She tossed the rest of the wine down her gullet. Pointing the glass in front of her like a torch, she followed it into the kitchen.
Rand and Katie sipped tea at a counter jumbled with notebooks and pencil cases. There too, in the centre of the mess, lay Marilyn’s untouched pie. What was wrong with it? She felt an unearned, rankling sense of injustice. So many feelings, she thought, and nowhere to put them. For example, her distaste right now toward Katie, Katie communing and commiserating with Rand. I wish we’d been able to reach her, she was saying. She needed help. For most of her life, from what I’m told. Keeping herself apart so much. A cry for attention, really. When it was family who could have helped her most.
If I’d known, Rand said. I’m so sorry. If only.
He seemed unaware of Marilyn’s presence. But Katie glanced over her shoulder and stared. You need to stop, Katie continued to him. Take this as your sign. If you do, her death won’t have been in vain.
His shoulders heaved. Marilyn watched in helpless horror as Katie gathered his head to her breast. His back chugged up and down. From behind, it almost appeared to Marilyn as if Katie were breastfeeding him. There, she cooed, not breaking eye contact with Marilyn over his shoulder. There, there.
She twitched from the kitchen. Small mercy—no sign of the children in the dining room. She edged her wine glass onto the table and yanked at her skirt, which she now noticed had ridden askew along her thighs. Could she just leave now? On her own? Would that be the worst thing she’d ever done?
Hello again, Marilyn, Malcolm called from the living room. More to drink?
She adjusted the somehow turned-under collar on her blouse. I really should get Rand, she declared with more force than she’d intended.
Katie! Malcolm boomed. Fetch Rand, would you? Time to deliver him back to his wife.
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She connected a few until he managed to snatch her wrists. You’re hurting me, she protested.
He loosened his grip. Blood trickled from his lower lip. What do you think you’re doing to me? he said.
Her car baked. Along Malcolm’s street of brick mostly-rehabs, leaves hung like rags from the trees. Rand began to weep as he had this morning before his shower and after, while trying to decide what to wear. His good suit? Save it for the service, she’d advised. Plashes fell now on his khakis and soon she pitted her wet sounds against his. Finally he let her go—so she took another swing but he ducked and she banged the dash. What am I doing to you? she shouted. Who cares about you?
A woman studiously averted her gaze as she walked a dog past the car. A sprinkler came on of its own accord on the small lawn next to Malcolm’s. Marilyn, Rand pleaded after a moment. You know she died doing what she loved best.
I do know, Marilyn spat at him. But you sure seemed to be saying something else in there. To your new best pal, Katie. So you shut the fuck up.
I had to say something, he said. Somebody had to.
Marilyn went for him again, slapping the air, his headrest, his botched face. She gave up when he stopped dodging. It’s okay, he wheezed. It’s okay, whatever you need to do.
She concentrated on the breeze fizzling the tree branches. After a while he stopped crying. She stopped. The woman with the dog walked by in the opposite direction. Malcolm came onto his porch and peered out at the car then went back inside.
She did not do herself in, Marilyn said. Tell me I’m right.
Rand clasped her hand and she let him. I’m still trying to figure it out, he said. Looks like she cracked a valve.
What about her back-up?
The whole manifold seemed off. Cops have her rig for testing so we’ll know for sure soon. I hope. Fuck what a mess.
A mess, Marilyn agreed. Better to throw in with him than the terribly grieving Allens whose understanding, as far as she could tell—terrible to think this of the family at such a time—misunderstood the Jane-ness of Jane. As if in agreement, the sun winked white off the spokes of the parked bike next door to Malcolm’s. And what about the tail-flash on that streaky afternoon-sluggish sparrow there by the curb? Bright things. A sharp flicker everywhere, if only Marilyn knew where to look. She turned the key in the ignition.
It’s me, Rand said. I’ve fucking gone and lost another one. Maybe Katie was right. Time to stop.
No, Marilyn told him, releasing the brake. No, she said again, rolling the word like a polished stone in her mouth.
His thinness scared her. Like a sack of bones, he seemed a jumble she couldn’t add up. Until she could, if she worked hard enough at it. Sit up straight, she wanted to tell him.
No? he said, bearing an expression of terror and surprise.
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