by C. S. Lakin
What hurt most, though, was her sneaking out without telling him. Why did she do that? Did she think he would forbid her from going out, from socializing? Or were the implications worse than that? He didn’t want to consider what his heart screamed out to him, but when Leah arrived a few minutes later at the door, and he heard not just her laughter but another voice, a man’s voice, through the thin wood separating her life from their life, his throat constricted and he gripped the edge of the dining table, his knuckles white. He clenched his eyes shut, hoping by not witnessing what presented itself at his doorstep he could erase it, pretend he had misheard. But he knew if he looked at who stood with her, the image of her betrayal would sear his mind, a persistent negative image, the way a black circle haunted your eyes if you stared too long at the sun.
“Jake.” Leah’s voice was quiet. With those closed eyes, he heard every sound. The little noise of surprise in her throat, a shuffle of shoes, someone walking hurriedly down the front walk to the street, the door clicking shut behind her. Even when it was safe, Jake kept his eyes clenched, knowing the moment he opened them, he would see what he didn’t want to see.
Her hand touched his shoulder and he flinched. He made himself look at her; the sight made him suck in a breath. Her wild black hair swept over her bare shoulders and the skimpy strapless dress she wore came low across her milk-filled breasts. He couldn’t recall seeing her with makeup before, but her eyes were done up black and evocative, and she wore heels—of all things. He didn’t know she even owned a pair of dress shoes. The word voluptuous rolled along his tongue, tasting vile and crass. She was the second stranger he’d encountered in his apartment that night.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said.
He smelled alcohol on her breath. Pot in her hair and clothes. He kept his mouth shut tight. Conversation would be better held in the morning, in the harsh light of day, when babies needed food and dishes washing. The stark reality of dirty diapers and grocery shopping and potty training. It would not serve him at all to try to talk with her tonight, not when it felt like the sun was going down on him, never to rise again.
“Aw, come on, Jake. I was just out with friends. No harm, no foul. I can’t take sitting around here at night, every night, just waiting for you to come home.” She ran her fingers through his hair and the touch electrified his head. “I’m glad you’re home early for a change.”
He couldn’t help himself; the words came out of their own volition, demanding recognition. “Who was he?”
“Who—oh, you mean Arty. Just a friend who works at the Troubador. A friend, that’s all, Jake. What—don’t you trust me?”
He caught her with his arm as she attempted to walk past him. He searched her eyes. “Can I? Trust you?”
Before he knew it, her lips were on his. She tasted like peaches, some kind of sweet liqueur. He couldn’t recall the last time they kissed and it filled him with such a desire for her he started to shake.
“Oh, babe,” she said, her mouth all over his. “You’re the one I love; you know that . . .”
He closed his eyes again and this time let her lies slide over him. She was telling the truth, but wasn’t being honest with him. He was too tired to struggle against her current, which pulled him forcefully out of his chair and toward the bedroom. Even before they made it to the bed, she had pulled his shirt up over his head, tossed it underfoot, worked at the buttons of his jeans. He reached around her and lifted up her dress and it flew over her hair like a bird set free. In the dark, in denial, he let her lower him down, where he sank into soft blankets, and the spell of her whisperings in his ear mollified and finally silenced the silent, sullen witness taking the stand in his head, as if he were watching a court drama on TV. He shut off the sound, then pulled the plug on the picture. She felt so right in his arms, skin to skin, their moving in a dance so familiar, so synchronized.
She pulled him out to sea, far from shore, no land in sight. Shipwrecked and sinking.
“Give up,” she whispered.
What choice did he have?
Part Two: 1975–1979
Numbers
Numbers: 1) a sum of units: total; 2) an indefinite usually large total;
3) a numerous group: many.
1975
They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play)
Can’t get no rest
Don’t know how I work all day
When will I learn?
Memories get in the way
I don’t know where to go
It’s hopeless so I guess I’ll leave it alone
Well, I spent all my day
Fixin’ up to go somewhere
Thought I was late
And I found she wasn’t there
I guess I’ll find
Love, peace of mind, some other time, but I
Still have today
I gotta get away, gotta get away, I don’t
Know where to go
It’s hopeless so I guess I'll leave it alone
Games people play
Night or day they’re just not matchin’
What they should do
Keeps me feelin’ blue
Games people play
—The Spinners
The gray sky, rolled out like gauze over the sea, hung low over their heads, making the mood of the cool January day feel oppressive—not at all refreshing, as Jake had hoped. Only more gloomy, hopeless, the line where the sea and sky kissed now smeared, the two elements merged indistinctly. Leah walked toward him, a camera dangling in her hand, the sea sullen and moody behind her, lacking spirit. Small waves halfheartedly slid around her feet, then retreated back. The boys played nearby with plastic buckets and shovels, Reuben jabbering something at Simon, trying to help him make a castle, and Simon having none of his brother’s instruction, pushing him away, voicing objections between screams of frustration.
“Rube, just leave him alone. Let him make his own castle.”
Reuben, ever quick to listen and obey, slumped his shoulders and attended to his own construction. He poked bits of sticks and seaweed into his lopsided sand castle and turned his back on Simon.
When Leah came to Jake’s side, she plopped on the sand and stared out at the water. He sat beside her and took her hand. It felt cold and lifeless in his grasp. She reminded him of water, always seeking the lowest level—for Leah a pit of depression where her melancholy could pool.
“Babe, I really wish you’d listen to that doctor.”
“Jake, he’s an idiot. Simon’s a year-and-a-half old.”
“He said postpartum depression could still be the reason you’re so unhappy all the time. The irritability, anger, fatigue—it all fits.”
She turned and struck him with a severe look. “What fits is I just don’t want to live in LA anymore. And I love being pregnant. Why can’t we have another baby? That’s what will make me happy, Jake. Not some cocktail of drugs to paste a happy smile on my face. Get real.”
She pulled her hand back and put it in her lap. Apart from a few stragglers walking the shoreline farther down, they were the only ones on the beach that afternoon. Jake had taken the day off work, although he could little afford to, hoping this time together as a family would help pull Leah out of her darkest slump yet. Frustration knotted his gut. He had tried everything, even arranged for them to go out on a date one night a week so Leah could relax and let loose. A little dancing, even a little drinking. He’d hoped that would have helped. But nothing did.
“Leah,” Jake said, lacing his voice with as much tenderness as he could muster, “you know we can’t afford another baby—”
“Welfare will cover all the expenses. And it’s not like these kids need much food, or even clothing. You’re just making excuses.”
“Two kids are a handful as it is. You can barely keep up—”
“What!” Leah’s mouth hung open and Jake could tell she was preparing an onslaught of accusations.
“Come on, babe. Admit it! With me working fu
ll-time, I can’t help out with all the domestic chores the way I’d like. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices, quit school, put aside what I really want to do with my life—”
Leah snorted. “Well, if that’s how you really feel—about me, about your own children—then why don’t you just leave? I sure wouldn’t want you to sacrifice such important things like a stupid college degree. Surely that’s much more important than me and Rube and Simon.”
Jake shook his head, wishing he could shake out the rage continually building inside. He never could figure out the right things to say, the magic words that would console her, help her find her way back to a happier place. She was miserable with him; maybe she should just come out and say it. He didn’t want to hear it, but if she didn’t love him anymore, staying in this relationship would only send her over the edge. He drew in a long breath and leaned over, forced her to see him.
“Leah, if you’re not happy with me, tell me. I’m trying so hard to be a good husband to you, to take care of this family, but . . . I just can’t seem to do anything right . . .” His throat closed up, suffocating the words waiting to come out. He dropped his head down, then turned away, not wanting her to see the tears in his eyes.
She took hold of his arm, a tender touch. “It’s not you, Jake. I just feel . . . like I’m drifting. Purposeless. I’m not fighting for anything anymore. I don’t have any reason to be here, in this city, living in that ugly apartment, being a housewife. It’s not who I am. I’m so bored, and I feel so empty.”
Jake noticed her unconscious placement of her other hand over her stomach. He looked at the boys, who, at least for now, seemed to be getting along and working together to dig out a moat around their castles. He chose his words with care and presented them cautiously. There was an art to communicating with her, but he’d lost his talent long ago. Words he thought would assuage her often set her off. “What about doing something with your poetry? Maybe send some of it off, see if you can get it published.”
“I don’t write it for other people to read. It’s private, for me, an extension of myself.”
“Still, maybe . . . it would touch someone else. Maybe someone else needs to read the things you write. And what about your songs? I mean, does it help, playing the guitar and singing? We could find a studio and you could record them.”
“Enough, Jake! That’s just not going to help.”
Jake sighed. “Well, then let’s start thinking seriously about moving somewhere. A place where you’d be happy. I’d have to line up a job first, save up some money. And that might take some time.”
She turned and looked at him and he saw a spark in her eyes. “Really? Would you do that?”
Jake nodded. “I’ll do what I can, in my spare time.”
“I can help you look for jobs! Get the local papers, whatever.”
“Sure. I just don’t know how hard it will be to find something, and it depends where you want to go. I’m not all that skilled.”
She wrapped an arm around him. “Jake, you have gobs of talent. And all that experience you got in that wood shop—learning how to cut moldings and doors and whatever you did there all day. Surely people everywhere need doors!”
He laughed along with her and it hit him how long it had been since they both laughed like that, a freeing sensation in his constricted chest. A surge of love ran up the beach of his heart, the refreshing shock of it centering him, reminding him why he was here, balanced on this thin precipice of life, teetering to hold a mundane job that only teased him with its scent of wood and varnish, its textures of grain and sawdust. He would be patient, he told himself. Patience would pay off, their lives an unformed block of wood, rough-edged, full of promise. It would take vision—that and steadfast focus, wielding a tool able to delicately carve a groove of life they could comfortably settle in, and time to shape this slippery thing called family into something not only recognizable but a work of art.
Sitting there on the sand, Leah leaning in abandon against his chest, his boys digging for treasures with the endless expanse of sea before them, a sea of promise rolling out to far-reaching horizons, Jake reassured his heart. It could be done.
Jake stormed into their bedroom, where Leah lay sprawled, hovering over her pages, writing. She looked up at him as waves of fury rolled across her, forcing her to pay attention. His face was smeared with shaving cream, his chest bare, as he stood in the doorway in his boxers. He waved something in his hand. She cringed in recognition.
“You stopped taking the pill, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question; Leah felt no compulsion to answer. He flipped open the round plastic container. “They’re still all in there—every one of them! Dammit, Leah. You did this deliberately—after we discussed it—how many times? We’re not in any position to have another baby. And that act of yours, making it look like you hadn’t the faintest idea how it happened.”
He threw the pill dispenser at her; it glanced off her shoulder and fell to the floor. His eyes bore down on her. “At least you could have thrown the pills out to cover your lie better. Or did you want me to find that—hidden under all that stuff in the bathroom drawer? Just what is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”
Leah tightened her mouth and said nothing. There was nothing to say. He just didn’t understand, never would. She lowered her gaze and reread the lines she had just written, then crossed them out and started again. She felt Jake’s unmoving presence, huge, judgmental. She tuned him out.
You watch me / the pattern of a circling shark / your words tangle me in fishing line / trapping me as your eyes bear down.
“Dammit, Leah. You’re not listening to me. Don’t you have anything to say? Nothing at all?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jake look over at the clock. “Great. I’m late.” He stopped and listened. Reuben and Simon fighting over something in the next room. “We’ll deal with this later, when I get home. Go see what the commotion is all about—get off your butt and take care of the kids already! They need breakfast.”
Leah listened to the noises of her husband’s anger tearing up the house. Drawers slamming, feet stomping. Even the water rushing out the bathroom sink faucet sounded harsh and upset. She stared at the white sheet of paper with the black ink sliding into words and ideas and images before her. Through the window, spring flushed out vibrant green buds on the shrubs and elms, their spindly arms waving in a trembling breeze in anticipation of a prodigious summer growth. A warm rush of sympathetic joy filled her, so aware of her body’s subtle shifting to prepare for another new life, the baby now nestled in her womb, fastened onto her flesh, drawing life-sustaining nourishment from her blood. She closed her eyes and felt the presence of this new life consuming her, nullifying the external world with its cares and distractions and disappointments. Already her breasts grew tender, her belly fluttered in anticipation. Why couldn’t Jake understand her need—this intoxicating, addictive need she had to be fertile and propagate life, such a priceless incomparable power she held, the one thing no one could take from her.
Jake came back into the room dressed, hair combed, shirt tucked in. He looked so different from the bright-eyed hopeful she had seen disembarking that bus three years ago. He practically snarled at her as he came close, looked at the pages spread on the bed. His words came out sharp and pained.
“Someday you’re going to have to wake up and realize there’s a real world out there, where you have to suck it up and take care of things. Life isn’t a free-wheeling ride, some wild Ken Kesey magic bus trip. You hide behind your poems and your fantasies—thinking money will just appear out of thin air, and hey, who needs to eat? Why not have ten kids—we’ll worry later how to feed and clothe them. Wake up, Leah. Or you’re going to hit a wall, and hit it hard. And lying to me was the last straw, you hear me? I want you to get rid of it.”
A knife rammed her gut. What did he say? It? It?
“You heard what I said. I don’t care where or how much it costs. Just do it. We can’t afford
another baby. You had no right to make that decision without consulting me. You used me, and I won’t stand for it.” He stormed out, muttering, “I mean it, Leah.”
She gritted her teeth and willed her heart to calm. Every maternal fiber in her body railed in response. She tuned out Reuben’s voice, calling her to come, his “Mommy, Mommy” in that whiny tone. Leaning close to the page, she wrote fast to chase after the words.
I feel the forces of water as your tail flicks close to my neck / I flinch / I need a cage.
Then I could sneer at you and remain unharmed.
You are so close / I can almost feel your razor teeth penetrate my neck / ripping my soul from the safety of the jawfish’s mouth.
I am unmoored / If only I could anchor my tail around the sea grass / But my skin is tender.
All it takes is a prick / one drop of blood / to unleash a feeding frenzy.
She laid down the pen and put the loose pages in her notebook. As she walked out of the bedroom to fix breakfast for her sons, she rested her hands protectively over her womb. Push was coming to shove. Just like labor, she mused. But this shove would not lead to the birth of new life. This shove would mean someone tumbling headlong off a cliff, someone winning and someone losing. Unfortunate, but Jake had made his choice and would suffer the consequences. No matter how hard he pushed, nothing could match the primal force of a mother’s contractions, or a mother’s love for her child. Already this tiny three-month-old fetus had claimed her. She had already chosen him a name, knew it the moment she saw it in the baby-naming book. And now she knew it was the perfect name for her next son.
