“I’m fine,” I said, bringing Eli to the table and watching his face wrinkle up when I gave him his bowl of noodles and carrots and brought his plastic spoon to his lips. I felt Dave’s eyes on me. “I think next year will be even better,” I said, as Eli took a bite.
* * *
—
I stood in the kitchen washing dishes. Dave and Elaine were black shapes in the glass patio door, outlined against the purplish shrubs. Eli, Brody, and Tanner darted through the grass at their feet. I set a pot in the drying rack and shut off the water.
“His back is getting so bad.” Dave’s voice spilled through the crack in the door. “He sleeps in that old La-Z-Boy. He says it’s the only thing that doesn’t hurt him.”
“He should get a million dollars for what they did to him,” Elaine murmured back. They were talking about Dave’s father, I realized.
Eli began to cry in the grass. I watched as Dave made to stand and Elaine waved him back into his seat. She picked Eli up, their shapes merging, and stroked his hair. “Almost bedtime,” she said, or I thought she said, over his screams.
“No, he’s teething.” Dave pushed the patio door farther open with a finger. “Leslie?” he called. “Do you know where Eli’s gummy key ring is?”
“He didn’t want it today,” I said, startled at being included. “In the car. He threw it away.”
“It’s still in the car?” Dave asked. “Can you go get it?”
“He won’t want it,” I said.
“You’re a very important man with a lot of responsibility,” Dave was already saying to Eli in Elaine’s arms. “You have to keep better track of your keys. You can’t keep locking them in the car.” Eli whimpered.
“We should go, anyway,” Elaine said, noticing I hadn’t moved. “You can walk me out and grab the gummy while you’re there. Tanner, time to pack it up,” she called, as Tanner abandoned his attempt to climb the stone fencing.
Elaine induced Tanner to hug me before he left, Brody too shy to join, and Dave showed them to the front door, leaving it open as he went into the driveway still holding Eli. “Thank you, Leslie!” Tanner called into the echoing foyer, and then they were gone. I was still standing in front of the glass patio door when a shape walked up and knocked on it.
Mary grinned at me when I let her in. She was sweaty and her makeup was smeared a little underneath her bottom lashes, but it only made her look intentionally disheveled, her tangled hair backlit by the porch light in the dim hallway. There was something shocking about each new time I saw her. I kept forgetting what she looked like.
“Where the fuck have you been?” I whispered as Eli’s wails filled the house and Dave shut the front door behind him.
She gave me a puzzled look. “Sounds like someone’s a little cranky.”
I couldn’t tell whether she meant me or the baby. “I came home and you weren’t here.”
“I got caught up.”
“In what?”
“I just met some people and hung out. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to leave the house.”
“What people?” I could feel my ears getting hot.
Mary’s eyebrows drew together. “Where were you all day?” she countered. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Stop fucking around.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to stay here tomorrow. It’s just one day. Then you can go wherever you want.” I turned and headed for the kitchen. Mary followed me, and I stopped. “Go upstairs,” I said.
“It smells good in here,” she said. “Did you guys eat already? Can I have some?”
“You were right, he hates the gummy key ring,” Dave said, reentering the kitchen with Eli on his hip. “I don’t know what’s up with that. He loved it yesterday. Robin, hi, I hope you didn’t plan on sleeping tonight.”
“I don’t sleep,” Mary said. “I just kind of hang upside down by my feet.” She gave me a wide smile. “You guys look tired. Want me to hold him for a while?”
“How did you know?” Dave said, handing Eli over as I opened my mouth to protest. He quieted immediately. “Did you see that?” Dave asked me, twisting around. Then to Mary: “What the hell are you?”
Mary shrugged. “Babies love me.”
“Don’t put your finger in his mouth,” I said as Mary let Eli chew on her knuckle.
“Leslie, babies need exposure to all kinds of germs and stuff. That’s how they build up their little immune systems,” Mary told me, wiggling her finger.
“Well, let’s not stop there,” Dave said, catching my expression. “Let’s go roll him in the mud right now. We’ll bring his blanket outside and he can sleep out there, snack on some worms if he gets hungry in the middle of the night.”
Eli stared into Mary’s eyes. He had a small confused expression on his face. “Did you torment your daddy all day?” she asked him in a baby voice. “Did you scream right in his ear? I bet you did. You’re the worst.”
Eli laughed.
My throat went dry. I watched as she disappeared around the corner with him, asking him if he wanted to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “Leslie, can you bring me, like, a bowl of whatever that was?” Mary called from the other room. “I can’t move with him on my lap, but I’m starving.”
“I’m glad your sister’s home,” Dave said, coming to put his arms around me.
“I know,” I said, thinking of the body on the bed.
I waited until he went into the other room to bring Mary her dinner, and then I sat down at the kitchen table alone. There was a notification on my phone. I’d been tagged in a photo. Elaine had been right. The light suited me.
28
Mary
That night I waited until Dave and Leslie’s bedroom went dark. Then I lugged the Floreses’ phone book upstairs to the guest room, called a taxi, and slipped out the back door into the sleeping neighborhood.
The real-grass back lawn was summer-warm during the day, but cooled to numbing after midnight. I wanted to take my shoes off again, drag my feet through it, but instead I just squatted to touch it. It was like a dozen buzz cuts against my palms.
I went around the house and sat on the curb under a streetlight, waiting for the cab. The houses all had their lights off except one, farther down the block. A husband and wife drifted across the lighted upstairs window, getting ready for bed. They looked fuzzy, tricolor, like old television.