Monsoon Season (18 page)

Riley’s shoes tapped across the hard wood floors. She came to the door with the deck in her hand. ‘What should we play?’

‘How about Rummy?’ Carol suggested.

Riley sat on the end of the bed again, tucking her legs beneath her. ‘Okay.’ She started shuffling. ‘How many cards are there in a hand?’

Carol narrowed her eyes at her daughter. She couldn’t tell if Riley was just playing dumb to test her. She’d been doing that lately. ‘Seven,’ Carol told her and she started to deal.

‘What would you like for dinner?’ Riley asked.

‘What do we have?’

‘Chicken, steak, hamburger . . .’

‘Chicken sounds good,’ Carol said.

‘Okay. Your turn.’

She picked a card. ‘Go.’

‘When is Dad coming home?’

‘Probably not till seven again.’

She nodded. ‘Your turn.’

Carol had asked Mark what had happened between him and Riley.

‘Nothing,’ he’d told her, but he’d said it too fast for it to be true.

Mark didn’t talk about the accident. He never asked Carol if she remembered it. She did. She knew that Riley was wrong when she told her what had happened, that there had been another car, some crazy driver who had pushed them off the road and hadn’t even had the decency to call 911.

Carol patted Riley’s arm. She told her to stop thinking about the other driver. It did no good. It couldn’t be undone now. And, anyways, she was going to be fine.

Mark had been so tired; they both were. He could never sleep on planes. He was too tall. Even sitting on the aisle didn’t help: the food cart would bump him if he wasn’t paying constant attention. Carol had leaned her head on his big shoulder and tucked the thin blanket around her little ones. She had slept.

Carol had offered to drive, but he’d said he was fine. It wasn’t even an hour to the house from Pat’s. She’d caught him drifting once, his eyelids drooping, his head nodding.

‘Babe?’

‘What?’ His head had snapped up.

‘Are you sure you’re okay to drive, honey?’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re almost there. I’m fine.’

Carol had switched through the radio stations, looking for something peppy. She’d stopped on Dusty Springfield singing about the son of a preacher man.

The radio had started playing some Van Morrison. Carol patted Mark’s thigh and hummed along.

Mark’s chin dipped toward his chest. Carol gasped and reached for the steering-wheel, but it was too late. The car rattled as they sped off the road and onto the grass of the shoulder. Mark startled awake, and Carol heard the squeal of brakes and the shattering of glass as the world went dark.

Carol had had enough of the downstairs bedroom.

For the third time that day, Riley stuck her head in and asked if she needed anything. Carol swung her legs out and set her feet on the carpet. ‘Come here,’ she told her.

Riley walked over and bent down so Carol could put her good arm over her shoulders. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Upstairs.’ Carol stood up.

‘Mom. Wait – are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’m sure. Let’s go.’

At the bottom of the stairs, Carol had to sit down and catch her breath.

‘Mom, maybe this is too much?’ Riley’s worry was painted all over her face, especially her forehead.

‘Just give me a minute,’ Carol told her. ‘Okay.’ She got to her feet, wrapped her arm around Riley again and started up the stairs. At first, it felt like Carol was pulling Riley along. By the top, Riley was pushing Carol.

Riley eased her into the bed. ‘How do you feel? You’re really pale.’

Carol tried to smile, brush off her concern. ‘I could use a drink.’

Riley rushed downstairs. Carol rested back on the pillow, closed her eyes and counted her heartbeats.

She drank all of the water Riley brought her. Then Riley set the glass on the nightstand and curled up in the bed next to her.

While Carol had been pregnant with Riley, in the ninth month, she used to feel the baby get hiccups every night at ten o’clock. After Riley was born, when she was pink and tiny and breastfeeding, she still got hiccups every night at ten o’clock.

Carol had felt her mother’s loss more intensely when she became a mother. She felt it again when Riley left home. She didn’t know how to be the mother of a grown woman. She hadn’t had a mother when she was Riley’s age.

She fell asleep with Riley’s hand on her forehead.

Mark came home before sunset that night. Carol could hear him and Riley talking in the kitchen, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mark stomped up the stairs and came into the room with his arms folded across his chest.

‘How is this going to work?’ he asked.

‘Well, probably the same way it has for the past twenty-five years.’

‘But you’re not well. You need your rest. That’s why we decided you should sleep downstairs.’

‘You decided.’

‘Carol.’

‘I’m feeling better, Mark. I took a shower today without Riley’s help.’

‘What?’ He started pacing. ‘You have to be more careful. You can’t rush your recovery.’

‘Mark, listen to me.’ He stopped pacing and looked up from the carpet. ‘I need things to start feeling normal again.’

He walked to the side of the bed. ‘But what if I roll into you in my sleep?’

Carol reached for his hand. ‘You never have before. Are you going to start now that I have a broken arm?’

He shrugged.

‘It’ll be okay.’

He knelt on the floor. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, and put his head in her lap. Quiet sobs shook his broad shoulders.

‘I know you’ve been scared,’ Carol told him, running her fingers through his dark hair. It needed cutting. ‘You don’t have to be scared any more. Nothing is wrong with me that can’t be fixed with a little bit of time.’

She hadn’t seen him cry like this since before they were married, when his brother had died. When she thought of the nearly thirty years that had passed since then, without any tears, it occurred to her that they were practically different species.

‘It was an accident, Mark. Let it go.’

His sobs got louder.

Donna hadn’t spoken to Riley since her mother was sent home from the hospital. It always made her itchy, speaking to people’s parents over the phone. And she knew Riley’s mom spent a lot of time sleeping. So she never called. She waited for Riley to check in, as she did, every few days.

While Donna waited, she tried it out in her head:
Dave proposed. I’m engaged. We’re getting married.

Riley called Donna’s cell phone as she was driving to work. The phone was inside her purse on the passenger’s seat, but she knew it was Riley because she had her own ring tone. She took so long to answer that Donna thought the call would go to voicemail. ‘Riley?’

‘Hi.’ Her voice was flat and small.

‘What’s wrong?’ Traffic slowed as the light ahead turned red. ‘Is your mom okay?’

There was a long pause. ‘My mom’s doing really well, actually.’

‘Oh, okay. That’s great.’

Another pause.

‘What is it?’

‘Ben was here.’

Donna gasped. The driver behind her leaned on his horn. The light was green. ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No,’ Riley said. ‘Well, not physically.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To get back together? Or to argue about it. I’m not really sure.’

Donna took a left onto Grant and shot a dirty look to the impatient commuter in her rear-view mirror.

‘He ended up screaming at me about how I’d killed our
baby
. Right in our yard. In front of my
father
.’

‘Oh, my God. What a mess.’

‘Yeah.’ Riley sighed. ‘I thought my dad was going to hit him. I think Ben thought so too.’

‘Good,’ Donna said. ‘I wish he had.’

She didn’t say she agreed, but she didn’t argue either. ‘That was Saturday. He hasn’t been back.’

‘And things with your dad?’

‘Just rotten. I mean, we haven’t talked about it. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t told my mom. Yet.’

‘Sorry, Ry. That’s awful.’

Riley groaned. ‘Anyway. What’s new with you?’

Donna took a breath. ‘Oh, you know. Same old, same old.’

Donna believes that falling in love makes you crazy. It’s been scientifically proven. That’s why everything seems better at the beginning of a relationship. You can go without food and sleep, spend every moment apart thinking about each other, sit through a boring sci-fi movie without getting annoyed. Falling in love messes with your brain chemistry. She’d read an article about it.

Donna always hated the guys her friends chose. They were never good enough. She could never see what there was to obsess over. And girls always ditch their friends once they have a guy, like he’s the better offer you never knew they’d been waiting for. Donna had learned about this in high school when she was the perpetually dateless chubby girl who made the other girls feel better while they waited out their brief periods of datelessness.

The girl Donna had lived with before Riley gave no notice when she moved out and went to Vegas to marry her stupid boyfriend. Donna came home from work one day and found all her stuff missing (along with some of Donna’s) and a note tacked to the fridge. They’d been friends for three years.

Riley had been in Tucson less than a month when she’d started dating Ben. Donna had thought:
Here we go again.

But Riley was different. She made plans with Donna without first making sure that Ben was busy. She didn’t just bring him along when Donna asked her to go somewhere. She spent Thanksgiving with Donna’s family because Donna had invited her first. He wasn’t all Riley talked about, even in the beginning when Donna knew she was deep in the crazy mess of it and her brain chemistry was at its worst.

Donna still wasn’t quite sure what Riley saw in him. He was cute, but he wasn’t as smart as she was. Or as funny. He seemed nice, though. A little shy, maybe. Polite.

Donna wished she could say she’d always known he was a creep, but the truth was that, by the time he hit Riley, she’d actually warmed to him. She was with Dave at that point and much more understanding of the entire concept of love. When Riley moved back in with her after the first break-up, Donna was happy to have her but it did cramp her style a bit. No more sex in the living room: Riley was crashing on the couch.

Riley had never told Donna about the first time Ben had been violent so she’d been happy when they’d got back together, when things had gone back to normal. She and Dave had a couple to hang out with again. And they had sex wherever they wanted. Her own brain chemistry was still in a muddle.

When Riley called to tell her what Ben had done, Dave had just asked Donna to marry him and she’d just said yes. Donna picked up the phone all excited, planning to share her news. She hadn’t.

‘Can you come get me?’ Riley asked, and Donna had heard it in her voice before she said anything more.

She and Dave drove to get Riley in complete silence. That article about brain chemistry came back to her and she tried to remember how long the craziness was supposed to last. When was it safe to start trusting your own mind? She and Dave had been together for nine months.

Anything less than a year was probably insane.

Donna had never known her father. He’d left while her mother was pregnant and she didn’t like to talk about it. In her teens, Donna had pushed the issue enough to find out that he’d known about her before he’d left. That was all she wanted to know, really.

Riley asked Donna once if she’d ever thought of searching for him.

‘What for?’

‘I dunno. ’Cause he’s your father?’

‘In what way?’

‘I suppose.’

She’d let it drop like she understood, but Donna wondered if that was really possible. Riley’s parents were still married; they’d been high-school sweethearts. Donna had seen pictures of them in matching blue jeans and polo shirts, looking like the stock photo that came with picture frames. Riley complained once that her father was a
workaholic
, that her mother always went to parent-teacher conferences alone.

Donna bit her lip. While she was growing up, her mother had worked two jobs, sometimes three, and only spoken to her teachers when Donna was in trouble. She was very rarely in trouble in any way that was particularly noticeable.

Donna spent two years on birth control before she ever lost her virginity. It wasn’t that her mother didn’t trust her, she just wanted Donna to get in the habit. She had plans for her daughter that didn’t include an early pregnancy.

That was how she’d said it, too: ‘I have plans for you.’

Donna was never really clear what those plans were. She still wasn’t.

Her mother was right, though. When Donna gave it up to the busboy at the restaurant where she worked, he’d stop at the convenience store for wine coolers, not condoms. Donna hadn’t expected the evening to turn out that way; she certainly hadn’t gone to her mother for advice beforehand. She was seventeen.

Donna learned a few things that night: don’t get drunk in a basement with a guy you only met last week, don’t have sex with someone you work with, and don’t doubt that your mother knows you better than you know yourself.

Dave hadn’t moved in yet, but he slept at Donna’s place six nights out of seven. She kind of liked having that one night to herself each week. She got to sit on the couch in her sweats eating frozen pizza and watching reality TV. It kept them from getting on each other’s nerves. Donna guessed he’d give up his apartment after the wedding. They hadn’t talked about it.

She cracked the oven door open to check on the salmon.

‘Babe, you’re letting the heat out,’ he said, as if he knew the first thing about how to cook fish. Or chicken or steak or any kind of meat, for that matter. He was in charge of the vegetables and starch. Tonight it was couscous, zucchini and mushrooms. And onions. Always onions. Donna was getting sick of onions.

‘It’s not ready yet,’ she said, bumping the door shut with her hip.

‘Can you go sit down?’

The kitchen was too small. He always wanted to be alone while he cooked. But he didn’t know how to cook meat! Before he’d met Donna, he’d been a virtual vegetarian. It wasn’t that he was morally opposed to meat-eating: he was just terrified of
E. coli
and salmonella.