Jilliane Hoffman - All the Little Pieces

‘You’re welcome to come.’

‘I’ve never wanted to write a motion for summary judgment as badly as I do today.’

‘I bet.’

‘I’d like to talk you out of making a two-hundred-mile drive in a tropical storm is what I’d like to do.’

‘I wish he’d consulted me before he planned it,’ she replied, ‘but I wasn’t even on the D list of invitees, apparently.’

‘Stay home. With me.’

‘Come with us.’ She smiled. ‘On second thought, that’s a terrible idea; you’d be miserable. What are you gonna do all by yourself on a rainy night?’ Even as she asked the question the unsettling, queasy feeling roiled her stomach. She hated that feeling. She hated that, after all these months, she still couldn’t stop having it. She wondered if she’d ever not get nauseous at the thought of what might happen when she left her husband home alone. She looked away, out the open garage door.

He knew what she was thinking. ‘Order a pizza and finish my motion.’

She nodded.

He came up behind her and rubbed her shoulders. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this. The weather is brutal,’ he said softly, kissing the back of her head. ‘You’re going up to Orlando next week, anyway. Your sister will understand. We can cook something special tonight, chill out with the rain.’

‘I can’t miss this party. We’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.’

‘What about St Andrew’s?’

‘It’s preschool; Maggie can miss a day. And she gets to see her cousins!’ she’d added, turning her attention back to her daughter with a big smile. ‘That’s pretty exciting, right?’

‘What’s cutlery?’ Maggie had asked, as a gust of wind ripped an enormous frond off a Royal Palm. It crashed to the ground outside the garage, steps from where she and Jarrod were standing.

Another streak of lightning cut across the sky, pulling Faith’s thoughts out of her garage and back into the moment. In the instantaneous flash of brilliant light she saw the sprawling fields of cane stalks violently twisting in the wind – assembled in tight, neat rows, like a plant army getting ready to march. Then it all went black again.

Where the hell was she? She could only hope that she was still on 441 and not on her way to Tampa. She thought of the creepy zombie game that she and Charity used to play as kids, where you close your eyes and count and when you open them all the zombies are frozen in place, having silently advanced on you while your back was turned.

A cold shudder ran down her spine as she forged ahead into the endless black. She couldn’t help but fear what it might look like out there in the middle of nowhere when the lights flashed back on …

Jarrod was right: Charity did love her drama. Three hours into her party and feeling no pain – thanks to Nick’s hurricanes and more than a few glasses of wine – she decided to invite a little in. When she caught him chatting up some young girl in the living room, amnesty was over.

‘Why you gotta look at her like that?’ she’d demanded in a loud voice when he came into the kitchen to get a beer.

‘What?’ he’d asked, obviously annoyed.

‘That girl. The one in that slutty dress. Why do you have to talk to her, huh? Why?’

‘She’s Gator’s girlfriend. Stop being jealous, Char. I was only telling her I liked that dress.’

‘Oh? Not her boobs in that dress? What is she, sixteen? She could be your daughter, you know. You’re disgusting.’

‘I didn’t ask her how old she was. She looks good in that dress. Real, real good. Now if you looked good in a dress, I’d compliment you, too.’

Some mean idiot had crooned an instigative, ‘Ooohh …’

‘What does that mean?’ Charity had asked defensively, moving her body in between Nick and the plastic bucket of beers on the counter.

‘You know what that means,’ he said, reaching behind her to grab a beer. He poked her in the stomach with his finger. ‘Lay off the Twinkies and birthday cake, honey, and one day you’ll look good in a dress again, too.’

An embarrassed hush had come over the kitchen crowd. Then one of the Nicknames whooped and laughed. Everyone had heard what Nick said and everyone was waiting for Charity to do something. Throw something. Say something.

No one had been waiting longer than Faith. ‘What the …?’ she’d started to say, turning to Charity, who was standing next to her looking pathetically weak and as challenging as a kitten. Nick had never hit her sister, but Faith had often thought it’d be better if he had. Maybe if she could see the damage he inflicted with his words she’d realize how badly she’d been hurt.

Charity started to cry. She wrapped her arms protectively around her belly, obviously ashamed at how she looked.

It wasn’t her place. Faith knew that now. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should have realized it wasn’t gonna do any good anyway; everyone had had too much to drink. She had, too. But after listening to her sister complain and cry for years, all the pent-up anger bubbled to the surface and spilled out of her like lava from a volcano.

‘You know, Nick,’ Faith had snapped, ‘you got a few tires to spare yourself. Charity, will you please finally tell your asshole of a husband to go to hell!’

But Charity had not told her husband to fuck off or get out or drop dead. She hadn’t squeezed Faith’s hand and thanked her for her support. Instead she’d spun around and glared at her, her face red, her green eyes on fire. ‘You want me to leave him!’ she screamed. ‘That’s your answer! It’s always the answer! Stop doing that to me! Stop doing it already! You don’t know what’s going on here! You’re the one who’s wrong!’

Instead of Nick, it was Faith who Charity had set on. She was dumbfounded. And mortified. The entire house went quiet. Even the music stopped. ‘I want you to stand up for yourself,’ Faith had barked back when she found her voice again. ‘I want you to have some self-respect for once. You’re better than this loser. You’re better than …’ she gestured around the crowded kitchen, ‘… this.’

It came out sounding awful. She winced now at the memory of all those people staring back at her.

‘That’s real nice. Fuck you, Faith,’ Charity had said.

It got worse. ‘These people … they’re not your friends, Charity. They’re his . They’re pulling you down, making you believe his shit, like you have to take it!’

‘Maybe I don’t want no different. Have you thought of that? ’Cause my life’s not perfect like yours I gotta go change it? It’s not good enough? ’Cause my kid’s flunking school and talking to pervs on the Internet it’s my fault, right? I can’t find a job in this shit town because I’m the fool who didn’t go to college. ’Cause my husband’s screwing my friends and I’m not leaving, it’s my fault? I’m never good enough, never right enough, never mad enough for you, Faith. Stop judging me! You make me feel worse than him!’

She should’ve walked away then, just said Goodnight Gracie and left. But she didn’t. ‘So I’m the bad guy? I’ve never said anything like that! All I’ve done is listen while you cried and bitched about what a jerk he is. If you don’t have the balls to leave, I want you to stop letting him talk to you like you’re worthless, because you’re believing it. I mean, look at you – you deserve better than this! What does he have to do or say to get you to see that? ’Cause calling you fat and stupid on your birthday in front of all his friends who are laughing at you doesn’t seem to flip the switch. He wants you to leave – don’t you get that? He wants you to leave so that he’s not the bad guy for running out on a wife and three kids – and you’re not reading the cue cards!’