For a split second, the world froze. Stopped spinning on its axis, so it seemed.
In that second, time stopped. We ceased to exist, for a second.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Wouldn’t, didn’t. We were far too invisible to be noticed. Indeed, we had disappeared.
And then, after a second, everything resumed. Babies continued to cry, mothers rocked and shushed. Lovers whispered sweet nothings, embraced, kissed. Men hailed cabs in big cities, ready for their evenings at home after busy days at the office. Wives prepared roasts in wide pans, bending at the waist to place them in the oven. Children yelled, screeched, screamed, ate ice cream, played tag in the park, fell from swings and bruised their elbows.
But we, we had noticed that second. That momentary jolt. Electrified we were by that split-second. As if we’d controlled the world with the synchronized blink of our eyelids. A flutter of eyelash, a twitch of muscle.
For a split second, we were the whole world.
“You’re right, you’re always right. I can’t possibly…can I?” Miranda shook her freshly-cut brunette bob. Freshly-cut, like the grass of her lawn, which she had just finished running the lawn mower over. A push mower, while not fun to use, provides a good workout. Miranda’s biceps burned as she pulled the mower back into the shed.
“No, no…we’re safe. We’re always careful,” Bobby replied with a grimace, a grimace that made it seem as if he didn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth, a mouth whose normally rosy-red lips were temporarily blue-hued from his Blow Pop. He’d always loved blueberry Blow Pops, had eaten them for fifteen, fifty, a hundred years, so it seemed.
“Still, I think I should check. Drive me to the store, will yah?” Miranda could never be too sure about anything. She was rarely convinced. She rubbed her stomach absentmindedly, but Bobby swatted her hand away.
“Don’t do that. Don’t even think it.” He tossed the paper stick onto the freshly-cut grass.
“Hey! I just cleaned the yard.” Miranda stalked past him to pick up the stick.
“Don’t worry, hon, it’s biodegradable.”
She looked up at the sky and sighed. “You’re ridiculous. Let’s go to the store.”
They spent $112 on pregnancy tests. Digital reads, triple packs, store brands—they bought them all. Miranda spent an hour in the bathroom—swig, sit, wait, pee, wait. She realized, after her fourth handwashing, that movies made this process so much more glamorous.
After peeing on ten different sticks and seeing ten icons—pink smiley faces, plus signs, the words “yes” and “pregnant”—she allowed herself to be convinced. Bobby had fallen asleep on the living room sofa with his long legs splayed and his shirt unbuttoned to reveal taut pectorals and graying chest hair. She shook him awake with her thin, chapped hands.
“I’ve washed my hands ten times. I’m pregnant. Shit.” She slumped to the floor next to the couch, wrapping her arms around her calves. Bobby had barely awoken, squinting at the midafternoon sun streaming through the blinds. Her heaving sobs jolted him awake. He sat up and stretched, his knees creaking.
“You’re…what? No. What? No way.” He straightened his legs, rubbing her shoulder and making his leg hair stand on end.
“Yeah,” she hiccupped. “I am. Ten tests confirm it.”
“How accurate are those things, anyway?”
“I mean, all those commercials claim 99.9 percent accuracy.” She’d straightened her legs, doing impromptu yoga moves that she’d learned in her forty-plus yoga class. She’d stayed fit for her age.
His eyes widened. He gulped. “…Shit. Mindy, what the fuck are we gonna do?”
“Fuck if I know, Bobby.” She buried her face in his lap.
We were born on a Tuesday in December. We were two weeks early, but our parents were ready. When they first found out about us, Mommy and Daddy were ready to do a lot of things. They didn’t know they wanted us, so they scheduled an appointment. But then, at the last minute, we made Mommy sick and she couldn’t make it to the doctor. We were ready to be alive, so we wanted them to get ready, too.
Mommy and Daddy got married a couple months before we came. Mommy cursed us (“Fuck you, stupid babies. I never wanted one baby, and now I’m getting two.”) because she was upset that she couldn’t wear a regular wedding dress. Nothing about their wedding was normal. They didn’t even take any pictures to remember it. They didn’t want to remember.
That Tuesday in December was a cold one, I think. Daddy left the room and every time he came back in his black hair was wet with melted snow. He always stank of cigarettes. He was sixty-two.
Mommy was forty-six, and the doctors kept saying it was dangerous for her to be pregnant. Even though she was really healthy, she was too old to be having children. They told her that from day one, but we, my brother and I, we wanted to be alive. So we kept Mommy alive, too.
To get us out, Mommy had to get a Cesarean section. My brother, Thomas, didn’t make it. I think he was too little to be born yet, but I was ready. I remember Mommy’s tears falling on my head when she held me that first time. She wasn’t happy to see me.
They named me Hannah and I was never good enough for them. Mommy wanted me to be a ballerina, but I had flat feet. Daddy wanted me to be a genius, but I couldn’t concentrate. I liked to have tea parties with my dolls and bears. I always set an extra place for my brother, too. Mommy cried when I had tea parties. When I was seven, Daddy was almost seventy and his hair was more gray than black. Daddy had to go grocery shopping. He hated taking me with him, because everyone always thought I was his granddaughter. Mommy was always napping.
“Hannah, go play at Mrs. Nelson’s for a while. I have to go get groceries for dinner,” Daddy yelled up the stairs to where I was, daydreaming in my room.
“But can’t I come with you?”
“No, no. Just go ask Mrs. Nelson if she needs anything.”
Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Nelson, was thirty. I’d seen the guys in their military uniforms come to her front door one day a couple months ago. I think her husband was in the Army. She doesn’t leave the house much, but I really like playing with her cats, Harold and Maude. I told Mommy about the cats once, and she laughed and told me they were named after characters in a movie. She wouldn’t let me watch it.
“What’s your first name, Mrs. Nelson?” I looked up from my chocolate chip ice cream and cocked my head. She was so beautiful. Her blonde hair floated away from her face in waves. I liked the way her hair looked in the sunlight that came from her kitchen window, and the curtains had cute little birds on them. She moved away from the sink and towards the kitchen table where I sat. It was a big table, bigger than ours, and it looked heavy. I knew the chairs were heavy because I could never move them. Mrs. Nelson always pulled my chair out for me when we had ice cream together.
She smiled, showing me her perfectly straight teeth. I was going to have braces in a couple years. Daddy’s definitely weren’t as white as hers, either. He liked his Marlboros too much.
“It’s Kerry, sweetheart.”
“But why does everybody call you Mrs. Nelson?”
“Because that was my husband’s name, and I like to remember it. I want everyone to remember him.”
“His name was Nelson?”
“No, honey, his first name was Richard. His last name was Nelson, like your last name is McDonall.” She smiled again, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Oh. Well, I love this ice cream.”
“I’m so glad. Can I have a bite?” She leaned over next to me, propping her arms up on the table with her elbows. They were so tan. She spends a lot of her time in her backyard. I’ve seen her lying on a towel on the grass with nothing but bikini bottoms on. Her nipples looked like the erasers in my Ticonderoga pencils.
“Of course!”
She took the bite I offered her on my spoon and smiled. “Mmm! That’s delicious!”
“Can I go play with the cats now, Mrs. Nelson?”
“Of course, dear. Just be careful. Remember, they have claws.”
I hopped down off my chair. “I will. Thanks!”
Bobby was never blatant about what he wanted. In the beginning, he waved to me as he walked through his yard to the garage, cigarette smoke streaming from the Marlboro in his hand. I assumed he was going to work, but I never knew where. In the evenings, I’d curl up on the back porch with a book and he’d call over the picket fence, “Whatcha reading?” I always had to check the cover, never quite sure what I was engrossed in. He was always so friendly, in the beginning.
I received checks in the mail for the first few months. Then they stopped coming and I stopped leaving the house. Luckily, my parents pitied me and started sending me more money than the military ever had. The only thing I could count on anymore was Bobby’s coming and going. Otherwise, I didn’t have a single thing to care about.
After a while, Bobby started approaching the fence on his way into the house. It was autumn when that started, and dusk was generally chilly in our suburban Milwaukee town. The first time, I was wrapped up in a fleece blanket, swinging and reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and thinking about my garden in the spring. He came closer to me than he ever had, and I smiled at his salt and pepper hair.
“How’s the book?” he’d asked, grinning.
“Oh, it’s just fine. I’m getting lots of recipe ideas,” I told him. I truly was inspired by the book, the way Barbara Kingsolver’s family just up and left the city and settled in to their quiet country life.
“Really? Well, maybe you’ll have to cook for us sometime. Whaddaya say?”
“I think that might be nice. I’m a fabulous cook. Richie always said so.” My voice caught on his name.
“Speaking of him—if you ever want to talk, I’d give you some sessions for free.” I didn’t know much about Bobby, but I assumed, then, that he was some sort of shrink.
“That’s incredibly generous of you,” I said, forcing a smile though my eyes that were full of tears. I had been seeing a shrink, but he wasn’t nearly as attractive as Bobby was. He didn’t have Bobby’s salt-and-pepper hair, or the jaw, or the cheekbones, or the eyelashes. He didn’t have Bobby’s trim physique. Nope, Dr. Miller was drab and snooty, with a comb-over and a closet full of sweater vests.
“And dinner? Let us know what you need and I’ll pick it up for you. We’re free Thursday.”
“Thursday should work. I’ll find a good recipe and leave a list on your door. Thanks!” I smiled again and he walked into the house. I watched his back and calf muscles flex through his button-down and khakis as he walked. Damn. I’ve never seen a man his age so fit.
Now, I’ve never been one for older men. I wasn’t the girl in college sleeping with her professors. Richie was a mere six months older than I—we would’ve grown up, grown some babies, grown old together. Unfortunately, his tour in Iraq served as his final growth spurt. He enlisted in the Army immediately after high school, but only went through basic training before coming to UW Madison to meet up with me. After we graduated, got married, and bought a house outside of Milwaukee, he was deployed to Afghanistan. He survived his first three-year tour, but was called up again two years later. We’d just gotten to know each other again when he got shipped off to Iraq. I turned thirty without him. When the black car pulled up in front of the house, I could barely move. My joints have ached ever since.
With Bobby, though, I felt limber again. My old dancer self. I had danced all through high school—ballet, jazz, tap, modern, you name it—and was always the first on the floor at a party. Bobby and I fell quickly into a secret routine that excited and pleased us both. He didn’t talk about his wife’s depression. Lucky for us, she napped a lot. He didn’t talk about Hannah, his adorable seven-year-old. Lucky for us, she was at school and day care for most of the day. Bobby only had a few appointments every day at his psychiatry practice, sometimes coming home as early as noon. Lucky for us, he was as horny as a high schooler after he ate lunch.
So, I buried myself in him. In us. In sex. Fucking, sucking, ass, cock, tits, balls. Wrapping my long legs around his torso. Wrapping my arms around his neck. Grunting, thrusting, screaming, cumming. Pulling hair, scratching skin. We didn’t talk much. A lot of in and out and moving on. He’d run back to his family next door, while I found a new favorite reading place inside my house. Empty, lonely, cold house.
“Maybe some new curtains, Bob?” Miranda was in rare form, her toned arms reaching for the curtain rod.
I didn’t look up from the newspaper. “Sure, Mind, whatever you think.”
“I thought maybe we could do it together, for old times’ sake?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re so much better at this stuff.”
She looked over her shoulder, her eyes filling with tears. “You know, we really never do anything together anymore. I miss us.”
“Hannah changed a lot of things for us, Mind. I don’t know what to tell you.” I shrugged, glancing down at an advertisement for carpet cleaning.
Mindy hopped down off the chair and sat in it, pulling her knees to her chest. “I just, well, I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”
“I don’t know why you’re thinking like that. How’re you losing me?”
“We’ve just grown apart. You’d think, after getting married and having a kid, that we’d be closer. But look at us! We can’t even have a normal conversation without—” she burst into tears and fled the room.
“We’ve just grown apart. You’d think, after getting married and having a kid, that we’d be closer. But look at us! We can’t even have a normal conversation without—” she burst into tears and fled the room.
I took advantage of the time to slip out the French doors and into Kerry’s yard. Having glanced between the window and the newspaper, I’d noticed her sunbathing on the grass. How could I not? She always said she hated tan lines and she rarely wore a top when lying out.
I was a late bloomer, having lost my virginity to some Vietnamese hooker when I was twenty-one and in the service. I lost a lot of things during that war, but my libido wasn’t one of them. Over the years, it’s only gotten stronger, and I can’t help but look at other women, even if I do think my wife’s one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. She’s just not enough. I can be monogamous when it comes to love, sure—but sex? I need more than Mindy merely lying there. Kerry, she’s fun, she’s young, energetic, full of life. She does things Mindy’d never dream of doing. She knows techniques I’ve never heard of. At sixty-nine, I’m getting my kicks easily. Besides, Mindy’s such a drag, sometimes, crying and sleeping for hours and hours. She can’t possibly know. Would she even care? If she’s awake when I get the urge, I just tell her I’m going to the gym. And I do, go to the gym, I mean. I just also happen to be having a lot of rough crazy sex with our widowed next-door neighbor. It’s a win-win situation, really. Mindy wants a husband, Kerry wants a lover—why can’t I find different girls for both?
I pulled the curtains back on my bedroom window, certain I’d be able to see a nearly-naked Kerry Nelson in her yard. I remember when my breasts were that plump and buoyant. I thought nothing would ever bring me down. I was all kinds of immortal.
Now I can’t go a full day without curling up in bed. My husband the shrink can’t seem to help me. My beautiful seven-year-old doesn’t want to see me. All she is, anyway, is a reminder of what I’ve lost.
I was almost married once before, when I was younger and happy and free. I was nineteen and he twenty-three. I met him in France on holiday and he, ever the Frenchman, gave me a summer I’ll never forget. Moped rides through Marseilles, picnics in the countryside with fresh cheese and bread. The wine flowed that summer and I was nothing if not completely smitten with him. Phillipe. He was one helluva lover. He taught me how to tease and please a man.
My parents brought me home that summer, however, and I never saw Phillipe again. My sex drive stayed for a while, but since Hannah, that’s all but faded too.
I watched Bobby hop the fence. I’m not surprised. He’s been getting his kicks elsewhere for years. I don’t even mind, really. I’m glad I don’t have to be that part of his life anymore. I’m too tired for the sex he needs. He’s been like a schoolboy ever since I met him ten years ago. But we’re too old for school, now. I don’t know how he does it.
He bends down and slides his hands under her towel, lifting her up and carrying her into the house. At least they try to be a bit discreet. I remember when he couldn’t make it to the kitchen without needed to ravish me. We were like teenagers, going at it in the backyard, under bushes, on the kitchen counter.
I’m glad he’s found Kerry. She’s lithe, beautiful, spirited. Surprisingly so, since her husband passed and all. It’s almost as if she was biding her time, just waiting for it, expecting it to happen. I’ve never seen grief manifested in libido.
I climb into bed, leaving my slippers on but shedding my robe. Under the blankets, I examine my wrinkles and stretch marks—signs that this body has led a long life. Maybe today’s the day I’ll go through with it. Maybe tomorrow…
In the end, the world kept right on spinning. Clocks ticked, birds chirped, leaves fell, snow swirled. Babies came screaming into the world. Children held hands, played hopscotch, blew bubbles. Adolescents rolled their eyes, wore too much make-up, had their first kisses, experimented, cut class, applied to college. Adults ran the world, got married, bought houses, had babies. Old men and women drew their last breaths.
But in every life, at some point, a jolt hits, knocks us off course. For a split second, the person’s whole world stops, and all they can hear is their own beating heart.
