Apples Never Fall

Sometimes they tried to do things that

their other retired friends did, like “a lovely day at the beach,” for example. Joy cut her foot to shreds standing on an oyster shell and they got a parking ticket. It had reminded her of those occasions when she had got it into her head that she and Stan would take the children on a lovely picnic, and she’d tried so hard to pretend they were a lovely picnicking family, but something inevitably went wrong, there was always someone in a bad mood, or they got lost, or it rained just as they arrived, and the drive home was silent and resentful, except for the regular sniffles of whichever child felt he or she had been unjustifiably admonished.

“We’ve actually become quite romantic since retirement,” one annoyingly chipper friend told her, which made Joy want to gag, but the other week she bought two banana milkshakes at the food court, as a kind of fun gesture because she and Stan used to buy them for breakfast at small-town milk bars when they used to travel together for regional tournaments in the early years of their marriage. They’d save on motels by sleeping in the car. They had sex in the back seat.

But it was clear that Stan didn’t even remember their banana milkshakes, and then on the way home he dramatically and unnecessarily slammed on the brakes when someone pulled out in front of them, and Joy’s milkshake went flying, so their car now permanently and disgustingly smelled of sour milk: the sour smell of failure. Stan said he couldn’t smell a thing.

They needed different personalities to retire with grace and verve like their friends. They needed to be less grumpy (Stan did) and have a wider variety of interests and hobbies beyond tennis. They needed grandchildren.

Grandchildren.

The word alone filled her with the kind of giant, complicated emotions reserved for the young: desire, fury, and worst of all, spiteful, bitter envy.

She knew one tiny grandchild was all it would take to stop the silence roaring, to make her days splutter back to life again, but you could not ask your children for grandchildren. How demeaning. How ordinary. She believed herself to be more interesting and sophisticated than that. She was a feminist. An athlete. A very successful businesswoman. She refused to be that particular cliché.

It would happen. She just had to be patient. She had four children. Four tickets in the raffle, although two of her four children were single, so perhaps they didn’t count as tickets just yet. But two were in solid, long-term relationships. Logan and his girlfriend, Indira, had been together for five years now. They weren’t married, but that didn’t matter. Indira was wonderful, and the last time Joy saw her, she definitely had a mysterious, secretive look about her, almost as if she wanted to tell Joy something but was holding off: maybe until she got to twelve weeks?

Brooke and Grant were happily married, settled with a mortgage on a proper house and a family car, and Grant was older, so it could be on the cards soon. If only Brooke hadn’t opened up her own physiotherapy practice. It was admirable—Stan glowed with pride whenever anyone mentioned it—but running your own business was stressful, and migraine sufferers had to manage their stress. Brooke was too driven. But surely she’d want a baby soon. Brooke always knew the latest medical guidelines, so she would know you shouldn’t leave it too late.

Joy secretly hoped her children might find a creative way to tell her about their pregnancies, like other people’s children were always doing on YouTube. They could, for example, wrap up an ultrasound picture, and then film Joy’s reaction as she opened it: bewilderment followed by understanding, hand clapped across her mouth, tears and hugs. They could post it on their social media! Joy finds out she’s going to be a grandma! It might go viral. Joy dressed extra nicely every time her children visited, just in case.

(She would never share that fantasy with anyone. Not even the dog.)

The Migraine Guy spoke seductively into Joy’s ears, “Let’s talk about magnesium.”

“Good idea. Let’s do that,” said Joy.

There was no way for the frying pan and grater to fit together. There was no solution. The grater would have to miss out. It was clean anyway. She straightened up from the dishwasher to discover her husband standing right in front of her, like he’d teleported himself.

“Jesus—bloody—what the—?” she shrieked.

She pushed her headphones down onto her neck and put her hand to her thumping heart. “Don’t creep up on me like that!”

“Why is someone knocking on the door?” Stan’s lips were orange from the chili crackers. There were damp circles on the knees of his jeans from the melting ice packs. It was aggravating just to look up at him, especially because he was looking down at her with an accusing expression, as if the knock on the door was her fault.

Steffi sat herself down next to Stan, ears pricked and alert, eyes shining with the glorious possibility of a walk.

Joy’s eyes went to the clock on the kitchen wall. It was far too late for a delivery or a market researcher. Too late for a friend or family member to drop by, and no one really did that anymore, not without calling first.

Joy considered her husband. Maybe he was the one with dementia. She knew from her research that the spouse must be patient and kind.

“I didn’t hear anything,” she said, patiently and kindly. She would be an excellent carer, although she might waitlist him at a nice nursing home sooner rather than later.

“I heard a knock,” insisted Stan, and his jaw shifted back and forth in that way that indicated annoyance.

But then Joy heard it too: thump, thump, thump.

Like someone banging a closed fist on their front door. Their doorbell had been broken for years and people often knocked impatiently after they gave up on the bell, but this had the quality of an emergency.

Her eyes met Stan’s and without saying a word they both headed for the front door, not running but walking fast down the long hallway, quick, quick, quick. Steffi trotted along beside them, panting with excitement. Joy’s socks slipped on the floorboards, and she felt that all three of them, man, woman, and dog, shared an invigorating sense of urgency. They were needed. There must be a crisis of some sort. They would fix the crisis, because even though there were no children living at home, they still had that mindset: We are the grown-ups. We are The Fixers.

Maybe there was even pleasure in that rapid walk to the door because it had been a while since any of the children had asked for money or advice, or even a lift to the airport.

Bang, bang, bang.

“Coming!” called out Stan.

Fragments of memories flashed through Joy’s mind: Troy arriving home from school when he was around eight or nine, hammering on the door and hollering, “FBI! Open up!” He did this for years every time he came to a door, thought he was so funny. Amy frantically ringing the bell, back when it worked, because she’d lost her house key yet again and was always in a hurry to get to the bathroom.