All We Want Is Everything (6 page)

“We aren’t finished yet!” I scream through my bandanna. “We aren’t done! Come back! You can stay with me, man! You can stay, alright?”

Jimmy keeps pedalling away from me. His legs have always been stronger than mine. He thinks he can outrun this cloud. I scream after him as my muscles begin to surrender. They burn and burn and eventually I have to stop before I throw up or pass out into a ditch. Jimmy tosses up a tail of dust behind him as he hits the road out of town. He passes the sign welcoming everyone to Hudson. He passes the graveyard where they put his father and all our grandparents. He thinks he can beat them, that he can escape the cloud lingering above us all. Jimmy passes the final corner toward the highway. I can only see the glint of his black helmet now. He thinks he’s gone.

I look up into the sky above me. Everything is black and the wings go on forever.

Caleb takes the baby while Twink is at work. He bundles it up in sweaters and wraps it in a bath towel. He doesn’t trust the baby, and he doesn’t believe it’s his child. It burps and squeals while he tries to sleep in the other room. It drains the life out of Twink from her tits, sapping all that warm rich life away into piss and shit and other fluids. Twink’s night shifts stretch out into the early hours before dawn, where the old men ask her if she’s queer and ponder aloud why she was named after a pastry in the first place. Twink is nowhere to be found in those early hours and so Caleb is the one sitting at home, listening to the squealing mass, the baby she says is his, but it does not have his eyes, it does not have his long, bony hands and it never shuts up. It squeals for milk that is too warm, too cold, too much. There is always too much.

Caleb can’t get the prescription he needs and his left knee is still broken somewhere deep inside, somewhere deep and unknowable, according to the doctors who hold out soft, soft hands for their coins and cheques and endless pounds of flesh. The darkness is the same way and so Caleb continues down his path with the baby clutched in his arms, dodging streetlights and the occasional cab that slows to pass him on the shoulder. Everyone will have their piece eventually. Everyone will take a piece of the whole, punishing the body for the sins of the hand.

Caleb’s hands are red in the cold and he worries they will draw out wandering eyes. They are glowing and he can barely feel them. The baby is quiet; maybe it is freezing too. The cold is not an enemy. It is a warm embrace that articulates each breath you take. Caleb stops to lean against a tree to whisper something about St. Peter choking on a stone. All your idols are crumbling, he warns the baby and the baby cries because it knows Caleb is right and so Caleb says, you weren’t born from me. And the baby cries again.

Caleb fell off the top shelf of the pasta aisle at the grocery store a year ago. Twink was working the cash and she took him to the hospital and filed the workman’s comp and got them both kicked out of her Mom’s place once the baby bump could not be hidden anymore. She said it was Caleb’s, but Caleb can’t remember getting hard, not after his knee blew out and so he says okay, but it really isn’t okay. He remembers another boy and another bottle and not drinking. He doesn’t want the new apartment with the ducts and pipes filtering fluids and air through their bedroom, the stove rattling every time the bus stops in front of the house. He doesn’t want the feet shuffling above him or the loud screams of raccoons mating in the attic. Fighting, mating, all the same things; all flesh on flesh and the baby is just flesh, that’s it.

Caleb remembers a church group and being able to walk without a limp and his older brother telling them about Jesus carrying you when you were suffering, when life was hard and filled with stones that cut the bottoms of your feet. Caleb has forgotten to wear his shoes and his socks are soaked and growing stiff around his toes. His brother was a youth pastor and a saviour and always right until the police took everyone away because of the incident, and so Caleb focuses on the baby instead, the one in his arms, the one that isn’t his and he tells the baby it will be okay even though he’s in the park now and the snow is deeper than he thought. He tells the baby to breathe with him and that Twink will be better after this, she will be less sad, she will be so much better. She will find them locked in time, locked in place, held together by moisture in the air because that’s where God is. God is a place. God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.

Two joggers will find them in the morning cold and the baby still won’t have a name.

After the third attempt, Harriet’s sisters started to call her the self-cleaning oven. Henry already had one kid with Doris, the bitch who kept calling them in the middle of the night to complain about the water temperature in Henry’s old house. She still expected him to maintain the property even after receiving full custody of their mewling little Jamie. Henry began sleeping through the phone calls and so it was Harriet who had to answer the phone.

“Stop. Just stop, Doris. Call a plumber. Just look it up online.”

Three years with Henry and the calls still continued. Three years and three miscarriages.

Harriet’s sisters asked her if she had read the books they gave her. The one’s about sleeping on your back for all nine months and eating only cucumbers or avocados. They asked if she was smoking cigarettes when no one else was looking. They checked her cabinets for secret stashes of whiskey and questioned Henry. Was he beating her? Did he have a history of malformed sperm? Harriet just wanted them to go away, but they had nothing else to distract them.

Theresa had her tubes tied after the third kid came out in one swift motion in a bus station bathroom and Deidra already had two kids in college. She never bothered finding another man after Bob was hit with two heart attacks in a row while cutting the lawn. It was Harriet, the youngest, who was lagging behind. Their mother would not have been impressed. Harriet’s sisters visited the graveyard once a week to talk to their mother’s marble gravestone and Harriet was pretty sure all they did was discuss how the youngest Donoghue had failed the family. They even brought letters about her to read. Harriet discovered them when she showed up with flowers on her mother’s birthday. Pieces of paper fluttering around the cemetery, listing all her faults and failures chronologically with footnotes and everything. It was a long list.

The phone rings again and Harriet picks it up. Doris is on the other end again.

“Do you think I have the money for a plumber? Do you realize how expensive this dump is to heat once October hits? It ain’t cheap, I can tell you that much. And if you hang up on me again, I swear to God—”

Harriet leaves the phone off the hook and rolls over to go back to sleep. Henry does not move. He has become impervious to noise. Harriet closes her eyes and tries to dream of a plant that will never die. All she can find are cactuses that stretch up into the clouds.

In the morning, she drives by the old house Henry surrendered to Doris during the divorce. The windows are covered in dust and half the trim has begun to rot away. Henry is still only allowed to see the boy on weekend visits with a social worker present. A minor sex offender conviction when he was in high school has become a ghost, a fifteen-year-old girl floating over every conversation; her parents demanded an officer press the charges.

This ghost appears at random, unravelling the many lives Henry’s tried to build since they were caught in her basement without pants or excuses. It pokes holes in resumes and drives away investors from his growing hot tub empire. It sulks in corners and lashes out in courtrooms and custody battles. Henry tells Harriet she would like his son, but he’s not allowed to bring anyone to the visits. Doris has filed a petition about corrupting influences. She isn’t wrong exactly. Harriet is the one who broke up their marriage, the one who slowly pulled Henry away from a life of baseball games and barbecues and cold bed sheets. Harriet is the one who diagnosed their marriage, the one who reached inside and pulled out a heart crusted in bile. She does not regret any of it, but sometimes she does regret there was a child. Doris holds him up like a trophy and the doctor says Henry’s sperm are still energetic, still thriving. Harriet wants to blame it all on the hot tubs, but the doctor says that isn’t the case. She tries to avoid thinking about other options. She focuses on Doris and what she would look like floating face down in a hot tub.

The boy is sitting on the porch with a deflated basketball. He tries to bounce it off the concrete steps, but it barely reacts. Harriet pulls over and watches him try to blow air into the tiny hole. The kid’s face turns red and then purple before he surrenders and tosses the ball away into the overgrown grass. Harriet rolls down the window and yells out into the street.

“You’re Henry’s kid, right?”

The boy is only six. He doesn’t say anything at first. He stands on the steps and looks toward the front door, but doesn’t move. Harriet climbs out of the car. She remembers all those public service announcements about strangers in cars. No matter what her sisters say, Harriet knows she is not a monster. She just doesn’t always think things through. Henry says it wasn’t her fault that they fired her from the cereal factory, but he doesn’t know about the lift she dropped on Debbie Anderson or the medical bills her family has to pay. Harriet doesn’t think he’d want to know. She bought a hot tub from him with some of the severance money. After all, nobody could prove Harriet was definitely the one who dropped that lift on Debbie. Debbie didn’t have a lot of friends on the inside of that place. She liked to take naps in the bathroom and smoke in the loading bay, leaving her butts behind for security to find on the midnight shift. She had it coming, Harriet told her sisters. They asked if it was an accident. Of course it was, Harriet said.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m just your Dad’s friend,” Harriet says. The kid looks for his basketball in the grass. He won’t look her in the eye as she steps toward him.

“You’re Jamie, right? Don’t worry; your Dad and I are close. Where is your Mom?”

The boy nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“Is she at work? Is she still working at the mall?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. He’s still looking for his ball in the grass.

“And she just leaves you here all day?”

He nods again. The driveway is cracked and filled with weeds. Crabgrass and dandelions border its edges. Harriet wants to pluck them up, but she resists. Doris might notice. She seems to keep a record of everything. She probably has a photo of every single plant out here.

“Well, isn’t there like a babysitter or someone?”

Jamie stares up at her. He looks like a chubbier Henry.

“Sometimes. At night, yeah. But the sun is out.”

Harriet knows she should call Henry. Some proof of neglect, a way to get the courts to take his side against Doris. All Doris has to do is summon up his high school ghost, but now they have something substantial on their side. There is no guardian in sight. No one to watch the kid.

“The sun is out, yeah. Your Mom says that’s alright?”

Jamie nods again and tries to bounce the ball. It doesn’t even bother hopping away this time.

“How about you come with me for the day? We can do whatever we want. How does that sound to you? You want to go somewhere for lunch or something?”

Doris gets the kid and the house. Doris seems to get everything but Henry. And all Henry seems to do these days is sleep. He is slowly falling apart in front of her, no matter what the doctor says. Maybe her sisters are right. Maybe there is something wrong with him, something she just can’t see yet. Harriet grabs Jamie by the hand and they walk toward her car. She is tired of trying for a kid like Jamie. She just wants someone to hand her one already, fully formed.

“Okay, but we have to come back soon or she will be mad.”

Harriet knows she can handle the pain.

The restaurant is one of those off-brand waffle house places that sprout up like fungus along highway exit ramps. Jamie has five Belgian waffles in front him, piled with bananas, strawberries and whipped cream. Harriet only has a coffee. Her sisters say the caffeine is going to destroy her heart eventually. The restaurant is close to empty and everything is sticky.

“I don’t think I can eat all of this, Harriet.”

“You can do your best, that’s all anyone can ask for, Jamie.”

Harriet feels bad lying to the kid. Her best is rarely ever acceptable. Henry seems to tolerate her attempts at least. He was there at the hospital every time her body had turned against her, poisoning itself against the future she was trying to create. He brought her food from outside the hospital, sneaking in chocolates and real egg salad sandwiches. The hospital used powder eggs. Harriet refused to swallow any institution’s food. She didn’t trust the nurses. They all looked too much like her mother, all knowing eyes and cooing voices hiding their contempt.

“Are you going to eat any of these?”

“I think you can handle it,” Harriet says. The kid is well behaved. He didn’t even try to change the radio station on the way over. They talk about basketball and stepping on Lego in the dark. Jamie asks her what she did for a job and Harriet says it’s none of his business. He doesn’t seem to mind. His Mom cuts hair at the mall and brings home a lot of coins inside her purse. Harriet smiles. Maybe it could be this easy. If only she could get her body to agree for once, to lend her a pass. Jamie tries to pour syrup on his waffles and misses the plate entirely. Harriet sops it up in one motion and throws the napkin on the floor. Let the waiter clean it up.

“I think I need to sleep, Harriet.”

“We will take you home in a bit, okay? I’m sure your Mom will be looking for you.”

Doris won’t be able to explain this. She just needs to draw it out a bit longer. And Harriet likes Jamie. He might not be a clean eater, but he hasn’t crapped himself or done anything stupid yet. All the awful years have already passed, including the terrible twos. When he gets into his teens there will be problems, but Henry can handle that. Henry is good with those kinds of situations. He is the one who handles Harriet’s sisters when they come by to ask about her stomach, her health, her future plans. Henry is very good at slamming doors.

“When my Dad comes over, he and my Mom talk about you sometimes.”

Harriet stops drinking her coffee. She pours more sugar into the grainy remains.

“What do you mean, Jamie? Is your Mom still mad at me? You know, you can’t always trust everything a grown-up says. You have to learn what to believe. It’s hard to know sometimes.”

“I know,” Jamie says. His eyes are drooping and he misses his mouth with a fork of waffle.

“Well, what do they say Jamie? Is your Mom upset about something?”

Jamie stabs at his food again, but can’t bother to raise the fork.

“They say they just want you to go away. I wanna lie down. Can I lie down?”

Harriet doesn’t answer. She places both hands on the sticky table and closes her eyes. Henry said the visits with Doris always devolved into some screaming match about the drapes or the water heater. Harriet never asked why they took so long. She never asked about the social worker or the supervised visitations. There were messages Henry deleted from the answering machine before Harriet could listen. There were long car drives and strange clothes in the trunk. Harriet always wrote it off as part of the business—selling hot tubs wasn’t like selling pens or hair clippers. Harriet pulls her sticky hands off the table. Jamie has curled up in the booth with whipped cream in his hair. She wants to reach over and wipe it away, but her hand won’t let her.

With every attempt she and Henry made for a child, Harriet had tried to erase the malformed image of the last one—the twisted hands and half-formed faces. She pushed Debbie Anderson’s crushed legs from her mind, the screams echoing up the delivery shaft at the factory. She clenched Henry’s body between her legs and drowned out her prying sisters with moans to rattle the bedroom. Henry’s grunts helped hide the fear humming inside her diaphragm, rattling her organs. She could almost negate her mother’s voice from beyond the grave, the one tapping at the window, begging to ask about her grandchildren, her legacy. She had left so much behind. Harriet had filled her mind with one desire, for a wriggling thing made of flesh and blood to take up a space inside her, to call it her own. She just wanted something new, something no one had used yet. Henry didn’t fit the bill—he never really had. Doris wasn’t finished with him yet.

Jamie is still asleep when Harriet stands up from the table. The waiter is flirting with some hostess near the back. There are no other customers. She takes a few steps away from the sticky table. Jamie does not move; he only snores. She clenches her hands around her purse and walks toward the door. Harriet does not want Doris’ child. She does not want Henry’s leftovers. She wants to ask Henry if she was just a distraction, to ask him why he’s always drawn back to the same fire, the one Doris keeps lighting between them.

Harriet steps outside into the parking lot. No one has followed her outside. The sun is out and, somewhere, Doris is still at work, cutting hair, talking shit, talking about Harriet and her poisoned womb. Too much time in those hot tubs, she will say. Too much time in that putrid, tacky hot tub Henry purchased as their honeymoon gift. It was bright pink, you know—such an ugly looking thing. Harriet climbs into her car and slams the door. Jamie sleeps alone inside the restaurant, surrounded by waffles with eyes and mouths mounted on the walls.

Harriet starts the car and pulls onto the highway. She tosses soiled tissues out the window and tries not to look back. She waits for the police to pull her over as the miles turn into hours.

Harriet is driving until she finds a desert. Any one will do.