Nine
Nine
Monday
Ellie wakes up in bed alone. Her eyes still closed, she feels drowsy, her body heavy but in that good, satisfying way, a signal from her limbs that she’s actually—miraculously—slept. But not just slept. Rested. Based on her current groggy state, the control center that is her brain finally agreed to shut down for eight solid hours, allowing her muscles and her cells and every one of her organs to slip into a regenerative dream state.
Thank God, Ellie thinks, rubbing her feet across the sheets and noticing for the first time in ages that her back does not ache. After a night of repose and one of those magical little pills, she can actually move somewhat fluidly.
With the bed linens embracing her like soft, generous clouds, Ellie releases a long, deep yawn and stretches with all the intensity of a newborn learning to use her body for the first time. It’s been forever since she’s slept this way. Fairy-tale sleep, as she’s sometimes called it—when you wake up feeling like Aurora or Rip Van Winkle, as if you’ve been lost in slumber for one hundred years and slipped off into another dimension.
Ellie bats her eyes open and finds that the room is awash with morning light—a stark contrast to the drenching storm that greeted her and Jonah when they arrived in Newark late last night. The blankets still pulled up to her chin, Ellie briefly thinks back on the scene: the two of them in that near-empty baggage claim, that aggressive rain practically assaulting the wall of automated glass doors as they said goodbye.
Ellie kept her torso pressed against the steering wheel the whole ride home, her eyes strained in a tight squint so she could make out the lines in the roadway, wishing they hadn’t taken separate cars to the airport and that he’d driven her home one last time. Ellie never drove on highways anymore, let alone at night. For years, she’d gladly let Jonah take the wheel and click a sports broadcast on the satellite radio while she sat in the passenger seat drinking a to-go coffee and reading some novel with the help of the book light she kept in the glove compartment.
As if the drive wasn’t bad enough, Ellie (wet and cold and still foolishly wearing her leather sandals) had arrived home to find that the oak tree in their front yard, the one where Ellie had carved her initials as a girl, and where Maggie had done the same, and where Jonah had etched their family name— Baker —when they first moved in, had toppled over, tangling its branches in the electrical wires like a clumsy dancer and tugging them down on its way. In the meantime, the home’s small generator had clicked on, providing all the electricity Ellie needed. Maybe it was a sign: like those downed lines, by the time she finally made it to her bed, Ellie was ready to power off, too.
Now, Ellie inhales and exhales one long, slow breath. It’s time. Once she gets out of this bed, maybe has some coffee and something small to eat, she will make the call—the one that will set the rest of this awful process in motion—to tell their attorney that, after more than twenty years, the Bakers—no longer the unit they once were—have decided to go their separate ways.
With this thought, Ellie is now fully awake and coherent. She looks around, acknowledges that the space is marked by a certain emptiness—an invisible void—that wasn’t here a few weeks ago. Jonah’s clothes are not haphazardly tossed across the bench at the foot of their bed. His small possessions, a mishmash of assorted knickknacks, are gone from the top of the dresser. The book he’d been reading—some athlete’s memoir—no longer sits on the nightstand. Ellie knows if she peeked inside his closet or drawers, she’d find that the rest of his belongings are also gone, either packed up in the duffel bags he brought to his hotel or arranged in plastic containers in his new storage unit across town.
Ellie feels both sadness and relief at this realization. The worst part—telling the family, having Jonah leave, waking up for the first time alone in their bed, now her bed—is over. The bandage has been ripped off, the wound they’ve created now exposed to the air, where it can begin to heal and to mend and to breathe and to—
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Before Ellie can further process these thoughts, she hears a series of loud knocks at the front door. She drops her feet to the floor, slides on her slippers and a sweatshirt, and quickly peers through the bedroom window. Outside, the world is an ode to spring. Yellow sunshine. A canopy of green leaves. A sweep of blue sky. It is a contrast to the sound of machines and the sight of the power company’s work truck parked near the end of their driveway. Ellie stretches her neck and sees that a pair of uniformed men have begun to saw through the trunk of her family’s fallen tree—a necessity thanks to the storm, but a regrettable one.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Hang on!” Ellie shouts as she turns away from the window and begins to traverse the upstairs hallway. She moves past Maggie’s closed bedroom door—the one she shut before she and Jonah left for the weekend. She couldn’t bring herself to look inside and to think about—
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“I’m coming!” Ellie takes the steps two at a time, prepared to launch into a tirade about the value of patience to whoever stands opposite her door. Pound. Pound. “One minute!”
Once downstairs, Ellie flings open the door, expecting to discover a power company employee prepared to deliver information about when her home’s full service might be restored. But the work crew is off in the background, wearing their hard hats and reflective vests.
Here, on Ellie’s porch—the one with the charming bench swing, the blooming spring flower planters, and the Welcome Home doormat—is someone else, a familiar face belonging to someone she was most certainly not expecting to see this morning. Ellie opens her mouth, but no words arrive. She stands, blinking unnaturally, her mouth as agape as a dying fish.
“I’m leaving your father,” Bunny announces as she pushes a pair of black sunglasses away from her face and onto her neatly combed blond bob. “He’s driving me absolutely mad.” She purses her pale, thin lips to prove she’s serious. When she does, Ellie—more or less paralyzed at the moment—notices the black leather weekender bag at her mother’s feet. “I can’t stay with him for another minute. Not a single second!”
Ellie’s throat has gone dry, as if someone has stuffed her full of cotton like one of Maggie’s childhood toys. She expels an awkward, nervous gasp of a laugh. “Umm ... Mom?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Bunny swivels her head up and down, taking in the sight of her daughter. “And why are you still in your pajamas?” Her face tilts, like a broken figurine. “Are you ill?” She slaps a hand across Ellie’s forehead, then shakes it away, satisfied by the temperature of her skin. “Because, honestly, the last thing I need right now, Ellie, is to get sick.”
Across the yard, Ellie observes the crew from the power company slicing the enormous tree trunk in half. It divides into two giant rounds, revealing decades’ worth of faint age rings inside it. “What do you mean you’re leaving Dad?” Ellie peers up and down the block, as though a commercial jet might be parked among the damaged electrical lines. “For a day? Or for a week?” She thinks about the storm, the many flight delays and cancellations, the sheer factor of time. “Wait.” She stops, rubs her eyes like a tired child. “How are you here ?”
“Are you using something different on your face?” Bunny disregards Ellie’s stammered questions. “A new moisturizer or serum or something?” She lifts a hand, pokes Ellie’s cheek with her fingertip. “I’d go back to the old one. I don’t like the way your skin looks right now.”
“I—I—”
“I know. It’s a shock, Ellie.” Bunny lowers her arm. “We’ll talk more inside.” She grips the handle of her bag. “In the meantime, I understand you’re taking a little personal day, but you need to pull yourself together. It’s time to get out! See the world! Go on dates!”
Ellie stands in the doorframe in her pajamas and her slippers, the patterned cotton shorts loose on her narrow hips, wondering if her brain is bleeding, if perhaps she is hallucinating, or maybe still dreaming. She pinches her arm to double-check but instantly feels the pain of her own fingers. “I—I don’t understand.”
“I already told you.” Bunny steps forward, past Ellie and into the home’s foyer, where she dumps her weekender bag at the foot of the family’s staircase. “I can’t live with him anymore.” She quickly makes the sign of the cross over her body. “Lord forgive me.”
“I—I don’t follow.” Ellie takes a last look over her shoulder, as if she’ll discover that her sidewalk has been transformed into an airport tarmac. “What exactly is happening here?”
Bunny slips off her dark, quilted spring jacket and tosses it over the wooden banister. “Isn’t it obvious?” She removes her sunglasses, neatly folds them, and then sets them on her bag. “I’m moving back in.”
“How many scoops do you use?” Bunny stands beside the kitchen counter, a metal coffee scooper hovering from her hand. “Six, right?” She answers her own question, then instantly shakes her head. “That’s way too many.” She dips it into the bag of artisanal beans she’s pulled out from the fridge. “I’m using four.”
“I—I’m sorry.” Ellie glances at the stove clock to quickly calculate numbers and time, to see if this can all possibly add up. Her efforts are a waste. The digital clock, disrupted by the storm, stubbornly blinks the incorrect numbers: 11:11. “How—how are you here right now?” Ellie can’t see her own face, though she imagines it looks as if she’s having an aneurysm, or at the very least some type of minor, not-fatal stroke. “Physically, I mean.”
Ellie’s instinct is to contact Jonah. Yes, they’ve agreed not to talk all week so they can both step away (her words) and process things (their three-time therapist’s words) and just think (everyone’s agreed-upon phrasing). Still, there must be a stipulation, some fine print they didn’t consider when hashing out their plan, to factor in for emergencies. And this—whatever it is that will explain how Bunny, who hours earlier had bid their family a heartfelt goodbye from her Orlando curb, waving her sad little tissue while they drove away, is now inside Ellie’s New Jersey kitchen, opening and closing all the drawers and cabinets as she prepares a pot of coffee, as if her presence here is a completely normal thing—is certainly some sort of calamity.
An only child, Ellie didn’t grow up knowing what it felt like to run to a sibling’s bedroom and exchange cringeworthy stories about her parents. She’d never been the type to claim another woman as her best friend. There are no extended family members with whom she feels particularly close. For her entire adult life, Jonah has been Ellie’s in-case-of-emergency contact, the initials “ICE” listed next to his name in her phone.
“You need to work on your greetings.” Bunny opens the refrigerator. She bends down, her gold cross necklace dangling from her neckline, and sets the beans back inside. “Really.”
Ellie needs her phone. In addition to her desire to call Jonah, the whole point of this morning—the only significant item on her to-do list—is to call the attorney and tell him that the Bakers plan to file for divorce. After Bunny dropped her bag at the staircase, Ellie launched into a CIA-level search but couldn’t find it. She shook out her bedding, checked her en suite bathroom, inventoried her nightstand, retraced the few steps she’d actually taken since arriving home late last night. Now, she’s watching her mother sweep a little pile of coffee bean dust up from the counter and brainstorming what she’ll say to the attorney ( I have some bad news .. . or I have some good news ... or just I have news ?) or to Jonah when she finally finds her device and calls him (screw the agreement, she has to, no question; she absolutely must ).
“I—I ...” Ellie can hardly speak. It’s like she’s trapped in a fairy tale in which some crazed villain has stolen her voice. Her use of language temporarily gone, she stares at her mother’s dark blouse, which she’s accented with a colorful jeweled brooch, the shiny stones on it forming the shape of a palm tree. The whole time, Ellie wonders if her mother’s visor and punchy tops are packed in her weekender bag. “Also, what—what are you wearing?”
Bunny reaches into the cabinet, clearly familiar with her way around this space, even though she hasn’t visited ( The snow! That cold air! ) in years. “Boy, you’re really something this morning, huh?”
Ellie dismisses this comment, choosing to continue her mental backtracking to the last time she used her phone. Not at the house. Not on that treacherous drive. Not at the baggage claim.
“Do you like these beans?” Bunny asks. “I didn’t care for them the last time. I should have sent you a message last night, asked you to pick up that breakfast blend I like.”
Bingo! The message. Of course! Bunny. Maggie. The last two texts Ellie sent before she stepped into the airport bathroom. No! She must have left it on that filthy counter.
“Can—can I use your phone, Mom?” Ellie asks, realizing her error and still trying to understand how her mother has arrived here from Florida so fast. “I was distracted because of Jo last night, and I think I left it—”
“Jo?” A sly expression crosses Bunny’s face. “Well, that explains the pajamas.” She smirks, reaches into her trouser pocket, produces her own device. “Good luck. It’s hardly working from all those downed lines.” She raises a defensive hand. “I only called your father while you were upstairs to let him know I got here safely. Not that it means anything.”
Ellie thinks for a second. “Actually, never mind.” Now that she considers it, maybe her call to Jonah can wait. She knows her mother. She’ll find a way to overhear Ellie’s conversation or to read any message she sends. On the counter, the coffee machine beeps. Ellie, in dire need of caffeine, pours herself a steaming mug and takes a long, scalding sip, not even pausing long enough to add her creamer. “Where is Dad, by the way?”
“What do you mean?” Bunny asks as Ellie pours her a mug. “He’s home. At the condo.”
Ellie’s face scrunches into a question. “And he knows you’re ... here?” she asks, handing over her mother’s beverage and then consuming another piping-hot sip.
“Of course he knows!” Bunny exclaims. “I told you I just called him.” She purses her lips into a capricious beak. “Where else, exactly, would I be ?”
Ellie’s insides start to settle. At least this part makes some sense.
“I told him he’s lucky, though,” Bunny continues. As she does, something in her tone makes Ellie’s nervous system swing back into high alert, her internal alarms all going off. “If I had my way,” Bunny explains, “I would have booked myself a ticket and gotten on a plane.”
Time slows down. “What do you mean you would have gotten on a plane?” She takes one step closer to Bunny, suddenly wondering if she’s having some type of medical episode, or perhaps if Ellie is having one herself. “How else would you have gotten to my house?”
“Ellie, what nonsense are you talking about?” Bunny winces at the terrible coffee. “What a completely ridiculous question.” She pauses, smacks her tongue. “The same way I get here every day.” She looks down to adjust her pin. The multicolored jewels on the palm tree catch the bright May light that leaks in from the kitchen window. “I walked.”