She opened the letter, ripping the envelope nearly in half, which momentarily distracted her, as if she’d ruined a keepsake. Inside the envelope were two sheets of unlined white paper, with Hal’s messy half-cursive, half-print handwriting in blue ink. When Izzy was eight, her mother taught her, forced her actually, to speed-read because of her love for John F. Kennedy, who was a proponent of speed-reading. Even though Izzy found it to be less than what her mother had promised, the practice was now ingrained, and it took Izzy a considerable amount of time to adjust, to slow down and subvocalize and actually consider what Hal was telling her, no matter how painful it might be.
She had read the letter five times now and it did not change, which tore out something tiny and perfect in Izzy’s heart. He loved her. He said this five times in the letter. He loved her more than anyone or anything else in the world. He was getting help and, though he had to be realistic about his situation, he thought it was going to help him function more easily in the world. He would be better to her, he promised. He wanted, and this lodged in her throat as she sounded it out, to marry her sometime in the near future, when he had proven to her that he was a good person. He had talked to his doctors and in his support meetings and he was pleased that they tentatively agreed with his assertions that Izzy was good for him, despite the age difference and the unfortunate circumstances of how they met. He would like to marry her and take his trust fund and go somewhere far from Tennessee and live happily with her for the rest of their lives. This was all on the first page and Izzy wished she could frame it or consume it or tattoo it on her skin. But. But there was that motherfucking second page.
He did not want Izzy to have the baby. He was not ready for kids, would probably never be able to handle the pressures of raising a child or, god help us, children. He wanted her, Izzy, and only her. He hoped that she trusted him and loved him enough to know that this was the right decision. They could be together, forever, but he could not handle the disappointment of how things had become ruined. Would she please agree to this? Would she write him back and let him know what was in her heart, if she understood how much he loved her and wanted everything to be good and perfect? He signed it With Love because of course he would, because who wouldn’t say it again at the end after using it so frequently throughout the letter?
Her morning sickness, which had abated during her examination of the letter, returned in full force, mixed with her own dread for the future, and she scampered to the bathroom and dry-heaved until her neck muscles ached. This could not be normal, she thought, the morning sickness or her life. When she could stand, she got into the shower and let the hot water seep into her pores and wash away the rancid smell of pork. When she felt human, she brushed her teeth, got dressed, and then tried to imagine the rest of her day, standing over the smoker, the humidity of summer turning the smell of vinegar into something chemical and harmful. Once she lay back on the bed, Izzy understood that she could not face work, not with the letter now in her possession, her answer necessary to turn the future into the present. She understood that she needed to call in, to let Mr. Tannehill know that she wasn’t going to make it into work, but the thought of that phone call, the embarrassment of disappointing him, kept her rooted to the bed. She closed her eyes and felt the ease of shutting out the world, however temporary. Sleep, the only space that did not refuse her, took over her body. Just an hour, she told herself, just two hours, just three hours, just a day, just two days, just a month, just nine months, just the rest of her life. That’s all she would sleep for, the rest of her life.
When she finally awoke, it was eleven o’clock at night and she felt the strange exhilaration of having erased an entire day from her record. The problem was that now she was wide awake. Izzy listened to her heart beating inside her chest and she mistook it for the baby, wondered if there was a difference.
She rose from the bed and called out for her father, hearing no reply. Sometimes he played cards in the back of the market with some friends, drinking steadily until the next morning, when he simply took up his post once again behind the counter. She suddenly felt the claustrophobia of the house, the need to get outside it. But where could she go, what place would have her? She picked up her keys and walked outside, convinced that if she drove long enough, she would figure it out.