Chapter 9 Audrey #2
That had been a very bad day. Clay was out making his thick, lopsided mugs, the latest in a series of nonpaying “passions” he’s indulged in using my inheritance from Pop-Pop.
Mathilda was at school, and I sat there on the laundry room floor in front of the dryer, crying and—wait for it—peeing in the washing machine when I couldn’t hold it anymore.
“Shit,” Beck says. “This sucks so bad, Audrey.” There are tears in her eyes.
“Yes, it does.”
Then, abruptly, I’m in the fog. Thick and dark.
It’s like time is moving for them, and they’re talking, and I’m stuck here, listening to muffled voices without understanding the words.
They’re my friends, I know. But they’re wrong, somehow, and it’s upsetting.
What changed? They’re looking at me funny, asking things, and I don’t want to answer because I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong.
An animal pushes its snuzzle against me.
Except that’s not the word. But it’s close.
It’s red and its face is graying, and I know her, and I love her and I know she’s female.
Her name is . . . her name is . . . She sleeps on my bed and her name is .
. . I don’t know her name. I don’t even know her name, and she loves me, and I feel so bad that I start to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, but she just looks at me with her kind eyes and wags her tail.
She loves me, and she deserves more. My brain is a deck of cards that someone threw in the air, and all I have are glimpses of what I’m supposed to know.
There is a cat here. I don’t know its name, either. I don’t even know whether I have a cat.
“Hey. How’s it going?” says my husband, and then I’m coming back.
My husband. Clay. “You okay, Audrey?” he asks, and I feel an enormous flash of gratitude because he understands how this goes.
The women are sitting around me, the curly-haired one at my feet, the tall one with her arm around me, the other one who got me water .
. . I asked them here. They’re important. My friends. The Core Four.
“She just told us,” Beck says. Beck. Micah. Jasmine. Gracie is my dog’s name. It’s our weekend together, the high school reunion (not Gracie’s, though). Ha. I still have a sense of humor. The slippery deck of cards reassembles, and I’m me again.
“I see,” Clay says. “Big news for sure. Real sad. Real, real sad.”
For some reason, that makes me laugh. His accent, or the summary of my situation.
“It is big news, Clay. And it is real, real sad,” I say, and then we’re all laughing.
Back in the day, when one of us laughed, it was contagious.
Beck is coughing a little, trying not to spit out her wine, and Micah’s smile is wicked. Jasmine’s laugh is as pretty as ever.
Poor Clay looks confused. He has a smear of clay on his cheek, which looks like he put it there deliberately.
Male Artist Working with Hands. Also, a man named Clay doing pottery .
. . I laugh harder. Oh, Clay. He’s a disappointment somehow.
I can’t remember the exact reasons, but I know I was disappointing to him, too, so we’re even.
“But y’all are doing good? Can I get the fire goin’ for you, ladies?” He’s being extra nice for my friends. He is nice. Just a little . . . vacuous. Yes. The perfect word. Good for me.
“That would be lovely,” Jasmine says. We watch as he lights newspaper already balled up in the fireplace, adds kindling, then some quarter logs.
“All righty, then, ladies,” he says. “Please call if y’all need anything.”
He leaves. “He’s cute,” Jasmine says. “A Southern gentleman.”
A lazy Southern gentleman who’s never been able to handle the harder things in life.
“How long have you been married?” Beck asks.
“I have no idea,” I say, and for some reason, that makes us all laugh again, wine sputtering, cracker crumbs flying, dog tail wagging.
“I’m starving,” Beck says, and I remember that she always was, and it seems like old times for a second, the smell of food in the oven—I guess someone cooked. My friends are here, laughter hovering at the edges. If my mom were to walk in, I wouldn’t be surprised.
That’s the only good thing about my condition. I’ll see my mother soon. I believe that with all my heart. My mom, who would be alive today if not for the four of us.
The others get dinner together, talking about the farm, how much the same it is, but noticing the differences, too.
New light fixture, new chairs, the island that Clay made out of the tree that was felled by lightning five years ago, a tree Stephen and I used to climb.
I lay off the wine because why make my brain foggier than it already is?
I may have had this thought already. Even so, this is a good day.
Dinner is delicious, and I wonder who made it. It might have been me.
I have other friends, of course. But one of the symptoms of this lovely disease is that people irritate me.
I’ve been avoiding Toni Francesco, my closest friend since I moved back, so I won’t have to tap-dance around her.
If she knew, she’d be organizing meals and rides to the doctor and making up mental exercises to preserve white matter and giving me information about drugs and yoga and blueberries.
I miss her good cheer and energy, but the thought of being with her just feels like too much effort.
Before I die, I’ll write her a note and tell her how much she meant to me.
I know I’ve gone quiet, but it’s okay. The other three talk, their voices just a little bit above me, just out of my reach. I’m tired. Beck sits beside me as Micah and Jasmine clear the table, and their voices are like a favorite song I haven’t heard in a long time.
It’s dark now, and all the outside lights have come on automatically, pools of amber light along the walkway, the path to the barn, in the garden, uplighting the maples.
We go out to the deck, Jasmine steadying me when I wobble.
Micah remembers that we keep blankets in the old cedar chest in the family room.
We sit there, listening to the last of the crickets and the swish of leaves falling. An owl calls and is answered.
“I forgot how beautiful it is here,” Beck says. “My first time back since . . . graduation. My mom moved to Rhode Island a few months after high school, so I never had a reason to come back.”
“I visited a couple times to see my mom,” Jasmine says, “but I still felt like . . . trash. Afraid for people to see me.” Micah reaches out to squeeze her arm.
“Well, I never left,” Micah said. “But, Audrey, you lived in Georgia for quite a while, didn’t you?”
There’s a blurry spot where my Georgia years existed.
I have an image of heat and trees that intertwined in canopies over the streets.
Beauty and loneliness. “Thank you all for coming,” I say, ignoring Micah’s question.
I’m getting tired, but it’s important that I say these things now since I don’t know how tomorrow will be.
I sit forward and look at each of them. “I never felt better than when we were all together. I was the best me, you know? And I’d like to be her again, just for a day or two, if I can pull it off. ”
A silence falls over us, the only sound the shush of the October leaves.
“I’d like to be my old self, too,” Jasmine says. “One quarter of the Core Four.”
“Me, too,” Micah says. “I liked myself a lot better back then.”
“I’m in,” Beck echoes.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Then I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.
“Let’s go to bed,” Beck says. “It’s getting late, this cold is killing my leg and Princess Audrey is yawning.”
We get up, and they gather their glasses and bottles, murmuring about bedrooms and the dishwasher and where Mr. Littlejeans is, but I don’t know who he is.
I remember that they know this house. I’m so tired now that I stumble on the stairs.
The tall one reaches out to steady me. “I’ve got you,” she says, and while I’ve just forgotten her name, I know it’s true.