The Promise of Rest

by Reynolds Price

  Straw said “Don’t shoot.”

  Hutch said “Why would I?”

  “I’ve stood here watching you a whole long minute. I know all your thoughts.”

  Hutch shook his head No. “We’ve lived apart much too long, old friend. I’m in deep hiding.” It was only halfway meant as a joke. Like everyone, Hutch overestimated his own complexity.

  Straw said “You want to go get Wade tonight. You want to have all his death for yourself—you and him in a room till it’s over.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong with that.”

  “You well know, Hutchins.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked you if I really knew.”

  Straw said “There’s somebody still alive called Ann Mayfield, born Ann Catlin—used to be your wife; gave birth to your child. Wade loves her too.”

  “You don’t understand that Wade ordered both of us out of his life, long years ago; or so his friend Wyatt said by phone and fax and every other known means but letter bombs. Once you got Wade on the phone just now though, it was me he asked for—not his mother.”

  Straw said “You truly sure Wade was in his right mind?” It was not meant cruelly. Straw had read that dementia was often a late result of this plague.

  “I’m going downstairs right now to call him back.”

  Straw said “Can I go with you?”

  “Downstairs?—it’s your house, friend.”

  “No, it’s yours; I’m just the loyal tenant. I mean can I ride with you to New York?—you’ll need some help.”

  Hutch said “No I won’t.”

  “Hutchins, the last thing Wade Mayfield needs is a doting father dragging his pitiful body downstairs through a big apartment building and trying to navigate the eastern seaboard single-handed.”

  Hutch said “Look, I don’t even know that I’m going. When you called Wade at Grainger’s, the first thing he told me was ‘Come tonight.’ The longer we talked, the more he circled; then Grainger conked out. So I told Wade I’d try him one more time before bed. If he doesn’t want to answer, he won’t. He hasn’t in months.”

  “Christ, Hutch, of course he’ll want to answer you.”

  It came out of Straw with the old singeing force that had brought them together, almost as a matter of logical course, weeks after they’d met in a prep school classroom.

  And it moved Hutch nearly as much as in those days—few men past sixty get bearable tributes from a trustworthy source. “Thank you, Strawson, but Wade may be exhausted.”

  “Wade’s still got ears.” Straw glanced at his watch. “It’s past ten now; go call him. I’ll wait here.”

  As Hutch pushed past him, Straw entered the room and—once he heard footsteps going down—he silently stood in the midst of the rag rug, nothing to lean on, nothing to brace him. His arms extended a little from his sides, and he tried to ask for whatever mercy was possible this late in his life, a life that he knew was littered with failure and was not done yet with small but calculated meanness. Whatever hopes or demands for payment went through Straw’s mind, his body stayed perfectly still in place, though the last time he’d worshiped anything but a naked body was in his lost childhood.

  Straw stood in place the best part of two minutes till at last an enormous blunt shaft of pain forced downward through him, shaking him brutally. A mute bystander might have thought this excellent man with perfect eyes was dying where he stood, bludgeoned somehow by an unseen hand. Straw, though, took it to be the only answer he’d get, the only answer he’d had in years of terse claims on God or fate; and he knew he must take the answer straight to Hutch.

  7

  WHEN Straw got to the dim long kitchen, Hutch was still at the counter by the hung-up phone. It looked like a baited iron bear trap in reach of his hand. Hutch seemed alarmingly older than he had a quarter hour ago—gray and slumped. He didn’t look up but at least he didn’t ask Straw to leave.

  Straw said “I know the number if you lost it.”

  “I got the number.”

  “Somebody else answer?”

  “No, it was Wade—pretty certainly Wade. He sounded really stunned but he asked me if I’d ever lived through a dream where I couldn’t find the walls or the floor, however high I flew or dived. I told him No; he waited and said ‘A man I know is there this minute. Right this red minute.’ Then he dropped his phone or left it off the hook—I’ve tried twice more and just get a busy.”

  Straw came a step closer and said “I’m driving you up there then.”

  Stunned as he was, Hutch could think of no reason to wait. “When?”

  “I can leave this minute.”

  Hutch slowly looked around this room where he’d spent so much good time as a boy. Any rescue here? In fact, though the room still had its old long proportions, its old self was smothered under long years of Emily’s apple-green paint, framed spurious coats of arms, stitched mottoes and furiously cheerful refrigerator decals. Apparently no rescue at all. So Hutch said “Lead the way.” Then he risked facing Straw—he dreaded a collapse if he met those wholly demanding eyes. But here they were milder; and Hutch felt a little steadier, on a new pair of legs. “Many thanks, old friend.”

  Straw would have liked to leave it at that and hit the road, but he had to deliver the hurtful message he’d got upstairs. “First, you need to call Ann Mayfield.”

  At once Hutch agreed and touched the phone, but then he said “Why?”

  Straw prodded him onward, “just say I told you to do it, tonight.”

  “What else do I tell her?”

  “You’re a grown man, Hutchins. You take it from there.” When Hutch made no move to pick up the phone, Straw said “What do you really want to say?”

  Hutch knew right off. “I want to tell her I’m bringing our son back home to die, the home she left long months ago. Wade spent the first two-thirds of his life in a house she’s abandoned; she can stay gone now.”

  Straw grinned. “You used to be a Christian gent.”

  “About ninety years back.”

  “Wait—ask Ann to help you. Just two or three words.”

  “I don’t want to see Ann. Not in this life.”

  “She’s got rights in this,” Straw said. “Look at me.”

  Hutch actually looked at Strawson’s eyes and recalled a fact that was easily forgot—Straw was the fairest referee he’d known, however crazy.

  Straw told him “This is no child-custody case. A grown man’s dying like shit in the road.”

  Hutch took up the phone and surprised himself by knowing Ann’s number (he’d called no more than twice in the past year).

  In twenty seconds Ann’s firm voice said “Yes.” Even here, its smoky resonance was sufficient warning of her steel-trap mind and her heart that had never yet trusted anyone’s love for two steady hours.

  Hutch said “Don’t tell rank strangers ‘Yes’ in the night, alone as you are.”

  Ann was silent but she stayed on the line.

  Hutch could taste her confusion and anger, so he tried to talk straight. “Ann, I don’t know when you saw Wade or talked to him last, but I’ve had no recent news till tonight. The quick truth is, he sounds really awful; so I’m driving up there tonight to get him. I thought you should know.”

  “Are you at home?” Ann’s voice wasn’t choked but odd and uncertain.

  Hutch heard her word home and wondered if he’d waked her. Was she drinking? Surely not. No company with her surely. Anyhow he said “I’ll bring Wade back to one of my homes—I’m at Straw and Emily’s; Straw’s riding up with me.”

  Ann said “Let me speak to Strawson please.”

  Hutch knew she lost no love on Straw, but he held the phone toward him.

  Straw refused. “Tell her No. This is your and her business entirely.”

  Hutch agreed, then told her “You and I’ll settle this.”

  Ann thought she’d glimsed the trace of a chink in the wall Hutch was already building against her. “Settle what? What’s this we’ll sett
le?”

  “Wade Mayfield’s death.”

  Ann was adamant. “You don’t know he’s dying.”

  Hutch said “This thing kills everything it touches.”

  “It may have looked like that till now; but Hutch, there are people who’ve been infected for years, some for more than a decade—I just read about them in Time magazine. They’re somehow hanging on, doing their jobs. Don’t kill Wade yet. Don’t scare him to death—you know how contagious anxiety is.” When Hutch kept silent, she thought This won’t sound maternal, whatever I feel; but she went on and lightened her voice to say “I finally talked to Wade night before last; he seemed clear-headed and said not to worry.” Then for the first time in many weeks, Ann lost grip on her own smothered feelings. Still she thought she managed to muffle the groan that broke from her, helpless.

  Hutch heard it though. “We’ll know a lot more when Wade’s back home. I’ll very likely need you.” He hadn’t foreseen he’d say that much; and for a bad instant, he thought of denying it.

  But Ann said “You know I’ll help, day and night.”

  There was only one thing left for now. Hutch lowered his voice. “You know Wyatt’s dead.”

  “Yes, his sister wrote me.”

  “Wyatt had a grown sister?”

  Ann said “Very grown; she writes a fine letter.”

  “And you didn’t feel compelled to tell me our son was alone?”

  Ann paused a long while. “No, Hutch, I didn’t. Wade asked me not to.”

  “Asked you tonight?”

  “In the letter—Wyatt’s sister’s letter.”

  Hutch felt a surge of revulsion that, though he’d never touched Ann in anger, might have ended in violence if they’d shared the same room. He waited it out, then could only say “I guess this means Wade is ours again.” Before the words were out of his mouth, Hutch heard their strangeness. He’d always half concealed from himself his conviction that Wyatt Bondurant had shanghaied Wade Mayfield from his home and borne him off to the glaring impasse where they’d all stood wordless till tonight. Hutch had never quite said as much, even to Ann.

  But Ann echoed his sudden discovery of an old sense of ownership in Wade. “Ours?—I guess.”

  “You say you talked with him two nights ago?”

  Ann realized she’d stretched the truth. “It was probably more like a week ago. We talked fairly normally for maybe five minutes; then he hung up on me; and when I’ve phoned him since, nobody answers.” Whatever desertion Ann had doled out to Hutch, her voice here sounded bruised with regret.

  Hutch said “All right. I’m leaving for New York.”

  “Will you let me know exactly what happens?”

  “I’ll call you from there—you working tomorrow?”

  Ann said “All day. I’ll tell them to put your call straight through.”

  Hutch said “Till then.”

  But Ann held on and gentled her strength. “I’ll go anywhere or do anything that you or Wade need.”

  That was one more piece of news to Hutch, so new that it almost angered him again and he almost laughed. She won’t take simple requests from God, much less her legal mate. But the sight of Emily standing in the kitchen door made Hutch say at least “Thank you” to Ann.

  When he’d hung up, Emily said “Sandwiches and coffee won’t take me a minute. Strawson, find the quart thermos; then you won’t need to stop.” No mention of how she’d heard or guessed that Straw was in on this belated lunge.

  Hutch didn’t know how long Emily had stood here or what she’d heard, but she had it all right—no word to slow him or to stop Straw’s going—so he thanked her too.

  She went to the counter and began to slice turkey.

  Then there in the midst of Rob’s old kitchen—a kitchen that had served nearly two hundred years of kin and slaves, returning freedmen and the rickety children of wormy white tenants—the wall that had held grief back inside Hutch broke and fell. He gave a single cry like an animal watching its own leg torn from the socket.

  Straw acknowledged the sound. “That may be all any of us can do. Let’s go anyhow.”

  Hutch agreed and sat with Straw at the table while Emily packed food; and though Hutch tried to think of old Grainger to steady his mind, he thought What if Grainger dies in the night? and was briefly troubled till again, in the silence as his mind turned to Wade, a slim flow of pleasure began in his chest.

  8

  IT had been twenty years since Hutch had actually driven to New York, longer still since he and Straw had been alone together in a car for more than ten minutes; but exhaustion swamped him in the deep night in Delaware, and Hutch had to ask Straw to take the wheel. For half an hour Hutch stayed awake, feeling a duty to keep Straw company (though they barely spoke); but as they crossed the New Jersey line, Hutch settled his head against the side window. In five seconds he was deep asleep; and after three miles—once Straw had looked toward him and silently granted his greater need for rest—this dream came to Hutch, an astonishing gift.

  The moment it started, his watchful mind recognized it as fact-mere history, an accurate memory of an evening forty-four years back, the day he’d first made love to Ann. They’d met in their freshman year of college, both new students in a bonehead composition class; and though they were each as virgin as snow, they’d seriously liked each other on sight—their looks, the keen young air around them—and after a month of smaller meetings, Hutch had quietly worked toward a way they could meet entirely while the fall warmth lasted. Meet and go past the little they’d learned apart, in separate high schools with high school loves about as adventurous as day-old calves.

  He’d borrowed his friend Jack Hagen’s car—illegal for a freshman—and driven Ann out one Wednesday near sundown to a place he’d already scouted in the woods. They’d parked on the road, walked inward (not even holding hands) to a site as thunderous as any Hutch knew of between Carolina and the caves of Virginia—a range of granite bluffs that climbed some hundred feet above a small river with its own serene rapids. They’d drunk the bottle of cider Hutch brought, tart but unfermented, with a box of cheese crackers; and then he’d actually fallen asleep to the sound of the water, darkening below them—no sleep at all the previous night, a zoology exam. The nap was wildly unexpected and no part of his plan; he was still too green not to be overcome.

  And he’d have slept hours if Ann hadn’t waked him a half hour later by stroking his eyes. When Hutch looked up, she was curved above him—her face some twenty inches away. In a few more seconds of bearing that awful distance between them, it seemed a literal prohibition against life itself. Ann was that good to see, that good to smell close. He didn’t reach out though; she didn’t reach down (her stroking hand was back in her lap).

  So Hutch did the next thing he knew to do—it boiled straight up from some old but never-used chamber of his brain, some legacy maybe from his bold grasping father. Very slowly, moving like a man in dense water, he stripped his clothes from neck to toe and stood bare beside Ann Gatlin, still seated. Hutch couldn’t see it but his face, chest, arms, his groin and sex were shedding around him, like clean strong light, the only half conscious splendor of his frame, his flawless skin and the promise of his power.

  Ann studied it all, grave-eyed as a girl on a Greek tombstone; then she also rose and—a whole yard from him—she followed suit with no trace of shame: a slow but determined unveiling of gifts even grander than any Hutch owned or had dared to want. The hair of her sex alone seemed both the safest thicket for hiding and rest and likewise a masterly crown of thorns, some medieval jeweler’s handiwork to set on an ivory Christ in glory, back in victory from death and famished.

  When Hutch reached toward her, to close the gap, they found they knew—from longing and dreams—each move to make next, each move in order, each more stunning than its previous neighbor: Paradise. In the dream, as it had in actual life, no sight had ever given Hutch more; no human being had known like Ann (that first best evening) his ev
ery hope and how to win them in smiling silence, passing them on with open hands.

  And in the car, four decades onward, as Straw sped through the last of dark New Jersey, each moment of that hour—instant by instant, purified of the spite and grudging of Hutch and Ann’s long months apart—rose in Hutch’s starved mind again and not only gave him the useful reminder of all he’d won in better days but also smothered for actual minutes his dread of morning. Morning, Manhattan and Wade all but gone.

  * * *

  As a dim shine began to leak through the murk in the east toward the coast, Hutch gradually woke and tasted again the nearing core of his aim and purpose—the bitter intent to save his child.

  In the lingering night, Straw had got them onto the Jersey Turnpike and borne them on, by the dangerous moment, through an outrage of traffic like the silent forced evacuation of Hell. Its hard demands had him focused ahead as he’d barely been focused since his all-night lunges up and down the roads of his youth, mostly hunting for women to fold him in briefly and then fade off.

  In Hutch’s memory of the crowded road, it had never run through a likable landscape; but the past two decades had thrust the land, the houses and buildings deeper than he’d known into a frozen degradation or, worse, a total failure of human shame to burden the Earth and its live creatures with the active evil of outright greed and willful blindness to what the planet will bear till it recoils and wipes itself clean. No wonder at all the country’s gone mad. Let it all come down soon, one silent crash. Let the plague roar on.

  Hutch reined himself in. You’re more than half asleep. This is normal America, love it or leave it. But then they passed the all but extraplanetary miles of oil refineries, fuming and hung with a million red lights, and then the final poisoned gray-green marshes; and Hutch was literally speechless with anger at an idea—America—botched very likely past redemption by the knowing hands of men no stronger than himself.

  Only Straw could manage the adequate words as they plunged on through the lifting dark, toward the still-hid west bank of the Hudson. “Don’t you hope old God turns out to be just?”