All the Silent Spaces

by Christine Ristaino

  “Christine, maybe it’s because I’m brown, you know, but I had a really hard time with this story. Plus, I hate it when people bring up 9/11 and don’t put it into a larger context. I mean we’ve perpetrated all kinds of atrocities. We’ve killed countless innocent Iraqis, tortured people, so the revisiting of 9/11 doesn’t really work for me.”

  “I’m not sure how to end it,” I admit.

  “Christine, this story has no trace of you in it at all. When I read it, I feel as though it was written by Fox News, not you. There’s something in here, some connection, that’s missing.”

  “I agree, but this is what happened. I feel terrible about it. But I’m feeling so vulnerable these days I’m creating these crazy scenarios. It really bothers me.”

  “Well, what part of the scenario is it that you fear the most?”

  “It’s the going to jail part,” I say. “It’s such a loss of control and it has happened to innocent people before. Have you ever seen that movie with Trapper John, or is it B.J. Hunnicutt, from M*A*S*H, who plays this man who sold flowers? He’s tried for a murder he never committed. It ruins his life. He gets a divorce. Nobody wants to hire him.” As soon as I say this, the absurdity of the example I use hits me full force. In Georgia, Troy Davis is one of many black men who are on death row with negligible evidence against them, but all I can think of is a fictional white man.

  “So it’s going to jail that you fear,” Maisa says, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s not this man.”

  I think for a moment and relief sweeps over me. I am afraid of losing control. Maybe this man and his vulnerabilities remind me of my own, Maisa and I wonder. Now I can write the ending.

  I’m at Eliza’s house. We are drinking tea and eating popcorn from Trader Joe’s. Eliza is over-the-top about Trader Joe’s. She can’t stand it that she’s made this discovery.

  “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. It can’t be that good.’ But then I went to the store and bought a few things and really, everything I buy there is excellent.”

  We can see Eliza’s beautiful garden through the large back windows of her house. She has done everything herself, from planting, to maintaining, to watching it all grow. It’s one of the things she’s most proud of.

  Eliza is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter from the New York Times who has just finished a book about the great migration of black Americans from the South to the North. Her book is so delicious, even though the subject matter is raw and difficult to hear about, and I have fallen in love with the three main characters as they struggle through their transplanted northern lives, overcoming incredible obstacles. By this point, I have had all 544 pages read to me, one of the most decadent things I have allowed myself to do in years. But now Eliza is asking me about my day.

  “I went to the Elementary School Roundup with Samuel today, but I felt like such an outsider. I remember going to Ada’s roundup two years ago and we had a blast. They take you on the bus and you meet all your kid’s teachers. But now I feel so different from the other parents, like I don’t want to be near them. And then I found myself talking about the attack with someone I barely know when she asked me why I was on leave this semester.”

  “Oh, Christine. You don’t have to tell anybody about the reason for your leave. For all they know, you are on leave to do research. It’s true, your research is on your children.”

  “Yes, but I’m on a committee with this woman and I haven’t been to any of the meetings. I just thought she’d understand me better.”

  “Christine, you still want to please people. I was like that, too. It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks about this. And they’ll never understand you. They just won’t.”

  “Lots of people are telling me to move on.”

  “Maybe it’s not time to move on, but they’ll never understand that. Maybe you don’t want to move on.”

  “Maybe I don’t. I don’t want to move on. Well, not until I’ve finished this book.”

  What an odd statement for me to say, I think as I am saying it. But there is something so riveting, so real, so in the moment, raw, and authentic about living here.

  Felix, Eliza, and I are sitting at Method Café, and I have just ordered a divine chocolate drink. Eliza has a cookie with almonds in it she’s made us try, and Felix is drinking a tea he has poured from a steeping pot. We have already broken two glass containers since we began meeting here for our writing group, and we wonder if this place is too posh for us. Felix is an ichnologist, a man who my son cannot stop talking about, even though they’ve only met once. His book has coached me on how to notice and appreciate the living world my children explore and discover naturally. Because I have recounted Felix’s animal life-or-death scenarios to my children, my son wants to be an ichnologist. I now know what a trace is, understand where to find the cave of an ant lion, and can identify roach (blattoidean) traces (dung) on my front porch. Felix’s descriptions of animal and plant traces on the Georgia coast were just what my children and I needed to reconnect to our own backyard.

  Felix is reading about finding a horseshoe crab washed up on the beach. Usually, by the time they are lying flat on the sand, they’re dead, but Felix makes a discovery through examining the traces the crab has left in the sand. He turns to his friend and says to him, “I think she’s still alive.”

  Eliza and I gasp. Although Felix’s colleague is more interested in his field notes than a live specimen, he decides to humor Felix. Suddenly it becomes a rescue mission rather than two ichnologists looking to resolve a crime scene. They pick up the horseshoe crab and run with it to the water. Sure enough, the horseshoe crab moves as Felix sings “Born Free” into the wind.

  Eliza and I are talking about “Intuition.”

  “Christine, I don’t like this story,” she tells me.

  “Why?” I ask.

  We’re sitting on her couch. In between us is a beautiful white Havanese named Sonia who is on her back wanting to have her stomach rubbed. She is tiny, friendly, and seems to be smiling, if a dog can smile. Eliza shifts in her seat.

  “Well, first of all, this man is guilty without a trial. Do you realize most people are killed by a spouse or a significant other, not by a stranger? And you even said in the story about your husband that black people usually kill black people and white people usually kill white people. But here you are saying this man is guilty.”

  “Well, he returned to the crime scene later in the day with his friends and her key so they could rob more things,” I tell her.

  “So he’s a thief. That doesn’t mean he murdered her,” Eliza says.

  “But I read in the paper his fingerprints were all over the object that killed her,” I tell Eliza, certain this is enough evidence.

  “And many black people would say the police planted them there,” Eliza tells me.

  Eliza points to her own research. “Do you know how many times black people have been killed or jailed for even looking at a white woman? There’s a history here,” she says.

  “In the story I was trying to show I wasn’t afraid of somebody because of his race but more because I felt fear inside based on something else, something intangible but more accurate—more a gut feeling. In the past I’ve ignored my gut feelings. But now I listen,” I say.

  Eliza nods. She understands. But I have fallen short. “I’m not saying he’s guilty or not guilty. It’s just that due process has to occur before we can decide. Due process is part of the American system, and it should be played out. And you never focus on the age of this guy, only on his color. If anything, his age is a better indicator. He’s in his early twenties, so how could he afford a posh apartment in Buckhead?”

  “You’re right,” I say.

  Eliza nods. “That’s why I think you should get rid of this story altogether,” she says. “Because it’s not getting your point across.”

  Rose and I are talking on the phone. She’s a college friend, the daughter of a preacher, and during my freshman year she kept me in line. Even no
w I find she is doing this. She has read my book. I sit at my kitchen table and listen. “Christine,” she says. “The ending of your book is about found and lost voices. When you said you had been attacked, I prayed, ‘Please don’t let him be black’ and you probably noticed I was very quiet on the other end of the phone when you told me he was. But you have to understand. Yes, black men have been treated poorly and endured slavery, and have lived difficult lives as you point out, but ultimately each individual makes his own decisions. When we look at the people in your book, the ones who hurt you, it’s not about being black or white: it’s about the decisions they made. And maybe that’s what we all need to talk about next.”

  I’m at Denise’s house and we have just discussed two chapters from our books. I’m about to leave and pick up my children from school.

  “Denise,” I say. “Could I have a copy of the poem you carry around about your locks? I’m referencing it in my book.”

  Denise begins to laugh and I have trouble bringing her back to the conversation since every time she begins to talk, she laughs again. “Are you kidding? You think I bring that poem around with me? It’s my book’s protagonist who carries it. I wrote that poem for her. She’s my character, not me.”

  Retrogression 42:

  September 15, 2007, 6:58 p.m. and 12 seconds.

  When I reach the sidewalk and the wheels become stuck on the curb, the man on the bench stands and walks in our direction.

  Chapter 42:

  Haunts

  Ronnie and I have shared our books with each other. Despite the fact he’s writing fiction with characters that have supernatural qualities and killer dogs appearing at the first sign of trouble and then disappearing into the realm of the dead, our books are remarkably similar. The grandmother figure in Ronnie’s book is quirky and strong. There are children whose innocence is destroyed by child abductors and molesters. Fear, racism, and violence weave sinuously through every interaction, with disastrous repercussions.

  Ronnie discusses my chapter “Misunderstanding,” where I admit that bathing my children unnerves me.

  “This, for me, is the most important chapter,” he says. “I was wondering when you would reveal how your experience with the man has affected you. I have been wanting to know. For me, this chapter is key.”

  “How so?” I ask.

  “Well, you show how the sins of our ancestors can be passed from generation to generation, like the effects of alcoholism on you and your friend, Natalie. This story shows the repercussions of a singular event.”

  “I hadn’t connected the two stories you mention,” I say. “I love that they connect in this way. I guess the man does haunt my children, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Ronnie states and it’s the first time I realize just how much.

  I’m not afraid of the man. He is dead. But from the grave, like the protagonist in Ronnie’s book, he haunts us. He has made me afraid for my children. I fear for their peace of mind—that I could ruin it in a single act by doing something stupid or unforgivable, or by leaving them, by dying on them. I could open my mouth and say cruel words, or get into a car and drive away, or take my hand and do unforgiveable things to them, too horrible to put down on paper or even imagine.

  I am happy for my busy life—raising children, teaching classes, scheduling appointments with students and colleagues, long hours of repetitive math sheets and spelling words with the kids, innumerable tasks and busywork. I forget for minutes, hours at a time, but my full days do nothing to restore my peace of mind. Somewhere on this planet, in this world, maybe this city, perhaps near or far away, there is a man, maybe dead or alive, a man who once sat on a bench at a shopping store waiting for us to reach the curb. My son was three years old, my daughter five, and I, a naïve forty. Perhaps that mild September evening, my children, too, lost this vital peace.

  Retrogression 43:

  September 15, 2007, 6:58 p.m. and 10 seconds.

  By now we’re almost to the sidewalk, very close to the entrance, but slightly to the right of it. The parking lot is well-lit. There are lots of parked cars, but it’s surprisingly quiet and I don’t see anybody around except the man on the bench.

  Chapter 43:

  Climbing Up and Out

  I don’t notice haircuts or new clothes or hoop earrings. My father once shaved off his beard and it took me two days to realize. But I can remember entire conversations, or the moment when I felt valued by somebody, or when I first loved a person for something he or she said or did. During the first month of classes each semester, I remember the conversations I have with my students. I relish them, but I have no idea who said what until much later on, when I’ve finally placed faces with actions and ideas. Until then, my students’ words float around me like beautiful, stunning jewels.

  Ever since I told my family and friends about the man, I have felt exposed. I realize this vulnerability opens me up to possibility. I am certain I’ll have an opportunity to climb up. The knowledge of this future climb helps me. I know I will not always seem so small, be so hard on myself, feel like I’m doing everything wrong, that everything won’t seem like a crisis. I know this because I have been here before and then climbed up and out to see the sun.

  Life is stressful at home. This week my husband and I have a terrible fight—layered, harsh, unbearable, necessary. “I know you want to save the world, that the things you’re doing with schools and for your students make you feel good. But I look at you and you are exhausted and you come home with nothing left,” my husband says when I accuse him of being angry and unreachable. He is right and wrong at the same time.

  Today Ronnie and I sit at a unique restaurant that mixes it all up—pasta with vindaloo sauce is my absolute favorite. I focus on a section of his chapter where a white person tries to make the main character, Clyde, feel good by saying his father doesn’t view Clyde as black even though he is. Clyde says in a tongue-in-cheek manner that this statement by his friend “was supposed to be soothing.” I tell Ronnie about my student. She is Korean and her boyfriend is a white student from the South. Often people tell her she and her boyfriend will one day have cute kids. My student sees this as a balm, an “I accept your relationship so much I think your kids will be cute.” But she feels as though they are reducing what she has with her boyfriend to genetics. “Who says I want to get married and have kids in the first place?” she asks. “People don’t say that to white couples.” I bring up my reservations when people call me vertically challenged. “People feel they’re being sensitive to my height when they say this,” I tell Ronnie. “But really they’re expressing discomfort. What’s wrong with being short? What’s wrong with being black? What’s wrong with a Korean college student dating someone who is white? It’s as though it’s so bad they have to call it something else. They think they’re giving a compliment, but they’re really saying they don’t accept it.”

  This conversation is still in the air when Ronnie says, “Do you relate to Clyde?”

  “Yes,” I say. “What’s strange is that until you remind me, I keep imagining him as a white man.” Deep inside I feel an ache, as though I’ve said something wrong. “I mean, I don’t know why I don’t remember this information,” I say. “Maybe I know it for a while but then I forget.”

  Ronnie begins to talk about something else, but I take us back to this topic. I’m panicking now, afraid I’ve said something offensive. I can’t quite put my finger on why it feels bad to me, so I just keep saying more.

  “I don’t know, Ronnie. The fact that I don’t remember he’s black, do you think that’s a problem? I mean, shouldn’t I know all the time? Like I know he’s connected to supernaturals and I know he’s Scottish because the grandmother and kids are always speaking in a Scottish brogue. But the fact that he’s black . . .”

  Ronnie lists a number of times when he has conveyed that Clyde is black throughout the book, and I realize he’s told his reader quite often. But this isn’t the first time I’ve missed critical infor
mation like this during my lifetime. What’s wrong with my brain? I wonder. And Alzheimer’s does come to mind as a viable option.

  Finally, Ronnie pauses and looks at me. “Isn’t this similar to what we were just talking about, the balm?”

  I get Ronnie’s reference and think of the line, “I doubt my father views you as black.” Isn’t what I said to him another version of that?

  “You’re right,” I say to Ronnie. “It’s similar. I’ve done the same thing.”

  “So do you want me to give you stereotypical behavior so it will be more obvious that he’s black?” Ronnie asks, and his tone is patient.

  “No,” I say.

  Ronnie begins to talk about Spycer, a violent force in his book. “You can’t forget he’s black,” Ronnie says. “I don’t,” I respond, but as I say this, I know it’s not true. Despite the many references to his race, even some in this chapter, I remember that he’s sinister, but not black. “Sully, the magician,” Ronnie says, “he demonstrates some stereotypes, too. In fact, he’s the sibling who relates the most to his black identity. And of course, the father’s actions recall stereotypes so it’s more obvious he’s black.” I stare at Ronnie, searching for this information in my brain, wondering if I look like my dog, who stares at me blankly when I tell her we will be home again in the afternoon, as though we had never left the house before and then never returned. And when Ronnie mentions the white supremacist character, I realize I have forgotten this information about him, too.

  I can’t hear the other people in the restaurant, although there are plenty of them. The world seems small, just Ronnie and me, and I have lost myself in this conversation. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with my brain or if there’s just too much going on in my life, but despite all the clues, I can’t remember anybody’s race in his book until they arrive home, open the door, walk into the house again, and remind me. “Oh yes,” I say each time. And every day, when I get home in the evening, my dog jumps up and down, remembering after a long day that I exist.