Authors: Tara McTiernan
Kate walked into and through the house that was now filled with packed cardboard boxes looking for Grant and found him outside in the backyard sitting on the stand-alone old-fashioned porch swing that they had bought and set up back when they first moved in, back when possibility was all around them and everything seemed to glow. She'd imagined sitting in it together and watching their children grow up from its comfortable padded seat. It hurt Kate to look at it. But Grant was sitting on it, elbows on his knees, so Kate walked over and sat down next to him.
"Hey," she said. "What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, daydreaming. Remember when we first got this and we sat out here and-"
"No, don't. Please. I don't want to remember."
Grant looked away from the lawn and his memories. "Why? We can still have all that. Well, almost."
Kate shook her head. "Dreams only seem to hurt people. I just want to live in reality right now, no more blown-up fantasies."
"They weren't that bad. We just wanted a better life for our kids. That's the American Dream, isn't it?"
Kate sighed and leaned back against the seat, putting her hand protectively on her slowly growing abdomen. "I guess."
Grant leaned back and put his arm around her. "Did you have fun with the girls?"
"Yeah, it was okay. Actually, it was fun. I hate to admit it, but I'm going to miss them."
"Are you sorry we're leaving now?"
Kate looked up, eyes wide. "No! I just...it's..." Then she heard the phone ringing inside the house. "The phone, it might be the movers," she said, jumped to her feet, and ran across the lawn and into the house.
The phone was ringing for the third time, about to go to voicemail, when she picked it up. "Hello?"
"Katie? It's David!"
"David! Oh, I'm so glad to hear your voice."
"I had a bad dream and Mom told me to call you tonight and you could tell me it's not true."
"Okay, what did you dream?"
"I dreamed you were sad and all dark and nothing would make you better."
Her breath caught in her throat for a moment before she replied, "Oh, no, that's not...true."
"But the dream was scary and I think you might be really sad."
Kate swallowed and shook her head. "No, I'm happy, David! And I'm going to see you real soon. And...," she paused, still afraid of telling anyone but wanting to tell him something that was full of joy, something that helped dispel even her darkest clouds. "And Grant and I are having a baby! Isn't that exciting? You'll have a new niece or nephew!"
"Really? Wow! Mom! Mom! Katie's having a baby!" David called, yelling into Kate's ear, and in that moment she felt it, something that had eluded her since that terrible night at Bianca's: hope.
David dreamed of a dark and sad Katie, but that person had to be banished for everyone's sake including her own. Kate smiled into the phone and listened to the joyful screeching of David and her mother on the other end of the line and felt herself becoming whole again. It was a patchwork kind of whole, Humpty-Dumpty-style with cracks all over, but the cracks could heal someday, with enough time.
Vodka Martini
Sharon could hear how loudly the stereo was playing inside their house as soon as she turned off her car engine, the high hooting voices of choirboys unmistakably marking the beginning of Dean's favorite song, the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
She rolled her eyes and asked her car's dashboard, "Again? Really? How many times can he play this song?"
Climbing out of the car and entering the house through the door that connected to the garage, the volume only increased, now with Mick Jagger crooning about a woman holding a glass of wine, a man at her feet who was somehow footloose, which only perplexed Sharon with its obscurity. What did that have to do with not getting what you want? Did the woman not want wine? Or did she want a different kind of man? Why did Dean like this song anyway?
Along with the booming stereo, the mouthwatering aroma of Dean's homemade marinara sauce filled the air. Just the thought of the disastrous state the kitchen would probably already be in made Sharon's blood pressure skyrocket, her previously calm and peaceful mood from her a long drive home from Stamford and cocktails with the girls evaporating into the basil-and-tomato-scented air.
Crossing through the living room, she saw that Dean had done his usual routine and scattered his work bag, shoes, and papers everywhere, as if trying to decorate with his personal effects. Sharon clenched her teeth and resisted the temptation to tidy up after him, instead continuing into the kitchen which was steamy with boiling water for the pasta and cluttered with bowls and ingredients and dirty pans as usual. Fred was curled up on the cushion in the corner next to his empty food bowl, surveying the wreckage with weary half-closed eyes.
In the center of his own cooking hurricane, Dean was leaning over and tasting the marinara sauce directly from the spoon he'd been stirring it with, something that used to drive Sharon batty until he calmly explained that they shared spit anyway, so why did it matter? She hadn't had an answer for that and let it go, just as she had let go of many other things, trying to learn to compromise. It was made marginally easier by the knowledge that he was trying too: he didn't sing in the shower unless she was awake and up, he picked up his own messes more frequently, and had gotten in the habit of shedding his clothes directly into the hamper instead of onto the floor.
The music and his need for constant noise, though, hadn't abated. He'd even added wireless speakers to every room in the house so that he was never without music. The speakers had been brought over from his house which they were in the process of selling, planning to invest the money in a joint retirement fund and using only a small chunk of it for their honeymoon in Maui after their wedding in October.
Sharon yelled over the stereo, "Hey! I'm home!"
Dean's long face spread, his cheeks becoming rounded with a huge grin. "Hey! Just in time! Let's mangia on some pasta, cara mia!"
"Can we turn this song down? I'm screaming here!"
"Oh, sure!" Dean said, throwing the dirty spoon on the counter and leaving a smear of red sauce across it. "I'll get it. You sit! Prepare to be served!" He pointed at the kitchen table that was still piled with bags of groceries that Dean had bought and apparently forgotten to put away. She walked toward it as he searched the counter for the stereo's remote control, and failing to find it among the clutter, he darted into the den to turn it down manually on the stereo there.
Sharon was just starting to put away the groceries when the volume dipped and he bounded back into the room. "Hey? What are you doing? Leave that."
"Well, how are we going to eat? There's no space?"
"Here," he said, swooping in and grabbing all the bags up with both arms before setting them on the floor. "Like magic, they're gone! Disappeared. Poof, see?"
"Ah...they're right there on the floor."
"Oh, details, details," Dean said, throwing his hands up and walking over to the stove. He lifted up the pot filled with boiling pasta just as a timer went off and then poured everything into a colander sitting in the one empty spot in the dirty-dish-filled double sink.
Sitting down and watching him work, Sharon asked the question that had floated around in her mind for weeks, brought to the surface by the refrain still playing over the speakers, "Okay, I've got a question for you."
"What? Shoot," Dean said, using tongs to portion out the pasta into bowls before topping with sauce.
"Why, oh why, do you love this song?"
Dean looked over at her, his face incredulous. "Are you kidding?"
"No, I'm not. I just don't get it."
Dean shrugged. "Okay," he said, placing a bowl of pasta along with a fork, a napkin and a glass of ice water in front of Sharon, doing the same for himself, and then sitting down across from her. "It's the greatest song ever," he pronounced, as if the words were self-evident.
"Um, you're going to have to do better than that. I mean, I have to listen to this song..., what, three, four times a day?"
"Well," Dean said, pausing and looking off, his eyebrows lowered with thought. "I guess it's great because it's so true. That's it. It's true. You can't always get what you want.
But
," he said, holding up a finger. "If you try, sometimes, you get what you need."
"I know the lyrics. But what does that really mean? What do all the lyrics in the song really mean? They're confusing."
"Aha!" Dean said, leaning forward. "Exactly. Confusing! Life is confusing. It's complex. It's never simple. Things work out in crazy and mysterious ways. Like us. When I moved in next door, I was done with women."
Sharon twisted her lips wryly, an eyebrow arching. "Ahem, you were certainly not 'done with women'. I got to hear a crowd of shrieking girls every night, remember?"
"No, I meant anything serious. I was never going to care about a woman again. Even you, I just wanted to date you. I had no idea what I was getting myself into," Dean said, looking unusually serious.
Sharon had to laugh. "You can say that again. I didn't either."
"But that's life, isn't it? Crazy?"
"Like this song?" Sharon joked, pointing up just as the last refrain played over the stereo. But in that moment, she saw how very serious it was, what Dean was saying about the song, about life. She, too, had shut the door to her heart, but life being contrary, it pushed the door wide open, forcing her to make room for the very things that bothered her most: noise, mess, disorder.
The rest of things that mattered to her were the same. Although Alan had finally given in to her pressuring and checked himself into a rehab in Westport, he could turn around in a year and pick up the gin and tonics right where he left off, maybe hurting or killing himself or someone else next time. There was no guarantee. Her new boss at work was okay, but there would be another round of reorgs soon and who knew what the result would be for her? Kate, someone Sharon had started to consider as a friend, was moving away, back to Vermont, and promises of future visits had been broken by many others before her. Would Chelsea get involved with another jerk like John? Would Lucie's business falter again, some new trouble stirred up by outside forces? What about Bianca? Who knew how long they would keep her under lock and key, how long it would be before that frighteningly evil woman walked free again, on the prowl for her next victim? The answer to all these questions was that there was no answer. Life was too complex, too perverse, to know.
"Yeah, like the song," Dean agreed comfortably and dug into his spaghetti marinara, shoving a huge mouthful of it into his mouth and attempting to chew, noodles dangling down and dripping sauce on his chin.
"Oh, my God," Sharon said. "Who taught you manners?"
Laboriously chewing and swallowing and then chasing his bite with a mouthful of water from the glass of water he'd placed in front of Sharon, he grinned at her and said, "My mom tried, but I think you'll do better. It can be like a group class."
"Group?"
"Yeah, me and our kids."
Sharon had been about to take a bite of pasta, but put her fork down when she heard this. "What? Kids?"
"Don't you want any? I do."
"Sure, but....I'm nearly forty. I think that ship has sailed. Sorry."
"Sorry nothing. Hello? Adoption? Even if we can't get pregnant, we can adopt?"
Sharon didn't answer right away. Adoption - something she hadn't even thought of. And they could do it, it wasn't farfetched at all. Dean would be a wonderful, involved, and energetic father. Suddenly she could see it, their family, right here in this once quietly sighing house. Looking at Dean's hopeful expression it hit her: she was getting not what she thought she wanted, but, instead, what she needed, and it was beautiful and messy and loud and full of love and roaring right at her.