We're in Trouble (12 page)

I don't want her to think it's
that
kind of ring, Danny told her. But I don't want to pretend like it doesn't mean
anything.

Have you talked about getting married before? Brynn asked.

No.

It's been almost a year, Brynn said, her voice sliding, insinuating. Even though he knew she didn't care for Kim that much. Kim and Brynn were both way too friendly around each other; Danny knew women, he guessed, well enough to understand what that meant. And Brynn had a way of asking questions—So what does Kim
do
? What kinds of plans does she have?—that seemed designed to produce shitty answers.

And anyway, he told her, I don't want to be married. I don't think Kim does either.

Oh, Danny, Brynn said. And that was how she was different from Tom: every now and then, she could make him feel bad for being someone she wasn't.

He bristled. So that means something's wrong with me?

No, of course not, Brynn said, but she looked at him with a kind of sorrow anyway. Danny—you know Tom and I love you. I just want someone to love you like he and I love each other.

You think I can't have that without a wife?

Brynn was already retreating a little, in her eyes, looking away from him and down at the schedule. No, she said You're right.

Come on, he said. Say it.

Well, she said, I just think it means something—something important—to make a commitment to someone else. She looked at him. I never used to want to be married—did you know that?

Huh-uh.

I didn't, she said. I was too independent. But I wanted
someone
—I didn't want to be alone. And then I met Tom, and I fell in love, and then everything was different. I couldn't seem to make enough promises to him. She smiled. Like all of a sudden I wanted a child.
With
Tom.

I can't help but notice, Danny said, that we're talking about kids. Again.

I think it's all connected, Brynn said. I wanted a baby because of Tom. Sometimes I think having Colin was just a way of saying to him: This part of me will always be around. You know? This is the future, and it matters. She glanced at Danny. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Brynn looked at the ring in his hand. Does Kim make you feel like
that
?

Danny couldn't tell if this was one of Brynn's I-see-something-you-don't-see questions. But it didn't feel that way. Danny put the ring in his pocket. I love her, he said.

Brynn smiled. Like they'd been arguing, and she'd won.

She said, So maybe give her the ring and see what
she
wants it to be?

That was a better plan than any Danny had come up with,
no matter what Brynn tried to read into it. So later that night, when he was off work, he went to Kim's apartment. Kim was in a foul mood that night—at the time she worked as a receptionist for an accounting firm, and had just changed bosses, and the new guy was a prick. Danny made her spaghetti while she leaned against the refrigerator behind him, smoking and ranting.

Kim's mood couldn't get to him; he hummed to himself while chopping tomatoes and bell peppers for sauce. Standing there with her, listening to her complain with less and less heat, he found himself thinking that this—this whole scene, the dinner, the words that didn't mean anything, the smell of food, the knowledge that, later on, he'd be curled up naked with her in the mess of pillows on her living room floor, listening to records—all of it felt . . . extendable. Not like Brynn described it—not the whole business of marriage and children, none of that But he didn't want it to end either. And when, testing himself, he thought about losing Kim, about her sitting in this kitchen, doing these same things alone, or with another man, the grief made him want to stop and embrace her.

After dinner, when they were drinking wine on the couch, he said, I got you a ring. He felt himself blushing. Not
that
kind . . . but I got you one.

She sat up, while he dug in his jeans pocket. A ring?

He held it out to her.

Oh my God, she said. Danny! Is this from the Attic?

Yeah, I found it yesterday.

God, I love it! Haw'd you know?

I don't know. It just seemed like something you'd want.

She stared at him, wide-eyed. So what kind of ring
is
it?

He grinned. Dunno. How about a let's-go-steady ring?

She laughed, in the way that meant she was nervous. Should I wear it on yarn around my neck?

If you want. Kimmy?

Yeah.

You okay?

I'm okay. Yeah. She kissed him. I'm okay.

They made love after that, Danny stripping Kim of everything except the ring. And when they lay in bed afterward, they talked for a long time about moving in together, when Kim's lease was up next August.

But nothing had ever come of it. August was coming on fast. And more and more, Kim had started feeling skittish to Danny, more likely to go out with her college friend Amanda than to his shows, more likely to fall asleep next to him watching TV than naked in bed.

Tom told Danny this was natural. I'm lucky to get laid twice a month, he said. Does she tell you she loves you?

Yeah, Danny said. Not as much, though.

I'd ask her. Just bring it up casually. Don't make a big deal out of it.

Do you ever talk about it with Brynn?

Oh, I bitch constantly. But man—we've got a kid. We've got an excuse. Tom looked at him and grinned. Being single's harder, always was.

But Danny had never brought it up with Kim. He'd been too afraid. Instead he'd been acting—he knew—pathetic, bringing Kim gifts and flowers when he knew she would be in too poor a mood to receive them, trying to seduce her when he knew he'd get rebuffed. He spent more and more time drinking and brooding about how quickly they'd fallen in together—the way Kim had come right over to him after a
show, obviously starstruck; the way they'd spent the first week opening up to each other, rarely leaving Kim's bed. The way she used to look at him, like she was amazed, like he wasn't ten years older and fatter and lonelier.

He remembered with more and more shame how grateful he'd felt, when Kim told him she loved him. How he'd been too happy to sleep, staring into the dark and thinking that his troubles were over.

And all the while the ring appeared, disappeared from Kim's finger: like just another thing she wore, depending on her mood.

T
HEY LAY TOGETHER
on the couch for almost an hour, Kim's back pressed against Danny's belly. He rubbed a little arc over the seam of her jeans, a few inches either way. He knew she wasn't sleeping—he could feel her breathing, her occasional sniffle. But they didn't speak.

Finally Kim took his hand and held it against her breasts, his fingers squeezed tight in a way that suggested he shouldn't caress her. But not unfriendly either.

Danny? she asked—her voice, after all the quiet, startled him. What's going to happen to us?

He closed his eyes—here it came. He said, I don't know.

I don't want kids.

Me neither. But I promised.

She was quiet for a while, and he couldn't help himself.

I don't want to lose you, Kimmy.

After a long pause, she said, Me neither.

Danny almost broke in half with relief.

But I will, she added, shifting. Everything's different now. I love you, but that's because of a way things were that . . .

I know. But it's not my fault.

Kim said, Do you want me to be his—his mother? I mean—

I don't know, Danny said. If you asked me yesterday, I would have said that things—that I was a little worried—

Yeah, she said quickly.

—But that I wanted us to work it out. And if that's true, then—

Then maybe we'd end up here sooner or later anyway? With a kid?

Maybe. I don't know. But it was possible, yesterday.

She turned to him, cheeks wet. Is it all right if I don't know yet?

Sure, he told her. I love you. Do you know that? I really love you.

What else could he say?

She turned and kissed him. Many times, she wouldn't say I love you back—but when she kissed him, like this, he understood that's what she meant. He returned the kiss, pressing himself into her big soft body.

His mouth opened wider; so did hers. For a few minutes they twined together, sinking into the couch cushions. Kim was always a voracious, wet kisser; it drove him nuts. No different now. Danny started to tingle. He rocked his hips a little, found his hands wanting to feel her, to slide down to her rear end. That little thrill of chaos again: Why not, why the fuck not? Who was around to care?

Kim plucked at his hand. Danny, she said, and sat up.

He groaned. He felt sixteen again, drunk on two beers, caught groping in the dark after a school dance.

Can't you just hold on to me? she said. For a little while?

Sure, he said. Kim lay quietly next to him while he looked up at the ceiling, while his blood slowly flowed back to where it was supposed to.

After several minutes the rise and fall of her shoulder slowed down; he felt her blow longer breaths across his cheek. Jesus. Asleep.
That
was any better than making love? She wanted to get away as much as he did, no matter how righteous she got about it.

She didn't want much of him. Certainly no part of the present.

He shifted and sat up, then lifted Kim's legs off his thighs. She murmured. Bathroom, he said.

When he'd stood he saw Tom's letter crumpled down between the cushions. He pulled it out and smoothed it against the arm of the couch. Hey, Tom, you died and I tried to get laid in your house.

You're a pal.

Danny's house now. His couch. His minivan in the driveway.

His son.

Could he get out of it? What if he went to the attorney with Walt and said, I don't want any part of this? What if he told Kim he would?

Danny walked through the kitchen and into the back bathroom. He peed and washed his hands. His face in the mirror was puffy, his eyes bloodshot, his nose raw.

On the way back he paused in front of Colin's door. He listened for the boy's breathing. What had Tom and Brynn done to the poor little guy? Here Danny was, trying to figure
a way to weasel out of a trap—thinking about papers and attorneys and getting lucky—when, the whole time, Colin was in more trouble than he could even understand.

He pushed open the door.

The stars on Colin's ceiling shone that pale glow-in-the-dark green. Danny walked a few steps inside. He couldn't make himself go to Colin yet, so instead he looked around at the shelves, the plastic tubs against the walls—everything put away neatly. It was a good room, a good place for a kid to be: happy, full of toys. Like Danny's own had been. He and Tom had spent days in his room, as kids—between the two of them they'd had a ton of
Star Wars
junk. Had he ever been happier than in those days? When his parents had vanished into the background, and it was just him and Tom, making shit up?

Danny stood over Colin, asleep on his back with his mouth hanging open.

The boy didn't look much like his father. In the face he was narrower, his nose longer—he'd look more like Brynn, the older he got. From the both of them he had height; the doctor thought he'd top six feet as an adult. Danny tried to see him that way: thin, with Brynn's thick auburn hair cut short, parted on the side. What color were his eyes? Danny couldn't remember. Not brown, not like Brynn's, not—

Not black, not filled up with blood.

They'd made Danny look at Polaroids. On the way to the morgue he'd been trying to imagine seeing the bodies themselves, but the attendant told him they used pictures these days. He waited for a long time in a small windowless room. The policeman who'd called Danny asked him if he wanted coffee, and when the coffee came it was pretty good. A social
worker sat with him for a while, and told him about people he could talk to, gave him pamphlets and a business card. In case he felt like it tomorrow, or anytime.
It's important that you gather up people who'll help you. Do this as a team.
The morgue attendant—a woman who seemed barely out of her teens, from a too-bouncy ponytail all the way down to a scattering of acne on her cheeks—told him that he should take his time. Tom and Brynn's faces hadn't been hurt too badly, she said, but in death—in car accidents—people looked different. In this case the force of the crash had caused his friends' eyes to hemorrhage. They would be darker than he remembered. He ought to prepare himself.

She was right. The people in the pictures did not look like Tom and Brynn. No. No, they did. Their faces were like gray latex masks of Tom and Brynn, lying slack and hollow without heads inside to keep them shaped. The one on the right had Tom's hair and beard. The other looked like Brynn, except her features were tilted, everything pulled down and to the right. He remembered seeing their bare collarbones, and thinking that outside the edges of the photos they were naked, and that seemed wrong to him, terribly wrong.

They had different expressions. Tom looked like he was telling a joke. His mouth was open and his lip was a little curled, showing his teeth. His black eyes were slitted, his head tilted back a bit. Brynn was sadder. She looked more dead; her skin more blue. Blood dotted her shoulder and her jaw, hinting at something awful down below. Her hair was frizzed around her head; she'd had it up in a bun when she left work at five. Her eyes were rolled up—white at the bottoms, black at the tops—her mouth open a little wider. Like, of the two of them, she was the one who had been facing forward, who
had seen what was coming for them. Like she wanted to tell Tom, to warn him, but Tom wasn't listening.

He told the attendant,
I've seen enough.

They'd been out to dinner. Probably running a little late. They always seemed to be hurrying home, so they could stand where Danny stood now; looking down on their sleeping child. So they could effortlessly do what Danny couldn't seem to find the courage to do: bend down and kiss Colin's forehead, pull his covers up, risk waking him. Love him.