Letdown
by Iona Rohan

Ellen poured a gin and tonic. She felt Art watching her, sensed his disapproval. He’d gotten home first and had lit the fire; the evening chilly. The smell of burning wood mixed with the waft of chicken and rosemary coming from the kitchen. She’d bought the cooked chicken on her way home from work, would give it a few more minutes to reheat. She wanted to fill her glass, but stopped herself, knowing Art would give her hell.

“Is that a good idea?” he asked.

She turned to him, forcing a smile. “Have one with me, can’t you?”

He shook his head.

She settled next to him on the couch, waited before drinking.

“It’s getting to be every night now,” Art said.

“Please, it’s one little drink to relax me.”

“Where will it end though? That’s—”

“Let’s not do this, okay?”

The gin burned Ellen’s throat, warmed her chest. She waited for that first swallow to bring its usual relief. It didn’t—thanks to Art. She felt a surge of anger. He couldn’t even let her enjoy this one little pleasure at the end of her day.

…

As usual, Ellen arrived at her parents’ house early on Sunday morning. From the gate, she spotted the mess in their front path: a large slick grey puddle, the drain’s grille clogged with leaves and food wrappers. She moved around the spill, her heels sinking into the front lawn.

Both the television and radio blared from inside the house. She pressed the doorbell, banged the brass knocker repeatedly. Her mother finally answered the door, looking especially disheveled. Ellen pulled a face. Her mother’s frizzy, straw-colored hair stood straight out from her head, as if she’d just suffered a mild electrocution; a drool of hardened egg yolk stained the front of her navy cardigan; the middle button was missing from her blouse, a safety pin in its place; her off-white bra was visible through the gaping holes.

“Have you nothing better to put on?” Ellen asked.

Her mother wasn’t listening. Ellen followed her down the hall, bristling. Her father didn’t look up when she entered the kitchen, his eyes forever fastened to the TV. He sat encased in his armchair as always, its orange stuffing pushing through the ends of both arms, his rank, stockinged feet propped on the coffee table. She mentioned the blocked drain, but he didn’t respond. The bald pancake-like patch at the crown of his head grew with each passing week.

Near-empty mugs of cold tea, moldy scum in some, cluttered the scarred coffee table. Cigarette ashes and butts overflowed the ashtray, the taint of stale smoke choking the air. Ellen placed the groceries she’d brought onto the counter, sighing. Her parents didn’t seem to notice. She removed her coat and rolled up her shirt sleeves, muttering under her breath.

…

Her parents’ bathroom never failed to test the strength of Ellen’s stomach: the small space reeked of piss, its toilet bowl was streaked with shit, and the once white grout on the wall and floor tiles was blackened. The white hand basin looked diseased, its drain matted with hairs, ringed in green soap scum. Several times Ellen tried to work up the courage to call her parents in, ask them how they could live like this, but her voice failed her. Head averted, she cleaned their shit from inside the bowl and along its rim. Even when she marched the stinking toilet mat through the kitchen to let it dry out back, her father’s attention didn’t stray from the TV.

The doorbell rang; Art had arrived at last. Ellen again asked her mother to go upstairs and change her clothes.

“Amn’t I fine the way I am?”

At Ellen’s request, Art cleared the drain, cleaned-up the front path. Grateful, she hugged him, inhaling his spicy aftershave. He stood tall and straight-backed, his dark hair graying at the sides; his green eyes no longer as lively, or pale face as smooth, as when they’d first dated. He was still handsome, though. She stretched on tip-toe, her lips brushing his.

When they returned to the kitchen her father demanded a beer, sending her mother scurrying to the fridge.

“Art’ll have one too,” he said.

Art refused the beer. Ellen’s father reached for his.

“Dad! We’re about to have dinner,” Ellen said.

Her father popped his beer can, bringing its frothy opening to his mouth. “Sure I’m not stopping you?”

Ellen reached for her coat. “I’m leaving.”

Her mother protested. “Sit down, can’t you? Don’t be like that.”

“He doesn’t appreciate a single thing I do. Neither of you do,” Ellen said.

Ellen’s father looked at his wife, rolling his bloodshot eyes.

Art steered the car away from the curb, his lips pressed together. They’d get a Chinese take out, Ellen told him—enjoy it at home. She didn’t add that she was looking forward to having a few glasses of wine with it too.

Ellen buried her face in the pillow. The news from the fertility specialist hadn’t been good. The fact that they’d failed to conceive for so long, that doctors could find nothing medically wrong with them, made for a mystery that might never be solved. IVF was their best shot. The mealy-mouthed specialist had actually said that—“their best shot”—making Ellen wince on the plastic seat.

Art paced their bedroom, arguing with her on every point. They could still do this naturally, he reasoned. They shouldn’t give up just yet, he insisted. There was still hope. She pulled the covers over her head.

They couldn’t afford IVF, he said. Horrible to put a price on such a thing, a baby, but they had to be realistic. There was no way they could ever come up with that kind of money. Ellen sat up straight. What if they took out a second mortgage? Art shook his head—the banks would never agree. They could barely make the first mortgage every month. His work contract was up at the end of the year, too, and the company was making noises. They might not automatically hire him again, but put the technology project out to bid.

His parents, then? Could they do anything? He snorted. His parents were in much the same situation as Ellen’s, only one pension between them. His siblings couldn’t help either.

Ellen urged Art to consider adoption. Adoption cost too much money, too, he said. Not as much as IVF, she countered. He honestly didn’t think he could love somebody else’s child. That was just ridiculous, Ellen responded. But that was the way he felt. What about what they did in England and America? she tried again: those surrogate mothers. Those cases got messy, Art insisted; the mothers often changed their minds, and then there’d be some child walking around in the world that was half his and half a stranger’s. He didn’t know that for sure, Ellen replied. He was just being difficult.

He was hurting too, Art said, or didn’t she know?

Ellen punched the pillow. “Really? You could’ve fooled me.”

“Listen to you,” he said. “You aren’t even doing what the doctors told you; you’re still drinking.”

She sprang to her knees on the bed. “I did everything already. Nothing worked.”

“So maybe you didn’t try for long enough?”

“Five years? That’s not long enough?”

“Maybe you need to keep at it? It can only help.”

“So this is my fault? You’re blaming me?”

“I’m just saying—”

“You’ve said enough, thanks.” She rushed into the bathroom. Art knocked on the door, urging her to come out, but she sent him away.

She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, her long mussed hair making her think of seaweed tendrils; the wrinkles on her face recalling the hours on a clock.

Ellen pulled into her parents’ driveway, stopped behind her father’s dented Honda. The yellow hall light shone through the glass in the front door. She checked the dashboard’s clock. She’d told her parents to be outside, not keep her waiting. Typical. They’d made a flap about the hospital’s strict visiting hours, warning her not to be late. Yet they were still parked inside their warm kitchen watching TV and drinking whatever brand of beer was on sale at the supermarket that week. Breathing hard, she climbed from the driver’s seat, stomped to the front door.

Short and stocky, with grey stubble on his face, Ellen’s father struggled into the car, bringing his cigarette and the yeasty smell of beer with him. Ellen had a flash of a badger sitting next to her.

“Put that out,” Ellen said.

He continued smoking, holding his cigarette out the window between puffs.

Ellen’s mother climbed into the back seat, laced her arms over her stomach. “It’s freezing back here.”

“Throw it away, Dad. Close the window.”

Her father licked his fingers, snuffed-out the head of the cigarette. “How’d you get to be so uppity?”

Ellen’s jaw clenched. “This is the last time I’m driving you anywhere.”

Why was she giving up her evening for this?

Her father coughed hard, his chest rattling with phlegm. He lowered the window, spitting into the night, letting in a cold draught. Ellen shivered. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. She cringed.

“I wouldn’t need you to drive me anywhere,” he said, “if they didn’t keep building all these new roads. How’s anyone supposed to get anywhere nowadays with all these motorways and roundabouts and one-way systems?”

Inwardly, Ellen agreed. The city felt like a growing stranger to her, too, getting bigger, denser, and dirtier by the day. New buildings and routes were sprouting up everywhere, people of all races and religions flocking to the island. She couldn’t imagine why they’d all come here when there were so many other, more desirable destinations in the world.

“The government’s handing out too many benefits to the foreign nationals,” everyone complained. “Won’t do nearly as much for its own.”

After a couple of wrong turns, Ellen finally arrived at the hospital. She and her mother exited the car; her father remaining inside. Exasperated, Ellen pulled the passenger door open. Her father’s head jerked-up. She flinched—his face ashen under the car-park lights. His eyes darted from her to the looming hospital building. “I hate these places.”

Inside Aunt Sarah’s ward, Ellen and her parents had to walk past several aged and sickly patients, hooked to machines and catheters and IVs. Ellen averted her eyes. The healthier patients sat propped up on their beds, reading or chatting with visitors. Aunt Sarah’s bed was the last on the right. They spotted Sarah’s brash hair first, once the same red as Ellen’s but now a bottle-orange. Sarah’s husband, John, stood up when he saw them approach, his smile nicotine-stained.

Sarah, sitting supported by pillows, looked well considering she’d had her gallbladder removed only that morning. Ellen shook Sarah’s sticky hand. After, she handed Sarah the brown paper bag fat with grapes and a bottle of Lucozade. Sarah asked her to put the bag in her locker—there not being enough room anyplace else, as she’d so many gifts already.

See, Ellen’s father’s smug face said. I told you there was no need to get her anything.

John sat on the edge of Sarah’s bed, her parents in the two chairs. Ellen had no choice but to remain leaning against the nightstand, glad of its cool metal in the stifling room. John asked after Art, if he was still working with computers, if she was still teaching at the same school.

“No sign of any children yet?” Sarah asked.

“Not yet,” Ellen said brightly.

John winked at the others. “What’s that man of yours up to?”

They laughed. Ellen felt her face blaze.

Her father glanced at the blank television screen. “Do you want that on?” he asked Sarah.

“You can’t stay away from television for a minute,” Ellen’s mother said.

“It’s a pay-to-view thing, takes fifty cent for fifteen minutes,” Sarah said.

Ellen’s father’s head snapped back to Sarah. “You’re joking?” His voice rose. “You have to pay to watch TV?”

“Here he goes,” Ellen’s mother said.

He lifted his feet, slapped the floor with his shoes. “Jesus Christ Almighty, is this how bad the country has got? The only bit of entertainment in the place for the sick and dying and it’s on a meter?” He looked back at the television, aghast. “That’s classic.”

“Would you be quiet,” Ellen said, pulling at her handbag, fishing out fifty-cent pieces and moving to the TV.

“Here, don’t put a penny into that thing,” her father said.

“It’s cent now, Dad,” Ellen said.
A nurse appeared, her pimpled face pinched. “Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s not, nurse, it’s not all fucking right.”

Ellen moved next to her father. “Calm down, Dad.”

“Sir, I’ll have to ask you to be quiet or to leave,” the nurse said, flushed.

“I’m so sorry,” Ellen said, worrying the nurse would smell the alcohol off her parents, throw them out.

Her father wouldn’t back down, cowing the nurse into putting two Euro into the meter.

After all that, ten minutes later, he wanted to leave.

In the corridor, Ellen scowled.

“What’s wrong with you?” her father asked.

Ellen shook her head. “You made a show of us back there.”

“How’s it you’re always on your high horse about something?”

Her mother trotted down the corridor after him.

She’d have chocolate as soon as she got home, Ellen promised herself, and some nice red wine to wash it down.

Ellen’s father wanted to stop in at Phelan’s on the way home for a quick one. Ellen’s mother said she’d go, too. Ellen could have dropped her parents off, their house only a short walk from the pub, but she decided to join them, the pull of a gin and tonic too much.

Only a handful of customers dotted the dimly lit pub. The bartender nodded at her parents, regulars. They continued to the table in the corner, Ellen to the bar.

Ellen returned with the tray of drinks. Her parents didn’t as much as say thanks. As if synchronized, they drank from their glasses simultaneously, neither of them taking their eyes from the TV anchored to the wall.

On the opposite side of the pub, two young brothers wrestled each other to the ground. Ellen wondered at their parents keeping them in the pub so late, and on a school night. Her attention returned to the parents again and again: greasy-haired and overweight, dog-faced, two fresh pints of beer dwarfed in their chubby hands. The children shouted, wrestling harder. The barman watched, his eyebrows, two slashes, dipping. The parents appeared oblivious.

Ellen sometimes worried that God hadn’t allowed her children because He knew she’d make a terrible mother. Yet He’d let that couple become parents? And what of her own mother and father? What was He thinking giving her to them? Unless, of course, she’d be an even worse parent than the lot of them.

Her father called to the barman, pointing at the TV’s snowy screen. “What’s with the reception?”

The barman nodded at the windows. “Rain.”

Her father nodded, pulling down his lips.

“That rain’s down for the night,” her mother said.

Ellen’s father nudged his wife, grinning. “Imagine if they tried to bring that TV meter system in here?”

Ellen’s mother laughed. “They’d never.”

They laughed harder.

Ellen stared. Her parents lived such sad, empty lives and yet it seemed enough for them. They seemed happier together, and in themselves, than she and Art.

Ellen arrived home, annoyed to find Art still up watching TV. She looked past him to the drinks cabinet.

“Hey,” he said. “I was starting to worry.”

She steadied herself against the door frame.

His smile fell. “Are you okay?”

She staggered into the room, dropped onto the couch.

“You’re drunk,” Art said.

She made fists on her lap. “How astute.”

“Jesus.”

She stood, fixing a gin.

“You drove home like that?”

She swung around, holding the gin bottle by the neck. “Yes I drove home like this. Disgusting, isn’t it? Criminal, shameful, deplorable. How many words are there to describe how terrible I am do you think? Because I must be terrible, right? I’m so rotten I can’t even make a baby. Isn’t that what you think?”

Art reached for her. “You need to go to bed.”

“You know what I need? I need another drink. I need to keep drinking until I can’t think or feel anything anymore.”

She brought the bottle of gin to her mouth, guzzling.

“You should take a long look in the mirror right now,” Art said, and walked out.

She lowered herself onto the couch, gin dripping from her jaw. Art moved about upstairs. She wished he’d come back down and hold her.

The house quieted. Ellen let the gin bottle slip to the floor, the alcohol spilling over the rug. She recalled her parents inside the pub, laughing.

Something came to her then, like God Himself had whispered in her ear, His warm breath clearing the fog in her head. How much of themselves, of their hopes and dreams, must her parents have had to give up over the years to be content with where they were today?

She cried tears that tasted like gin; tears for her parents, for Art, for herself, for the baby they couldn’t have.

Maybe if she cried long and hard enough she’d create some space inside her, make room for something else besides the pain.

Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Iona Rohan now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, CA. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Irish Times Online; The Irish Herald San Francisco; Dublin Writers Workshop; Electric Acorn; Identity Theory; Miranda Literary Magazine, and Word Riot. Iona is currently seeking representation for her first novel, In the Family Way, and is at work on her second novel, working title Coming Up Green.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com