Broken Homes & Gardens

by Rebecca Kelley

  Malcolm was standing outside, waiting for her. “I had to go to the bathroom, too,” he said. He pressed her up against the wall and leaned down to kiss her. “You taste like jam.”

  She towed him in by his shirt. His hand traveled up her back, reached behind her and unclasped her bra with one hand. His other hand slipped under her top, crept up to her bare chest.

  Laughing, she pushed him off her and cast a swift look around to make sure no one had seen them. With some difficulty, she refastened her bra and then tucked in her shirt, rearranged her hair. “What was that, some high school party trick?” Her head shook in mock disapproval.

  “More like sixth grade.” He leaned in for one more kiss.

  She squinted up at him and swept his hair out of his eyes, then ran her thumb over his lips. “We can’t go back there wearing the same lip gloss.” She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt with her hands and she walked back down the stairs to talk about apples, or bark beetles, or whatever the topic had become.

  The next week was Thanksgiving. The alarm went off at five, when it was still dark. Their bodies had drifted from each other in the night, but at the sound of the alarm, they found each other under the covers and promptly dropped back to sleep, listening to the sound of rain on the roof. When Joanna woke up she was alone and the sky was gray, crowded with rainclouds. She wrapped a blanket around her and stumbled into the kitchen. The kitchen was bright and warm, already smelling of toast and coffee and cinnamon.

  Malcolm was rolling out dough. He had ambitions to make three different kinds of pie. Half a pie per person! But he was determined. She watched him for a moment before pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I can’t be expected to help make pies at five in the morning without caffeine.” She rested her head against his arm and watched his hands piece together scraps of dough.

  “Well, it’s nine-thirty.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I’m on schedule.” She took that as permission to arrange herself in the nook, to read a book and drink coffee while he worked.

  Joanna’s phone rang as they were stepping out the door. “That was Ted,” she announced a moment later. “Thanksgiving is canceled.” She set her tray of vegetables and a pumpkin pie with a pecan crumble topping on the coffee table and perched on the arm of the couch.

  Malcolm was balancing a French apple pie in one hand, a cranberry cheesecake in the other. “What? Why?”

  Joanna shook her head. “Laura isn’t feeling well. This doesn’t sound like her at all. She would have to be almost dead to cancel Thanksgiving. You know what I think it is? She’s onto us. She’s punishing me now.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it.”

  “They were acting kind of strange at the restaurant, didn’t you think?”

  “No stranger than usual.”

  “We should go over there anyway. They’re probably having Thanksgiving dinner without us.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “They’re onto us!”

  Malcolm set his pies next to the vegetable tray. “Maybe she really is sick.”

  “I’m calling her.” She let it ring and ring until it clicked over to voicemail. “She knows about us!” Joanna unbuttoned her coat and threw it on the ground. “I knew it!”

  “I doubt that’s it,” Malcolm said.

  “You’re being naïve.”

  He laughed then. “I don’t think so.”

  Joanna narrowed her eyes. “All right. You know something, don’t you?

  “I just doubt she’s sick, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just something I figured out, I guess you could say.”

  “Okay … What?”

  “I’ll bet she’s pregnant.”

  “Pregnant!”

  Malcolm nodded. “Sure. It makes sense.”

  “It does?”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “Do pregnant women usually refrain from hosting Thanksgiving dinner? This is Laura we’re talking about. I can’t believe she’d leave us out on the streets.”

  “We’re hardly out on the streets. And we have the most important part of the meal: the pies.”

  “You mean the veggie tray.”

  “Right.”

  They soon had a roaring fire going and a tablecloth spread out on the floor. They sat cross-legged in front of the fire in their good clothes, two pies, the cheesecake, and the crudités between them. The silver vegetable tray glinted in the firelight. Joanna had taken out their best cups and saucers—the ones without chips, whose handles hadn’t cracked off—and made them cups of tea.

  Several minutes passed with only the sounds of the crackling fire, forks clicking against tin pie pans. “Is making love on the floor in front of a roaring fire on the List?” Joanna asked.

  “It was,” he said. Their eyes met and then they laughed.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Must not have been very memorable,” he said.

  “Oh, it was memorable all right. I just didn’t know if it was on the List, or if it was—what do you call it?—extracurricular.”

  “Having sex on a tray of vegetables is not on the List.”

  “That’s probably for the best.” Joanna took a bite of cranberry cheesecake right out of the spring form pan and then took a careful sip of lukewarm tea. “So,” she said, “what makes you think Laura is pregnant?”

  “Just a few careful observations. She didn’t order a drink at dinner, for one thing.”

  “Maybe she just didn’t want to drink. I don’t always order a drink when we go out.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Okay, but does Laura?”

  “Usually. And Laura’s bra size had probably doubled since we last saw her.”

  “Good to know you’re keeping tabs on my sister’s bra size.” Joanna watched the flames flicker over Malcolm’s face. He gave her a small, mischievous smile. “Well—”

  “I guess I’ve always known you find her so much more beautiful than me….”

  “Where did you get that idea?”

  “You said it! The very first night we met.”

  “I said that? And you still made out with me?”

  Joanna shrugged. “I admired your candor.”

  “It’s not true. Please forgive me.” He ran a finger along the side of her face. “I’m not even into blondes.”

  “I wasn’t offended.”

  “You should have been. Let me make it up to you.” Malcolm moved the half-eaten pies and the withered vegetables onto the coffee table and turned to Joanna. She let him take her into his arms and kiss her.

  She settled into his arms and watched the sparks crackle off the burning logs in the fireplace. He stroked her hair and her eyes closed. “I’m not sure abstaining from alcohol and expanding boobs mean my sister is having a baby,” she said drowsily.

  “Well … that, and Ted told me.”

  “What?” Joanna’s eyes shot open and she whirled around to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Laura tell me?”

  “He made me promise not to say anything. They wanted to make some sort of big announcement when she got to twelve weeks.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Only two days! He let it slip out when I went over there to pick up that sanding belt.” Malcolm put his arm around Joanna, trying to draw her back to him. “I think they wanted to make some sort of big announcement at the restaurant last weekend, but they chickened out for some reason.”

  “I can’t believe this. My own sister. I’m going to call her.” She patted the floor in search of her phone.

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “You should be thanking your sister.”

  “Thanking her? Why?” The fire was getting low—one black log sent out a ribbon of smoke.

  “For leaving us to fend for ourselves on Thanksgiving. A vegetable platter and three pies. What more could we possibly need or want?”

  Joanna frowned, considering the question. Then she threw another
log onto the fire, sending a spray of ash flying out onto the hearth.

  17

  nothing but flickering lights scattered over the foothills

  “It’s just for a few weeks. A month at the most.”

  “I know.”

  “I am coming back, you know.”

  “I know.” Joanna sighed. She turned on her side to face him, and he reached over to readjust the blankets over her shoulders. What she couldn’t explain to him was that she was sad—not because she didn’t think he should go to California for this job, which was just too good to pass up, and not because she didn’t think he would return, because she had no doubt that he would—but because this was the end. It was the perfect time to do it. She didn’t want to; she didn’t feel ready to end it, but it had to be done. His leaving town would give them both time to step back and reorient themselves to life without each other. And then, when he returned, they’d go back to their old life—as friends.

  She made a point to be extra kind to Malcolm as he neared his departure date. One morning she attempted to serve him breakfast in bed. Her endeavor to prepare over-easy eggs led to a mess on the frying pan, and she forgot to put the bread in the toaster until the eggs had finished and cooled on a plate, but he had appeared to appreciate the gesture.

  Joanna imagined that their time apart would allow them to reflect. He would be in California, sitting under a palm tree, listening to the ocean waves slap the shore. She would be home in Nevada, wandering through a field of sagebrush. When they met up again after the new year, they would share a platonic embrace. Instead of feeling sadness for what they had lost, they’d rejoice, knowing they had overcome their desires and saved their friendship. Years would go by, and no matter what happened—no matter how many boyfriends or girlfriends or husbands or wives passed through their lives—they’d always have each other.

  He left on a Saturday morning before the sun rose. Joanna got up with him, stood shivering at the front door. “You realize you’re just walking fifteen feet down to your car,” she joked. He had bundled up for the journey, with a puffy vest over a thick hoodie, a stocking cap on his head. Joanna was still in her pajamas, wearing one of Malcolm’s scratchy old sweaters to stay warm in the unheated house.

  “It’s good to be prepared,” he said. He’d packed a grocery store paper bag with sandwiches, six apples, a thermos of coffee, and about twenty energy bars. As if he was driving through Antarctica instead of California. “Well. See you in a few weeks.” She wrapped her arms around him and let her head sink into the pillowy layers of his clothes. “I’ll call you,” he said.

  “Don’t bother.” It came out sounding flatter, meaner than she intended. She looked up at him then, registered his surprise. The rings under his eyes dark with sleepiness. “Write me instead,” she blurted out. As soon as the words left her mouth, she recognized the brilliance of this idea: writing old-fashioned letters would take them back to the first couple years of their friendship, when things were simpler. No phone calls, no texts or emails—they could keep a safe distance from each other. Not get wrapped up in hours of conversation each night as if he’d never left.

  She watched him drive away. He looked up and waved. Malcolm was not particularly broken up about leaving her. Why would he be? As he said, he was coming right back. Still, it made sense that she was on the verge of becoming an emotional wreck. She wasn’t made of stone. She and Malcolm were intertwined now, more deeply connected, like two carrots spiraling around each other underground, fusing together in the dirt.

  She continued standing at the window even after he pulled away. The neighbor across the street had his lights on. She watched him shuffling around, getting breakfast. Every day, while she slept, other people were waking up, making their beds, eating food, accomplishing things. Today was just another ordinary morning for that old man with the white mustache and brown cardigans who waved at her from across the street when he saw her out on her porch, taking her mail from the mailbox. Five o’clock in the morning, in Joanna’s world, was a time reserved for catching a plane, for leaving, for saying goodbye.

  Maybe it was time for a change. Why, since she was up anyway, think of what she could do before the shops and restaurants started to open! Clean the whole house from top to bottom, make a vat of soup to feast on for the entire week, go outside in the mud and throw some seeds in the ground!

  She gave those ideas some serious thought for about two minutes. How did people feel their way through the dark, shuck off the sleepiness, summon up the energy to do anything at this hour? She went back to bed. Once she finally roused herself five hours later, shook the sleep from her body with a series of exaggerated stretches, she felt good—wide awake. Malcolm would be in Medford or Ashland by now. Soon he’d cross the border into California. And Joanna would spend the day with soothing rituals: wash the sheets, remake Malcolm’s bed, read trashy magazines and eat chocolate ice cream from the carton. Cry, perhaps, if the mood struck her.

  That night she headed to her own bedroom to sleep, alone. Had it always been so cold in this part of the house? The overhead light cast unflattering shadows everywhere. And it was a mess. She’d been using it as a changing room for weeks—clothes lay in piles on the bed, on the floor. It would just be so much work to try to rest in this horrible place. It wouldn’t cancel out the day’s effort of cleansing practices if she were to sleep in Malcolm’s room for a few more nights, would it? Sheets could be washed, beds remade. She loosened the freshly-laundered sheets from Malcolm’s bed and fell asleep with her head on his pillow.

  The next week Joanna received her first letter from Malcolm. She was surprised to see her chaste reflections on the nature of fog and rain, a spirited review of a new movie they had both wanted to see, and a rundown of some potential household projects met by a series of pen-and-ink nudes that Joanna immediately stashed in the top drawer of her dresser, under her socks. She had to admit he had a flair for illustration, a sharp attention to detail. She spent two days deliberating on the best way to respond: polite rejection? Indignation? She contemplated writing back without mentioning his letter at all—just scribbling out a few banal observations about the Christmas lights popping up all over the neighborhood, some funny anecdotes from her classes.

  Two days later she went to the post office and mailed off a paperback romance novel she had found at a used bookstore, carefully illuminating the racy passages with a pink highlighter. She mailed another package at the same time, to her sister—a tiny snowsuit, made to look like sheep’s wool, soft and gray, with an attached hood and little ears sewn on top. After she left the post office, she realized it was all wrong. Her sister’s baby wasn’t due until June. The baby would be too big to wear it by the time winter rolled around.

  Joanna’s last visit with Laura had started with Joanna showing up on Laura’s doorstep the day after Thanksgiving and asking “why everyone feels the need to reproduce” and ended with her feeling like a complete jerk and a horrible sister. It turned out that Laura and Ted had spent Thanks-giving in the hospital, afraid they were going to lose the baby. She had already had two miscarriages in the past six months and she couldn’t handle another one.

  Joanna was shocked. “But why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? I didn’t even realize you were trying!” This set off a huge fight. Laura yelled at her, saying she didn’t think Joanna would care—she was always so dismissive of marriage and children. This infuriated Joanna. How could her sister say she didn’t care? She didn’t have a chance to care! More yelling, and then Joanna stormed out. By Monday she had cooled down and tried to smooth things over, but Laura wouldn’t return any of her calls. Three weeks had gone by, and her sister still refused to speak to her.

  Her mother had made reservations for them to eat Christmas Eve dinner at the casino steakhouse—a dark, wood-paneled restaurant tucked away from the patterned carpet and blinking lights of the gaming floor. Why Tess would want to celebrate at their old workplace where they had spent so many hours on
their feet, breathing in secondhand smoke and pouring coffee, was beyond her. Maybe Tess enjoyed the idea of returning, revealing a new self, and getting a table in the most expensive restaurant in the joint.

  The steakhouse was not the fluorescent-lit diner with its orange booths and forest wallpaper. No, the steakhouse was high class. Starched tablecloths, candles, the works. The waiters talked in hushed tones and wore tuxedos. This was, for Tess Robinson, somewhere special, somewhere to really treat her daughter.

  Joanna had dressed up, as her mother had asked. Now they sat at a table for two. They had a bottle of wine, and her mother was in high spirits. Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight. “Order whatever you want! It’s on me. And it’s Christmas! Just like old times.”

  Joanna did not view these “old times,” when she and Tess lived together, after Laura had gone off to college, as fondly as Tess apparently did. She ordered fettuccine Alfredo and her mom got a steak.

  “Have you been seeing anyone?” her mother asked her.

  Joanna rolled her eyes. Always the first question from her mother’s lips. “No, Mom.”

  “No? Why not? I thought you were finding men from the Personals—”

  “They weren’t the Personals! It was online dating. There is a difference. And I stopped doing that … a while ago.”

  “Oh?” Tess raised her eyebrows, picking up on something, perhaps the vibrations in Joanna’s voice. Tess had a bloodhound’s sense of smell for a romantic story. She could sniff it out of her. “And what about Malcolm?” she pressed on.

  Joanna tried her best to mask her alarm. “What about him?”

  “Is he dating anyone?”

  “Malcolm? Uh—no. I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Aha!” Tess hit the table with both hands, causing all of its contents to tremble. The glasses made tiny ringing sounds that echoed through the room. “I knew it!”

  “What?” Joanna couldn’t keep up her neutral expression. Her mouth gave her away, forming into a smile.

  “You two … I knew something would happen. Especially since he moved in—”