Just Give Me a Reason

by Rebecca Rogers Maher

  “So,” she says. “Are you here for the weekend?”

  “Just the day.”

  She nods, calm and graceful in the sunlight from the backyard window. She’s taken her boots off, and her feet are bare. “Hope you don’t mind if I put my feet up.”

  I shake my head, and she nudges the girls’ abandoned tea set aside with her toes. Their nails are painted a bright cherry red.

  “You worked today?” I remember Ray telling me she managed a souvenir shop in town.

  “Yep.” She breathes deeply and leans her head against the back of the couch. I’m equal parts grateful and ashamed that when she closes her eyes, I’m able to run my gaze along the length of her body. Her smooth feet, her long legs, the rich swell of her stomach and breasts. Her throat. Her dark hair. When I reach her face, she opens her eyes. It takes a minute before I’m able to speak.

  “You, uh…you work at a store, right? In New Paltz?”

  “Yes—Terra Firma. It’s right on Main Street.”

  “I stopped in once, a few months ago. Had to grab a gift for Sofia’s teacher. I don’t think you were working, though.”

  “No.” She smiles. “I would have remembered that. Seeing you.”

  “Oh. Well.” I clear my throat. “It’s a nice place.”

  “Isn’t it? It’s pleasant being around all those pretty things I could never afford.”

  I laugh. “Never thought of it that way.”

  “I mean, I don’t know that I’d spend forty dollars on a candle even if I could, personally, but I don’t mind taking money from people who enjoy that sort of thing.”

  “Is that your clientele, then? People who spend money on candles?”

  “More or less. And ceramic coffee mugs. And owl puppets made of organic wool. Riding bikes. With top hats on.”

  “Sounds like Astoria. Or at least what Astoria is becoming.”

  She takes her feet off the table and scoots forward. “That’s in Queens, right? Is that where your store is?”

  “Yes, right.”

  “You sell owls in top hats at your store, then, too?”

  “No, we’re a bit more on the practical side. Things you might need in your apartment, not too expensive. Fans, towels, curtains—stuff like that.”

  She nods. “Must get a lot of competition from the big box stores, then.”

  “Absolutely. I used to tell Ray that he was putting me out of business, working at Cogmans.”

  “You don’t have that down in the city, though, do you?”

  I sigh. “Not that one, no. But we have others. Plus dollar stores and that whole world of business. Shoddy products, but sold cheap.”

  “Cheapness is pretty persuasive when you’re broke.”

  “Yeah, maybe. What people don’t get, though, is that in the long run you end up spending more, replacing things every year or two when they break.”

  “True.” Beth tucks her legs under herself on the couch. “But when you don’t have enough to buy the better-made thing, you buy the cheaply made thing.”

  I blow out a breath. “I guess. Of course, you could always plan for the future, you know what I mean? Save up? I don’t get surrounding yourself with crap.”

  “Right.” She smiles. “You could be surrounding yourself with very well-made forty-dollar candles.”

  I lean back and kick off my boots so that I can put my feet up, too.

  Holly’s living room is cozy and warmly decorated. She could have gone a lot more lavish with the money she has, but opted for a small house instead. The lower half of the building is made of stone, with wide planks of wood rising out of it. Large windows overlook a backyard garden still full of color, even in autumn. She’s growing kale and swiss chard there now, shored up with hay against an inevitable frost, and a few stray pumpkins lie plopped beside their now-withered vines.

  “To be honest,” I say, “I can’t see myself selling candles and all that.”

  “No?” Beth folds her arms and regards me. Not unkindly, but with a curiosity that brooks no bullshit. I was worried about making small talk with her, but I see now that we’ve skipped right past small talk and moved into actual talk. She’s asking a real question and she wants a real answer to it.

  “No.” I stretch my legs out on the table and catch her eyes flickering over my feet. She doesn’t hide the way she looks at them—or the way she follows the line of my leg to my stomach, to my chest. Her eyes, when they reach mine again, hold what I think is appreciation. Interest, even. The thought makes it hard to remember what I was saying.

  I clear my throat and try again. “It’s not really what drew me to the store to begin with. I mean, when I first started working there. And then, what made me want to buy it and take over. What I liked about it was how straightforward it was. You need a good, quality toaster, you come to Sunny’s. We sell two different kinds, both work great, you pick one, and done.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “But no one’s buying toasters nowadays?”

  “No, they’re buying them. They’re just ordering them from Amazon.”

  She nods. There’s amusement in her eyes, but also sympathy. “You ever consider not selling toasters anymore?”

  “Nah.” I smile sideways. “Never occurred to me.”

  “I don’t want to be an asshole, Tony, but you might be holding on to an image of something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  A flicker of irritation passes through me, because of course this is not the first time I’ve heard this. Or thought it myself, for that matter. In Beth’s gaze, though, there is no judgment. And I can’t exactly get angry at her for voicing the obvious.

  “Story of my life, I guess.”

  She watches me steadily. “For now anyway.”

  “Beth! Is Tony with you?”

  Holly comes around the corner to the living room and stops short, seeing Beth and me sitting together. She looks back and forth between us for a moment, her expression quizzical, and then beckons us toward the dining room.

  “Come on. Food’s ready. Drew and the girls set the table.”

  I rise, impressed, and wait for Beth to walk ahead of me. “You’re training them well, Holly. Thank you.”

  She says something complimentary in return that I don’t quite hear. I’m too busy watching the way the fading sunlight moves over Beth’s hair.

  I check my watch. I have no idea where the time went.

  —

  This time, I actually say a few words at dinner. It’s a lot easier with the kids present. Drew is learning to play the violin and wants to talk to Beth all about it, since she played through high school. When I tell them I still own my old clarinet, they start planning out gigs for the band we’re going to form. Ana and Sofia agree to play the tambourine and bucket drum, and Ray and Holly offer to be our management team. We spend a lot of time discussing the matching jumpsuits we’ll all wear, and Ana falls asleep in her dessert.

  I excuse myself from the table and carry her off to bed, with Sofia trailing behind. In her sleep, Ana wraps her arms around my neck and presses her face to my shoulder. I feel her breathing deeply through her nose, smelling me, and when I look down at her little face, she’s smiling.

  I pause for a minute in the dark hallway, and crouch down to gather Sofia to me, too. Sometimes the love I feel for these two is so fierce I just have stop what I’m doing and let it roll over me. Sofia climbs inside my free arm and snuggles in, pressing a kiss to the top of her sister’s head.

  “Tengo sueño, Daddy.”

  I pat her back, gently. “I know, corazón. Holly has a bed for you in the back.”

  “Then why are we stopping?” She closes her eyes and yawns.

  “I wanted to hug you for a minute.”

  Sofia nods, confident in the merit of that reasoning, and Ana starts to stir.

  “We’d better get you to bed, though.” I rise and take Sofia’s hand, and we walk on back to one of the spare bedrooms. The girls wake up enough to change into their pajamas and brush th
eir teeth, and then I tuck them in side by side in a twin bed pushed against the wall. They’ve already decided, earlier in the day, that they want to sleep together and that Sofia will sleep on the outside since she’s the least likely to fall out. We’ve stacked pillows in a line on the floor, though, just in case.

  Their eyes are closed before I turn off the light, but I come back anyway to kiss them on their foreheads.

  “Good night, my girls.”

  “Night, Daddy,” Sofia answers. Ana is already asleep.

  I leave the door open a crack to let in the hallway light, and head back out to help clean up.

  There isn’t much to do, with all four adults plus Drew pitching in. Before long, the last of the dishes are put away and Beth is saying her goodbyes.

  “It gets to a certain point at night,” she says, hand on her belly, “and it’s like someone turned off my power switch. I’m just—boom—done.”

  “You sure you’ll get home okay?” Holly asks. “I can make up a bed for you in one of the spare rooms.”

  “No, no. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I get home.” She hugs everyone in turn, and when she reaches me, I hold out my hand. She pulls me into a hug instead.

  For a moment I’m fully engulfed in her warmth, in her scent, and I want to drag her closer. To press against her. I give in to that impulse for half a second too long, and when I pull away, a flare of heat flashes in her eyes.

  I back up, praying no one else notices.

  But when Holly and Drew excuse themselves to read a book together before bedtime, I find Ray looking at me strangely.

  “¿Quieres una cerveza?” he asks.

  I clear my throat. “Wouldn’t say no.”

  He grabs two bottles from the fridge and leads me out back to the small fire pit they’ve built in the yard. He’s already constructed a pyramid of logs and kindling there. A long match does the rest.

  “When did you become a Boy Scout?”

  He smiles, clearly proud of himself. “One of the guys from work taught me. Holly hired him to clean up the yard out here. It was pretty wild when she bought it.”

  The fire leaps to life, crackling in the autumn dark. I have to admit it smells like heaven.

  “Pretty great up here, Ray. Like being on vacation, almost.”

  He looks at me for a moment across the fire. “Think so?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I almost forgot about work for a few minutes here and there, you know what I’m saying? Can’t really remember the last time that happened.”

  “You know we’re going to be away next week, right? You should have brought your stuff. You and the girls could have stayed a couple days.”

  I shake my head, cradling the beer in my hand. “The kids have school. Plus, it’s Alexa’s week. I drop them off with her and Levi on Sunday.”

  “Even better.” He leans forward. “Because I gotta to be straight with you, brother. You look like shit, and you need to take some time off.”

  “Uh, thanks a lot.”

  “I’m not trying to be a jerk, okay? I’m just, you know…worried about you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m the big brother, remember? Don’t forget your place now that you’re loaded.”

  He makes a face. “Give me a break, man. I’m allowed to want to look out for you a little bit, too. You don’t get to be the only one.”

  I stare into the fire.

  I don’t want Ray taking care of me. There’s nothing about my life that I need to be ashamed of, that I need him to fix.

  My daughters are still good, solid kids. I’ve got a nice house in Forest Hills and we’ve all got our health. Maybe I never pictured myself divorced at age thirty-five, with a store that’s rapidly becoming obsolete, visiting my little brother who is now a multimillionaire. But it could be worse.

  When my mom was still alive, I worked harder at keeping up appearances. I never shared my worries about work or my marriage with her, and in fact, when Alexa and I separated I couldn’t even tell her. I figured I’d cross that bridge when I had to. And I never had to, it turns out, because she died of an aneurysm before I had the chance.

  After that, I kind of gave in.

  Divorce, for example, was never something I would have considered before. I figured you make a decision, you stick to it—no matter what. Alexa was my high school sweetheart—an honor student, a softball player, a pragmatic partner, and together we put our heads down and quietly, methodically, built a life. I saw her through medical school; she helped me build up my store. We filled every available inch of our lives with work. We bought a house and then, when the expected time came, we had our children.

  By almost every measure, our home was perfect. We were accomplished. We were successful.

  We were sleeping in separate beds.

  I don’t remember when that started happening. When Alexa was nursing the babies at night, I’m guessing. It was easier, she said, to be closer to the kids.

  It’s not like I didn’t notice that we’d stopped having sex. It’s just that it was never the focus of our relationship, even from the beginning. First we were too young and agreed that we should wait. Then we were at different colleges. By the time we were truly sexually active we were already committed to each other. Maybe we didn’t have fireworks, but we were in love. We had our arguments like everyone else—especially toward the end—but we respected each other. It seemed foolish to give that up. Soon enough we were immersed in our separate professions and working eighteen hours a day. There was no time for sex anyway, especially not after we had kids. We were like brother and sister, a family, and we insisted—to each other, to ourselves—that that was enough.

  It’s amazing what you can convince yourself of.

  Alexa was the one who clued in first to how tragic that was. It took a fellow doctor and a broom closet at the hospital to wake her up, unfortunately. But I can’t begrudge her the affair, at least not anymore. She was unhappy for a long time and in just as much denial as I was until she met Levi. We did a lot of fighting after that, in front of the girls sometimes, which I’m not proud of. It took a lot of convincing for me to see how brittle our life was—held together by discipline and commitment, sure, but that is cold comfort in the long hours of the night, when what your heart craves is contact and fire.

  Alexa found that passion with Levi, and I have to hand it to her—she refused to let it go. They’re still together, living in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and she’s more at peace than I’ve ever seen her. The girls stay at their place every other week, while I stay late at work, fighting to save my store.

  Ray knows all of this, every last gory detail. Which is why he’s pressing so hard to get me to come stay up here. It’s kindness on his part, I get that. And I feel like a jerk for resenting it. But I do.

  “Listen,” he says finally. “Holly found a kennel to board Alice, but she’s not happy about leaving her there all week, okay? You could come up and take care of her. Bring her out on a walk once in a while. You’d be doing Holly a favor.”

  It’s thin reasoning, and he knows it, but I can see he’s not going to let it go.

  “I can’t leave the store for that long, Ray.”

  He looks at me hard. “Come on, man. What are you going to do at the store in one week that’s going to turn everything around? You have managers. They know what they’re doing. And you’ll be available by phone if need be.”

  “I can’t just run off and go on vacation when they’re all—”

  “Tony. En serio. Have you met Jackie? Last time I saw her, all she could talk about was how worried she was about you. And it’s not because she’s selfless, though there is that. It’s because if you fucking fall apart, there is no store. No jobs for anyone. And I hate to break it to you, man, but if you keep going like this, you’re going to fall apart.”

  “Ray.”

  “No.” He pulls his chair forward and fixes his eyes to mine. “Escúchame. You’ve had a shit year, Tony. You’re holding i
t all together great, don’t get me wrong. But I’m sorry to tell you this—you’re human. Anyone in your shoes would be starting to lose their mind right now. You’re under a lot of pressure. And you need a goddamn break. Okay? Take a few lousy days off. Sit out here under the stars and get your head on straight. Believe me, in the end, it’ll help you. You’ll go back in better shape to fix what needs fixing.”

  I look away from him and up into the dark sky. We don’t see stars like this in Queens, with all the ambient light coming from the five boroughs. The Big Dipper shines down on us here, though, clear as day, and I think I see planets just above the horizon.

  I am suddenly, painfully tired. The thought of going back to the city makes my bones ache.

  I take a good long breath of clean air and look at my brother.

  “You don’t think Holly would mind?”

  He smiles. “No, I don’t think she would.”

  Chapter 4

  Beth

  Once I get home from Holly’s, I take off my sweater, shimmy out of my bra, and lie in bed in my leggings and tank top. At this stage of pregnancy, I favor clothes that transition easily to pajamas, because by the time I get home I’m too tired to handle much else. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and get into bed.

  Before long, the baby wakes up and starts knocking around in my belly. He’s the size of an eggplant now and growing like the ones on vines in my garden.

  Only inside my body. And I am the vine.

  Under the covers, I imagine my body curling around his, sending nutrients and water, keeping him alive. I rest my palm on my stomach and picture his tiny hands, inches away from mine. And then I feel them, sweeping across my belly, like he’s reaching for me.

  “Hey, little baby,” I say in a gentle voice. “Don’t rip my belly open and climb out of it like in Alien, okay? Stay put for a little while.” Then I sing him a Simon & Garfunkel song without a shred of embarrassment.

  That’s the great thing about having a kid on your own. There’s no one around to judge the things you say to your baby who isn’t even born yet.