Free Crossings by Betty Lambert

divide.
    Relief like a blessing pours through me. I go upstairs and work for a while. It is Jocelyn’s turn to cook. At dinner, her eyes are puffy and red. Francie is in her bedroom. She won’t come down.
    â€˜I had to,’ I say. ‘I had to.’
    â€˜I know,’ Jocelyn says. ‘But you just go upstairs and you … you’re like … it’s like you’ve got a steel trap for a mind. It’s like …’ and she stands there, her lips shaking. ‘I know you did. It’s just …’ And she leaves the room.
    I could never bear being unhappy. That was always my trouble. I’m still that way. If I’m unhappy I think something is terribly wrong.
    I went upstairs and I wrote and I forgot all about Ben. I was trying to write a story about a man who commits suicide. About his family, really. How they are, after. How they try to under­stand it.
    â€˜You’ve got to stop giving him money now,’ Jocelyn says later. That night. She has come down and said she was sorry. ‘Why can’t he go on unemployment insurance?’
    â€˜He’s not eligible. He’s in the executive bracket or something.’
    â€˜The executive bracket?’ said Jocelyn. ‘But that means he must have made a lot of money when he was working.’
    â€˜Oh I don’t think so. It just means he was on the managerial side or something.’
    â€˜What was he making?’
    â€˜I don’t know. He never told me.’
    â€˜Didn’t you
ask?
’
    â€˜No. I never thought about it.’
    â€˜God.’ We are drinking tea and there is a long pause.
    â€˜I sneaked your play,’ I say.
    â€˜What did you think?’ Jocelyn says before she remembers.
    â€˜It’s good. I liked it. It’s very funny.’
    â€˜Oh Jesus,’ she says. ‘Oh shit. Look. Vicky. It’s not really true, you know. I mean, that’s not the way I really see you. I mean, you make it up, you know. It starts one way and then you make it up to fit.’
    â€˜The form takes over,’ I say. ‘I know.’
    But it is true. Everything you make up is true. Too.
    â€˜We’d better put an ad in,’ says Jocelyn. ‘Francie can sleep with me.’
    So we put an ad in and we get the actresses.
    Francie leaves, though I don’t remember how. Jocelyn goes to classes. The actresses go to rehearsal. I work on the suicide play. November 14. The day I would have had the baby. I go on a diet. I start to lose weight.
    But that isn’t how I remember it. I remember it more drama­tically. I remember a great rushing wind pouring out of me. I remember going down like a balloon. I’ve had to put in the diet, because that is also true. It is a fact. But
    Somewhere in there Ben registers for teachers’ training.
    One night I wake. It is black in the bedroom. I can hear them making love in the other bed. Jocelyn and David. I lie there, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. They are making love, groan­ing and panting. The bed springs are jerking violently. How can she? In the same room. I lie there petrified with horror and shame.
    The Nut Lady says, ‘Are you sure?’
    â€˜I was right there.’
    â€˜Have you asked your sister about it?’
    â€˜No! My god. How could I?’
    â€˜Vicky,’ she says, very gentle with me in these days, ‘didn’t this happen before?’
    â€˜No. She’s never done that before.’
    â€˜Did you tell me about this before? When you were five? About your father and how he took your hands from your ears. How he said, “She’s lying! She’s awake. She’s lying there listening.”’
    â€˜Dear god. Then I am mad.’
    â€˜Talk to your sister,’ says the Nut Lady.
    â€˜No! My god, Vicky, how could you think I could do it! Or David! David’s so square he can’t even dance with me in public. No! It isn’t true.’
    â€˜I heard you.