The Mothers(55)

—

AFTER A WEEK, her father was finally released from the hospital. Nadia was relieved to go home after a week of living out of her haphazardly packed suitcase, a week of barely sleeping on the hard cot, a week of sipping watery coffee while her father underwent chest scans and breathing tests. A week in which an endless parade of Upper Room members filtered in and out of her father’s room: Sister Marjorie, carrying a slice of her homemade pound cake; First John, bringing a Miles Davis biography that he’d just finished; the Mothers, fussing and fawning with the socks they’d knitted because hospitals just got so cold and you could never have too many pairs of thick socks; even the pastor, who’d come by one morning to pray, laying a palm on her father’s forehead. Everyone seemed a bit surprised to see Nadia there, like Third John, who’d jolted when he saw her in the doorway.

“Look who’s here,” he said, with a grin, as if he had fully expected her not to be.

Of course she was there. Of course she had flown home to visit her father in the hospital. How could anyone think that she wouldn’t? Was that why the congregation had flocked to see him? Everyone had been so convinced that she wouldn’t visit her sick father, that she would leave him there all alone, so they’d all made sure to visit him themselves. She could imagine them already, whispering about her after Sunday service. How they would pity her father with his dead wife and his daughter too busy to visit home. How they would feel noble, honorable even, for standing in the gap and serving as the family he ought to have.

On the cab ride home, her father turned toward the window, like he was grateful to see sunshine again. He still couldn’t walk on his own, so she helped him into the house, grabbing him the way the nurse had taught her. She realized, lowering him into bed, that she hadn’t been in her father’s room since it had become his room only. He still slept on the left side of bed like he used to, the other half untouched as if her mother had just rolled out of bed to get a glass of water.

“Go rest,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

She hesitated before finally slipping out his door. What good could she do him half asleep? She showered and crawled into her bed, drifting off to sleep, when she heard the doorbell ring. When she opened the door, she found Luke Sheppard on her steps. He held a red Tupperware container under one arm, his other arm leaning against his wooden cane.

“I’m with the sick and shut-in ministry,” he said. “Can I come in?”

Marriage hung on Luke’s body. He looked older and fuller now, not fat, just satisfied. He filled out a baby blue sweater that Aubrey had obviously bought him—the soft color he never would have chosen, the careful stitching he wouldn’t have noticed—with the satisfaction of a man who no longer had big decisions to make, who relied on a woman to buy his sweaters. He slowly wandered into her kitchen, leaning on his cane, and asked where he should put the food.

“I don’t need your food,” she said.

“It’s not from me,” he said. “It’s from Upper Room.”

He’d stopped shaving too. She imagined him abandoning his razor in front of the bathroom sink—he was satisfied, why groom?—and Aubrey teasing him when she passed to brush her teeth. Maybe she loved his beard, the way his hair tickled her when they kissed. Maybe he only did things that she loved.

“You told your parents,” she said.

“What?”

He looked confused, then his face washed over and his shoulders slumped. He stared at her tiled floor.

“I needed the money,” he said.

“Then make up a reason!”

“They would’ve said no.” He stepped toward her. “It had to be a really good reason.”

“So that’s the best reason,” she said. “That I was having your baby.”

“It’s not like that—”

“I bet your mother skipped all the way to the bank—”

“You needed the money,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just thought—it seemed easier that way. You would’ve worried.”

“Just go,” she said.

He let himself out, not meeting her eyes. He wouldn’t care that he’d hurt her. He had a good life now and she’d done nothing but drag him back into the past. During long lulls in the afternoon, she thought about him, how peaceful he seemed. This had always frightened her about marriage: how satisfied married people seemed, how unable they were to ask for more. She couldn’t imagine feeling satisfied. She was always searching for the next challenge, the next job, the next city. In law school, she’d become prickly and analytical, gaining a sharpness while Luke had rounded and filled. She felt hungry all the time—always wanting, needing more—but Luke had pushed away from the table already, patting his full stomach.

—

I MADE AN appointment with the doctor, Aubrey typed. She waited a moment, then a reply arrived from rmiller86:

Baby?

For a second, she thought he’d forgotten their rules. No sweet-talking, no flirting, just plain, friendly conversation. Miller had first e-mailed her a year ago. Don’t know if you remember me, his e-mail began, but as soon as his name appeared in her in-box, she returned to their sweaty kiss on the dirty bathroom floor and felt her whole body burning. Of course she remembered him. Did he think she rolled around with so many strangers in beach bathrooms that she might forget him in particular? She’d called Nadia, angry that she had given him her e-mail address.