“Mim, I can’t imagine how you must feel. But you have to understand—your father and I have been out of our minds.” She steps into the room now, closer to me. “I know you blame me. But—”
“You’re not my mother.”
I state this calmly, as a matter of fact, as if we’re in court, and Kathy is trying to prove otherwise. She starts crying, and the thing she says next is a silver bullet.
“I don’t have to be your mother to care about you.”
She’s close enough to smell now: her recipe is equal parts sanitizer, tacos, and pigheaded denial. I remember . . .
36
BREAKING NEWS
“MIM, WHY DON’T you have a seat?” said Dad.
“Why don’t you drop dead?”
His signature sigh. Then, “Mary, sit. Your mothe—Kathy and I have something to tell you.”
“Oh my shit, Dad. Really?”
“God, Mim, language.”
I pointed at Kathy who looked like she was on the verge of tears. “That woman is not my mother. And I’m not Mary, not to you.”
“We have news, would you like to hear it, or not?”
“Barry . . .” Kathy started, then thought better of it.
“Fine, whatever.” I plopped down on Mom’s old College Couch, the setting of so many vinyl-spinning memories. (Back in Ashland, after Mom left, Dad said he didn’t want the couch anymore. Said it wouldn’t match any of “our things.” I asked him who he meant by “our.” He said nothing. I said I would literally jump off the roof while simultaneously swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills before I’d go to Mississippi without this damn couch. That pretty much ended the conversation.) Before I knew it, Dad and Kathy were on the couch, too, wedging me in the middle. In the peripheral of my good eye, I saw them holding hands behind my head, and for a second, I tried to command my misplaced epiglottis into action. God, that would have been a vomit for the ages.
Kathy spoke first. Two words, simple enough on their own, but whose combined forces conjured a catastrophic pandemic of madness.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. Blushing, she traded smiles with my dad, then looked back at me. “Mim, you’re going to have a baby sister.”
I knew my reaction was being carefully studied, as if, at any moment, I might jump through a closed window. Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.
“What are you, kidding?” I looked from one to the other. “You guys just got married, like, yesterday.”
Their smiles, already forced and nervous, grew downright twitchy. They looked at each other, then back at me, and before either could say a word, I knew the inevitable ending of this horrible story. It was just too damn predictable. I studied Kathy: for the first time, I noticed that yes, in fact, her breasts were slightly bigger; and yes, in fact, she had put on quite a few pounds since the wedding; and yes, in fact, her face looked a little reddish and inflated. Tears gathered in her eyes as she watched me figure it out.
I blinked.
The divorce had barely been finalized when they got married.
I breathed.
The wedding had been beyond quick, everyone said so. The move south, even quicker.
I was Mary Iris Malone, and I was not okay.
“How pregnant are you?” I whispered.
Dad put his hand on my knee. The same hand that polished and repolished a never-used motorcycle. The same hand that put distance between a golf ball and its hole so I could win. The same hand that, as a small child, spanked and fed me, the ultimate personification of a villainous hero.
And wow, had my hero fucked. up.
I met Dad’s eyes for the first time in weeks, shocked at how sad they were. “You cheated on her?” I whispered.
He tried to say something but choked on the word.
I was crying, too, but the words came out just fine. “You cheated on Mom?”
“Mary,” he said, “this is—”
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
I sat there frozen, wondering if this icy truth could ever melt, if the madness of the world could ever be cured.
In the back den, someone had left the TV on . . .
“. . . no way to know how many soldiers are missing or whether they’re even alive. Sources close to the Pentagon are, as usual, keeping quiet. In these moments of uncertainty, one can only pray for their families and loved ones. Back to you, Brian.
“Thanks, Debbie. That’s Debbie Franklin in Kabul. Once again, for those who are just tuning in, BREAKING NEWS from Afghanistan . . .”
I sunk into my mother’s old couch and let my breaking news wash over me. Like some giant jigsaw puzzle, a thousand separate things took the shape of one whole thing, ugly and shameful.
“We’re calling her Isabel,” said Kathy through tears.
“What?”
“Your sister. We’re naming her after your aunt. We’re calling her Isabel.”
Of course they are, I thought. But I said nothing.
Dad pulled a small paper sack out of nowhere and set it on my lap. It had a big red ribbon tied haphazardly around the top.
“What the fuck is this?” I was intent on cursing as frequently and offensively as possible.
“It’s a journal,” said Kathy. As if that explained everything. As if a journal was fair exchange for my dad cheating with, and impregnating, a replacement mother.
“What the fuck do I need a journal for?”
Kathy cleared her throat, looked at Dad.