Alix Ohlin - Signs and Wonders

Seeming unsurprised, she smiled at him. As they held hands, he saw the path his life was going to take: he knew he would marry this girl, that they’d live close to her parents, that he was going to be a teacher. There was a certainty to it all that he would have said, if he were a religious man, felt like a state of grace.

The following weekend he went to see Lauren alone, then came back and changed into his work clothes. He was hanging sheetrock when the doorbell rang. Sam was standing on the front porch wearing shorts and a T-shirt and flip-flops. “Hey, come in,” he said, stepping back. The girl stood in front of the couch uncertainly until he said, “Sit down. Do you want some lemonade or something?”

“Um, okay.”

He brought her a glass and she sipped it tentatively before putting it on a coaster. He sat down next to her on the couch. She was slouching, her head nodding as if in agreement to something he’d said.

“So anyway,” she said, and laughed awkwardly. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. She was sweating a little. “I came to, you know … about the other night.”

“Listen, I’m glad you called,” Mike said. “I’m glad we got you out of there.”

She glanced up. “No, I—” She reached out her hand, as if to touch him, then stopped.

Mike was confused. Why was she here? For a recounting of that horrible night? She shook her head and didn’t speak. He waited her out but nothing came.

Finally, she said, “So what are you up to today?”

He gestured at his sweaty clothes, the plaster dust coating his shorts. “I’m redoing the bathroom.”

Her eyes lit up. “Can I see?”

It wasn’t what he was expecting, but he nodded and led her back there. He showed her where he was installing the new toilet and sink, the tiles and paint colors they’d selected. Nothing a teenage girl should be remotely interested in, but she was acting like it was the most exciting thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Oh come on,” he said. “You must have better things to do with your time.”

“I don’t.” Through her bangs, tears were visible in her eyes. She blinked and sniffled. Without thinking he took her in his arms, and they hugged. She came just up to his shoulders, and she nestled her head almost into his armpit, like some animal burrowing there. She put her arms around him. He could feel the heat coming off her body, and her breasts squishing against him. He didn’t move. She reached up and palmed his neck, then leaned her head back and stared at him intently. He felt logy, sedated, as if viewing all this from a great distance. Then she stepped up on her toes and kissed him, slipping her tongue inside his mouth. She was none too adept, but his body responded and he let his hands drop down to the small of her back.

She broke the kiss and took a step backward, smiling at him triumphantly. “I always wanted to do that,” she said.

“Sam.”

“Look, don’t worry about it, okay? I just always wanted to.”

Always? He almost said it out loud. How long can always be to an eighteen-year-old? Since you were fourteen, sixteen? Since last week?

“I’m going to go,” she said. “Thanks for getting me. I owe you.”

“No you don’t,” he said.

She let herself out. After she’d gone, he sat on the box of tiles, wondering if he ought to feel guilty. Was he as bad as that fat man in South Bethlehem, preying on his daughter’s friend? She’d seemed so happy, as if she’d proved something to herself, passed a test that only she knew the contents of. That she was grown-up, he guessed. That she was allowed to make mistakes.

On the next Sunday he didn’t pick her up. Instead he offered to go to church with Diana, who was taken aback. “How come?”

“I want to be with you,” he said, which was the truth. They attended the service together, and then went to see Lauren. They fed her some soup and washed her hair, Mike supporting her neck while Diana shampooed and rinsed it. When clean, it gleamed darkly with health. Lauren seemed to enjoy it, making soft, snuffling noises that sounded contented. He noticed that someone had taken out her earrings, and wondered who’d done it, and when. They’d argued for months about her getting her ears pierced, Lauren wanting to at eleven, he and Diana insisting she wait until thirteen — an arbitrary number in all honesty — before finally giving in. Diana drove Lauren and Sam to the mall, and the girls returned full of pride, constantly fingering their ears …

The night of the accident it was the Kents who called them, the police for some reason having dialed the wrong number, and they all met at the hospital, including the parents of the dead boy, whose name, he now remembered, was Evan. The Kents rushed in to see Sam, who was crying in a room down the hall. He and Diana were taken in to see Lauren, who was lying in bed with her eyes closed, breathing quietly. There were lacerations on her face and arms but otherwise she looked fine. Diana touched her forehead gently, speaking softly all the while, letting her know they were there, that everything would be okay.

Now she folded Lauren’s hands in her lap, squeezed them, kissed her forehead. She was worn and tired but her strength was remarkable; it nourished him, kept him from falling into the darkness.

Mike stood up and kissed his daughter’s cheek. She made a small bleating sound; the doctors had cautioned them not to read too much into the noises she made, but it was hard not to think that she was saying something, that she knew they were there. She was still so pretty. He thought of her on the night of the accident, running out to the car. Sam in the back, her oldest friend. The good-looking boy in the driver’s seat, gazing at her with hunger in his eyes. It was a crisp fall evening in the November of their senior year, a clear night with millions of stars speckling the sky. He hoped his daughter had seen that. He prayed she’d felt, getting into the car, a happiness too pure and rare to dwell on, a fleeting but immeasurable sense of the rightness of the world.

Because her aunt was both wealthy and caring, because people seemed to believe that divorce required a period of mourning accompanied and defined by homemade ritual, because Laureen (the aunt) was also kind of bossy and wouldn’t take no for an answer, because she (Reena) had been named for Laureen and they were therefore considered by the family and, eventually, themselves to be specially affiliated, because the same people who spoke of post-divorce rituals also said that travel broadened the mind, because the world’s wild creatures were disappearing and it was imperative to see them before it was too late, two women went on a cruise to the Galápagos.

“This is going to cheer you up,” Laureen said as they boarded the flight to Quito. She had for decades been a highly paid executive secretary who wore black cashmere turtlenecks and tasteful gold jewelry. Now, in retirement, she’d ditched all sobriety, in clothes and otherwise. She was wearing fuchsia pants and a pink striped blouse and had already downed two alcoholic smoothies at the airport bar. She squeezed Reena’s hand, and her breath smelled of rum and chips.

Reena’s eyes watered, not from the squeeze or the breath. How long had it been since anyone held her hand? She was touched by it. She was touched by everything these days, not hardened by the divorce so much as scraped raw. This year’s holiday cards, even the generic ones from the bank and the dentist, had brought tears to her eyes. It’s so nice people care, she’d tell herself as she put the cards on the otherwise bare mantel in her new apartment. The cruise hadn’t been her idea, but she was grateful for it. It was two weeks of something to do every day and night, the hours portioned into particulars. Two weeks in which she wouldn’t have to be alone for more than a few minutes, or contend with those terrible, scurrying creatures, her thoughts.