Remedies

by Kate Ledger

  He had wanted to say to Caleb that he wouldn’t forget him. He had a new daughter, with a scraggle of dark hair, who was healthy, feeding voraciously, and he knew to appreciate that fact. But he wanted to say out loud, in the way of a promise, that he would always remember those weeks of being Caleb’s father. On the drive to the cemetery, he had imagined that when he stood before the grave, he’d find a voice to say some words aloud. Not as long as a speech, exactly, or as overbearing as a vow. Just a short communication. Hey there, it’s me, Daddy. But the reality of standing there was not as comfortable or as freeing as he’d imagined. He stood, peeking at the stone, feeling almost shy. With hands jammed in the pockets of his slacks, he rocked on his feet, tried to form sentences in his head, hoping the dead did not need a message all spelled out word for word. He wished Emily had come with him to visit the grave because they might have talked to each other there. They might have said, “Do you remember the—?” and “Wasn’t it funny when—?” Caleb, overhearing, might have been able to understand something in the sentences they said to each other. But Simon stared at the little gray stone, rough at the edges, polished smooth across the flat top where flecks of quartz twinkled merrily. His hands were balled in his pockets. His mouth was dry. His tongue had gone still.

  In the cold, a hesitant drizzle prickled at him, enough to make him realize that he would not be able to stay long. He would not sit down. I hope you know, the thought formed in his head. But that was all that came. He did not have an image of heaven in mind, but he pictured his son hovering somewhere above him, not below him in the ground. And he imagined the words he was thinking—actually squeezing with forceful intent out of the language center of his brain—floating upward, too. His sense of upwardness, the pull of his attention, seemed proof of something, not necessarily of the existence of God, but of something eternal and undying in human need.

  Simon looked up at the ceiling of the synagogue. It was a modern-styled chapel. Rosy wooden beams flanked either side, like the walls of a barn, toward a flat section in the middle. Crossbeams divided the central area into rectangles. For the sake of acoustics, dropped, slanted panels hung a foot or two from the ceiling, suspended by dark chains. Humans were small creatures with good intentions. They did the best they could with physics, constructing buildings that would remain standing, channeling sound waves that could be heard. There was a science to such buildings. Since the beginning of time, people had struggled to build space in which they could hear. They did the best they could, striving, striving. It was a comforting thought.

  The woman with the pillbox-shaped head-covering led a chorus of responsive reading. Simon struggled to find the page. He caught up as the congregation chanted:Thou knowest the mysteries of the universe and the hidden secrets of all living. Thou searchest out the heart of man and probest all our thoughts and aspirations. Naught escapeth Thee, neither is anything concealed from Thy sight.

  Standing at the grave, he had imagined the spiritual Caleb, more animated, fuller, rosier than he’d been as a newborn—Pre-Raphaelite in color, rounded and dimpled with the succulence of infancy. Little stinging pins of rain had dotted his hands and his shirt, prompting his sense of urgency, and yet hastening his conviction of futility and waste. He stubbed around in the grass with the toe of his shoe until he saw a small pebble, which he knew, from Jewish funerals he’d attended, to place on the corner of the headstone, simply to say that someone had been there. That was all that had happened at the cemetery: He’d moved a pebble. Then he departed, and on the drive home he’d gotten a ticket for running a red light. (At another time, he might have tried to talk his way out of a fine, but he’d sat, tongue-tied, unable to look up at the trooper, certain that if he looked into the face of punishment, he’d cry.) He’d not mentioned the ticket to Emily and then not paid it, and then forgotten about it, as it accrued fines and additional fees and finally came to Emily’s attention because she was unable to renew the registration. And it was with this long chain of fuck ups that he’d tried to tell her the simplest thing: I went to look for Caleb. There were reasons to atone yearly, he realized, but in his case, they never changed. He was the same story over and over again.

  He wasn’t sure what he might have done differently when Caleb got sick, but he should not have stopped thinking about it after his son had died. He should have continued to wonder. Around him, the congregants closed their hands into fists and knocked on their chests as they recited a long list of sins. It was a list of sins that they acknowledged they’d done willingly and unwillingly, knowingly and deceitfully, falsely, fraudulently, violently, irreverently, plottingly, arrogantly and distractedly. The words were rote and repetitious. And arrogant, Simon thought. We have trespassed, they said, we have dealt treacherously. I haven’t, though, Simon took issue. I haven’t dealt treacherously with anyone. But he chanted along with the people sitting on his sides.

  We have robbed, we have spoken slander, we have acted perversely, and we have wrought wickedness; we have been presumptuous, we have done violence, we have framed lies, we have counseled evil, and we have spoken falsely. We have scoffed, we have revolted, we have provoked, we have rebelled, we have committed iniquity, and we have transgressed.

  It was all so archaic—but where in the list was his sin? Were there words in the prayers to acknowledge that he had failed his newborn son? Or that, after that, with everything he hadn’t done, he had failed Emily, too? He longed to start over fresh—but they could not start over. All he and Emily could do was acknowledge the damage they’d wrought by trying to move away from their pain as quickly as they could. He curled his hand into a fist, and he rapped it against his chest. He knocked against his sternum, in a rhythm that matched the thumping around him. He looked at the man on his left. The child had closed her eyes, leaning against her father. She sucked at her thumb as though she would devour it. The man held his child in his left arm, balancing his prayer book in front of him, the knuckles of his right hand thudding against his chest. Simon was looking—staring—when the child’s eyelids fluttered open and regarded him evenly, observing without judgment.

  They listed their sins, one by one, but they were communal sins, he understood at once, and they accepted responsibility all together. He didn’t feel like one of them. He felt his separateness, like a stone set aside. People came to him for help. He guided them through their pain. But it was a relief to think he was one of them, just another transgressor. At that moment, he happened to look down into the text, and his glance caught the words as though they were meant for him alone. “May my soul be humble and forgiving unto all.” Unto all, he thought and a wave rose in him that felt like hope: And not me too? Before he could check himself, tears had sprung to the surface, forged from a hidden source. One betrayer rolled down to his chin. He glanced toward the man with the child to see if he had been noticed. A chant had begun, the collective voice of the congregation reverberating in melancholy tones. The words of the prayer came to him from some long-lost memory, some pattern etched in his core, and following the motions of the congregants around him, he rapped his knuckles against his chest—not a separate solitary breast beating beneath a cage of ribs, but part of a great organism that hummed and moaned in repentance. Another fat tear dribbled to the end of his nose and he wiped at it furiously and sniffled.

  He heard the little girl then. “That man’s crying ,” she exclaimed, pointing at Simon with a hand slick with drool.

  “Shh,” her father answered, keeping his head bent, though several people in rows ahead had turned around to see.

  But the child persisted. “Why, Daddy?” she asked. “Why’s he crying?”

  The father didn’t answer, but instead nervously shifted the child to his right arm, facing her away from Simon. She would not be diverted, though, and craned her neck around her father’s arm to get a good look at the spectacle.

  Simon, eyes blurred, had lost his page again. He flipped ahead, trying to find where the cantor read, and it was then he happ
ened to see the words in English, at the beginning of a paragraph. Open Thou my lips. It was the beginning of a prayer. Here was age-old proof the words didn’t come easily. It took help to get them started. He could not atone for his sins against Emily until he’d sought her forgiveness, but would she forgive?

  He picked up his coat, with its punctuation over the heart, and he clutched it under his arm. Hurrying down the synagogue steps, he felt the crisp air on his still dewy face, and he knew what there was to do. He would find Emily, and he would hold her by the shoulders and look into her eyes, implore her to look back at him. It was not clear to him which words to use to begin, and he realized the futility of trying to plan, but he would start somewhere, perhaps as far back as he could reach in memory, and he would feel his way forward to that very moment of atonement. When he opened his mouth, he felt certain he would know what to say.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deep gratitude to editor and publisher Amy Einhorn, who went over this book with a keen eye and an exquisitely sensitive heart, and to literary agent Lisa Bankoff, who believed in Simon Bear and who is ever a generous and kind source of wisdom and advice.

  When you take ten years to write a book, as I did, the well of indebtedness runs deep. I’m especially grateful for the sage advice I received from talented writers Becky Hagenston, Oren Uziel, J. Robert Lennon and Julie Kimmel. Thank you to my brother, Gabriel Ledger, and lifelong friend, Miriam Laufer, who cheered me on with all their hearts and tirelessly answered questions about doctors and medical conditions, even when I wasn’t quite sure what information I was seeking. Thanks to the writers I met at the Wesleyan Writers Conference, and also friends Jonathan Brody, Ute Eberle, Nicole Sorger, Rebecca Caine, Abby Weinberg, Julie Weissman (who gave me a key to her house and let me write a chunk of the book at her dining room table), Ben and Lisa Sachs, Boo Hill, Jen nifer Tilton and Laura Goldblum. They all listened to me babble as my ideas about Simon and Emily were taking shape, and were sweet enough to indulge me as though we were talking about real people. From the core of my being, I thank two wonderful women, Barbara J. Tower and Rebecca Barth, each of whom took loving care of my children so that I had time to write. Thanks, too, to my children, who amaze me every day.

  Forever and ever I will be grateful for the love and support (and I’m summarizing here because both were bestowed in a breathtaking multitude of ways) that I received from my parents, Martha and Marshall Ledger, and my parents-in-law, Merle and Murray Sachs. This book, and a whole long list of life dreams, would not have been possible without them.

  At long last, I stumble to find words for the gratitude and love I feel for my husband, Jonathan Sachs. He is wise beyond compare, fierce and stubborn and a dreamer of the highest order. He didn’t flinch as I spent years writing about a troubled marriage. All along, he pushed me to make important self-maintenance decisions that would enable me to finish the book. He urged me to draw on good material, asked challenging questions and, when I floundered, Scotch-taped on the wall above my desk two vital, loving words: “What’s next?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  KATE LEDGER received an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona, and worked for several years as the senior writer at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. As a freelance writer, she has published articles in Self, Health, and other national magazines. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and children.