Velma smiled warmly, her wizened face like an old apple at Halloween. “We’re so glad you’ve come.”
The others followed Velma’s lead though Susan’s welcome remained a bit perfunctory. She and Marion exchanged knowing glances.
Helmut sat down and placed his notebook on the table. He squared the edges then arranged the pen in parallel with the edge of the book. “Thank-you. I am interested and open to learning,” he said. He folded his hands on top of the notebook, his back perfectly straight. Something about his keen masculine presence made everyone sit a bit straighter. They forgot about Annika. They shifted their pens and papers; they straightened their tea cups.
The session began with a series of chants. “Ohm,” they said in unison. The sound was round and full, Helmut’s low voice filling out the baritone, blending with the others, with Susan’s shrillness, with Velma’s sandpapery mezzo. Ohm they said. Ohm. Annika tried to say it too but her voice was so strangled and weak that she stopped, remaining outside the circle of sound, in a cold car outside the circle of sound. Ohm. She opened her eyes and looked at Helmut, but he was far away.
Soon Marion sounded the chime. Kat and Susan kept stealing glances at Helmut as if expecting a sociopathic meltdown, but he appeared completely at ease. They did a round of four and one breathing after which he told them, “We did similar training in the army. To help focus the attention.”
Marion frowned.
Annika still had the strange hot and cold feeling. The room seemed to sway and part of her hoped it would take her with it, that she’d lose consciousness so they would know there was something seriously wrong, so that they would help her, but she didn’t and there she was again, hiding and wanting to be seen.
“Okay, so the next exercise is something I learned at the Creative Therapies Conference in Boulder last year,” Marion said brightly. “I did it with a workshop group and it was amazing what came up. So much incredible sharing came up.” She reached behind her and brought a small, pink silk box onto the table. She handed it around the table. Inside were folded pieces of paper.
“On each paper is a poem or a quote by the mystic poet Rumi,” she explained. The box came to Annika and she took a paper, then passed it on to Helmut. “I want you to read the poem and to think about its meaning. We’ll think about the meaning, then do a five minute free write. Remember: there are no rules. Write whatever comes to mind and don’t censor yourself. The idea is to keep the pen moving forward on the page and not go back. It may be complete gibberish but that’s okay, just keep writing. Whatever’s there, let it out. It’s amazing what comes up.”
Annika unfolded her piece of paper. She held it in her trembling hands. There was a cold sweat on her brow.
Marion rang the bell. “Begin.”
It wasn’t difficult. The words were already there, fully formed in Annika’s mind, and the poem she’d chosen seemed to fit perfectly. All she had to do was transcribe what was already there, her hand pressing the words down, carving them into the page.
After what seemed a short time, the bell rang and everyone put their pens and pencils down and looked at one another, hands guarding their notebooks and papers. Annika’s heart quickened with excitement: here was the chance to say it. To be known.
“Now, you don’t have to share if you don’t want to but I encourage you to do so. It can be an incredibly validating experience. My only rule is no criticism.
Annika’s heart was pounding. She was about to volunteer then Helmut said, “I would like to share.”
There was a collective intake of breath. Annika leaned forward over her own paper, her hair falling round her face on either side.
Helmut cleared his throat and began: “The poem is this: The sky was lit by the splendor of the moon so powerful, your love has made me sure I am ready to forsake this worldly life and surrender to your being.”
Kat and Susan glanced at one another. There was something pious and greedy in the way they were acting; it made Annika angry. They would be upset to be judged that way themselves. Helmut took no notice. He continued, “The exercise, my response, is this: The moon comes to a soldier parched and shaken, blue and gentle it comes; the hills shine like the shoulders of a sleeping wife. Anything, anything, in this moment anything for you. Was there ever such a love as a faraway soldier? Is this why we go to war?” His voice was deep and resonant, as if he’d been reading poetry all his life.
Kat looked down at the table. Susan’s eyes were wide and unsure.
Barry punched Helmut in the arm. “Holy shit! The man’s a goddamn natural! That was awesome. You make me look bad.”
“Barry. We’re not here to compare. This exercise is not about comparison,” Marion said.
Velma put her old, wrinkled hand over Helmut’s brown leathery one. “Thank-you for that. I get so angry at politics sometimes I forget about the sacrifice of individual soldiers. Thank-you for reminding me.”
Marion, however, did not appear gentle or moonlit or impressed as her husband took his praise with becoming, straight-backed humbleness. Finally, she jumped in. “Would anyone else like to share? Anyone? Annika?” Her mouth was a thin hard line.
Annika looked down at the dark scrawl on her page. Her heart beat wildly. “Okay. Okay. I’ll read it.” Her breath came in short excited puffs. “The poem: We are pain and what cures pain both. We are the sweet cold water and the jug that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are your stones.” Already there was a thickness in her throat, a shake in her hands. “And then I wrote: Coloured stones glisten under the river’s skin; they wink and glisten like gemstones underwater; but pick them up and find they are but rocks in the hand. Not the cool round gems placed in the mouths of the dead, not pearls for the underworld, but gravel sharp and broken, shoved roughly, this cruelest viaticum. Now tell me: whose boots, whose boots are these?” Her voice came so thick it was like speaking through water. Her hair fell in her face.
No one said a word. Not a single word. When she looked up, she didn’t see a single glimmer of understanding or recognition, only wide-eyed, baffled concern. No one touched her. No one thanked her for her beautiful words.
“Thank-you, Annika,” Marion said perfunctorily. Her mouth was still hard and thin.
“Those are some powerful images,” Doug tried then petered off.
Annika stared back down at her notebook. Tears welled up in her eyes. Her aching body, the confusion in her mind, the loneliness rushing: it was more than she could take. A single tear escaped and landed on her notebook.
Still, they sat frozen, unsure of what to do. Annika wanted someone to be sure. She desperately needed someone to be sure. The moment stretched on then she pushed her chair back from the table. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I really have to go.”
Now they came to life, protesting. Annika! Annika! Wait! Annika! She saw Barry struggle to rise, saw him stumble up after her but she was already on her way out. She was half walking, half running, out the foyer, then down the steps and out into the yard, past the great room windows, their confused and baffled faces looking out after her.
She walked along the road under the slate grey sky.
Several minutes later she heard a vehicle behind her but she didn’t turn. It slowed alongside then Helmut rolled down the window. “Get in,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
She got in.
The pickup was an old, rusted Mazda resurrected from the dump. The rear window had been smashed out but Helmut had replaced it with clear plastic, the duct-tape applied just so. He drove slowly past the cottages with their long, rambling drives. He didn’t look at her. “I liked this poem that you read,” he said. “The rawness of it.”
She leaned her head against the glass. “You’re about the only one.”
“Life can be like thi
s sometimes. Brutal. Like rocks in the mouth. Some people do not want to see it,” he said mildly. She looked over at his profile. He had a square jawline and tired eyes. She’d never noticed before how awfully tired and sad they were.
He looked over at her now. “Marion is dishonest,” he said. “She is just as narrow in her views as those she would criticize.”
They left the pavement. The gravel crunched. Helmut pursed his lips and continued. “She says she wants to help people heal but refuses to be honest about the ways in which they’re injured. She wants pain to just go away, like a magic trick. It is not a realistic view. I have told her this but she won’t listen.”
He turned into the lane and they drove in silence. The small whips of poplar scratched the underside of the truck. He parked in front of the cottage and they sat, staring out at the sea for a moment. Neither said anything. Then he said, “You are unwell again.”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”
They sat a while longer. She listened to the waves. “Yes. Yes, I’m unwell.”
He nodded. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have much money left.”
He nodded. They sat.
“I guess I should decide pretty soon. Things are happening.”
“Will you go to the doctor?”
“No. I can’t expect the doctor to help me now.”
“There are difficult choices to make.”
“I thought about the hospital. But the doctors, the tests . . . I opted out of chemo, you know. My doctor was upset, but I . . . I’m just tired, Helmut. I’m very, very tired.”
He nodded. “And your family?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
He nodded again then looked at her with his grey eyes. “If you need anything, please ask me. Whatever you decide, Annika. I’m not a man to judge.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Matt wandered around his empty house in a daze. Without Jen and Jacob, the house seemed cavernous and bare. There was nothing, really, aside from a few toys and random junk lying around, that made the house theirs; nothing that said anything particular about them at all. The stainless-steel appliances, the bone-white walls . . . One sweep of the countertops and he might have been standing in someone else’s kitchen; he might have been standing in a magazine. In a dream home! That’s how he sold it to his clients: buy a house; own a dream. But who’s dream? Was it a good dream? No one ever said what kind of dream it was. Maybe it was a bad dream; maybe it was a fucking nightmare, a cuckoo dream that the world foisted on you, a dream that sucked you dry, left you bankrupt and alone, staring at your bone-white walls.
He closed his eyes. Jen was gone. She’d taken Jacob and gone to stay with her parents and he couldn’t tell from what she’d said whether she was taking a break or if she’d meant forever. He’d called her parents’ phone but Crystal had answered wouldn’t let him talk to her. Crystal kept saying give it time. She needs time. When he’d asked to talk to Jacob, Crystal had said he was asleep.
Matt didn’t know what to do. What was he supposed to do? Let it all fall apart? Let his son be fucked up and the past five years be a total fucking failure? But if he went up there, if he showed up, he knew how they’d see it: that he wasn’t respecting her boundaries; that he was some kind of life-ruining prick and out of control drunk like she’d said before she left.
He went to the liquor cabinet and opened a bottle of vodka. To take the edge off. To calm him down. It was eight am and he didn’t bother with a glass. He walked around the living room, then back to the kitchen where he stood and looked out the window. Greyness. Rain. Thinking to fix himself a coffee, he turned and came face to face with the generic print of red peppers that was mounted above the counter. He remembered buying it. He remembered standing in Ikea and wondering if he was making the right choice. Red peppers! What did it even mean? It meant nothing, that’s what it meant! It meant a pointless waste of money by someone so fucking guilt-ridden and afraid to offend he couldn’t even make a simple decision! And now, after feeling bad and changing his life around and saying he was sorry for five fucking years, they wouldn’t even let him talk to his own son! Suddenly, the red pepper print was in his hands and he was ripping it off the wall, taking a great chunk of drywall with it, then he raised it above his head and smashed it down against the countertop so that the shitty composite board it was mounted on snapped in two except that some of these tenacious particleboard fibers didn’t rip so the two pieces still hung loosely together which made him even angrier so he kicked it and stomped on it until it was in pieces. Then his phone rang. He answered it. “Hello?” he practically hollered.
Silence. He could hear someone breathing. “Jen!” he cried, “Thank God! Thank God! I need to talk to you; I want to talk . . .”
“It’s not Jen.”
At first he didn’t recognize the voice. He stood amidst the red pepper carnage, confused.
“I just need to know why,” said a quiet, female voice. “Did it mean anything at all, what happened between us?”
He didn’t understand, then, suddenly, he did. He felt his blood go cold. “How did you get this number?”
“Why did you stay with me like that? Why bother act like you care? You could have just asked me about the money; I would have told you.”
Hearing her voice, something started to build inside him, a kind of tidal wave, a too-muchness, too much guilt-remorse-loneliness-the-memory-of-her-kindness he couldn’t really say, just that it was building up and up, threatening to overwhelm him. “My wife told me that you came here,” he retaliated, shoring up his anger against the oncoming flood. “You can’t just show up here, spying on me, scaring my family.” My family! The words came out thick, full of sentiment, power; they put him in the right—my family! my family!—even when he knew he was wrong.
“Look, you’re the one that tracked me down. You’re the one that . . .”
“I’m the one! I’m the one!” he bellowed, allowing his rage to take over. “That what? Took $50,000 of someone else’s money?”
“What are you even . . .”
“That opened a café on a fucking island with stolen funds?”
“You can’t possibly . . .”
“That faked my medical records because I was divorced and wanted to start over? You know, I’m fucked now because of your little scheme, I hope you know that!”
There was silence. It went on for a long time. Then, finally, she replied in a voice that sounded flat and dead and completely different from the one she’d used before, “Well. Maybe I should just go ahead and die then.”
“Maybe you should!” he hollered back and as soon as he said it the blood-rage-torrent stopped. Everything went cold. Everything went still.
Now she said quietly, pointedly: “If I ever see you again, if you ever even think of contacting me again, I’ll call the police. In fact, you’re really fucking lucky I haven’t done so already.” Then she hung up the phone.
There are thoughts that should not be spoken, thoughts that come forward despite their wrongness, maybe because of their wrongness, thoughts that rise like a bubble in the mind despite everything we do and all the busyness we use to guard against them. Matt had one of these now.
He stood in his empty house and thought: it would solve my problems if she died.
Immediately, he wished he hadn’t thought it. Immediately, he wished he could put it back, but he couldn’t. It stayed there, alone in his mind. Clear. Polished. Fully formed. It didn’t feel like his own thought; it felt like someone had put it there, transplanted it into his brain.
A wave of despair rose up inside him. He didn’t know why he’d stayed with her at the cottage but it certainly hadn’t been malice, it hadn’t been . . . this. But it would solve things, wouldn’t it? He felt the cold pull of its logic like a current all around him. Help me, he whispered
. Please, please, please, but no one answered.
I have to get out of here, he thought.
Later that day, he got in his car and headed South. He’d rallied what remained of his optimism and faith in the world and made a plan. He would give Jen one week to calm down, then he’d go and see her. In the meantime, he’d go to Sedona and ask his mother to borrow enough money to stave off the bank, then see if he could get a job out in the oil patch to claw himself out of debt. He knew it was desperate, but at least it was something. At least it was not this other thing.
He drove, his mind so full of thoughts and fantasies, he barely noticed the landscapes through which he passed. In the suburbs outside Seattle, he imagined that his mother would loan him enough money to pay down his line of credit and get back on track with the mortgage. The thought of actually asking her for money made him almost sick with guilt; he knew how little control she had over her own finances now that she was re-married, but, at this point, it seemed like his best option. His mother would help him if she could.
He kept driving. As he crossed the Columbia River and drove through Portland, he imagined that Jen forgave him and that they sold the house, that he got a job working at a small-town bar in the evenings and helped her with Jacob during the days while she went back to school. Through the rolling farmlands of Oregon, he imagined going out to the oil patch, bringing back a pay cheque every two weeks, and slowly, slowly digging himself out of this hole. He did not think this other thought, the one he’d had before. Whenever he felt that it was close, too close, he’d think something else: loud, bright thoughts on the surface of his mind.
By the time he crossed over the Sierra Nevada, he was worn out by his own anxiety. It was late and the air was cool and blue, the moon so bright he could see the shadows of the trees on the road ahead and the granite boulders that were scattered like tombs amongst the heather glowed white in the shadows of the pines.
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