Baggage

by S. G. Redling

  Meredith starts to speak and I hold my breath, waiting to hear the words. Instead she says, “You were in love with Ellis, weren’t you.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” That gets me moving. I push myself off the couch and send a wine bottle spinning somewhere beneath the coffee table.

  “Anna, wait.”

  “Are you kidding me, Meredith? That’s what you think?”

  She holds her hands up in that surrender pose that I’ve been seeing a lot from her lately and it’s starting to get on my nerves. I grab my wine glass off the table and empty the bottle into it. Naptime is over.

  “Anna, talk to me.”

  “And say what? That I was secretly in love with Ellis and now I’m going to have a Hallmark moment mourning him? You want me to weep into a lace hanky and wear black?”

  “You usually wear black.” I’m ready to pounce on that when I realize she’s trying to lighten the mood. “C’mon Anna, you have to admit you’re acting a little weird. I’m worried about you. And you know, it’s not unheard of to be attracted to a man. Even when you’re grieving, it’s nothing to feel guilty about. There’s no sin in it.”

  I’ve got nothing to say to that. She follows me toward the kitchen. I stand at the sink, pretending that I’m going to wash something. She perches on a bar stool on the other side of the island. “You can talk to me. You know that. You can tell me anything.”

  When I look at her, one of those ridiculous curls has broken free again. It jumps out wildly like a spring over her left ear. When she talks, it bounces and twists and reminds me why students find Meredith so easy to talk to. She’s a tireless champion of the underdog, a true advocate. I admire those qualities until they’re turned on me. I need to put her mind at rest.

  “Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death.” I almost say suicide but I don’t want to go there. I want to wrap this up. “He died suddenly and it was very hard. I tried to put it all behind me when I moved here but sometimes I think that maybe I changed everything too quickly. I didn’t give myself time to grieve, time to process it all.” I’m making this up as I go along. I’m doing a hell of a job at it, too, because my throat tightens. “I wanted to build a new life here. Then Ellis started coming on to me and I kept thinking how tacky that was, how insensitive. Couldn’t he see how much I was grieving? Couldn’t he tell? It was all over my face, but he didn’t see it.”

  I force a mouthful of wine down my closing throat. It burns but makes speaking easier. “Of course he couldn’t see it. It’s not like I was wearing a mourning veil. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to be ‘that person,’ that griever.” I catch myself before I add the word again to that sentence. Meredith nods, her eyes soft and a little damp.

  “And so,” I say with a flourish of my glass, “I resented Ellis Trachtenberg for not being psychic and for having the audacity to think nice things about me. And that concludes my essay for admittance to the nut house.”

  Meredith smiles. “You’re not nuts. You’re human. You’re allowed to be human. Things hurt. Sometimes they hurt so much that you can’t think about anything else but making the pain stop. You do crazy things. We all do. Pain makes us crazy and nothing causes more pain than love.” I watch that curl shimmy and flip.

  “I wish you drank.” It’s the most honest affection I can convey. “You won’t join me?”

  She shakes her head and stands. “I appreciate the invitation but no, thank you. I just wanted to make sure you got home safely and that you’re okay. Are you sure you’re okay drinking alone?”

  “I’ll muddle through.”

  “I bet you will.” She throws me a scolding look as she gathers her purse and jacket. Her rogue curl hangs down over her eye as she focuses on her zipper. “Just out of curiosity, did you happen to tell your cousin about Ellis flirting with you?”

  “Yeah, I did. Why?”

  “How did she take it?”

  “She took it fine.”

  “Good.” She smiles. “I’m glad. I know you two are close. Sometimes something like that can cause friction between people. Even when people are like sisters, feelings can get hurt.”

  “Jeannie’s not like that.”

  “Good.” She says it with a smile that gets less convincing each time I see it. She hesitates before heading to the door and I get the feeling she’s trying to find a way to say something. Before she can manage it, Jeannie strolls in, phone to her ear, and holds up a hand to silence us as she wraps up her conversation. Meredith’s smile gets a little twisted.

  “Yeah, okay, thanks. I’ll check in on Monday.” Jeannie ends the call and dumps it into her huge purse with a dramatic sigh. “It’s just one damn thing after another. I’m not gone a week and the whole world falls apart.”

  “Please,” Meredith says. “Don’t let us interrupt your important work.”

  There’s that withering look again. “Oh Meredith. How nice to see you. Again.”

  I grab another bottle of wine. “Hey, if you guys want to start punching each other, that’s okay with me. Let me get my glass out of the way.”

  Meredith gives me an injured look but Jeannie just rolls her eyes. “I’d have been here sooner but I went by the police station to get your phone. They wouldn’t release it to me.”

  “Did you see Karmen?”

  “Who?”

  “What?” Meredith drops her purse. “Why would Karmen be at the police station?”

  “The police picked her up to question her.” Time feels weird, like this happened days ago. “They had a search warrant.”

  “How do you know?” Meredith asks. “Did she call you?”

  “No.” I wrestle with the cork, trying to sort my thoughts. “How weird is this? It turns out Karmen lives next door to me. At least her boyfriend does. Bobby something. They’re the ones that make all the noise.”

  “Ooh,” Jeannie says, “you mean finger-in-the-butt Bobby?” I laugh at that but Meredith looks horrified.

  “Do you mind, Professor? That’s disgusting.”

  I want to laugh again but I remember what we’re really talking about. I remember the look on Karmen’s face when Neighborgall led her away. “They said they weren’t arresting her but they wanted to question her about Ellis’s murder. They had a search warrant and a big box of stuff.”

  “Oh my god,” Meredith says, “that poor child. Did you go down there with her? I should go down there to make sure she’s okay. See if anyone called her parents. They certainly can’t believe she had anything to do with that horrible crime. She’s a child.”

  Jeannie takes the glass I offer her. “Is this that waitress we’re talking about? I told you the cops were interested in her. It’s got something to do with that book. I know it.”

  I’m grabbing my own glass when Meredith’s hand comes down hard on mine, not a slap exactly but not a gentle gesture. “How could you not know that Karmen Bennett was living right beside you? How could you not know what her boyfriend was doing? He’s a thug and piece of trash who has done nothing but give that girl trouble and you didn’t do anything to help her?”

  “I didn’t know that was them. I never saw them. How was I supposed to know?”

  “She is your student. She is your responsibility. She counts on you for help.”

  I’m getting really irritated that I can’t drink my wine. “She is not my student, Meredith. She’s one of the students I work with. She’s an adult. She has her own parents.” I jerk my wine glass free of her grip. “We are not their mothers. What they do outside of school is none of our business and it’s certainly not our responsibility. You need some boundaries.”

  She looks more disgusted at my words than when she looked at the puddle of vomit I left in our office. She gathers her purse and glares at both me and Jeannie.

  “Well, thank you very much for that s
age advice. I appreciate your candor. It must be very comforting to hold that worldview. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to see if there is anything I can do to help out a young woman in trouble.” She stops in front of Jeannie and stares at her. “If it’s all the same to you, I choose to place my boundaries elsewhere.”

  Jeannie toasts her with her wine and Meredith turns on her heel and storms out. As soon as the door is closed, Jeannie flips her the bird with her glass-free hand.

  “How can you stand working with that woman? She’s such a sanctimonious busybody.”

  “She’s okay. She means well.”

  “Oh please, she’s a barnacle trying to be a ship. She attaches herself to everybody’s business and acts like she belongs there.”

  A headache makes itself known behind my eyes. “She’s right, though. I should have known that was Karmen living next door. I should have recognized her voice. I should have asked where she lived. I knew she was in a bad place and I didn’t try to help her.”

  Jeannie sets her wine glass down in front of me. “There are a lot of bad places in this world, Anna. Some of them you have to get through on your own. Even if someone is helping you, some of that stuff you have to handle on your own. You know that better than anyone.” I nod and she pats my arm as she moves past me. “Now go sit down and let me clean up this kitchen. What the hell did we do in here?”

  I do as she says and flop back down on my couch. In minutes, water is running and baking sheets are clanging. Jeannie is sweeping and picking up garbage, folding clothes and stacking magazines. The movement and noise make my headache grow ferocious.

  “Jeannie, stop.”

  “What?” she hollers over the running water.

  “Are you doing your laundry in there? For god’s sake, turn the water off.”

  She does and comes into the living room drying her hands. “What’s the matter with you? I’m just doing the dishes.”

  “You’re taking forever!” I hate the whine in my voice. “It’s just that I’ve got a headache and you’re running around doing all this stuff. Just stop. Stop.”

  “Okay.” She drops the towel. “What do you want to do? You want to watch TV?”

  “No. I think I’m going to go to bed.”

  “Are you going to take a shower first?”

  “What? No.” My right temple throbs.

  She grimaces. “You need a shower. Like, badly.”

  “I’ll take one in the morning.”

  “You really ought to take one tonight.”

  “Fuck off, Jeannie!” My own voice lodges the spike of my headache deep into my eye. “God, you’re as bad as Meredith. I don’t want a fucking shower. I want to go to bed.”

  “All right,” she snaps back. “You don’t have to bite my fucking head off. Go to bed. Wallow in your filth. Have at it.” She grabs her purse and heads for the door. Before she leaves, she turns back to me. “You know, Anna, you don’t always have to be so unhappy. There’s got to be a point where you’re allowed to get over it. All of it—your dad, your mom, Ronnie. At some point, you’re allowed to be happy.”

  I lie back on the couch and put my arm over my eyes. I hear her sigh and I hear her leave. I don’t hear anything for a while after that.

  I wake up when I hit the floor. I’ve fallen off the couch. I land on that wine bottle I kicked under there. Almost under there. My apartment is dark. I thought I was in the tub when my arm pressed against the side of the couch. I yank the bottle out from under me and lie on the floor a moment, figuring out where I am, pushing the dreams out of my head. I thought I heard a door open and I sit up, making sure it wasn’t mine. If it was, whoever opened it is gone. There’s no noise from next door.

  I climb back on the couch and I’m gone.

  Now the garbage truck wakes me. The sun is mostly up and I hear the beeping of the big truck as it backs toward the dumpster. It seems a little aggressive to me to have garbage service so early in the morning on a Saturday, especially around college students. Maybe it’s Gilead’s way of paying them back for the beer bottles and trash the students leave everywhere on Friday nights.

  There’s no noise except the garbage men but they make enough for the entire apartment building. The beep of their truck, the rumble of the big diesel engine, their yells and laughter will lead up to the tormented sound of the huge metal dumpster being hefted, turned, dumped, and returned. I lay with my eyes closed, waiting for the crescendo when the noise changes. The rhythm breaks. More yells, less rumbling. Different yells.

  It can’t mean what I think it means.

  Why would my mind even go there?

  I sit up on the couch, hoping to hear the rest of the dumpster-dance song but all I hear is a chatter of male yells, truck doors slamming, and then just the rumble of the diesel engine. I don’t know how but I know I’m right.

  I take my time. I pee, brush my teeth, pull on shoes and grab a jacket. I’ve got to be wrong but I know I’m not. I know that tone the men speak in. I’ve heard it before. This can’t be happening but I know it is. I make my way out the door, down the walkway in front of the other apartments, all of which are quiet. Everyone tries to sleep through garbage service.

  At the end of the walkway, I lean over the railing like I did yesterday. The dumpster isn’t where it should be; it’s still in the arms of the sanitation truck, hovering in the air undumped. The reflective green jackets of the garbage men stand out bright against the dirty snow where they’re gathered around the open space left by the dumpster. They’re vivid but not as vivid as what they’re staring at.

  A body sprawls out across the dirty ice like a snow angel. I recognize the cut WVU T-shirt. It’s my neighbor, Bobby. He looks even smaller from up here. It looks like he’s pulling a huge red sheet behind him in his left hand but when I look closer, I see that’s an illusion. He isn’t holding anything in his left hand. That’s blood pouring out beside him.

  His left hand is gone.

  I bend over, pressing my forehead against the railing. Its rusty edge cuts into my skin and a thin stream of saliva drips down from my open mouth. I’m panting. No, my body is panting. I feel nothing. That nothing feels familiar.

  My knees hit the walkway and my face scrapes the metal spindles below the railing as I fall. I turn, sit, press my head back between the bars and close my eyes. When I hear sirens, I think I should go back to my apartment. I should close the door and pretend I saw nothing, pretend I just woke up, pretend to be shocked when they come asking about Bobby’s death. But there’s no point in that, I figure. I’m not that good an actress. I can’t even tell the truth well.

  I know things. The same way I knew what I would find down there, I know the way this will look. I know the way the cops will look at me. It will be the way they looked at me in Nebraska. The way they looked at me in Missouri. They’ll look at me and they’ll see me.

  I wonder if they’ve seen me all along.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Chattam, Nebraska

  2014

  Anna Shuler Ray, 28 years old

  They had been happy. She had been happy. Ronnie made Anna happy in ways that startled her. He was funny and silly and smart. He looked gorgeous in his jeans and even better out of them. He made her laugh and got her sense of humor. His poetry could be uneven but he didn’t take himself too seriously. He laughed at his own shortcomings and teased Anna about her criticisms.

  But he listened to her. He came to her for advice and listened to what she said. For the first time in her adult life, Anna began to trust someone other than her cousin, Jeannie. It liberated her and made her optimistic for the life ahead of her.

  For the first time she could remember, she wasn’t just playing at normal. She felt normal. She thought maybe she felt the way normal people felt—relaxed and content, safe and included. Ronnie had a lot of friends and they accepted her without question, pleased
that their funny, talkative buddy had found someone who seemed to make him so happy. They didn’t ask Anna why she was so quiet; Ronnie was a talker. It took experience to get a word in around him.

  But he listened to her. When they were together, when he calmed down from the giddy high crowds sent him on, he would focus on her with an attention that took her breath away. He didn’t frighten her; he didn’t pry. He listened. He looked at her and accepted what she had to give him and he gave her pieces of himself back.

  When did it fall apart?

  Anna used to think it was when she told him everything, when he coaxed her secret from her, something no lawyer or cop or therapist had ever managed. Even Jeannie hadn’t gotten this out of her, but Ronnie had. Those big hazel eyes and soft lips, his thin, strong hands and that one crooked front tooth had hypnotized her. They had relaxed her and opened her in every conceivable way until the only thing that lay hidden was the worst of her.

  But that wasn’t how it started. Not really.

  Ronnie gave her a lot of room. He liked to hike, his energy seeming endless and frenetic to his much more sedentary girlfriend. He would go away for days, always letting her know he’d be gone but never feeling the need to check in. In truth, Anna loved Ronnie as much for his absences as she did for his hand-holding and the funny, filthy poems he’d leave in her underwear drawer.

  He asked her to move in with him and she ignored the alarm that went off in her head.

  That was the first mistake.

  For the first time in her life, Anna walked a normal path and she knew that path led to cohabitation because that’s what normal people did. She and Ronnie loved each other. They should live together. That’s how this went and so she told herself that the clutch of panic she felt in her stomach was the result of a lifetime of fear. A habit of mistrust.

  Love trumped distrust. Isn’t that what everyone is supposed to know?

  And so when Ronnie got the job teaching English at a community college in Nebraska, Anna quit her job and moved with him. She packed her stuff, he packed his, and they headed off to a little house Ronnie had rented within biking distance of the school. The house showed all the signs of a long-time rental property—shabby yellow paint, a crooked porch, uneven floors. It looked so much like the house she had grown up in, Anna could only stare, trying to blink, trying to break the link to the past and locate herself in the present.