The wedding in Hyannis was the first time she had to give herself an injection outside of their home. They hadn’t been through everything yet. It was still very much the beginning, though they didn’t know it at the time. She’d canceled dinners, wriggled out of business trips, but their friends’ wedding date couldn’t be changed and couldn’t be skipped. When the save-the-date came, she thought she’d be pregnant by the time the day arrived.
Looking at her crouched on the floor, her expression so determined, he felt a swell of love for her, for what they were trying so hard for. He watched closely as she took hold of her belly, as she pushed the needle in. There was a nine-piece band in the other room. The walls thumped with sound. The swell of flesh above the elastic of her underwear looked vulnerable and pale. She was worried all the medications were making her chubby, but he thought she looked so pretty that night.
“I set a timer for the next one,” she said without looking up. She’d need three shots in all, spaced about an hour apart. “But I can handle it now that I have a system.” She gathered up the paper towels and told him to go have fun.
“I can hold your dress again.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, and rose onto her tiptoes to kiss him before stepping back into her heels.
An hour later he was just leaning across the bar to order a drink when he looked over and saw her walking toward the bathroom with her little bag tucked discreetly at her side. That wedding was the first time he put a name to the worry he’d been feeling, the vague sense of panic he had that he was forgetting something, that there was something he needed to do.
But they’d stopped all that. The bruises on her belly faded. The binder that sat on the windowsill for almost seven years was moved to a desk drawer. Malcolm would never again have to jerk off into a plastic cup in a fluorescent-lit room. He’d never again have to walk down the hall to let the nurse (always young, always female) know his cup was labeled and waiting.
He thought, at first, they’d go right back to the way they were before. He thought she’d start stopping by the bar again, to surprise him. He thought she’d start grinning at him again, looking at him like she knew a juicy secret. It’ll take a while, he told himself, have patience. But then she was gone.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Mal,” Patrick said at the Half Moon as Malcolm’s wheels spun. “I thought maybe you knew. And I’m sorry we did this here. I thought telling you here at the bar would be better, but now I’m thinking this was a bad idea.”
“I told you,” Siobhán said.
“Yeah, she did tell me. I thought you’d feel sort of protected here—your house is crazy lonely right now, buddy—but Siobhán disagreed. Anyway. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t. You want help turning chairs or anything? The snow is picking up.”
“I’ll do it,” Malcolm said, but he didn’t move. He had questions forming, but he didn’t want to ask them. Despite how mixed up he felt, he also detected some calm at his center for the first time in many weeks, a pinhole of light that would help make everything easier to read once he had the energy to think about what his friends had said. He’d learned over the seventeen weeks since Jess left that waiting for something to happen was exhausting, as if a door slammed four months earlier were still slamming, and he was still standing there, flinching, body tensed, waiting to find out what would come after. Now he knew, he supposed. In a tiny way, it was a relief.
* * *
Siobhán and Patrick were the last customers to go, and when they opened the door, the snow swept through the vestibule and into the bar.
“How’s our friend?” Malcolm asked Roddy.
“He left,” Roddy said. “Must have gone out the kitchen exit.”
“Really? It’s all ice back there.”
Malcolm walked through the kitchen, opened the door that led to the alley, and squinted into the dark to make sure Tripp wasn’t splayed out with a broken leg. He turned on the flashlight on his phone and took a few careful steps out. He shined the light in every direction. Jess, he thought. Jess and Neil? Who started it? Did she place herself in just the right spot, give him a sign that she wouldn’t object? Or had he caught her in a certain mood and then she hadn’t known how to rewind? The motion sensor went on, and Malcolm watched the snow fall through the cone of light. For a moment he forgot why he was out there, what he was supposed to be doing. The alley was empty except for the dumpster, a few dozen boxes flattened and tied up with twine, a pile of broken packing crates that had been sitting there for at least a year.
“You’re still here,” he said to Emma when he returned to the main room. It was an early night for all of them, but with the snow suddenly falling faster, he was starting to feel as if they should have closed hours ago. Emma had to drive to Yonkers. The bridge would be backed up. Roddy was counting his cash, and everyone else was gone. Malcolm sucked in a little, worried he was getting a belly. Jess said he’d be able to carry it when the time came, he had that kind of frame. She said it like it was inevitable because his father had had a belly, his uncle, both dead now, struck down by heart attacks in their forties. He dropped his hands to the edge of the bar and held tight. Emma was looking at her phone, her fingers flying over the screen like she was playing an instrument. He could offer her a place to stay if she was worried about driving in a snowstorm. She knew his house was empty. No big deal. They’d get home pretty early. They could watch a movie if she wanted.
“You okay to drive in this? You’re welcome to crash at my house.” He tried to say it casually, as if the thought had just entered his mind.
For a moment, when she looked up and locked eyes with him, a hundred and one calculations passed over her face, but in the end she said she’d drive slowly, her tires were brand new.
“Great,” he said, not sure if he was disappointed or relieved. “Good. Be careful.”
The plow passed as Emma left. Malcolm took one last look around. “All set?” he said to Roddy as he put on his coat. He held the door for Roddy to step through first, and as he turned to lock it, it occurred to him that he should offer Roddy a lift home.
“Good night,” he said instead.
“Yeah good night,” Roddy said, and then: “hey, I been meaning to say, you know, better late than never, sorry about Jess. That was her friend, right? The lady you were talking to?”
“Roddy,” Malcolm said. “You and I aren’t talking about Jess.”
“Oh,” Roddy said, his cheeks instantly flushing bright red. “Sorry.”
And then, watching the kid lope up the street in only his windbreaker, hunched against the storm, threadbare sneakers, he felt like a monster. Here was this boy, less than half Malcolm’s age, who could not even choose a playlist when Malcolm asked him to last week. He had his life savings rolled up in his jeans pocket. His uncle claimed he was smart, that he was a whiz with computers, so what the heck was he doing with his life? Malcolm had promised to look out for him.
A moment later, Malcolm pulled up beside him. “Want a lift?” he asked.
“I’m good,” Roddy called over, without breaking stride. “I prefer to walk.”
It was so unexpected that Malcolm laughed.
I prefer to walk, Malcolm repeated to himself as he drove away.
two