whenever she looked at either of them.

  Well, Key said, exhaling deeply as they pulled off to head home. We got through that.

  Jayson didn’t think he had ever loved anyone as much as he loved his wife in that moment. For her strength, and her good, good heart.

  They made love that night. It was Key again who had reached for him, and though he wasn’t sure he could, Jayson let himself feel it, and feel her. He shut off his mind and just let himself feel. Because his mind was still telling him that pleasure was wrong because his son was dead, and it was his fault.

  And he did feel. He felt pleasure and desire and passion, and pain. He felt all of it. And Keisha was right there with him. And it didn’t feel wrong.

  That doggone bell above the door. At this time of year, it never seemed to stop tinkling, people coming in and out of the store. Jayson supposed he should be grateful, because it was shaping up to be a good season. He had opened on Black Friday and been pretty much emptied of his stock of prints and frames, especially the digital ones. And people responding to the ad he had put in the local paper booked generous packages for holiday family portraits, which would have him and Ashley busy every weekend right up until before Christmas Day itself.

  “Jayson!”

  Ashley was calling him out to the front now, tearing him away from his large monitor in the back office, where he was editing photos from the shoots of the previous week. He stood and went out to the front, his face breaking into a grin when he saw who it was.

  “Key,” he said. “What’re you …?”

  Dressed in her long camel coat, jeans and a turtleneck sweater, she looked rosy-cheeked and windswept. And so beautiful. Her long hair was mostly covered by a knit cap, pulled down over her ears, but long tendrils had escaped the sides and framed her face.

  “Just wanted to drop some things off down the street and do some errands and wondered if you wanted to come with me.” She lifted her arms, showing him two large bags at her side.

  Coming from behind the counter, Jayson grabbed his coat and hat.

  “Sure. Where you headed?”

  “Dry-cleaning,” she said lifting one bag. “And Goodwill.” She lifted the other.

  In the second bag, Jayson say that there were neatly folded clothes. Baby clothes. Lee’s clothes.

  His face fell.

  “Key,” he said. “I don’t … we don’t have to.”

  “We do,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Let’s go.”

  Taking a silent but deep breath, Jayson followed her out. His heart was beating hard now. He wasn’t sure he was ready. He’d been telling himself that the nursery remained the same because he wasn’t sure she was ready. But now he knew it was probably him and had been so all along. He wasn’t ready to … disappear their son.

  It had been less than two months.

  The drycleaner was only a few doors over, and Jayson waited while Keisha gave instructions for each garment and pre-paid for the whole lot. Goodwill, part of the same strip mall was just another five or so shops down. Walking out of the drycleaner and into the cold, and down toward it felt like a march across a prison yard and toward his execution. Because another little piece of him was apt to wither and die, if he had to see his son’s clothes laid out on a counter, assessed and tagged to sell for two bucks each.

  There was a bell on the door of Goodwill as well, and when they entered, Jayson wanted to reach up and yank the fucking thing off and toss it across the store.

  “Keisha,” he said, holding her arm. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

  She stopped and looked up at him. Her eyes were soft, and a little misty. She shook her head. “I don’t want to either.”

  “Then why’re we doing it?” he asked between his teeth.

  “We bought him a lot of clothes, Jayson. I mean, a lot. Some he never even wore. That’s what this is.” She showed him the bag. “Some of it still has tags on it.”

  His shoulders relaxed a little.

  “The ones he wore, we’ll go through another time,” she said, her voice steady, almost soothing. “This morning, I looked through and I tried to find some I could … give away. But I couldn’t.”

  He touched her arm and she sighed.

  “But I did start a little keepsake box. Of things like …” Her voice thickened. “Like his blanket from the hospital, the tag from his wrist when he was born, the first ultrasound picture … And when I’m ready, I think I’ll think about getting another one, planning something different. Something for the new baby.”

  His hand on her arm dropped and he stepped back.

  “What?”

  Key wiped her nose with the back of her hand and nodded. “I’m pregnant.”

  Jayson felt his heart leap, though in fear, not joy. And its already accelerated pace inc
reased even more.

  “No,” he shook his head. “No. I’m not …”

  “I know. Me either,” Keisha said, her eyes growing pink. “I don’t feel ready for that risk. For feeling … hopeful or happy. And I don’t want to feel like we’re replacing Lee. I want to feel the hurt for a while more.”

  Jayson nodded, feeling his own eyes fill.

  Exactly.

  He wiped his own nose, feeling it begin to drip, not sure if it was from the cold, or something else.

  “But we don’t get to choose,” Keisha said, moving closer, until they were touching. “We don’t get to choose. Unless … unless you want to make that choice.”

  Jayson’s head shot up. “What d’you mean? An abor…”

  Keisha said nothing.

  “Of our baby?” he said. “No! Are you … no! Of course not.”

  Keisha sighed and nodded. “I didn’t think so. So, then we have to make ourselves ready, Jay. And this is the first, tiny step.” She held up the bag of clothes.

  Jayson had been shoveling and blowing the snow in the driveway so that when he came back inside and heard the sound, he wasn’t sure what it was. The rhythmic hum, stopping and starting was one that he hadn’t heard in so long, he almost didn’t know how to identify it.

  He found Key on the sunporch, sitting behind her Singer sewing machine, hair up in a high messy ponytail, brow knitted in concentration. Next to her was a basket of what looked like scraps of clothing, but when he looked closer, he saw were Lee’s clothes, most of them cut to shreds. For a moment his heart lurched, until he saw what Key was doing. She was making a quilt.

  With the squares of fabric taken from each of their son’s t-shirts and onesies, sweatpants and shorts, she was making a quilt.

  Noticing him standing there, she smiled. She actually smiled, a real smile that went all the way to her eyes for a change.