This Glittering World

by T. Greenwood

  The lunch hostess, the one with the big breasts and bleached teeth, seated Ben at a small table by the kitchen. While he waited for his order, he opened up the paper and scanned the headlines. He flipped to the local section and looked for Flagstaff news. Though he settled into his new routine in Phoenix, he missed Flagstaff, and reading about what was going on up north always made him feel just a bit less disconnected.

  A longtime business was closing down, another victim of the economic disaster. A story about the record-breaking snowfall’s effect on tourism at Snowbowl. And the investigation into the death of a Navajo man found dead in the Cheshire neighborhood on November 1.

  The waitress set down his plate. “Can I get you anything else?”

  Ben shook his head, skimming the brief article. Anxious.

  Victim believed to have attended a fraternity party near the university’s campus that night, though he was not a student himself. No suspects, but the fraternity brothers had been questioned by the police based on an anonymous tip. The victim’s blood alcohol level was. 08, the legal limit, and no autopsy was performed at the family’s request. The cause of death was exposure. The victim was from Chinle, AZ, survived by his sister, Alice “Shadi” Begay, a local artist in Flagstaff.

  Ben pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and left it on the table. He needed to get home, to get rid of the newspaper sitting on their kitchen table. Sara always read the paper after work. If she knew there was a connection between Shadi and Ricky, she wouldn’t let up. She might even begin to piece things together, if she truly hadn’t already. It was just a matter of time until everything blew up.

  Ben figured he could just swing by the house and grab the paper and then get back to work before the hour was over. He could pretend that none of this was happening. He could convince Sara to find another rug.

  Ben pulled into the driveway and unlocked the door. Inside, he grabbed the newspaper, which appeared not to have been touched, sighing with relief. He knew he would be starving if he didn’t eat something, so he took an apple from the fruit bowl and noticed the light on the answering machine was blinking.

  “Hi, we’re not here right now; please leave a message!” Sara’s voice chirped.

  “Hi, this is Shadi Begay. I’m returning your call about the rug you’d like to commission? I’d be happy to talk to you more about this. I think you have my number; just give me a call.”

  Ben glanced quickly at the door, his finger hovering over the DELETE button. But he wanted to hear her voice just one more time. It sounded like winter, the sound of a fire, the sound of snow. This would be it. And then he would let her go. Let all of this go. The police were investigating Ricky’s death. She didn’t need him anymore. He hitREPLAY, and as Shadi’s voice echoed through the kitchen, Sara walked in the door and started to cry.

  The little girl, Emma, passed away while Sara was working that morning. Emma had been sick, but stable, all week. A donor had been located, and her transplant was scheduled. They put her in ICU that morning because she was running a high fever and they were worried that she had an infection. And then, while her mother went out to get coffee for herself and for the nurses, Emma closed her eyes and didn’t wake up.

  “What happened?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sara said. Her whole body was trembling. She was pale, ghostly.

  “Sit down,” he said, guiding her to the couch. She sat down and put her head in her hands. It sounded like she was hyperventilating.

  “Do you need a paper bag?” he asked.

  “I can’t do this, Ben,” she said, looking up and shaking her head. “I was her nurse. I’m not supposed to let this get to me. It’s not professional at all. I’m probably going to lose my job.”

  “No,” Ben said, sitting down next to her. “She’s the first patient you’ve lost. Of course you’re upset. This is an adjustment. They have to understand.”

  “The charge nurse sent me home. Told me to get it together. I have to be back in an hour.”

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said, putting his arm across her shoulder, cradling her. Rocking her.

  “Why are you here?” she asked suddenly.

  Ben’s eyes went from the counter where the newspaper lay to the light that still flashed on the machine.

  “I came home for lunch,” he said. “Listen, what I want you to do is go lie down. Just for a little bit. I’ll call work and tell them I’ll be back a bit late.”

  “I can’t, Ben. I have to go back to work.”

  “You have plenty of time,” he said. And then he added, knowing this was the one thing she would listen to, “It’s not good for the baby. This stress. Just rest. Just for a few minutes.”

  And, like magic, she listened, shuffling up the stairs to their room. When the door closed, he shoved the newspaper into the bottom of the trash can, covering it with coffee grounds and a banana peel.

  Shadi didn’t need him anymore, but Sara did. This baby did.

  He looked at the blinking light and clickedDELETE.

  Ben tried not to think about the snow. He tried not to think about the way it felt to walk out into the cold and to feel winter all the way through to your bones, about the way it sparkled, about the infinite prisms. He tried not to miss the purity of it, the baptismal chill every time you went outside. But when Sara said she wanted to go up and see Melanie for the weekend, the first thoughts that came to mind were crystalline and white.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.

  They were sitting outside by the pool, having breakfast before Sara went to work.

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, pushing a perfectly symmetrical ball of honeydew around with her fork.

  “I’d love to stop by Jack’s, see Hippo and Ned.”

  Sara seemed elsewhere. Since Emma died, there was a pall about her, something heavy and dark. Ben didn’t know whether it was losing Emma or some hormonal shift that made her so quiet, so sullen. She was still in her second trimester. These were supposed to be the golden months of pregnancy from what he’d read in the books that lay splayed open or dog-eared on every flat surface in the house. He avoided the very good possibility that it wasn’t Emma or the pregnancy, and that maybe it was him. Whatever it was, it felt like the calm before the storm.

  “I’ll come with you. It’ll be great,” he said cheerily. “That way you don’t have to drive. And I’ll leave you girls alone. I promise.”

  She looked up from her bowl of fruit and said, “Have you seen my prenatal vitamins?”

  Ben shook his head.

  She looked distracted, tired.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  The sun sparkled on the surface of the pool, the aquamarine refracting the early morning light. He’d started swimming in the mornings, disappearing into the blue just as the sun was coming up. The water was cold and clean and made his skin tingle into life.

  “Yeah, come with me if you want,” she said. “It’s supposed to snow, and I hate driving in the snow.”

  They left after work on Friday and sat in traffic for nearly an hour just trying to get out of Phoenix. The traffic was bumper to bumper, and as they inched forward, Ben could feel Sara’s frustration growing. It was palpable. As thick as this heat.

  They were driving the Camry because the truck didn’t have AC, and Ben was glad not to be miserably hot on top of it all. Sara usually kept a clean car. A little trash bag hanging from the back of one of the seats. No old coffee cups in the cup holders, no soda cans. She brought the Camry to the car wash once a week and had it detailed once a month. She bought air fresheners in packets of three and hung them from the rearview mirror like Christmas ornaments.

  But today, as they crawled through the heat toward I-17, Ben glanced around the car and saw it was a disaster. An empty Pringles can rolled back and forth across the floor beneath her feet, and a dirty pair of scrubs was stuffed into the space between them. There were crumbs on the floor, and the windshield was filth
y. In the backseat, he’d had to make room for Maude among a dozen shopping bags from baby stores. The items inside seemingly forgotten.

  “What do you and Melanie have planned?” he asked.

  Sara was looking out the window. She shrugged.

  “She must really miss you,” he offered.

  “She wants to plan my baby shower,” she said.

  “That’ll be nice,” he said. “Will it be in Flagstaff?”

  “Well, I don’t have any real friends in Phoenix,” she snapped.

  The cars, which had been creeping steadily at ten miles an hour for the last twenty minutes, came to a stop. Sara put her face in her hands and groaned. “Maybe we should go back home,” she said. “We’re never going to get there.”

  “It’s okay. Once we get onto 17 it should thin out,” he said.

  “Not if all these assholes are headed to Flagstaff too,” she said.

  Ben stared out the window at the sea of cars. There must be an accident, something blocking a lane or two of traffic. At this rate they might get to Flagstaff by the end of the weekend. And, unfortunately, Sara was probably right. After all the snow they’d been getting at the Peaks, probably every Phoenician and their brother had decided to go skiing this weekend.

  “My back hurts,” she said. “Really bad.”

  “Can you take anything?” he asked.

  She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Tylenol. Why, do you have any?”

  “You all right?” he asked again.

  Sara sighed and leaned her head against the window, positioning the air-conditioning vent so that it was blowing on her. And she closed her eyes.

  He was grateful that he didn’t have to try to make conversation anymore. He hoped he didn’t have another four months of this to look forward to. He’d been trying; he really had. But she wasn’t making it easy for him. When Sara was sweet, when she was bubbly and happy, he could love her again. He could remember that old feeling. He clung to that. But when she was like this, he could feel the anger spilling through his veins. Quiet toxins flooding his veins and arteries. Poisonous and bitter.

  Finally, Ben could see what was holding everyone up. There had been an accident near the exit for the Loop. It looked as though two cars had collided; one was accordianed against the guardrail and the other was up on the median. Ambulances had arrived, and there was a cop directing everyone to the far left lane. As Ben merged into the single lane of cars, he, like every other looky-loo, craned his neck to gauge the damage. And while he didn’t see any people, he did see a small sneaker lying in the middle of the road. Just a single child’s shoe. His stomach turned. He was glad Sara’s eyes were closed.

  Beyond the accident, the traffic picked up and then they were on 17 headed north. If there weren’t any more delays, they would get to Melanie’s house by nine or so.

  At some point, Sara stopped faking sleep and actually fell into a fitful slumber. Her head kept slipping from the window to her chest, startling her awake for a moment before she fell back asleep again. In the first few months, she’d been able to sleep anywhere. Now sleep wasn’t as easy, and he figured some of her crabbiness was from sheer exhaustion.

  He knew it was going to be difficult to be in Flagstaff; he knew that it was risky too. In Phoenix, he was able to put thoughts of Shadi out of his waking mind, though she did visit him in his dreams. There was nothing he could do about that. But in Flagstaff, he knew he not only ran the risk of thinking about her (about second-guessing everything), but he also ran the risk of running into her. Flagstaff was small. Too small. He hoped that Sara would want to stay in Kachina with Melanie, and wouldn’t want to go into town. Ben knew that Shadi no longer needed him or wanted to see him. She’d told him so in no uncertain terms. And now that the investigation was open again, he didn’t need to play amateur detective. He’d done what he could, and now it was time for the professionals to take over.

  As they approached the exit to Kachina, Sara woke up, stretching. She smiled at Ben and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I must have been tired.” She yawned.

  “You slept the whole way,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

  Maude yawned and stretched in the backseat too.

  He hoped that Sara had left her misery back in Phoenix somewhere. He was pretty sure he couldn’t take a whole weekend of sarcasm and senseless irritability. If she was going to spend the weekend being crabby, she could be crabby with Melanie. He’d be at Jack’s.

  “Oh,” Sara said, clapping her hands together. “I totally forgot to tell you. I finally got in touch with that woman about the rug. I was supposed to meet with her on Sunday to discuss the design we want. Now we can both go.”

  Ben gripped the wheel of the car. He stared straight ahead, pretending to concentrate on the road. The pavement was icy, the air outside freezing. If he wasn’t careful, they might have an accident, go off the road, down an embankment. They might not be found. They could die out here.

  The second that Melanie opened the door and Sara saw her, she fell to pieces.

  “Come in, come in,” Melanie said, motioning for them to come inside. “Oh, honey,” she said, hugging Sara tight. Without letting go of Sara, who was a bumbling mess, Melanie caught Ben’s eyes and gestured for him to go to the kitchen. “I bought some Sierra Nevadas. That’s your beer, right?”

  “Thank you,” he said, putting his hands together in gratitude.

  In the kitchen, he grabbed a glass from Melanie’s cupboard, ran the water in the sink until it was ice cold, and then drank the whole glass in a series of desperate swallows. He could feel the icy water making its way down his esophagus and into his stomach. His gut felt like a chunk of ice.

  He had to come up with a plan, and quick. The ridiculousness of the situation mocked him. How on earth did this happen? He could see Sara somehow accidentally bumping into Shadi if they still lived here, but they were a hundred and forty miles away. She hadn’t heard about Shadi on the street but in a goddamn magazine. What were the chances? It was as though the world were conspiring against him. Spilling his secrets into the universe. He knew the answer was simple. He knew there was only one way to avoid absolute disaster. He needed to talk to Shadi, to explain that Sara Harmon was his Sara. That the baby was his baby.

  The baby.

  The evidence of the baby’s impending arrival was everywhere: in the black-and-white filmy ultrasound printouts on their refrigerator to the fully furnished room (the still mobile, the expectant stuffed animals perched in the corners of the crib). Even in the growing bump of Sara’s belly. He hadn’t felt the baby move yet, but Sara had. She’d pressed his hand against her skin, hard, waiting for him to feel what she did. Frustrated when he didn’t.

  When he came out of the kitchen with two beers, one for Melanie and one for himself, Sara had stopped crying and was sitting on the couch. Melanie’s hand was pressed against Sara’s stomach, and her eyes were wide with disbelief.

  “Did you feel it?” Sara asked.

  “I did!” Melanie squealed. “I really did. It was like a little flutter, like little wings or something. Like a little bird!”

  Sara nodded knowingly. She touched her stomach, rubbing the skin in soft circles. “She wakes me up sometimes at night. And I’ll be all confused, and then it will hit me. There’s a baby in there!”

  “It’s really happening,” Melanie said. “Ben, you must be so excited.”

  Ben nodded and smiled, but it felt as though he were hovering somewhere just outside of his body. It was like those movies where someone dies and you watch the soul rise up and stand there watching as the doctors try to revive the corpse. He watched himself nodding and laughing. He listened to his voice talking about the nursery, about the plans to build a playhouse for the backyard someday, about the middle names they’d considered. He saw a man, a father about to be born, while the real Ben, the vaporous man he was supposed to be, was already far away.

  In the morning, Sara slept in, and Melanie asked Ben if he
wanted to take a walk. Ben checked on Sara in the guest bedroom before they left and kissed her. “Mel and I are taking Maude for a walk,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” she said. She was curled up on her side, smiling, and asleep again before he walked out the door.

  For as long as Ben had known Melanie, he was pretty sure they’d never been alone together. When Doug was still alive, he and Ben always paired off when the couples got together. And afterward, when Doug was gone, it was always Melanie and Sara, and Ben alone.

  They both pulled their boots on, hats and mittens. The thermometer said thirty degrees, but the sun was bright.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Melanie’s house, like a lot of the houses in Kachina and Mountainaire, backed up against the Coconino National Forest. Ponderosa pines as far as the eye could see. It was peaceful and quiet in these woods. A good place to clear your head. They walked silently for a while, just listening to the sound of the birds and the wind in the tops of the trees. The snow crunched beneath their feet.

  “Sara seems sad,” Melanie said.

  “Yeah?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t think the job at Children’s is the right place for her,” she said. “It’s got to be awful being around so many sick kids while she’s getting ready to have a baby.”

  Ben nodded. “She was really upset when that little girl Emma died.”

  “She’s a terrific nurse, but she gets attached. I’ve seen her cry her eyes out after giving shots. It’s like she feels all of their pain.”

  Ben nodded. He didn’t know this about her. She never really talked much about work, and when she did, she was always lighthearted about it. It made him feel weird to be learning something new about Sara.

  They stopped when they got to a small frozen pond. Melanie sat down on a fallen tree trunk, looked out across the frozen expanse.

  “I miss her a lot,” she said. “Everybody at the office misses her too. I really wish you guys could come back up here.”

  “Yeah?” Ben asked. He sat down next to her. “Do you think Sara would want to come back?”