Small Silent Things

by Robin Page

  She wonders if he will kiss her goodbye, but he just opens her car door for her.

  She sits down. He leans in. No kiss, just the continuing lecture. “My mother is expecting us at the club at six tonight. Get yourself in order before then. Be on time.”

  3

  SHE WATCHES IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR AND LISTENS FOR CLUES—SUBTLE and insidious. Unseen, but present.

  “What did you and Mr. Baird do, while you were waiting?” Jocelyn asks, trying to be casual.

  “Mr. Baird says we get to go to the zoo next week.”

  “He does?”

  “Mr. Baird says I’m a really good artist. We had Art Trek today.”

  “Does he?” Jocelyn asks.

  “Mr. Baird is my favorite teacher.”

  “Lucy?” Jocelyn says, trying to sound as if she has no agenda. “You know if Mr. Baird ever does anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, you will tell Mama, won’t you?

  Lucy is confused. “Like what?”

  “Like anything you don’t like,” Jocelyn says. “Like anything at all.”

  “He moves us down from Starfish sometimes. Our clip down, I mean. Into rough waters. If you get shipwrecked, it’s a phone call home.”

  A smile comes to Jocelyn’s lips. She tells herself to stay focused. When Lucy sees the smile, she continues.

  “Sometimes, he gives us money, Mama. Money from his pockets.”

  “Really?” Jocelyn asks, looking in the mirror. The pitch of her voice goes up just a half step. Lucy gets quiet. Jocelyn has given her suspicion away. Lucy can feel the air change. She has noted it.

  “What do you mean he gives you money?” she asks.

  “Nothing, Mama. Nothing.”

  IF THE MOMENT COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE BY SOMEONE else, it would have looked like this:

  Her child, herself. One single thing that remained. The same. What remains? Potential? No. Pain.

  A hand on the child’s neck. Mr. Baird gives us money. I’m not supposed to tell you, Mama. But she didn’t say that. Did she?

  He told me not to tell. Change in his pockets. Lots of change. He lets us keep it. The pastor did that.

  Commerce. Business. She, the only one in the world to understand that it never, ever ends. Like water making its way through earth, creating canyons, holes, gullies, over many generations.

  White fingers in soft child’s hair. Her. William’s soft as eyelashes. Does she remember? The only one left of the family of fuckups, of the family of flawed. Not the only one though after all—Lucy.

  It is there in the blood, embedded. Bed. Her mother has warned her. Like the tip of a welt.

  Beloved. The most beloved. Lucy is my beloved. I will not. I will not what? A bloom cut and captured.

  I almost saved you, she wants to say, but it is in you. It is on its way. Almost here, and I can’t let it have you. There is nothing worse.

  A light extinguished. An end. It is impossible to leave her behind if it is to be clean. Pure. The tip of a welt. Final. Don’t leave a single thing.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Simon

  1

  HIS COLLEAGUE, GRACE, TELLS HIM TO KNEEL AND TO PUT OUT HIS hands to be smelled whenever he visits the dog, and he does just that. Each time Simon lays out the bag and the water and the snack, he kneels, opens his palms, and the dog nuzzles him. Still shy, but there, Simon thinks. Definitely there. “Good boy!” he says, because he has seen that on television.

  Simon pours the food out. Lion hovers. He fills the water. He goes to his usual spot and the dog follows him. He touches the dog’s forehead and talks to him. He tells him his worries. He sits on the ground, and Lion sits too.

  “Go, Lion,” he says. “Go, have your supper.” But the dog does not go to the food today. The dog waits with him. Rests a head between crossed paws. Doesn’t eat.

  “What are you doing, Lion?” he asks. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  The dog sits as settled as he sat the first time Simon saw him—a statue on the side of the road then, a prone statue beside Simon now. His paws are huge. He sits and waits next to Simon, but Simon doesn’t know what the dog is waiting for. He wants to understand but does not.

  “Okay, then,” he says, like an impatient governess. “I must go back to work. I have to leave. You eat. I want you to be well. You do not want to worry me.”

  Simon stands to go, begins to walk back to his car. The dog walks too.

  “No,” Simon says, pointing his finger at the dog. The dog gets low. “No. It is dangerous. Do not follow me onto the road,” he says.

  He turns back to the highway shoulder again, back toward where his car is parked. He walks. The dog follows.

  Simon sighs with exasperation. “No. Stay,” Simon says firmly.

  Simon walks more quickly now. He hurries, clicks the remote, unlocks the door, and hops in. He starts the car. Looks in his sideview mirror and his rearview. He pulls into a line of traffic. He does not know what to do. He can see the dog in his rearview mirror. Sitting there, next to where the car was parked minutes before. Looking after him. He is too close to the road.

  You have been left before, Simon thinks. He feels something hollow and dull in his chest. This is not any different.

  “I will be back,” he says, but of course, the dog cannot hear.

  AT THE NEXT EXIT, HE GETS OFF TO CIRCLE BACK. HE IS WORRIED. WHAT if someone runs over the dog? The light he sits at to reenter the freeway is slow. It goes on and on. He prays as he enters back onto the freeway. He can tell now that he needs the dog. The dog has come to him for a reason. Why? he wonders. Why did I not let him in? He beeps his horn at the driver in front of him. Traffic is so slow. It is unbearable. Relentless. He has such a short way to go. Maybe he should walk. “Go!” he screams inside the car’s interior. He has the awful idea that he will find the dog dead.

  It takes him twenty minutes to enter onto the highway. It is like a parking lot. He keeps his eyes on the road ahead, and finally he can see the outline of the dog, sitting in exactly the place that Simon left him. A heavy breath of relief leaves his body. He says a small prayer. When he opens his eyes again, he notices a VW Beetle parked, a woman, blonde and fat, standing beside it. She is standing on the side of the road where Lion is. Simon can tell, even from this bit of distance, that she is trying to coax the dog into her car. She is six feet away from the dog at least. The door to the Beetle is open.

  Simon panics. He tries to go faster, but the traffic, the fucking traffic. He beeps his horn, wanting to alert the lady. He waves his hand out of his window, shouts, but the man in the car in front of him misunderstands and lifts his middle finger.

  He sits for a few more minutes, watching the woman waving at the dog, signaling for Lion to come to her. Finally, he decides to drive onto the shoulder.

  “Do not go with her, Lion!” he shouts. A mantra, over and over.

  He drives dangerously, passing two cars, then four cars, then ten cars, until he has finally arrived, one car behind the woman’s blue Volkswagen Beetle.

  Simon puts the car in park, does not bother to turn it off, and leaps out of the car.

  “He’s mine,” he says to the woman. “He’s mine.” He can hear the urgency in his own voice.

  “Oh,” she says. Her voice is calm and slow. The polar opposite of his. There is the round cushion of something Southern in it. “Oh, my land. I’m so glad. He was not going to come with me, and well . . .” She looks at all the cars on the 10 freeway. “It’s so dangerous here.”

  “Yes,” Simon says, smiling. “Yes.” He is out of breath. “I will get him.”

  For a moment, he worries that the dog will not come to him, that the woman will see him for the liar that he is. He opens the car door. The BMW shines in the afternoon sun.

  “Come on, Lion,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

  The dog sidles over, covering half the space between them. He hesitates for just a moment. He looks behind him at the dilapidated greenhouse and the
n back at Simon cautiously, as if making a decision. He stays close to the ground, a bit fearful, but still agile as a predator. He makes his way to the open car door, stops.

  “Are you sure he’s yours?” the woman asks, watching the dog’s tentative movements. Her brow is furrowed. “He seems a little scared. You aren’t one of those dog fighters, are you? I’ve heard about these dogs . . . what people do.”

  “Get in,” he says to the dog. Desperation is hot and obvious in his voice.

  Lion hops in.

  The Good Samaritan smiles. The dog is willing. She sees that. He waves goodbye to the woman and gets into the driver’s side. The stink of the dog is surprising. It is like Fritos and old garbage. He feels alive as he slams the car door. All that is him is pulsing. He looks down at his forearm, which seems transparent. It is as if the blood that keeps him alive can be seen through his skin. He has done something—enacted change. He has gotten the dog. He has saved him. A life finally. One life saved.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jocelyn

  1

  SHE LEANS INTO CONRAD’S BACK, FEELING THE HEAT OF HIM. THEY ARE able to get along, now that she has accepted the way things are. She is weightless, driven. Nothing can get in her way. She loves him. She longs for him. She doesn’t understand why she is leaving him any more than she understands the men who abused her, a mother who let them, Ycidra and William dying. She has given in to not understanding. She will go with it.

  Dr. Bruce says she will be fine. Dr. Bruce says if she takes the medicine, if she waits out the depression, the deferring, the past, it will all become manageable. Dr. Bruce doesn’t realize that it is her. She is the same flawed girl, no matter how hard she has tried to be different. She is rebuilt but rebuilt out of all the same pieces. It is harder and harder to keep from merging. Scenes from the past happening right now. Ycidra, fresh from the morgue, slid from a drawer, a kiss on her forehead, not realizing she’d be cold. She takes the bottle from Dr. Bruce, but never puts the pills in her body.

  “Hey love,” Conrad says, turning his sleepy self toward her. “How are you still so beautiful?”

  She smiles at him but feels as if she might cry. “It’s your eyes,” she says. “We are old now. You can’t see very well.”

  “No,” he says. “You are beautiful. I’m glad you’re working so hard.”

  A silence enters the room for her, a dark web of something heavy. Conrad doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “So, how long will you be gone? Are you sure you still feel like going?”

  She answers. “Just a couple of days. I’ll go to the grave. I’ll show Lucy my old neighborhood maybe, or the bridge. She always asks about the river. That’s something pretty in the city.”

  “Why don’t you two come with me instead, and then we can all go to Cincinnati later? Baton Rouge is beautiful this time of year.”

  He is holding her now. She feels him kiss the top of her head. The kiss is chaste like Ycidra’s hand after a beating, like Ycidra’s hand when she was too high to get anything else to work, a smearing, as if she were trying to rub something on her. She feels tempted. She should go, but it is not the time for weakness. Act, she says to herself. For once in your life, act!

  “We’ll come next time,” she says. “The weather’s meant to be beautiful and clear in Ohio. You know how rare that is.”

  “I do,” he says.

  “Mama?” They both hear Lucy’s sweet little voice, and they smile at each other. They are in love with the girl they’ve made. “Mama? Can I wake up now?”

  “Of course you can, my sweetheart. Have you slept enough?”

  It is 5:25. Lucy has always been an early riser. She is happy to meet the day.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Jocelyn says.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “I was just checking to see if you were here,” she says.

  “I’m here, my love. I’m here today. Are we going to have fun?”

  “Will you bring me some pancakes?” Lucy asks.

  “I will,” he says.

  Jocelyn lets herself smile. She surveys this space. She lets herself feel this family that is almost perfect. I am the only thing that is not right here. It isn’t going to change.

  Conrad kisses her on the mouth.

  “Yick,” she says. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

  “Later, when you have, we’ll make out.” He smiles.

  “You’re relentless,” she says and sits up in bed.

  “Do you want coffee?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she says. “Please.”

  She looks at him as if for the last time. He is such a good husband. A good father.

  “You okay, my love?” he asks. “You seem far away. You’re not getting down, are you?”

  There is just the smidge of irritation in his voice. She wants to please him.

  “No,” she says. “I’m just sorry we’re leaving. We’re going to miss you.”

  “We’ll have fun when we all get back. You guys hurry, and I’ll hurry too.”

  “Yes,” she says, knowing she is lying. “We’ll race right back to you.”

  2

  SHE SITS TOO LONG IN FRONT OF HER VANITY. IT IS HARD TO GET STARTED.

  “Mama?” Lucy says. “Wanna see something?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  She has a Winnie-the-Pooh blanket around her shoulders.

  “I am making the wind,” Lucy says, leaping from the bed to the floor and then running in front of Jocelyn’s large picture window. “I am making a storm with my cape. See it, Mama? See how the waves get bigger outside when I do it?”

  “I do,” Jocelyn says. Movement, she thinks. Children are movement.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “Are you still a mermaid? I mean if you went outside into the sea and you wanted to, could you become one again?”

  Jocelyn is surprised that her daughter remembers the story. She has not brought it up since the first telling. She doesn’t know why she is surprised. Lucy remembers and questions everything—the Easter bunny, Santa, the little leprechauns on Saint Patrick’s Day, the fairy that will eventually steal her tiny milk teeth. But it has been so long since they have talked about mermaids, about the scars—the fisherman and his net.

  “Yes,” she says. “I just don’t have my tail anymore.”

  “Well,” Lucy says, running past her again. “Margery has a tail. You can buy them. Can I get one of those tails? If I had one of those tails, I could swim anywhere. We could get you one of those tails too.”

  “We’ll ask Papa,” Jocelyn says, which is what she always says when she wants to put an answer off.

  She stares out the window at the sea. The waves do seem rougher than minutes before. She is happy to be caught up in Lucy’s imagination. Her power.

  “Look at me, Mama. I’m making them bigger. Why aren’t you looking?”

  She turns from the window to see her little girl.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Simon

  1

  HE TAKES THE DOG TO THE VET, WHO TREATS LION FOR PARASITES AND gets him up to date on his vaccines. After, it takes the groomer two hours to wash the dog. Simon buys toys and beds and blankets. The groomer goes on and on—what a find, what a temperament, a good bloodline. You’d better put an ad in the classifieds.

  Simon lies, says he has. The dog has a golden ribbon around its neck as they leave, and seems suddenly full of himself, as if he’s always been the thing he is right now—clean, beautiful, and rare.

  They are home in minutes, and an hour after they get to the condo, the dog is asleep on Simon’s white couch. There is water spilled on his kitchen floor. Toys are easy to stumble over.

  Like a new father, Simon sits and stares at the dog, watches its eyes flutter in a dream. The legs move, running, running. He watches the chest rise and fall, making certain the dog is alive. There is a stea
dy whimpering. Simon wonders what the dog dreams of, but knows it isn’t good.

  As he did when Claudette was just a little girl, he moves close to the dog, he whispers, he says: It’s okay, my little one. I’m here. Nothing can hurt you, because Papa is right here.

  AT FIVE THE DOORBELL RINGS AND THE DOG BARKS AND THEN MAKES A deep vibrating, growling sound. Simon opens the door, holds Lion by the collar, and before he can tell her to be careful, Lucy is in the foyer, squealing, all shrill joy, and reaching for the dog with delight. The dog wiggles its rear when he sees the girl, as if they already know one another.

  “Come in,” he says. “I’ve got a dog.”

  “I can see that,” Jocelyn says.

  “I hope I didn’t bother you. I just thought I’d text you. I thought Lucy would like him.”

  “A dog, Mama!” Lucy says. “Simon has a dog.”

  “He looks mean,” Simon says. “But pay no attention. He is just a big baby. He has taken over my white couch. My bed too. Don’t put your face close to his until he gets used to you. I don’t want him startled.”

  Lucy looks angry. “Don’t say he looks mean. You’ve hurt his feelings.” She kisses the dog’s forehead, utterly ignoring the warning Simon’s given just seconds before. The dog gives Lucy his paw.

  He notices immediately that Jocelyn is subdued. She smiles at the dog, pats its head, but isn’t really present. She is like a ghost, he thinks, or like those women who have taken one too many pills. He realizes that he hasn’t seen her in a while. He has been so caught up in his own life. Has she lost weight?

  “We came to say goodbye,” she says, abruptly. “We’re going to Cincinnati tomorrow. I’m going to see my mother’s grave.”

  “Oh,” Simon says, and he reaches to touch her. “I’m sorry. I feel as if I haven’t been here for you. It will be hard,” he says. “But better, once you do it.”

  She does not look at him. Her eyes remain on her daughter.

  Lucy has Lion’s collar now. She is leading him around the living room, telling him to heel, to sit, to stay, as if he were a show dog. When he does what she tells him, she kisses him on his forehead. “Don’t you have any treats?” she asks. “Dogs need treats.”