“How is your hand?” she finally asked.
“It hurts, actually. I’m not going to say that I haven’t punched someone before, but I don’t think I’ve ever punched two people in the same fight. The human hand is not made for that kind of activity.” He was trying to lighten the mood in the car, but Izzy would not let him. This was what always happened, the tension ratcheting up until Hal exploded and then, a mess made, he grew sheepish and conciliatory. He grew self-deprecating, not quite self-loathing, and he hoped that his renewed good humor would save the day.
“That was bad, Hal,” she told him. “That was awful to see.”
Hal didn’t respond, just kept driving. After a few minutes, he said, “I’ll be a good father, Izzy. I’ll do every single thing you ask in order to be good to you. I fuck up, I know that, but I always clean up after myself.”
Izzy was shocked to remember that she was pregnant, had forgotten for a few moments that a baby was inside her and waiting to make itself known to the world. She had, in that rush of violence and activity, simply been a girl who was struggling to keep up with the awful shit around her. It was familiar and she fell into it without hesitation. Now she put her hand on her stomach and felt nothing on the other side.
“Cleaning up after yourself is not the same as fixing things,” she said. “It’s not the same thing, Hal.”
“I love you, Izzy,” he said. Izzy did not like this phrase and was both upset and weakened to hear it from Hal. Her family did not say things like this and she had worked so hard to believe that it was something that she did not need. She did not value love nearly as much as she valued kindness, not knowing if they were the same thing.
“You have to try harder,” she said, and Hal nodded. “More therapy. Constant medicine.”
“I will,” he said, his voice getting high and quick with the anticipation of forgiveness. “I will do everything to make us happy.”
“You can’t punch people in the face just because they’re rude.”
“Shit,” Hal said. “That was bad.”
“Well, it finally pays off that we go on dates in a different state.”
“You said it,” he said, and she knew that he was relaxing now. She was giving in to him, and she did not try to fight it as hard as she knew she should. He was a mess, nothing but imperfections, but he was still the most perfect thing she had ever touched. She did not need him, she told herself, but she wanted him, and so she would make the adjustments necessary to keep him.
“I better stop to get gas,” he said, pulling off the highway into a gas station. As he stepped out to fill up the car, Izzy walked toward the lit-up station. “I’m going to get a soda,” she said, wondering if it was better for the baby to drink regular or diet, still needing the fizz and burst of soda in her belly. “You want anything?” she asked. He shook his head and smiled. “Just come back,” he said.
When she walked back to the car, taking deep sips of the bottle of soda, she saw Hal slumped against the car, crying. She dropped the soda. “What?” she shouted, now running to Hal. “What? What?”
He looked up at her, his eyes so red that it seemed a movie special effect. He held out his hands, empty. “My wallet,” he stuttered. Izzy immediately felt a sickness start in her belly and paralyze her limbs.
“I left my wallet in that theater,” he said and then shrugged.
His wallet, his driver’s license, his credit cards, sitting untouched on the floor of the movie theater. She could see the way things would play out, were probably already playing out, the discovery of the wallet, the decision, easy enough, to press charges, the way things would get smashed apart. “God, I fucked up,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Izzy said, stroking his hair, uncaring about what anyone at the gas station might be thinking. “It’s going to be okay.”
“This is bad,” he said. “Everything is so fucking bad.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, but she found that she could not muster up the force that the statement required.
Hal gathered himself, readjusted his body so that he was now kneeling, so that he could better see her. “I can’t do this,” he finally said.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“I don’t want the baby,” he said, almost breaking down again when he said the last word. “I can’t do it.”
“Okay,” Izzy said quickly, just trying to get him to stop talking. “Okay, okay, okay.”