“Oh, no, I couldn’t. It’s my job. I’ll get caught up. I could never—”
“Martha,” Claire says, interrupting firmly. “Let me help you.”
She feels rather like Jackie right now. Calm and in control. Jackie has talked her out of tears before, and now apparently Claire knows how to do it for someone else. It makes Claire’s chest ache a little with missing her.
Claire manages to get the living room tidied, the kitchen cleaned, the dishes done, and the ingredients for a decent supper gathered together by the time Martha comes back. She looks a little more put-together—she’s changed into clean clothes, and her hair is gathered into a tidier bun.
“He’s finally down, for now,” Martha says quietly. “Thank you.” She takes a seat at the kitchen table opposite Claire, and for a time they sit in silence.
This whole house feels like some kind of horrible vision into Claire’s future. The crying baby, and Martha’s exhaustion, and Walter’s lack of care for the whole situation. She can see Pete being just the same. Raising the baby will be Claire’s duty, along with all else. While Claire suffers trying to give him what he wants, he’ll be complaining to Walter about how she isn’t meeting his expectations.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Martha says suddenly.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Claire says, automatically.
“I should be living the happiest days of my life, you know,” Martha continues. Her voice is getting shriller. “I have a good husband and a nice house, and a beautiful, healthy little boy. But I’m—it’s as if I—oh, I don’t know how to describe it.”
“You feel like you should be grateful for what you have,” Claire says. The words come without much thought. “You have everything you should want. But you feel broken. And that makes you feel like a monster. A failure.”
Martha’s shoulders fall. “Yes,” she says, grasping at Claire’s hands.
The contact is strange—it reminds her of Jackie, in a way, but it feels so different. So much less fraught.
“Yes, exactly. I feel as if—as if everything good about my life has gone away. I look at my baby and I feel nothing, Claire. I’m so verytired.”
“You aren’t broken, Martha,” Claire says. She squeezes Martha’s hands, as Jackie sometimes does for her, and Martha clings to them. “You’re doing the best you can. It’s not fair that all this pressure is on your shoulders.”
“I should be doing better.”
“Walter should be helping you,” Claire cuts in. “Why is it that he doesn’t notice your suffering at all? That he gets to just keep on living his life happily, while you break your back to make up for everything he doesn’t do? How is that fair?” Claire is almost shouting by the end. She’s surprised by her own vigor, and it’s clear as Martha blinks at her with wide eyes that perhaps Claire isn’t only talking to her friend.
“What else do you expect?” Martha says, wiping at her eyes. “We grin and bear it, don’t we?”
Claire shakes her head. That phrase has been somewhat of a comfort between them for a long time, but it feels hollow now. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we deserve more.”
“What more is there, Claire?” Martha says tiredly. She rests an elbow on the table, setting her chin in her palm. Her eyes drift closed. If Claire stays quiet for long enough, maybe Martha might actually get some sleep.
A few months ago, Claire would have agreed with Martha’s assessment. What more is there? There was nothing, then. Just the life she had, the routines, the dissatisfaction. But knowing Jackie has changed things. Jackie’s life is more. She proves that it can be done.
As Martha looks to be drifting off at the kitchen table, her exhaustion finally catching up with her, Claire misses Jackie with a ferocity that’s frightening.
“Come on,” Claire says softly, putting an arm around Martha’s shoulders. “You should get some sleep. I’ll watch the baby.”
Martha grumbles half-heartedly in protest, but she’s soundly sleeping as soon as her head hits the couch cushion. Clairedrapes her in a knitted afghan and spends the afternoon alternating between quiet cleaning and glancing out Martha’s front window at Jackie’s empty driveway.
~ ~ ~
Jackie’s absence continues for eight days, and then ten, and then two full weeks. Claire compulsively checks the window every day, just in case—she has no way to contact her friend, no hint as to her safety or when she might return, and it’s driving her squirrely.
The only clue Claire has about Jackie’s whereabouts is that Jackie has mentioned staying with Theo in San Francisco overnight when she has late jobs in the city. And his telephone number is written on a scrap of paper on Jackie’s refrigerator, right next to Claire’s own.
Claire would never ordinarily abuse her spare key privileges, but this is a special circumstance.
The house is unnaturally still and cold when Claire slips inside. It’s as if Jackie is the only thing that fills it with life—without her, it’s a mausoleum. The cloudy day outside casts a greyish pall on the kitchen. Claire shuffles through, focused on her goal, but when she reaches the refrigerator and finds Theo’s number stuck to it with a magnet she realizes she didn’t bring anything to write it down with.
She darts down the hallway, guilt chasing her like a specter, and slips into Jackie’s office.
Having not been in this room since the night of Jackie’s housewarming party, it looks strange to Claire now. The desk is messy, scattered with film canisters and scribbled notes in Jackie’s messy hand. Boxes and camera bags crowd the edges of the room. No less than seven different tripods are leaned in onecorner, all toppled over each other. It doesn’t look as if Jackie took any equipment with her at all.
