~~~~~

   His parents got home shortly before lunch. Kim grabbed Matthew right out of my arms and spent five full minutes examining him to make sure he was still in one piece. Dave watched in silent amusement, then turned to me and asked:

   “Are you guys hungry? We were thinking of going out to eat.”

   “Out?”

   “Yes, that’s right, Tess. Out. To a restaurant. One of those buildings where you sit down at a nice table and a waitress brings you your food.”

   “A server,” Kim corrected.

   “No,” Dave said. “Coach only hires waitresses.”

   “You want to go to the Café? Can’t...we just eat lunch here?”

   Dave rolled his eyes and gave Kim an ‘I told you so’ look.

   Brian looked from me to Dave and then back again. “Why don’t you wanna go out?”

   “Because I don’t feel like eating greasy, shitty food. And…besides, I’m too tired to go out. Maybe we should just head home now. We can grab something for you at a drive thru once we get into--”

   “Forget it, Tess,” Dave said. “I’ll just order something from Qwik Stop. What’s the number there?”

   “How the fuck should I know?”

   “Didn’t you work there?”

   “Yeah, Dave. Back in my slacker days. Thanks for the fucking reminder.”

   Kim intervened. “Honey, the number is in the book by the phone.” He didn’t move. Just stood, staring at me. I stared right back. Kim cleared her throat. “The phone in the kitchen.”

   “Forget it. I’ll just drive down and order it there.”

   Brian grabbed his jacket from the armchair. “I’ll go with you.”

   Dave nodded and followed him to the door. He shot me another dirty look before he left, slamming the door behind him.

   Kim sat down with the baby in the rocking chair and I plopped down on the couch across from them. Matthew rested his head on his mother’s shoulder and gave me a drowsy smile, put the full force of his eyes behind it. They were liquid blue and tranquil, like a summertime lake.

   “You know, Tess,” Kim began, startling me. “You’re going to have to go in there and face Coach one of these days.”

   I crossed my legs and looked at my sock. Ten stripes, three colors. An extra green stripe. I’d never noticed that before.

   “We heard about what he said to you after your…after court that day.”

   I looked up. “Dave heard about it?”

   “Yes.”

   “And the shithead wanted to take me there anyway.”

   “Tess, he only wants to help you--”

   “Well, I don’t want his help. And I’ll tell you something else. I don’t have to face that asshole. That’s the beauty of moving away. I never have to deal with him or see him again. Not Coach and not any of them.”

   She shook her head, but didn’t press the issue. She changed the subject instead.

   “So, you survived the weekend.”

   “Yep. And, more importantly, Matthew survived.” We both looked at him. He was already asleep, his face squished against her shoulder. It made his mouth looked like a little pink heart.

   Kim laughed. “I know what’s happening to you, Tess.”

   I groaned. “Nothing is happening to me.”

   “I don’t believe that.”

   “I don’t care. Just because I like my nephew doesn’t mean I want one of…my own. I never have. You know that.”

   “I know you never did, and there was nothing wrong with that. Just like there’s nothing wrong with the fact that you might have changed your mind.”

   “Well I haven’t changed my mind. Besides, Brian and I have already talked about it.”

   She looked surprised. “You talked about having kids?”

   “No. We talked about not having kids. Because he doesn’t want any either.”

   I already raised one kid. I don’t wanna do it all over again.

   I cleared my throat. “It’s actually a relief to know that this time I’m not with someone who’s going to nag me about it constantly or try to talk me into something I don’t want.”

   “Well, that’s good, I guess. Brian was right that day, you know…what he said to your mother. Jason knew you didn’t want kids before you got married. It’s too bad he didn’t deal with it then.”

   I let my gaze drop to Kim’s belly. She still hadn’t lost all her baby weight and for a moment I considered asking if it bothered her. Because if we were going to spend some time rubbing salt into open wounds, I might as well get my shaker out, too. Instead I countered with:

   “Yeah well, we all know he wasn’t thinking right at the time. He married me because I was different and quirky and fun, but that’s only good for so long, isn’t it? Pretty soon a man wants something a little more real. He wants a normal life. He wants a normal wife and kids and a huge house with a big, fat fucking yard with lots of green, green grass to mow. Who knew it would take the idiot a whole fucking decade to figure that one out.”

   She shook her head. “That’s not what happened, and you know it. Jason married you because he loved you. He just got a little antsy when he turned thirty-five because…” She sighed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

   “I guess not.” I said it even though I had no idea why turning thirty-five had made Jason so antsy. I’d never thought to ask. “Besides, just look at him. He doesn’t seem like he’s in any rush to settle down again and start his little family. Last I heard he was still screwing everything in sight.”

   “Just listen to yourself, Tess. You get so indignant when everyone gossips about you, but you believe everything they say about Jason without question? After you there was just one woman, and that was…well, you know about her.”

   I sure did. The Ex. The woman he had dated before me. A few days after he walked out on me he went running right back to her. It lasted all of two days.

   “He did just start seeing someone recently, but I don’t think it’s serious yet.”

  “Then I guess he’s all set, isn’t he? You know,” I’d finally reached my breaking point, “that’s the great thing about being a man. Here he is, thirty-six years old, hell he’ll be thirty-seven in a few more months. If he was a woman, right now he’d be freaking out. He’d be thinking about hormone shots and in vitro fertilization and shit like that. But he can have his cake and eat it too. He got to screw around with lots of girls in high school and lots of women in college, then he wasted all those years with me. Now he can screw around again and he still has plenty of time to have kids. All he needs to do is find himself a fertile young chicky once he’s through having his fun and he’s good to go.”

   “Tess, that’s not fair. Do you really think he planned for his life to turn out like this?” She sighed. “Look, I don’t want to get into any of that. Just…whatever issues you and Jason had about it, don’t let that stop you from starting a family with Brian if that’s what you want.”

   “I don’t want that. And...even if I did, I’m too old now. It’s my turn for thirty-five in November. Isn’t that when everything starts shriveling up?” Is that what had freaked Jason out?

   “Not necessarily. I’m only a year younger than you. Dave and I plan on having one more.”

   “That’s fine. For you.”

   “All I’m saying is...you might want to figure out how you really feel about it. What if you wake up five years from now wishing you’d started a family when you had the chance? It probably will be too late by then.”

   “Maybe. But that’s a hell of a lot better than waking up five years from now wishing I hadn’t.”

   She didn’t have a reply for that one, and I rolled it around in my brain a few times. It sounded good, sounded right and I repeated it, out loud. Because Too Late really was better than If Only I Hadn’t. I looked at Matthew again. Studied his sleeping face. He still looked just like Dave. Just like my dad. And then I thought about my own mother, who looked just like me, and I said it out loud one more time. And found myself actually believing it.

   Nobody spoke all through lunch. Not even Brian. The only sounds at the table were chewing and crunching while they ate their pizza and I ate my veggie Italian. And by Dave clearing his throat. He did it five times. Each time he did I looked over at him only to find that he was already looking at me, and I’d wait for him to say something. Each time. But each time he looked away and went back to his lunch. Back to pepperoni and mushrooms.

   And I was sick of it. Sick of being around grown men who were suffering from PMS; sick of the awkward silence. So I brought up a topic for conversation that would take advantage of the first problem and cure the second. Dave’s work. He was defending a man accused of killing his wife. I only knew about it because I’d seen him on my television screen in his Lawyer Suit a few weeks earlier, talking to reporters about Fair Trials and Changes of Venue; because they had very kindly let the public know that the guy was guilty. That he had a bad temper and that he’d beaten his wife for years and years. So I asked Dave if he had trouble sleeping at night. If he was haunted by the ghost of a Viciously Abused and Brutally Murdered woman.

   It was a rotten thing to do to him, because he hadn’t actually volunteered to handle the case. He was the court appointed attorney, the kind that television cops told suspects they had the right to if they couldn’t afford one on their own. But the question didn’t even phase him. He just smiled and said, “No, Tess. I sleep just fine.”

   “Because of all that innocent-until-proven-guilty bullshit?”

   The silence was over, but the awkwardness remained. We were all treated to a nice long lecture about Justice and Injustice. How the Presumption of Innocence is the foundation of any moral society. How the media influences prospective jurors’ opinions even before the facts of the case have been gathered. And, especially, about how shameful it was that, even in a democracy, wealth--or a lack of it--still had such a bearing on whether or not a person gets a fair trial.

   I listened intently to every word, held his gaze steadily throughout the entire lesson. I didn’t look away when Brian interjected from time to time to ask a question or to give his opinion, or even when Kim--obviously irritated at me for irritating her husband--got up to get a crying Matthew from his crib. I nodded and shook my head and made appropriate replies, which pissed Dave off all the more, because he thought, of course, that I was just being condescending.

   The truth was, though, that I agreed wholeheartedly with every word he said. I really did think that the Presumption of Innocence was the foundation of every moral society. I thought that most reporters were inhuman bloodsuckers, more interested in money and ratings and notoriety than in The Truth. I agreed that the poor deserved competent legal representation. That they deserved a voice. And that, too often, they didn’t get it. The truth was that I was proud of my brother for being that voice. And even though I’d gotten him going on the subject partly for the fun of watching him rant, and partly to end the awkward silence…the truth was that I loved listening to him speak about the Evils of Injustice. It made me feel safe knowing that he was out there battling those evils. There was something about hearing those words in his voice that made me feel like I was home.

   He ended his discourse with: “Believe it or not, Tess, juries usually get it right.”

   And I said the only thing I could say. “Good.”

   We stayed for a few more hours, long enough to watch the last Sox game of the season. There would be no players wearing red this October, at least not the Red that any of us cared about. But there’s always next year. And then it was time to go. Hugs and kisses for Matthew, nods and brief goodbyes for Dave and Kim. And still Brian was silent. Even after I pulled out of the driveway.

   I knew he wouldn’t be for too long. His jaw and fists were clenched and his legs were bouncing up and down so fitfully that, if I was a mechanic, I could have rigged a wire from them to my engine and increased my fuel efficiency. He waited until I came to a stop at the end of the road before he finally spoke.

   “Why didn’t you want to go out for lunch?”

   “You’re pissed because we didn’t go out to eat?”

   He persisted. “Why didn’t you want to go out?”

   “I told you. I was too tired. You know I didn’t sleep good last night.”

   “Bullshit.”

   “Excuse me?”

   “You heard what I said. You’re too tired to sit down in a restaurant but you’re not too tired to drive home? That’s bullshit.”

   I rolled my eyes, pulled the shifter into neutral and yanked on the emergency brake. I could tell this one was going to take awhile. “You obviously think you know the reason, so why don’t you just let me have it.”

   And he did. He took a deep, deep breath and the words shot out of him, flew out of him; because he’d been holding them back for a long time. He’d held them back on a catapult, just waiting for the right time to hurl them at me.

   “I think you were too embarrassed to let your old friends see you with your little boy toy.”

   Sharper than an arrow, and they hit their target. Hurt twice as much in Brian’s voice than they had in Jason’s.

   “God damn it, Brian, why the hell didn’t you tell me he said that to you?”

   “Gee, Tess, I don’t know. Why didn’t you ask me? You knew he said something, you were just too chickenshit to find out what it was.”

   “That’s not fair.”

   “No, I suppose not. I guess it really isn’t fair for me to expect you to actually talk about something, is it?”

   I swallowed the fuck you that sprung to my lips, gripped the steering wheel hard, and focused on the real problem. “You know that Jason’s full of shit, right? I mean...you don’t actually believe I think that about you.”

   “Most of the time, Tess, no. I don’t. Then something happens like today. Or I walk into Zeke’s and have to put up with your little fan club there giving me shit about how much you like playing with dicks. Or--don’t look at me like that. Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about it?”

   Of course the guys had told him. It was too juicy a thing to keep to themselves. No wonder they cheered me whenever I walked in. I kept the oven going day and night. They only had to hang around, waiting, plates licked clean, to see what I’d dish ‘em up next.

   “Those assholes are worse than a flock of old maids.”

   “Maybe. But it sure would’ve been nice if you were the one who told me about it instead of them, don’t you think?”

   “I didn’t know there was anything to tell,” I lied. “I ran into your ex-whatever-she-is. She was being a drunken bitch, and she covered my lucky shirt with beer. So I…told her off.”

   “Well, you sure did a great job of it. Do you have any idea of the shit I had to listen to from those guys? Huh?”

   “It can’t be any worse than what I have to put up with from them.”

   “Oh, really? ‘Hey Brian, aren’t you lucky,’” he mimicked. “‘If she’s been playin’ with dicks for that long she must be real good at it by now.’ Fuckin’ Andy and his big, fucking mouth.”

   “Andy was just pissed because I didn’t let him--”

   “Yeah, I know why he was pissed and I know what you didn’t let him do. Good for you, Tess. But the only reason I didn’t beat the shit outta him is because Jeff was there with me, and Jeff’s bigger’n I am.” He slammed the door with his elbow. “God damn it, Tess, you should’ve told me what happened that night. And you should’ve told me what Ashley said to you. I would’ve told you all about it, and then you’d know that you’ve got nothing to worry about. But no, you come home and maul me in the shower instead, just like I’m a fucking piece of livestock you gotta brand.”

   I turned away from him and looked out the window, looked at the clear, pale blue sky. Just that morning it had been filled with fat grey clouds, wave after wave of them. They hadn’t brought any rain, though; just a chill. For a moment the landscape turned grey, even though the clouds were long gone, and I had to close my eyes against it. To make it disappear. If I looked at it for even one more second I was either going to vomit or cry. But even behind closed eyes the whole world was grey.

   “Look, Brian, I’m tired, okay? I’m fucking exhausted. And I really don’t want to get into this.” I opened my eyes, finally, and looked at him, but couldn’t quite bring myself to focus on his face. “I don’t want to talk about Jason or your sweet little Ashley, or any of the rest of them, either. Not now, and not ever. Because…” I forced a smile. “Brian, none of that has anything to do with you and me. Anything that happened before we got together doesn’t even count. So why go into it? We’ve got a clean slate here.”

   “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

   I twisted in my seat to face him; focused on his eyes this time, ready for battle. “Did you just call me stupid?”

   “If you actually believed any of that bullshit about clean slates then I’d think you were, but I know you don’t. If you did you wouldn’t still be bothered about Ashley. You know, I’m not proud of being jealous of your ex, but at least I’ll admit it. But whenever something comes up that you don’t wanna deal with, you’re happy just to close your eyes and pretend like it doesn’t exist. Let me tell ya something, Tess,” he pointed a finger at me, something I’d always hated, “it doesn’t work that way. Sooner or later it’s gonna come back to bite you in the ass. And it ends up hurting a hell of a lot worse than if you just deal with it as it comes at you.”

   “Is that so?”

   “You’re goddamn right it is.”

   “And you wanna know why I didn’t want to go out with Dave today.”

   “Yes I do.”

   “Fine.” I released the brake, shoved the car into first gear and peeled out onto the main road without really looking. I nearly hit an orange VW Beetle.

   What the hell are you doing?”

   I didn’t answer, looked straight ahead at the road, barely aware of the blurry trees whizzing by either side of the car; even less aware of whatever words were coming out of Brian’s mouth as I sped along. It took less than three minutes to get to Hillside Café. It should’ve taken eight.

   I turned the engine off, shoved the keys into my purse, and opened the door.

   “Well? Are you coming in with me or what?”

   I slammed the door without waiting for an answer and walked over to the sign beside the road. It was an ancient roadside marquee, the kind that lights up so travelers can read it at night. It was just after four, so there was still well over two hours of daylight left. The sign, thank God, was lit up anyway. Bright, glowing yellow. The message never changed. Never.