Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

Then he said, “Unlikely to hit the Northeast,” and I was crestfallen.

The phone started to ring and I stared at it with terror. I knew it was Jeffrey and that he would ask why I hadn’t saved him. He would demand that I pick him up, pay for letting him be humiliated like that. I pulled the phone out of the wall to make it stop.

What was I going to do? I couldn’t run. I was afraid of what would happen when Jeffrey came home. I locked every door in the house and went upstairs. With no storm coming my options were limited.

I ran to the bathroom and looked through the drawer with my shampoos, slipped my hand past the Hilton Hotel’s generic products, and found Teddy’s pill bottle. It was empty. I looked around, couldn’t believe it. I even went through his room, checking under dirty clothes, rifling through drawers. Searching pants to no avail. They were gone.

No one was preparing because there were still no indicators of the coming storm in the sky. I pulled the small statue of Mary out of my purse and held it, rubbing the robes, checking for chips. There were none and I let go of my breath. I had hoped for some slender cracks, chipping paint, to feel age. I wanted the statue to be something more than a factory-made trinket.

TEDDY

AFTER JILL LEFT ME, I went back to the house and didn’t want to go inside. I tried my dad’s car and it was locked, so I went to Cheryl’s and found a spare ignition key above the back wheel in one of those secret key holders. I hadn’t really driven since the accident, but it was either leave or sleep in the car. I needed a drink. I hadn’t had a drink in days. I wasn’t even sure how I was surviving. I drove around for a while along the road that led from Little Neck Cove to Graves Point. It curved along the rocks and the water came up right to the fence during high tide. The sun was gone and the sky was a dark blue. The houses on the islands stood out black and empty against the sky.

I finally drove to Milligan’s and took a place at the bar. It was slow. I looked around, trying to figure out why no one was around. I didn’t want to ask. Guinnesses started to appear before me and I didn’t ask questions. I was there for hours, long enough to drink six beers at a steady clip, anyway. The baseball game was over. The Yankees had won, and whoever was in the bar left pissed off. I paid my bill and wandered outside. I stood at the edge of the marshes, the smell of salt water thick in the air. In the woods across from the gravel parking lot I used to catch fireflies as a kid. We’d ride bikes there, a line of us pushing one another with taunts to get there faster. We had small traps our mothers made us, glass jars with tinfoil on the top with holes pressed in with forks. We held onto them as we maneuvered the handlebars. We were experts by then and could do this with ease. We’d throw our bikes down in the grass and run into the woods, afraid to miss even one. We swung our arms wildly and put each captured light into our jars. By the end of dusk our jars were all glowing phosphorescent yellow and we slowly rode home, careful not to drop them, watching the lights bounce around as the fireflies frantically tried to escape.

That was what I missed.

Then I felt an intense pain in my face and I dropped to the ground. I didn’t have time to catch myself, so my cheek hit the gravel.

What had hit me?

Who had hit me?

Above me stood a sea of pastel colors. They took turns kicking me. Every time I opened my eyes I could see the moths fluttering around the glass globe hanging over the door to Milligan’s. I didn’t even fight it. No one tried to stop them, not even me. I took it. I heard things like “my children,” “cocksucker,” and “faggot.” I had to laugh at that one and that just made the kicks come harder. I lay there wondering who was kicking the shit out of me and calculated that there were probably about five legs kicking at me with varying degrees of intensity. Some of these guys were actually pretty weak. I bet I could kick harder if I tried, if I was upright. My laughter elicited a move to use fists to quiet my giggles. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I probably would have been crying from pain. Crying for my mother. Crying for my dead dog, Maxwell. Wishing I had learned to be brave. And then… he leaned down. I knew this because a shadow stretched over the light and he whispered in my ear, “You fucked my wife.” I wanted to tell Jill’s husband that I wished I had, that I still could.

I should have to deserve a beating like this. I should have fucked his wife for this. Instead of just jerked off to the thought of it. And then a warm, wet glob of spit hit my cheek and slid down past my mouth. I lifted my head slightly and saw that he was wearing navy corduroy pants with small red lobsters embroidered on them.

I would have thought that someone in Milligan’s would have called an ambulance or asked me if I needed help. I contemplated crawling into the nearby marsh, trying my luck with the sea, but I just lay there like an impotent asshole. The one fight I’d been in in my whole life and I was blindsided by five assholes and never even got in one hit. I couldn’t even embellish the story and say I think I got one of them. I didn’t get any of them. They all got me. Their pent-up upper-middle-class aggression was taken out on me. I’d be whispered about at parties and lobster boils, at male-bonding experiences. I was going to have to clean myself up and get in my car and go home and bang on the doors to be let in, and when my dad got back I’d have to tell him that I got my ass kicked and that I didn’t even get one hit on them. Not one.

That would be added to the story they told — the story about how these men recaptured their masculinity. How they felt alive again, dangerous and strong, erasing all the years their wives had been emasculating them. Except they weren’t going to say it like that. They were going to say that I stuck my dick in one of their wives and they were fighting for their family. Protecting their family against someone like me. And look who was going to come out looking like the asshole. One-armed me.

I got up and hobbled toward Cheryl’s car. Everything hurt except my bad arm and I laughed as I cradled it. I had done my good deed for the summer, giving Jill’s husband and his friends reason to slap one another’s backs again, walk a little taller, and fuck their wives a little harder. I had done them their great big favor. I had reminded them that I was the weak one, not them.

CHERYL

I COULD FEEL MY JAW each time the air pressure changed now, that certain ache that made me rub the bone line. If I had Teddy’s pills, I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. I lay in bed with my arms stretched wide, the way you sleep when no one is going to come and disturb you. I thought about Steven and our connection and how lucky I felt to be wanted again. Like I had gotten a second chance at something and no one could take it away. He seemed so needy, like me at his age. If I had found someone who cared so much about me then, I wouldn’t be here now. Would that have been better? How could I even ask myself that question?

I heard the front door open and braced myself. I heard movement downstairs, as if someone was searching for something. I did not move, my body tense as the footsteps started up the stairs.

I thought about calling out, pretending I was surprised by the intrusion. I closed my eyes quickly as the footsteps moved down the hall toward our room. I heard them stop in front of the other rooms. Doors opening. Then he was standing in front of the open door to the bedroom and did not move for a while.

I heard footsteps creaking toward me and I squeezed my eyes shut harder, like when I was a child and I didn’t want my mother to know that I was listening.