Night Road(94)

Grief was like that these days: a stealth bomber. She could be going along just fine, moving forward, and then something would blow up unexpectedly. Years ago, when it had all been fresh, she could spend days off the path, in a gray world where nothing was stable. Now, she could right herself most of the time.

That was progress.

She started to leave the bathroom and remembered halfway to the door that she hadn’t brushed her teeth or put on makeup.

She went back and brushed her teeth but decided to forgo the makeup. She’d only have to remove it tonight, and nothing left her more wrung out than a day with Grace and Zach. It took so much effort to be present in their lives without really being present that she came home exhausted.

She went to her car, a black hybrid SUV, smaller than the old Escalade, and started the engine. Backing out of the garage, she executed a tight three-point turn and drove up the gravel driveway, noticing the wildness of their land. Everything had grown in the past few years; blackberry bushes climbed like bullies over everything.

She turned onto the main road and drove to Zach’s house.

As always, walking into this cabin was a little like going back in time for Jude. The blue sofa was the one she and Miles had gotten for their first apartment; the chairs were from the year they’d had the twins. They’d stored all of their old furniture and outdated trinkets for their kids. They used to say jokingly, with two moving out, we’ll need to save it all.

Zach was raising his daughter and going to med school in a house that mirrored the one in which she and Miles had done all the same things.

“Anyone here?” she called out.

Zach came around the corner from the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee and carrying Grace, who clung sleepily to him.

“Don’t say it,” Zach said, rubbing Grace’s back. “I know I look like shit. I was up until four. Can you guys still watch Gracie today? I have study group.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. I can be home by seven.”

Jude nodded and went into the kitchen, where she started cooking breakfast. Because she kept Zach’s house stocked with food, she knew she’d find everything she needed for waffles, scrambled eggs, and a fruit plate.

When Miles got there, hair still wet from his shower and smiling in the way that only he among them still could, Jude felt a weight slide off her shoulders. Miles was the glue that held their lives together. Around him, Jude and Zach breathed easier.

“There’s my girl,” Miles said, opening his arms wide.

Zach put Grace down and she ran for her grandfather, hurled her little pink polka-dot flanneled body at him.

Miles scooped her up and whispered something in her ear, and she giggled.

Jude felt a spasm in her chest. There were times, like this, when all that she’d lost hit her so hard she had trouble standing.

“Let’s eat while it’s hot,” she said tightly.

“Yummy!” Grace said, scampering out of Miles’s arms and running for the table. As always she sat next to a blank spot and an extra place setting. That was the place for her “invisible friend.”

The alien princess trapped in a jar.

“So, how’s the clinical stuff going?” Miles asked Zach when he sat down.

“I love the clinical. Diagnosing is awesome, but pharmacokinetics? That stuff is kicking my ass,” Zach answered, scooping eggs onto his daughter’s plate.

Miles reached over to stab a waffle with his fork. “Pathology was my downfall second year. I don’t know why. You just have to get through it all with the knowledge. Third year is when you really get into it.”

Jude watched the way her son buttered Grace’s waffle while he talked to his father, how he cut it up into small pieces for her and put her napkin in her lap, and she was so proud of him that she thought, we’re all going to be okay. Someday we’ll be laughing again.

She found herself smiling at the unexpected idea of happiness, of a future together. She listened to one of Zach’s stories about diagnosing some terrible disease, and how he’d screwed up, and she laughed along with her husband and son.

After breakfast was over, the unanticipated sense of lightness remained. Jude sent Zach off to the UW with a kiss on the cheek and a hug that was so fierce he actually frowned at her.

“Go on. We’ll have fun today,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” Zach said.

“No problema,” she answered without thinking. At the silly reminder of who they’d been, she fell silent.

And then he was grabbing his backpack and heading out the door.

“Papa, can I go to my playhouse?” Grace asked when her dad was gone.

“Put on your clothes and brush your teeth first,” Miles said distractedly. He was looking for the TV remote. When he found it, the screen thumped to life and a baseball game filled the screen. Miles flopped onto their old sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table.

While Jude washed the dishes, she saw a yellow flash blur past her. “Stay away from the water, Gracie.”

“Ariel and me are just gonna play Barbies in the playhouse,” Grace answered, grunting to open the sliding glass door.

“Ariel and I,” Jude said automatically. “Miles, do the ordinary rules of grammar apply to imaginary friends?”

He said, “Huh? What was that, babe?”