The Weight of Small Things (3 page)

She forced a small smile. “Can you please not mention this to anyone at school?”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

He followed her as she walked the familiar aisles, choosing canned vegetables and beans, spaghetti and sauce, macaroni and cheese, tuna, and soups, the foods of her childhood.

“We have fresh bread today,” Daniel said, pointing her toward a table.

Corrie nodded and added a loaf to her basket.

“And . . . uh, do you need any . . . personal items?”

Oh, God, why are you here?
She fervently wished one of the regular volunteers had pulled her name, even the nasty old lady with the limp, anyone but this boy she couldn’t look in the eye.

“My sister is twelve,” she whispered.

He pointed her toward the table with tampons, then waited for her by the back door.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

“No problem.”

She stepped past him into the brilliant sunshine of a September day, felt him watch her as she walked, spine straight, to her mother’s ten-year-old Buick. She put her bags on the floor of the car and drove away, never looking back.

Two days later, he knocked on her door in the dorm. “Hey,” he said, smiling at her. “Do you want to get a Coke?”

Bryn’s eyebrows rose as she grinned at Corrie.

“Oh,” Corrie stammered. “I can’t, really. I’ve got so much homework.” She waved her hand at the stack of papers on her desk.

“I thought you were finished,” Bryn said.

Corrie shot her a dark look.

“Just a Coke,” Daniel said. “Half an hour.”

Corrie sighed. “Oh, all right.”

She followed him to the coffee shop, wishing she could simply sink into the earth.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry if I embarrassed you the other day. There’s no shame in needing help sometimes. Lots of people are having a hard time these days. You know that, right?” Daniel smiled at her.

They sat on the grass with their drinks.

Corrie sighed. “It’s just embarrassing,” she said. “My dad died when I was twelve and since then my mom . . . well, she doesn’t cope very well.”

“Does she work?”

She sighed again. “She paints,” she said. “And sometimes someone feels sorry for her and buys one of her paintings. But other than that, no, she doesn’t work. Mostly she drinks.”

She sat a moment in mortified silence. She had never told anyone about her mother’s drinking. Her high school counselor had known, and a few of the neighbors. But she had always tried so hard to pretend that her mother was just like anyone else’s, a normal mom.

“I shouldn’t have said that. Can you please forget I said that?”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Daniel said. He touched her arm softly. “Alcoholism is a disease, you know. It’s not a sin.”

“I guess.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“So, what about your family?” Corrie asked, mostly to fill the silence.

“It’s just my mom and me,” Daniel said. “My dad bailed before I was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged. “My mom’s a lawyer, a public defender in Atlanta.”

“Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

He shrugged again. “Yeah, she’s great.”

“So how did a guy from Atlanta end up in Middlebrook, Indiana?”

“Scholarship.” He laughed. “How about you? Why did you stay so close to home?”

“My dad taught here before he died. So I’m tuition-free.”

“Cool,” he said. “What did he teach?”

“History. He loved history, especially East Asian history. He was fascinated by China. He always wanted to go there.”

“Maybe someday you’ll go for him.”

“I doubt it,” she said, smiling. “I’ve never been out of the States. I’ve never even been on a plane.”

“Seriously? You’ve never been on a plane?”

“Seriously,” she said. “It’s way too expensive.”

“Well, someday you will definitely fly.”

“Oh, and you’re sure about that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I have a feeling you’re going to go lots of places.”

She laughed and took a sip of her soda.

“Well, right now, I’m going back to my room. I really do have a lot of homework.”

“Okay,” he said, standing and offering his hand to help her up.

They walked back to the dorm in silence. At the door he leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Do you want to go to a movie on Friday?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll come by at six and we can get dinner first.”

And just like that, they were dating. Bryn had teased her endlessly about how quickly she had “taken herself off the market.” But Corrie was happy to be with Daniel. He knew about her mother, about her past, and it didn’t seem to matter to him. He accepted her just as she was. She, in turn, admired his drive to help others, his idealism, and his seemingly endless energy.

“What are you doing out here?”

Corrie spun around, finally spilling tea on her robe, to see Mark in the doorway, shifting from one foot to the other. He had forgotten his slippers. She smiled.

“I was just coming in,” she lied. “I thought I’d have a cup of chamomile.” She walked inside and closed the door behind her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Mark slipped his arms around her waist and rubbed his lips against the auburn hair that hung, straight and shining, halfway down her back. “You should’ve gotten me up,” he whispered.

Corrie pulled away from him slightly. “I didn’t want to wake you. You know the kids will be up early tomorrow, and I didn’t want both of us to be tired and cranky.”

She dropped her robe onto a chair and slipped into bed. “I’m really tired now. The tea did it. I think I’ll be able to sleep.”

She turned her back to him and pulled the covers up to her chin. She felt him lie down next to her, hesitate, then sigh and roll over. After a few minutes, he was snoring softly.

Corrie rolled toward him, propped on her elbow, and watched her husband sleep, moonlight from the window casting shadows on his face. He looked so young when he slept. His cheeks were slightly burned from an afternoon in the sun. He really was so handsome. Why would she waste her time thinking about Daniel? She shook her head and leaned back into her pillow. Daniel and she had been over ten years ago. He had moved on, and so had she. So why was she lying here beside her perfect husband, wondering if her ex had gone to the reunion?

Mark sighed and rolled onto his side. She pulled the blanket over his shoulders and kissed his cheek softly. Probably she should have responded to his kiss before. She hated to disappoint him. But it was too early in the cycle for her to be ovulating. And somehow it seemed wasteful to have sex when there was no chance of getting pregnant, as if it might hurt their chances later in the month. Why couldn’t she just get pregnant like everyone else?

She’d watched Mark earlier with his sister, offering his hand to help her out of a chair, carrying Laurel to the bedroom so Sarah didn’t have to lift her. On the patio, Corrie saw him rest his hand on Sarah’s stomach and grin widely when he felt the baby kick. The man was made to be a father. Only Corrie couldn’t make him one.

She chewed her lip, thinking of all the attractive young women at Mark’s office—the pretty receptionist, the striking redhead in accounting, the busty blond who’d just made partner. Any one of them could probably give Mark a child, and probably would if she had the chance. She’d seen women watch her husband; she knew how attractive he was.

What if someday he got tired of the endless disappointment? What if he decided that she was damaged goods, that he could have a child with any number of other women? What if, finally, he left?

She thought of all the nights Mark came home late from work, all the trips he took to New York, Chicago, and Miami. Had he traveled this much when they first got married? Didn’t he used to come home for dinner every night? Was he pulling away from her, just like she always somehow knew he would?

Dear God,
she prayed silently.
Thank you for my husband and my family and my friends. Thank you for my life. Please help me to be a better wife, a better daughter, a better sister and friend. Please help me to accept your will for me. Amen
.

The sun was rising when Corrie finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

4

C
orrie watched the scenery flash by and held tightly to the door handle. Mark always drove too fast on these hilly, narrow roads, sometimes pulling into the oncoming traffic lane to swerve around someone going slow. Now and then she caught a glimpse of the lake through the trees. Soon they would be on the highway and she would relax.

“Mom really liked the bowl.” Mark’s voice broke her reverie.

She turned to him and smiled.

“I think your dad even liked it,” she answered.

“Of course he did. What’s not to like?” Mark leaned over and squeezed her shoulder. “You have great taste, Cor. Dad likes everything you’ve ever gotten them.”

Corrie watched her husband’s profile in silence. He was so handsome. Tall and broad-shouldered like his father, with the same easy, commanding air. His light brown hair turned golden in the summer, in sharp contrast to his dark brown eyes. The combination was arresting, and he never failed to turn women’s heads when he walked down the street. Corrie thought again about the redhead in accounting.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, catching her stare. “Am I wearing my breakfast?”

“Just admiring the view.” She laughed, looking away.

Sometimes it still surprised her that she was married to Mark, that she had the life she’d always wanted as a child—a dream life, her mother called it. A beautiful, big house on the right side of town, money to buy nice things, the respectability she’d so longed for, everything neat and tidy. She sighed, wondering why she couldn’t just relax and enjoy it all, why she was always waiting for it to be snatched away.

Mark caressed her shoulder. “Thanks for coming this weekend, babe. I know it meant a lot to Mom and Dad. And to me, too.”

Corrie smiled and said nothing for a while. She thought of the reunion she had missed, wondering for the hundredth time if Daniel had been there. Would the attraction still have been strong between them? Would he still want her? Would she still care?

She felt her cheeks grow hot and turned away from Mark to look out the window again.
Why should I care if he was there? What does it matter?
She shook her head angrily.
I’m a happily married woman. I have a great husband, a great life . . .

She looked again at Mark. He really was beautiful to watch, so boyish and charming.

“How ’bout we go away next weekend?” she asked suddenly. “Just the two of us, someplace romantic?” She held her breath and waited.

Mark looked at her in surprise and studied her face carefully for a moment. Then he smiled. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, sure,” she said. “It’ll be fun. Can you get away from work?”

“For a weekend with my wife? I think I can arrange that,” he said with a laugh. “Where do you want to go?”

“How about Chicago?” she suggested. “We could take the train up on Friday and stay downtown, maybe see a show.”

“Wherever you want,” Mark answered. He was pleased; she could tell. He reached over, gathered the hair at the back of her neck, and twisted it around his hand. “I’ll make the reservations.” He paused, looking at her closely again. “What brought this on?”

“Nothing,” she replied, laughing self-consciously. “Can’t a girl go away with her handsome husband for a romantic weekend?”

They drove in silence for a while, each wrapped in private thoughts.

They hadn’t been away together for over a year, hadn’t been silly or romantic or spontaneous. Making a baby had turned into a deadly serious business. When Corrie started hormone treatments, sex became a scheduled activity, ruled by the calendar and her temperature.

It wasn’t Mark’s fault, she knew. It was hers and hers alone. Every time they made love, she tensed up, wondering if this would finally be the time they conceived, knowing somehow that it wasn’t. And always afterward, she cried. No wonder he hardly even approached her anymore.

Corrie watched her husband driving, his hair glinting gold in the sun.

God, he’s so handsome,
she thought.
We would have made such beautiful babies
.

She felt a catch in her throat as she said, “Why don’t we stop for coffee at the next exit?”

5

“A
ll work and no play . . .”

Corrie looked up from her computer to see Bryn, blindingly bright in a neon-pink tank top and lime-green miniskirt. She was wearing long, silver earrings that sparkled beneath her severely short black hair, and clunky brown Birkenstocks that seemed singularly inappropriate. She pushed her trademark dark sunglasses up over her forehead and stared down at Corrie, her dark eyes bloodshot. “Did you forget lunch?”

“Oh, God, Bryn. I’m sorry.” Corrie began sliding photos into a folder and stacking pages. “We’re putting the fall issue to bed and I just forgot. Things have been like hell in here today.” She hung the folder in the photo file and stood, smoothing her gray linen skirt. “I’m ready.

“I’m going to lunch, Kenetha,” she called to her assistant on her way out. “I’ll be back in an hour. If Gordon calls, do
not
let him off the phone without getting a firm deadline.”

“You’re such a good worker bee,” Bryn said with a laugh, dropping the sunglasses back over her eyes. “What would happen if you took an hour and five minutes? Maybe the magazine would fold.”

“Shut up.” Corrie elbowed her friend. “Just because you live in Neverland doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t work for a living.”

“I beg your pardon,” Bryn objected, raising the glasses slightly off her nose to stare at Corrie accusingly. “I do work. I just don’t work on a stultifying, bourgeois, nine-to-five schedule. You, my friend, are simply jealous.” Again the glasses dropped.

“You’re right.” Corrie laughed. “Today, I am.”

They left the white limestone building that housed Middlebrook University’s alumni magazine, walked across the wooded campus, and turned left onto Kendle Street, the hub of Middlebrook’s eateries. It was a bright September day, hot and humid. Occasionally, a man turned to watch the two young women walk past. They made an attractive pair, a study in contrasts.

Corrie wore a fitted suit with gray high heels, her auburn hair coiled around her head in a French braid. She looked every inch a young professional. Bryn, on the other hand, was a bona fide bohemian. She even looked like a gypsy, with her jet-black hair and huge dark eyes. Corrie often wondered if Bryn and she had been switched at birth, if perhaps Bryn was Patrice’s real daughter and she, Corrie, somehow belonged to Bryn’s fashionable, imminently respectable mother.

Bryn had done what she set out to do all those years ago, although not as profitably as she might have hoped. She was a freelance graphic designer, waiting tables when money got tight. She was not married but had an on-again, off-again relationship with an adjunct professor at the university. They had met, in fact, when Bryn was a student in his junior economics class, which had caused a minor scandal in the dorm. After graduation, Bryn had settled in Middlebrook to be near Paul, and for ten years they had been arguing and making up. Currently, they were sharing Paul’s apartment. But they had tried that before, and it never seemed to work out.

Corrie and Bryn walked the four blocks to the restaurant in near silence, enjoying the sun on their backs. As they sat down in a corner booth, however, Bryn blurted out, “I can’t stand it. Aren’t you even going to ask?”

Corrie didn’t pretend ignorance. They’d been friends a long time. Bryn knew her too well. She looked down at the table, arranged her silverware, smoothed her skirt. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Not until you ask.”

“Witch!” Corrie shook her head and laughed. “Okay, was he there?”

“Who?” Bryn asked, removing her dark glasses to stare in wide-eyed innocence.

Corrie didn’t laugh this time, only stared back at her friend.

“Oh, all right,” Bryn sighed. She laid her glasses on the table. “He was there. He asked about you.”

Corrie sat quietly, not looking at Bryn. She felt her cheeks redden, felt hot and awkward. She picked up the napkin in front of her, disarranging the silverware, and began tearing the paper into small pieces. What should she ask next? What could she?

“Can I take your order?” The waitress hovered over their table, pad in hand.

“Umm, Caesar salad, please,” Corrie mumbled. “And a glass of your house blush.”

Bryn looked up, surprised, then smiled and looked back down at her menu. “I’ll have a falafel,” she said. She paused. “And a large glass of milk.”

“Milk?” Corrie asked, grinning, glad of a diversion.

“What?” Bryn replied, reddening. “Why shouldn’t I have a glass of milk now and then?”

“It’s just so healthy, so . . . not you,” Corrie said.

“No more than you having wine on a workday. Which brings us back to the subject,” Bryn responded. “Do you want to know what he said? What he wore? How he looked?”

Corrie nodded. She looked up, cleared her throat, and said clearly, “Tell me.”

“He looks pretty much the same, maybe better groomed. He definitely has a better haircut, although I suppose that could’ve been just for the reunion.” Bryn was in her element now, dishing.

“He came late, spent a lot of time hanging out by the door, just looking around. He always was antisocial. Finally, he sort of sauntered over to me, real casually, you know? And he asked how I was doing, what I had been up to. He never was good at small talk. Fits him like a bad suit.” She paused and eyed Corrie carefully. “I never did understand the attraction.”

“You wouldn’t.” Corrie smiled. “What did he say then?”

“Well.” Bryn leaned across the table. “He asked if I had seen you around. I told him we were still friends, had lunch most days. Then he said, like he didn’t already know, ‘Oh, so she still lives in town?’ ”

Bryn laughed. “Like he didn’t know you live here. Bob talks to him all the time. Anyway, I told him, yes, you did. So he asked if you were coming to the reunion, and I told him you were out of town for the weekend. I didn’t say why. Was that okay?”

Corrie nodded silently.

Bryn continued. “So he hung around a little while longer, maybe half an hour, making chitchat. He’s in Los Angeles now, working for a social services agency in Pasadena. I said I didn’t realize Pasadena needed social services, since it had the Rose Bowl, and he got on his soapbox just like always, started telling me about gangs and drugs and homelessness. He never could take a joke. Anyway, he’s still trying to save the world. But at least he wore a suit. So that’s something, I guess.”

Bryn paused, then added, “He’s just as charming as ever. Anyway, he said he’d be staying at Bob’s for a couple days, and if I saw you, would I tell you that.”

Bryn paused and studied Corrie’s face. “Are you going to call him?”

The waitress arrived with their drinks. Corrie waited until she had left, then took a sip of her wine, grateful for the pause it allowed.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Who else was there?”

 

Bryn returned home from lunch exhausted. She climbed the stairs to the third-floor apartment she shared with Paul, counting each step, amazed at how hard it was to make her foot reach each one. Usually she had infinite energy. Now she felt drained . . . and nauseated.

Her drowsiness faded as a wave of nausea swept over her. She bounded up the last four steps and fumbled with the key in the door. Running down the hall and into the bathroom, she promptly threw up her lunch.

“Shit,” she said out loud to no one.
“Shit.”

She sat down on the bathroom floor and held her head in her hands, moaning. “Why, God? Why me? Why not Corrie? She really
wants
a baby. Shit.”

After a few minutes she stood, steadying herself on the sink, and walked into the bedroom. She stepped out of her shoes and dropped onto the bed, not bothering to undress or pull back the covers. Her head was spinning.

What would she tell Paul? He didn’t want a baby. He’d never wanted a baby. He didn’t even want a wife.

Bryn had known for almost a week, but she hadn’t yet thought of a way to break the news to Paul.

At first she’d thought she wouldn’t tell him at all. Just get an abortion and be done with it. She’d even called a clinic in Chicago to make an appointment, an appointment that was now just eighteen days away.

He doesn’t need to know,
she said to herself.
It’ll just upset him. It’s not like he’d be any help anyway.

She rolled onto her back and stared at a crack in the ceiling, slowly put her hand on her stomach, and began rubbing it softly.

“Stop it,” she said out loud. She sat up on the side of the bed. From here she could see down the hall to the kitchen table, where the computer screen beckoned with a half-finished job. She started to rise, felt her head begin to throb and a new wave of nausea, sat down again, and flopped back on the bed.

Think about something else,
she commanded herself. She forced her mind back over the past few days, to the reunion, to Corrie and Daniel, to lunch. She wondered, for the hundredth time, what it was that Corrie saw in Daniel.
He’s such a self-absorbed jerk,
Bryn thought.
Nothing to recommend him
. He wasn’t well built or even good-looking, with that pale skin and red mop of hair. He was judgmental and had a caustic sense of humor. In college, he had challenged Corrie about everything—her clothes, her friends, her choice of major—always pushing her to justify her choices.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t a good idea.” Bryn could hear his voice now, after Corrie joined a gym. “I just want you to think about your choices. Because every ‘yes’ is a ‘no’ to something else.”

It was exhausting talking to Daniel. He was self-assured and pushy and just . . . exhausting.

Of course, Bryn had not been a huge fan of Mark’s in the beginning, either, and she’d given her friend hell when Corrie decided to marry him. Bryn thought Mark was a little too self-confident, too full of himself.

“I know he’s good-looking and rich,” she had laughed, “but other than that, what’s he got to recommend him?”

Over the years, however, she had come to appreciate that Mark was a good guy—boring maybe and definitely a workaholic, but basically a good guy. And he did love Corrie and was good to her. Bryn could forgive his blandness for that.

Bryn rolled onto her stomach again, trying to ignore the persistent nausea.
Why she even gives a damn about Daniel being in town is beyond me. For Christ’s sake, the guy left her ten years ago.

She closed her eyes, willing herself to focus on Corrie and Daniel, on anything but her stomach. Corrie was nervous at lunch, no doubt about that. Bryn knew her habits well, and when she started shredding paper, it was a sure sign.

Lunch.
Milk?
Bryn shook her head.
Why did I order milk?

The nausea was too much, and she ran to the bathroom to throw up again.