Triangles (43 page)

Holly

MUSINGS ON AN AUTUMN RUN

The sun has grown lazy in its climb, lounging late behind eastern hills, finally opening its drowsy solar eyes to merely blink at hazy whitecaps

afloat in pastel skies.

Breathe in. And run.

This breeze is warm for October,

beyond the border of equinox. Hints of autumn are everywhere—splashes

of sunflowers and spilling leaves.

Apples. Pumpkins. Chrysanthemums.

Breathe in. Breathe out. And run.

The quail have had a good year.

A montage of trident-shaped footprints reveals a covey, busily foraging.

They consider my approach, launch

late in noisy unison, a geyser

of silver feathers.

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Breathe in. Out. Run from. Run to.

Hoping, like the hesitant quail,

I can find my wings when I must.

Wondering when I’ll decide I must.

FOR NOW

I will stay with Jace.

I know it won’t be forever.

There is not even the slenderest

ray of love’s light left between us.

He asked for six months to try

to change my mind and I agreed.

But it wasn’t his plea that made

me decide to stay. It was logic.

I don’t have a job. Can’t pay

rent or buy food. Can’t take care

of my kids on my own. And one

of them is pregnant. Jace totally

freaked when he found out,

mostly because everyone knew

except him. He’s trying to convince Mikki to consider adoption.

I don’t think that will happen,

not after my mother’s words

of wisdom. Personally, I question

Sarah’s sincerity. Easy enough to say you regret something when that

something is standing in front

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of you. I’m glad I met her, but any real bond will take time to build.

SPEAKING OF TIME

I have formed an eight-month game

plan. That will take me to the first week of June. The kids will be out of school.

Mikayla will have had the baby. It will be easier for me to make a major move.

The most critical element is stashing money.

Jace doesn’t know it, but I have sold a couple of trashy novellas, plus
Essential
Oils.
Straight to ebooks, fifty percent royalty rate. People are buying them, and the company is hungry for more. Hopefully, I’ll soon have a decent income on the horizon.

I’m writing every chance I get, everything on my computer and password-protected.

Live and learn. I did tell Andrea about selling them. Her reaction was totally weird.

Is that
really
how you want to make
a living?
She was pissed.
What about
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your kids? What about Jace? How do
they feel about it? Or don’t they know?

When I told her that they, in fact, don’t know, and I absolutely do not want them to find out, she acted

completely put out, then had the nerve to ask,
How much of those stories
is true?
It was almost as if she’d read them. But I never showed them to her or ever confessed anything she didn’t see with her own two eyes. “Not much,” I lied.

And then I turned the tables. “So, who was that guy you were in bed with when I called you that day? New boyfriend?” She turned fifteen deepening shades of red. Hemmed and hawed and finally sputtered,
Just an old friend. Sympathy
sex. And it was only a couple of times.

We left it there, scratching in silence.

Something has worked its way between 858/881

Andrea and me, but I’m not sure exactly what, or if it will work its way out again.

I HOPE IT DOES

Friendship is a bad thing to lose,

especially in the shadow of a failing marriage. It’s good to have someone to talk to. Someone you can trust

to throw you a life preserver when

the breakwater finally fails. Who

knows? Maybe one day Tia and

I can be real sisters. Our first meeting left me doubtful. She seemed to think I want something from our mother.

I hope I made it clear that I am not out for whatever meager inheritance there might be. Sarah’s not exactly living large. Come to think of it, I hope she’s not looking for handouts from me.

Hard to trust strangers. Hey, it’s hard to trust people you know and love,

especially when you can’t trust yourself.

For now, I’ll still see Bryan when I can.

Maybe the kinky side of me will trump sticking it out with his boring wife.

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Yeah, I’m a dreamer. And if that

particular dream doesn’t work out,

I guess I’ll just have to dream bigger.

DREAM BIGGER

You think. Stop letting

small-minded people

dictate your future

when all

they really want is for

you to accomplish

the work of two, for minimum

wage. Reach higher, or

else

plan for retirement

in a cardboard box, praying

global warming is more

than a catchphrase.

And if that

fails

to be the case,

hope freezing to death

is really as simple

as falling asleep,

to the lullaby of teeth chatter.

Dream bigger

before you can’t remember

how to dream at all.

Marissa

I DON’T DARE DREAM

And the funny thing is,

my subconscious apparently

knows that. I haven’t dreamed,

at least not dreams I can

remember, in the month since

Shelby found her wings. I can’t

bear to use terms like “passed”

or “went to sleep forever” or—

the worst—“died.” Funny, but those

hard-core Christians want faith

to be the key to the kingdom. What

if death is, in fact, the key to faith?

If there is a God, would he care

which way it went, if it meant

finding him in the long run?

I haven’t exactly found him,

but I’m willing to open myself

to the possibility. And Christian

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has accepted him again. Which

means not a whole lot to me,

except for the hope in his eyes.

BECAUSE, WITHOUT HOPE

What are we, but on a fast

track to despair? Okay, a cynic—or

maybe someone smarter than me—

might see this as naivety.

But you know, I’ve lived

naïve. Lived informed. Lived

bombarded by more than most

ordinary people will ever

experience in the entire

span of their lives. I’m only half-

way to my own final parting.

Maybe not even that, if

I’m lucky. I kind of figure

I’ve used up my share of bad luck.

It’s past time to immerse myself

in living again, and by that,

I mean taking chances.

Risking a little to gain a lot, fully aware that the word “promise”

defies definition. Outcomes

cannot be predicted.

There are too many variables.

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Sometimes you have to close your

eyes to forecast the weather.

ONE THING I CAN’T PREDICT

Is what will happen with Christian

and me. We are in counseling, and

through the discussion, some things have come floating to the surface.

Truths not easy to hear or to process.

Our therapist asks hard questions,

does not accept cliché answers. Those, Vera says, are like placebos for cancer.

Vera:
How was your marriage before
Marissa got pregnant with Shelby?

Me: “It was good. Solid. We had Shane.

We had friends. We did things together.” Christian:
Marissa, you practically forgot
I was there after Shane came along.

You were a great mom, but I was so happy
when he started school because I thought
then you could spend a little attention
on me. But then you wanted a girl and
directed all your energy there. We had
friends, yes, and when they came over,
that’s all you talked about. Shane—

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his grades, his school plays, the funny
things he said. And trying to get pregnant.

And then you got pregnant, and it was
all about that. Hoping you wouldn’t
lose her. How you painted the nursery.

You never had any idea about the new
technologies I was developing. Me.

At work, they were calling me a genius.

But talking about ITV bored you to tears,
so I quit asking you to listen. Skye listened.

And she made me feel like a fucking genius.

Me: “So, it was
my fault you had an affair—

one that lasted five years and, oh yeah, included falling for a woman who you happened to be around a whole lot more than me because you spent all your time at work?” But with a thud, what he said sunk in. “You’re right. When you finally came home, I didn’t want to talk about ITV.

Did it ever occur to you that, even pre-Skye, I was jealous of your work?”

Slipping toward cliché. Vera braked us.
So why did you choose to stay?

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Me: “Shelby.”

Christian:
Shelby.

She wasn’t what pushed him away.

She was what brought him home.

HOME IS DIFFERENT NOW

The main thing is the smell—furniture polish and tile cleaner and the vanilla of candles. No more medicine. Alcohol.

Residual diaper odor. At first, I was angry that Shelby’s room had been stripped of her. When we got home from the wake and found every trace of her gone,

I started screaming. I was like a teakettle, emotion trapped inside and left to boil until nothing could hold back the steam.

No one tried to stop me, and when I was all screamed out, I understood my baby was gone. Her room is empty for now.

No furniture on top of the plush new carpeting. Nothing hanging on the fresh paint. Mauve. A muted Barney tribute.

The painters discovered two boxes

in the closet and brought them to me.

Inside were Shelby’s clothes and toys, not that she had many of either. Those she did have were well loved, especially a stuffed purple dinosaur. I kept that, 870/881

took the rest to the Salvation Army.

One keepsake to soothe the haunting.

HAUNTING

Did you ever take flight,

hushed

beneath a shower of moonlight,

clothed only in cool velvet

darkness,

running,

absorbing the black like a lover,

in and out and in again?

And did you collapse

into the lap of the earth,

soft

in skirts of summer

grass,

rustling

as you pressed into her

and asked for answers?

Could you hear her reply,

or did you think her whisper

merely

a sigh or a heave of September wind, chuffing,

and did you later understand, beg

her to tell you again? Did she comfort you with a mist of jasmine and a subtle shift on her axis, offering a glimpse of eternity,

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haunting,

a solar ghost condemned to night

much darker than your own?

Andrea

CONDEMNED

To a life without men. Maybe that

really is my fate. I don’t know. One thing I’m sure of, though, is I can’t see Jace anymore. I told him at the wake.

Holly didn’t come, but he did, and

when everyone was busy drinking

and eating, we ducked outside. I got straight to the point. “You’re still in love with Holly.” It wasn’t a question.