She Poured Out Her Heart (9 page)

“It's a woodland theme. It goes along with the deer.”

“I liked the deer. But why do you have to have a Christmas tree with a dead bird on it?”

“It's not real, it's papier-mâché. You just got here, try not to criticize.” Claudia ran water in the sink and shut it off with a snap.

“I'm just saying. For once, couldn't you have candy canes and snowmen? A corny, all-American Christmas? Would that kill anybody?” They used to have such things. Her earliest memories, pre-Stan.

“When you have your own household, you can decorate whatever way you want to.”

“Shot through the heart,” Bonnie said, clasping her chest and staggering back in mock affliction. “Spinster daughter put in her place.”

“Don't be silly, nobody says that anymore, ‘spinster.' And please tell me you're looking for a new job. I can't stand thinking of you in the middle of all those crazy drug users.”

“I'm not in the middle of them. The cops are. I only see them if they get arrested and there's an intake process.” This was not entirely true. There were times she put on a vest and aided an officer at the scene, although they were always careful to keep her out of harm's way. She thought about Denny, who, whatever else was wrong or inconvenient about him, was the very model of To Serve and Protect, right down to
being Irish, and she felt a little wayward pulse of horniness. “I just got here, try not to criticize.”

“I'm not criticizing, I'm worried. Every horrible news story I hear from Chicago, I wonder if you're involved. Now don't go mocking me, you know what I mean. I just want you to be more—settled. Happy.” Her mother turned as if to give Bonnie another hug, but the flame under a skillet flared up and demanded her attention.

Meaning, Bonnie supposed, that she should find a megalomaniac man of her own and devote herself to his care and feeding. But Claudia was content, to all appearances, with being a handmaiden to the artist. Here was her kitchen kingdom, with its collection of gourmet salts, its espresso machine and Le Creuset pans and the glass fronted china cabinets with the Craftsman details. What did Bonnie have to show for herself? A collection of matchbooks from cop bars.

“Mom, I'm fine. My job is fine. I'm glad I'm here.” Three lies in a row. “I'm sorry I started in about the tree. It's actually pretty funny. I'm going to go see Haley, meet the chillun, OK? Call me if you need any help.”

As Bonnie headed downstairs she heard her mother say something about “pretty funny,” but she didn't wait to hear the rest of it.

One of the babies was screaming bloody murder, and a moment later the other one started up in solidarity. “Now, now, Aunt Bonnie's here,” she announced. The screaming redoubled.

There was another fireplace in the family room. Scott, Haley's husband, was trying to get a small, sulky fire to burn. “Hey Scott. Merry Christmas.”

“This chimney won't draw.”

“HalfHaley! Merry Christmas.”

“I wish you would not call me that.” Haley was sitting on the couch, a baby on each side of her. Their faces were red with screaming. Their legs and arms flailed in infant fury.

“Sorry. So these are the kiddos? Very robust. What's the matter with them?”

“I ate some chili that turned out to be too spicy and now they both have gas.”

“Oh dear,” Bonnie said, bending over the sofa to get a better look. She was not one of those people who naturally took to babies. She preferred children who were somewhat older and more articulate. “This must be . . .”

“Leah. That one's Benjamin.” The babies wore identical striped onesies and striped knit hats. Their tiny faces were clenched like fists. They were three months old. Haley looked unhappy, overtired, and still saggy from baby weight. Actually, all four of them looked unhappy. Even Scott, who had a naturally furtive expression that made it hard to tell.

“They're amazing,” Bonnie said, wondering if that expressed sufficient admiration. But no one was paying her that much attention.

“We should have stayed home,” Haley said. They'd driven in from Colorado. “It's too much hassle. But Mom and Dad insisted.”

“Well, you know, first Christmas, first grandkids.” Bonnie had to raise her voice to be heard above a particularly penetrating bout of screaming. Although this was only a first for Claudia. There were already some StanGrands. “When did you get here?”

“Lunchtime. It was Mom's chili. So we didn't exactly get off to a good start.”

“Your dad kept calling Leah ‘Layla,'” Scott put in. “And Benjamin, he was ‘Boris.'”

“Get used to that,” Bonnie told him. “He means it affectionately.” Mostly.

“Mom never nursed any of her kids, did you know that? So of course she wasn't thinking. Scott had to go out and find formula. Plus I'm leaking all over.”

“That's . . .” Bonnie was at a loss. Too much information, but she couldn't say that.

Haley didn't notice; she was still recounting grievances. “Not to mention they make a total mockery of anything religious.” Six years younger
than Bonnie, Haley had dropped out of college to live in a Christian commune. “Hippies at prayer,” Stan called them. Scott worked as a carpenter. Most of the commune's men seemed to be carpenters.

“I wouldn't say mockery. More like, disregard,” Bonnie said, trying to put the best face on it. None of them had been raised with any sort of religion, unless you counted Stan as the high priest of Art.

“You think? Remember the party where they had the chorus line of nuns?”

“They weren't real nuns,” Bonnie said. Going all Christian was probably an irresistible way for the child of a rebel to rebel, though Bonnie congratulated herself on finding more interesting paths. At least her sister's commune wasn't the kind where the women had to deck themselves out in ruffled prairie dresses. Both Scott and Haley wore a lot of flannel shirts. It was hard to see anything overtly pious about either of them, only a certain morose seriousness.

“Whatever. Our kids are going to be raised differently.” Bonnie was sure of that. She envisioned the home-school lessons, the joyless indoctrinations. “Scott,” Haley complained, “all you're doing is making a lot of smoke.”

The babies were still going off like alarms. Smoke alarms? “Can I do anything?” Bonnie asked. “Tell them bedtime stories?”

“Here, walk Benjamin. Sometimes that calms him down.”

Haley handed over one of the squalling bundles and Bonnie draped it over her shoulder.

“Wait a minute,” Haley said. “Burp cloth.”

Bonnie jiggled and patted at the baby. “Hey little man.” He was having none of it. His sister's wails were diminishing, but he was one of those kids who was going to cry himself into complete exhaustion. “Go for it,” Bonnie murmured. What were you supposed to do if they screamed themselves insensible and stopped breathing? She paced up and down in front of the full length glass windows. It was a walk-out basement and
there was a steep, snow-covered slope just beyond the glass, leading down to the woods. It looked delicious out there, dark and crisp and blue-cold. She put her forehead to the sliding glass door, just to feel the coolness.

“I give up,” Scott said, turning his back on the fireplace. “The wood's wet or something. I wouldn't bother except it's too cold down here for the babies. They could get pneumonia.”

“Not to mention we have to sleep on this sucky fold-out couch,” Haley added. “Mom and Dad seem to think we live in a barn, well, we don't. We have our own cabin with kerosene heat and a composting toilet.”

“Trade,” Bonnie said, shifting the baby to her other shoulder. “Take your old room back, I'll stay in the basement.”

“They won't like it,” Haley said. “We're down here so nobody has to listen to us.”

“They don't have to like it. It's a health and well-being issue. Child welfare.” She was taken with the idea of having the basement all to herself. She'd get the fire to burn, sneak up to the kitchen and raid the refrigerator. Not to mention she'd have her own bathroom. “Is there a crib? Can I help you move stuff?”

“We didn't set up the crib yet,” Scott said, looking hopeful at the notion of sleeping elsewhere. “I guess it's still in the garage.”

“You don't mind the fold-out?”

“Think of it as my Christmas present.”

“Well . . .”

“Why don't you guys take the babies,” Bonnie said. “I'll get your suitcases together. Don't worry, you've got them outnumbered, four to two.”

She stayed downstairs and gathered up infant paraphernalia, keeping an ear out for sounds of negotiations and protest overhead. The babies' noise masked most of it. The crying had a heartbroken quality now, as if they had realized there was no easy way out of their small, hurting bodies.

After a while, hearing nothing, she grabbed a quilted bag with
BABY
spelled out in patchwork letters on the side, full of diapers and tiny garments, and ventured upstairs. The kitchen was empty. The broth for
Claudia's fish stew simmered, and the counter held small saucers of chopped mushrooms, parsley, strips of red and green pepper. It looked like one of Grandma Somebody's recipes. (There was also a Grandma Somebody Else, but she did not cook.) Some new commotion was going on in the main room. There was a back passage and a half flight of stairs you could take to the bedrooms, and she chose this route, wanting to lay low for a time. She guessed she felt a little guilty for disrupting Claudia's arrangements. At least the babies had stopped crying. Maybe they really did want to be upstairs.

Ahead of her in the hallway, someone was running water behind a bathroom door. Bonnie hurried to get past it, but the door opened and she nearly collided with a man coming out.

“Jesus!”

“Bonnie?”

She staggered back against the wall. “What are you doing here?” She was afraid she might faint, actually up and faint.

“I came with Charlie,” the man said. “And Diane,” he added, after a moment.

“Sure.” Bonnie nodded. Nodding made her head feel tilted. Waves of vicious heat dizzied her. “Jesus, Will,” she said again, attempting to sound lighthearted, humorous.

“Charlie didn't think you were coming.”

“Got that wrong.”

“We're only staying the one night.” He had backed himself into the bathroom in an attempt not to crowd her. “So, wow, did you . . .” He pointed at the
BABY
bag.

“Yeah, don't worry, it's not yours.” He looked stricken. “God no, that's a joke. It's my sister's. She has twins.”

“Twins. Amazing.”

“I guess Charlie didn't mention it. “

“I guess not.”

“He isn't, you know, a reliable source of information.”

“Yeah.” It was as if they were locked into a death spiral of stupid conversation. “Look, I gotta . . .”

“Yeah, see you later, I guess.”

They nodded, grimaced, and hurried off in opposite directions.

Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus oh shit.

Bonnie got herself down the hallway to Haley's room, mercifully empty. She dumped the
BABY
bag, closed the door, and stood on the other side of it, waiting to see what she would do next. Because you had to do something. You couldn't just stop, freeze frame, end of story. Or you could, but only if you managed to fall down dead on the spot.

At one time she had thought he was the goddamned love of her goddamned stupid fucked-up life.

Had he been? Was he still? Did that ever change? Should you want it to, since no further good was ever going to come of it? You ought to be able to put things behind you and move on, sadder but wiser, etc. Especially since the alternative was all this pointless mooning around and self-dramatizing and tearing of hair and rending of garments and being entirely shallow and witless and worthless.

Her stomach heaved. She grabbed one of the diapers from the bag and threw up into it.

Once she was finished, she listened again at the door and, hearing nothing, made her way back to the bathroom. She rinsed the diaper in the toilet, threw up a little more from the sick-making smell of it, and hid the mess away in the bottom of the wastebasket. She ran cold water in the sink, cleared her mouth, and wrung out a washcloth to blot her face. At least she looked the part of the haggard, cast-off lover. All she needed was a ragged shawl.

But nobody else knew that was what she was. Or what he was to her. They'd kept it a secret from everyone, especially the pretty, pretty girl he wound up engaged to this summer. Was no doubt still engaged to. Unless they'd gone ahead and gotten married. She thought she would have heard, but maybe not.

Because he might have been the love of her life, but she was obviously not the love of his.

She heard laughter, a great rolling wave of it, from the main room. She smoothed her hair, used the mouthwash she found in the medicine cabinet, and willed her face in the mirror into its usual wry, skeptical expression. In the kitchen she poured white wine into a water glass, enough to keep her going a long time. Then she walked out to join the party.