Amy Gustine - You Should Pity Us Instead

As Molly gets out of the car, her phone beeps to remind her of the school talent show later that afternoon. She plans to arrive late, sit in back, and slip out as soon as Kate is done with her dance. She’ll wait for school dismissal in her car, avoiding the awkward silence and forced smiles she would endure if she waited in the hall with the other mothers.

At the back door Molly wiggles the key into the lock, pulls up on the knob, then turns. Inside, Grandpa Hank sits on the edge of the kitchen’s vinyl booth tying the neck of a plastic bag around his ankle. A hernia of blood swells the bag’s seamed corner.

“Oh my God.” Molly trips up the two stairs into the kitchen. “What happened?”

Beneath his heel, a dark spot bigger than a dinner plate mars the carpet. “I broke a vein and I can’t get the thing to stop bleeding.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No, no. You can drive me. I tied things up real good. It won’t make a mess in your car.”

“I’m not worried about my car, Grandpa.”

“Well, that’s a nice vehicle you got and blood’s hard to get out.” He nods at the carpet stain.

On the way to the ER her grandfather asks how the kids and Simon are. He doesn’t know about the book, doesn’t read the Times Book Review or listen to NPR. He lives where Molly used to live.

“Everything’s good,” she tells him, watching the blood move higher in the bag. “I should have called 911.”

“We’re almost there.” A block away the brick wall of the hospital rises, its narrow, uniform windows like gravestones and morgue slabs.

In the ER Molly flags down an attendant, then fumbles in her purse for her grandfather’s Medicare card, thinking the mothers should see her now. Now there’s no disputing how lonely and anxious an atheist can be.

At two o’clock she skulks into the elementary school talent show, sliding into the nearest free seat next to Mrs. Gupta, a bindi between her eyebrows. On the other side of Mrs. Gupta is Elizabeth Randolph. The Randolphs have six natural children plus a boy adopted recently from South America. Molly knows only the outline of his incredible story. A member of an isolated tribe, his people went uncontacted by modern civilization until a group of illegal loggers infected them with the common cold. Only nine children survived. A Christian organization arranged for their adoptions in the U.S. and Canada.

Elizabeth leans forward and waves at Molly. “You missed them!” Kate and Elizabeth’s daughter Sarah are best friends, which Molly assumes is the only reason Elizabeth still speaks to her.

“My grandpa, hospital,” Molly whispers. Elizabeth frowns and Molly mouths, “He’s okay. It’s all right.”

If she’d known she was going to miss Kate’s dance, she’d have skipped the whole damn show, two torturous hours of ten-year-old violinists and jugglers who can’t catch a ball. Last year Simon told people, “If I’m wrong and there is a God, He’s no doubt preparing a perpetual elementary school talent show for my personal hell.” This year Simon is lucky enough to be out of town.

In the hall after the show, Kate throws her arms around Molly’s waist. “Where were you? I looked and looked and you weren’t anywhere. I thought you were dead!”

Several people glance at Molly in shock, as if Kate isn’t supposed to know about death. Molly rubs Kate’s back, the sequins of her dance costume like sharp fish scales. “You were great up there!”

“You saw me?”

“Of course I did! I was just a little late. You probably couldn’t see me in the back.”

Death became a problem last year, after Molly’s grandmother passed away. The girls couldn’t accept her disappearance. Grandma Alice was gone? Gone where? Without heaven as a destination, Molly struggled to explain. “It’s kind of like sleeping forever.”

“Where is she sleeping?”

“Underground.”

“Can I see her?”

As Molly stumbled, they stared at her like a teacher waiting for a slow student to finish Dick and Jane . Finally she had to admit death wasn’t quite like sleep. Since then her credibility has suffered, which is no doubt why Kate continues to question her about the talent show until she exposes Molly’s lie. At dinner, she is still pouting and Emma needles her.

“Kate looks like a frog with her lip out that way.”

“Sweetheart,” Molly pleads, “it’s not like I skipped on purpose.”

“Kate has blood in her eyes,” Emma observes. “Does that mean she’s going to die?”

“It means she’s a drama queen,” Simon says, then asks how Molly’s grandpa is.

“They used a special bandage, like stitches.”

“Is Grandpa Hank gonna die?” Kate asks miserably, but with resignation, as if he were the family cat.

“Everybody’s going to die,” Simon says.

Molly glares at him.

“When?” Emma wants to know.

Simon lowers his voice. “We don’t know, sweetie. He’s very, very old.”

The girls glance at one another.

“What’s the matter?” Molly asks.

“Sarah told Kate she’s going to hell,” Emma announces.

Simon laughs. “How does she know that? She call God’s 1-800 line?”

“There is no hell,” Molly insists.

“Yes, there is. Daddy said so,” Kate says.

“When did I say that?”

“You said your hell was going to be a talent show.”

Simon looks chagrined. “I was joking. Hell is illogical. If God is good, why would He have a hell?”

Emma stabs a big piece of chicken with her fork. “Maybe,” she says, “God isn’t good.”

At eleven o’clock Molly is pouring herself a glass of wine to toast the end of this day when Kate comes into the kitchen. “How old was Grandma Alice when she died?”

“Why?”

“Emma and I are trying to figure out how long we have to live.” She holds up an Audubon calendar. “I counted three hundred and sixty-five days in one year. Now I need to count how many years.”

Both girls have their father’s Scandinavian coloring. At bedtime, the inside rims of their eyes grow as red as raw meat. “Go to sleep.”

“I will. Tell me how old she was first.”

“Eighty-eight,” Simon says. He’s cleaning the sink and counters. They have to be disinfected before he can fall asleep. “Now go to bed.”

Kate goes back upstairs.

“Why did you tell her that?” Molly asks. “They’ll be up for hours counting three hundred and sixty-five eighty-eight times.”

“It’s like counting sheep.”

They hear her padding down again. “What’s Emma’s birthday?”

“Why?” Molly sighs.

“Because we have to take away how many days we’ve been alive from the total to get how many days we have left.”

“You can’t count how many days you’re going to live.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s late and you need some sleep and both of you could easily live longer than Grandma Alice. Look at Grandpa Hank. He’s older than Grandma Alice was and he’s healthy as a horse. Now go to bed. Dream about ice cream or something.”

“So I don’t have to die before Emma?”

“Not necessarily,” Simon says. “Age is only one factor…”

Molly interrupts. “Go to bed. Go!”

Kate runs upstairs, hollering, “I don’t have to die before you! I’m older, but Daddy says you could die first!”

On Friday Molly takes Kate to play softball. It’s pure Americana — a miniature baseball diamond bordered by a ragged row of folding chairs and blankets. Toddlers play near the field, though in no peril as none of the fourth-grade girls can achieve better than a slow-roll grounder. At halftime Molly goes over to talk to Elizabeth Randolph, whose one-year-old sits in her lap eating cheese crackers and smearing the orange paste across Elizabeth’s pants. Adoo, the boy from South America, leans against a nearby tree. The color of red mahogany, he has a flat nose with splayed nostrils and a sharply defined, narrow bridge. Dashed, black lines bisect both of his prominent cheekbones. Molly can’t tell if the lines are tribal tattoos or the handiwork of a bored eight-year-old with access to eyeliner.