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When Tiffany masturbates these days, she doesn’t have Jake in mind. His constant working late and her constant dealing with the children have no room in her sex dreams. She had met Ada at her new escape route: a weekly book club. “Are you serious?” Jake had asked incredulously when she told him. “I haven’t seen you read anything in, well, never, really.” Tiffany knew he was right. “That isn’t the point.” “Then what is?”

That I need to be away from you. That I need time just for myself. That I will freak out if I have to wipe another butt while you are out at the office late at night. That I would rather read the most boring of books than sit next to you on the couch watching TV while waiting for Luke’s regular and familiar wailing at night. What she answered was “Everybody is allowed to have a hobby. Yours is apparently your job these days, so good for you. But I’ll be gone every Wednesday night so you had better be here.” If she noticed a flicker of guilt in Jake’s eyes she gracefully ignored it and ordered the first book to read online.

At the book club at the grandly looking café, everybody seemed relaxed and friendly. Whether by accident or on purpose Tiffany couldn’t figure out, but the group ended up being all women. Ada sat next to her the first two meetings and brought her a cup of coffee the third. “You look like you could need that,” she had explained, and Tiffany had blushed. “Do I look that horrid?” “Not at all, just tired. I figured you’re having a rough couple of weeks?” Tiffany swallowed and then nodded. Biting her lip she looked down trying very hard not to start crying. Here, in front of strangers with good lives. Here at the book club, where she hadn’t even mentioned her children and just introduced herself as “Tiffany.” Ada wasn’t fooled. She squeezed Tiffany’s arm and only said these six words: “It is going to be alright.” After the club Ada asked Tiffany if she wanted to get a drink, and she did. Anything but home.

At the bar the lights were dimmed just enough for Tiffany to hide the bags under her eyes and her flushed cheeks. But Ada didn’t inquire anymore. Instead, she downed the whiskey and talked.

“I was in a difficult marriage, too. It’s been several years now. We even went to therapy but in the end it didn’t work out. I guess we didn’t love each other enough. Maybe she cheated on me, I don’t know. When I met Mariella, I felt like this time was going to be different. We were in a relationship for three years before we broke it off. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, right?” Tiffany looked Ada into the eyes, for the first time? “Mariella?” Ada nodded. “Yes. She was with me for such a long time, it felt like I didn’t know how to go on. But on I went. And it turned out okay.” Ada ordered another round, both alcohol and Ada’s soothing voice relaxing Tiffany into sinking into her chair and sighing noisily. “Ada, that is a sad story,” she says, and Ada laughed at her. “Isn’t it? But look at me now! She couldn’t take everything away from me. The question is: will you let him take everything away from you?” Too surprised to be upset at this accusation, Tiffany first shrugged, then raised her glass and shook her head. “No, I won’t.” Ada smiled, satisfied. “Atta girl!” Their glasses clinked together in that dark pitched tone only whiskey tumblers can produce.

The book club? A safe place. An hour or so of thinking adult thoughts. Of reading sentences longer than one line. Of not making animal noises. Of drinking hard liquor afterward and somehow, suddenly, Tiffany dressed up for the club and put on jewelry. The first time, a  blouse showing off her cleavage, once. The next time the skirt was slightly shorter than necessary. The third time at the bar, Ada reached over to get more peanuts and happened to graze against Tiffany’s left breast for a second. She stopped mid-air: 21, 22. Two more seconds and she’s gone. It took Tiffany the whole night to realize that the shiver she had felt that second came from her lower body. She hadn’t felt it since giving birth to Luke: the thought hit her with too much force. This long? Seriously, this long?

The place had never been mentioned in any guidebook, not even local ones. Not on the bicycle maps with elevation markers and blue-green infrastructure symbols. You’d have to turn right behind the sea of shrubs next to a sand dune that really is just remnants of the kindergarten’s sandboxes. Discarded after Chernobyl blew radioactive particles all over Europe, spoiling sandboxes for an entire generation of 1980s toddlers.

Termites have invaded the sand dune and grabbed what they could. This close to our place, it seems everybody carries more than their weight on their shoulders. Leaving the low scrubs behind, you’ll walk deeper into the green. Slowly, trees grow taller, fuller, and foliage thickens. Leaves fall onto the ground while still pulsing with thick juice.

I tried, very hard even. I kept my secrets. How I shift uncomfortably in my seat and once rubbed my butt raw from fidgeting. How your eyes twitch before you lie. That I know how to forge your signature. Ah, the lies we know. It does not matter if I tell them, too. When I signed over all your stock and turned you from prosperous to lacking the means of contributing to your 401(k), it was not because of lack of empathy. It was only that I wanted more for myself. 

The priest likes to talk, the ladies like to listen. We stand because the priest is old, we offer a seat while we wait. He won’t take it, the empty chair too close to his body now for us to reclaim it. Its uselessness takes up space in the overcrowded hospital room.

Mass would have been free to watch on the television, but she thought she’d have to pay for it. The rows of women carrying more than one secret. Having carried more than one baby, and burden, and husband through the years. Husbands who spent Sunday mornings with schnaps in the local tavern while they kneaded bread and their hands: arthritis. 

Now they fold their hands in solemn expectation of the blessings: It is not at all sure, these days, that all of them will be able to leave the hospital and return to friends and family. To home-canned jam and great-grandchildren, or at least photographs of these. 

For us in between, not daughters to these women, not cute great-grandchildren, the priest has barely anything to say. We smile awkwardly and hoped to not have flaunted our condescension. For grandma’s sake, what we do not say is:

Don’t speak of your past as if it had been something beyond your powers. Don’t ask these women to be silent and endure their illness, their pain, with patience and acceptance for it all could have been worse. It has always been worse for them than for you, we think, as we have seen grandmothers run to fetch drinks and food and pleasantries for men who only a few years prior routinely took off their belts to punish our mothers. 

For us in the middle, we keep thinking: It would be far preferable for us to be able to state with confidence: Grandpa was one of the good guys.

Failing to procure an official invitation is a faux-pas that leads to an earl lunch. In the square opposite the parlamentarium we assemble. We flash our badges and order drinks, beer, mostly. There is always more beer if needed. “You seen the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum yet?” He shakes his head. “There is always too little time for excursions.” The homeless man sleeping in front of the glass-paneled office building isn’t disturbed by the bass drums pulsing through our organs.

I know I wasn’t supposed to open that letter. It had been clearly addressed to you, to be delivered pronto and in secrecy. I understand that I wasn’t even supposed to know you had recently fathered that child, and who am I to judge what you’re doing with your sperm. Granted, I might have overreacted when I tore said letter, then googled your baby mama’s name and downloaded her pictures to my phone. But she was so pretty. I found this recipe on the internet and it seemed too easy to be true, so I had to try it. I’m sure you’ll understand, once they can remove the tubes from your body and you can breathe again. The mixture wasn’t meant to hurt you as much, just a little. I would have found a way to keep you alive, but since you managed to dial 911 before I unplugged the phone it’s just as well. You see, I had your best interests at heart, and mine, Our best interests. In the grand scheme of things, I guess I’d say I was concerned. 

They meet at dusk behind the red brick building that resembles a shed more than a house. Yes, it has been made of stone; but it carries its age on its surface. Like a canvas stretched too thin and now wrinkled and worn out, a number of bricks have come loose, have fallen out, have cracked. The door hangs crooked on its hinges. This is where the pastor used to take them to feed them on Jesus Christ and Mrs. Jennings’ homemade biscuits. The gray church building next to the garden home, that villa of grand disappointments. Or how else could you characterize the building in which Mrs. Jennings broke first the pastor’s heart and then his resolve? In 200 years of history not one of god’s professional servants had left the parish in a hurry, except in 1983. In the church annals, reports of far more than one pastor describe them dying from tuberculosis, from influenza, more than one probably deceased with syphilis, but at least they all had tried. Mrs. Jennings remained where she was, married Doctor Caine, and then the 90s happened.

Raised on PopTarts, soy milk (from before there was Whole Foods!) and the burden of having to succeed at something, the parish’s youths rebel in the ways they have at their disposal: drugs, rock’n’roll, class dropping and illegitimate relations with neighboring daughters or sons. More than one dream of inappropriate behavior involving the High School teacher Mrs. Langley, more than one joint shared together with bacteria on the paper and clamoring for excitement. A spatter of religious folks remained under the auspices of Mrs. Caine (née Jennings) and her weekly Bible club, but being agnostic had long lost its promise of novelty. The church building had started losing it as well: flowers, hymn books, seat cushions slowly disappeared and might now be seen in the river or at Marcus Foster’ slumber parties (infamous for their rounds of spin the bottle after tequila shots).

So they meet in the garden and maybe Carl starts throwing pebbles at the church window. Possibly Marcus scratches his ears for too long. Nina draws a human in the mud with her sneakers. Gus is the one they are waiting for, with the rackets and a ball and the plan. He waves from across the road and throws one ball at Carl who is a slow catch. “You suck at this,” Nina tells him, and his ears turn crimson. Marcus snatches a racket from Gus’ arms and tests its tension. “Ready?” Gus inquires. Nina stomps ahead without replying.

The church door is still heavy, maybe even more so with less use. No candles. Nobody praying for health, a raise, a wife, a kid. Nobody asking for world peace, or the ability to defend himself against all those intruders of the modern world. Nina’s steps are loud in the nave. She turns around. “I am so fucking ready, Gus.” He points towards the left wing, towards the wall with an inscription right next to the confession boxes. Lord have mercy on us. The four stand in line, looking towards the words. Rackets. Balls. Space. Time. “Let’s play squash,” Carl says and the ball hits “mercy” right in the typeface.

So.much.snow. Autumn plows through the piles of white slush on her way to the metro. In no hurry she lets the first streetcar pass by: commuters’ schedules. Wait - what? Due to bad weather our trains are running irregularly. Only 25 minutes until the next train. That is warm. And filled with bodies of students and teachers and businesswomen and grandfathers and homeless (new! They can ride for free to prevent an early and painful death!) and employees and employers and maybe an occasional artist (whom is she kidding? If she were a freelancer, she would not be up and running now either). 24 minutes. Autumn pulls out her headphones and blows on her index fingers. No matter how thick your gloves are, they are never thick enough. The Japanese words for gloves is “bags for the hands.” That seems comfortingly appropriate.

“What are you doing?” Carl asks and peeks over Autumn’s shoulder. Her hands are still stained from screwing around with the heating. It has been acting up, and so has Carl. “I am making ice-cream.” She has frozen raspberries and cream out on the counter, the handheld mixer ready to go. Carl snatches a raspberry and licks it before popping it in his mouth. “Autumn, did you manage to fix the heating?” She shrugs. “Does it feel warm to you?” Both lean their heads to the left, signaling to each other: I guess. It’s code for “We have been living together for too long. “Exactly. You’ll have to scrap some money together, I called the landlord to send someone over. “So, basically,..” Carl begins, “it is cold in here.” Autumn nods. “And outside. Hills of snow. Icy roads, and sidewalks for that matter. Mountain ranges of snow. You wearing two pairs of tights under your jeans.” Autumn agrees. “Correct.”

“So, why, Autumn, are you making ice-cream of all things?” Autumn plugs in the mixer and runs a test for a second. Noise and movement. “Anybody can eat ice-cream in summer.”

We are the impatient, those who stumble over their own legs and feet entangled in the process of history. Entangled in the events sequencing, events strung like silvery pearls on a string one right next to each other, then twisted until tiny hooks went into skin and their order is suddenly messed up, confused.
We are the hopeful still, uselessly enthralled with our own ideas and lacking perspective.
We are those licking the final drops out of every glass; that’s a wrap, folks! We say since we were raised on television shows and movie theater tickets. But when we hit the glass out of everybody else’s hands in rage and illegitimate envy, we stoop down immediately to pick up the pieces and apologize.
We are the middle-aged who cut out quotes from magazines and preserved them in our wallets. Hidden behind the organ donor information cards, the paper gets thinner with every breath we take.