Small Silent Things

by Robin Page

  “Nice car,” she hears a voice say from behind her.

  She exhales, unaware that she has been holding her breath until that moment. “Thanks,” she says.

  “You must be quite an artist,” the woman says, looking down at Jocelyn’s hands, lifting a brow. “You aren’t married, are you? I only want one person here.”

  “No,” Jocelyn says, grateful she’s thought to take her wedding ring off for drill class. “No. No. I’m not married.”

  3

  THE MINUTE SHE HAS THE KEYS IN HER HAND, SHE CALLS KATE.

  “You can’t be serious,” Kate says. “Are you crazy?”

  “Oh, please, come and see it,” Jocelyn says. “It’s so great.”

  “I don’t know,” Kate says, and Jocelyn finds herself feeling slightly annoyed.

  “Please,” she begins. “Why are you such a grumpy old lady?”

  She gives Kate directions, and she and her Tesla are there in under thirty minutes. Jocelyn leads her down the eighty stairs. At the bottom, they are both out of breath.

  “Thanks for coming,” Jocelyn says, overly polite. A bit embarrassed, suddenly. Now that Kate is here, and they are looking at the cabin together, it seems less of a good idea. It seems very, very rustic. The stairs are insane.

  Kate looks around the property. The woods are like those in a fairy tale, close to the house. The ground is wet. They have to leap over leftover puddles.

  “I shouldn’t be at your beck and call,” Kate says, teasing Jocelyn. “I mean, look at me. You call. I come. I come. I come.”

  They laugh. They go inside. It isn’t exactly clean. They make plans: an iron bed, antique, very feminine. They don’t need anything except the bed, they joke. Well, the rope, the ruler, the other paraphernalia.

  “And two wooden chairs,” Jocelyn says, pinning Kate to the wall and kissing her. She has already pictured her, perched and naked, blonde hair cascading down to her waist. Her ankles and wrists tied to slick wooden chair rails and spindles. Waiting. A tall table to bend her over.

  They both stand looking into the middle of the room in their separate fantasies. Jocelyn finds that she is trembling as if it is their first time together. She takes Kate’s hand as little girls take each other’s hands to play. They walk the small space together, step by step, walking out the measurements. Kate will go to work. She will coach, but she will be distracted by the possibility of total privacy. Jocelyn will spend the hours shopping for furniture, for home goods. She will spend her leisure time in the study of knots.

  Chapter Twenty

  Simon

  1

  THE DOG IS ALWAYS THERE WHEN HE DRIVES TO WORK. ANIMAL CONTROL has not come for it. It cannot belong to anyone. It grows thinner and thinner, more sedate. He calls animal control again and again, and then on his day off, he drives east along the 10 freeway to see if the dog is still there. It is. He can’t believe it. He feels a surge of anger. He calls again, sits and waits on hold. This time he shouts. An officer assures him they will go and pick up the dog. They ask for more specific instructions. He gives them the exact exit number.

  On his way back to the museum from lunch, he sees that the dog is still there, and he calls again. He has the sense that the animal control officers are laughing at him. They know his voice when he calls. He curses his accent. He does not know what to do. He imagines he will drive by one day and the dog will be there unmoving, dead, on the shoulder of the road.

  He finds that he can’t focus at work at all. He decides to leave the museum early, retrieves his drawings from his desk, and goes to the Pet Express on La Cienega. He enters the store, buys a dog bowl, a bottle of water, and a small bag of food. He does not have a plan exactly. He loads it all into his BMW and drives back to where the dog is.

  He parks the car on the shoulder when he sees the dog. His heart beats fast. The dog looks at the car. Its head seems bigger than his own. It does not move until he steps out of his car, and then it frantically runs away from him to the other side of the grassy berm and behind a row of brush. Simon makes his way toward the area where the dog has gone, slowly and carefully. He is afraid of this kind of dog.

  When he gets close, he places the bowl down, fills it with water. He lays the bag of food on the ground. He looks again for the dog, but it has disappeared. He sees a run-down business on the other side of the entrance lane. A dilapidated greenhouse is there—all the windows are broken. He wonders if the dog has gone inside. He wonders if his daughter was ever able to have a dog. If so, was it like this one? He doubts it. He opens the bag of food with his car key, constantly keeping his eyes in front of him, in case the dog returns to bite him. The kernels of dry dog food spill out. I am free, he thinks. I can go now. I’ve done all I can.

  He walks back out to the freeway’s shoulder. He gets inside his car. He puts on his seat belt.

  “It is meaningless,” he says to himself, turning off his hazards. “Foolish. Maybe even cruel. The dog has come so far already on a journey toward death.”

  He starts the car. He can’t help wondering, how old is the dog? Where did it come from? Will he find the food? For the whole drive home, it is there in his mind. The way the dog sits, proud and regal, even while starving.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Claudette

  1

  SHE HAS TAKEN TO TALKING TO HER DEAD MOTHER. IMMACULEE? SHE says in an empty room. How much did you hate me?

  Immaculee? she says, while drawing up her lesson plans. Did you want your own girl? A real daughter? Am I all you got?

  Residue. I am residue, Claudette thinks. The word is exactly right. She can see her mother’s stare—always away—even now. She thinks she will see it until she dies. Intellectually, she knows this isn’t true. The dead are forgotten more quickly than the living like to admit.

  Claudette wishes for a boy. Please let there be a boy in my belly. Boys are better. Boys are simple. To be born black, and a girl—she would not wish that on anyone.

  2

  SHE IS TEN WHEN HER FATHER WALKS WITH HER ALONG THE BRIDGE THAT runs between the Boston side and the Cambridge side of Harvard’s campus. He is a serious man. He treats her seriously. Even when she is a small girl, he asks her opinion. He listens to her voice, acknowledges the things she says. There has never been baby talk between them. They sit at night and read the paper together. The news of the world. She on his strong lap. He asks her who she prefers for president.

  “Princeton is a fine school too,” he says, looking out at the river. Even at ten years old, she still holds his hand. “It isn’t far. Just New Jersey. Still the East Coast.”

  She is quiet, thoughtful. The roof across the way is blue. Another is red. Another is green.

  “Why are they like that, Papa? Why are they different colors?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “You’ll find out when you get to Harvard, if this is where you go. Shall we walk across and ask them? College is where life is about questions.”

  She stops in the middle of the bridge and looks over. He has not attended college. He has always been a farmer. First in Africa, and then in Newton, Massachusetts. He has dreamed of college though. She imagines it herself. Sitting up late at night, discussing Shakespeare and Chaucer. She has recently discovered American southern writers—Agee and Wright. Her father wants her to read Emecheta and Bâ, but they are too didactic, she tells him, too boring. She wants to say too African, but does not.

  “When they graduate, the students jump into the water from here,” he tells her, pointing down.

  She stares at the river. It doesn’t seem so very deep.

  “Brown or Penn,” he says. “You could attend Columbia too. There are only eight colleges in the Ivy League. You are meant for one of them. I am sure of it.”

  “I want to go here,” she says, looking at him and at Harvard.

  He places a hand on top of her head.

  “It is a good thing to see the world,” he says to her. “It is good to leave home. It is a kind of le
arning too. You don’t have to go here. This is just the first place for us to visit.”

  “I won’t go anywhere else,” she says.

  Panic. She remembers the feeling even now. There is nowhere she wants to be that isn’t near her father. Her heart beats like a bird in her chest. “I am meant to be here. By you. It is the place that I belong.”

  3

  THE DETECTIVE IS AT HER DOOR.

  “He would like to see you,” he says. “The DNA. It’s a match.”

  She feels a bit smug. “I see,” she says.

  “Can we set a time? A date?” The detective says this bluntly. He stares at her small belly. From the living room, her husband, Larry, asks who it is.

  “It’s sales,” she says, although there is no such thing anymore. No traveling salespeople like the ones she finds in old southern stories.

  “Can you travel?” he asks.

  “No. I can’t. I’m too far along. The baby could come early.”

  He looks at her slim hips, her belly the size of a child’s Nerf basketball. There is judgment there. She pulls her sweater shut.

  “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” he says.

  “No,” she says. “We want to be surprised.”

  They stand staring at each other. The detective is white. His skin is pockmarked. His eyes are a sharp blue, as light as the sky.

  “What day is best for you?”

  “My next school holiday. I wouldn’t want to take off work. I can email you.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Thank you. I will tell Mr. Bonaventure. Would you want to meet here?” he asks. “At your house?”

  “God, no,” she says. She still needs to explain it all to Larry. “I’ll figure out a place. A place that I can walk to. I’ll text you.”

  He stands there. “Okay. That would be good.”

  She goes to shut the door, but then the detective’s voice stops her.

  “Um,” he says. “He’s asked me to ask if I can take a picture of you. Do you mind if I take a picture for him?”

  She touches her hair, straightens out her dress. “I look a sight,” she says, all old lady.

  “You look great,” he says.

  “I guess it’s okay,” she says.

  “I will text it to him right now. If you have a selfie you’d like to send, I could send that. Or I can take it right now.”

  “A selfie? Not likely.”

  She poses quietly. Not wanting to draw the attention of Larry. She does not want him in the picture.

  The detective snaps the photo of her before she has a chance to really smile or protest again. Her father is there with her suddenly: It is picture day at Newton Elementary. She is maybe eight years old. He is making sure her braids are just right. When I was a boy, he says, we did not take pictures. I was taught that a camera would take my soul.

  She feels this now, contemplates grabbing the detective’s phone. She feels stripped, as if the man in the magazine, Mr. Bonaventure, has taken something deep and vital from her. The very essence of who she thought she was.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Simon

  1

  HE RETURNS AFTER MANY DAYS. THE DOG IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT, BUT THE food is gone, so Simon is inspired. He goes again to the Pet Express and buys a bigger bag. He has scheduled a visit with his daughter, now that they know it is true, and he wants the dog to have food while he’s away. He returns with the bag just as before. He has brought additional water too. He opens the bag as he did the last time. He places the food closer to the broken-down greenhouse. He stands from his kneeling position and looks at what he’s left for the dog. It is a feast. He can’t help smiling.

  He walks behind the row of bushes and waits, hiding, hoping to spy the dog. He is quiet. Within minutes, the dog comes out. He glances all around and then runs toward the bag. The animal throws its face into the food. As he eats and after every bite, he looks up and around him, as if afraid that some other animal will come and take his bounty. The dog settles his eyes on the spot where Simon hides. He pauses for a second. Simon believes that he has been seen. The dog stops eating. He is frozen. He stares and stares. He lifts his pink, moist nose into the air and sniffs. Simon is sure he knows he is there. In minutes, as if he has made a decision, he goes back to the kibble. He growls incessantly as he eats the food, claiming it, daring Simon to take it away.

  After he leaves the dog, Simon calls Jocelyn from the car. He asks for advice. Tells her the good news.

  “What should I wear to meet my daughter?” he asks. After so many years? he thinks. After a lifetime?

  She realizes immediately what he is saying, and she congratulates him.

  “So, we were right,” she says. “I told you.”

  “I know,” he says. “But now I am nervous. What should I wear? I’m asking you, because you are always so stylish.”

  She laughs, but he can tell from the tone of her voice that he has flattered her. She tells him business casual.

  “Don’t scare her by being too fancy. Maybe even nice, dark jeans.”

  He feels content suddenly: The dog has food. He has a daughter. He has a friend to call for advice. His daughter will like his clothes.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jocelyn

  1

  THERE ARE THE CONTRAPTIONS. THE THINGS THAT THEY BUY. THE CABIN in the woods makes so much more possible. There are the beads. The clips. The leather. The soft cuffs. The belts. The cantilevers. The eye hooks. The rope. There is the equipment that allows them to fuck in the way that she and Conrad fuck.

  But when Jocelyn is alone and remembering it all, when she is able to judge it, to relive it, to lose herself in the daydreams of it all, the thing she likes best is when Kate is on top of her, kissing her, when she begins to lower her whole self and then reaches up and pinches Jocelyn’s nipples, and then lowers her head some more, and lowers her head some more, until her face is right between her legs, and there is the soft tongue and the gentle sucking and then a little harder, and sometimes the flat of her teeth until all that is left is the feeling, and the coming, and the moan of her voice and her lover’s voice, muted and trying to push through. Like being underwater in the roll of a wave.

  2

  THE TENNIS SKIRTS ARE A HASSLE TO GET OFF, THE TIGHT UNDERSHORTS that come with them, the synthetic material. It all catches smell. Jocelyn feels dirty sometimes after, but neither of them seems to mind. There is something base about their attraction that Jocelyn likes. Sweat and come, sticky fingers and mouths, all parts of each other merged into one. There is nothing off limits.

  Jocelyn combs her hair before they leave. She puts on light makeup. As she dresses, they talk about Palm Desert.

  “If you come a day early,” Kate says, “maybe we can have a night together.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Jocelyn says. “Maud wants to go, but I can’t go if Conrad can’t be home.”

  “Get a babysitter,” Kate says.

  “I don’t really use babysitters.”

  “Ever?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why?”

  Jocelyn ignores the question. She wouldn’t want to say. “Maybe you can keep me and Maud together if she comes up. I don’t want to just be up there with no one I know.”

  “I’ll be there,” Kate says.

  “We’re not exactly hanging out.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s true.”

  Kate starts to dress. Jocelyn watches her. The athletic body. The thick thighs. She decides to just ask.

  “What about your family? I mean, are they coming up?”

  “They’ll come up on Friday. Some of the families come up after the first day.”

  “I see,” Jocelyn says.

  “Don’t mope,” Kate says.

  “I’m not moping.”

  “Don’t pout then.”

  “God you’re a narcissist,” Jocelyn says. “It’s unbearable.”

  Kate laughs, but the mood has changed. Jocelyn knows wh
at she feels is jealousy, and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want to let that in. It is as if a cloud has passed over and shadowed a favorite tree. She washes her hands regretfully. She would like to keep the smell of Kate with her for the rest of the day.

  3

  SOMETIMES AFTER THEY MAKE LOVE AND KATE IS ALREADY OUT THE door of the small cabin in the woods, Jocelyn thinks about getting dressed, packing a bag, putting up a fair share of water, and walking. In the daydream of it, the journey is unceasing. She does not need to rest, and she walks on and on, like a stick figure on the edge of a globe. She goes around and around like a Ferris wheel until she ends up right back where she started from, and then she begins again. She is always alone. There is no Conrad, no Kate, no Lucy, no Gladys, no Mr. Baird. She is always going nowhere, just circling.

  In the journey’s ceaselessness, she knows that she will find the girl she used to be before the damage—the girl who is completely clean, undefiled and able to be. She will sleep on the ground, cook meat over a spit. It will be a long walk. As a child, it was a ride on a bus that never ended, hours at the library finding doors and paths inside books. In sleeping dreams, it is a train ride, rendering eternal life. Now, as a mother, it is this walking around the world in her imagination, or sometimes an exhilarating jump into a bottomless sea.

  4

  MOST NIGHTS, LUCY HAS BAD DREAMS, AND THIS IS WHY JOCELYN WORRIES about Palm Desert.

  Jocelyn wishes she could stop them. During the day, she spends her time keeping her daughter’s life protected and sweet, but night is its own master. Even with Jocelyn in the room, on the small couch, Lucy is afraid of all sorts of things, and especially afraid of the monsters that live inside her closet. Jocelyn explains to her that bad dreams are a sign of brain development and that none of it is real.

  “You’re getting smarter,” she says. “Your brain is getting bigger.”