Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

'What's on your mind, Ms Grum?'

'I'm antsy,' she said. 'I need to get out and do something.'

'Yeah, sure.' He nodded and looked outside. It was sunny, with a light breeze coming through the front screen door. 'You wanna go for a walk?'

'Actually,' she said with a shining fear in her eye. 'I think I need to go home. Just for a few hours.'

He didn't ask for what. He went to her and kissed her. This seemed to calm her momentarily. She gave in, sucked at his tongue for a minute, then giggled and ducked away from him. Back to grumpy.

'You shouldn't be doing that.'

'Why not?'

'Because it's getting too easy.'

'Too easy?'

'Comfortable. We'll forget ourselves.'

'That's a good thing.'

'Not if we get caught.'

'I'm not afraid,' he said. 'Let's get caught.'

'No one knows, Conrad.'

He smiled. There was something to know.

'Are you for real? Is this - are you sure you want this?'

'Not a few hours,' he said. 'One.'

'Promise you won't change your mind?'

He kissed her. She started to cry and he heard himself speaking before he'd even made the decision.

'I'll call Jo. I'll tell her--'

'No!'

'--the truth.'

'No.'

'Nadia. We have nothing to be ashamed of. This stuff happens. If we're honest about what we want, they will understand. Not right away, but I'm not afraid.'

She smiled through her tears.

'Come right back.'

But he was afraid, and he did feel guilty.

He sat for a while at the kitchen two-top with the phone in his hand. It seemed so natural when she was here, but now, trying to shape his . . . no, not plan, it wasn't even a plan yet . . . desires into a thing his wife would understand, he was terrified. There would be no understanding, only screaming.

Rage, accusations, pain.

Get it over with. Come clean. Because this situation here, right now, is untenable.

He dialed Jo's room. No one answered. He dialed her mobile, got voicemail. She could be out. She could be ignoring his calls. She could be with That Fucker Jake. She could be studying.

'God damn you, Jo. God damn you for leaving me,' he said. 'If your father had died, I would never have left you. Never. Just remember this was your choice. Leaving me alone here in this house was your choice.'

The robotic woman asked him if he wanted to replay his message, or rerecord it. He clicked off and dropped the phone.

His hands were shaking. He went to the cupboard and removed a bottle of Jim Beam. He drank it straight and warm from a plastic tumbler, punishing himself and blotting her out for a little while longer.

He slept late and woke to the sound of knocking. He got out of bed and felt every stair on the way down. His emotions were blunted. He had found himself drunk so quickly he had never got round to calling Nadia to see why she hadn't come back. He vaguely recalled wishing she never would, then crying because she hadn't. His father had made an appearance at some point, and after that it was just black. Now his synapses felt as if they had been coated with maple syrup and then set on fire. When he opened the front door in his boxers and morning half-wood, she was just standing there wet-faced.

'What's wrong?'

'I didn't mean to,' she said. She was holding a small red cell phone away from her body like it was a bloody knife.

'Didn't mean to?'

'Promise you'll help me.'

He pulled her in and shut the door. She grabbed him and squeezed hard, her belly pushing into his waist like the head of a ten-year-old between them.

She looked up, her chin digging into his chest. 'Eddie's dead,' she said. 'I think I killed him.'

27

'He probably deserved it,' he blurted before clapping his mouth shut.

'I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to . . .' She kept saying it and she didn't sound defensive so much as stunned. She was hiccupping and shaking all over.

Conrad moved her into the living room. 'I'm sorry. Here, it's fine it's fine sit down. I'll be right back.'

He went to the kitchen and poured her a coffee left over from the previous morning's pot, added a wallop of Brennan's Irish Cream and speed dialed one minute on the microwave. He went over it in his head. It didn't take very long or help much. Conrad had been home for the past three days and nights, with her. She'd left for a night and now what? Now Eddie was dead? How? Was someone else involved? Nadia wouldn't kill Eddie, really, would she? She was pregnant, for God's sake, and she clearly had feelings for the boy.

Poor kid.

Nadia, not Eddie.

Well, maybe him, too, but maybe not. Maybe Eddie had been asking for it. Maybe Eddie accidentally set his meth lab on fire and got stuck charring in the blaze.

She was sitting on the couch, her shoulders bunched up to her ears like she had just been rear-ended by a full-size SUV, her face still pale from the impact.

'Here. Go slowly and take deep breaths until you're ready to tell me.'

She accepted the mug and just stared at it. It looked like an oil slick with the Irish in it.

'I don't know whuh-whuh-what happened. I left my cell phone at home, otherwise I would of-huh-huh heard sooner.'

'Heard what?'

'The phone. He called like thirty times. But he didn't say anything. Until last night. He left a mess--oh, God. No, I can't . . .' She was crying again.

'Okay. Hold on. Breathe. That's it. Breathe.' She recovered a bit. 'He left a message. On that?' He was pointing at her cell phone.

'He's been going crazy this whole time. For weeks. He had this . . . this plan for us. He promised to take care of us.'

'What did the message say?'

'I can't listen to it again.' She dropped the cell phone.

Conrad picked it up, flipped it open. 'How do I listen?'

'It's in my address book, under voicemail.'

Conrad opened her address book, scrolled down through a dozen names, selected voicemail and pressed call.

A voice said, 'Please enter your password.'

'What's your password?'

'Two-one-two-one.'

He entered the numbers. The voice said she had one saved message. He pressed one.

At first there was only heavy breathing, but he recognized it as Eddie's near hyperventilation. Same as from the last time they had spoken. Something slammed loudly and Conrad pulled his ear away for a moment. Then Eddie started screaming.

'God damn you, how can you do this to me? To the fucking baby! Why are you hiding from me? You want me to leave you alone? I'm not good enough? Is that it, you fucking whore bitch! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you -'

Conrad shook his head. The kid was having an absolute tantrum. Nadia turned away and gagged. Conrad reached out for her, but she jerked away.

'- fuck you, fine, fucking fine, if this is what you want, you got it, bitch,' Eddie's voicemail continued. 'You made this mess, you clean it up. I'm leaving this whole shitty deal, right now. You ready? You ready, Nadia? Suck on this!'

There was a deafening bang. Conrad was pretty sure it was a gunshot. Then a clatter, as if the phone had been dropped. After ten seconds of silence, coming from some distance away from the phone, there was only a low moaning sound. It was sickening, something that could not be faked, and it went on and on. Finally the time allotted for messages expired.

Conrad closed the phone. 'Jesus.'

'I killed him,' Nadia said.

'No, you didn't. We don't even know for sure if--'

'He shot himself! I know he's dead!'

'Nadia--'

'I knew he was going to do this! Don't you see? I could have gone over sooner. I could have talked to him. He was going crazy for three days!'

'It's not your fault.'

'You don't understand, you can't . . . Eddie's fragile. I almost asked you to come with me, but I thought that would only make him worse.'