Enzo and Miranda by Benjamin Clabault
Enzo loves Miranda and wants to have a child with her, but there is a terrible secret in her past.
Enzo knew he should put the picture down. The water was off; Miranda was done showering. She'd come back into their bedroom any second. But he couldn't get himself to change his position: lying naked atop the covers, holding the framed photo of the baby to his face. The chin - a little pinched, almost cleft - was Miranda's. The brown eyes and dark hair must have come from the ex. The joy in the kid's face, the skin stretched by mirth, was universal - some little fire we're born with, sustaining us as long as it can.
The bathroom door clicked, and Enzo thrust the picture back to its new place on the bedside table. If Miranda noticed, she didn't say anything - just walked slowly towards Enzo, completely naked. He appreciated this habit of hers, of showering before sex, of strutting so he could see all of her: the straight blonde hair, the round cheeks, the faded C-section scar. She reached the bed, and she was on him. They were kissing.
As his lips traveled from Miranda's mouth to her neck, Enzo eyed the baby's picture, tinted orange in the lamplight. It was strange that the kid was watching. Maybe it was strange to have sought out that image in the first place, to have ordered the frame, to have presented it as a gift.
But the tactic had worked. Miranda was grabbing at him now. He followed suit, his fingers spidering downward over skin that felt newly smooth.
"You shaved," he said. He'd never encountered her like this before.
"It's a special occasion." She kissed him aggressively. "It's not every day..." another kiss... "that you make..." kiss.... "a baby."
Enzo pressed back with his lips, matching her aggression. Within a minute, he pushed inside of her. He'd been awaiting this for nearly two years. He couldn't hold off another second.
Enzo had pegged Miranda as "motherly" the very first time he saw her. Maybe it was her curves, the pleasant fullness that jostled every time she bent down to pour a drink. Maybe it was that she was older than him - in her mid-thirties, at least. Or maybe it was just her kindness, which ran deeper than he'd expected from a bartender. She was the first person to really talk to him since he'd arrived in Elkins, asking him a question every time she hurried past - questions like where he was from (Massachusetts), what he did for work (digital marketing), and why he'd come to West Virginia (some romantic notion of learning to feel at home in a different America).
It was still light outside when a small, pot-bellied man hoisted himself onto the stool next to Enzo's. He stank of booze, and the wrinkles on his face seemed to sparkle with gin. Car keys jangled from a loop on his jeans.
"Give me something sharp," he called to Miranda. "Something to warm me up."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Randolph. You know I can't serve you when you come in like this. Here, let me give you a water."
"Oh, that's alright honey -" but he didn't protest when Miranda set the glass in front of him. He chugged it immediately.
"Now that I drank that," Mr. Randolph, his lips twisting towards Enzo, "she'll pour me what I'm really after. She's a good girl - always gives in."
Enzo smiled, then resumed his subtle watching. Miranda moved fast behind the bar, and talked even faster. He imagined her wearing rollerblades.
"C'mon now, sweetie," Mr. Randolph said when Miranda flashed by again. "Just one Jack Daniels. I drank my water, see?"
A stocky man in a white dress shirt entered from a door in the back. "Do not serve him," he said to Miranda, passing the bar on his way to the front door. "He's driving to Belington tonight to visit Mawmaw."
"Oh c'mon, sweetie," Mr. Randolph said after the door had shut. "It's unfair - to deny me a drink, just because my nephew's the manager. And shouldn't a young thing like you respect a geezer like me? Ease the pain of old age?"
Miranda laughed, rolled her eyes at Enzo, and then slapped a glass on the bar. "You know how to flatter me." She dropped three cuts of ice and poured the whiskey.
The old man drained his drink, then ordered and finished another before waddling out the door. Meanwhile, Enzo asked Miranda some questions of his own: Where she was from ("here" - but she didn't have the accent), what she did for fun (fly fishing), if she had kids (no), and whether she was single (kind of).
So she was available. This gorgeous, gregarious woman was somehow still available. For the first time since arriving in Elkins, Enzo felt something like hope.
Beggler's Bar was a quiet sort of loud - the air filled with country music and jovial talking, but moderated so that a person could think. This relative calm was shattered by the manager's entrance.
"Miranda!" he yelled, striding up to the bar. The patrons looked over, then got back to talking. Only Enzo leaned forward, not hiding his attention.
"Yeah?" Miranda said.
The manager pushed through a swinging gate to join Miranda behind the bar.
"My Uncle Randolph." The manager had lowered his voice, but Enzo could still hear.
"Yeah?"
"You served him, didn't you?"
"I did not!"
Enzo felt his fingers tighten around his beer. Something familiar wiggled in his throat - an old discomfort. He hated moral frailty in people he liked.
"Miranda, don't bullshit me. He crashed his truck into a ditch on Ninety-Two. When Hopkins towed him out, he admitted he'd had two whiskeys here."
Miranda's cheeks, which had glowed like honey all evening, went white and cold. She didn't say a word - just looked down at her fidgeting fingers. Enzo willed her to say something, for her to fess up, for the manager to decide it was okay.
"Miranda!" the manager insisted.
Still, she said nothing. Still, she didn't move. Enzo couldn't stand it.
"Miranda!"
"Sir," Enzo said, startling the manager. "Sir - I gave him the whiskeys. I felt bad that he couldn't have a drink. And, well - he's convincing. So I ordered them myself, and slipped them to him when she wasn't looking. I'm sorry."
For a moment, the manager just stood silently, like he couldn't figure out how to redirect his rage. Finally, with coldness and composure, he said to Enzo, "Pay your bill, and get out."
Miranda, her head down, grabbed the credit card from Enzo's hand. After tapping some buttons on a screen, she returned the card along with his receipt - which now included the two whiskeys. She didn't make eye contact, didn't say a word. Enzo left the bar resentful. She could have tried to communicate some gratitude - with a secret smile, with an accidental touch of her finger. But she'd done nothing.
Enzo didn't see her again, and lived in bleak hopelessness, until he felt a tap on his shoulder at the supermarket almost a month later. He turned - and before he could identify Miranda, she'd pulled him down into an immersive hug, pressing his face against her golden cheeks.
The first time they had sex, Miranda had left her miniskirt on. The second and third times, they'd done it in the dark - and Miranda had arrested his fingers any time they wandered south of her breasts or north of her pubis. So it wasn't until they'd been together for three weeks, when he surprised her after sex by turning on his bedside lamp, that he saw the thin white smile carved into the skin beneath her belly button.
"Enzo!" she yelled, shielding herself with her hand.
"You don't have to hide anything from me," he said, guiding her hand away.
He crawled back to the scar. With chapped lips, he kissed it. Only then did he realize what it must have meant. He'd seen the same scar on older women before.
"You can tell me," he said, climbing back up so they were face-to-face. "You can tell me what happened. Please, Miranda. This is getting serious between us, isn't it? And I want things to be built on trust."
Miranda sighed and sat up, the scar hidden in the fleshy curtains above and below it. "I got a liver transplant when I was young."
"A liver transplant!" Enzo noticed the relief in his own voice. "Oh, Miranda, I'm sorry. That must have been awful. I just - I thought it was a C-section scar. And, knowing you didn't have kids, I assumed. Oh, but your liver! You're okay now?"
"I'm fine," she said. "We don't have to talk about it."
She leaned across him towards the lamp and clicked the room into darkness. For the first time, they had sex twice on the same night.
They'd only been dating for six months when Enzo mentioned marriage. From the way her body melted even further back into him, he knew she wanted it, too.
"But I guess we need to settle on some particulars," he said. "On how to build a life together."
"What do you mean?" Her body tensed ever so slightly. They were spooning naked on his bed.
"I mean the general parameters of what will constitute our life."
"Oh, boo!" She wiggled back against him, softened again. "No big questions, no 'parameters.' We've gotten this far just loving and loving and knowing that will be enough. Let's not change anything now."
"But Miranda - we have to know some basics. At least, I do. Let me just ask some yes-or-no questions. And you answer. Okay? Okay?"
"Fine, okay."
"Thank you. Alright, first one: Will we stay settled here in Elkins?"
"Yes."
"See? This isn't so hard. Next: Do we want to buy a house?"
"Ideally."
"Perfect. And now, the big one: Do we want to have kids?"
Miranda hardened like an overcooked steak, then subtly shrank away from him.
"Answer, Miranda," he said. "This is the most important one of all. Do we want kids?"
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
"And...?"
"Yes?" Miranda said.
"Do you? Do you want kids?"
"I don't know."
Enzo gave up on his attempted hug and sat up in bed. A harder "no" seemed to reverberate in the ambivalence of her answer.
"But why not?" He remembered the scar, its supposed cause, his Google search suggesting a liver transplant incision is made at the top, not the bottom, of the abdomen.
"I just don't know, Enzo."
He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"
"Jesus, no!" She jumped up out of the bed, then started grabbing her clothes from the floor. She'd never left in a huff like this - but he said nothing. Some instinct told him to let her go.
Fully dressed, she turned the handle of the bedroom door. Then, she bounded back to the bed and embroidered Enzo's face with kisses.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too."
"And I want to marry you."
"I want to marry you, too."
"I just need more time on that last question, okay? And I need to know you'll love me either way."
"I will. I'll marry you no matter what."
She hugged him, kissed him once more, and then hurried out the door.
After half an hour on Barceloneta Beach, Enzo and Miranda decided it was time for a swim. But when Enzo stood up to head down to the water, Miranda grabbed his wrist.
"That family," she said softly, signalling with her eyes. "They've been looking at us ever since they sat down."
A quick glance at the neighbors - young parents with a boy and a girl - confirmed the staring. Enzo collapsed back down on his towel. Their wallets and passports were in his backpack. And on this, their honeymoon in Spain, he - the Spanish speaker, the world traveler - was charged with keeping them safe.
Enzo saw the two children approaching. He tensed, then relaxed. They weren't pickpockets. The girl held a beach bucket that swayed beneath her fist.
"Hello," the boy said, smiling proudly. "Do you like the beach?"
"I do," Enzo said. In the children's bright innocence, the last remnants of his suspicion melted away. "Do you?"
"Yes, I like the beach very much." The boy's delivery was methodical, his eyes darting upward as he searched for the words.
"And you?" Enzo looked at the girl. "Do you like the beach?"
The boy bent down, whispered in his sister's ear.
"Yes!" the girl said.
Then the children, amid shrieks of "bye," scrambled back to their parents.
"Thank you," the mother yelled from her towel. "¡Querían practicar su inglés!"
Enzo gave her a thumbs up, then rose again for his swim. "C'mon," he said to Miranda - but she said she'd stay back and guard their stuff. He shrugged, then sprinted down into the Mediterranean.
At the hotel that night, Enzo sat journaling at the desk, luxuriating in the lingering taste of paella on his palate. Miranda lay with her eyes closed in bed.
"Weren't those kids adorable?" Enzo said, pausing the motion of his pen. "Like, more adorable than your average kids? Especially the little boy, helping his sister."
"You've said that five times already."
Enzo kept himself from responding. He was hurt by her peremptory tone.
When he finished writing, he got up and joined her in bed. She kept her eyes closed as he rubbed her shoulder.
"You've been different today - ever since that family on the beach."
"You've been different." Now, she sat up and turned accusing eyes towards him. "You can't talk about anything besides the kids, the kids, the kids. What a nice family! What nice kids! I get it, okay? I get it! You want kids, I'm keeping them from you, and I'm a horrible person. I get it."
"Miranda, that's - "
"But there's stuff you don't know about me. Stuff you wouldn't understand. So just have a little grace, okay? Be nice! And love me anyway. Please!"
Crying, Miranda threw her arms around Enzo, let her head collapse onto his chest.
"You can tell me," he said, fingering the strands of hair that her tears had pegged to her temple. "Shhh. Stop crying. And tell me. I'll always love you - you just need to tell me."
"I had a kid." Miranda sat up, wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "There. I said it. I had a son. A baby son. And he died."
Enzo leaned against her slightly. This, he felt, was the most subtle way to show support. He wouldn't say anything, wouldn't ask any questions. He'd just wait.
"Whooping cough," Miranda continued. "Fucking whooping cough. And we separated afterwards. We were ruined. Obviously."
So there was a "we" - a "we" before the "we" she'd made with him. Enzo felt his mind go blank. But then he caught himself. She needed him now. He resumed the pressure of his shoulder against her side.
"In Philly," she said. "That's where I'm from - Philly. I mean, I'm practically from Elkins. I've been there, now, for fifteen years. But it all happened in Philly."
"Do you have family? In Philly?"
She nodded. "My mom."
She'd told him his parents were dead. Now he understood why she'd insisted on elopement.
"Oh my God," she said, crawling away from the headrest, kneeling to face him. "You're going to hate me, aren't you? For lying to you? I just - I had buried all of it. And then you came along. And - I had to have you, without resurrecting all of that. Do you get it? Do you understand?"
Enzo did understand. He got on his knees, crawled towards her, and took her head in his hands.
"I get it," he said. "And I'm sorry."
"So you'll still trust me?" she said.
"Of course I'll still trust you. You've told me the truth now, and everything will be okay."
They kissed, then started pulling off each other's clothes.
"Do you feel a relief?" Enzo asked between kisses. "Now that you've told me?"
"Yes."
"And do you think, now, there's a chance we can someday have kids?" He pressed a finger into her as he said it.
"Yes," she said. "Not now. I'm sorry, Enzo, not now. But someday. Someday soon."
He kissed her neck again and again, and her body thrashed beneath him.
She whispered, "Enough of that - fuck me."
But he barely heard her.
He was staring at the room's yellow curtains, steeling himself against thought or feeling, absentmindedly moving his finger.
"Oh, Mom!" Miranda said, shaking her head at the thirty-nine candles.
They were on their front porch in Elkins, mountains bunched like bunting on the horizon. Miranda's mother - a spry, short-haired woman - whistled "happy birthday" as she set the cake down on the glass of the wicker table.
Enzo, sitting beside Miranda on the swing, gave her arm a little rub. He knew she was self-conscious about her age, especially since marrying someone nearly a decade younger. But he relaxed as he saw she was laughing.
"You always insisted on a candle for every year," Miranda's mom said, "even when you were a teenager. And hell - I've seen so much more of you this past year than the previous ten, I almost feel like you're a teenager again."
"Well, thank you, Mom."
"Blow 'em out. Go on - blow 'em out!"
Miranda puckered her lips and blew, the motion accentuating the wrinkles around her mouth.
"Yay," her mom said. "Oh, shoot. I forget to grab plates. Be right back!"
After hearing the crack of the sliding screen door, Enzo leaned towards Miranda and kissed her cheek.
"Look at you," he said, "not bothered by all those candles. That's the sort of thing you used to get all wigged out about!"
She gazed up at him, smiling. "I've kind of just decided, screw it. So I'm getting to be middle-aged. Who cares? I have you, and I'm happy."
Enzo leaned back against the swing as he heard the door open.
"Okay, I'll do the cutting," Miranda's mom said. "Sorry, Enzo - birthday girl first. Here you go sweetie. Enzo, dear - let's get you a big piece. There we are. Here, Enzo, can you grab this? Enzo, your plate!"
"Oh, thank you. Sorry, I spaced out."
Miranda's mother sat in the rocker with a piece of her own, and they all got to eating - Miranda telling her mom the cake was so, so good after every third bite. Enzo ate silent and slow.
Miranda's mother took the remaining cake inside, and Miranda turned to Enzo. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You've barely said a word for five minutes."
Enzo sucked air into his chest and realized why his mood had turned to sour. He decided to tell Miranda the truth.
"What you said about being middle-aged caught me off-guard. That's all."
Miranda's face quivered.
"No, no," he said, putting a hand on her thigh. "It's not that I care. It's just a matter of - practical realities. You know?"
"What - that my body's going to start breaking down? That I'll bankrupt us with medical bills?"
"No! I mean - Miranda. I'm sorry. I've given you time. I haven't even brought it up. But it's been six months since Spain."
"Oh. So that's what this is about. Kids."
Miranda's face adopted the same limestone coldness he'd first seen that night at Beggler's.
"Well?" Enzo pressed.
She picked icing out from under her fingernails. Enzo heard the slider start to open, then abruptly shut. They were still alone on the porch.
"Miranda - you owe me something. At least a conversation."
"Now? On my birthday? When my mom is here?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't plan it this way. It's just - well, here we are."
"I need more time."
"But Miranda - you saw those thirty-nine candles. There are biological limits to these things. I can respect your decisions. But I can't accept you stringing me along."
"I'm not stringing you along. It's just that there are still things you don't know. Things you don't understand!" She was crying now, a tense anger tightening her face.
"I do understand. You've told me - what happened to little Andrew, your divorce, your running away. You told me, and I get it! But we can't just wait forever. I love you, Miranda. I'm here for you. But if there's a chance we want to do this, we can't just wait forever."
"You don't get it." Miranda's voice was softer now. "If you got it, you wouldn't be here at all."
The slider door opened, and Miranda's mother stepped out onto the porch. She looked serious, sad - one cheek checkered with the pattern of the screen.
"I'm going for a walk downtown," she said, her voice high and false. "I've been wanting to check out that old train station. Be back in an hour, kids." She stepped down the first of the porch's three steps, then turned and walked briskly up to her daughter. She bent down, grabbed Miranda's cheeks. "Tell him!" she whispered, kindly but firmly. Then she kissed Miranda on the top of the head and hurried down the steps.
For a minute, they sat in silence. Finally, Enzo spoke: "Whatever it is, you have to tell me. There's no other way."
Their shoulders were still touching - but not like usual, with the boundaries between them melted. Now, they sat stonily like strangers on a bus. Enzo looked downward and waited.
"I killed baby Andrew," Miranda said. "It wasn't whooping cough. It was me. I killed him."
Enzo said nothing, feeling he was in a deep, dark place, devoid of volition. There was nothing to do but sit, wait, and listen.
"He was starting to roll over. I knew he was starting to roll over. But Cory was just so - so fucking Cory about it! Doing nothing to help, holding the baby for ten minutes after work before going to play video games in the bedroom. And then harping on me about everything. 'You're not cleaning his bottles well enough. Heat the milk up! Not that much, it's too hot!' It got to the point where everything I did, I did it to spite him. I was the one actually taking care of the baby. I was the one who got up three times every night. So who cared if I only rinsed the bottle sometimes? Cory was just being an anal, pedantic jerk.
"But then he started in about how I couldn't leave Andrew alone on the changing table anymore, in case he rolled off. And I agreed with him. Obviously, I didn't want the baby to fall. But Cory was just so relentless. And so he went off to work - without even touching the baby, as always - and nagged me some more about the changing table on the way out the door. And then I went to change Andrew. It was a total blow-out, his little onesie all stained. The baby was crying. The dresser was across the room. I put my hand on him, took a big step towards the dresser, and then removed my hand so I could take the last three steps to get clean clothes across the room. He'd never rolled all the way over before. I felt this intense dread - like a punch to the stomach - as soon as I touched the dresser drawer. It was instinct, some maternal instinct, telling me the worst was happening. I turned, and I saw him fall. His head cracked against a wooden play chest on the floor. It made a sound like gunfire.
"He was bleeding, and screaming - this constant desperate scream, like he saw the end coming and he was fighting against it. I covered the wound with a washcloth. I felt the dent in his head. There was this jelly coming out of his mouth, and I sensed it was his brains. I just held him and cried. He was such a little angel. Even then, he grabbed my finger and squeezed. I just held him, sitting on our couch, and cried and cried and cried. I just cried and cried and cried and cried."
They sat in silence, their shoulders still barely touching. Enzo realized that, unprompted, she would say no more.
"Miranda," he said. "I'm sorry. I can't not ask. We have to talk - to really talk, once and for all. Why didn't you call 9-1-1?"
"That's what Cory said. When he came home. When he found the baby dead."
"But Miranda - why?"
"Because I knew it was hopeless."
"You couldn't have known that."
"And because I was scared. And embarrassed. And ashamed. That's why, okay Enzo! And I was a coward. A pathetic coward. I just froze. There was something wrong with me. Probably still is. Yeah, Enzo - that's what it is. There's something fucking wrong with me. That's why Cory left me, saying I was lucky he didn't press charges. And that's why we can't have kids. I'm a monster. A pathetic fucking monster! And I couldn't trust myself with another child. I'm too pathetic for it. There. Are you happy? I said it. We can't have kids because I'm too fucking pathetic for it."
Enzo traced with his gaze the outline of the distant mountaintops, imagining he was a giant, striding from one rounded peak to the next. It was a game he'd played as a kid every time his family had driven through the Berkshires. For a moment, he forgot about Miranda - letting his mind inhabit those wooded bluffs and ridges, inhaling the woodsy freshness of the mountain air. Before he realized it, he was applying a slight pressure against Miranda's body with his own. He wanted her to feel the hope he sensed blossoming inside him.
"I would trust you with another child."
"Enzo..."
"You're not the same person now, Miranda. That was, what - sixteen years ago? You're a wonderful person, the most caring and supportive person I've ever met. You know how fucking lost I was when I first came here? Hell, I was like a child. And with your kindness, you saved me. I know you'd be a great mother. And I promise I'll be a better father than Cory ever was."
Miranda returned the pressure of Enzo's body. They were leaning against each other once again.
"Do you trust me?" Miranda asked. "Really?"
"Really. Absolutely. Totally. More than I've ever trusted anyone in my life."
"You really mean that? Because I need your trust. I need your love. Without that, there's no way."
"'No way' what?"
"No way I could have another kid."
"But if I give you that love? If I give you that trust?"
"Then yes," Miranda said.
"Yes, we could have a kid?"
"Yes."
They twisted their torsos and dove into a complete embrace.
Miranda had her IUD removed three days later.
It felt good to have sex with a purpose, to be inside the woman he loved, to know that she was finally ready, that everything had worked out okay.
Miranda had nearly backed out that afternoon - saying that to have another baby would only remind her of Andrew, that she could only survive if she were allowed to forget. Enzo refused to accept it. And so he'd asked her mother for Andrew's picture, had it printed and framed, and then presented it as a gift. The strategy worked. Miranda, after ten minutes of sobbing with the picture held to her lips, had said she would try to come to terms with what had happened, that she would fight to move on, that she could try for another child.
She had stalled once more before going in for her shower. Even if she could trust herself, she'd said, how could she trust him to trust her? Enzo had laughed at this. She'd know he trusted her, he'd said, the moment he came inside her. That would be him saying, loud and clear, "I trust you - and I want you to have my baby."
The sex was pleasantly utilitarian. It was almost a relief, to not strive for textured or variegated pleasure, just to thrust downward and wait for that fecund release. But after a few minutes, Enzo started to worry that he wasn't getting any closer to finishing. He glanced at the photo on the bedside table, at baby Andrew's glowing cheeks, and wondered if it was to blame. He reached out, planning to turn the picture around - but the moment he touched the frame, he pulled back, as if the metal had burned him. There was a hidden lament in the baby's eyes, an apparent sense of future betrayal. Enzo felt himself slowing.
"Harder," Miranda said between breaths. "Harder, Enzo. Harder."
Enzo doubled his efforts, but his enthusiasm had waned. As he pumped, he looked back at the picture. He imagined the baby on its changing table, just a few months old. He imagined it rolling. Imagined it falling. Imagined it realizing on the way down that nobody was there to catch it.
"Harder, Enzo! Give me that baby! I need it, Enzo. I want your baby. Harder. Harder!"
Enzo looked away from the picture and down at Miranda, kissing her cheek as he doubled the force of his thrusting.
"Yes, Enzo. Yes!'
Now, he was making progress. He felt he was soon to come.
"Yes!"
Here it was. Any second.
"Yes!"
He looked back at the picture. Saw the blood on the baby's skull. Saw the brains oozing from its mouth.
"Oh, God, yes!"
Saw Miranda doing nothing as the baby bled - just sitting there, pathetic and shocked. Saw her face, white and still.
"Come inside of me, Enzo!"
Heard her lies - all those lies she'd told over the years.
"Agh, yes!"
Thrusted - again and again.
She grabbed his shoulders.
And then he pulled himself backwards, just in time to ejaculate on her stomach.
Enzo and Miranda lay panting in the darkness. They both knew it was over between them.
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The bathroom door clicked, and Enzo thrust the picture back to its new place on the bedside table. If Miranda noticed, she didn't say anything - just walked slowly towards Enzo, completely naked. He appreciated this habit of hers, of showering before sex, of strutting so he could see all of her: the straight blonde hair, the round cheeks, the faded C-section scar. She reached the bed, and she was on him. They were kissing.
As his lips traveled from Miranda's mouth to her neck, Enzo eyed the baby's picture, tinted orange in the lamplight. It was strange that the kid was watching. Maybe it was strange to have sought out that image in the first place, to have ordered the frame, to have presented it as a gift.
But the tactic had worked. Miranda was grabbing at him now. He followed suit, his fingers spidering downward over skin that felt newly smooth.
"You shaved," he said. He'd never encountered her like this before.
"It's a special occasion." She kissed him aggressively. "It's not every day..." another kiss... "that you make..." kiss.... "a baby."
Enzo pressed back with his lips, matching her aggression. Within a minute, he pushed inside of her. He'd been awaiting this for nearly two years. He couldn't hold off another second.
Enzo had pegged Miranda as "motherly" the very first time he saw her. Maybe it was her curves, the pleasant fullness that jostled every time she bent down to pour a drink. Maybe it was that she was older than him - in her mid-thirties, at least. Or maybe it was just her kindness, which ran deeper than he'd expected from a bartender. She was the first person to really talk to him since he'd arrived in Elkins, asking him a question every time she hurried past - questions like where he was from (Massachusetts), what he did for work (digital marketing), and why he'd come to West Virginia (some romantic notion of learning to feel at home in a different America).
It was still light outside when a small, pot-bellied man hoisted himself onto the stool next to Enzo's. He stank of booze, and the wrinkles on his face seemed to sparkle with gin. Car keys jangled from a loop on his jeans.
"Give me something sharp," he called to Miranda. "Something to warm me up."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Randolph. You know I can't serve you when you come in like this. Here, let me give you a water."
"Oh, that's alright honey -" but he didn't protest when Miranda set the glass in front of him. He chugged it immediately.
"Now that I drank that," Mr. Randolph, his lips twisting towards Enzo, "she'll pour me what I'm really after. She's a good girl - always gives in."
Enzo smiled, then resumed his subtle watching. Miranda moved fast behind the bar, and talked even faster. He imagined her wearing rollerblades.
"C'mon now, sweetie," Mr. Randolph said when Miranda flashed by again. "Just one Jack Daniels. I drank my water, see?"
A stocky man in a white dress shirt entered from a door in the back. "Do not serve him," he said to Miranda, passing the bar on his way to the front door. "He's driving to Belington tonight to visit Mawmaw."
"Oh c'mon, sweetie," Mr. Randolph said after the door had shut. "It's unfair - to deny me a drink, just because my nephew's the manager. And shouldn't a young thing like you respect a geezer like me? Ease the pain of old age?"
Miranda laughed, rolled her eyes at Enzo, and then slapped a glass on the bar. "You know how to flatter me." She dropped three cuts of ice and poured the whiskey.
The old man drained his drink, then ordered and finished another before waddling out the door. Meanwhile, Enzo asked Miranda some questions of his own: Where she was from ("here" - but she didn't have the accent), what she did for fun (fly fishing), if she had kids (no), and whether she was single (kind of).
So she was available. This gorgeous, gregarious woman was somehow still available. For the first time since arriving in Elkins, Enzo felt something like hope.
Beggler's Bar was a quiet sort of loud - the air filled with country music and jovial talking, but moderated so that a person could think. This relative calm was shattered by the manager's entrance.
"Miranda!" he yelled, striding up to the bar. The patrons looked over, then got back to talking. Only Enzo leaned forward, not hiding his attention.
"Yeah?" Miranda said.
The manager pushed through a swinging gate to join Miranda behind the bar.
"My Uncle Randolph." The manager had lowered his voice, but Enzo could still hear.
"Yeah?"
"You served him, didn't you?"
"I did not!"
Enzo felt his fingers tighten around his beer. Something familiar wiggled in his throat - an old discomfort. He hated moral frailty in people he liked.
"Miranda, don't bullshit me. He crashed his truck into a ditch on Ninety-Two. When Hopkins towed him out, he admitted he'd had two whiskeys here."
Miranda's cheeks, which had glowed like honey all evening, went white and cold. She didn't say a word - just looked down at her fidgeting fingers. Enzo willed her to say something, for her to fess up, for the manager to decide it was okay.
"Miranda!" the manager insisted.
Still, she said nothing. Still, she didn't move. Enzo couldn't stand it.
"Miranda!"
"Sir," Enzo said, startling the manager. "Sir - I gave him the whiskeys. I felt bad that he couldn't have a drink. And, well - he's convincing. So I ordered them myself, and slipped them to him when she wasn't looking. I'm sorry."
For a moment, the manager just stood silently, like he couldn't figure out how to redirect his rage. Finally, with coldness and composure, he said to Enzo, "Pay your bill, and get out."
Miranda, her head down, grabbed the credit card from Enzo's hand. After tapping some buttons on a screen, she returned the card along with his receipt - which now included the two whiskeys. She didn't make eye contact, didn't say a word. Enzo left the bar resentful. She could have tried to communicate some gratitude - with a secret smile, with an accidental touch of her finger. But she'd done nothing.
Enzo didn't see her again, and lived in bleak hopelessness, until he felt a tap on his shoulder at the supermarket almost a month later. He turned - and before he could identify Miranda, she'd pulled him down into an immersive hug, pressing his face against her golden cheeks.
The first time they had sex, Miranda had left her miniskirt on. The second and third times, they'd done it in the dark - and Miranda had arrested his fingers any time they wandered south of her breasts or north of her pubis. So it wasn't until they'd been together for three weeks, when he surprised her after sex by turning on his bedside lamp, that he saw the thin white smile carved into the skin beneath her belly button.
"Enzo!" she yelled, shielding herself with her hand.
"You don't have to hide anything from me," he said, guiding her hand away.
He crawled back to the scar. With chapped lips, he kissed it. Only then did he realize what it must have meant. He'd seen the same scar on older women before.
"You can tell me," he said, climbing back up so they were face-to-face. "You can tell me what happened. Please, Miranda. This is getting serious between us, isn't it? And I want things to be built on trust."
Miranda sighed and sat up, the scar hidden in the fleshy curtains above and below it. "I got a liver transplant when I was young."
"A liver transplant!" Enzo noticed the relief in his own voice. "Oh, Miranda, I'm sorry. That must have been awful. I just - I thought it was a C-section scar. And, knowing you didn't have kids, I assumed. Oh, but your liver! You're okay now?"
"I'm fine," she said. "We don't have to talk about it."
She leaned across him towards the lamp and clicked the room into darkness. For the first time, they had sex twice on the same night.
They'd only been dating for six months when Enzo mentioned marriage. From the way her body melted even further back into him, he knew she wanted it, too.
"But I guess we need to settle on some particulars," he said. "On how to build a life together."
"What do you mean?" Her body tensed ever so slightly. They were spooning naked on his bed.
"I mean the general parameters of what will constitute our life."
"Oh, boo!" She wiggled back against him, softened again. "No big questions, no 'parameters.' We've gotten this far just loving and loving and knowing that will be enough. Let's not change anything now."
"But Miranda - we have to know some basics. At least, I do. Let me just ask some yes-or-no questions. And you answer. Okay? Okay?"
"Fine, okay."
"Thank you. Alright, first one: Will we stay settled here in Elkins?"
"Yes."
"See? This isn't so hard. Next: Do we want to buy a house?"
"Ideally."
"Perfect. And now, the big one: Do we want to have kids?"
Miranda hardened like an overcooked steak, then subtly shrank away from him.
"Answer, Miranda," he said. "This is the most important one of all. Do we want kids?"
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
"And...?"
"Yes?" Miranda said.
"Do you? Do you want kids?"
"I don't know."
Enzo gave up on his attempted hug and sat up in bed. A harder "no" seemed to reverberate in the ambivalence of her answer.
"But why not?" He remembered the scar, its supposed cause, his Google search suggesting a liver transplant incision is made at the top, not the bottom, of the abdomen.
"I just don't know, Enzo."
He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"
"Jesus, no!" She jumped up out of the bed, then started grabbing her clothes from the floor. She'd never left in a huff like this - but he said nothing. Some instinct told him to let her go.
Fully dressed, she turned the handle of the bedroom door. Then, she bounded back to the bed and embroidered Enzo's face with kisses.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too."
"And I want to marry you."
"I want to marry you, too."
"I just need more time on that last question, okay? And I need to know you'll love me either way."
"I will. I'll marry you no matter what."
She hugged him, kissed him once more, and then hurried out the door.
After half an hour on Barceloneta Beach, Enzo and Miranda decided it was time for a swim. But when Enzo stood up to head down to the water, Miranda grabbed his wrist.
"That family," she said softly, signalling with her eyes. "They've been looking at us ever since they sat down."
A quick glance at the neighbors - young parents with a boy and a girl - confirmed the staring. Enzo collapsed back down on his towel. Their wallets and passports were in his backpack. And on this, their honeymoon in Spain, he - the Spanish speaker, the world traveler - was charged with keeping them safe.
Enzo saw the two children approaching. He tensed, then relaxed. They weren't pickpockets. The girl held a beach bucket that swayed beneath her fist.
"Hello," the boy said, smiling proudly. "Do you like the beach?"
"I do," Enzo said. In the children's bright innocence, the last remnants of his suspicion melted away. "Do you?"
"Yes, I like the beach very much." The boy's delivery was methodical, his eyes darting upward as he searched for the words.
"And you?" Enzo looked at the girl. "Do you like the beach?"
The boy bent down, whispered in his sister's ear.
"Yes!" the girl said.
Then the children, amid shrieks of "bye," scrambled back to their parents.
"Thank you," the mother yelled from her towel. "¡Querían practicar su inglés!"
Enzo gave her a thumbs up, then rose again for his swim. "C'mon," he said to Miranda - but she said she'd stay back and guard their stuff. He shrugged, then sprinted down into the Mediterranean.
At the hotel that night, Enzo sat journaling at the desk, luxuriating in the lingering taste of paella on his palate. Miranda lay with her eyes closed in bed.
"Weren't those kids adorable?" Enzo said, pausing the motion of his pen. "Like, more adorable than your average kids? Especially the little boy, helping his sister."
"You've said that five times already."
Enzo kept himself from responding. He was hurt by her peremptory tone.
When he finished writing, he got up and joined her in bed. She kept her eyes closed as he rubbed her shoulder.
"You've been different today - ever since that family on the beach."
"You've been different." Now, she sat up and turned accusing eyes towards him. "You can't talk about anything besides the kids, the kids, the kids. What a nice family! What nice kids! I get it, okay? I get it! You want kids, I'm keeping them from you, and I'm a horrible person. I get it."
"Miranda, that's - "
"But there's stuff you don't know about me. Stuff you wouldn't understand. So just have a little grace, okay? Be nice! And love me anyway. Please!"
Crying, Miranda threw her arms around Enzo, let her head collapse onto his chest.
"You can tell me," he said, fingering the strands of hair that her tears had pegged to her temple. "Shhh. Stop crying. And tell me. I'll always love you - you just need to tell me."
"I had a kid." Miranda sat up, wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "There. I said it. I had a son. A baby son. And he died."
Enzo leaned against her slightly. This, he felt, was the most subtle way to show support. He wouldn't say anything, wouldn't ask any questions. He'd just wait.
"Whooping cough," Miranda continued. "Fucking whooping cough. And we separated afterwards. We were ruined. Obviously."
So there was a "we" - a "we" before the "we" she'd made with him. Enzo felt his mind go blank. But then he caught himself. She needed him now. He resumed the pressure of his shoulder against her side.
"In Philly," she said. "That's where I'm from - Philly. I mean, I'm practically from Elkins. I've been there, now, for fifteen years. But it all happened in Philly."
"Do you have family? In Philly?"
She nodded. "My mom."
She'd told him his parents were dead. Now he understood why she'd insisted on elopement.
"Oh my God," she said, crawling away from the headrest, kneeling to face him. "You're going to hate me, aren't you? For lying to you? I just - I had buried all of it. And then you came along. And - I had to have you, without resurrecting all of that. Do you get it? Do you understand?"
Enzo did understand. He got on his knees, crawled towards her, and took her head in his hands.
"I get it," he said. "And I'm sorry."
"So you'll still trust me?" she said.
"Of course I'll still trust you. You've told me the truth now, and everything will be okay."
They kissed, then started pulling off each other's clothes.
"Do you feel a relief?" Enzo asked between kisses. "Now that you've told me?"
"Yes."
"And do you think, now, there's a chance we can someday have kids?" He pressed a finger into her as he said it.
"Yes," she said. "Not now. I'm sorry, Enzo, not now. But someday. Someday soon."
He kissed her neck again and again, and her body thrashed beneath him.
She whispered, "Enough of that - fuck me."
But he barely heard her.
He was staring at the room's yellow curtains, steeling himself against thought or feeling, absentmindedly moving his finger.
"Oh, Mom!" Miranda said, shaking her head at the thirty-nine candles.
They were on their front porch in Elkins, mountains bunched like bunting on the horizon. Miranda's mother - a spry, short-haired woman - whistled "happy birthday" as she set the cake down on the glass of the wicker table.
Enzo, sitting beside Miranda on the swing, gave her arm a little rub. He knew she was self-conscious about her age, especially since marrying someone nearly a decade younger. But he relaxed as he saw she was laughing.
"You always insisted on a candle for every year," Miranda's mom said, "even when you were a teenager. And hell - I've seen so much more of you this past year than the previous ten, I almost feel like you're a teenager again."
"Well, thank you, Mom."
"Blow 'em out. Go on - blow 'em out!"
Miranda puckered her lips and blew, the motion accentuating the wrinkles around her mouth.
"Yay," her mom said. "Oh, shoot. I forget to grab plates. Be right back!"
After hearing the crack of the sliding screen door, Enzo leaned towards Miranda and kissed her cheek.
"Look at you," he said, "not bothered by all those candles. That's the sort of thing you used to get all wigged out about!"
She gazed up at him, smiling. "I've kind of just decided, screw it. So I'm getting to be middle-aged. Who cares? I have you, and I'm happy."
Enzo leaned back against the swing as he heard the door open.
"Okay, I'll do the cutting," Miranda's mom said. "Sorry, Enzo - birthday girl first. Here you go sweetie. Enzo, dear - let's get you a big piece. There we are. Here, Enzo, can you grab this? Enzo, your plate!"
"Oh, thank you. Sorry, I spaced out."
Miranda's mother sat in the rocker with a piece of her own, and they all got to eating - Miranda telling her mom the cake was so, so good after every third bite. Enzo ate silent and slow.
Miranda's mother took the remaining cake inside, and Miranda turned to Enzo. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You've barely said a word for five minutes."
Enzo sucked air into his chest and realized why his mood had turned to sour. He decided to tell Miranda the truth.
"What you said about being middle-aged caught me off-guard. That's all."
Miranda's face quivered.
"No, no," he said, putting a hand on her thigh. "It's not that I care. It's just a matter of - practical realities. You know?"
"What - that my body's going to start breaking down? That I'll bankrupt us with medical bills?"
"No! I mean - Miranda. I'm sorry. I've given you time. I haven't even brought it up. But it's been six months since Spain."
"Oh. So that's what this is about. Kids."
Miranda's face adopted the same limestone coldness he'd first seen that night at Beggler's.
"Well?" Enzo pressed.
She picked icing out from under her fingernails. Enzo heard the slider start to open, then abruptly shut. They were still alone on the porch.
"Miranda - you owe me something. At least a conversation."
"Now? On my birthday? When my mom is here?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't plan it this way. It's just - well, here we are."
"I need more time."
"But Miranda - you saw those thirty-nine candles. There are biological limits to these things. I can respect your decisions. But I can't accept you stringing me along."
"I'm not stringing you along. It's just that there are still things you don't know. Things you don't understand!" She was crying now, a tense anger tightening her face.
"I do understand. You've told me - what happened to little Andrew, your divorce, your running away. You told me, and I get it! But we can't just wait forever. I love you, Miranda. I'm here for you. But if there's a chance we want to do this, we can't just wait forever."
"You don't get it." Miranda's voice was softer now. "If you got it, you wouldn't be here at all."
The slider door opened, and Miranda's mother stepped out onto the porch. She looked serious, sad - one cheek checkered with the pattern of the screen.
"I'm going for a walk downtown," she said, her voice high and false. "I've been wanting to check out that old train station. Be back in an hour, kids." She stepped down the first of the porch's three steps, then turned and walked briskly up to her daughter. She bent down, grabbed Miranda's cheeks. "Tell him!" she whispered, kindly but firmly. Then she kissed Miranda on the top of the head and hurried down the steps.
For a minute, they sat in silence. Finally, Enzo spoke: "Whatever it is, you have to tell me. There's no other way."
Their shoulders were still touching - but not like usual, with the boundaries between them melted. Now, they sat stonily like strangers on a bus. Enzo looked downward and waited.
"I killed baby Andrew," Miranda said. "It wasn't whooping cough. It was me. I killed him."
Enzo said nothing, feeling he was in a deep, dark place, devoid of volition. There was nothing to do but sit, wait, and listen.
"He was starting to roll over. I knew he was starting to roll over. But Cory was just so - so fucking Cory about it! Doing nothing to help, holding the baby for ten minutes after work before going to play video games in the bedroom. And then harping on me about everything. 'You're not cleaning his bottles well enough. Heat the milk up! Not that much, it's too hot!' It got to the point where everything I did, I did it to spite him. I was the one actually taking care of the baby. I was the one who got up three times every night. So who cared if I only rinsed the bottle sometimes? Cory was just being an anal, pedantic jerk.
"But then he started in about how I couldn't leave Andrew alone on the changing table anymore, in case he rolled off. And I agreed with him. Obviously, I didn't want the baby to fall. But Cory was just so relentless. And so he went off to work - without even touching the baby, as always - and nagged me some more about the changing table on the way out the door. And then I went to change Andrew. It was a total blow-out, his little onesie all stained. The baby was crying. The dresser was across the room. I put my hand on him, took a big step towards the dresser, and then removed my hand so I could take the last three steps to get clean clothes across the room. He'd never rolled all the way over before. I felt this intense dread - like a punch to the stomach - as soon as I touched the dresser drawer. It was instinct, some maternal instinct, telling me the worst was happening. I turned, and I saw him fall. His head cracked against a wooden play chest on the floor. It made a sound like gunfire.
"He was bleeding, and screaming - this constant desperate scream, like he saw the end coming and he was fighting against it. I covered the wound with a washcloth. I felt the dent in his head. There was this jelly coming out of his mouth, and I sensed it was his brains. I just held him and cried. He was such a little angel. Even then, he grabbed my finger and squeezed. I just held him, sitting on our couch, and cried and cried and cried. I just cried and cried and cried and cried."
They sat in silence, their shoulders still barely touching. Enzo realized that, unprompted, she would say no more.
"Miranda," he said. "I'm sorry. I can't not ask. We have to talk - to really talk, once and for all. Why didn't you call 9-1-1?"
"That's what Cory said. When he came home. When he found the baby dead."
"But Miranda - why?"
"Because I knew it was hopeless."
"You couldn't have known that."
"And because I was scared. And embarrassed. And ashamed. That's why, okay Enzo! And I was a coward. A pathetic coward. I just froze. There was something wrong with me. Probably still is. Yeah, Enzo - that's what it is. There's something fucking wrong with me. That's why Cory left me, saying I was lucky he didn't press charges. And that's why we can't have kids. I'm a monster. A pathetic fucking monster! And I couldn't trust myself with another child. I'm too pathetic for it. There. Are you happy? I said it. We can't have kids because I'm too fucking pathetic for it."
Enzo traced with his gaze the outline of the distant mountaintops, imagining he was a giant, striding from one rounded peak to the next. It was a game he'd played as a kid every time his family had driven through the Berkshires. For a moment, he forgot about Miranda - letting his mind inhabit those wooded bluffs and ridges, inhaling the woodsy freshness of the mountain air. Before he realized it, he was applying a slight pressure against Miranda's body with his own. He wanted her to feel the hope he sensed blossoming inside him.
"I would trust you with another child."
"Enzo..."
"You're not the same person now, Miranda. That was, what - sixteen years ago? You're a wonderful person, the most caring and supportive person I've ever met. You know how fucking lost I was when I first came here? Hell, I was like a child. And with your kindness, you saved me. I know you'd be a great mother. And I promise I'll be a better father than Cory ever was."
Miranda returned the pressure of Enzo's body. They were leaning against each other once again.
"Do you trust me?" Miranda asked. "Really?"
"Really. Absolutely. Totally. More than I've ever trusted anyone in my life."
"You really mean that? Because I need your trust. I need your love. Without that, there's no way."
"'No way' what?"
"No way I could have another kid."
"But if I give you that love? If I give you that trust?"
"Then yes," Miranda said.
"Yes, we could have a kid?"
"Yes."
They twisted their torsos and dove into a complete embrace.
Miranda had her IUD removed three days later.
It felt good to have sex with a purpose, to be inside the woman he loved, to know that she was finally ready, that everything had worked out okay.
Miranda had nearly backed out that afternoon - saying that to have another baby would only remind her of Andrew, that she could only survive if she were allowed to forget. Enzo refused to accept it. And so he'd asked her mother for Andrew's picture, had it printed and framed, and then presented it as a gift. The strategy worked. Miranda, after ten minutes of sobbing with the picture held to her lips, had said she would try to come to terms with what had happened, that she would fight to move on, that she could try for another child.
She had stalled once more before going in for her shower. Even if she could trust herself, she'd said, how could she trust him to trust her? Enzo had laughed at this. She'd know he trusted her, he'd said, the moment he came inside her. That would be him saying, loud and clear, "I trust you - and I want you to have my baby."
The sex was pleasantly utilitarian. It was almost a relief, to not strive for textured or variegated pleasure, just to thrust downward and wait for that fecund release. But after a few minutes, Enzo started to worry that he wasn't getting any closer to finishing. He glanced at the photo on the bedside table, at baby Andrew's glowing cheeks, and wondered if it was to blame. He reached out, planning to turn the picture around - but the moment he touched the frame, he pulled back, as if the metal had burned him. There was a hidden lament in the baby's eyes, an apparent sense of future betrayal. Enzo felt himself slowing.
"Harder," Miranda said between breaths. "Harder, Enzo. Harder."
Enzo doubled his efforts, but his enthusiasm had waned. As he pumped, he looked back at the picture. He imagined the baby on its changing table, just a few months old. He imagined it rolling. Imagined it falling. Imagined it realizing on the way down that nobody was there to catch it.
"Harder, Enzo! Give me that baby! I need it, Enzo. I want your baby. Harder. Harder!"
Enzo looked away from the picture and down at Miranda, kissing her cheek as he doubled the force of his thrusting.
"Yes, Enzo. Yes!'
Now, he was making progress. He felt he was soon to come.
"Yes!"
Here it was. Any second.
"Yes!"
He looked back at the picture. Saw the blood on the baby's skull. Saw the brains oozing from its mouth.
"Oh, God, yes!"
Saw Miranda doing nothing as the baby bled - just sitting there, pathetic and shocked. Saw her face, white and still.
"Come inside of me, Enzo!"
Heard her lies - all those lies she'd told over the years.
"Agh, yes!"
Thrusted - again and again.
She grabbed his shoulders.
And then he pulled himself backwards, just in time to ejaculate on her stomach.
Enzo and Miranda lay panting in the darkness. They both knew it was over between them.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/0Nq8utD
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