And so it went, for days and days, and he didn’t forget Hope this time, and her words and her truth burned in his ears the whole time. Watching his wife, watching how she took and never gave, and started to believe that this really was Hell after all.
This time, he went and found her.
He didn’t know where she’d be, didn’t know how to find her, but figured that if he just drove and drove he would find her, that she would stand out like a flower pushed up through the crack in a sidewalk. He still remembered things like that.
She was sitting on a sidewalk, legs curled up and her arms wrapped around them for warmth, just staring out at nothing. Not defeated, not hopeless, not dead tired like he was all the time now; but tired alive, just needing a rest, a moment to recover.
Then she saw him, and her calm broke. “Oh, God,” she said. “No. Please. I’m not ready.”
“It’s okay — ”
“No, it’s not okay — I don’t know what to say to you, I wasn’t ready to see you again, I wanted to think of something to convince you — ”
“It’s okay, Hope. Really, it is.”
And he sat down beside her, and reached out his arms to her to comfort her, and she sank into him and cried, just a little, and this was the part that seemed so miraculous to him: comforting her actually seemed to work. She seemed to draw strength from his kindness. He’d forgotten what that was like.
“I haven’t wanted to waste this,” she said. “Not my last chance.”
He could barely hear her words, spoken against his chest, but he could feel them. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, this time. I’ll listen.”
“Will you come with me?”
“Please, let’s just talk first, okay?”
“I — okay.”
“What are you doing here, Hope? You don’t belong here.”
“No more than you do,” she said, and he could feel the smile. She pulled back, gently freeing herself from his embrace. “You could say I’m harrowing Hell.”
“Harrowing — ?”
“Like Christ did. Coming to free souls that don’t belong here.” She shrugged. “Just one, in my case. More like Orpheus, than Christ, I guess.”
“Why me?”
She shrugged again. “I can’t tell you. Not here. It’s not allowed. Maybe — Maybe I saw you, just once, maybe we ran into each other in a supermarket. And I was having a bad day and you smiled at me and I always remembered it. Or maybe I was a lover you had once who you’ve forgotten.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Maybe. Or maybe — maybe I’m the lover you never had, the one you were meant to be with, but never met. You met Kathy instead. Maybe we finally met in Heaven and fell in love there.”
He looked at her, for a long moment. “Maybe,” he agreed.
They were silent a moment.
“Was I …. ”
“Go on,” she said, “ask.”
“Was I — really in Heaven?”
“Yes. You were. That I can tell you.”
He nodded, looking out at the gray walls and gray streets and gray sky. “What was it like?”
“That I can’t tell you.” She reached for his hand. “But I could show you. If you’d just come with me.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “How did I get here?”
“Same as me,” she said awkwardly. “Harrowing Hell. Here to rescue Kathy.”
“Why is she here?”
“Because she thinks she ought to be.” She sighed. “You know she was depressed when she was alive, you know she got sick from it — ”
“Not like this.” He shook his head. “Never this bad.”
“No, but bad enough. Bad enough to convince her that you could have led a better life without her. And she thinks that’s enough to punish herself for.”
“That’s — because of me? — That’s crazy.”
“That’s what you said.” She couldn’t look at him. “And I — well, someone, someone who loves you, very, very much — told you, there wasn’t anything you could do. That you could try. But that no one here gets out. That if you came down here, if — ”
“If I saw her more than three times …. ”
“That’s right. If you started to believe all this was real — you’d be just as trapped as she is. That there wasn’t anything you could do.”
“If you believe that — then why come after me?”
Her eyes flashed briefly toward him, and she smiled. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t ask me that. — I don’t really have an answer for you.”
“Well, whyever you did it … thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He hugged her again, and stood up. “You should go,” he told her. “Go home. You’ve told me what I need to know.”
“I’ll go, if you come with me.”
“I can’t.” This time, he smiled. “I really can’t. I’ve got to see this through. You told me I can walk out of here whenever I want, right?”
“Yes, you can, but you won’t. Not unless you come with me right now, you won’t. You’ll forget again.”
“No — look, I can do this. I just — I need to try harder, that’s all. I just need to love her more. I can show her.”
“Ryan, please.” She was starting to cry again. His breath caught in his throat. Ryan? Was that his name? God, he’d forgotten —
“It’s okay,” he said. “I just haven’t done enough. I can. I’m sure I can. It’ll be okay.” He took her hand, held it tight, then let it go. “Go on home.”
“Ryan, I can’t ever see you again — ”
“No. It’s okay. You will. You’ll see me again.”
And so she did.
Months, or maybe years later — impossible to tell, time just fell away from you here in this place. He had gotten away for a little while. Kathy was asleep, taking a nap, deep in fever, sick again. Or still. It was hard to tell. He’d been reading to her all morning, her favorite sonnets and poems, and had been up half the night before, making up silly rhymes and fairy tales, trying to take her mind off it. He’d barely slept, but now at least she was asleep.
Ryan — although he’d forgotten his name again, by now, that was still who he was — had gone out to the store, and had bought bread, among other things, and remembered on his way home that they already had bread. So he’d stopped at the park, and was sitting on the cement bench, tearing off pieces of bread and tossing them into the water.
There were no ducks here to eat the bread, but that didn’t occur to him; he didn’t know why he was doing this, he just dimly remembered that it was a way to pass the time.
He was halfway through the loaf when he saw Hope. Just like her voice had been the first time he’d heard it, the sight of her was like a bullet.
“Hi,” he said, because it was all he could think of to say.
“Hi.” She sat down next to him.
“You said I’d never see you again.”
“And you said I would.”
“True enough.”
“I — tried to go back.”
“To Heaven?”
“To Heaven.”
He tossed another piece of bread into the water. It sank like the rest. “Wouldn’t they let you in?”
“No — I mean, yes, but … I couldn’t … just leave you here.”
He nodded carefully. “I see.” After a moment, he added, “Then you understand.”
“Why you couldn’t leave Kathy? Yeah. Yeah, I do. — It wouldn’t be Heaven without you in it.”
“I understand. But there’s something I’m not sure you realize.”
“What’s that?”
“That this will still be Hell. Even with me in it. There are some things even love doesn’t make better.”
“No,” she said finally, “but at least this way I’ll be with you. I’ll get to see you.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
They didn’t say anything for a moment. She reached over and took some
bread and joined him, throwing crumbs into the water.
When they ran out of bread, they sat and stared for a while. Not at anything in particular.
“So,” she said, standing up.
“So.”
“I’ll see you around, I guess?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
And so she did.
Months and months went by, and he gradually forgot her; he would see her from time to time, and wonder at night, when he looked out the window, when he went to shut it against the cold, or to open it when Kathy was too hot, just who it was standing outside looking up at him, alone in the night. And he would wonder who kept calling him on the phone, but never had anything to say when he would answer.
And their paths did cross, eventually:
They met in the supermarket, approaching each other from opposite ends of an aisle, each of them pushing a rusting and aimless cart. There wasn’t quite room for them to pass each other, and they each struggled to get out of the other’s way.
Excuse me, she said —
And his heart stopped beating — that was so almost familiar — and then forgot and beat on.
But still he looked at her as he passed her, and her face was so almost familiar as well — didn’t he know someone who looked like that, once … ?
No; no, he was mistaken; the person he was thinking of had gleamed like springtime, and didn’t blend in anywhere. This wasn’t her at all.
He was still thinking about her, half-remembered, on the way to the car, when he saw something quite impossible:
A single flower, just a weed, a dandelion, but still extraordinary, alive and growing through a crack in the sidewalk.
He still remembered things like that.
WATCH THE COIN
All these years later, and Danny still drove the same car. There were new dents in it, and the right front fender had been replaced, bright red part against the body’s dull green. It’s Christmas in September, Tom thought, seeing it. He stepped away from the abandoned building, crossing the street toward it without a second glance to be certain. Danny’s car. Had to be.
Danny was leaning over to unlock the passenger door as he walked up, and Tom opened it. He slid in next to him.
“Hey, Tomcat.”
“Hey,” Tom said, and that was all, like it had only been hours since they’d last seen each other, and not seven years.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming,” Tom said. “And with our meeting space gone …. ”
Danny laughed. “Who’d go and close down a fine old diner like that? I ask you.”
“World’s changed,” Tom said.
“World’s changed. Smoke?”
“Thanks,” Tom said, taking the cigarette. Danny shoved the dash lighter in, and they waited for it to heat up.
“Wife doesn’t let me smoke,” Danny said, “but just this once, I figured what the hell.”
“You got married?”
“You didn’t?”
“— No.”
“Yeah, well.” Danny grinned, that same old lopsided grin. “I can’t recommend it.”
Tom smiled, staring out of the window. “Do you think we’re the only ones showing up?”
Danny held the lighter up, lit his cigarette with it. “For a share of five hundred grand? I very much doubt it.”
Tom shrugged. “Unless we’re the only ones left.”
“Just you and me? Connor and Sean dead or in jail? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind splitting it two ways.”
Tom looked at him oddly. “Three ways.”
Danny shook his head. “Yeah. Three ways.” He stared across the street at the boarded-up diner. “So what do you think he’ll look like?”
“Isaiah?”
“Yeah, Isaiah, who else?”
“Just the same.” Tom took a drag on his cigarette. “That’s the whole point.”
“Yeah — hey, there’s Sean now.”
Tommy felt a little sick. If there was any of them he’d hoped wouldn’t be making it, it was Sean.
“I don’t think he sees us,” Danny said. “Let’s go meet him.”
“— Okay.”
They got out of the car and walked over. Sean was still staring up at the boarded windows.
“Sean, you old bastard, how are you?” Danny said.
Sean turned and smiled. It was a friendly enough smile, Tom had to admit. But the expression in his eyes never changed. They looked porcelain and unreal.
“I’m good,” he said. “Hope you won’t think I’m breaking our promise if I don’t meet you inside.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it? I was looking forward to one of those big omelettes,” Danny said.
Sean just smiled and reached a hand out for Danny’s cigarette. He took it and breathed in smoke. Just like old times.
Too much like old times. The past never really goes away, Tom thought, but out loud all he said was, “Okay, so, when Connor gets here, we can — ”
Sean shook his head, taking another long drag. “Connor’s not coming.”
“He’s not?” Tom said.
“No.” He handed the cigarette back, and Tom and Danny exchanged a look.
Why not? Tom wanted to ask, but Sean was hardly inviting questions. He didn’t ask and neither did Danny. He just formed his own ideas. None of them good.
“Okay. So. Uhh.” Tom dropped his dead cigarette. “Do we want to head out there now, or — ?”
“It’ll be too early still, won’t it?” Danny said. “Breakfast first, okay?”
“It’s past noon,” Sean said.
“I’ve been driving all morning. Lunch first. Whatever. Food.”
“I could eat,” Sean said.
Tom didn’t say anything. He just followed the two of them, his long-ago friends, as they walked down the sidewalk, looking for somewhere that was open.
He took the coin from his pocket — not the same one he used to carry, but a silver dollar all the same — and flipped it back and forth across the knuckles of one hand. He palmed it, made it disappear, made it reappear in the other.
Just sleight of hand. The first magic he’d known, years before the real magic. He’d devoured book after book on the subject when he was little, trying to crack their secrets. Now it was easy like breathing, reduced to nervous habit. Across the knuckles, back and forth, and hand to hand unseen.
They were everywhere here. It was all he could do not to turn and stare as he passed them in the street — but everyone here who couldn’t see would wonder what he was looking at. And besides, he knew better than to attract their attention, to let them know he could see them.
He’d moved away from it all, as far as he could afford, over to the West Coast. It wasn’t far enough — the madness was bleeding its way across the country. But here, just a few miles from the Atlantic, he could feel it — flooding up out of the ocean, rushing ahead. He could hear the music and feel the steps of the dance.
All of it was more real to him than the two ghosts from his past he’d fallen into step beside, the two men — and they were all men, now, they’d only been boys before and they’d never realized it — who were laughing and joking and happy, while Tom just drifted along.
Well, Danny was happy, at least. Sean was doing what passed for happy. What was really happening behind those eyes? No way of knowing.
And why wasn’t Connor coming?
Tom looked at Sean — Tomcat, cat’s eyes — and saw him standing somewhere else, miles away, a gun in his hand and Connor’s hands reaching out imploringly, just before the shot —
Tom stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Sean looked back at him with mild interest. “You all right back there?”
Tom reminded himself how to smile. “I’m good,” he said.
Had he really seen that? Or imagined it? Real or unreal; it was a distinction that mattered less and less the closer he got to the heart of the dance.
Real or unreal, he didn’t have any more visions that morning. They found somewhere to e
at, and he somehow managed steak and eggs and even conversation.
He’d grown unused to woods like this. He’d become accustomed to the Northwest, evergreen and shaded dark. Here he was surrounded by soft leaves, not needles; leaves that carried their deaths secretly inside them, that already heard the whispers of Autumn. Roots and branches that knew things.
“We should have drawn a goddamn map,” Danny was saying.
“I don’t need a map,” Tom said.
He didn’t. He’d led them straight there and now here they were, back in the clearing he’d been seeing in his dreams more and more these past few weeks.
From a distance, you could see it, if you knew what you were looking for. You didn’t even need eyes like Tom’s. You could see where the tall grass swayed and bent, caught by a breeze that wasn’t there. Not quite a path. A circle.
And here, closer, in the center of it, they could see their markers.
“Hey, you’re right, this is it,” Danny said. “Here’s the rocks we left to find the place.”
“Not to find it,” Tom said. “To make it stay real. People’ve been doing it for centuries. Like Stonehenge.”
“How do you know so much about all this, anyway?” Danny said.
“I’ve told you before,” Tom said distantly. “I was born under a caul. The seventh son of a seventh son.”
“Good Catholic family,” Sean said, smiling.
Danny smiled back. “Not so much of the Catholic, I don’t think.”
Tom wasn’t listening. He was walking the path.
The dance was happening. He could feel the steps. It was happening now and it was happening twenty minutes from now and it was happening seven years ago. All of it now. One moment.
He’d studied and read in college about relativistic events, travel at near light speed, time dilation. Trying to understand it all. Sleight of hand.
Across the knuckles, back and forth. Walk the path.
“How much longer?” Sean asked.
“Hmmm?” Tom struggled to understand the question. “Oh. Not much longer now.”
“So you should be, well, sitting down, then, right?” Danny said.
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