Page 47 of Middle of the Night

“Because it’s science. As for what my dad’s been saying, you can’t believe any of it. I hate to say something like that about my own father,but it’s true. He’s not well. Which is why I had to come back, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“What about Henry?” I say. “Does he like it here?”

“I think so? We’ll see how it goes when he starts school. As you’ve noticed, he’s kind of an odd kid.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I say. “Being different was a liability when we were his age. Now, it’s a badge of honor.”

“Still, I worry. He’s so sensitive. Smart as hell. Certainly smarter than me. But kids can be so cruel. Since it’s only me looking after him, I’m in a constant state of fear that I’m going to fuck it up.”

We do a third shot. After humiliating myself a moment ago, I need it. This time, I don’t even bother with the salt and lime. It’s just the tequila, knocked back without hesitation.

“Where’s Henry’s father?”

“He’s not in the picture,” Ashley says as she takes an extra slurp of lime. “Hasn’t been from the start. He doesn’t know Henry exists. And I, well, I don’t exactly know who he is.”

“Oh,” I say, wishing I could take back the question. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine.” Ashley twists the lime wedge until it’s just pulp. “It is what it is. Mom had just died, and I was in LA, where I’d been living since college, still fooling myself into thinking I could make it in the music business. But out there, thirty-five is considered ancient. I was competing for internships with twenty-year-olds. The whole time, I kept on being the same stupid party girl I was in high school and college. Nothing numbs disappointment quite like alcohol. And then, oops, I got pregnant and had no idea which one of the multiple anonymous douchebags I’d hooked up with was responsible. In short, I was a total fucking mess.”

“It doesn’t seem that way now,” I say.

“You can thank Henry for that. As soon as I saw the plus sign onthat home pregnancy test, my whole way of thinking changed. It wasn’t just about me, you know?”

I can’t help hearing the echo of Claudia in my memory the night she told me she wanted to have a baby.

We’re just us.

As if that wasn’t enough.

“Do you ever regret it?” I say. “Becoming a parent?”

Ashley shakes her head. “Not for a second. Raising a boy like Henry isn’t easy. Not in the least. And I know I didn’t need to go through with it. I had options. But every time I look at him, I know I brought something good into the world.”

“So what’s next?” I say, my brain buzzing from too much tequila. “You plan on staying here awhile?”

“Not sure.” Ashley screws the cap back onto the tequila bottle. “My dad’s not getting any better. And something will need to be done about it sooner rather than later. After that, who knows? Turns out, there are worse places to live than Hemlock Circle. How about you?”

“I have no idea. Especially now that Billy’s been found. There are too many memories to know what to do with them all.”

“I thought I was going to get away from all this,” Ashley says, which is exactly what I’ve felt all week but haven’t been able to articulate. “It’s like it was destined or something. That, no matter how far I ran, this place insisted on dragging me back here.”

Friday, July 15, 1994

11:52 a.m.

“God, I hate it here,” Ashley says, cradling the receiver between her neck and shoulder as she wraps a Band-Aid around her thumb. She’d been playing guitar—well,tryingto play—and hit a string at the wrong angle, slicing her thumb in the process.

“It’s notthatbad,” says Tara. “I’d kill to live in your neighborhood.”

This makes Ashley feel a wee bit guilty, because Tara lives in town, in a modest house next door to a dentist’s office. She once complained that she can never open her bedroom window in the daytime because of the whine of the dentist’s drill. Ashley guesses that’s worse than waking to the wives of Hemlock Circle gathered beneath her window, which is what happened this morning.

Today, instead of their usual gossip and giggling, the women spoke in hushed tones, which Ashley took to mean they were talking about one of their kids.

A favorite topic of conversation.

Look, she gets it. Hemlock Circle exists in a kind of bubble. Part of a larger neighborhood, yes, but also on its own, surrounded by woods like some outcast in one of those stuffy books she’s forced toread in English class. Hester Prynne. That’s what the cul-de-sac reminds her of. Hester fucking Prynne, but minus the scandal. Nothing juicy ever happens here. Sure, there was what happened to Johnny Chen, but that was more sad than anything else.

Ashley still gets depressed thinking about Johnny. She’d had a bit of a crush on him when she was younger, and they waited for the school bus together at the end of the street. Now he’s dead, and sometimes she still can’t believe it. An overdose? At his age? That’s how rock stars die. Not cute, shy, studious boys like Johnny.

---