Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(15)

He hired help.

Laurelin was a nurse, which I normally wouldn’t hold against her. But I wasn’t behaving normally. She came to the house to interview in the afternoon, after a long line of women and men who’d spoken to Jonathan about what he expected, what he needed, and what they could do. They’d all smelled sanitized. I couldn’t sit in the interviews, because the hospital stink caused me so much anxiety I wanted to throw up. I told Jonathan I had to practice, but I peeked in on every interview, and every time he said one of them was no good, I felt relieved.

But Laurelin didn’t smell like a hospital. Nothing about her reminded me of Sequoia. Her hair was the color of scrambled eggs, and her belly was rounded with the beginnings of her second trimester. She’d worked in the infectious diseases unit at Hollywood Methodist but couldn’t continue while pregnant. She smiled a lot, which they all did, but she seemed to be made of sunshine and she smelled of rosewater. When I met her, I felt as if a blanket had been thrown over me on a cold night, and I couldn’t imagine she would let anything happen to my husband.

“Her,” I’d said. “You need to hire her.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“She’s pregnant. She’s going to take good care of you. I can feel it.”

“What does taking care of me feel like?”

“It feels like the only right and good thing. And she smells nice. And you like her, I can tell,” I said.

“I think she might be bossy.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

So she was hired, and she’d been the bulwark against my needling that she was supposed to be. I could travel and work without worrying, and without Jonathan worrying that I was worrying. Maybe it had been a bad idea. Maybe Laurelin had made our need to communicate less urgent.

Four months after she’d been hired, and two weeks after Jonathan reclaimed me, Laurelin shuffled in wearing jeans and a sweatshirt even in the late June warmth. Her code for the front gate worked three mornings a week.

Jonathan had left his little blue book on the counter for her. It was pliable leather with ruled cream pages and a black ribbon marker. In it, he kept notes about his diet, his exercise, and if he was late or early taking his rejection meds.

“Hi, Laurelin! How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Not bad.” She pulled Jonathan’s blue book and box of meds toward her. “I’ve skipped just about every complication I could.” She put on a glitter face, swinging her blond ponytail from one side to the other, then popped open the box of pills that had a day of the week and a time of day in each compartment.

“How much longer?”

“Seven weeks,” she said, brows knotted about what she saw in Jonathan’s little pill box. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” I didn’t look at her, just the teapot as I filled it.

She looked at her watch. “It’s ten, and he hasn’t taken his morning treatment.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Monica?”

“Yeah?”

“Where is he?” She flipped to the last page of the book.

“He’s on a run.”

She snapped the book closed. “Well, we’re going to have to have a little talk, the three of us.”

I felt chastened. I shouldn’t have. She worked for Jonathan, and thus, she worked for me, and it wasn’t as if I were the one who had missed a handful of pills. That had been my husband, wanting one more tumble before his run, then breakfast, then his cubicle of meds.

Laurelin hummed and pulled the blender to her. She had packets of vitamin powders and access to the fridge, so she set up his Shit Shake for that day and the two following.

I felt as if I’d been let off the hook. I hadn’t been able to resist him that morning. He wanted a tumble. No pain, no scene, no demands, just a one-two-three bite of vanilla cake. Delicious. Not something I wanted every day, but a good interlude between the usual screaming, bruising games we played. I must have been smiling, because when I looked up, Laurelin was staring at me and smirking.

“I know you’re still newlyweds—”

I slapped my hands over my ears. “La la la! Stop it, Laurelin!”

She ripped open a packet of powder and dumped it in the blender. “You can get on with it after he takes his meds.”

“You know how responsible he is,” I said.

“Generally.”

“Can you not give him a hard time? I’ll take care of it from now on.”

She poured milk in the blender and shook it, peeking in the top. “You’re away too often to keep that promise.”

She was right. But I knew when I was away, he was perfect. When I was around, he let things slip.

“Well, consider me chastened. I’m going to lunch. You can berate my husband when he gets back.” I kissed her on the cheek and ran out.

***

I spotted Darren halfway down the block from Terra Café. He looked taller by a few inches, possibly because Adam, who walked beside him, was only five eight. Darren keened a little to the left, bumping his boyfriend affectionately, and Adam nudged Darren with his elbow.

“You’re late,” I said.

“Oh, Miss Hotshot’s on a schedule.” Darren gave me jazz hands while Adam kissed my cheek.