Joy Moore - Day Five
Joy Moore
Day Five
My room is dark, with only the faintest light from the setting moon filtering through the blinds. My first full thought upon waking is that I need to water my plants. I can’t recall the last time I watered them.
And then I remember Xander is dead. My husband is dead.
I can process the words, but I don’t trust their meaning.
Xander being dead is like the moon disappearing from the sky.
My head aches as I try to understand. Angeles National Forest?
Suspected foul play? Like so much of my life since adolescence, the narrative is filled with gaping holes.
I know this: I’d just finished uploading the audio file when he stormed in.
I wasn’t expecting him yet; he’d come out of nowhere, and he was upset.
Most of the time Xander’s anger was quiet, sinister, a flattened viper awaiting its prey.
This, though. This was thunderous and hot-tempered, and it left me cold. “It’s too late,” I said.
I wanted a tantrum. Silence scared me, but his yawping gave me strength. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead, time stood still, and then it happened.
I got what I asked for.
The next part is fuzzy. Red giants exploding behind my eyes. Broken glass. Screaming. Running. Waking on the sofa downstairs. Gloria.
“You’re safe now,” she said.
I believed her, but that was when I thought Xander was alive. When I thought I was only hiding from an abusive husband. Now I don’t know who I’m hiding from.
Something terrible happened after I left, because somehow, at some point after I last saw him, Xander ended up in Angeles National Forest. Dead.
I WATCH THE wind agitate the sweetgums from my chair at the recording desk.
They’ve grown since I last saw them, limbs reaching out to rap at the windows as a series of gusts blow through.
I usually hate this weather, but today feels different.
It’s just me and Benny, and he’s wearing his favorite Pixies shirt, frayed at the hems. He’s laughing, green eyes shining, his hair is a mess, and in this moment I’m so happy I could cry.
“We almost forgot,” he says, holding out the Fonz.
I try to rub his ducktail for good luck, but for some reason my limbs don’t work.
“Joy?” Benny says. “Are you all right?”
But my mouth doesn’t work either. My body feels odd. Different. And then I remember: I’m pregnant. But I can’t tell him this. I want to, but I’m afraid of what he’ll say, and it’s clear to me now that he’s afraid too. He’s squeezing my arms. “Joy? Wake up, Joy. Joy, wake up.”
“Ayyy,” I mumble.
I swim back to the surface and peek out through heavy lids. I’m alone. Disappointed, I close them again.
THE NEXT TIME I open my eyes, there’s a woman sitting on my bed. I recognize her from the computer lab. Mitali. I think her name is Mitali.
“I tried knocking first,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You never leave your room.”
Threads of light weave through the closed blinds in such a way that I can’t tell if it’s morning or afternoon. “What time is it?”
“Noon.”
I try counting days and fail. “Sunday?” I clutch the sheets to my chest, remembering afresh that my husband is dead. It hits me like the blast wind after an explosion. Dead.
Mitali eyes me with concern, and I realize she must have already heard about Xander. That’s what she was trying to tell me in the computer lab. I know I’m just a stranger to you, but … um …
“My husband is dead,” I say, testing the words aloud.
Mitali’s shoulders drop. “So you know. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”
“I just learned.”
She takes my hand. “You must be in shock. What are you going to do?”
What am I going to do? I’m not even sure how I feel.
Or how Xander could have possibly ended up in Angeles National Forest, dead.
Again, that word. By my count, I’ve been asleep for fourteen hours.
Fourteen hours have passed since I learned that people are looking for me, and I’ve done nothing to let anyone know I’m okay. I try to sit up, but the room spins.
“THERE YOU ARE. You had me worried for a minute.”
Through cloudy eyes, I can just barely identify Mitali holding a washcloth in the dim light of my room.
“I have to tell Benny I’m all right.” I try again to get up, but my body is impossibly heavy. Like trying to lift a car.
“Don’t.” Mitali presses the washcloth to my forehead. “I think you just fainted.”
Blood pulses in my ears. People are looking for me. Benny must be beside himself. “Do you have a phone?”
She shakes her head. “Just the one in the kitchen. Do you want help getting there?”
I say yes, I do, but even with her help it’s no use. Slumping back onto my pillow, I start to cry.
“What can I do?” she asks.
I stare at my pill box on the nightstand.
Whenever I flip open the plastic compartments, the yellow and orange and white circles all seem to be shouting, Not recommended during pregnancy, not recommended during pregnancy, not recommended during pregnancy!
I’ve tried to be responsible, tried to avoid withdrawal as I taper off, but clearly I’ve done this wrong.
If Xander were here he’d have spreadsheets, he’d be writing down symptoms. “I don’t know. ”
“I can get someone to help.”
“No.” I don’t want more people in here, looking at me. I just want Benny to know I’m okay. I tell her this and beg her to make the call without me.
“Consider it done.” She looks inordinately relieved to have been given a task she can perform. “What’s his number?”
“Three-two-three … six…” I don’t remember the rest. Six-six-seven? No. There are two sixes, I know that, but the end eludes me. I shut my eyes, trying to visualize his number on an imaginary cell phone screen, but the digits keep moving around.
“It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”
Tears of gratitude spill onto my cheeks as I watch her go.
I’M STILL HEAVY when I wake, but when I try to use my legs this time, they work. Unsteadily, they carry me to the bathroom, where I relieve myself and drink a glass of water. I don’t know how much time has passed since Mitali left.
Back in bed, I sink deep, deeper, until I am one with the old cotton sheets.
The pillow beneath my weighty head is flat and lumpy.
In another life this would bother me. When we toured, I squished my favorite feather pillow into my luggage.
Xander made fun of me for it. “You’re like a toddler with her lovey. ”
I think of all the times on tour he wedged himself between me and Benny.
He’d tell me Benny had dinner plans so I wouldn’t invite him to eat with us while on the same night telling Benny I’d requested a romantic meal for two.
He’d inform Benny that I was frustrated with him for running late, and casually mention to me that Benny thought my jokes were off the night before.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Xander said once, “but Benny was making some negative comments about your recent weight gain.”
Once, before a show, Benny jutted his bushy beard out and said, “I changed shampoos.”
“Okay…?”
“Xander said you didn’t like the way the other one smelled.”
“Did he now?”
Benny’s eyes rapidly searched mine. “You didn’t say that?”
“I love eucalyptus, you know that.”
Another night, leaving the green room, Xander handed me a box of mints. “You might want to pop one of these before the next meet and greet.”
“Do I have bad breath?”
“Well, Benny said…”
This went on. And on. I wish I could say I tried to put a stop to it, but it was easier to disengage.
If I argued, for example, that Benny would never comment on my weight, Xander would laugh and say, “Of course he would never say it to your face.” And then he’d spend the next ten minutes telling me how lovely I was.
How lucky I was to have a husband who could see my beauty in all its different forms.
And even though I knew what he was doing, even though I saw right through it, his words got under my skin.
Benny might not have said anything about my weight, but clearly it was on Xander’s mind if he thought to bring it up.
Benny had never complained about my breath, but I still found myself popping mints whenever either of them was around.
There was no love lost between Benny and Xander by the end of our tour, and things only worsened after that.
It occurs to me, as I wait for Mitali to return, that Benny might have already reached his tipping point before finding the memoir.
If he hurt you, I swear to god I’ll kill him.
Fear coils around my heart. If he read it that night, if he returned to my house later to have it out with Xander and something happened …
THE BED SHIFTS. I open my eyes to find Mitali sitting at my feet. She stares at me for so long my skin starts to tingle. “Did you get through?”
“I couldn’t figure out how to call Benny, so I called the police.”
My pulse quickens. “And?”
She takes my hand. “You’re to stay here. Rest. As long as you need. Gloria already knows.”
“Stay?” I assumed someone would come get me.
“For now, you’re safer here.” Lowering her voice, she adds, “Whoever killed Xander hasn’t been arrested yet.”
Arrested. I almost don’t want to ask. “And … Benny?”
Her eyes crinkle. “They promised they would let Benny know you’re okay.”
Hearing this, I’m hit with a jolt of relief so powerful it makes me dizzy again: Benny couldn’t have done it.
They wouldn’t say I was safer here if they thought Benny was responsible for Xander’s death because Benny would never hurt me.
Never. My throat swells. I want to see him.
I wish I could see him. “How long do I have to stay here? How am I supposed to know when it’s okay to leave? ”
“I gave them my email. They said they’d let us know if they had any updates.”
I close my eyes, suddenly heavy again. There are still countless unanswered questions, but I’ll worry about those later. For right now, here, I’m in no danger, and Benny will soon know I’m alive, and I suppose that’s all that matters.
When I open my eyes again, Mitali’s holding my pill organizer. “When was your last dose? Are you due?”
Again, the shame that I’m not doing this right. That if I were more scientific about tapering off my drugs, I wouldn’t be so out of sorts.
That Xander would’ve done better.
“You shouldn’t take these on an empty stomach.” She regards my collection of half-eaten muffins and browning bananas. “Wait here.”
I WAKE TO find Mitali holding out a bowl. It smells of curry and cumin, ginger and garlic. I’m overwhelmed to the point of lightheadedness. “Go on, then,” she says. “It’s mulligatawny. I made it last night.”
I love mulligatawny, but for the life of me I cannot bring myself to reach for the bowl. “I’m sorry. I’m not very hungry.”
Mitali releases a disappointed sigh.
“I’ll eat it later. I promise.”
She searches my face, and sets the bowl on the nightstand before leaving. At the door, she stops. “Before it gets too cold.”
“I will,” I say. “Thank you.”