Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon (17 page)

“I think if we find out you’re not, you’ll stop thinking about crashing space monkeys and get back to being pissed at me about Celeste. If you are, we’ll at least know the space monkeys thing is temporary, no matter what we decide to do.”

“I don’t like either option if I am. I’m still going to be pissed about Celeste. Maybe more pissed.”

“I know.”

“I think Meggie should stay at school today,” I said.

“Good thinking,” he said. “A space monkey in a leather helmet?”

“He was Russian, mid-60s. Am I crazy?”

“Not completely. You left out the piece of Hiroshima. So test kit? I understand how you feel, but I need to know if we have a decision to make.”

“Should we ask someone?”

“Who? Unless they’re going to raise our kids, their opinion isn’t useful information.”

I called Kaia and apologized for being a flake. Then I called Karin.

“I might be pregnant,” I said. “Can you talk?”

“Yeah, they’re lining up a shot. Did you do a test?”

“No, but I’m talking crazy.”

“Did you tell Jon, no?”

“Obviously not,” I said.

“I meant about Celeste working for him. That could be making you crazy.”

“I didn’t need to. He decided on his own.”

“You two are something. Even Oscar and I didn’t get back to it that soon, and we were young.”

“Yeah, well. The whole fixing thing might have gotten us a little too focused.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We don’t know.”

“I was being facetious. There’s a question?” she asked.

“Of course there’s a question. Wouldn’t you have a question?”

“Not for a nanosecond,” she said.

“Oscar loves babies.”

“How nice for Oscar. I’ve never seen him in labor. What’s Jon think?”

“I don’t know. We’re going to talk tonight.”

“Huh. How strange is that? He gets fixed and you get pregnant? Is it his?”

“Very funny.”

“You visited the truck stop.”

“And Stroud was in Fresno. Even if he wasn’t, what a way to talk.”

She was laughing.

“This is serious,” I said.

“I’d say so. You’ve got the ex skulking around and Jon could be a grandpa any day now. So how crazy?”

I gave her the rundown on the space monkey scenario.

“He still had electrodes taped to his head,” I said.

“You do know it would burn up entering the atmosphere, right?”

“Not always. Some things make it through. Something about speed and friction. I googled it.”

“Well, if you have a baby you should name it
Chimp
.”

“There’s more,” I said.

I told her about Celeste’s theory that she was stepmother to Margaret, Chance and Chimp.

“He better call her,” she said. “Next thing you know she’ll want to move in. I’d be talking crazy too. Actually, no. I’d kill Oscar.”

“I can’t kill Jon. I’m a terrible liar. I’d end up in jail. And I can’t divorce him. As you pointed out, some witch will swoop in and feed the kids McDonalds. I’m stuck.”

“Until he gets you unstuck. I gotta run. The actress just stormed off the set. We’re moving to a new set up.”

I went back to rocking in my nightgown. Mom, Anna, and Penny called. I ignored them. 
Chana called.

“I’ve been meaning to call you,” I said.

“Dad there?”

“No, at work. He’s on his cell. He said you’re not speaking to him.”

“He’s right.”

“How’s Adam?”

“He’s fine. We’re driving up to Big Sur this weekend, I’ve never been.”

“That’s a beautiful drive. You should stop at Esalen. I was there once. They have nude hot tubs on the cliffs. It’s throwback 60s. Be careful. A few sections of the road slid last year. Be sure to fill the tank, there’re hardly any gas stations. What time are you going? The sun could be a problem late in the day.”

“We’ll be fine. How are you?”

“Fine. Meggie is at school today, it’s quiet around here.”

“I meant about Mom and her stepmother theory. Or didn’t he tell you that either.”

“He told me. He thinks she’s just trying to make you feel less secure or something.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me. My grandmother gave her the idea. She has never understood Mom letting Dad take me. She thinks they should have raised me if she wouldn’t. This way Mom has more kids.”

“But you had a father who wanted to raise you.”

“That’s just how they think. Children belong to the mother.”

“Except in my case, apparently. Your father did a great job.”

“Yeah, she gave me that. She still says she’s going to move back there and run the restaurant.”

“She’s not. Phil is training someone for the job.”

“When’s he going to tell her?”

“I don’t know. We’ve been dealing with some other stuff.”

“Anything I should know besides sliding roads?”           

“Well, you’ll see. That road really drops off. I get woozy every time I drive it. I don’t think it ends until the bottom of the earth. You need to be careful. Which car are you taking?”

“The Subaru. We’ll be fine.”

We fell quiet.

“Where’s the bottom of the earth?” she asked.

“Isn’t it the South Pole?”

“I don’t want you two to get a divorce,” she said. “I don’t want to lose our family.”

“We won’t. Even if we did, you’ll still have a brother and sister and you’re marrying my nephew.”

“That doesn’t mean I’d see you. You’ll probably marry a famous director and move to Italy. It feels like Adam and I are causing problems.”

“You’re not. If your mother is serious about her stepmother stuff, it doesn’t matter who you marry.”

“She’s always been like this. Dad has never admitted it. He’s always accommodated her. I can’t believe Glen lasted as long as he did.”

“Your dad didn’t want to say anything bad about her. He didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know, but sometimes it would have helped to have him at least acknowledge what I was going through with her. He always just listened. Mr. Cool Understanding. Everyone thought it was all Glen.”

“I don’t know what to say, CC. I don’t know what the best thing is. He tends to let the people around him come to their own conclusions.”

“I’m his daughter.”

“And now you’re a grown woman with her eyes open. If he’d talked trash about her, you might never have seen her clearly.”

“He’s the one who doesn’t see her clearly. He needs to call and get it over with.”

“Why don’t you call him? Tell him that. He misses talking to you.”

“He won’t listen to me.”

“I think he might today.”

Chance peed at the sky, and it turned into a rain shower for him. He squawked and closed his eyes as his slapstick routine played out. Like the rest of us, he had no idea he was doing it to himself.

“I need to go. Chance is raining on his own sunny day. Call your dad. He’s lonesome for you. He could use a friend right now.”

Talking to Chana was like a get-over-yourself slap in the face. Our family was bogging down under my bullshit. There’d be no toothbrushes in the toilet on my watch. I did a speed pick up around the house, started laundry, got showered and into grown up clothes, then started dinner while Chance played in the sink. I baked Jon’s favorite gingerbread with lime glaze. That was going a little overboard; I’d never been accused of running on regular.

Jon came home to a woman holding up her end of things. He had a bag from the drugstore.

“I made enchiladas,” I said. “Why don’t you go for a paddle or take a nap, you look tired.”

If I’d been wearing my pearls he would have called for an exorcism to drive out the scary 1950s woman standing in his kitchen. Not a role I was cut out for.

“Where’s Hannah?” he asked.

“She left, she was dragging everyone down.”

“Chana called,” he said. “I got my ass kicked, but it was good to talk to her. They’re happy.”

“I know. Big Sur. Go. Tell me later.”

He paddled, and then lay down for just a minute on his way to the shower. He didn’t wake up until after the kids were fed and off to Kaia’s. I got through emails and five hundred baby names before he came out yawning and rubbing his head.

He ate enchiladas and filled me in on his afternoon ass kicking. He was surprised to hear that Chana and Glen talked. Glen thought hiring Celeste was a bad business decision. Getting business advice from Glen, via his daughter, did not sit well.

It also turned out that Glen wasn’t shacked up with a 20-year-old like Celeste had said. She was 30, and a hotshot web designer out of Art Center. They’d met in the bar he opened in Ventura, where she was celebrating with a group of friends after landing a huge project. She could work from anywhere, so they planned to live in Baja most of the year. They were getting married when the divorce was final. Chana and Adam were going down for the wedding.

My heart went out to Jon. He was processing a lot more daughter sharing and other twists and turns than he was expecting when he woke up in the morning smiling about getting kicked awake for sex. We still hadn’t talked about our new wrinkle.

“What did Celeste say when you told her?”

“I haven’t called her. I don’t want to talk to her right now, she’ll just go off about Glen.”

“Do you think you’ll ever call her?” I asked.

“I’ll call her, Hannah. Christ.”

“Chana says she’s always been difficult. That you don’t see it.”

“Chana’s a kid,” he said.

“She’s grown up enough to get married.”

“We should deal with our situation while we have time alone,” he said.

“Which situation? The one where you’re still taking care of an ex-wife who wants my children? Or who we’ll get in to help out for a few days after the abortion?”

“So you’ve made a unilateral decision?”

“Are you serious? You made it,” I said. “I’m going to get the kids.”

Jon sat on the lanai simmering, while I got the kids down. I stuck my head out the screen door.

“I’m going to the library,” I said.

He looked at his phone.           

“It’s been closed for an hour.”

“Then I’m going to Walmart.”

“It’s an hour away. I’ll go. What do we need?”

“Not we. I need not to be here now.”

I put on flip-flops, grabbed my keys and got in the car. Jon came out and leaned in the window.

“I want you to stay home,” he said.

“I wanted you to divorce Celeste. Sometimes we don’t get what we want. I can’t stand it here. I can hardly breathe.”

“Then I’ll leave.”

“I’m leaving, Jon. They close at midnight.”

“You’re going to shop until midnight? The bars will be letting loose the first wave.”

“You always work late. I had a whole adult life before you came along.”

“I’m not questioning your adulthood. That road is dangerous. I don’t like you out alone and upset.”

“I’ve spent half my life alone and upset.”

“Come on, Hannah. That’s bullshit. You have a house full of people here who love you.”

He reached in to take the keys out of the ignition but I grabbed his wrist while I rolled up the window on his arm until he had to take it out to save himself from a trip to the ER. I hit the door lock just as he went for the handle. I started the car and rolled forward while he walked along beside it. He wasn’t stupid, he didn’t stand in front of the car. His mouth was moving, probably saying, “Go to hell you crazy bitch.” Though he’d never said anything even remotely rude to me. I opened the window a crack to tell him that I’d be back by 1:00.

“I want the baby,” he said.

“He’s all yours,” I said.

He gave me his scare-Marty look, turned, and disappeared into the house.

The trip took an hour of crappy night driving. My rods and cones were doing somersaults trying to make sense of blasting headlights and blackness. I’d driven the road for years, but it was disorienting at night. I was sweaty and exhausted by the time the store appeared like a mirage. I’d never been inside.

The lot was half full. It reminded me of an Indian casino on an empty desert road; full of people like me, roaming late, trying to escape their lives. That was a seriously depressing thought. I belonged at home, but I was there, after making a big deal about being a grown up.

The fluorescent lighting was oddly flat and dim without a whisper of flicker. Even squinting didn’t bring the visual clutter into contrast. It looked like everything was pink, a color that makes us passive until it makes us mad. Passive must last long enough for people to wander the aisles and buy crap they didn’t know they needed, but not so long that we read about mass murders at Walmart.

Shoppers were slumped over carts that they pushed like walkers. They looked tired and defeated after a long day of washing dishes and changing sheets at the resorts.

I joined the slipstream of sticky handled carts trolling the aisles, and threw in random stuff that seemed like a good idea in some tiny place in my life. A fresh mascara and lip gloss. I rarely wore make up, but I might date again soon. Jon called. I ignored it. I threw in a three-pack of thong underwear. Jon called them butt-crack creepy. They were from Pakistan. I didn’t have a big picture of Pakistani women in thongs, but what did I know?

I grabbed five strips of tattoo decals of suns and whales for Meggie. Meggie. She loved her tattoo and whales. I wondered if the ink really was safe for children. The printing on the package looked like it was from the 18th century and half the words were spelled wrong. I bought her pink flip-flops with jewels on the straps. A thin gold strip on the treaded bottom said, “Made in China.” The strip had some major stick to survive the trip from China on that sole.

It went on like that. Enough toilet paper for a year that we had no place to store. Disposable diapers, I could try those. I looked at nursing kits. I should wean Chance to a bottle; it would free me up for work. He wouldn’t like it; he was having too much fun slobbering around with my breasts. I needed to research formulas.

Why had Jon said that? It’s not like I was driving off to have an abortion. He knew I wouldn’t do it unless he agreed. That was one thing he knew for sure about me. If he wanted the baby, we would have the baby. He was trapping me in my stupid brand of honor, and he didn’t care.