Thirteen October 23, 2023 #3
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She’s buzzy, vibrating.
He hugs her and she clings to him. “What did you see?” he asks.
But she can’t yet put it into words.
“You disappeared and reappeared,” Crystal says, clapping her hands. “Like you were a ghost!”
“It was just an instant,” Zander says into her ear. “But wow. Holy shit.” As he steps back, their cheeks brush and they kiss. It’s a kiss of excitement, given on instinct, but they both linger.
Crystal clears her throat. “Should I give you two a minute?” she asks.
And then Elsie thinks, Marcus is the father of her child, not Zander. Elsie takes another step back, pressing her own lips together, still tasting that kiss.
“Sorry,” Zander says, reading her face. “I shouldn’t have.”
“No, it’s okay.” But suddenly she doesn’t want to tell Zander about the baby.
“How was it?” Crystal asks.
Terrifying. Magical. “I’m not sure I can talk about it yet.
” She looks around the workshop, the kayak above their heads, the mini-fridge and counter on which the coffee maker perches, the wisteria vine that hangs over the window, the glowing wasps’ nest enveloping the porch light like a chrysalis.
She already thinks of the place as her own.
“I wonder,” she says, turning to Crystal.
“Would you consider renting the workshop?”
“You got a woodworking business?”
“I mean, to live in.”
Crystal laughs a little. “It’s a workshop.”
“It’s got a bathroom, power.”
Crystal’s gaze lights on the work tables, her husband’s equipment. “I’d have to get rid of John’s things.”
“I know it would be a lot of work. I could help—”
“You don’t understand,” Crystal says. “I’d have to let go of John. I’m not ready to do that. He’s still here with me. I could have a cup of coffee with him now.” A shadow strolls across the workshop floor. John, maybe.
“I understand,” Elsie says. She’s just as unwilling to let go of her mother. Still, her stomach sours at the thought that Crystal’s clearly not going to let go of this workshop. Not now. Not ever. “I guess we should go,” she says.
Once back at the car, Crystal takes her hand, clasping it in both her own. “I’ve got two clients booked this afternoon or I’d ask you to stay, to talk more about your mother.”
“I’d like that.”
“Let’s do that another day, okay? Come back for a nice long visit.”
“I will.” Elsie offers her a business card with her number on it.
“And you,” Crystal says, turning to Zander. “You’re as lovely as your grandmother. Truly. You tag along when Elsie stops by. I have a few stories about your nana too.”
Zander hugs her, kisses her cheek.
As Zander reverses the car out of the driveway, Elsie sniffs her hoodie again, the baby scent. Well, there’s one future that will never happen. She didn’t want it anyway, did she?
Did she?
ZANDER DRIVES Elsie back to his house through a rainy Victoria evening.
She’s hardly spoken since they left Crystal’s house, despite Zander’s attempts at conversation.
In her arms there’s an absence, the echo of a child who isn’t there, who may never be.
She once again recalls the delicious smell of the infant’s head.
That feeling of belonging, like they were literally made for each other.
The same feeling she felt with her own mother.
But maybe she dodged a bullet. The countless sleepless nights, the responsibility, the shit and piss and vomit. She’s not ready for any of that.
“What are you thinking?” Zander asks.
“Nothing,” Elsie says. Everything.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” She doesn’t want to talk. She just wants to be left alone with her thoughts.
But Zander keeps glancing her way. “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he says. “That was out of line.”
“It’s okay.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened back there?”
When she again doesn’t answer, Zander levels his eyes on the car in front of them and doesn’t say another word.
Elsie also focuses on the road ahead. Is she ready for a baby? Absolutely not. In any case, Crystal isn’t going to rent the workshop to her, so there’s nothing to worry, or dream, about. It isn’t going to happen.
Then again, she saw herself living there. And Marcus was with her, at the home birth, where he cut the umbilical cord.
But she hasn’t slept with him yet. So, she does have a choice.
She can decide right now, in this car. She can choose not to have a baby, at least not right now.
Maybe that’s what the trip to next year was about, a warning, to hold off, until she is ready.
But it seems she might have a future of some kind with Marcus, if she wants it.
Or has the choice already been made for her, by the future Elsie on the road just up ahead, in a moment from now?
As Zander slides into the next lane to pass a car, Elsie steps into that future self. She finds her phone, clicks on her conversation with Marcus, texts.
I’m back in Victoria.
Can we meet tomorrow evening?
Do they have a future together? She hasn’t heard from him since they had lunch.
But, in a heartbeat, Marcus replies.
Yes.