Serpentine, Volume 4, Number 2, Spring 2000

If Only ...

by Christine Watt

       "Ryan," I exclaim.

       "Long time no hear from," he drawls down the phone.

       Silence. What do you say to your ex after three years?

       "So how are you?" he asks.

       "Fine," I giggle, "I suppose."

       "That’s good."

       "How about yourself?"

       A baby cries before he can answer. "Hold on a mo’." Fuzzy noises as he clamps the phone to his chest, I assume. He’s in Maine in winter, he’s wearing a thick sweater, I wonder if it’s one I know. Then I allow that baby’s cry to register and my guts are vacuumed clean out of me.

       "Jen," he shouts away from the mouthpiece, "keep Simon quiet, please."

       Jen? His new wife’s name is Michelle. Or it was. Is he working on number three now? "Who’s that?" I ask.

       "All quiet on the western front," he says.

       "I said, who’s Jen?"

       "Babysitter."

       "Ah. Michelle not home?"

       "Course not. You think I’d be calling you if she was?"

       Now that puts a whole different spin on things. "So why are you calling me?" I try not to sound provocative.

       Silence. But a weird silence. A sort of tension prickling down the line.

       "Ryan?" I venture.

       "Hold on," he rasps.

       "What is it? What’s wrong?" I hear him stride away from the phone, wooden floor creaking, talking in the distance I can’t make out, the baby Simon bleating.

       His heavy footfall returns, he must be wearing boots, the phone crackles in my ear as he picks up. "Babysitter thought she saw some guys prowling around outside."

       "Oh my god!"

       "It’s okay. There’s nobody."

       "Are you sure?"

       "Hey, was I stupid when you were married to me?"

       "No, but you could have got that way without me."

       He chuckles. We bantered so much right from the start, I don’t think we ever had a normal conversation. Then it turned vicious and real. Toward the end, even the sniping stopped and we couldn’t say one decent word to each other because we’d never learned how. Indifference, marriage’s death knell.

       He asks, hesitating, "How’s um . . .what’s his name?"

       I wonder if his ignorance is feigned. "Larry."

       "Right. Larry the lamb."

       "Up yours and the boat you came in on."

       Ryan laughs in an Irish brogue, "My parents arrived on a seven forty-seven from the old country, sure they did."

       "Well excuse me for living."

       "Hold on again," he growls and leaves me dangling. I hear a door open, a gale blast inside, feet stamping, boys’ voices, teenage boys with that half-man boom punctuated by girlish squeaks. They remind me of puppies growing into their legs.

       "Shut the door," I hear Ryan bellow far off, and the door slams with a whistle of wind as it’s pinched out.

       I almost shiver in my southern California home listening to him trudge back toward me in his log cabin somewhere in the wilds of Maine. Is the snow powdery and sugary and incredibly deep, draping up tree trunks and making humps out of postboxes, the sort that scrunches like cinders under your heels and looks like silver desert in moonlight, and if you don’t protect your ear tops they’ll snap off into air so clean-crisp it carries no smell or taste? Or is it sludgy and gray, slush pooling lifelessly over drenched asphalt, blackened tree skeletons dripping against dreary cotton sky where the switchover from night to day is muddy and air stinks like a wet dog? The phone scrabbles, I hear his breath.

       "Michelle’s boys," he explains.

       "Ah." I’ll be damned if I’ll ask where she is. "So to what do I owe this phone call?" I prompt, injecting a tad of hauteur.

       Jen squeals. "Jesus," Ryan mutters and he’s gone again. This is a stupid phone conversation. Couldn’t he find one moment alone without a horde of children around him? It’s like a hotline to Santa’s grotto. He returns.

       "What on earth is going on?" I demand.

       "Listen, Barb, I’ll call you back. There’s something fishy going on outside. Boys, come here now---"

       A sudden splitting crash explodes down the phone at the same time as a girl screams. "Jees . . ." I hear Ryan half-bellow half-groan. Sounds like an ax hacking through wood. The baby bursts. Boys yell, "Da---" I pick up on their terror as they do not finish the word, which elongates into a protracted wail, throats widening like funnels, their plea feeding on itself primevally. Primitive man screamed like that when something got him in the night.

       "Ryan," I yell, "what’s happening?"

       His feet lumber away, men bark at each other, the girl screams hysterically, boys howl, baby bawls, I can’t hear what’s happening for the screeching girl and crying baby. Sounds of a scuffle, furniture shattering, the girl sobbing now, baby all lung, boys blubbering, men yelling, cursing, I can’t make out the words, the awful sound of somebody punched low in the gut and air catapulting out of him, the sick crack of bone. Then a spray, a hail of gunshots. Screams, screaming, I’m screaming, screaming down the phone, can’t stop myself.

       Earthquake. We’re having an earthquake. What a shitting time. I’m being shaken, buffeted. The floor is bouncing. No. Just a tremor. Maybe a three point something. I hear a car in the distance. We’re all right. I sink back into the phone where a blanket of uncanny quiet echoes like hush after a heavy snowfall. A tiny whimper like a hungry kitten. Oh god . . .

       Somebody’s coming to the phone, not Ryan, a different tread, faster, not so heavy, like a Nazi goose-stepping. I rear back, as if whoever he is could shoot me down the phone line. Like when I was a little girl and hid behind the couch whenever the Lone Ranger started shooting so he couldn’t shoot me if Silver jumped out of the TV screen onto the fuzzy rug in the middle of the living-room floor. Slam. I’m cut off. Oh god, oh god, what to do. I don’t have Ryan’s number. He moved to somewhere out in the sticks, I have no idea where, just an address that could be Mars for all the sense it makes.

       I tremble as I unfold the piece of paper I’ve tucked away in the kitchen drawer under lemon-colored linen serviettes we never use. Peggy would know the number. I catch sight of the time on the microwave clock. She won’t answer her phone at midnight! It’s worth a try. I listen to her irritating message, which always ends in that breathy flight attendant voice and the toe-curlingly insincere "Create yourself a great day." Why doesn’t she change it? No wonder she can’t get a serious date, she comes across as a pungwit.

       "Peggy," I shout as loudly as I can over the noise as annoying as a mosquito. "Peggy, are you there? Pick up. It’s Barbara. It’s urgent. Wake up. Hey pungwit!" I whistle, clap, knock the mouthpiece against the kitchen table, vocalize arpeggios like an opera singer, cough, blow rude rubbery fart noises against my forearm, hold the mouthpiece between the dogs’ muzzles and spring at them to wind them up so they’ll huff, thunder "Peggy" over and over again until my throat’s raw. But no one picks up. Her answer phone is in her kitchen, yards away from her bedroom. And if she’s got a man in there, well. Wait a minute, I’ll dial that number that tells you who just called. What is it? I riffle through the phone book, past How to Obtain Directories, Pager Notification, First Aid and Survival Guide, Bleeding Wounds, Bleeding Head Injuries, I clutch my brow, give up. I’m about to call the operator for the finding-out number, when the realization hits me like the garden rake when I stepped on its tines and the handle rose up from earth at an amazing speed to thwack me in the third eye. Do I want to speak to those marauders who just invaded Ryan’s house? What if they dial the finding-out number and track me down, slipping across desert as stealthily as they materialized over the snowscape skirting Ryan’s house? I know what I’ll do. I’ll call the police.

       First off I advise Officer McMurphy, strange name, that I’m not insane I just had a wild dream in which my ex-husband, his babysitter, twin stepsons, and new born baby were all shot, I think, or at least bludgeoned gooey. Would the officer kindly call his counterpart in Maine and have him or her check on the family? No, I don’t have a phone number, but I do have an address. He suggests I call directory inquiries. Now why didn’t I think of that? After two calls to friendly operators to get the right area code, I have the number, which is not unlisted, phew. I slap in the numbers, taking care to preface them with our long-distance carrier code, which I have memorized along with dozens of other numbers, such as PINs, friends’ phones, suitcase locks. . . .

       A voice just like Officer McMurphy’s answers. Perhaps I hit the redial button by mistake. But I’m sure I hear men with accents half way between Canadian and the Kennedy’s. I hang up and try again, concentrating on calming down so I don’t whack a wrong button this time. Nope, it’s definitely McMurphy.

       "Hello," he snarls. "Who is this hey?"

       "Hello, who’s this?" I resist adding a hey.

       "McMurphy, I just asked you who this is."

       "Ryan’s ex-wife, Barbara."

       "If you’re the ex-wife, where’s the wife hey?"

       "I haven’t a clue."

       "So there is one?"

       "Oh yes. Michelle’s her name."

       "Hold on, let me write that down hey." The phones snuffles at me, as if McMurphy’s wedged it between a rock and a hard place. I hear pencil squeak against paper. "Where’s Ryan, why can’t I speak to Ryan?"

       "He isn’t here, okay?" Surly bastard.

       "But he just called me," I protest.

       A pause. "Oh really. And when might that have been, Barbara?"

       "That might have been about half an hour ago."

       "Your ex-husband calls you at three in the morning!"

       McMurphy has a point. Why were all Ryan’s family, except Michelle, up and about in the middle of the night? And where was she, mother to newborn Simon?

       "Let me have your name and address hey," McMurphy clips.

       "Sure, but where’s Ryan? What’s happened?"

       "I’m sorry, Barbara, but your ex-husband’s been beaten to death. It’s like a goddamn blood-bath here. They shot the kids. Omigod what a mess."

       I scream. I scream and I scream and I scream.

       "Jesus Christ, Barb, what the hell did you eat for supper!"

       I’m in a room, sitting bolt upright, somebody shoving my biceps in the dark. I’m warm, floating above the floor, legs encased in soft heaviness sticking out in front of me like two fat bolsters. The walls spin into place. I feel woozy and sick and I keel over. I’ve been having another one of my night terrors. Almighty god, how I hate them.

       "I ate the same as you," I snap through comforter folds.

       Larry grunts and burrows back into his pillow.

       One of the dogs nudges my side of the bed. It must be Girldog, she’s more sensitive to my strangeness than Boydog. I reach to the sound of her agitation, and instantly a hot slimy tongue covers the back of my hand with frantic licks. It is Girldog, her tongue isn’t so fat as Boydog’s and he licks more like a cat, raspy and full-tongued as if tasting, not just the nervous fluttering tip.

       "It’s all right, girl," I whisper. She slurps more urgently, soaking the webbing between my fingers, shoving her icy nose roughly into my palm, and worms her front paws, chest onto the bed. "I don’t do it on purpose," I bleat.

       Larry’s hand reaches for me, fumbles down my arm, finds the inside of my thigh, probably trying to find my hand, and massages. "I know, hon’, I know." He clears his throat, rolls, the bed sways.

       Sounds of rumpling sheets in the dark comfort me, is that why it’s called a comforter? Jiggling black and white dots jostle crazily against each other in the night, like looking down a microscope at pond life, then congeal until I see him, a wide silhouette against the gleaming pool of the pillow, the back of his hand to his brow. I love his neck, the sinews in it, the curve where it meets those thick shoulders. His skin even smells more delicious there. He’d been in a deep sleep, and I’m sorry for that. He works hard running the fitness center, needs his rest. He blows his breath, lips ricocheting against each other like a horse’s, shakes his head violently, squeezes his eyes hard shut then bursts them wide, mouth gaping like a fish to pull skin tightly over cheekbones shiny in moonlight. His jaw pops and cracks. He sits up beside me, stroking my shoulder, leaning into me.

       "You okay?" he asks, voice tender. He’s so sweet.

       I nod, smiling, hair flopping over my face. But I’m not so sure, not this time. It was such a vivid one, I may have to do my downstairs-patrol-with-all-the-lights-on until I’m certain I’m not going back inside it.

       "Want a cup of tea?" he mumbles. His head is already drooping back into sleep against my back. His bristles prick through my clammy T-shirt.

       I ease him into the mold of his body, squish down beside him, toasty and dry, and cover us both. Girldog is up on the bed now, lying the other side of me so closely I feel suffocated, lungs crushed. I flop gently onto my back, open up my arm for her to snuggle into, and stare at the ceiling. Her wet nose thrusts into my armpit, then her bony head rests on my shoulder, she smells dusty. I must keep my eyes open at least for a while, until I’m sure. Think any thoughts to keep afloat. Dogs are so hot, especially Girldog with her long silky fur. Hairy dogs belong in Maine not here. I focus on shadows from palm tree fronds tossing across the ceiling. Larry’s breathing plunges deeper. I like that sound, I don’t know why, it’s comforting somehow. He’s so relaxed and secure, like a loved baby, that he can sleep profoundly beside me. It’s flattering, I guess. Girldog heaves a sigh and stretches her full length, smacks her lips, settles to sleep also. I close my eyes, breathing in the smell of my man mixed with dog. And I sense myself drowning through the bed back into that hell. I can’t breathe, cannot go back in, down there, fight against it, I must move, get out of this, but I can’t budge, I’m going back in, oh god no, I don’t want to go back inside that nightmare bubble.

       A baby squeals down my ear canal, startling me out. I’m one great shuddering heartbeat as if I have fever. My scalp needles hot and cold from ear to ear, brow to nape. Then I smell sticky, stale cat breath. The relief is tremendous. Boycat must have been disturbed by my through-the-night yowling the same as Girldog, who wriggles to the foot of the bed away from Boycat’s racket. He perches above my head on the pillow, glaring at me, howling into my face in the way only a Siamese can. I thought about renting him out to couples contemplating making babies. One caterwaul through the night would convince them to adopt teenage. I wonder what he’s saying. "Shut up" probably.

       "All right, puss," I whisper.

       Being Siamese, he matches my tone and inflection to reply. "Raowrooo," he croons. Larry stirs. I freeze until his breathing resumes its steady deep rhythm, then push away from his protective body and off the bed. I grab Boycat before he can launch into another soliloquy, keep his head pressed into my breast, motion to Girldog to get off the bed, which she does with a clatter of claws on varnished floor, then we scuttle to the door. I close it as quietly as I can and head downstairs. Boycat tells me what he thinks of that treatment just as soon as I release him. Girldog hurtles down the stairs to bounce grinning at the front door. A border collie, she’s always ready to work her heart out, any job that needs doing any time of day or night let’s go. Boydog barely lifts his head as I pass him on his black beanbag covered in lime green dog-bone designs, colorless in the dark; his tail thump-thumps, and he drops his head over the side to watch in case there’s food in the offing.

       I switch on every light in the downstairs part of the house. Girlcat glowers at me in that way only cats can that says, "What precisely is your problem?" I pad into the kitchen and switch on the electric kettle to make tea. I shall need at least one cuppa to ram between me and whatever the hell it was I just picked up on.

       I’ve always had night terrors as long as I can remember. Not nightmares, night terrors. Everybody has nightmares, though not everybody can remember them. Night terrors are much, much worse. You wake up screaming, punching, or just sit bolt upright staring around. You aren’t sure which is real for a long time.

       My parents said my fast-asleep gibbering peregrinations about the house were on account of my fertile imagination, and I went around for years proudly telling teachers who gave me top marks for composition, based on those twilight worlds I visited, that I had a "furtive" imagination. I never understood the expressions on their faces. I’d probably be marched off to a psychiatrist today, some of those essays were a trip. I’ve often wondered if that old black-and-white movie I saw on television as a small child had something to do with my condition, maybe gave it a kick-start. Though I have no idea what the movie was called or who was in it or what it was about, I still remember that one scene where a man wearing an old-fashioned wide suit in an office suddenly and repeatedly doubled over his desk. It turned out he was intuiting an earthquake the other side of the globe. That impressed me. I didn’t want to be like that, didn’t want not to be like that, it just impressed me.

       Girldog plops at my feet, tongue lolling, eyes bright. When I come back, I want to be a border collie, they’re manic all the time. Boydog’s claws ticky-tack across the white tile floor and he does a perfect yoga dog-stretch into the kitchen, bum up to heaven, tail shuddering, jaws vast, claws like a raptor’s, then out shoots one straining back leg like a ballet dancer before he collapses, head on paws, with much grumbling. I make my tea, shut the kitchen door so the cats can’t get out, open the back door.

       I gulp mountain air, suck in that pungent aroma of wild sage so sharp it’s almost animal like sweetened skunk pee. I catch the exotic tang of eucalyptus wafting past on a breeze. Girldog scoots outside silently and I watch her glide across the lawn on a mission to discover sheep to herd. Boydog looks puzzled but trots to the door, sniffs the night, he must be able to smell coyote, does he regard them as distant unruly cousins?, then struts stiffly to the nearest vertical object, my new orange blossom tree, and cocks his leg. I don’t know why I bother. Out of blackness Girldog bounds at him, and the two scamper off mouthing each other’s necks, growling softly like mating lions into the shadows.

       I concentrate on breathing in one nostril, out the other to steady my nerves. Well not really, it’s all visualization, nobody actually breathes in one nostril and out the other that I’m aware of, except maybe authentic gurus in India who have renounced all worldly possessions, but certainly none of us Anglo-Saxons swathed in creature comforts in the southland can get in touch with our individual nostrils. I feel the air cleansing out those toxic visions. It’s winter so it’s almost chilly, but how chilly can it really get near the Mexican border? Ryan on the other hand must be freezing his bits off.

       Now what in hell was all that about? Why should I dream about him and his brood, and so vividly? I don’t know any of those people. I hardly ever think about him any more, not now things are getting really good between Larry and me. Am I getting my period? I always dream like a madwoman around that time of month, blood-related tableaux in red as violent as the color of a retina when sun shines through a closed eyelid, and I wake in a jumble that muddles me all day. A quick calculation. No, I’m smack-bang in the middle. Maybe now I’m over 40 I’m going wacky around ovulation too. No surely not, that’s too unfair.

       Apparently if we didn’t go collectively and quietly bonkers every night, ridding our psyches of whatever bogey-men lurk in our unlit corners, we’d all be psychotic. (So that’s what’s going on on the freeways.) I could put Hitler to shame in that case. I regularly, inter alia, sing duets with myself while watching aunties stab each other with pointy curved knives across turnstiles in the English countryside. I remember a big debate at university: "Does one dream in color?" I couldn’t believe it. You mean people don’t? I had psychedelic dreams way before the seventies. Hell, I even smell. The night my Da died, I smelled his hospital room so strongly, I woke up choking on disinfectant so acrid my eyes were streaming.

       I flew to the phone, dialed the hospital, and pleaded with the night nurse, "Please don’t think I’m insane. I’m calling long-distance. I think my Da is dying. Check on him right away, would you, please."

       "Hold on," she rapped. Without question she hurried off down the corridor.

       Then I heard lots of feet pounding, wheels, strange beeping noises that only emergency hospital machines make, people yelling, and I knew. I hung up the phone and went back to bed. That night terror wouldn’t return. Another might replace it, but that one had served its purpose. When Mam called next morning to tell me, I told her. Olfactory sensitive, I think they call that. My ols are big as factories all right.

       So what was Ryan trying to tell me? I suddenly feel chilled and smell him. He smells so different from Larry. I can’t love more than one man at a time because I can only like the way one at a time smells. I suspect most women are like this, whereas most men enjoy generic Woman perfume. When I loved Ryan, I remember I ate up his smell. Now it would make me grimace. It was strongest around his sternum, a moist fecund odor like mushrooms freshly picked on a dewy morning in southern France, and I’d squirrel my nose into his bushy chest hair down to the follicles and snort. Larry’s dryer and smells like a blueberry-banana muffin fresh from the oven. They taste differently too, Ryan salty, Larry like overripe apples, Ryan gritty, Larry smooth. I eat by texture rather than taste these days. I am aware of salt as if I’m gazing out over the Pacific.

       I call quietly to the dogs, our bedroom is just up there. They’re good dogs, they come straight away, maybe because they’re grateful and don’t want to put a paw wrong. We rescued them from the streets of Tijuana on the way back from a belated honeymoon in Ensenada. I wonder if they have nightmares, they certainly dream. I always tug a back paw whenever they twitch and whimper in their sleep, because I wouldn’t want them to have the night terrors. I wish those only on my enemies.

       Who were those men who burst into Ryan’s house? I could always call him, make sure he’s all right. I glance at the phone, cream against white walls. The droning hum of the refrigerator bothers me. Of course I can’t phone him, I don’t have his number.

       After he remarried, we kept in touch, no sex of course, just a lunch now and then in the city, a drink, phone call. Funny how we were able to thrust and parry words again. After I remarried, that all stopped. Larry’s not one of these new men. Although he’s younger than I am, he’s an old-fashioned, territorial type who wouldn’t understand why his wife wanted to have lunch with her ex. I think that may have had something to do with why he took this job in California, to get away from New York City and Ryan. Then Peggy told me Ryan had bought his dream house in the wilderness. Bully for him.

       There’s another reason I couldn’t phone Ryan, besides not knowing his number. We don’t have a lot of money, and Larry keeps track of all the bills. Not because he’s mean or is checking up on me, no way, I wouldn’t put up with that, but because he believes the big corporations are out to screw the little people like us, so he goes through that phone bill with a fine tooth comb to make sure they’re not sticking us with calls they get landed with from phone cheats. A phone call at one o’clock in the morning to Maine would stand out like a boil. It’ll still be dark up there.

       Isn’t that peculiar? I’ve forgotten what time dawn arrives on the east coast. Here the first glimmers peep over the horizon about 6:30. I have a feeling it’s earlier near the North Pole, where Ryan lives. I wonder what happened to their Christmas tree in the fight, Michelle’s sure to have one all gold balls and tinsel. I shake my head, blink. There was no fight. That was a dream. I chuckle.

       Not all my dreams are bad. Some are hilarious and I wake myself up laughing my head off. Larry doesn’t like my funny dreams, says they’re worse than the night terrors, for him at any rate, because there’s nothing more eerie, he says, than being woken by somebody cackling through the still of the night especially when she’s your wife asleep right next to you in bed.

       The last amusing one was a hoot and a half. Larry has a friend, Dennis the Tennis, D the T he calls himself. He’s a tennis pro at one of the fancy schmancy sports clubs around here. We sometimes meet him at his club for a beer. We always sit up at the bar so D the T can survey the action from behind his shades. He keeps up a constant tirade of insults about club members, calls them all fuckwits. Larry and I adopted that term, fuckwit, we liked it. We used it to describe anybody we didn’t like, the Muslim neighbor who hates dogs, the Jewish neighbor who sees nothing wrong with ritual animal slaughter, the Christian couple at the corner who hate us because we told them we wouldn’t give house room to any religion that condones eating god’s other species, the homophobes on the next alley who hate the gay guys who work at Larry’s club and hang out in our back yard, and other run-of-the-mill sludge in general. During the week, we can get in some good sets with Dennis, but come the weekend all fuckwits south of L.A. and north of San Diego show up, according to D the T. If you’re into tennis, you’ll know the ones I mean. They pat-a-cake the ball way up high, knock it into the next court, hit you in the glasses with it, smack the petals off birds of paradise with it, miss it when it comes at them at five miles an hour, dribble water down their monogrammed T-shirts when they take a water break, trip over their own designer shoes, then giggle about how badly they play as they monopolize the courts. In my dream, D the T complained as he thwacked the ball in exasperation so high it disappeared into the blue of the sky, "This is how the pungwits hit the freakin’ ball, Pung Pung." I thought that was hysterical and woke up laughing, or rather Larry woke me because I disturbed him with my strangulated guffawing and wriggling. Tears spurting out of my eyes, I had to tell him about the pungwits right then. At first he said he was too tired, but I told him anyway and he thought it was a scream too. Next morning, he couldn’t remember a thing. I smile as I recall chasing him through the house accusing him of not listening to me, "Typical man." We ended up making love on the bathroom floor, one of those animal clawing at each other quickie white-hot urgent sessions before he had to fly out of the house to get to work on time. I squirm. The dogs snuffed around the door edges, scratching, worried by the noises I was making no doubt; the cats mewled to be let in, cats can’t bear to miss out, shameless voyeurs. So let’s hear it for the pungwits, say I. I must tell D the T that dream next time I see him. I curl my toes so that my feet pop up as if I’m going on Pointe, lay my palms over my lifted knees, squeeze my shoulders high around my ears, forearms rubbing together, to smile smugly.

       I’m okay now. Two cups of strong tea and a re-lived steamy encounter have destroyed the night terror. I can go back to bed, in fact I can’t wait. Larry doesn’t mind missing sleep for sexcitement, as he calls it. I put the dogs to bed, Girldog pleading at me coyly with her amber eyes, Boydog curling into a complaining circle in the middle of his crunchy beanbag. Girlcat hasn’t moved from her hammock in the window and scrutinizes me as if I’m beyond the pale. She’s got some nerve. She was a rescue cat as well, from a recycling site. I cradle Boycat like a baby, switch out the lights, and climb the stairs. I gaze down the stairwell, hear Boydog’s reassuring snore, am enchanted by Girlcat’s eyes like floating golden moons riveted on the garden. Yes, I’m okay now. I scrunch my bare toes into the stair carpet, spread my soles over varnished bedroom floor. I place Boydog on my pillow and snuggle into my new man, wrapping myself in his male muffin aroma that will frighten night demons away.

       Next morning the walls gleam with yet another day in paradise. Why did I ever live in New York so long when there was this much sunlight in California? No wonder they make movies here. It’s like taking a bath in light every day. Larry’s already cleaning his teeth. I feel wonderful.

       "Hey," he says thickly as he peeks in the bedroom at me, jeans on, chest bare, toothbrush jutting out of the side of his mouth, frothy gloop dribbling down his shadowy chin, "did I dream it or did you have another one of those weird nightmare doohickies?" He goes on brushing.

       I’d forgotten. It floods back like bile gurgling up my throat after I’ve gorged one of his superb curries. "Right," I murmur.

       "Bad one this time, eh?"

       I nod.

       He sits beside me on the bed, kneads my back. "Wonder what in hell causes them."

       I shake my head.

       "First woman I’ve ever been with makes more noise asleep than awake." He leaves the room, grinning at his own wit.

       "I thought you were a virgin when you married the first time and I was number two."

       "Oops, that’s right. That’s what I told you, wasn’t it? Got to keep my story straight. I was the sweet young boy and you the experienced older vamp."

       "Less of the older."

       We go on like this every morning, every evening, I’m training him in repartee the way I trained Ryan. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I accept romance? Why do I have to be so cynical and hit back before the other person’s even looked at me cross-eyed? I had a normal childhood. Where the b’Jesus does this need to win a verbal jousting come from? And why the hell do I have night terrors? Suddenly I’m exhausted. The sun makes me squint. I don’t feel wonderful any more.

       Larry leaves for work and I force myself to settle down at the computer. I’m editing a Spanish manuscript. It’s huge or I’d print it out. I can’t edit this way. I have to feel hard copy in my hands so I can turn the pages. I hate that flicking back and forth on-screen. My eyeballs will drop out of my skull onto the keyboard one of these fine days leaving behind red raw sockets. I’ll sue. I’ll check my emails first.

       One from Peggy leaps out. My heart flutters like a bird trying to escape my rib cage. My temperature soars. She hasn’t emailed me for weeks and weeks. Why now? Why is Ryan’s sister contacting me today of all days? I click on it, nothing else exists, not the sunshine, not Boycat batting my eraser around the desk, not Girldog begging for the morning’s hike with a pleading paw. I read the message as it unpeels, it can’t keep up with me.

       "Hi! It’s moi. How’re you doin’? Sorry it’s been so long but, ach, you know how it is. Gimme a call. Or if Caveman doesn’t approve, email. I’m in love--again--so don’t know when I’ll check ‘em though. No more hiding my bushel under a peck. I feel like a new broom sweeping clean. Byeeee. Peg."

       My pulse backs off, my focus includes peripheral once more, I hear traffic outside, I smell the new beige carpet Larry installed in the den, temperature normalizing. A normal message. Nothing about death and destruction, murder or mayhem.

       Larry’s all right about my keeping in touch with Peggy, all right, not ecstatic. He’s baffled more than anything, doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t even keep in touch with his son since he has to go through "the stupid bitch." (I want to cure him of saying that since a bitch is a loving, faithful animal and an excellent mother.) Peggy always took my side in the divorce, said Ryan was a "dumb ass" for letting me divorce him, blood wasn’t thicker than water under the bridge in her book, right is right, and all that, she tends to overdo the proverbial sayings, I’ve got used to her mixing them up. I wonder what she wants. I’ll email her, then satisfy my thirst for green tea, finally walk the beasts.

       "Dear Peggy, nice to hear from you. In love again, eh? I hope it’s a cat ‘cause the average male isn’t worth his weight in kitty litter. By the by, do you have Ryan’s phone number? Luv, Barbara."

       I rewrite that and rework it over three cups of jasmine tea, we’re out of green. I want it to sound casual, utterly nonchalant.

       It must have sounded so laid back, I don’t hear from her for a week.

       I finally get the Spanish manuscript out of the way and log on for an email blitz. I let them pile up, as you do when you’ve got a paying project. It’s TGIF, I’ve sent the ms. back to the publishing house, and I deserve a good long chat session. Peggy’s name pops up boldface in my in-box. The breath catches in my throat. I drop my cup into the saucer, which clatters. Boycat darts a malevolent glance from the in-tray. If she’s sent me his phone number, what will I do then? Will I call him? Will I actually dare do that? I should have asked for his email address if he has one. But that would be worse than a phone call. Larry logs in nearly every night, some health chat room. He’ll hit the roof if there’s an email from Ryan.

       I click the mouse hard. The message unravels.

       "Dear Barb, What gives? First Ryan asks me for your number, then you ask me for his? Is this a case of two birds in the hand? Won’t Mr. Possessive get p.o.ed? Just in case, here’s my sibling’s email address as well. Listen, I want to talk to you girl to girl not on this stoopid computer. I think this is the real thing. Did you ever try 68, to hell with 69? Now if that doesn’t get you on the phone within 5 nanoseconds . . . Luv, Peg. P.S. If you do get in touch with my ignoramus brother, kindly inform him he forgot my bloody birthday!"

       That postscript. I email her back immediately. "Dear P, Has R ever forgotten your birthday before? Luv, B."

       "Dear B, What? Of course. He’s a freakin’ man, ain’t he? Luv, P. Now get on the effing phone. It’s your turn and I’m broke."

       I laugh out loud with relief. And I pick up the effing phone. Peggy’s all of a-dither on account of Jason, a man not a cat, and I listen happy for her. She’s been married three times. She’s older than I am, Jason sounds younger. She asks if the age difference between Larry and me has made a difference.

       "Sure," I tell her.

       "Good, bad, indifferent, if you don’t mind my asking?"

       "Good."

       She sighs contentedly. "Yeah, I’ve had it with men my own age."

       "They’re confused," I reply. "Young men have been raised by women like us."

       "God, you make it sound as if I’m robbing the cradle with the bath water."

       "Nothing wrong with that as long as he’s over 18."

       "Inches or years?"

       "You are disgusting."

       "Isn’t it great? Never take a gift horse to water. Ryan was such a jerk."

       We say our goodbyes, and Ryan is with me. His presence is so strong, I have to sit down, bowels in spasm. He’s had a baby with another woman. How do I feel about that? Not good. But I never wanted babies with anybody. I prefer animals. It’s why I don’t eat them. I don’t eat babies either. Now I’m sounding like Peggy. So why do I feel this way? I still love him, I suppose, it’s just that he no longer sets me on fire the way the mere hint of Larry does. Or is that lust? The stirrings a woman my age feels for a man who has no inkling of a paunch, not one ounce of flab, not a grizzled hair anywhere on his cut body.

       I first found myself gazing at younger men when I turned 35. It came as a shock, because I’d never found them attractive before. At 18 I had a lover older than my Da. But you can’t help your feelings, as Mam used to say. Besides, there’s nothing wrong in looking, in fact we’re told it’s healthy. Ryan had love handles, and although I liked the graying at his temples and crags on his face that said, I am a man who’s experienced life, I couldn’t help looking at those taut-faced guys down the gym with such glorious bodies, tough, lean, mean, every muscle convex with blood and vigor, no sag, pure expressionless sex machines. What was happening to me? I used to find the intangible look of intelligence in a man’s face his most attractive feature. Second came the voice, that had to be resonant, husky around the edges with music in it, none of this Graduate of the School of Monotone Gravely Voices for me. I doubted any of these guys I was ogling could string a sentence together. "You know . . . like . . . I mean. . . right." The only non-monosyllabic word in their vocabularies would be "awesome." There wasn’t any thought-processing going on. So none of them tempted me, though I’d imagine myself with one of them so I’d be juicy for Ryan. Until Larry. My lord, what an Adonis he was. Is. I almost fell off the tread mill when I first clapped eyes on him, flying off the end to splat like a pretzel against the mirror. Me and a few dozen other women, and no doubt men.

       Did I divorce Ryan just for a hunk? Am I as superficial as Peggy? I slump back into the white couch, clutch the arms as if I’ll go spinning off into a colorless, white-noise vortex with no floor. No. Larry can talk. Because he has a brain, personality. What an awful thing to think! It’s just that I do love Ryan--I slept in the same bed with him for over a decade, for god’s sake, how can you chop that off at the knees? We could have had a dozen kids! I care about his welfare, damnit. I just have to know he’s all right, that’s all.

       I stagger to the kitchen, pick up the phone, dial. No answer. I hang on, check the clock. Four-ten in the afternoon. Light’s changing here already, the horizon squeezing the shadows more fiercely, distant mountains turning rosy lilac to smoky purple, rays of sun shafting at starker angles down the pink stucco wall of my neighbor’s house. Seven, eight o’clock where he is. It’ll be pitch black outside the isolated house he always said he wanted and which Michelle apparently wanted too. So where was she the night he called? I hang up. You fool. He didn’t call. That was a nightmare.

       I have to push breath out, can’t clear my lungs of carbon dioxide enough to allow oxygen in. I used to get like this when I was a girl, I remember, around exams. I dial again. Why is there no answer? It’s suppertime there. Peggy told me they never go anywhere, do anything, just sit in that log cabin, her needlepointing or quilting away or whatever craft she’s into now--good grief, he couldn’t have found anybody more different from me if he’d explored the universe with Captain Kirk. Then a curious thing happens. I have no control over it. I don’t know I’m doing it until I recall later on that I did. I become an automaton and dial our local police station.

       "Please don’t think I’m crazy," I hear myself say, "but I believe something bad has happened to my ex-husband."

       "Your name, ma’am," a man at the other end clips.

       We go through the formal part of the introductions, and I am very matter-of-fact. Don’t want anybody concluding I’m a nut and a half so can ignore what I’m saying. It’s too easy for men to do that to females, and I don’t want this male to humor me, a little woman.

       "My ex-husband lives in Maine, I have his phone number and his address," I offer. "Would you like them?"

       "Thank you, ma’am," the tolerant voice at the other end assures me.

       "Would you please get in touch with the police in Maine and have them check on my ex-husband and his family?"

       "Yes, I’ll have somebody do that, ma’am. Now, your phone number and address."

       "Listen, I’m not insane." I check myself. The fact that I have to say I’m not will convince him I am. "What I mean is, you might think I am but I’m not." I try a laugh, which is met with wheezing. He’s probably overweight. "I’m not putting this very well. Look, I’d really, really appreciate your checking on my ex-husband and his family right now and getting back to me. Can you do that?"

       A pause. "Why do you think your husband’s---"

       "Ex-husband."

       "Why do you think your ex-husband’s in danger, ma’am?"

       I’d been afraid of this, he sounds suspicious. I swallow. "Because I, I have dreams, visions if you like. I won’t pretend I’m psychic or anything like that but um . . ." I peter out.

       "Aha."

       And I know I’ve lost him. I’m just another loony-toon escaped from Hollywood. I can see it now, when he goes off duty he’ll laugh himself sick over a beer with his friends about this call. It’ll make his day.

       "My wife has dreams, too," he confesses.

       My throat shrinks to the circumference of a straw at the understanding in this man’s voice. "She does?"

       "I’ll get onto this right away, ma’am, then get back to you."

       "Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much."

       I’m absolutely drained. I dribble into the chair beside the phone. Then the waiting begins. The slightest sound smacks my heartbeat to fever pitch and I jerk and ping about the house stiffly like one of those mimes you see at street fairs.

       That night when Larry comes home from the gym, I’m so on edge I feel as if my skin’s been shrink-wrapped and if he just touches me, I’ll split open and jump right out of myself. He pops a beer, observing me, sensing something. The dogs are skittish as if there’s a brush fire, the cats zoom around the house like banshees, eyes bugging out like a Kliban cartoon.

       "Anything wrong?" he asks.

       I stare at him. I’m so frightened and, I realize, so in love with him I throb. A fuzzy tennis ball sprouts at the back of my throat. I collapse into his muscled arms sobbing. I do love him. He’s so sensitive to my moods, he knows them better than I know them myself, he wants to help me ride them, not like Ryan who never understood them, got impatient with my depressions and couldn’t handle my feverish upswings. He said I was like living with a storm, a hurricane, a twister. I can’t help it. Larry is caressing my shoulder blades, his chin resting on top of my head, I smell the plastic of the office on his jacket, car upholstery, feel the damp heat of his body, hear him swallow with concern. At last I am calm, still, soothed.

       The phone thrashes and I leap sky-high with a grunt.

       "Jees, babe," he exclaims, "you’ve got to get a hold of your nerves." He disentangles himself from me and frowns as he crosses the kitchen to the phone.

       My relief when that frightful jangling stops is overwhelming.

       "Oh, Peggy." He glances at me, rolls his eyes, looks fierce. "What! Slow down. What did you say? Peggy, I can’t understand what you’re saying if you don’t stop crying."

       My bones turn to steel and the veins in my neck tighten like ropes. Please god her boyfriend’s turned out to be a creep and that’s why she’s crying. But she wouldn’t cry on Larry’s shoulder, she’d want mine.

       He turns slowly to me, arm dangling, long tan fingers circling around the mouthpiece. His eyes are bewildered, angry. "Ryan’s dead."

       I don’t say I know. Calmly I inquire, "When?"

       He looks puzzled. "A week ago."

       "Shot, right?"

       A momentary flash of betrayal twists his face, burns his brown eyes. "Not exactly, but how did you know?"

       "Let me speak to Peggy."

       "That’s not a good idea."

       "Why?"

       He purses his lips. "They just found him."

       "And?" He clears his throat. I lunge at him and seize the phone. He moans, exasperation, resignation.

       "Barbara, Barbara, let me speak to Barbara," Peggy is wailing down the phone.

       "I’m here, Peg, here."

       "Oh, Barb, it’s awful. The baby, the babysitter, Michelle’s two boys, all shot."

       I am rigidly numb.

       "The worst thing is . . ." she breaks down.

       Do I want to know the worst thing? Or do I already know it, deep in that abyss I churn about in every night with hobgoblins and fiends?

       "Ry, Ryan didn’t die right away. If only . . . " She bawls horribly.

       I feel my body rock, sway, slither down the wall. "If only what?"

       "Oh Christ, why did he have to live so far away from civilization?" she rasps. She takes a shivering breath. "If only somebody had noticed something, they could all have been saved apparently. It took days for him to die. He was tied up in the cellar, Barbara, they didn’t shoot him, he couldn’t get to the phone. They’d all be alive now if only . . . Barbs, are you there? . . . "

       "What happened to Michelle?"

       Peggy sniffles. "Nobody knows. She’s disappeared."

       Voice flat, I ask, "Were they in love?"

       "What kind of a question is that!" Peggy shrieks. "My brother’s dead and you ask if his marriage was . . ." She doesn’t finish her sentence, and I know what she’s thinking, because I’ve been thinking it all along.

       Maybe Michelle didn’t enjoy the needlepointing and the quilting and the isolation after all. Maybe that’s why Ryan called me.

Christine Watt was born half a century ago in England's industrial north-east. Before emigrating to California, she took her degree in history from London University. Christine worked in publishing houses on both coasts as an editor and writer, then switched careers to work fulltime for animal rights organizations. Apart from words and animal rights, Christine's passions include opera and tennis, both watching and participating.

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