Chapter Seventeen

Zeddie Birdsall and the family autoduck were waiting for Duckers in the West Station's parking lot when the three marshals got off duty, leaving Mary Georgina and a chunk of their hearts behind them in Tanria.

"Fuck me," muttered Duckers.

"Have we talked to him about barnacles and hulls and scraping?" Frank asked Twyla.

"Hey, Z," Duckers sighed as he walked toward his boyfriend.

Zeddie's smile fell into a pissy frown. "Wow. Try to contain your enthusiasm."

"How did you know I'd be out today?"

"I ran into Alma Maguire at Callaghan's General Store. Could you at least pretend to be happy to see me? You know, the guy you're dating?"

"This is not good," Twyla said to Frank.

He was already nudging her inside the station. "Let's wait in the commissary. I don't want to take off without him in case he winds up stranded here."

They grabbed a couple of sodas and sat at a lunch table, waiting to see how things panned out with Duckers's love life.

"When are you expecting Lu and Annie?" asked Twyla.

Frank peeled the label off the sweating soda bottle. He was always nervous before his kids came for a visit. "Late Wisdomsday. They're driving up after work and staying for a couple of weeks. Thought maybe we could all drive to one of the inner islands while Hope's in town. Wade and Anita and the kids could come, too."

"They'd love that."

"Good thing I don't have a baby dragon attached to me anymore."

"There is a silver lining here." She put her hand over his label-peeling fingers. "No matter what happens, Mary Georgina will be taken care of."

"I hope so."

"And you and Lu and Annie will have a wonderful time together. You always do."

"Gods, I can't wait to see them."

"I bet."

She let go of his hand, and he began to pick at the label again. "You're staying with Wade and Anita while your house gets fixed?"

"That's the plan," she said, making a valiant effort not to melt into a pile of exhaustion at the very thought. The house was going to be cramped with a family of five plus Twyla and Hope.

"You know, you can stay at my place for as long as you need. You and Hope, I mean."

Twyla desperately wanted to accept the offer, but their friendship was barely on the mend, and she didn't want to tempt fate by living under the same roof as Frank for any length of time. "Your kids are coming. And who knows how long the repairs will take. I might look into getting an apartment until the house is fixed up."

"My door's always open to you."

Duckers stepped into the commissary, his head bent. He wiped furiously at his cheeks.

"This is definitely not good," murmured Twyla. She waved to get his attention, and he made a beeline for their table.

"Can I have a ride?" he asked without looking up.

Frank got to his feet, grabbed his pack, and started pushing Duckers out of the commissary. "Yep. Let's get out of here."

"We broke up," said Duckers as they hit the front door of the West Station, his voice cracking.

"We figured."

Twyla wrapped an arm around his waist and tossed her keys to Frank, who hustled ahead to unlock the duck. "I'm so sorry, honey."

"I dumped him," he told them tearfully.

Frank chucked everyone's bags into the hold while Twyla packed Duckers onto the back bench and sat beside him.

"Poor Pen."

"Poor Pen? I'm a dick! Poor Zeddie!" He broke down completely as Frank sat behind the wheel, even though it was Twyla's duck. This was a situation that required Twyla's mom-ness, as Duckers would put it, and they both knew it.

"He was so upset," sobbed Duckers. "He shouldn't be driving."

Twyla didn't know Zeddie Birdsall well, but since he was only a year younger than Hope, she'd seen him grow up. A pang of sympathy for him jabbed her in the heart. But Duckers was beside her, and he needed her now.

"Zeddie's an adult. I'm sure he'll pull over if he needs to." Twyla made a face at Frank in the rearview mirror when he made a dubious grunt of disagreement, and she doubled down on her efforts to comfort Duckers. "He's got his family looking out for him, I promise."

Duckers responded by sobbing even louder.

"Who's up for a beer?" asked Frank.

"That's a fine idea," Twyla answered for her and Duckers since Duckers was crying too hard to answer for himself. They stopped by Hutchins's Sip Mart long enough for Frank to dash in for a case of Ray's Pilsner, and then they headed to his house for beery commiseration.

"I'm through with love," Duckers declared from Frank's sofa, and he was only one beer in.

"Fair," said Frank.

"You know what sucks? Hart Ralston is my best friend on Bushong, but now he's Zeddie's brother-in-law."

"So?"

"So that's going to be weird for him."

"Ralston's a big boy. He knows how to be friends with one man and family with another. Besides, he married Mercy, not Zeddie. If he's a good friend, he'll stay a good friend."

"I hope so."

"I know so," Twyla assured him. Hart was a tough nut to crack, but she got the feeling that once someone had earned his friendship, he was unlikely to turn his back on them. She was certain that included his former apprentice.

"Fuck. I'm going to need to buy my own autoduck now. I'd ask Hart to give me a ride to the sales lots, but he's on his honeymoon. Plus, awkward."

"I don't have anything going on until my kids get here. I'll take you," offered Frank.

"You don't mind?"

"Nah, I don't mind. Saltsday morning work for you?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Frank."

"You bet."

The ease with which Frank did something kind for someone else never ceased to impress Twyla, not when she had spent two decades married to a man who sighed with put-upon exasperation whenever she asked him to do so much as take out the trash.

A few too many beers later, Duckers reverted to his melodramatic mode. "Love is the wooooooorst," he groaned to Frank's ceiling, his head resting on the back of the sofa.

"Cheers," said Frank. Twyla clinked her bottle to Duckers's and took a swig.

Duckers studied Frank, then Twyla, with glassy eyes. "You two are down on love?"

"Yes," said Twyla.

"Gods, yes," rasped Frank.

"But you both seem so emotionally healthy and shit. What do you have against love?"

Frank pointed to himself. "Divorced." He pointed to Twyla. "Chair." He finished his beer and popped the cap off another.

"Chair?"

"Don't ask," said Twyla.

"I thought you were getting it on with Dr. Vandertweed."

"We broke up."

"He dumped you, huh? Sadness."

"I'll have you know that I am the one who dumped him," she informed him with slurred asperity.

"Like I dumped Zeddie?" He started crying again.

Frank handed him a fresh handkerchief since Duckers had depleted his own. "If you're this sad about breaking up, maybe you should be together after all."

"No." Duckers sniffed. "I know I did the right thing. I'm not ready for the kind of relationship he wants. It just feels super shitty."

"To feeling shitty," said Twyla, raising her beer.

"To feeling shitty," Frank repeated.

Duckers kept crying, but he lifted his drink.

As they toasted their romantic miseries, Twyla's eyes drifted to the wall opposite her, to the place where she had tackled Frank and kissed him. And then her eyes followed their path to the left, to the place beside the front door where—

She tore her gaze away. She would have expected to feel any number of things at the memory—regret, embarrassment, even heat—especially since she was tipsy. What she felt instead was a sense of wistfulness, although she couldn't say for what exactly. Did she wish that she could turn back the clock and erase what had happened? Would she have done anything differently the night of the wedding, when a pair of bombs had changed her friendship with Frank in some immutable way?

No, she decided that she couldn't bring herself to regret it. And when her eyes met Frank's, she could see that he didn't regret it either. An understanding passed between them, these two people who knew each other cold. They would weather this storm together, and their friendship would be stronger for it.

"Cheers, darlin'," he said, and he peeled the label off his bottle.

Twyla thought she wouldn't be able to sleep in the same house as Frank anytime soon, but all it took to cure her of that notion were a few beers and a heartbroken twenty-one-year-old in need of tender loving care. She and Duckers had wound up in Lu's old room, giggling about Quill's ass-cot like prepubescent girls at a sleepover until they drifted off to sleep. Frank had stuffed them full of sugary oatmeal before they left in the morning, but Twyla was mildly hungover as she stepped outside and gazed longingly at her house next door. It now sported an ugly tarp over the even uglier hole in her roof.

"Where are you staying again?" Duckers asked her as they climbed into the cab of her autoduck.

"With my son."

"The one with all the kids?"

"He only has three."

"But wouldn't it make more sense to stay with your bestie?"

"His kids are coming for a two-week visit on Wisdomsday, and my daughter is already at Wade's house. I'm more worried about you. I hate the idea of leaving you all alone."

"But that's what I want—time to myself in my own place on my own terms. I literally dumped a great guy to get it."

A memory arose like a ghost in Twyla's mind, not of a single moment but of many bound together, of a thousand times in her life when she would have given anything to check into a clean hotel room for one night and order room service and lie there on the bed and do absolutely nothing. Some people dreamed of travel and vacations, but in those days, Twyla had no aspirations of that kind. She wanted only to live and breathe in a room with no one else in it for a few hours. Now that she had her house (mostly) to herself—when it didn't have a hole in the roof or smoke and water damage—she appreciated the value of living on her own terms even more.

She leaned across the bench and gave Duckers a hug. "I have so much respect for you."

"Same to you." He hugged her in return before he hopped out, retrieved his pack from the hold, and climbed the steps to his apartment building.

She put the duck in gear and headed for Wade's house. "Speaking of not having space to yourself," she joked for her own benefit. When she pulled up to the curb, she found Manny and Sal outside, practicing sea polo in the front yard. So far inland, it was always a challenge to adapt the game for play on land, but Bushong kids had long mastered the art of it. In Twyla's grandkids' case, they were riding on bikes instead of equimares, passing the ball around through elaborate formations.

"Wammy!" cried Sal when he heard the door of her duck thud shut. "Wammy's here!" He leaped off the bike while it was still in motion, letting it careen toward the garden shed as he ran to Twyla and gave her a hug. He was a rambunctious kid but deeply affectionate. I'm a hugger, he'd once informed her when he was all of four years old. It was how he managed to get away with murder.

Manny rode over and took a lap around Twyla. "Want to take a few shots, Wammy?"

The truth was that Twyla could go for a couple more aspirins and a nap, but having been up to her eyeballs in extremely complicated life and career events these past few weeks, she decided that playing with her grandkids would be a refreshing and uncomplicated break.

"You're on," she said, and the two boys whooped in her honor. Sal retrieved his jackknifed bicycle and handed it off to Twyla.

"Ope!" she cried as she pushed down on the pedal and wobbled into motion, teetering on the seat. She knew she wasn't going all that fast, but she was a woman of a certain age, and the bike was too small for her.

"Go, Wammy!" shouted Manny, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"I'm passing you the ball!" announced Sal, and he hurled said object at her face before she could suggest that no, maybe now would not be the best time.

"Oh, shit!" she yelped as the ball came at her. She barely managed to catch it and stay upright.

Manny and Sal dissolved into peals of laughter, yelling, "Wammy said s!"

There was only one way to redeem this situation. She pedaled for the rickety goal that Wade had cobbled together last year and gave it her best shot.

And missed by an embarrassing margin.

"Weak!" called a voice that was much deeper than her grandkids'. It was Wade, coming to stand with his boys on the lawn. His children cackled at his joke and parroted him, shouting "Weak!" at their poor, dear grandmother.

Surging with orneriness, Twyla swerved the bike and rode straight at him.

"Oh, shit!" he laughed, darting out of the way in the nick of time.

It was too much for Manny and Sal to bear. They were laughing so hard it was a wonder they didn't pass out. Sal did, in fact, topple theatrically to the ground.

"Language!" came Anita's voice, chastising Wade from the kitchen window as Twyla braked to a stop.

Wade grimaced. "Sorry, honey." He looked to his mother and hissed, "You got me in trouble!"

"Serves you right."

Manny tugged on the sleeve of Wade's coveralls. "It's okay, Dad. Wammy said s, too."

"Did she now?"

"Thank you for taking care of my house while I was gone, Wadey."

"Aw, Wadey!" Sal giggled from where he was wallowing in the grass.

Wade toed him affectionately. "Hush, you."

"Are you heading to work?" Twyla asked him, a rhetorical question since Wade's coveralls and boots made it clear that he had a shift at the autoduck mechanic shop on Main Street.

"Yep, if Princess Hope ever decides to get her ass out here since I'm giving her a ride." He raised his voice so that his sister would hear him through the window screens and get a move on.

"Wade! Language! Seriously!" scolded Anita from inside.

"Ass is off-limits?"

"Dad said a!" shrieked Sal.

"Yes! Gods! Why are you like this?"

Hope stepped out of the front door, tying on her Wilner's Green Grocer apron while her lunch bag dangled from the crook of her elbow.

"Ope! My lunch! Shit!" said Wade, and he sprinted inside the house to get his lunch pail.

"Oh my gods," moaned Anita.

"Sorry, honey!"

Hope hugged Twyla in greeting. "When did you get back?"

"Yesterday evening. We wound up having a few beers, so Frank let me and Duckers stay the night."

"You stayed at Frank's house—with beer—and you didn't invite me?"

"I didn't know you wanted to be invited."

"Mom. I am under the same roof as three little kids and my brother. This is my idea of Old Hell. Of course I'd rather stay at Frank's house. Are we putting up there until the roof gets fixed? Because I can pack up my stuff real fast before I go to work."

"I don't want to put Frank out. Besides, Lu and Annie are coming this Wisdomsday."

"All the more reason to crash at Frank's! And we're not putting him out. He loves us."

Hope had said the words so casually, and yet the combination of the words he and loves made Twyla's insides twist with anxiety.

"Go to work," she said, nudging her daughter toward Wade as he stepped outside, this time with his lunch. "We'll talk later."

"Fine." Hope aimed a finger with a neat pink fingernail at Twyla's nose. "But I am not letting this go."

Wade and Hope set off for their respective jobs while Twyla watched the kids so that Anita could run a few errands. She liked spending time with her grandkids, especially if it made her daughter-in-law's life a little easier. At the end of the day (or, in her current situation, at the end of a few weeks) she could go home to her own peace and quiet.

Wade and Hope returned shortly before dinner. Wade impressed Twyla by taking care to remove his greasy coveralls and shoes outside and clean himself up before coming in.

And then he collapsed onto the couch and let the kids run around him.

Hope, on the other hand, hung up her apron and helped throw together a salad while Twyla set the table with Teo propped on her hip.

"Frank was talking about taking a day trip out to one of the inner islands while Lu and Annie are in town," Twyla mentioned to Hope. "Think you could get a couple of days off from Wilner's?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"The whole family's invited, Wade. You and the kids, too."

He cracked open one eye as Sal body-slammed him. "Oof! That'd be fun. What do you say, babe?"

"I'm in," Anita replied from the stove, where she was stirring a vat of marinara.

Twyla thought this all sounded great until she caught Hope rolling her eyes and blowing a gust of disappointment from her lungs. Her daughter's impatience with Wade and his family grated on her nerves.

Hope disappeared after dinner, leaving the washing up to Anita and Twyla and the two older boys. Twyla went looking for her and found her in the backyard, swaying listlessly on one of the two swings that dangled from the A-frame swing set.

"I wondered where you went."

"It's a small town. There aren't a lot of places to go."

"I'm going to chalk up the sulkiness to missing Everett."

Hope leaned her cheek against the chain and groaned. "It sucks to be somewhere he isn't."

"I remember the feeling." Twyla sat on the swing next to her daughter and was alarmed when her weight made the seat curve painfully tight around her bottom. "Ope! I wonder what the weight limit on these things is."

"I think Wade put this thing together, so I wouldn't put your trust in it."

"You're awfully down on Wade lately."

"All I'm saying is that he's not winning Dad of the Year—or Husband of the Year, for that matter. He leaves everything to Anita. It's such bullshit."

"Language!"

"What is it with moms and cussing? Besides, you know I'm right."

It rankled Twyla, the way Hope spoke as if she knew better than anyone, when in fact, she knew nothing at all. Twyla had been dreading getting her concerns about Hope's future out in the open. Now, all of a sudden, she found she was willing and eager.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that's what happens when you're the one with the equipment."

Hope snorted. "The equipment? Seriously, Mom?"

"Yes. The equipment. You and Everett want to get married? Fine. But you need to recognize the fact that you're the one who can grow a person inside you. And you think you know what that means before you do it, but you don't. You have no clue until you're already knee-deep. It means never having enough to eat, or never being able to eat, because you're too busy throwing up. It means peeing every five seconds. It means your boobs hurting and your ankles swelling. It means varicose veins and hemorrhoids. It means messing up your back for the rest of your life. It means rearranging everything inside you. It means your body never being the same again. It means being exhausted in ways you never knew possible. And it means dealing with all of that while trying to make it through each and every day like a functioning adult. And Everett, the person with a different set of equipment, won't begin to understand what you're going through."

"I can't believe you're spouting off this Old Gods crap. You, of all people?"

But Twyla would not be waylaid. "And that's only the beginning, because once you push that child into the world in a way that is incredibly hard on your body, not to mention dangerous, you'll be the one with the equipment to feed the baby. Even if you decide to bottle feed, even if Everett promises to do his fair share, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in crappy assumptions from the days of the Old Gods that because you come with the equipment, you are somehow magically endowed with all the knowledge of how to be a parent, how to feed and clothe and diaper and take care of that precious human you put into the world. And that assumption touches everything. Everything. You're the one who inherently knows how to navigate doctors' appointments, babysitters, school, homework, when your kid needs new shoes, when your kid needs a hug, when your kid needs help… It will all fall to you—all of it—because you're the one with the equipment."

"I don't even know if we're going to have kids!"

"So? Do you think the lion's share of housecleaning and laundry and cooking and dishes and all of that won't fall to you?"

Hope got to her feet, rigid with offense. "I can't believe this is what you think of Everett! You've known him for years!"

"Everett is a sweetheart. I love Everett. But I also know what it means to be on the losing end of the Old Gods' tug-of-war between This Is Male and This Is Female. It didn't go away when the New Gods won the war, and it didn't go away when the Old Gods took their place on the altar of the sky. And if you think it's not coming for you the second you tie yourself to the person who comes with the equipment that puts him on the winning end of that game of tug-of-war, have I got news for you."

Hope fumed over Twyla like the old God of Wrath. "That's your life, the life you chose for yourself, for all of us. You're the one who got married too young. You're the one who had kids when you were still a kid yourself. The whole town is all Poor Twyla, widowed and alone and grieving for the loss of Doug Banneker, but I know better. You hated Dad—"

"I did not hate him!"

"Yes, you did, but you stayed with him and made yourself a martyr, and then you blamed him for your misery, and you keep on blaming him, long after he can defend himself. Well, that's not going to be me, because the last person I want to be in this world is you."

In the thick silence that followed Hope's tirade, the image of Penrose Duckers's full-sized crossbow filled Twyla's mind, the heft of it, the tension of pulling the string into the nut, the heady power of the release. If Hope's words were the shaft, then Twyla's pierced heart was the bull's-eye.

Shaking with emotion, she hoisted herself out of the too-small swing. "That's good. Because the last thing I want for you to be in this life is me. But understand this: I am the person who put you into this world and loves you more than anyone else ever can or will, and I don't want to see you making the same mistakes I made. Which is why I'm telling you to think twice before you hand over your birth key to someone who may not cherish it as much as he ought to."

Hope shook her head in fury and disgust. "I can't even look at you right now," she told Twyla before she stomped inside.

Twyla remained beside the swing set as Hope's barb repeated over and over in her mind, shredding her.

The last person I want to be in this world is you.

Twyla needed to run away from those words—to be anywhere but here—but everything Twyla needed was inside Wade's house—her Gracie Goodfist backpack, her duck keys.

Her family.

If she had been thinking clearly, she would have gone to Duckers's apartment and thrown herself on his charity. But she was not thinking at all. She was a giant pile of inarticulate feelings, and her feet took her where her heart, rather than her head, wanted to go.