Free The Good Wife by Stewart O’Nan Page A

of spangles, and eventually she’s going to need more glue. It’s a flimsy excuse, but she’s been good this morning, getting up early, getting so much done. For once she’s not going to feel guilty for treating herself.
    Traffic is just as bad as yesterday, and parking. Linda—the woman at the Craft Barn—remembers her and asks how they turned out.
    “Good. 1 think I’m going to try the elephant.”
    “I’ll give you a tip,” Linda says. “Use toothpicks to keep the ears in place.”
    “Thanks,” Patty says, too grateful, as if she’s saved her.
    Downstairs she browses the windows, hoping to stumble across something for the kids. A telescope would be good, but it’s too much. Everything’s expensive. She ends up on a bench in a sunken jungle of plants and fountains, resting her feet, watching people to the music. She knows she should be at home, learning the elephant, but it’s nice just to sit and let the world turn around her. She can do the elephant anytime.
    Like yesterday, she sees couples shopping, guys tagging along from store to store, loaded down with bags. She recalls all the Saturdays she and Tommy came here, eating lunch at the Ground Round, the mugs frosted so cold their beers turned into Slurpees and gave them brain freeze. And then the long Sundays fixing things and lounging around the house. It feels like she could go home right now and he’d be there.
    She said she wouldn’t feel guilty, but how can she escape it, walking around free while he’s locked up? By now it’s a familiar
feeling, like being pregnant, a weight she’s used to carrying. Since it would be the same anywhere, it doesn’t ruin the mall, it just intrudes for a minute, bringing her back to reality. She sits a while longer as if to prove she can do it, listening to the voices milling, the water splashing, then rocks herself up off the bench.
    At Arby’s a kid in a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt’s doing the drive-thru. Her Big Beef’s dry, in need of some Horsey sauce, but her curly fries are hot. She gobbles it down like a trucker and has to use her last napkin to wipe the grease off the steering wheel.
    It’s not even three when she gets home, the school bus stopped farther down the road, unloading. She parks alongside the house, by the garbage cans, where she always does. By the time Eileen and Cy pull in, it’ll be dark, her tiretracks dry, the only evidence against her. She buries the Arby’s bag deep in one can, goes inside and turns on the lights and sets to work again, as if she never left.
    Overnight it snows, at daybreak changes to rain, the trees candied. She spends the morning baking Christmas cookies, spooning on the bright icing. She takes a paper plate of them over to the jail, knowing they’ll never let her bring them in. They don’t, and even though it’s no surprise, she’s angry, and then, driving home, hurt.
    The next day she’s back at the mall, not at the Craft Barn but downstairs, window-shopping, wandering the halls. She sits by the North Pole and then in the food court, watching. It’s an addiction. The doors don’t open till ten, and by nine-thirty she’s antsy, dying to get out of the house. She’s got enough ornaments for everyone, and she can’t bring Tommy anything. The kids are her only excuse, and that won’t last. As soon as she finds something for them, she’ll have no reason to be here.
    She stalks the mall, she visits him. There’s nowhere else to go. Her mother calls to talk, but that’s all; she doesn’t drop by or ask
Patty over for lunch. Patty’s not imagining it, her mother doesn’t mention Tommy, as if he’s already gone, no longer part of their lives.
    She goes to the doctor alone. Everything’s on schedule, everything looks good. He’s not concerned about her weight gain, it’s typical. Rest is more important. Has she been sleeping well?
    Ten more shopping days till Christmas. Nine, eight. She feels herself inching them along, taking naps in the afternoon