Watch Over Me

by Christa Parrish

  Yes sirree. How are the toes?

  Gone. Benjamin rolled his head from one shoulder to the other, then back, glass shards tumbling down his face. Coughed. I can’t breathe.

  Smoke will do that. Remember that fire outside Kabul? Man, that was smoke.

  The one that killed the shop owner.

  Black, black smoke. Like tar pouring into the sky.

  What was his name?

  Farhad.

  Yeah. Him. He sold Doritos. And Hershey’s. He remembered the chocolate but not the man. How was it some memories had wads of chewed gum on them, sticking to the bottom of his shoe, refusing to shake off, and others floated away, like wind, like clouds.

  Like smoke.

  That was some time, man, smoke-Stephen said. And afterward we grabbed hands and prayed, and the guys laughed at us, but we didn’t care. We were alive.

  For a while.

  You should be praying now. Not talking to a dead man.

  Benjamin coughed again. I can’t.

  Don’t give me that, Sergeant.

  This is all in my head.

  Then I’m just saying what you already know.

  The shouting closed in on Benjamin, in his ear. Words. He knew they were words, knew words had meaning, but he couldn’t match the sounds with the pictures they conjured in his mind. The passengerside door was pried open, and Stephen disappeared the way he came, in a pocket of smoke.

  Hands against his head. Fingers tugging down his lower eyelids, pressed on the inside of his wrist. And then Wesley strapped a brace around his neck and the hands were back on him, wriggling him from the car, onto a board, into a box. A metal box.

  An ambulance.

  He had taken bodies out of ambulances in Afghanistan, unloaded the dead and piled them into helicopters. He knew who they were. Most of them.

  He woke to a still but heavy fullness, a kind of whooshing sound, and blinked his eyes to clear the solid sleep from their corners. Squinted at the harsh white ceiling.

  “The lights,” he said, mouth dry as snakeskin.

  “I’ll get them.” A familiar voice. Wesley. His face appeared over Benjamin. “You’re in the hospital.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  Wesley guided a striped bendy straw between Benjamin’s lips, red and white, like a candy cane. The water tasted like warm plastic. He tried to turn his head; it was stuck. His hand skittered up his thigh, his abdomen, felt something cold and hard around his neck.

  “You’re okay,” Wesley said. “Just a strain. And a concussion.”

  “What . . . I don’t remember . . .”

  “The fire truck. Couldn’t see it through the smoke, I guess.”

  He saw the hazy bulge of a white gauze pad out of the corner of his eye, a ghost in his peripheral vision. His head pulsed rhythmically, the IV in his arm filling him with something to keep the pain away. But it lurked underneath the drugs. It always hurt later.

  He touched the bandage above his left ear.

  “Fourteen sutures,” Wesley said.

  If only all wounds closed so easily.

  “I called Abbi. She’s on her way,” the deputy told him.

  Benjamin closed his eyes, said nothing.

  “You two having some trouble?”

  “We’re fine.”

  Wesley nodded once, slow and burdened, rolling his lips in until only his mustache could be seen. “I was in ’Nam, you know. Saw some nasty garbage. Not as much as some, though. Came home and my wife left me. Not Renée. My first wife. She should have left. I beat the tar out of her. More than once.”

  He said it in a flat, blue voice, and Benjamin rolled his eyes to the pastel-patterned wall. He thought of the time—the one time—he had grabbed Abbi. Hard, at the upper arm. She didn’t move, but pressed back into the wall with stuttering breath, her nostrils open, her eyes wide. His grip loosened as he looked on her stricken face; he let go of her and put his fist through the wall. The living room mirror had jumped from the nail and to the floor. The glass didn’t shatter; it cracked. Three long, jagged lightning bolts through the center.

  He’d tried to ignore the hole for several days, but by doing so he thought about it more, turning his head when he passed it, spinning away from the doorway before going into the room. And then, when he saw Abbi had slid the table over so the hole would be blocked by a lamp, he took an afternoon to repair the wall. It had done nothing for his marriage.

  “Guess you need to rest,” Wesley said.

  “Guess so.”

  “Well, then, I’ll be ’round tomorrow. And after that, I suppose.”

  Benjamin licked his lips. “You could just call, see how I’m doing. You’ll save gas that way.”

  “Patil,” Wesley said, “I won’t get that mileage reimbursement, then.”

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  Abbi went to the meeting to get out of the house, away from Benjamin, whose week of required recovery time couldn’t end soon enough. She took Silvia, despite his protests.

  “You can leave her with me,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s for mothers of preschoolers,” she said. “I can’t go without one.”

  She could, but wouldn’t. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the place she only went when she felt brave or when the Holy Spirit prodded, she wondered if Benjamin didn’t turn purposely in front of that fire truck.

  She never wore pants in the summer, but today she put on a pair of loose linen ones, too long on her, cuffs frayed from dragging on the ground. She pushed her hair up under a cotton snood and slid a clear retainer stud through her nostril. She didn’t want to be known as Deputy Patil’s wife today.

  When they first moved to Beck County, he’d told her, “Population five thousand. Small enough to at least know of most everybody, and big enough not to.” He worked on the knowing, and she worked on the not, but after three years even those she’d never been introduced to had an idea who she was—the freaky, peace-activist vegan with the hairy legs.

  To be fair, most people who knew her weren’t like that. Hardly anyone, really. But she was in a foul mood. Her size tens hadn’t fit this morning. She wanted to hide from herself, not everyone else. If she wanted to be able to think of anything but her weight this week, she’d have to stop at the Shop and Go, for a bottle of senna. The prunes weren’t cutting it anymore.

  “You’re wearing pants? It’s sweltering outside,” Benjamin said.

  “Oh, now you’re looking at me?” she snapped. I’m such an awful wife.

  He stared for a moment, shook his head a little. “I need the car at one,” he said, and closed himself in the bathroom. She turned the other way, stomped outside to the car, loaded down with baby and bag. Two different directions. They were always turning away from one another, even when going to the same place.

  She bumped Silvia’s head while putting her into the car seat. The baby wailed, and Abbi jumped in the front seat and started the car; the motion would calm Silvia. Lord, is this what you really want for me? She didn’t feel like a mother. After knowing since twenty she’d never have children, her constant concern for a baby now seemed unnatural. Even when she and Benjamin considered adoption, it was always a school-aged child, walking and talking, and potty-trained—a hard-to-place kid no one wanted. In the past, when confronted with a writhing, wailing infant held up before her, some other mother’s prize, she’d told herself she simply wasn’t a baby person. The truth or not, it didn’t matter now. She needed to find some mothering instinct. Or at least be able to fake it.

  The meeting, at the Baptist church in the next county, began at nine thirty. The sign out front read:

  WE USE DUCT TAPE TO FIX EVERYTHING—

  GOD USED NAILS!

  A big-toothed woman greeted Abbi at the registration table, handed her a paper name tag and marker; skin flapped from the undersides of her otherwise skinny arms. “Welcome,” she said, cheeks frozen in two rouged mounds with her smile. “You’re new, aren’t you? I’m Betsy Swell. I know, funny name
, whichever way you look at it. Your daughter is gorgeous. How old is she?”

  “A month.”

  “What a fun time. I love babies. And I love, love, love that little pouch thingy you have her in. I saw what’s-her-name using one just like that in People a few months ago. Where’d you get it?”

  “I made it.”

  “Oh, how crafty. I wish I knew how to sew.” The woman licked her teeth, running her tongue over them like someone would over dry lips. “Just fill out this registration form and give it on back to me at the end. First visit is free. After that, there’s a membership fee. It’s all there, on the form.”

  “I can read it.”

  The woman giggled, high and springy. “If you can sew, you can read, right? Just go on in. Sit anywhere you’d like. We don’t have assigned seating. Oh, wait. I think you have something stuck to your nose.” She scraped the side of her right nostril with her fingernail. “Looks like a little piece of tape or something.”

  Abbi stood in the doorway, pressed up against the jamb, metal cold on her forearm. She scanned the tiny basement room for an empty chair, saw three of them, all squashed between chattering women, who drank coffee and laughed after every sip. She knew a dozen of them, should have known a few more. One of those should knows waved, pointing at the space next to her. Abbi squeezed in, sat sideways on the chair because there wasn’t enough room for both her and Silvia between the table and the wall. A miniature metal washtub piled high with cheap, plastic baby dolls decorated her table—all the tables—their naked skin stamped with Made in China for Dollar General.

  “Oh. My. Goodness. This is her, isn’t it? The one they found? Janet keeps going on about it.”

  “It’s her.” The woman was Janet McGee’s sister. She had come to church a few times. Nicole . . . something. Abbi snapped her fingers. Nicole Webb.

  “Shanna,” Nicole said to the girl on her right—they were both girls, really, about twenty, wearing lavender glitter nail polish and dark jeans—“this is that baby in the plastic bag.”

  “Really? Oh, she’s so cute. How could anyone do such a thing?”

  “You’re gonna adopt her, right?” Nicole asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Abbi said.

  “I hope they find those awful people who did it.” Nicole bit her thumbnail, peeled off the top. Flicked it. “They deserve to be locked away forever.”

  “Where’s your daughter?” Abbi asked.

  “Nursery. You want me to show you where it is? Shanna’s mother is working in there with the little ones.”

  “No, she’s fine here.” Abbi dove into the questions on the registration form, simply to avoid more questions—she had no plans of turning it in. Name. Birthday. Children. Anniversary. She had to think about that one. Dates didn’t stick on her. There had been times when Benjamin woke her to breakfast in bed, and she’d look at him, mind ticking off the days of the week, until he took mercy on her and reminded her what the occasion was—if there was an occasion at all. Often there wasn’t.

  She missed that.

  The woman from the registration tables tapped a microphone plugged into a karaoke machine.

  “Hi, and welcome, all you ladies. I see some new faces today, so if some of you old crusties see a newbie, make sure you make them feel comfy and cozy here. Okay, then, let’s open with a mighty word to our mighty God.”

  The room grew silent, sacred, except for a toddler crunching Cheerios, and another saying “Ba, ba, ba, ba,” until his mother crammed a pacifier into his mouth. Then Betsy finished and introduced the guest speaker, who led the group in baby-massage techniques.

  “That’s right,” the speaker said. “Massages aren’t just for you and your hubby. Babies love them, too. It’s calming for them, and it’s a bonding experience between mother and child.” She instructed everyone to take a plastic doll and a dab of oil, and practice the skills she showed them. “Don’t be shy, now, ladies. Rub, rub, rub.”

  Betsy approached Abbi. “Oh, she’s fast asleep,” she said. “Why don’t you go right ahead and stick her in the nursery, so you can have your hands free.”

  “I’d rather she stay with me.”

  “Well, okay, then. If you change your mind, I’ll introduce you to the sweet sitters in the baby room and—”

  “I already told her,” Nicole said.

  “Just remember this time is for mommies, too. A little break from it all,” Betsy finished and headed to the next table to bother someone else.

  After Baby Massage 101, another woman brought out canvas tote bags and glue guns. Everyone attached plastic flowers to their bags, including Abbi. As she alternated half-dollar-sized sunflower heads with umber buttons, she felt almost split in two, a meaningless craft project incompatible with the life she had at home. She looked around at the other women, wondered how many of them walked through life in halves—the public half who smiled and seemed so well-adjusted, and the private half slogging through her own personal hell.

  In the car, she tossed the snood in the back seat, shook her hair loose, and rolled her pants to just below the knee. She fished her silver hoop from her bag, stuck it into her nose. She had time before Benjamin needed the car and didn’t want to be home with him for any length of time.

  But if she drove past the grocery, she’d stop and buy a bottle of laxative. She’d managed to go four months without taking them to purge, and each time she started using them again she found it more difficult to stop. So she drove around while Silvia continued napping until she slowed in front of a black metal mailbox with RIGN Y stuck to the side in gold letters, a magnetic yellow ribbon on the top. The driveway, nearly a mile long, slanted downward to the farmhouse, and Abbi could see dark specks moving on the porch, in the front yard. One of them was Lauren, she was almost certain.

  Lord, when will she forgive me?

  She went in and Benjamin left. She had no clue where he was going.

  Abbi put in a load of laundry, then another. She washed the kitchen floor and took frozen black beans from the freezer to defrost for dinner. Bean burritos for her, with fresh salsa. Benjamin would eat them, too, if there was nothing else. A small plastic bag of ground beef stuck out from behind the ice cube tray. She grabbed that, too, and dropped it in a pot of lukewarm water.

  She prepared a bottle for Silvia and, in the bedroom, stripped off the baby’s wet diaper, cleaned her with a bamboo wipe. She looked at the tiny body, all torso and head, feet smaller than her hands. She traced the crease circling Silvia’s chubby wrist, remembering the same line on her younger brother’s, there for the longest time and then, suddenly, gone. How old had he been, then? Five, maybe six. From baby to boy overnight.

  “Wait here,” she said, going to the kitchen, shuffling through the spice cabinet for the bottle of apricot oil.

  She unfolded an old beach towel from the linen closet and covered the bedsheets before rolling Silvia onto it. She spilled a few beads of oil into her fingers, rubbed her hands together to warm it. Then, placing both palms on the baby’s chest, she fanned her hands up and around, making a heart shape over the rib cage. Down the arms, massaging Silvia’s palms with her thumbs. Over her legs, just beginning to plump and roll with fat.

  Abbi shimmied out of her shirt, hands fisted to protect the fabric. She unclasped her bra, grabbing the baby in the armpits, laid her on her chest, skin against skin, like a mother cradled her own right after birth. She stroked Silvia’s back, listening to her coo, then fuss for lunch.

  Sitting against the headboard, Abbi gathered the slippery little body against her stomach; a drop of oil tickled as it slipped into her navel. She reached for the bottle on the nightstand, turned it upside down until a globe of formula bubbled on the rubber nipple. She touched it to her breast, the white liquid quickly spreading on her skin. Silvia turned her head and latched on, suckling as Abbi continued to trickle formula down her skin, into the baby’s mouth.

  The front door slammed. Abbi yanked Silvia from her breast. The baby screamed; Ab
bi bent over, drawing in a thick, fuzzy breath to muffle her own scream, her nipple on fire from the quick release. She heard Benjamin’s limp-run down the hallway and, rolling Silvia on the bed, managed back into her shirt before he barged through the door.

  “What’s wrong? Is she okay?” he asked.

  “You feed her.” Abbi shoveled the infant, now purple with confusion, to Benjamin. A dark, greasy stain appeared on his shirt. “I’m just . . . no good at it.”

  She went to her studio. With a wire, she cut a slab of cured clay and smashed it onto the center of her potter’s wheel. She sat, pushed against the kick wheel, squeezed a sponge of water over the clay. Her hands slid over the mound, slick as Silvia’s oiled skin.

  This she knew. What she’d felt with Silvia at her chest— No. She didn’t know that sense of motherhood, what she thought she wanted, that thing others called bonding, or love, perhaps. The baby wasn’t hers. It would be at least six months before adoption could be considered. Until then, the search for someone she belonged to— blood family, always thicker than strangers—continued. And if that someone was found, Silvia would be gone, and Abbi would feel it, like a nursing baby torn off her mother’s breast. She couldn’t go through that. She’d already lost her husband.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  When he arrived at the Patil house, Matthew saw Abbi in the backyard, spreading sheets of newspaper over the ground, covering them with scraps of vegetables and fruit rinds and flower stems. She placed an unfired piece of pottery on each length of paper, rolling and securing them with copper wire.

  He tapped her shoulder. What are you doing?

  “I’m prepping my pottery for firing.”

  With rotting banana peels?

  “Potassium can cause greenish hues on the stoneware. The other stuff will leave other colors. I hope. It’s not an exact science. It’s more of a throw-everything-in-and-see-what-happens.”

  You mean in the kiln?

  “I mean in the hole. Put the pots in, some wood, some manure, light it on fire, and see what happens.”