The Jade Emperor

by Suzanne Jenkins

  “I’m so sorry,” she finally said. “It feels fast.”

  “He said that she didn’t wake up this morning. Titan called her family to come over to see her. He went on and on about the hearing being the last to go, so they were talking to her, and then she just died. Dad was real upset. I don’t think I remember him ever getting that upset about anything, except maybe when Clinton won the election.”

  Stifling laughter, Kelly tried to imagine her husband at a deathbed. It didn’t ring true, but she wouldn’t go there with Augie.

  “What’s going to happen now?” she asked.

  “The funeral is next week, and then Titan is coming back with Dad. They’re going to stay in a hotel again until an apartment is available. But he asked if Titan could stay with one of us. They don’t want to share a room with him for obvious reasons, but Dad doesn’t think Titan should be alone.”

  Kelly’s concern switched from sadness to anger. Titan was a grown man. So like Steve to put his needs first, regardless of whom he inconvenienced. But he hadn’t asked her. He’d asked Augie. It wasn’t her business.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, trying to stay calm.

  “I thought we’d discuss it later, when everyone’s together,” he said.

  Kelly tried not to troubleshoot, but it was in her nature. Alice and Maxine had a spare bedroom in their basement. Ken and his girlfriend barely had enough room for themselves. Lisa wasn’t a candidate with one bedroom.

  “Karen might offer,” she said. “I know it’s not my concern, but I hate to have you kids inconvenienced.”

  Augie didn’t take offense. “She’ll have a chance to weigh in. Maybe we’d better do another family council. I hope Ken’s up to it.”

  That was Boyd-speak for sober. “They called him into work today, so he should be okay,” she said, realizing how sick they were, all enablers, thanks to her.

  “I’ll let you get back to shoveling,” he said. “It’s supposed to melt anyway.”

  “Maybe I’ll leave it,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

  They said goodbye and hung up. Augie’s news left her numb. Overheated, Kelly didn’t get up, looking around the room from this unusual vantage point. The room looked dated. Even her photo gallery of the children didn’t have the same effect on her as it usually did. Maybe it was time to divide the photos up and give them to their respective owners.

  Although, thanks to her father, she had the money to buy Steve out of the house, she didn’t know if she wanted it. If he wanted it, he’d have to refinance it to buy her out, and she didn’t think he was in the financial position to do so. But now with Lee and her contribution, that might have changed. Steve living there with another woman might take some getting used to. She doubted it would bother him at all, since he’d led most of his life in the basement. It was then she realized she needed an attorney. Mind made up, she was divorcing him, and she’d start the process soon. Having the upper hand, having control of that aspect would lessen the blow of everything that had happened.

  The heat finally getting to her, she stood up and took off her coat. A sense of doom, or perhaps absolute despair, replaced the fragile peace she’d acquired. But this time, instead of trying to fight it with wine - it was too early - she chose to go with it, to see where it would take her. As usual, she would be proactive.

  The coat closet in the front hallway was the exclusion to her neat sensibility. Hanging up her jacket, the upper shelf of the closet caught her attention. The items within were organized, but they were unnecessary. This might be the activity that would drive her to her knees, knowing that she would find things her children once wore when they lived under that roof. Hopeful for the catharsis a crying jag would provide, she would clean the closet. Pulling out a stool, she reached as high as she could to the very top shelf and pulled down a basket of odds and ends: gloves, baseball caps, scarves - all things which she had found difficult to dispose of for some reason.

  Hopping off the stool, she took the basket to the kitchen and dumped it out on the table. The first thing she picked up was a cap with Southeastern Pipe Fitters emblazoned across the front. She’d make a pile for Steve. Next was a tiny knitted glove. It had belonged to Alice when she was in elementary school. Kelly knew it was in there; she had hoped to find its mate in case Alice ever had a child, she could pass it down. But it was a ridiculous premise. The mate hadn’t been found in almost twenty years. After fondling it for a minute, she threw the glove in the trash.

  Items of the boys were more difficult for her to let go of. It was a mystery because she loved her girls so much, memories of girls’ nights when the boys would go up north with Major Dailey, or to a sleepover with Karen. Little Alice, teen-aged Lisa, and Kelly might have beauty night, doing each other’s nails, eating an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies while watching teen movies.

  Or they’d bike ride to the ice cream stand, leaving the boys with Steve to watch baseball. Thinking about her choices of outings, they were always centered on food. Treats. No wonder her girls battled with their weight. She was as responsible as Steve was for her children’s unhealthy obsessions.

  Throwing away mismatched gloves and mittens, ratty scarves and hats, soon the basket was empty. If she sold the house, she’d have to make the effort to go through every closet and relentlessly toss. Things that were too good to throw away could be offered to the kids, but she didn’t think they’d take much. Augie’s wife, Sandy, was super neat. Liz, Ben’s wife would take anything offered her, but then Ben would get annoyed.

  Tossing the basket down the basement stairs, she wasn’t in the mood to see Steve’s space. Maybe another time. Instead, she went back to the spare room that was now her craft room. Huge storage boxes stacked inside the closet kept more sacred photos and albums. The wedding album her mother insisted she have was visible through the clear plastic in a box near the bottom. One by one, she hoisted the heavy boxes down to the floor until she reached the last one.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked the air.

  The album hadn’t been opened in years, maybe since Alice left for college. She looked at the ceiling and started to count. Alice was her baby, graduating from college less than two years before. Painful memories flooded her again. Alice was a change-of-life baby. Not exactly change of life - nowadays they called it perimenopausal. Pregnancy was never a consideration. The rare times Steve was willing to have sex, Kelly took precautions, knowing that if she asked him to do it, he’d use it as an excuse never to do it again. She was over forty and her periods just stopped.

  Something must have gone wrong or, as it turned out, right, because she peed in a cup at work and took it to the lab. She was in the middle of patient care when Bessie from the lab called.

  “Congratulations, Kelly. I know you don’t want to hear it, but better think positive about that kid right now, ‘cause unless you do something to stop it, you’re havin’ a baby in nine months.”

  “Six,” Kelly uttered, shocked.

  “Well, whatever. Anytime you need a pep talk, just call me, okay?”

  “Okay, thank you,” she said, staring off into space.

  She put the phone down.

  “You look like you just saw a ghost,” the unit secretary, Linda, said.

  “I need to sit down. I might be sick,” Kelly replied, groping for a chair.

  The secretary, about to deliver herself, got up and helped Kelly sit. “Do you want some water?”

  “No, no water. I just need to catch my breath. I have to get back to my patient. She’s on the bedpan.”

  “What room and I’ll get one of the aides to get her off,” Linda said.

  The group of nurses had worked together long enough to know that Kelly was super private about her life. They never heard a complaint from her, and as far as they knew, she had a charmed marriage with a perfect husband. If they knew the truth, they’d have been sad for Kelly.

  Within a few minutes, she regained her equilibrium. The first t
hing she did when she got a break that afternoon was call Karen, who cried what Kelly thought were tears of joy.

  “It’s not that I’m not happy for another little baby,” Kelly said. “But getting through it with Mr. Personality, well, that might be tricky.”

  “So you weren’t trying?” Karen asked, digging.

  “No. This is a surprise,” Kelly had lied, not wanting to hear recriminations from her twin. “Let’s keep it a secret, okay? I’m not ready to tell Steve. He’s still reeling from Reggie.”

  After Ken was born, Steve had been adamant. “No more kids, you got it? Four is enough.”

  “Okay, Steve. But I can’t take the pill because I have a history of blood clots. They don’t want you to take it after thirty-five. Would you consider having a vasectomy?”

  The blood drained from his face and he grabbed his crotch. “No one’s messing with my balls,” he shouted. “You get it done.”

  “It’s major surgery for a woman, Steve. I’d have to take time off work. No, you should do it. You don’t want more kids, you get snipped.”

  Using her fingers like scissors, she made a cutting motion and hissed, “Snip, snip.”

  When Ken was four, Kelly got pregnant with Reggie. She did it by accident/on purpose. Ken was lonely, the twins six years older than he was.

  “I’d like to have one more,” she said one evening.

  They were sitting together in the backyard, a rare moment as a family, with the twins batting a ball around, and Ken chasing after it. He’d run up to Steve to throw the ball to him.

  “You’ve got a great arm, kiddo,” he called out, the compliment even taking four-year-old Ken by surprise.

  “You know I don’t want any more,” he replied. “You’re purposely trying to ruin a nice evening.”

  “It would be a playmate for Kenny,” she said. “He’s so lonely.”

  They watched him trying to get the twins attention, running after them, begging them to include him; it was perfect evidence to back up her claim.

  “Augie didn’t have anyone else,” Steve said. “He’s turning out okay.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” she replied, resigned. “Do you want a beer?”

  “If you’re getting up,” he said.

  Looking back, she’d plied him with beer to get her way. Steve could be so easy if Kelly timed it just right, agreed with everything he said no matter how ridiculous, fed him beer, avoided the verboten topics: he hated to talk about their relationship, any social event that involved her friends or family, and issues with the kids. Often suffering the consequences, she never regretted tricking him he called it, into impregnating her.

  When she discovered she was pregnant with Reggie, she kept it a secret, lying when the truth came out, telling everyone, even Karen, that she didn’t have the usual symptoms of pregnancy when she started to show and couldn’t hide it any longer.

  “You’re getting fat,” Steve said unexpectedly one Saturday morning at breakfast.

  Most Saturdays he slept in, but for some reason on that day, he decided to join the family for a meal. Making pancakes for them, she’d come to the table to serve him right from the pan, the spatula in her hand. Staring at her midsection with a sneer on his face, his disgust was apparent. She felt a wave of heat go through her, and for a second she was speechless.

  The kids stopped eating, watching him, and then turned to Kelly, who quickly turned her back, closing her eyes, holding her breath and her stomach in, praying as she walked back to the stove.

  “She’s not fat, Dad,” Augie said, his voice low.

  At sixteen, he was a momma’s boy, and although Kelly loved it, she didn’t want trouble between Steve and Augie, navigating their relationship with delicacy.

  “Daddy didn’t mean anything by it, did you, Steve? Everything’s just fine. I need to get out there and burn some calories. Do you want to run with me later, Augie?”

  He was still looking at Steve, almost willing him to slap his face, but Steve used restraint for a change and didn’t lash out.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Augie said, pushing away from the table. “Mom, you sit down. I want to flip pancakes.”

  Rather than argue with him, she laughed and handed him the spatula. Her boys would know how to cook.

  “Here’s the batter,” she said, pointing to a bowl full of yellow pancake batter. “Just ladle it in the frying pan.”

  “I know how to do this. Grandpa Dailey let us cook up at the camp last summer,” he said, glaring at Steve over his shoulder.

  “You’re not really going to eat pancakes, are you?” Steve said, ready to pick a fight with her if he had to be nice to the kids.

  “I am,” she said. “I’m looking forward to this. Is it delicious?”

  “It’s good!” little Ken said, the twins still watching Steve, but nodding their heads.

  The phone rang, and when Kelly went to rise, Steve told her to stay put.

  “I’ll get it,” he said. “I can’t eat that crap.”

  Glancing at his plate, Kelly laughed, risking his anger. “Daddy claims he didn’t like the food, but his plate is almost licked clean!”

  He answered the phone and, thankfully, good-naturedly rolled his eyeballs at her comment, taking a call from a work buddy. Fortunately for them, he accepted an invitation to play in an afternoon baseball game. Kelly was sure he’d get drunk and not come home, but she was almost glad.

  Why did she stay with him? He didn’t mention her weight again until the next day. She’d made arrangements for the children to go to church with her mother and father, so they were out of the house by the time Steve got up, hungover. She’d used the bathroom at three in the morning and he wasn’t home yet, so chances were he’d be in a horrible mood.

  “Who won?” she asked, pouring him coffee.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “We might have.”

  “It sounds like it was a fun game.”

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the coffee from her. “You should have come with the kids. Next time, I’ll remember to ask you.”

  She didn’t say anything, but going to any activity his work buddies organized that didn’t involve everyone’s families was awful. Without the other wives there, the few women who worked at the plant got just as drunk as the men, and it didn’t take long before the atmosphere deescalated into chaos. It wasn’t a place for kids.

  “Okay, great,” she lied.

  “What’s going on with this?” he said, roughly poking her in the belly.

  “Ouch, Steve, knock it off,” she cried.

  “Calm down,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m pregnant. I’m due in October.”

  “You’re six months pregnant?”

  “Yay! You can count!” she cried, jubilant.

  He hit the table with his open palm.

  “Well, that’s just friggin’ great, Kelly. You waited this long so you can’t get an abortion.”

  Sitting down at the table, she burst into tears. That was true; the reason she waited was so that abortion wouldn’t be an option. Hearing him say the word seared.

  “I didn’t poke you that hard,” he said. “Stop blubbering.”

  “Yes, you did! And it was cruel, just like you’re cruel. Make plans to do something today, will you, please? We’ll end up killing each other if you keep picking on me.”

  “I plan on going right down those stairs and watching TV all day,” he said.

  That was the extent of their conversation about her being pregnant. Within minutes after he disappeared down the stairs, she felt better and was ready to tell the world her news. Her sister was reserved but said she was happy for her, and later, when her parents came by to bring the children home, they were happy, but with reservations.

  “How’s Boyd taking it?” her father asked, his hand on her shoulder.

  “Oh, about how you’d expect,” she said, a smile plastered on her face.

  She got what she wanted, and at the time, that w
as all that mattered.

  Now, discovering she was pregnant with Alice was a whole other issue. She didn’t even know when it happened. They were growing further and further apart. Their sex life was practically nonexistent. She finally asked Steve if he’d mind if she had an affair. It was purely satirical, but he didn’t know that, and it got his attention.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You’ve been telling me I place too much importance on sex. So if you don’t think that it’s important in a marriage, I wouldn’t think you’d mind if I got it elsewhere.”

  Stunned, he just looked at her for a few seconds, and then he smirked. “Real funny, smart-ass,” he’d said. “If you want to fuck, just say it. Stop with the silly games.”

  Kelly turned her head so he couldn’t see how revolted she was. Talking to her in that way was his norm, but not regarding their sex life. They did it, but it was forced and unsatisfying, the last straw. Kelly decided then that unless he initiated it, she was finished with sex. It wasn’t worth the effort any longer.

  Reggie was just two, and he was such a sweet little guy, but having another so soon, well, it frightened her. She couldn’t take any time off work, that was a given. Augie would start college that fall, and she accepted that Steve was not going to sacrifice one cent for it. Her father would be heartbroken if he knew that she needed the money so badly and wasn’t asking him for help.

  “You’ll get it when we die,” he had said. “Let me help you.”

  “Dad, you’re so kind, but we’re fine,” she lied. “And I want to work. I’d just sit around and snack all day if I stayed home.”

  Sitting in the chair at her sewing table, she reluctantly opened the cover to their wedding album. The first picture was of the invitation. It was engraved, and even from the photograph you could see the depth and texture of it. Her mother had insisted on a proper invitation. Even a rushed wedding would be done properly.

  Turning the page, the next was a formal portrait of her. An errant tear leaked out of her eye and started down her cheek. She had been so young and so beautiful. Why on earth did she choose Steve to fall in love with? Crazy about him, even the photograph captured her radiance. All she had wanted since childhood was to have her own home, a husband to love her, and a nice family, just like the one she came from but with lots of children. It was clear that the young Kelly was full of so much hope.