Broken Down: A Novel, page 3
Slowly, I got out of bed, stretched a little, and stood looking outside and the area around Bethany’s house. It was absolutely stunning. Her backyard was grassy, and she had flowerbeds lining a path that led through the yard and right into the forest that butted up against her property. It was the best of both worlds, the manicured beauty of the suburbs meets the wild, untamed serenity of the woods. In that moment, I realized just how much I’d missed Colorado ever since I moved to Phoenix for Ethan’s job.
I heard the floorboards creaking in the hallway, and I hurried to the door and poked my head out. “Oh geez!” Beth said when she saw me. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you—I figured you fell asleep when I didn’t hear another peep out of you after going to make tea, and I was only standing in the hallway to check if I could hear you moving around.” She laughed and lightly hit herself on the forehead with her palm. “Welp, that sounded totally creepy, didn’t it? What I meant was that I was listening to see if you were awake before knocking, that way I wouldn’t disturb you if you were still asleep.”
I smiled. “It’s fine. I was up.”
“I just wanted to see if you were hungry. I’m about to start on dinner, but I wasn’t sure if you had any dietary restrictions or preferences.”
“Oh, you don’t have to cook me dinner,” I said. “I have some granola bars in my bag, and—”
“Nonsense, I’m cooking anyway, and I’ve never been good at portion control, so I always cook a lot.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. My house is your house, my food is your food. You can help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, by the way.”
“Then at least let me give you some money for groceries,” I suggested. “I can keep a list of what I eat and then tally it up before I go.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Everything always shakes out even in the end.”
I didn’t know what she meant exactly, but standing in the hallway as my stomach growled in protest, it didn’t seem like the best time to get into it.
“Dinner then?” she said.
I nodded. “Sounds great.”
She went down the hall, and I followed her, glancing at the photographs lining the walls as I went. “You truly have a lovely home,” I said. “And your yard is amazing.”
“Thank you,” she said. “This house has been in my family for three generations.” She sighed as we entered the kitchen. “Too bad my son doesn’t love it here as much as I do. He swears to me he won’t sell the place after I die, but you never know. Things change. He may pass it down to his kids and they will sell it since they most likely won’t grow up here.”
She got to work on dinner and told me to take a seat at the dining room table, which sat right next to a large window overlooking the backyard.
“So your son is married with kids?”
“No,” she said, filling a large pot with water. “It was just a hypothetical. He works too much to have a serious relationship. What about you, dear? Are you married?”
I looked down at my hands, my wedding ring.
“I was,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“That’s okay. It’s all a little… new.”
She put the pot on the stove and kicked the heat up to high. “How new? If you don’t mind my asking, and if you do mind, just say the word and I’ll drop it. I’ve been told I can be a little nosy sometimes, and I’d hate to pry.”
“Pretty new,” I said. “And it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, I just don’t even really know how. My husband, his name is Ethan, he told me just yesterday that he wanted to split up.”
Beth put her hand against her chest. “Just yesterday? Oh you poor thing. How are you keeping it together so well?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m still in shock. Or—” I trailed off.
“Or what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “You don’t want to hear about my marriage problems. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? You’re a teacher, right?”
“Part time,” she said. “I teach art at the elementary school, but since there are so few students, they only need me a few times a week. It’s good, though, keeps me busy and forces me to do something artistic even on days when I’m not feeling it.”
“You’re an artist then?”
She smiled. “If only it were that simple. But yes, I paint. Or I used to.”
“Not anymore? Why not?”
She had her head in the fridge, so I couldn’t see her expression when she said this next part. “Ten years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I went through treatment and it was brutal, but I got better. My hair even started to grow back, as you can see.” She swished her head back and forth to show me her long locks, then turned back to face me. “I was in remission for a while, and I started to get back to painting and doing the other things I loved, but then last year, it came back.”
“Oh no,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” she said. “It’s nobody’s fault. These things happen, and I’d been warned time and time again that it might. But ever since the cancer came back, I’ve just felt so tired all the time. Uninspired too. I haven’t picked up a paintbrush in probably eight or nine months.”
“That’s understandable,” I said. “I’ve heard chemo really takes it out of you.”
“Oh I’m not going through chemo again,” she said. “I refused.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I simply nodded and looked out the window at the backyard.
“Anyway,” she said in a cheery voice, “enough about that. Let’s move on to more important things, yes, like whether or not you like pasta, since that’s what I’ve already got going here.”
“I love it,” I said.
“Great,” she said. “Then I’ll keep working on dinner, and how about you run downstairs and grab us a bottle of wine? The door to the basement is right next to your room, dear. Snag whatever looks good to you.”
I smiled and did as she asked. Going down the stairs, I found a light switch on the wall and flicked it on. The basement was dark, and a little musty, but fairly well organized as far as basements go. There were a few shelves, home to various tools and boxes labeled things like Theo’s toys, and photo albums. I found a box of wine on a bottom shelf and took a pinot noir that had a fancy label on it. Before heading up, I saw there was a door leading to a small, pitch black room off to my right. I frowned and tried to see what was inside, but it was too dark, and I knew if I stayed any longer, I’d feel like I was snooping.
Back upstairs, I poured the wine into the glasses Beth set out for us.
“What’s that little room off the basement? Storage?”
“Now it is,” she said. “Theo used to use it as a darkroom to develop his photographs, back when he still lived here.”
“He’s a photographer? That’s cool.”
“He was.”
I was starting to sense a pattern here. Bethany didn’t paint anymore, even though that was once her life’s passion, and now I was learning her son used to be a photographer, but no longer. I didn’t judge either of them, however. Life often got in the way of things, and I knew that better than anyone. I’d had such big ideas for my life, plans to go back to school to get my PhD and be an English professor one day. But then I married Ethan, and when we moved I took the first job I was offered just to have a way to fill my days, and all my big plans sort of faded into a distant part of my memory.
“Now he works as a corporate attorney,” Beth said.
“That’s impressive.”
“It’s something,” Beth said. I handed her a glass, and she clinked hers against mine. “Cheers,” she said. “To new friends.”
We both took a sip, and I smiled. It was delicious wine.
“This is fantastic.”
“Drink as much as you want,” she said. “There’s plenty more where that came from. Theo works for a massive conglomerate that owns a bunch of vineyards across the country, a few in Italy too, so he gets all sorts of free wine. Every time he comes to visit, he brings me a few cases, as if I could ever go through that much. I end up giving most of it away.”
I took a larger second sip, and Bethany grinned. “Thatta girl! You’ve had a rough couple of days, that much I could read on your face even before you told me about your breakup. You deserve to unwind a little.”
“You’re right!” I pointed at her in agreement. “I do deserve this.” I threw back the rest of my glass, and Beth promptly poured me another.
That night, after Bethany and I finished our dinner and the bottle of wine, I told her I’d do the dishes and said she should go to bed, since I could tell she was getting tired. I ended up grabbing my phone and putting my headphones in to listen to music while I cleaned up. It was relaxing, and I finished fairly quickly. Just as I rinsed off the last dish, the music cut out, and I noticed I was getting a call. I decided to take it outside, just to be sure I wouldn't wake Beth. Her room was upstairs, but the house was small, and the walls a little thin.
Outside, I took my phone out of my pocket and sat down to answer it, only just then realizing it was Ethan who was calling me. I eased into one of the chairs on the back patio and answered.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“What?”
“Where the hell are you, Raina? I came home and all your stuff was gone and you were nowhere to be found. I called the bookstore and they said you didn’t come in for your shift today, and then when I tried to call you it kept going straight to voicemail.”
“I don’t have great service,” I said. “It’s spotty where I am.”
“Which is where exactly?”
I felt defensive, and I didn’t want to tell him anything, especially where I was. “I took a little road trip. No biggie.”
“You didn’t think about telling me you were leaving town?”
“Why? We’re not together anymore, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t still worry about you when you vanish into thin air!”
“All right, fine. Sorry. I should’ve left a note. My bad.”
“All your stuff is gone. Did you already find a place to live?”
I played with the tie that attached the fabric cushion to the wooden chair. “I haven’t been looking. I’ll probably stay with my parents in Denver for a few days, look for apartments from there.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I told you you can stay in the house until you find another place. I won’t bother you.”
“Why did you come over to the house tonight?”
“I left some things over here. I texted you first, but obviously that didn’t go through either. Seriously, where are you that the service is that bad?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m safe, no need to worry about me. You can go back to your life without me now, guilt free.”
“Guilt free? Why would I be feeling guilty?”
“Clearly, you thought I did something terrible after you dumped me out of the blue, otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried. You must’ve thought I was so devastated by your decision to break up with me, that I went and jumped off a cliff, right? Or did something self-destructive, like ran off with some guy I met while hitchhiking. Well, I didn’t. I needed to get away for a few days, and that’s exactly what I did. I’m not wallowing somewhere alone and tragic, sitting in a pool of my own tears. I’m fine, Ethan. Totally and completely fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
His voice was teetering on the edge of smug, and it drove me up the wall.
“Go back to Kira. I’m sure she’s wondering who you went to call this late at night.”
“How did you know I was staying with Kira?”
“Lucky guess,” I said. I hadn’t known for sure, it was just a hunch, but now it was a certainty, and that knowledge hurt more than I expected it to.
“We’re not together, if that’s what you’re thinking. Nothing is happening between us, she’s just a good friend.”
“I don’t care what you do,” I said. “We’re done. You’re a free man. Date or don’t date whoever you want, it’s no skin off my back.”
“You sound like you care.”
“Do you want me to care?” I challenged him.
He paused.
“I guess I do. A little.”
“Why?”
“Because if I thought you cared, then I would know that our marriage wasn’t just a glorified partnership. We were more than two roommates who occasionally watched TV together.”
“That’s incredibly unfair,” I said. “Not only do you get to be the one who does the dumping and go right into the arms of another woman, but you also have to make sure I'm fully and utterly wrecked in the process. And then you use the fact that I’m not wrecked as evidence against me, twisting everything around so this somehow serves as proof that you should’ve left me a long time ago.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just leave me alone, Ethan. It’s over. Don’t call me again.”
I hung up and gripped my phone tightly just to keep myself from doing what I really wanted to do—throw it deep into the forest and leave it there for some curious squirrel to find and carry it back to his nest.
4
The next morning, I knew it would be a good idea to go into town and look for a service hotspot. I needed to call my boss, let her know that I wouldn’t be coming in for a few more days, at least. I thought it would be good to check my email as well since that was the only way my mom and dad could contact me while on the cruise. I was putting it off, however, as I took my time getting up and getting ready for the day.
I wanted to live in this reality for a little while longer, the one in which I was blissfully unreachable.
Bethany came downstairs and found me in the kitchen, asking with sleepy eyes why I hadn’t made any coffee.
“I don’t know how,” I said. “We have a completely different coffee maker at home, and I didn’t want to break anything.”
She went to the cupboard, got the grounds, and went about making a pot.
Once it was ready, she grabbed two mugs, poured us each some coffee, and came to sit next to me at the table.
“I’m a little hungover,” she said. “I haven’t had more than one glass of wine in a single night in forever.”
“Same here,” I said. “Ethan hates wine. He hates drinking in general, and even though he never told me outright that he wanted me to not drink, he always seemed a little judgy when I’d pour myself a glass of anything.”
“Sounds like a real buzz kill.”
I laughed. “He could be, for sure.”
“Well, Theo has developed an appreciation for fine wine—he had to for his job—so when he comes into town, he and I have been known to have a few sips too many. But in general, it’s just me here, and drinking alone is not as fun as the movies make it out to be.”
“You should really think about turning this place into a real B and B. It’s perfect, charming, and you’re a great host. Then it wouldn’t be just you all the time, unless you like being alone. Which I would totally understand.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have the time or the energy for anything like that. But I appreciate that you think I’m a good host. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.”
The idea of how long I’d be staying was a confusing one. I’d put the thought away yesterday, hoping I would have some sort of plan worked out by now. Unfortunately, I was no wiser that day than I was the day before, and still had no clue what I should do.
“I guess I better look into getting a bus ticket to Denver?” I said, more like a question than a statement.
“What about your car?”
“I don’t know. I might just leave it here, honestly. Let Ursula have it for parts. It’s trash anyway. Who knows if she’ll be able to save it?”
“You don’t know Ursula, but she’s a genius. She’s kept my ancient Jeep running for years. She’s basically magic, I’m telling you. If you give her time, she can fix your car up right, and then you can go wherever you please.”
It was an attractive notion, having the ability to go where I pleased. The problem with taking a bus to Denver meant that once I was there, I’d be without transportation, which would mean I would truly be trapped in my parents’ house alone.
I hated the sound of that.
“Maybe I will stick around for at least a few days,” I said. “Wait until I get an official diagnosis from Ursula.”
“In that case, would you like to join me as I run a few errands today? I’m just going into town to do some shopping. I’m teaching a few extra classes this week in the after school program, so I need to pick up a few things at the art store.”
“Sure,” I said. “I need to find a place where I get better service anyway. Do you know if I’ll be able to make calls better in town?”
She laughed. “It’s hit and miss here in Aria. It drives Theo crazy sometimes. He’s always worried he’s going to miss an important work call or something.” She went to the kitchen cupboards and grabbed two to-go mugs. “Here, let’s pour our coffee in these and hit the road. There’s a sweet little coffee shop in town where we can get cheap refills too, if we bring in our own mugs. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a little addicted to caffeine.”
I smiled. “You’re preaching to the choir. At my job back in Phoenix, we have a coffee pot in the back room that I keep brewing all day.”
“My kinda girl,” she said with a look of approval, and then was down the hall calling over her shoulder that she’d be ready in ten.
We were pulling out of the driveway when a sleek black sports car came fast around the corner and nearly T-boned us. Beth slammed on the breaks and cursed under her breath.
