Tilly
"Norm, please," I said stretching my hand towards him. As much as Nissi was hurting right then, our continued presence was only making things worse. Norm let out his breath, but it hitched in his throat. His eyes were rimmed in red as he turned back to me and nodded.
"We have to tell the others," he said. "No more secrets."
When we got inside, Stan was helping Stansy with dinner, but Norm called them away to the living room where Wendy and Nonna sat. Wendy offered to get Nock from the den, but Norm told her "no" in a tone that brooked no argument. I sat next to him on the couch and he squeezed my hand, drawing confused looks from the others. Haltingly, he explained what had happened, and why. I sensed shock, disapproval, concern. None of them had seen this coming.
A thread of anger had steadily been growing out of the initial disbelief. That was from Stansy, who glared at Norm. "How could you do this?" she demanded. "I put my trust in you. We all did. You were our center, the one who held us all together."
"I didn't mean for this to happen," he said, shaking his head slowly.
"This isn't about you," she said. "All of our lives are in the balance. There is no room for this kind of shit. I thought you both were better than this." She stood and brushed past Norm, heading for the kitchen
Stan stared after her a moment. He looked at Norm and shrugged. "She'll cool off eventually, I think. I just don't understand why you would throw away what you had with Nissi." He looked at me. "And you, you had to know what would happen."
I looked down. "Not at first," I said, "not really. But we could have stopped at any time."
"It's not her fault," Norm said. "I should have told Nissi."
Stan nodded his agreement at Norm before returning his gaze to me. "You plan to stay together then?"
I nodded.
"Well, I hope you are making the right decision, both of you." His doubt of that was so obvious that even Norm picked it up without difficulty. "One thing I agree with Stansy on, I don't know that I can trust you the same after this."
That hurt Norm worse than anything that Stansy had said. He just nodded silently at the rebuke.
"Poor Nissi," Wendy said. "She doesn't deserve this. Do you have any idea how much she loved you, Norm?"
Norm wouldn't meet her gaze. "I know," he said hoarsely. He leaned forward and covered his face with his hands, and I rubbed his back in slow circles. "I know what I did."
The moment was broken when Stansy announced that food was ready. We moved to the table and ate in awkward silence. Nock came in presently, saying, "I already know," as he sat down.
Wendy waited until we were done before going back outside. She and Nissi came back in and ate, and then Nissi went upstairs, never saying a word.
I could hear movement, and when I went to check I found her walking back and forth between the two bedrooms at the end of the hall, carrying Norm's clothing and personal items from one room to the other. I heard objects clatter on the floor as she dropped them. She saw me but didn't acknowledge my presence, and anger poured off of her in waves.
I went back down to find Norm. "I guess you're moving into my bedroom," I told him.
"It would only make sense, I guess."
We lay side-by-side in bed that night. Norm turned his back to me and pretended to sleep. The pain of guilt and regret curdled his insides, as they did mine. Through the walls, I could hear the thin, muffled sound of Nissi weeping into a pillow. I felt that I would drown in the sadness, welling up from inside me and pouring into me from both of them. Tears streamed down the sides of my face, and I let them, though I kept my diaphragm from spasming with a constant application of focus and will.
My skin crawled with the impulse to help them. I needed to banish the pain and bring back their happiness, while at the same time, I was paralyzed with helplessness and indecision. How could I make things better? I had pushed Norm into this, over his protestations. He had known what would happen, even if I couldn't quite grasp it at the time.
"This is all my fault," I said.
Norm spoke without moving. "No, I did this to her. I lied to her. I could have told you 'no', or I could have come clean any time. I don't know. Maybe things would have worked out if I had just told her when we first got here."
Pain suffused him anew as he spoke, stabbing at my chest, and I lost my concentration. A shuddering sob wracked me.
"Oh, Tilly," he said, flipping over to face me and gathering me in his arms. "I'm sorry. No, listen to me. I still love you."
A trickle of warmth suffused him, and it was enough for me to claw back my control and calm my breathing again. "No, it's not that," I said, "I know you do. It's all this emotion. All three of us together."
Recognition dawned in his eyes. "We're hurting you, aren't we?" he said. "Maybe I should go sleep downstairs."
"No," I said, holding onto him. "I want you to stay with me. Please, Norm."
"Here, turn on your side," he said. "Face the window."
I did as he asked and his body slid up next to mine, warm against my back and my legs. His breath tickled the hairs on my neck just before he kissed me. His arm went around me and his hand, heavy and roughened by recent callouses, rested against my belly.
"That's better," I said. I could feel every movement, every pulse of blood through his body where he touched me. I found myself matching his breathing as I sank into him, increasing the contact. My pulse slowed ever so slightly as my heart found his rhythm. His pain had eased with the skin contact. He gradually relaxed, slipping into an exhausted, if fitful, sleep.
I lay awake for a bit longer, listening as Nissi's crying calmed and she, too, fell asleep. Now there were only my own roiling emotions to deal with, but I had already learned how to numb myself to them. I closed my eyes and willed my metabolism to slow and my muscles to relax.
I realized quickly how the dynamic in the house had changed. Norm no longer spoke to Nock, and I felt Norm's anger rise any time he caught sight of the other man. Nock avoided Norm, but not out of fear. Any time I saw them near each other, a heaviness and nausea crept into Nock's chest, clashing with the flush of heat from Norm's anger. There was also a near-constant undercurrent of loss to Nock's demeanor now that I couldn't pin down. He seemed beaten down, defeated. Nissi would not speak to either man, and they all avoided each other as much as they could. It made the whole house feel tense and unstable.
Nissi's birthday was November 4th. Norm and I had planned a big party for her, including cake and wine. When she found out about it, she approached me and asked me to please not bother, to save it all for Wendy's birthday in December. Given Stan and Stansy's reaction, I was surprised by her demeanor. It seemed that all of her anger was directed solely at Norm, whereas her feeling when she saw me ran more to disappointment.
We did still have the dinner we had planned, which featured fresh fish obtained at an extravagant price from a black market source in Seattle. Since Nissi's birthday was also election night, afterward, we all crowded around the living room television to watch it, scavenging chairs from the den and dining room. It would have been amusing if it weren't sad, how Nissi, Norm and Nock all seated themselves at comfortable distances from one another, interspersing the other members of the household between them.
The House had come out of the previous election with 215 Republican and 216 Democrat representatives, with minor parties making up the difference. The Senate was currently 52 to 48 in favor of Republicans. It was apparent early on that the balance was going to be overturned as seats switched here and there throughout the night. The Democrats greatly increased their lead in the house, picking up an additional nineteen seats. The big news was the swing in the senate, where the Republicans lost nine of the twelve seats they were defending, and the Democrats held onto all of their own, ending the night with 57 seats. Combined with the sitting Republican senators that had consistently spoken out against the president's policies, it seemed very possible that there might be the 67 votes needed to impeach McCain.
"Do we still have time to bake that cake?" Nissi asked. Her mood was the best I had felt from her since the night she had found out about me and Norm.
Stansy stood and headed for the kitchen. "Screw the cake. I'm breaking out the alcohol."
