Page 48 of Rooke
Arnold gives me a sharp, chilling glance. “Does she know that I sell jewelry? That I provide bed and breakfast services to those in need of it? I assume she knows. The sign above the door clearly states these things.”
“All right. That was a stupid question. I’m sorry.”
Arnold grunts in agreement. “Your mother is an interior designer. She cuts the crusts off her sandwiches. The thread count on her bed sheets runs into the thousands. How would such a woman know anything of the shady dealings that occur here after the sun goes down? I thought you perhaps might have mentioned something to her…”
The way he trails off at the end of his sentence is a suggestion. A deadly suggestion. If he thinks for a second that I’ve been running my mouth off, or even accidentally uttering his name in circles where it should never be uttered, I am a motherfucking dead man. I shake my head, laughing under my breath. “I’m not that careless, Arnold. You know I’m not.”
He stares at me for a second, and then nods once, short and sharp. A decisive nod. “True. Better this is brought to your attention, though. Better you’re aware of a potential problem on the horizon now rather than later.”
“Potential problem?”
Arnold, master of saying very loud things with the quietest of gestures, taps the pad of his index finger against the rim of his cup. “Well, of course. She is your mother, jan. And is it not always a son’s duty to look out for the welfare of his mother?”
TWENTY-THREE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SASHA
Two Weeks Later
Fourteen days. Fourteen days can change so much. Every day, Rooke has stayed with me, taking care of me just like he said he would. He occasionally goes to work and Ali comes over. The second he’s home, he makes her leave and we fall into bed, clawing at each other’s bodies like lunatics, kissing, licking, stroking, sucking… I become intimately acquainted with every single part of his body, and he with mine. He tells me what he wants, and I obey him without question. If he says he wants me on my knees, I am there. If he tells me to stay still, I am frozen to the spot. If he commands me to finger myself while he watches, I do it without blushing. I am unafraid. At night he holds me in his arms, and I sleep. I don’t dream. The nightmares leave me when I’m securely nestled with my head on his chest. I keep the door to Christopher’s bedroom locked, and Rooke doesn’t ask questions.
He accomplishes the impossible: for a very, very brief moment in time, against all the odds, I am strangely happy. A day soon comes, though, where he simply can’t. I lie to him. I tell him Ali is coming over, and he goes to work, and I prepare for the pain I’m about to suffer. Even more than Christmas, I dread December the eighth. I fear the date creeping up on me more than I fear the anniversary of the accident. I fear it more than anything else in the world. On this day eleven years ago, I was laid out on my back in the hallway at home, screaming in agony as my little boy made his way into the world. Today is Christopher’s birthday.
There are a few things people don’t tell you about childbirth. Midwives, doctors, new mothers themselves… The first thing they don’t mention is the tearing. You can literally feel it, your body splitting in the most terrifying way as a child the size of a bowling ball makes its way out of your vagina. The second thing they don’t mention is your overwhelming need to poop all over yourself. Andrew always said he knew about that part, they’d covered it in the birthing prep classes we’d attended, but I never could recall it. Maybe I blocked the information out, blotted it from my memory, deeming it too distressing to process at the time. I was certainly surprised by that turn of events when I was in labor, that’s for sure.
The third thing people tend to gloss over, or skip entirely when dealing with soon-to-be mothers, is the panic. You’re so excited when you see that little pink cross develop on the pee stick you bought at the all-night pharmacy at 3 a.m. It’s a hell of a lot of fun buying tiny little socks, and onesies that say, “Mommy’s little angel” on them. Putting the crib together and decorating the nursery is so exciting that it’s almost too much to bear. But the delivery part? The pushing? The urge is so strong, so powerful, so undeniable that it takes you by surprise. I had no idea my body could demand something from me in such a way. An addiction is hard to overcome, but with the right support and a healthy dose of mental fortitude, it can be overcome. Not this, though. It’s as urgent and vital as breathing. When those contractions hit me, coming on impossibly fast and strong, I had to push. I had to bear down, to expel the tiny human being from my body, and I had no choice in the matter. A crippling panic hit me, then. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. I was going to be a horrible mother. I shouldn’t have been in charge of bringing another life into the world.
Everyone said how awful first time labors were. They were the longest, most painful, hardest, most difficult labors of a woman’s life. They weren’t supposed to sneak up on you when you were least expecting them, an entire month before your due date, just as you’re getting ready to meet your friend for coffee, and they definitely weren’t meant to escalate into full delivery in less than thirty minutes.
I didn’t have time to get my overnight bag. My overnight bag wasn’t even packed properly. Andrew was on a flight to San Antonio and wasn’t picking up his phone. And the ambulance? The ambulance wasn’t supposed to be stuck in three feet of snow eight blocks away, unable to reach me.
Giving birth to my son was perhaps the most frightening experience of my life. More frightening than being assaulted at the museum. Then, I was only afraid for my own life. Being alone and trying to make it through that experience was scary because it wasn’t just about me. What if something went wrong? What if he was breach? What if he had the umbilical chord wrapped around his neck, cutting off his oxygen supply?
I endured that brief moment of insanity, pain and worry with a strange kind of clarity that made me realize nothing was ever going to be the same again once it was over, one way or another. And I was right. Nothing ever has been.
I start drinking at 7 a.m. I polish off an entire bottle of Malbec, drinking from the bottle as I sit on the bottom step of the stairs in my pajamas, staring at the parquet flooring in front of the front door. My cell phone starts ringing at eight—a Texas number. Andrew, calling to check in on me, no doubt. I don’t know anyone else in Texas, and who else would be ringing today of all days anyway? He must have snuck away for a moment, ducked out the back door, away from his new wife, into the yard or something. His finger is probably pressed into his ear so he can hear better as he waits for me to pick up. Has he thought about what I’m going to say when I answer? Does he have a script prepared and ready?Hi, Sasha. How are you? Keeping well, I hope…
I doubt he’s gotten that far to be honest. He’s been calling on this day for years, and I never pick up. He just does what he thinks is the right thing by calling, and I do what I think is the right thing by ignoring my phone at all costs. The system works well for us both.
I open a fresh bottle of vodka at 9 a.m. The hallway is swimming by the time I’m a couple of inches down the bottle. Doctor Hathaway would lose his mind if he knew I was doing this again. I can hear his disapproval ringing in my ears as I place the neck of the vodka bottle to my mouth and I take another long, deep drink from it.
“You lost your child, Sasha. Is drinking going to bring him back? You already know how destructive this behavior is. Why continue walking in a direction when you know it’s taking you further from the direction you’re meant to be heading in?”
But fuck that guy. The thing about therapists is that they’ve often stood ankle deep in misery. They get their feet wet just by observing their clients’ pain and suffering. They usually have stable, happy, healthy families, though. Framed pictures of their dorky kids on their desks. Wives or husbands calling when sessions run over to see how long it will be until they’re home. They don’t know what it’s like to be immersed in misery, for the surface of the water to be miles overhead and for you to be so fucking tired that it’s only a matter of time before you sink and drown. Hathaway doesn’t know that walking down the wrong path is the only thing that keeps you alive sometimes, irrespective of how unsafe and fraught with danger that road may be.
By midday, I’m so fucked that I can’t even lift the nearly empty bottle of vodka to my mouth anymore. I lay flat on my back on the floor where I gave birth, and I laugh at the way the room is pitching from side to side. My ears are ringing like crazy. At some point, I think I’m going to throw up. I roll onto my side, my body bowing as I retch, but I don’t remember if I’m sick or not. I pass out. Slipping into the oblivion seems like the smartest option for me right now. A dull thudding sound half wakes me some time later, the sound of my heart maybe, slamming in my chest, struggling to function under the stress of all the alcohol pumping around my body, but I ignore it. I fall back into the darkness. I slip, slide, tumble, fall…
Breaking glass.
Ice cold air, hitting the bare soles of my feet.
Hands on me, turning me over.
Voices, frantic, calling my name.
“Sasha? Holy fucking shit. What have you done?”
