On the way home I watched the whir of the fields. It was late summer by then, and the corn stood tall, and the sunflowers and prairie flowers bloomed in the ditches. I opened the window and stuck my hand outside. I thought about how those fields got quieter than an ache late at night, except for the cicadas. They made a nasty noise that sounded mean-spirited to me. Eventually the asphalt turned to gravel and I picked up some speed. I believed I was heading home to something good. I believed that my husband would be healed, and that I would be healed, too, even though I could not rightfully say what was wrong with me, though I guess I had an idea.
I pulled into the driveway and almost hit the neighbor’s dog. I felt my heart jump when I stopped short. He was sniffing around our garbage. I yelled at him to scoot when I got out of the car and he looked up at me so mournfully I forgave him. They must not be feeding him right, I thought. What kind of people ignore their dog? I scratched his head and then he licked my ankle. He had long red hair, and it was soft. I wove my fingers in it. In the distance a car horn honked and the dog perked his ears up. He licked my ankle one more time and ran in the direction of his house.
I called out Thomas’s name as I walked in the kitchen door, and he called back to me. He sounded excited. He limped to the kitchen and stood in the doorway. (He had started limping around after the surgery; I was not sure why. There was nothing wrong with his legs.) He crossed his arms across his chest and smiled. He was waiting for me to ask him something. I felt tired all of a sudden. I pulled out some plates from the cabinet and opened the carryout bag from the diner. I dumped the contents of each container onto a plate.
Finally, I broke.
“What’s been going on round here since I’ve been gone?”
“Just watching some TV,” he said. “Thinking about tomorrow. Thinking about that checkup.” He was all jazzed up.
“It’s about time,” I mumbled. I do not know why I said that. I was not ready for it to be time yet. I picked up the plates and walked to the living room. I told Thomas to grab the forks as I passed him. He looked disappointed that I wasn’t more excited.
He followed me into the living room and said, “You know what that means, right?”
I sat down on the couch and put the plates down. I picked up the remote control and flipped through the channels. I stopped on a behind-the-scenes look at the life of Rio DeCarlo. They were on the early years, when she was a teen model. Rio DeCarlo looked like an angel. Her lashes were so thick and dark and stared upward toward the sky. She was a natural, said the narrator. Headed for the top, only to burn out once she got there. Thomas sat down next to me.
“If everything checks out, I can start using it again. We can, you know, do it,” he said.
“I know what it means,” I said. “I’m just worried. What if it’s not like you wanted?” I took a bite of eggs. They were cold by then.
“It’s going to be perfect,” he said. “It feels different already.”
I put a piece of bacon in my mouth. I bit off some, but I did not chew it. I just let it sit there, savory in my mouth. The salt sank into my tongue.
“Come here,” he said. He patted his lap. “Come on.”
I got up and bent over him.
“But—careful,” he said. He stroked near his knees. “Sit there.”
I straddled him. I was very careful not to go near his crotch, but I leaned the top of me closer to him. He put his hands on my waist, and then he slid them under my shirt. He moved them up the sides of me. Then he was near my breasts, and then he was touching the undersides of them.
“This is the softest part of you,” he said. His hands felt nice there. He looked so happy. “Right there,” he said. I was hesitant to be happy, too, but the sight of his joy made me want to join him.
Behind me on the television set the narrator was saying something about a breakthrough performance. I turned away from my husband and looked at the screen. Little Rio DeCarlo held a knife in front of her. “I’ll use it,” she said. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”
I turned back to my husband.
“Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow,” he said, as he buried his head in my breasts.
16.
He left the house singing in the morning. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watched me wash the “#1 Husband” and “#1 Wife” mugs we used every morning for breakfast, and he sang to me. It was a stupid old rock song about feeling like making love. It made me laugh. I did not even think it was funny, but there was something about Thomas Madison. The way he did everything with such extreme feeling, held his hands out so high, his body swung with the sound of his voice, like one of those crazy southern preachers giving a sermon. It caused these little ripples in me, and then all of a sudden I was snorting, and then there was a noise coming from my throat, and I was laughing at him, with him, whatever. He swaggered toward me and swept me up in his arms, he spun me around. He dipped me. I laughed again.
“Moonie, you and I are going to make sweet, sweet love tonight,” he said, and then he kissed me. It was a delicious kiss, full of tongue and moisture, and we sucked on each other’s lips afterward. “Don’t get me too excited,” he said. He lifted me up. “I need the doc to check me out first, make sure I’m GTG.” He backed away from me. “Good.” He punched the air like a fighter. “To.” He punched again with the other. “Go.” Punch.
And then he left me there, all alone, and I wished he had not. I was not at ease by myself in that moment, and I felt the stir of something dark in me. It felt like those cramps I get early in the morning sometimes a few weeks before I get my period. They’re called mittelschmerz, my mother told me once. There’s no reason for the pain, but it’s part of being a woman, she told me. No reason for it all.
I went to the living room and turned on the television set. One minute I was watching the TV, and the next I was on my knees praying. I needed the comfort. I was allowed to pray even if I did not go to church. I turned on the news, I remember that. I was taking a break from celebrities and their glamorous lives I would never have. Even if you had money, that did not mean you got to live that kind of life.
At first I heard everything the newscaster said. He was talking about one of the wars. There was one starting, another one ending. I guess it was just time for our government to win something. There was a picture of a map on the screen. I stared at the border between two countries. I thought about what divided my husband, my love, the man of my dreams, and myself. It was something so small to me, but so big to him. I could not convince him otherwise.
I was angry with him suddenly. He had left me alone for hours. I had been filled up with him for a week, and then when he left it was like someone had stuck a needle in me and drained out all the love. And all that was left behind was frustration. I guess I was addicted to that man, but he had made me that way. I tried not to be angry. I tried to love him because I knew when he returned he would want to go to bed. I could not do that angry. I could not let him in when I felt that way. I tried not to think of anything. The words coming out of the newscaster’s mouth turned to one long noise. They were not separate anymore, just a jumble of sounds. I turned up the volume louder, but still I could not hear anything right. I tried to make my mind work, but the words would not form into anything. The noise sounded like a truck hurtling by me. I could almost feel the hot rush of dirty air against me. I started to shake, just my hands at first, but then there was a rumble through me. I tried so hard to focus. I let the noise wash over me. I stared at the screen. And then I was there on my knees praying, the soft thrush of carpet gliding against my knees and calves. I felt like I was sinking into a joyous sea of words. At last, they were my words. At last, I could be heard.
I prayed for my sister, Jenny, first, because I thought she needed the most help. I prayed she would not get pregnant, and I prayed she would learn to accept our mother as I had. To not take it all so personal, those things my mother said. Because it was not personal. It was all about our mother, and nobody else. And
I prayed for her to get her act together and get the hell out of town. Even going to school in Lincoln would be better than the life that awaited her if she stayed put. I was living proof of that, almost-finished outdoor pools and everything. My life was not the kind of life she needed.
And then I prayed for my mother, for her to find some sort of joy in her life. It seemed like everything was waiting for her, if she would just reach out and take it. She should not be suffering at all. It was her own creation, this torturous life. Jenny was trouble, for sure, but she did not need to put every last ounce of herself into us, into her children. She needed to free herself, though I did not imagine it happening in this lifetime. Still, I prayed for her freedom.
I prayed for my father a little bit, but not as much as my mother and Jenny. All the time I wondered who he was, and I still did not know. We had lost each other a while ago, and had never found our way back. So I just prayed for him the same as I prayed for Jenny, for him to have the strength to deal with my mother. I would have prayed for something else, anything else, but I did not know what he needed to have fixed. He seemed all right, my father, in his own little world.
I prayed for Timber, too. I do not know why I added Timber in there. I just did. He popped into my head, he was giving me a silly wave, where he just bent his fingers at the knuckles, like the ones he gave me when I walked into the diner. I prayed that all of the changes he wanted to make in his life would work out just as he planned. I prayed, too, that he would find a nice woman to marry him, so that he would feel complete. I wanted a life of ease for him.
For me, I just prayed that I could feel. That was all I wanted, was to feel.
I saved Thomas for last. There were so many things I wanted for him. I knew every little part of him that needed changing, not for me, but just for him. I spent so much time with him, and even when I was not with him, I was thinking about him, focusing on who he was, down to his very core. I felt like I even knew what his blood tasted like. Salt water. And that his bones would be smooth and solid in my grip. And if I could see all the tiny little atoms and molecules in him it would be like looking through a kaleidoscope at the sky on a cloudy day. I knew how he hated the hair that came out of his ears, and I knew that he wished he talked quieter sometimes. I knew, even if he did not admit it, that he missed his dad, and he wished he had been there with him, that there had been some peace in the end. He needed his heart to be soothed. I knew he wished he were taller. I knew he wished he were smarter. I knew sometimes he felt alone even if I was sitting right next to him. I sent a wave of prayers, I wanted to wash over him with my thoughts. Release him. Freedom for him. Freedom for everyone.
My last words for him felt ridiculous in my head. I was embarrassed even thinking them, but then I thought: this is coming from a pure place.
Dear God, I said. Please let his body be what he wants it to be.
I felt incredibly peaceful during all this praying. Like there was all this crazy noise around me and in the middle of it I had clear and focused thoughts. I was like a big line of lightning in the middle of a storm. I could strike, I could make something happen. I was channeling something in me. It was some kind of power.
VALKA TOOK A DEEP BREATH. “Would you pray for me sometime?” she said.
“I already have,” I said.
THAT IS HOW MY HUSBAND found me, on the ground, praying in the living room, with the television set blaring behind me. He had a smile on his face when he walked in the room, but when I turned to look at him, I watched it drop away. He held a bouquet of roses in his hand. Bright red with baby’s breath. I always liked baby’s breath. It reminded me of corsages and school dances. Everyone ignores it because it’s filler but I like what it’s called. And I love the delicate crumbliness of it.
He squeezed the bottom of the bouquet. The paper rustled. He put the bouquet on the couch, and there was an even louder rustle. Between that and the newscaster’s voice it was more than I could bear. I covered my ears.
“Moonie, what’re you doing?” Thomas grabbed the remote control. He put the television on mute. “Have you lost your mind, girl?”
“I was . . .” I felt dumb even saying it. I sat back, and my ass rested on the soles of my feet. “I was praying, I guess. I don’t know.” I smiled at him extra pretty. It was phony and I knew it but I just wanted him to love me and forget the rest. “I was just worried about you. Going to the doctor.”
He sat down on the edge of the couch next to me.
“Ain’t nothing to worry about.” He put a hand on my head and patted it and then slid it down to my cheek. And then he looked at me so tenderly it was like my heart would break in two, I could really feel that, that there was the possibility that something could shatter inside me. Everything was so swelled up on the insides. All my parts were fighting for room, fighting for air.
“I’m one hundred percent okay,” he said. “And I think it might be time to test it all out.”
17.
I had decorated the bedroom myself, without any help from Thomas. Most stuff in the house, Thomas wanted to have some say, not just because he was paying for it, and not just because he was trying to find ways to fill his time, but because he was interested in home decorating. We watched a lot of those shows, all the time, all kinds of home decorating. There were the shows that had people decorating their houses for less than five hundred bucks, and the shows where they switched homes with their friends, the disaster zone homes, and the millionaire homes. We liked the poor people shows the best because they always cried at the end. A lot of people were out there fixing up their homes. Trying to make their lives just a little bit better. Thomas totally got that, and so did I.
But I said please let this room be mine. Let me do for you as a wife should do for a husband. I realize now that these are meaningless words. That I made up what was supposed to be right. I cobbled together this image of marriage from scraps of memories and TV shows and movies. God knows neither of our parents had a marriage we wanted to model ourselves after. It was all made up, our marriage. Thomas did it, too. We were trying to be normal, but we did not realize there was no right way or wrong way.
Still, I said: let me give you something special. When it came down to it though, I made it all white. All white with lots of patterns and textures, the curtains had layers of white stripes and there were white flowers embroidered into the comforter. White fluffy pillows, white carpeting, glossy pretty white walls. I wanted to feel really clean in my bedroom. I did not want any of that outside world, that dirty world, coming into our marital bed. None of that fake stuff Thomas liked to watch on late-night cable, and no memories of that day at the dirty magazine shop. It should just be our sanctuary.
I watched him take his clothes off. His nice dress shirt he had worn to the doctor’s office, with the pretty blue stripes and the crisp collar, the one I had bought for him in Lincoln, for all those meetings he had after his dad died. Underneath there was a thick patch of hair in the middle of his chest, and it turned me on, the way the hair spread out like ivy on the side of a building, down his stomach and around his nipples. He unbuckled his belt, and there was the sound of metal hitting metal, and it rang out high and clear like a bell.
“I love you,” I said. I was so nervous.
“I love you, too,” he said. He slipped the pants down over his legs, never taking his eyes away from me the whole while, like if he did I might disappear. He looked serious. His legs were so skinny. I wanted to feel him more than ever in that moment. I spread my legs apart and bent my knees a bit. I tried to relax myself, from my belly on down. Let it flow.
But even as I did that, there was another part of me fighting, squeezing me close inside. A whisper in my ear. Just hold on tight. It will be over soon.
He pulled down his shorts at last, but he was on me in a flash, so I could not see it. I did not know if it had worked or not. There was the usual small, hard feeling against my leg, and then Thomas started kissing me and touching me all over, only bre
asts and stomach and hips and legs, fast and noisy, with crazy kisses that made smacking sounds.
His lips and his tongue felt nice against my skin. I liked the way he was rushing. I started to get into it. I made a few noises. I did not know where they came from, but there they were.
His thighs were on mine, and he was moving, and he was whispering in my ear, something, my name, his love, words mashed together. Everything was clenched inside me. Moonie, he said, over and over again. And then I became numb.
I held my breath. I held it in, so close inside. I wanted to feel. I prayed to feel.
But there was nothing there. I tried to reach deep and connect with him. But there was just a big gaping hole where a feeling should have been.
Is it possible to physically feel absence? Can you miss a sensation you have never known? It was not just the pressure of him in my body, of course. It was the connection, and it was his joy, or what would have been his joy. More than ever I knew I could not feel. I wondered for a moment if I were dead, or if something had died in me the minute Thomas and I had met. But I knew every part of my body was alive, except for this one part. I had been swollen with his life since I was fifteen years old. I was alive and young and I was healthy and yet I could not feel him. It was broken. We were broken.
I held his arms and he grunted in my ear. I knew he was moving inside me then. He had been for a few minutes. I tried to moan, and the noises would not come out of me, at least not any noise I recognized. He looked me dead in the eye, a look of love, and I turned away. I looked all over the room, anywhere but at him. My eyes felt crazy; it looked like someone was flashing the light switch off and on in the room. Dark, light, slow-motion, super-speed. I thrashed my head to the side, back and forth. I was in charge of what I saw. I could tell my eyes what to do, my neck what to do, my head what to do. Every part of my body except that one part. I kept thrashing. I would not let him concentrate on me. I would not let him see what was really happening.
The Melting Season Page 14