A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

  “I have no reason to exclude you, Abby.”

  She met him head on. Of course you have reason to exclude me. You’ve been excluding me ever since you touched that… that paramour.

  “Abigail—”

  “You just don’t let him be scared.”

  They waited with nowhere to run, both of them facing consequences, terrified suddenly at how they could discuss these details this way.

  It didn’t feel like a beginning anymore. It felt like an end.

  David shifted his weight from his right knee to his left. “Do you want me to move out, Abigail?”

  The memories came back to Abby, a flood of them spinning out of control: two silhouettes standing in the driveway, her mother crying in the dark.

  “I’ve already told Abigail good-bye, Carol. We had a day together yesterday. We drove all over the park. I bought her souvenirs.”

  “How could it be a good-bye, when you didn’t tell her you were going to leave?”

  “She’ll figure it out after awhile. You know Abigail. She’s a smart girl.”

  Abby leveled her eyes on David’s face and said, “What if that’s what I wanted? What if I told you that I wanted you to go? Would you come back to see him? Or would you go off with them and start a new life?”

  “Abby.” He looked horrified. “Braden means everything to me.”

  He looked, for a moment, as she remembered him from a vacation in California, his bare toes curved over the edge of the diving board as he stood, taking two breaths, three, before screwing up the courage and concentration to jump. “Okay. I’ll pack up some things tonight.”

  “Well, I do want you to go. There’s no place I can go to have a clear head or to get a perspective on things when you are near like this, pushing me.”

  “Maybe I can stay with friends for a while.”

  She took one step forward, as if she might grasp his shirtsleeve. Only she didn’t. “Is it as easy as all that, David? Both of us asking for what we want?”

  David shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at her. “I don’t think easy is the word.”

  “You can’t move out right now. You can’t leave at the same time you tell Braden about your other child.”

  Abby’s mother at the kitchen table with an untouched coffee cup before her. Tears streaming through her fingers, running down her wrists to wet the cuffs of a blouse the color of dishwater.

  “He’ll read too much into that,” Abby said. “He’ll think you’re leaving him instead of me.”

  Chapter Ten

  David and Braden Treasure sat together on shiny chrome stools at Jackson Drug, elbow to elbow on the black countertop. Their bottoms—one swathed in a pants suit with button-down pockets, one with a dirt smudge the shape of a pear from sliding into second base—kept a slow, synchronized pace, twisting right and left, right and left, in rhythm with the sucking they did on their straws.

  “Hm-m-mm.” David extracted his straw from his chocolate malt, licked it lengthwise, and laid it aside. “It’s too thick for this. I’m killing myself. I say dig in with the spoon.”

  As little boys are prone to do, Braden copied his father exactly, wrapping his tongue around the curve of the straw with the same effort as a Hereford going after a salt lick. “Hm-mmm.”

  “You like the shakes better? Or the malt?”

  “I like the shake. You just like malts better because you’re an old person.”

  “Watch it, sport. This is your father you’re talking to.”

  Braden sat as tall as he could manage, watching his own face in the mirror behind the malted-milk machine and the Coca-Cola clock and the little shelves of Tazo Tea. He made a face, pulling the skin below one eye down until veins appeared. “So what did you bring me here to talk about, Dad?”

  “Oh, you know.” David laid his long-handled spoon right in the center of the napkin, which he’d never unfolded or used. He wrapped both hands around his malt glass and leaned into the counter. “Seems like we never have time alone anymore. Time to talk boy things. Man things.”

  “Oh, no.” Braden slumped on the stool. “Not that stuff. Charlie Kedron said you’d want to talk about that stuff. All dads do, and it’s eeew, yuck, nasty.”

  David’s glass clattered on the counter. He had to catch it or it would have gone all the way over.

  “I don’t even like girls, Dad. I like baseball.”

  “That’s good,” David said, popping the spoon in his mouth and talking around the ice cream. “At least a man can understand baseball.”

  Their feet sat together, baseball cleats and Hush Puppies, toes resting on the metal bar that ran along the floor. Shoulder to shoulder, father and son plunged in with spoons again. Together they reached bottom with a huge clattering noise that would have made Abby cringe.

  “Braden,” David said at last, pressing his forehead with his palm, half out of desperation and half because he’d finished his malt too fast. “I’m going to ask you to do something that most dads don’t have to ask their sons. I’m going to ask you to do something courageous.”

  “What?” Braden sat up straight again.

  “There’s a lady at the hospital who’s waiting for you to come over. She wants to test you for something.”

  That didn’t go over well at all. The color left Braden’s face. “Test me for something? Does that mean I’ve got to have a shot?”

  “Yes.”

  Braden turned away and began the process of bending his straw, tucking one end inside the other so the straw became a triangle. “Why did you bring me here first?” he said. “Mom always makes me wait to have ice cream until after I’ve done that. Then I have something to look forward to.”

  “I did it different than your mom. I thought it would be best to have you prepared. I wanted to have time to explain it to you.”

  “Why didn’t Mom come? She always goes with me when I do something like this.”

  “She thought it would be best if I went with you today instead.”

  “Why you, Dad?” His voice, small and worried. “Is it going to be scary? You always go with me when things are scary.”

  “No.” David held the top of his nose with thumb and forefinger. His shoulders lifted and fell with a resolute sigh. “Not as scary as all that. Not really.”

  “But it will hurt,” Braden said.

  “Yes. It will hurt as much as shots hurt. And it takes a while.”

  That most important of all details out of the way, they scraped the aluminum soda-fountain glasses with their spoons again and took stock of each other in the fountain mirror. A lady stepped up to the cash register and paid for a refrigerator magnet with a bison head that read I GOT GORED IN THE TETONS. At the pharmacy on the other side, someone had opened a roadmap and was asking the pharmacist for directions to Jenny Lake.

  “Why does that lady want to test something about me?”

  David regretted afresh what he’d done, regretted how he now asked his son to pay for it. Here was betrayal, pure and simple. If he’d anguished over baring his soul to Abby, then telling the truth to his son felt like slicing out his very heart.

  Here goes nothing.

  “Because there’s a little girl who’s sick and we think you might be able to help her.”

  Braden’s straw, lying on the counter beside his baseball glove, popped out of its geometrical shape. “Does she go to my school? Who is it?”

  “You don’t know her, Braden. She doesn’t live here.”

  “But then, if I don’t know her, why do they think I’m the one who can do it?”

  David’s heart clubbed hard, high in his chest. He started to say it and he couldn’t. Not yet. Not this way.

  “They think you might have the right kind of something in your bones, that’s all.”

  Braden’s eyes, as big around as skipping stones, locked on his father’s in the mirror. David opened his mouth again to try and explain the rest of it, the logistics of Susan Roche and Samantha, his wrong decisions, the sin
s he’d committed long ago. But when he saw his son’s expression, he snapped his mouth shut.

  “Lots of people check to see what kind of blood they have. I did it, too. Only mine wasn’t quite right. They need you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well.” He stumbled. And gratefully used the lame explanation that parents have been using since the beginning of time: “God just worked it out that way.”

  “Where does this girl live?”

  “In Oregon.”

  “How come you know about her?”

  “Because I know her mom.”

  Braden gave his father a dark look. “How do you know her mom?”

  “She used to be a friend. A long time ago.”

  “But that doesn’t…”

  David watched his son ponder while his own heart stopped, his breathing ceased. His very existence depended on this one little boy and his reaction.

  “I don’t…” Braden scrunched on the stool and reached across the counter. He popped three more straws from the dispenser and studied them, perplexed, as if they were the question. “That isn’t very good.”

  “Don’t take more straws than you need. You know Mom never lets you play with straws at restaurants.”

  “Does Mom know that you have that lady that’s your friend?”

  “Sport. Braden.” Uncharted territory, all of it. He’d never done anything like this before; he had no idea how to tread this new ground. “Yes. Mom knows. There isn’t any big secret or anything. Not anymore.”

  “You know what I dreamed last night?” Braden asked out of the blue as he tucked his baseball glove beneath his armpit. “I dreamed I could walk on water. When I stepped off the shore and into the water, the soles on my tennis shoes floated. I walked way out and I was just standing there.”

  “Okay, Mr. Walk-On-Water.” David laid several bills and a pile of quarters on the counter, took one more gulp from the silver ice-cream glass to make sure he’d gotten everything from the bottom, and wrapped one arm around the width of Braden’s shoulders. “We’d better get going. We’ve got people waiting for us over there.”

  “I’m scared,” Braden said, “but I’ll do it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Father and son wiped their mouths with napkins that before this moment hadn’t been made use of. They slid off their stools together. As the plastic seats refilled with air, they made a sound like two whoopee cushions.

  The deed was done. Enough of the story confided to his son. Secrets revealed, but not too many.

  Braden looked up at his dad and grinned about the noisy seats.

  David rumpled his son’s hair with a host of gratitude.

  The delivery truck with the magnetic sign that read BLOOMS ’N GREENS drove up fast and parked in the For-Staff-Members-Only space. In the office at the shelter, the staff scurried around closing things up for the day. Kate Carparelli glanced out Abby’s front window. “Oh, my word. Look what’s coming up the sidewalk!”

  The van had opened and here came an enormous spray of roses—an entire baker’s dozen of them splayed out in one perfect, symmetrical constellation. The arrangement was so big and extravagant that all they could see of the woman who carried them was her legs.

  Somebody opened the door. The overpoweringly sweet smell arrived before the flowers did. “Delivery!” came the disembodied voice from behind stems and leaves.

  Kate dug into her purse and gave a two-dollar tip. Then, with the solemnity and purpose of a bucket brigade, everyone in the office passed the roses along from one to another, smelling them and oohing and aaahing over their fragrance and beauty. It didn’t take long, though, before someone placed them smack dab in the middle of Abby’s desk.

  There the roses sat in front of her. Petals as soft as a baby’s cheek curled within blossoms as crimson and rich and perishable as blood.

  The betrayal, sudden and living again, seared through her like heat. Abby lashed her arms around her middle. David, how could you think roses would make up for what your unfaithfulness has done to our family? How could you think they would make up for what you’re asking all of us to face?

  She lifted her chin at her colleagues at the shelter, daring them to say what they were thinking. They had to know by now what was happening. Jackson Hole was a small town, after all.

  He blew our cover. That’s what he did.

  Braden, their innocent son. Braden, who, when he thought his father wasn’t looking, speared four pieces of macaroni—one on each prong of the fork—just the way his father did it. Braden, who had begged to be the first nine-year-old boy ever to drive a Suburban, perched atop his father’s square lap while David worked the pedals and Braden made shaky turns with small hands. Braden, who, when his baseball friends had complained that the color of their uniforms wasn’t manly and powerful enough, had piped up in words that carried across the field like the chirp of a little bird, “My dad says green is the good-luck color. Green means ‘go.’ Dad says that way, when we look at each other, we should think ‘We can go all the way and win!’ ”

  Abby had never wanted to live her life in a web of suspicions. She’d never wanted to be like the rest of the women who sat in the rumpus room at the shelter, leaning forward in the donated chairs and whispering: “That’s the one thing I’d never forgive him for. Sure, he hits me sometimes when he gets mad. But the minute he fools around with another woman, I’m out the door.”

  She’d never wanted to be the one at Bible study or prayer group whom people scooted their chairs close to, touched a shoulder in sympathy, and said, “Please. Let us. We want to pray for you.”

  Five o’clock came and Abby’s colleagues began to gather their jackets and keys and thermal lunch bags, leaving without words in acknowledgement of the sudden uncomfortable distance. Abby’s pluck-and-mettle filtered out of the room along with them. Finally, the last person whispered good-bye to her.

  Abby realized she was alone. She leaned forward in her chair and searched for David’s card among the greenery. She found the miniature envelope impaled among the roses on a pronged plastic fork. She read the two words scribbled there.

  “To Sophie,” they said.

  Abby rocked forward in her chair and placed her feet firmly on the floor. Her body went limp with relief even while her throat went dry with disappointment.

  The roses hadn’t been meant for her.

  David hadn’t sent them.

  Well.

  The staff here followed protocol when residents received deliveries. The message on the card was checked; the recipient was notified. Abby needed to notify Sophie. She would be given the sender’s name and the option of viewing the arrangement, no questions asked. After that, she would be given the choice of whether or not to receive them.

  Abby slipped a finger beneath the seal, opened the flap, and tried to stay detached while she read the words:

  I’m sorry for what I did, Sophie. I just wish you would come home. It’ll never happen again, I can promise you that much.

  I love you,

  Mike

  Phoebe the cat was nowhere to be seen when Abby made her trek through the courtyard. Her light tread on the stairs did not disturb anyone. She knocked lightly at Sophie’s door. She could hear the cat purring even before the woman opened it.

  “Sophie. Phoebe isn’t supposed to be inside.”

  “Who?”

  “The cat.”

  The door opened wider and Phoebe’s smoky topaz eyes peered out from between Sophie’s braided arms.

  “Something’s been delivered to you today. I need to take care of it before I go home.”

  The door opened even wider. “This cat remembers me, I can tell. She knows I was here before. I’m sorry I snuck her in here, Abby. I just… didn’t want to be alone.”

  Abby thought of Brewster-dear, uncomplicated Brewster, who only cared about long-legged splashes into the creek and sniffing out starlings and demolishing a bowl of beef-flavored Purina One, the same flavor he’d joyously demoli
shed last week, last month, last year.

  She thought of David snoring, his lanky limbs draped over the arm of the couch, the thin blanket she’d given him never quite the right angle or the right size to cover his bony ankles. She thought about the loud click when she locked their bedroom door. She thought about spreading out as wide as she could in the bed, with her head on the pillow in Washington State and her feet stretched clear across to Florida.

  “Some flowers came for you.”

  Sophie let the cat slither to the ground. “Flowers?”

  “Roses.”

  Sophie thought about that. “I don’t have room for anything else in here. Especially if they’re from the person I think they’re from.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “They’re from Mike, aren’t they?”

  Abby nodded.

  “Are they pretty?”

  She didn’t answer directly. “People send things. You don’t have to accept them.”

  “Did he write me something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? What does he say?”

  Abby pulled the tiny envelope from her skirt pocket and handed it over.

  Sophie’s hands were shaking. “You know what it says?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “That he’s sorry, that he loves you, that he’ll never do it again.”

  “And?”

  “And he wants you to come home.”

  There are moments between strangers and friends when words do not suffice. Long seconds passed while the two women stood in a silent shelter room, toe to toe, exchanging their heartbreak through their eyes.

  “You know what I was just thinking?” Sophie said. “I was thinking how each day is like a capsule of our whole lives. Each day always starts with a morning, and a morning is a beginning. A morning always feels so clean.”

  “It does.”

  “Then there’s the afternoon that gets filled with everything. And there’s the evening, when everybody’s tired and they’re thinking how they’d like to get some rest. They’re thinking how they’ve got some things they’d do over and some things they’d like to forget.”