The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

  “I heard Cutter’s doing better, thank the Lord. So when is Cailey headed home? I’m sure you’ll miss having her,” Bryte said.

  Zell nodded. “Cutter’s coming home from the hospital in the next day or two, but he’s going to be back and forth doing all kinds of rehab stuff. Lisa, God bless her, doesn’t know which end’s up. She’s exhausted and—get this—seems to have taken up with the ambulance driver from the pool that day, if you can believe that, so she’s got a new relationship, to boot.” Zell waved her arm in the air. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem to be the best environment to send Cailey back to right now. So I offered to just keep her a bit longer while they get settled. Lisa’s come by a few times to see her, and she’s taking her out to dinner soon. I know she misses Cailey, but she agreed to let her stay. I think on one level Lisa was relieved.”

  Bryte couldn’t imagine letting her child spend such a long time away from her, but then again, Bryte wasn’t a single mom with two kids, living in the eyesore house of the neighborhood and juggling two jobs, trying to make ends meet. “That was nice of you,” Bryte offered, for lack of something better to say.

  Zell laughed. “Nice of me?” She shook her head. “I get just as much out of that child being here as she does.” Zell thought about it. “Maybe more.”

  “She’s a sweet kid.”

  Zell nodded. “That she is.” She picked up the shovel and scooped out another bit of dirt, carefully depositing it on top of the small mound they’d created. “So what brings you this way today?”

  “Just out taking a walk.” She held up Rigby’s leash, though the dog had flopped down beside her. “I walk Myrtle Honeycutt’s dog every day. My mom used to do it, but then she got plantar fasciitis and couldn’t do it anymore. So I said I would.” She shrugged. “It makes me get out.”

  “Well, it sounds like I’m not the only do-gooder around here.” Zell gave her a wink and scooped out more dirt. Bryte felt like she should grab a shovel and help.

  “Gonna have any more, ya think?” Zell asked. Her face was turned toward the hole, and for that Bryte was grateful. It was amazing how people could toss that question off so casually. People had been doing it with some regularity since Christopher turned two, as if it were up to them to determine when it was time for Bryte and Everett to add to their family.

  “Well, we had a bit of trouble even having him, so I’m not sure there’ll be any more.” She gave her standard response and looked around, wishing Cailey would bring Christopher back so she could go. The silence between the women lengthened, and Bryte searched for words to fill it.

  “Do you ever think about coming back to book club?” She thought she saw Zell’s shoulders tense at the question, but it could’ve just been from the shoveling. “I just joined a few months ago, and they told me you used to be part of it. I know they’d love to have you back.”

  Zell leaned on the shovel and studied her for a moment. “I’ll give it some thought.” She winked. “Since you asked.”

  “OK,” Bryte answered. “I can send you the list of titles for the fall. We’ve only decided on books till the end of the year. Your e-mail’s in the directory, right?”

  Zell nodded. “That it is.” On the ground the dog made a whimpering noise and rested his head on his paws, looking mournful.

  “I guess I’d better get going,” Bryte said.

  “Cailey!” Zell called. “Bring Christopher back here! His mama’s ready to go!”

  Bryte wondered if she was actually ready, then realized it didn’t matter whether she was or not. She was on her way.

  She tried steering Christopher’s stroller over the roots and branches and piles of dead leaves in the woods, but the overgrown path was just too precarious. One miscalculation of a root and she could accidentally topple the stroller. And negotiating both the dog and the child wasn’t the easiest thing. She stood still for a moment, determining just how to get back here. She’d come far enough to be able to make out the clearing where the hideaway had been. She was too close not to lay eyes on it, to see if it matched what lived in her memory. Though this was a fool’s errand, she didn’t want to abandon it.

  She unlatched Christopher and pulled him up into her arms, much as Cailey had done earlier. She held him close as they moved deeper into the woods and clung tightly to Rigby’s leash. Without the stroller to manage, she made it to the clearing quickly, Christopher heavy in her arms. He did not ask to get down, didn’t protest being carried. He was quite calm and docile, taking in the cooler, dark surroundings with a kind of acceptance, as if this were an everyday activity for the two of them. He did not ask questions as he normally would have, did not point to the squirrels and birds they passed. He just looked around with those knit, curious brows. She kissed his cheek, and he rewarded her with a grin. His breath, so close to her face, smelled of the cookie Zell had given to him before they’d left her house.

  Bryte looked around, trying to remember what the place used to look like, ascertaining whether it had changed. The trees were a bit taller, the vegetation perhaps denser, but otherwise she knew exactly where she was. She heard a branch snap, and a rustling noise, and she took a step back in the direction they’d come from. These woods had creeped her out as kid, and they didn’t seem less foreboding now that she was an adult.

  She thought of the news reports of Hannah Sumner, gone missing from a neighborhood nearby, one very much like this one. They’d discussed her at the pool just recently, swapping bits of information they’d gleaned from various news reports and rumors, their voices low and out of earshot of the kids. She thought of the madness that would ensue if Christopher ever went missing. Losing him would be the end of her—this she knew more certainly than anything. She pulled him tighter still, and he squirmed in protest. He pointed at the copse of trees ahead. They’d reached Everett and Jencey’s hideaway.

  “Go in there?” he asked. She set him down but kept hold of his hand, scanning the area as she did, just to make sure. There was talk of coyotes in these woods as well.

  She looked down at him, willed herself to relax. “You want to?”

  He nodded vigorously, his brows unknotting, his face open. They moved closer to the hideaway. She took exaggerated tiptoe steps forward like Elmer Fudd hunting “wabbits,” and Christopher laughed. They were on an adventure, nothing more, nothing less. But how would she explain to Everett if he mentioned it that night at the dinner table? She would have to say they were somewhere else; that was all. She could lie to Everett.

  “I just want to be friends” was the first lie she ever told him, just after that make-out session in ninth grade. Jencey had been away with her family, and Bryte had made a good stand-in, a practice dummy. This was before Everett and Jencey had officially coupled off, but everyone knew it was coming. Bryte’s lie had been a preemptive strike, an attempt to save face before he chose Jencey. What happened between them that one night, she told herself—and him—meant nothing. She stuck to that particular story for a long, long time, right up until the night she admitted her real feelings for him, the night everything changed between them and he became hers for real.

  But there’d always been that nagging doubt that it wasn’t real.

  Pushing the branches back, she held her breath and stepped inside the hideaway, hoping that she didn’t find that same blow-up mattress, and evidence that her husband and Jencey had resumed their meetings somehow. She exhaled as she stepped inside, finding nothing at all save a little clearing, the trees encircling them and blocking all visibility except the small patch of sky just over their heads. She looked up at it, the neat round bit of blue the only thing she could see that wasn’t green.

  She pointed at the natural skylight so Christopher would look up, too, thinking as she did of how Jencey and Everett would lie on that blow-up mattress and wish on whatever stars they could find in that circle, their arms folded behind their heads, their eyes intent on what lay in front of them. The scene was almost like her own memory, even though
she’d never witnessed it, only heard about it from Jencey. Bryte knew full well what Jencey’s wishes were, even if she wasn’t privy to Everett’s back then. She wondered if those old wishes depressed Jencey now. She could only guess at what her husband’s wishes had been, and if the life they’d built together looked anything like whatever he’d thought of when he watched the stars twinkle in that small circle of sky.

  EVERETT

  With Bryte out of the house, Everett was able to search online for that doctor’s number without her seeing. He’d been looking it up earlier when she’d come to tell him she was leaving, startling him as much as if he’d been caught looking at porn. He’d quickly flipped back to another screen before she saw, waiting for her to leave before he tried again. He got up and watched from the front window until she was safely out of sight, her back moving steadily away from him as she pushed Christopher in the stroller to go get Rigby.

  He wondered what she would say if she knew he was going through with his idea to talk to the doctor, to get things moving along. He knew she was scared. He knew that the fertility issues leading up to the pregnancy had been hard on her—harder than anyone could understand. Something had changed in Bryte, beginning when they didn’t immediately conceive, and spiraling progressively downward the longer pregnancy eluded them. By the time she got pregnant, it almost seemed too late, that the damage—psychological? physical?—had already happened. He’d urged her to go to support groups, to talk to someone, but she’d steadfastly refused. Ultimately, it was Christopher who brought her back. But she wasn’t interested in ever doing it again.

  And yet, he saw his son growing up like he did—an only child, always alone—and he didn’t want that for him. He’d worked on Bryte for several months but was getting nowhere. The only thing he knew that might jump-start things was to make a grand gesture. And making an appointment to talk to the doctor himself was the best idea he could think of. When she learned he’d done that, surely she’d see how serious he was, how much he wanted this. If he could go, maybe she’d muster the courage to do the same. Granted, his part in the process had been minimal, but what man in his right mind voluntarily goes to a fertility specialist without his wife forcing him to do so? It had to make an impression. It just had to.

  He spoke to the nurse, who seemed confused by what he was asking. “And this is an appointment for your wife, sir?” she asked.

  “Um, actually, it’s for just me,” he said. “To talk to the doctor myself.” He could feel his face reddening.

  “It’s highly irregular for the husband to come in without the wife, sir,” she said, her voice clipped.

  “Yes, I realize that, but I’m just trying to gauge what we’re looking at this time around. And since we worked with Dr. Ferguson in the past, I thought perhaps he could, er, talk me through what we can expect. Just in case there’s anything I can do to get the ball rolling, so to speak.” He cringed at that particular choice of words.

  “I see,” the nurse said, but the note of doubt in her voice told Everett that she didn’t see at all. She was humoring him at this point, leaving the rest to the doctor to sort out. She made the appointment, wished him a good day, and hung up.

  He held the dead phone and tried to feel something other than foolish, something akin to hope. He strode over to the mantel and pulled down the photo his parents had snapped at Easter, the one on the front steps with him and Christopher in those goofy matching ties, Bryte in a pretty spring dress. He tried to see the three of them as any other person might. Did they look like a complete family? He didn’t think so. He squinted at the photo and tried to see another child there with them, another boy or maybe a little girl, the one who would turn their triangle into a square, the one who would make their lives complete. He looked for the place where he or she might fit, if only his wife would make room.

  ZELL

  Two days after the visit to the hospital, she could feel herself getting sick. Those places were germ factories. She made it through the morning without letting on to Cailey, but by lunchtime, she couldn’t fake it any longer. She told the child to occupy herself, and sank into the couch for a little rest. She pulled the afghan over her and rolled over to her side, so that her vantage point was the den windows, which faced the house next door. Jencey’s car was there, again, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. She closed her eyes and thought of Debra’s leaving, and whether it was time to tell Lance what she knew about it. The thought of telling him made her feel sicker. She could anticipate the look on his face, the betrayal that would spread across his normally open features the longer she talked.

  Before Debra and Lance had lived in that house, she’d never befriended the people who lived there, never really had time to. She was always dashing off to activities and commitments, running one child here and another there. John joked that they ought to put in one of those revolving doors like they have in hotels so that he and Zell and the kids could actually run in circles instead of just feeling like they were. She always felt bad for not being more neighborly, but really, who had the time?

  When Debra and Lance moved in and it turned out they were Yankees, well, that just cinched it. She certainly didn’t have time to fool with Yankees who didn’t know how things were done. They put tacky blow-up characters in their yard at Christmas. Their Halloween decorations were just plain evil looking and, if you asked her, disturbing to children. They launched fireworks in the street on New Year’s Eve and set all the neighborhood dogs to barking to the point that she couldn’t sleep a wink and was tired all through New Year’s Day. She could hardly make her pork and collards and black-eyed peas like she was supposed to.

  Still and all, she minded her manners and smiled in passing at Debra or Lance if they were in their driveway. Sometimes she gave a little wave. She’d watched with a detached fascination as Debra had their second child, a son. She saw Debra pose in front of the gigantic (and tacky, if you asked her) stork they put in the front yard, holding up the pinch-faced baby, looking swollen and strung out. Zell felt equal parts envy and relief as she watched the scene play out. Oh, to do it all over again! Thank God I never have to do that again!

  And yet, as she watched Debra maneuver the baby blankets so that Lance could get their son’s face in the photo, Zell tried to recall the day she’d brought any of her babies home, the feelings and thoughts she must’ve had. She aimed for some vivid, standout recollection, crisp and clear in her mind. But all she could turn up was a vague sense of exhaustion and panic. She wondered if she’d retained any of the experiences of motherhood, the scope of it, if the joy would ever start to outweigh the anxiety. She felt as though she’d been sucked up into a whirlwind and periodically touched down long enough to look around, register the unfamiliar scenery, only to be sucked up and tossed about again.

  She’d taken them a loaf of quick bread, still warm and smelling of chocolate and bananas, and knocked on the door, intending to leave it and dash away. Debra had answered the door, looking haggard but glad for company. “Please come in,” she’d said, and the please sounded less polite than desperate. Zell agreed and found a seat at the nearby kitchen table.

  Debra sat across from her. In her arms, a bundle of blue squirmed. “You wanna hold him?” The note of hopefulness in her voice told her she needed Zell to say yes. Debra thrust Alec into her arms before she’d even finished nodding.

  She dutifully studied the baby, making appropriate comments about his size and features. “Who does he look like, do you think?”

  “I think my father, but of course Lance thinks he looks just like him.” Debra laughed and Zell joined in, though she didn’t fully understand the joke.

  They limped through small talk, covering the weather and the local schools and the headlines. But it was conversation and it filled the dead air. She’d played the part of the good neighbor that afternoon, and that had been, very nearly, that. She watched as the boy grew from baby to toddler to kid, registering the changes from afar just as she’d alway
s done with the people who lived in that house, being a tolerable neighbor, if not an especially good one.

  And then one day she’d heard screaming in their driveway. Her mother ears twitched at the sound, which was especially loud in her quiet house. She put down the book she was reading (she had book club that night and was cramming). The screaming was horrific, as if someone was being murdered. She grabbed the phone just in case she needed to call 911. She peered out the kitchen window to get a better look.

  When she saw the blood, she moved toward it, carrying her phone with her as she ran out the kitchen door. She prided herself on being someone who moved toward things, even if they were frightening or gory or just plain uncomfortable. She didn’t shrink back like some people. She wanted to be of help, to be that person about whom people later remarked: “I just don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there.” She ran to Debra’s side and knelt there with her beside the older child, Lilah.

  “What can I do?” She tried to gauge just where the blood was coming from and whether Lilah was critically injured.

  It was an accident that started it all, and an accident that ended it.

  The little girl’s shoelace had tangled in the bicycle chain, and she’d toppled over, her sneaker still affixed to the bicycle in such a way that every time they moved her, the bicycle grated along the concrete, making a horrible scraping noise. She looked at Debra’s panicked face, the way the blood was informing her reaction, and rested a hand on her shoulder.