Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  He walked to the kitchen table and picked up some of the bills. “Yeah. A break,” he said. “Look at this light bill. How hard is it, Suzanne, to turn out a light when you leave a room?” He walked from the room, clicking off the light, to show her, leaving her, alone and shocked, in the dark. She wasn’t sure what to do, and then suddenly he came back in and grabbed her.

  “I love you so fucking much and I am so fucking sorry,” he said. He held her head in his hands, he kissed her mouth, her chin. “I know I can do this,” he told her. “You just watch me.”

  She started working double shifts at the suprette. She was so wrung-out at the end of the day that she never wanted to see a cash register again. Her feet killed her. Her mind felt dead. People treated her like an idiot. One woman was so annoyed at the way Suzanne was packing the groceries, she grabbed the paper bag from Suzanne and began packing it herself. “Eggs do not go on top,” she informed Suzanne coolly. “I would think you’d know that.”

  The man who came next sighed loudly at Suzanne when she gave him his change. “You gave me all pennies. Don’t you know what a quarter is?” The man looked at the person standing behind him and rolled his eyes. “This place gets worse and worse.”

  Suzanne wanted to scream, to tear off the awful blue smock they made her wear and just walk out of there, and she would have, if she and Ivan hadn’t needed the money so desperately. So instead, she smiled. She was polite. She kept her mouth firmly shut. And she soothed herself by thinking about a different sort of future. She kept thinking more and more about going to Beauty Culture School. And the more she thought about it, the more excited she became. The suprette aisles receded. She didn’t see the irritation in her customers’ faces. No, she saw a gleaming salon, heads of glossy hair, a secretary who had to book Suzanne’s appointments months in advance because that was how in demand Suzanne was. “No one does it like you do,” her customers would rave.

  That night when she got home, she tried to talk to Ivan about going to school. “I think we could swing it,” she told Ivan. “We could take out a loan—” and then Ivan cut her off with a thrum of guitar chords. He banged his hand against the bridge of his guitar. “Oh, hair, that’s really interesting,” he said.

  He got his jacket and went out without her. “I just need to be alone for a bit,” he said. “Don’t take it personally.”

  In a million different ways, she tried not to. She lay on the couch, running through the channels of the TV, and she thought of the other girls at the suprette. One girl’s boyfriend had smacked her because she had dared to flirt with another boy. Another girl’s boyfriend never told her he loved her. The girls at the suprette all complained, they all swapped horror stories and joked that they were just slaves to love. “You never say anything bad about your Ivan,” one girl said to Suzanne admiringly. “You’re so lucky.” And Suzanne dipped her head down just so the girl couldn’t see how unsure Suzanne really felt, how the real reason she didn’t say anything bad about him was because it would just end up making her feel worse.

  He loves me, she told herself. It’s just a bad time. Suzanne clicked onto another station. An old sitcom from the fifties. The laugh track blared. She watched the sitcom and an old movie and then just before it was over, Ivan came home. “Hey, you’re up!” he said, pleased, and she stretched and got up and kissed him. His breath smelled like wine, but he kept kissing her. He rolled her to the floor with him. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, and then he not only told her how much he loved her, he showed her. All the rest of the night. And when he fell asleep, and she was still up, she lay with his arm wrapped about her and she made lists in her head to reassure herself.

  He still wanted her. He still wrote songs for her. He held her when she was lonely. He held her the terrible night Lars called to tell her Angela had died. He was there beside her holding her hand when Molly called wanting to visit and Suzanne turned her away because who knew what a third person might do to the mix. Right now, he was so there. How could anything be wrong? She wouldn’t let it.

  She didn’t think anything of his behavior until he began coming home later and later, more and more, and then suddenly it was three in the morning and there she was alone in a cold apartment listening to the man next door arguing with his wife.

  Those nights, she went looking for him, hating herself. She found him playing his music in the park, only a few young girls around him, and Suzanne recognized the look on all those young girls’ faces, she knew it wasn’t the music they were hungering for. And she saw the look on his face. He was playing all right. And to an audience. His face was dancing with light. And when he saw her, he acted as if she were interrupting. He blew out a breath. He thrummed a chord. “Let’s call it a night,” he said. He put his guitar away. The other girls gave Suzanne sly, measured looks, and Ivan didn’t bother to introduce Suzanne to any of them.

  He was silent the whole walk back, though she tried to talk to him. “You sounded good out there,” she said, and he nodded and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. “Maybe you should start playing outside more. Free concerts in the park—” she said lamely, and his mouth tightened.

  “Think you can be a little more condescending, Suzanne?” he said.

  As soon as they got back into the apartment, he started packing his things. She put one hand on his back, and he moved away from her. “It’s no good anymore,” he told her. “I’m going to sublet Del Bronco’s pad for a while.”

  She blinked at him. “Who?”

  He shot her a disgusted look. “See that? That’s just what I mean about you. You don’t even know the people in my life anymore. God. We used to talk and talk, Suzanne. But now you don’t even know what I’m about.” He zipped the suitcase shut. “I need to be able to concentrate on my music. To focus.”

  “But I let you concentrate! And I want to talk! We can still talk!” She reached to touch him. “It’s just a matter of time before you get something! You’re so talented only an idiot couldn’t see it!”

  He looked at her. Never had she seen his eyes so flat. “You bore me,” he said.

  After he left, she went insane. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t go to work. She called in sick and stayed in bed with the covers over her head. She kept expecting him to come back, to show up, just like that. And when he didn’t, she got the phone book and looked up the address for D. Bronco. She could go there. She could bring him back. You know me, she could say to him. We know each other. We can make this work. She was rummaging around on the pile of laundry on the floor for something clean to wear when buried under a T-shirt, she found a brand-new pack of his guitar strings. She held it up, astonished. Didn’t that mean something that he had left them here? Wasn’t it true that there were no accidents, that everything was somehow meant to happen?

  She dressed as carefully as she ever had in her life. In things he had bought her, the angora sweater, a pale rose-colored skirt, turquoise earrings shaped like tiny hearts. She went to his apartment. The front door was broken. It let her right in. She walked up two flights and stood outside his door, her heart thumping. She heard music playing. He was singing something and she leaned against the door. “Black hair to heaven,” he sang. She touched her own hair, feeling a heady pulse of relief. He couldn’t get her out of his mind any more than she could get him out of hers. And oh. He sounded good. Real good. As good as she had ever heard him. She shut her eyes, trembling. She knocked, and he opened the door, beautiful and laughing, and then just as she started to laugh, too, she saw the woman sitting cross-legged on his couch, a woman with long black hair like hers, in a short skirt, smiling at Suzanne like nothing in the world was wrong.

  Suzanne froze. “Suzanne,” he said and she swore for a moment, he looked sad. Or at least she wanted to think so. And then the girl who looked like her laughed, a low steady peal like a roller coaster, and Suzanne pivoted, and ran back down the stairs, throwing the guitar strings onto the dirty pavement.

  Suzanne f
ingered the locket. She remembered how she used to feel wearing it, like love could protect her. Family love. True love. She was smarter now. She felt jittery and angry and sad, which might feel worse, but at least it was real. You bore me, Ivan had said. She tasted metal in her mouth. Abruptly she took off the locket and shoved it back in the box, along with the sweater. She pushed the box back in the drawer and closed it. End of story.

  She had to get out of the house. Gary had told her to go shopping. Well, that’s what she’d do. She just wished she didn’t have to take the baby with her.

  He was stirring when she went into his room. He blinked up at her, as if he were waiting. “Chop chop. Time to go.” She bent to him. He blew a glistening bubble of saliva at her. She lifted him up carefully. She checked his diaper, which was dry, thank God, and put a fuzzy coat over him. And got him into the stroller, wrapping a blanket about him. What had Gary told her to pack for him? She couldn’t remember. A bottle maybe, his pacifier to keep him quiet. She grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator. It wouldn’t kill him to have it cold. She took the keys and money and then glanced outside. Gray and cold and all she had was her thin coat.

  She rummaged in the hall closet. There wasn’t much here. A blue cloth coat that wasn’t much better than hers. And this puffy orange down thing with a hood. She glanced out the window again and pulled out the down parka and put it on.

  She felt like a baby rhino. Feathers kept escaping, floating about her like snow. Well, tough. At least she’d be warm.

  The streets were empty. She forged ahead, the stroller jerking on the bumpy sidewalk. Gary had told her the supermarket was only a short walk, but already it felt like she had gone a mile. Next time he wanted her to shop, he’d better leave her the car. It was so freezing, she pulled on the ugly hood and tied it tight. Any moment she expected the baby to do something she would be unprepared for, but every time she came around the front of the stroller to check on him, he blinked at her placidly.

  There it was. The Thrift-T-Mart. As soon as she got inside, she realized she had left the list Gary had left her. She tried to remember what it was she was supposed to get. The baby made a babbling sound. “You want to tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for?” she said.

  She’d go aisle to aisle. She’d figure it out. She bought cheese and cookies and cigarettes. She went to the baby aisle, which seemed like a foreign country to her. There were five different brands of diapers in six different sizes. Ready-made and powder formula. Nipples and pacifiers. Her mind went suddenly blank. What had Gary said to get? She frowned, perplexed. She felt suddenly exhausted. She took the Simulac, and then headed to the bread aisle where things were more familiar.

  The groceries fit nicely in the bottom of the stroller, but it made it harder to wheel the thing. Halfway home, she felt hungry, and she pulled out the cheese and wolfed a few slices. It was the kind of makeshift dinner she had had many times before in California. She was used to it.

  The baby was sleeping and Suzanne was lazily thumbing through a magazine when Gary came home. It was just after seven, and he looked exhausted and tense. Too late for me to go to the hospital tonight, anyway, she thought. She couldn’t help feeling relieved.

  “How’s Molly?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “The same.”

  He picked up some of the baby’s toys and put them in the toy bin in the corner. He stopped, as if he were considering something, and then he abruptly went to the thermostat, frowned, and turned it down, but he didn’t say anything to Suzanne, and then he went into the kitchen. She heard the refrigerator open and then close. “Suzanne?”

  She put the magazine down and went into the kitchen. He was leaning against the counter, facing her. “You didn’t have a chance to go shopping?”

  “I shopped.”

  “There’s no milk. No fruit.” He looked in the cabinets. “You didn’t buy pasta?” He turned to her, irritated. “Did you get formula?”

  “Sure did.”

  He looked around and then suddenly picked up the Simulac on the counter and his frown deepened. “I told you Alimentum. He’s allergic to Simulac.”

  “How was I supposed to know that?” Suzanne said.

  “Because I told you.” He looked at her. “Did you get diapers?”

  She stayed perfectly still. Oh, damn. Diapers. She knew she had forgotten something.

  Gary turned and wearily pulled his jacket back on. “Fine,” he said, annoyed. “I’ll get them. I might as well get the other stuff we need.” His mouth tightened. “I know we have eggs and cheese. Could you make us a cheese omelet? A salad, do you think?”

  Fuck you, she thought. Who was he to make her feel stupid? Ordering me around. She wasn’t even that hungry. “Sure,” she said. At least she didn’t have to go out again. She waited until he was gone, then turned the thermostat up and broke eggs into a bowl. She tore the cheese apart with her fingers and dropped it into the bowl. It’s not my fault. I went shopping, I’m taking care of a baby, I’m doing this. She felt like crying. She angrily ripped at the lettuce.

  He came back in a slightly better mood. The salad was made, the eggs and cheese were sizzling into a mess in the pan. As he unloaded the groceries, he seemed to be giving her a kind of tour. Get this kind of milk. Don’t get this kind of bread. Otis likes this. I like that. Fine. Good. She’d remember. Just stop ordering her around as if she were a slave. Just stop treating her as if she were stupid. That didn’t seem too much to ask.

  They ate in silence.

  The next day, Gary gave her the car to drive to the hospital, and the whole time she was driving, all she could think about was how easy it might be to keep going, past one exit and then the next. She could be clear up to Canada before Gary realized she was gone. But then what? It hammered into her head. Then what? Well, Gary’s car was kind of a junk heap. It made an odd knocking sound and the brakes pulled. It’d probably never get anywhere anyway. She turned up the radio, blasting it. Oh, good, she liked this song coming on. She’d think of something.

  As soon as Suzanne stepped into the hospital, she nearly turned around. People were either grinning like lunatics or looking like they’d lost their best friends. Make a left at the elevator, Gary had told her, and she did, and there was the SICU. Suzanne stalled, looking around, not sure what to do. Gary had told her that Molly was in bad shape, that she wouldn’t hear or see her, but it was still important to talk to her anyway. But what could Suzanne say? I would have called but you didn’t seem to want me to.

  A nurse appeared, a blonde with a ponytail. “Yes?”

  “I’m Molly Goldman’s sister.”

  “Oh, yes, Gary told me.” She touched Suzanne’s shoulder. “She’s over there. By the window.”

  Suzanne suddenly couldn’t breathe. She stared. She turned to look at the nurse, to tell her there must be some mistake. This woman couldn’t be Molly. This woman’s face was almost hidden by tubes. Her mouth, her nose, were filled with them. Machines whirred and clicked and green neon numbers flashed. Molly’s hair had been this bright shiny red, but this hair was faded, threaded with white. This skin was gray. This woman is dying. The force of the thought knocked into Suzanne so hard, she sank into the chair by her sister’s bed. She had never imagined this. She had never seen this coming. It was a plane crash. A fall down an elevator shaft. “Molly, it’s me—Suzanne—Come on, Molly. You talk to me.” She ordered her around, the way she used to. “Let’s go. Now.” Molly eyes opened. They rolled upward and around and then the lids fluttered shut. Suzanne jerked back, terrified, and then burst into tears.

  She had been so sure it wouldn’t be as bad as Gary had told her. And she was right. It was much worse.

  Suzanne stayed for only an hour. She didn’t talk to Molly. She didn’t move from the hard plastic seat. She didn’t look up when a nurse came by to check one of Molly’s machines. When she walked out of the room, she walked like a ghost. When she came home that night, Gary was waiting for her in the living room, reading a magaz
ine. He stood up and walked over to her and had both of his arms around her before she had even started to cry.

  That night, Suzanne couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about Molly, the way she had looked. It made her numb with terror. And she couldn’t stop thinking that she would have to go back to see her tomorrow. She kicked the covers off and bolted upright. TV. If it didn’t put her to sleep, as least she’d have something to concentrate on. She threw a robe about her but once she got to the living room, she turned the set on and then clicked it off again. Maybe food would settle her down. She made herself an egg but as soon as it was done, she threw it into the garbage. She got back into bed and stared at the ceiling. Next shopping trip, she was buying Nite-all.

  Oh, God. Grocery shopping. Housekeeping for Molly all over again. People counting on you, wanting more and more, and no matter what you did, at times it wouldn’t be good enough. Sometimes you just had to make yourself botch it because there was just too much pressure. Too many little things to tend to. You had to give so much of yourself, you risked being erased. And she wasn’t sure she could pay that price again.

  In the morning, she couldn’t get up. She pulled the sheet over her head, shutting out the light, the sounds of the baby, all the noise Gary was making. She had had days like this after Ivan had left. She didn’t answer the door. She let the phone ring and ring.

  All she could think about was Molly in the hospital bed.

  There was a knock on the door. Go away, she thought, but the door opened and Gary poked his head in. “I’m leaving now.”

  She nodded and didn’t move.”

  “Can you get Otis?”

  “I’m on it.” He took his sweet time shutting the door. She made a few sounds, as if she were getting up, but as soon as she heard the front door slam, she burrowed back in bed. Let the baby cry first. Then she’d get up for real.